Summer 2018 Anime Season
June 20, 2018 1:48 AM - Subscribe

Summer lineup on MyAnimeList and AniChart. I predict there will be punching, zapping, transformations, power ups, and scenes of people waxing rhapsodic about the freshly served food they just bit into. Anything look good to you?

Haven't found a decent compilation of trailers for this season that doesn't involve reaction videos, running commentary, or other garbage. Sorry about that.
posted by ardgedee (34 comments total)
 
This does not look like a great season to me, but maybe some unexpected gem will emerge?
posted by one for the books at 10:40 PM on June 21, 2018


I will say that this is a rough time for MAL to be having so many problems because I think there's probably more info out there that isn't reflected there, but yeah, I think most of what I'm looking forward to is continuing stuff and movies coming out that I maybe won't be able to see for awhile anyway. (BNHA, Natsume's Book of Friends, and oh my god K are you actually trying to kill me.) I'm probably going to be watching Banana Fish, at least, but I'm not sure I should ADMIT that I'm going to be watching Banana Fish.

Still have a bunch of stuff I'm behind on from spring, so I guess it seems like it might be nice to have some catch-up time.
posted by Sequence at 8:42 AM on June 22, 2018


Free! is getting another season this summer, which ought to make some fans happy.
posted by ardgedee at 12:12 PM on June 22, 2018


Oshie to Tabi Suru Otoko seems like my sort of thing. Possibly Tenrou.

I need to figure out where I can catch up on FLCL.
posted by koucha at 1:07 PM on June 22, 2018


I'm interested in Tsukumogami Kashimasu — a rental shop for sentient magical items! Promises of heartwarming hijinks — but not much beyond that.

I'm trying to decide if I should rewatch FLCL, or just go for it with Progressive ...
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 4:25 PM on June 22, 2018


Yeah, so Free really should be right up my alley, but I accidentally saw 50% Off before I saw Free, and I have had trouble watching the real show now, but I have a bunch of friends who are definitely counting down for that.
posted by Sequence at 9:40 PM on June 23, 2018


I'm also interested in Tsukumogami Kashimasu and Oshie to Tabi Suru Otoko. Non Non Biyori: Vacation, too.
posted by redrawturtle at 11:16 PM on June 27, 2018


I made the mistake of telling one of those friends that I hadn't seen Free yet, and we cranked out the first season in a couple days, so... I might be getting to that, too. Apparently there is also a beach volleyball show on the list that I am expecting to find Seriously Problematic (why can't we have a girls' volleyball anime with the version of the sport where they wear clothes) but will probably watch anyway because volleyball is now on the short list of sports where I actually know wtf they're doing?

The real thing I am excited about, of course, is that the Yuri on Ice movie's title just got announced (Ice Adolescence, which seems to mean long-haired teenager Victor zomg) and it's officially coming in 2019, and I totally stayed up until like 7am my time to watch the concert livestream, and okay that's not strictly summer season stuff but whatever, it was so good.
posted by Sequence at 7:05 AM on July 2, 2018


Speaking of sport shows Hanabado!/Hanabad! has had its first episode yesterday.

Aragaki Nagisa was mercilessly beaten during the national high school/middle school badminton competion by Hanesaki Ayano, who has now enrolled in her school but doesn't want anything to do with badminton anymore....

Some bad bits (grabby coach who only wants to fondle Ayano's hands because he thinks she could be a badminton star, Ayano forced into a match despite clearly not wanting to) but overall this looks promising.

Island, which also had its first episode Sunday, is another thing altogether. If you like early 2000s visual novel adaptations this may be right up your street, but the episode opens with the blonde twin tailed tsundere falling face first in our very naked protagonist's crotch, so be warned.

Personally I'm most excited for Yama no Susume S3, the first two seasons of which were adorable, school girls going on mountaineering trips. If you liked Laidback Camp, you'll probably like this.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:35 AM on July 2, 2018


I remember seeing the trailer for Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro before, and it seems promising. I did like Yuru Camp so maybe I should check out Yama no Susume.
posted by RobotHero at 2:19 PM on July 2, 2018


I was pleasantly surprised by Planet With. I guess there's an actual FLCL sequel out now (I haven't seen it yet, but intend to) but that's kind of what Planet With reminds me of, in its willingness to switch between absurdity and heartfelt emotion.
posted by RobotHero at 12:20 PM on July 8, 2018


I just tried out Banana Fish, thanks to a positive review at Anime Feminist, and I have to say, it blew the top of my head off.

Intriguing, very stylish, great soundtrack. It seems to be about gang violence, though. This kind of thing is the polar opposite of my usual tastes (100% iyashikei) but I might have to keep watching anyway.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 10:31 PM on July 8, 2018


I'm so glad that it's turned out well, I was honestly kind of nervous about what they were going to do with it from the very mixed things I'd heard about the manga, which I am presently avoiding for the sake of enjoying the show a bit more. (Also because I have a backlog of reading already.) I'm not at all against violence, I just like the gentler stuff to recover from it afterwards, so they're very complementary, IMO.
posted by Sequence at 4:04 PM on July 9, 2018


I started watching Kuromukuro on netflix last night. Somewhat similar to other mecha animes, but there's an interesting mythology so far. Has anyone else checked it out?
posted by numaner at 11:55 AM on July 10, 2018


Yes, I watched it when it first came out, back in 2016.

It's a great series.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:38 AM on July 11, 2018


Yeah, I've seen it. I liked it.
posted by redrawturtle at 3:08 AM on July 11, 2018


I started watching Kuromukuro back in 2016, but dropped somewhere around episode 7. I think I dropped it at the time because I was getting a bit frustrated with how they were handling the interesting mythology. And looking back, I was following a lot of series Spring 2016, so something had to give.

Maybe I should consider picking it up again.
posted by needled at 4:56 AM on July 11, 2018


Getting back to this season's anime, so far I have really enjoyed Cells at Work!

Other than that I have been distracted by the World Cup and the Tour de France to watch much of this season's crop yet.
posted by needled at 5:00 AM on July 11, 2018


Cells at Work reminded me of this eighties pan-European animation series about the body. The platelets here are much cuter though.

Series seen so far:

- Banana Fish: excellent first episode and great to see noses in anime again: naive young Japanese photographer's assistant comes to New York and gets to hold the dreamy, blonde gang leaders gun.

- Planet With: intentionally strange, like a watered down but still interesting FLCL: dude with no memory is cared for by giant cat thing that looks like a distant cousin from the one from Azumanga Daioh and a green haired maid when alien things invade and your usual super sentai squad assembles to oppose them

- Jashin-chan Dropkick: chuuni girl has summoned a (the?) devil, who now lives with her and attempts to kill her to return to hell, at which she fails miserably, after which she is punished so harshly that she gets a censor mosaic and the other characters wonder if the ad break will be enough to heal her. Giggled like an asshole at this

- Asobi Asobase: cute school girls being assholes at each other, great source of reaction faces.

- Harukana Receive: high school girls play beach volleyball in Okinawa and though everybody was in a swimming suit for 90 percent of the episode, there was no camera ogling!!!1!

- Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo no Dorei Majutsu: do you like boobies? Then you must love alternate world enslaved boobies!

- Senjuushi: take Girls' Frontline, a fun game about girls who are actually anthropomorphised guns, then remake them into dull boys who are actually anthropomorphised black powder guns.

- Hanebado!: high school girls playing badminton, intensely, who badly need sports bras

- Island: old fashioned visual novel adaptation

- Satsuriku no Tenshi: girl wakes up in a hospital after an accident, has to survive murder course populated by the usual kind of psychos.

- Phantom in the Twilight: Chinese girl goes to London following the example of her great great grandmother, meets the various vampires et all her ancestor used to protect

- Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria: dude gets transported to a fantasy world, decides to take it over so he can go home to his girlfriend, while having to suffer the attentions of various powerful women who call him father or big brother

- Shichisei no Subaru: AnoHana meets Sword Arts Online, as a group of childhood friends reunited in the reincarnation of their favourite game, the game that killed one of them after which they drifted apart, but now she's back in the game???

- Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro: school girl tries to get to school while having to face all sorts of difficulties

- Sunoharasou no Kanrinin-san: girlish looking boy gets to live in a girls' dorm with a big breasted care taker. Hilarious antics fail to happen.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:04 PM on July 11, 2018 [2 favorites]


Recommended so far: Banana Fish, Planet With, Harukana Receive, Hanebado, with Asobi Asobae & Jashin-chan Dropkick only if their sense of humour suits you.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:06 PM on July 11, 2018


Planet With is from the writer of Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer and Spirit Circle. Both of them were incredibly fascinating and unique in many ways in terms of plotting so I'm really looking forward to this.

Note: Biscuit Hammer was the earlier work and was full of gratuitous panty shots. The figurine that the cat-thing tries to look up the skirt of is Samidare, the female lead from Biscuit Hammer. I'm hoping this is a negative callback to indicate that that kind of thing isn't going to happen here.
posted by charred husk at 8:02 AM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Banana Fish available on Amazon Prime!
posted by numaner at 10:11 AM on July 12, 2018


One caution with Banana Fish: the Amazon subtitles substitute a non-homophobic insult for the usual f*g one.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:49 AM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


> Planet With is from the writer of Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer and Spirit Circle.

"Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer" is an amazing, amazing manga (and the complete story is available in translation if you have a Crunchyroll subscription). Genuinely gripping and moving despite some annoying flaws. I'll have to try "Planet With" and "Spirit Circle", then.
posted by ardgedee at 12:05 PM on July 12, 2018


Kumomukuro: I watched it sometime post-2016; the image Netflix showed me sadly didn't inspire me to watch it any sooner. I can't speak to whether I would recommend it, as I don't remember how it went, but I can say that yeah, I did like it in the end.

Copying straight from AniChart: CoMix Wave is doing Shikioriori, an 'anthology film for three short stories'. They did Your Name, and The Garden of Words, among other things.

And now, copying straight from Crunchyroll (because I just found this):
the anthology film is a collaboration project with Chinese animation company based in Shanghai, Haoliners (To Be Hero, The Silver Guardian), and its representative Li Haoling serves as general director. It consists of three short stories: "Hidamari no Chousyoku" (The Breakfast in Sunny Spot) by Chinese live-action film director Yi Zhenxing, "Chiisana Fashion Show" (A Small Fashion Show) by Yoshitaka Takeuchi (The Garden of Words, Your Name.3DCG chief), and "Shanghai Love" by Li Haoling. The stories of the three are all set in Chinese cities. In Japan, it is set for a release the summer of 2018.
These names don't really mean anything to me as I haven't been following the Chinese animation industry, but I don't think I would have guessed this aspect about the film from AniChart's description alone.

The look of Space Bug doesn't capture me but the premise intrigues me. Though it sounds like an adventurous romp along the lines of Finding Dory.
posted by redrawturtle at 3:11 AM on July 14, 2018


Sorry to post again; needed a distraction. I wanted to check out Banana Fish and Cells at Work as manga so I could go at my own pace but hearing about their anime adaptations here, I might go have a look them someday.
posted by redrawturtle at 1:52 AM on July 15, 2018


I picked up Free! S3 since we never get to see a college setting and finally I'm free from HS. The next show I'm watching is Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger which is an action/adventure typical shonen series. It reminds me of DtB with secret foreign organizations fighting vampires.

I'm on the fence for BF after I checked out the manga reviews eh huge on gangsters and guns.
posted by chrono_rabbit at 6:48 PM on July 21, 2018


I am almost through Free S2 to be able to start S3, at last, in another week or two. Banana Fish is still great but the English translation is still continuing to be terrible about inserting homophobic slurs where they weren't intended by the source material? I really don't know what's with that.

I did check out Harukana Receive and will probably watch the rest of it because I turn out to really like the beach volleyball and to still be a sucker for stuff that's lesbian-coded even if it's aimed at dudes, but man no the fanservice got into full swing pretty quickly after that first episode. But at the same time I'm pretty aware that like... it's a bit more overt than in Free, but not that much more overt than in Free. It's not like Free didn't have the gratuitous bathing suit shopping episode. But still, it's... weird.
posted by Sequence at 1:10 PM on July 29, 2018


So I'm definitely watching Banana Fish this season*. It's extremely compelling and has a lot of deep, naturalistic characterizations, especially in the relationships between Eiji, Ash, and their allies and friends. Pacing, soundtrack, animation continues to be great; the way the scenes are drawn do a lot to evoke mood through colour and texture. In a way, it feels almost literary (though maybe I'm only saying this because the episodes are titled after works of 20th century American literature).

*even though it's not unproblematic, and yeah, I'm also not a fan of the unnecessary homophobic slurs.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 6:49 PM on August 1, 2018


I just watched all the available episodes of Black Clover. I had no idea it was new enough that they're still releasing episodes. Also season 1 is 51 episodes, and based on where it is at 43 right now, it's not going to wrap this story up to my satisfaction. But after watching episode 43 on Hulu and finding out I have to wait for a new episode, it's devastating. Crunchyroll is simulcasting the episodes as they're aired in Japan, and I guess then the get on Hulu.

It's one of those series where you absolutely can't stand the main character, but he eventually grows on you and the character development helps a ton. And all the magic and fight scenes are pretty well done. There's the usual malegazing of some female characters, but it's not as problematic as most anime.
posted by numaner at 8:42 PM on August 2, 2018


I found BC's anime to be underwhelming and the manga handled it better. Also, the MC's voice ends up being grating after a few ep. which is a shame. I'm still looking for the FMA replacement even after all these years.
posted by chrono_rabbit at 1:14 PM on August 3, 2018


yeah everyone I've spoken to agreed that Asta is the most annoying main character ever.

I also almost finished with what Netflix has for Seven Deadly Sins, which is interesting enough, but I wish the main guy wasn't a total perv for the main girl.

FMA was far ahead of its time in terms of a popular anime not doing cringy male-gaze stuff.
posted by numaner at 7:48 AM on August 8, 2018


This thread (which contains Voltron spoilers) got me thinking more about how much I'm appreciating Banana Fish and how high a bar that actually is, because I have been avoiding manga spoilers, but the title reference alone is enough to make clear that Banana Fish is not going to end well, in whatever form it will not end well. (In whatever forms it is already not ending well even though we're only 1/4 of the way through.) There's still a lot of ways that queerness and tragedy resonate together, but it's so meaningful here that the story belongs to the ones who are going through all the shit and they aren't just there to provide meaning for others.
posted by Sequence at 8:52 PM on August 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


Also, the MC's voice ends up being grating after a few ep. which is a shame.

A few episodes? I lasted less than three minutes.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:33 AM on August 21, 2018


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