Random Talk #14 - Summer 2017 Early Impressions

I'm gonna do this bit by bit while stating how many episodes I've watched so far.

*UPDATED on 21/7/17

Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu (3 episodes)- A game adaptation anime, but most importantly, by ufotable. It's worth to watch this for the visuals alone, but so far, it has a fairly interesting premise with good diverse cast of characters. It can get a little dialogue heavy but most of the time the dialogues are done well. Episode 1 especially did the character interactions and dialogues really while, able to establish basic plot and premise while establishing the characters' personality. During some actions scene it has, just like typical ufotable, it was really flashy and exciting. But at the same time it has ALL the characteristic of ufotable's art style. Heavy colour, brief colourful flashes and sparks when the blade clashes, essentially, the action style is very similar to previous ufotable works like Fate and Zestiria. After 3 episodes, I think the anime did a decent job to make me want to watch more of the plot and to see how the bond between the 5 characters would develop.

Tsurezure Children (3 episodes)- A 10 minutes anime composed of multiple short romantic stories. It has great pacing, well delivered humour, faithful artstyle to the original, decent animation, solid nothing-go-to-waste dialogues, and in general, great content. Each couple has unique circumstances and personalities, with things conclude really quickly making it easy to digest and enjoy. With many different stories within the same episode, which may focus on humour, or being heartwarming, or just sweet and vanilla in overall. Making this anime a full treat for people who like lighthearted romance and enjoy things in small bits. There's nothing to lose by watching this due to its short runtime. Considering that I've read most of the original 4koma series, I'm confident future episodes would be just as good.

Aho Girl (3 episodes)- It's a heavy slapstick anime that uses loud noise tsukkomi to carry its generally dumb jokes. It's an anime full of idiotic characters that relies on their general dumbness to make jokes. The good thing is that it's only 10 minutes long per episode, so the slapsticks don't get as tiring. Basically, consider this like your dumb slapstick youtube videos and watch it sparsely if you want some cheap laugh. Maybe watch it with your friend, it probably has better comedic value as a group activity.

Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni (2 episode)- After 1 episode, no. I won't watch this.

Episode 2 update: This anime is a shitty mary sue male fantasy with few enjoyment to take from it. The protagonist is super OP and gets all the convenient power, he impresses everyone, saved many damsels in distress and made the girls admire him, saved important characters because of his super power, cured an incurable disease, and then obtained the ultimate form of magic in the isekai world without any effort. All of these were played straight without any intelligence endowed to it. The eponymous smartphone also played very little role so far. It's the low blow of the isekai genre that sadly actually plagued light novels and manga adaptations of light novels as of recent years. It's very non compelling for an adventurous isekai anime, nor is it enjoyable as a fantasy slice of life kinda anime.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear AXZ (2 episodes)- FUCK YEAAAAHHHH SYMPHOGEARRRRRR 10/10 Must Watch -IGN

Hina Logi: From Luck & Logic (4 episodes)- One of my favourite from this season so far. It's a moe spinoff of Luck & Logic anime, which is an adaptation of a card game, which the anime I actually enjoyed. In  Hina Logi, it's more of a moe slice of life comedy with fantasy elements that also include some actions and fightings, but it still focus mostly on being moe slice of life comedy, which it did great. It has great cast of characters that complement each other well, with equally good designs and art direction and colour to carry them. The humours are partly typical of standard moe sol anime, and partly also well-timed and executed. The animation in general is pretty solid and does not vary much between episodes. The characters are all very likable with good interactions between them. Much yuri shipping can also be done if you're into that. There's some fanservice here and there, but just some mild nudity, some focus on thighs and legs, and some transformation scene, nothing really heavy or a turnoff. Basically, it's colourful, cute, funny, and at times, heartwarming. I think it's a must watch for moe sol comedy fan.

NEW UPDATE 

Konbini Kareshi (3 episodes) - It's a very vanilla high school romance story. Its gimmick is that it explore the story of multiple couples at once and it has this convenience store as a setting where many important events occur. The characters are fairly straight forwardly tropey, but their characterization is not that bad. What's not good however is the general slowness and sluggish pacing of individual scenes. Most scenes are slow and padded, and the individual dialogues themselves are nothing too exciting. It's a decent anime if you like slow vanilla romance and I personally really like the story of multiple couples and characters each intermingle and interconnect and interact with each others. 

Nana Maru San Batsu (3 episodes) - A club anime about... quiz bowl? It's a freaking fresh concept for sure, but as a club anime, it did great. It has strong focus on the quiz bowl competition and it did well on the 'action' scene. It's exciting, it has tension when the questions are being asked and the characters pondering while trying to buzz in to answer the questions. The protagonist is a convenient character for this genre, a shy and soft spoken guy who discovers the excitement of quiz bowl after being forced to participate in a mini bowl, yeah, it's a very nerdy anime and for some reason everyone knows the most obscure trivia ever, but I quite like it so far and will definitely watch more later on. The only thing I don't like is the amateurish voice of the main heroine.

Battle Girl High School (3 episodes) - This anime, hoo boy. A school where female students are trained to fight some kinda ambiguous interdimensional creatures threatening earth. It's the most yawn inducing tiring premise ever, and the anime do nothing to make it compelling. One word to describe it is, 'soulless'. The many characters it has are all one dimensional, there is no shred of intelligence in the dialogues and expositions, the actions scenes are at best average, the designs are from decent to so-so, the visual style and aesthetic is nothing special that it does not have any unique style to watch for visuals, the plot is just there. It's just very empty, very boring first 3 episodes. There's no reason to watch it unless you just like seeing bunch of girls in poorly written slice of life comedy with some actions and fantasy elements. Wait, we already have a much more superior one for that this season, it's called Hina Logi.

Netsuzou Trap (3 episodes) - Angsty romance drama with explicit yuri and hetero relationship as the centrepiece. It's probably better to comment on the story when there's more episode especially considering that the episodes are only 10 minutes long. However, what I want to make note of is if I cut out the yuri, yuri kiss, and fanservice out, it did very poorly to make me commit to the story. I'm just not excited in how the episodes portray the conflict. It could be due to time limit, could be to so-so dialogues, but eh, it has yuri but I'm just not excited. 

Isekai Shokudou (3 episodes) - A slice of life slash isekai kinda an anime. It has unique premise in that each episode focus on different characters with unique stories and how they are involved with the restaurant that cross through worlds, like that transportation door Doraemon had. However, 3 episodes in, it did a great job in telling compelling, fun, and intriguing stories of multiple different individuals from a fantasy world while making the restaurant the centrepiece. Each segments will involve different foods. The individual stories feel genuine and different, how they are involved and found the door to the restaurant is interesting, how they react to the well drawn foods and the oddly alien interior of the restaurant for them are also surprisingly a delight to watch. I really enjoyed it, the art is solid, the mini stories are entertaining, the fantasy element hybridizing with the modern restaurant concept feels very fresh.

More update will come. I've been very busy this past 3 weeks with little sleep and little time to watch anime. There's many anime this season that I haven't even started. So, full impressions are going to have to wait.