Oh, the Summer Curse™. It has affected me every year since I began writing here at The OASG. If I go through all of the shows that have annoyed the heck out of me every summer season, then I might get some bad flashback moments…okay, that was an exaggeration. Really, it has felt like there has been at least one show that has made me really tilt over Summer. I always hope, at the beginning in July, that that never happens again, but since I chose some shows that I know very little about, who knows if that will ever happen again?
I mean one reason why I chose these little-known shows was because I wanted to avoid all the sequel shows and the isekai shows. Is that a good enough reason?
I’ll start this week with the silliest show that I’ve picked out of the 4: Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru?
Hibiki Sakura enjoys food, and I mean really enjoys it. Eventually she reaches the point where she realizes she needs to lose some weight and get healthy if she wants to be the ‘popular girl’ at school. Along the way, she meets Akemi Souryuuin, who turns out to be a lot of things: rich girl, top of the class, exercise fanatic, health nut, and muscle fetishist. It really wouldn’t surprise me if some more bizarre things come out about her.
Of course I’d expect the story to go down this simple ‘lose weight by exercising’ route, but you see, I was quick to notice the fat-shaming elements in this show, and that having gigantic muscles is everything in life. Worth noting that because obesity is very low in Japan, and not seen as big of an issue as in Western countries, so as a result of this, body-shaming is more common both in the media and in public. Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? has made me think of one school rom-com from 2016, Kiss Him, Not Me!, where I noticed similar body-shaming elements.
In that show, the main protagonist, Kae, is a hardcore fujoshi who is…a large girl. She gets along with people at school, but she’s still seen as that large girl with the obsessive hobby. When a character in her favorite show is killed off, she disappears off into hiding, only to reemerge a week later having somehow lost a lot of weight and looking like a princess…which all the boys at school fawn over. The show ends up drawing a big line between girls who are beautiful and girls who are overweight, which just isn’t right.
So, even with the school slice-of-life and the edutainment spots on exercise and gym stuff (which are quite refreshing and original), Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? is something I’m going to keep a wary eye on. I’m sure that in future episodes, we’ll see more of the characters who’re going to appear in the show, from Hibiki to whoever the adult woman is (possibly one of their teachers), come out of the gym praising all sorts of exercise routines, weightlifting and that having massive muscles will give you boyfriends and girlfriends. At least the show doesn’t take itself that seriously, otherwise it would be a bit of cringe-worthy watch.
Moving onto the show I was sort-of looking forward to the most. Okay, that’s a bit of a lie, because I was actually looking forward to all of these shows, but there was something about Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files that made me go ‘oooooh’. And then I went and watched the first episode… boy was I disappointed.
I certainly hope that it’s only the first episode that turns out to be a bad one; then again, this was meant to be the episode that establishes who the characters are. I tell you now, this show looks very complicated, even for a Fate spin-off.
Maybe I just have to rewatch this episode to get a better idea on what is actually going on, but from what I gather so far, Waver Velvet has been put into the position by the true El-Melloi heir to keep her seat warm at the Clock Tower until she becomes an adult. This show really does look like viewers need to know Fate lore, and to have watched past series to even understand what is going on. My tally of Fate shows are only Fate/stay night, and the two other spin-off shows Fate/Extra Last Encore and Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya. As this appears to be a prequel to what happens in Fate/stay night, I think viewers might need to watch Fate/Zero to truly understand this show.
*sorry to those unfamiliar with the Fate franchise if I made your head explode there*
Oh boy, this is going to be a complicated watch. Maybe I should just take this at face value, and not get too wrapped up in any lore that comes up.
So while all of that happened in that Fate spin-off show, one new coming-of-age show came out, that has really caught my attention. And I mean really caught it…
O Maidens In Your Savage Season is originally a manga by Mari Okada; her only manga to date, in fact. It revolves around the 5 girls in a school’s literature club, although the focus is mostly on Kazusa and Niina. Kazusa Onodera is a rather dull and boring schoolgirl who has been in love with her neighbour Izumi, who has suddenly catapulted himself into becoming the most sought-after boy at school. Meanwhile, Niina Sugawara is seen as the aloof and melancholic beauty, who has an extremely philosophical and meaningful look on life. Her words are ultimately the catalyst for the whole Literature Club to start panicking about sex and relationships.
We don’t know much else about Niina or the incredibly shy Momoko, but in this first episode, we see how the two senpais of the group, club president Rika and moody Hitoha, already have had love/sex/relationships in their head. Because of her strict upbringing, Rika is seen as the stuffy and ugly girl in her class, while we see Hitoha, who is already sending manuscripts to publishers, secretly joining online sex chat groups, for ‘research purposes’.
As I watched, I noticed a lot of little things that have identified all of these characters. For instance, Niina is the only girl in the club who wears a short skirt as part of her uniform, which is rather telling. Also, while other girls have the regular schoolbag you see in every anime, Kasuza has the kind of ordinary backpack that school kids in the West would wear, which is just as interesting, as this could tell us about her naivety to sex. Style is empathized a lot in this show, the script is very well written, and the character design and direction already makes me want to know a lot more about all 5 of these girls. All of this combined, I believe that, given this outstanding first episode, O Maidens In Your Savage Season could turn out to be something quite special…and another huge catch for the Sentai Filmworks brand.
My final show is Astra Lost in Space. In my preview post, I talked about how I was curious how the studio was going to adapt this manga. Would they go down the ‘Yay-School-Trip’ route, or would they go down the ‘Emotional-Terror’ route? Now I’ve watched this hour-long intro episode, I’m a little disappointed that the studio, Lerche, tried to do a little bit of both.
The show kicks off on a perky and positive note, with these kids ready to go on a 5-day trip where they stay on a planet and learn to work together, so I like how their world has turned upside-down entirely. The eeriness of deep space is there, but to be honest, I was expecting a little more from Astra Lost in Space. There have been other TV shows and movies that have a similar setting that lets us see the real shock and horror of vulnerable people suddenly being thrust in an unknown world, having freakouts and panic attacks along the way. But the fact that this intro episode was an hour long was a good idea; there was no way a show like this could introduce the characters and this story in the space of 25-30 minutes.
Kanata, Aries, Zack, Quitterie, Charce, Luca, Ulgar, Funicia and Yunhua are all understandably shocked that some unnatural light sphere has catapulted them 5,000 light years from the nearest point of contact, but I’m let down at the fact that they still find time to make jokes along the way. Maybe I’m just being extremely picky here, and was hoping for too much in this show. I have some other complaints as well, such as the frequent and unnecessary letter-boxing, but this was a good intro episode to Astra Lost in Space, and has kept me interested on what will happen in the future. Especially considering how different the personalities of these 9 people are: from the clumsy Aries to the know-it-all Zack, from the whiny Quitterie to Ulgar, who is…well…just an absolute douche.
So those were my 4 shows – that is, the 4 shows in this Summer 2019 season that I’m watching. One of them has already impressed me a lot, while another is something I just know is going to be incredibly silly (yet self-parodying at the same time). But I still have Symphogear to watch. Not the current 5th season that’s on this summer, but instead I’m starting right from the very beginning.
*I’m sure that so much has happened in the four Symphogear seasons that have already past, so please no spoilers*
Am I supposed to write something about how epic this show is? Well, from what I’ve seen so far about this season, Symphogear G, Symphogear GX and Symphogear AXZ, singing mecha magical girls who sing songs to destroy an enemy of mankind is pretty epic in its own way. But episode 1 of season 1 is, I think, too early for me to make some long-lasting judgement of the whole Symphogear franchise. I mean, this episode is the introductory episode and kicks off so much; we see Zwei Wing for the first time, how main protagonist Hibiki got involved in the Symphogear project, what the Noise are, and Hibiki’s first transformation.
A lot more has happened in this franchise, I’m sure, but so far I’m liking what I see, in a bizarre sort of way. I say ‘bizarre’ because this isn’t usually the kind of anime I watch anymore. I started my anime life with Sailor Moon, sure, and I used to be an obsessive hardcore fan of Madoka Magica, but since I watched more slice-of-life shows, this sub-genre of fighting magical girls is something I haven’t touched in a long time. Of course I’ll stick with it, because I’m genuinely very curious on why Symphogear has the kind of following that it has.
I think this week went off to an okay start. I usually end up getting stressed out a lot over the summer, and I blame any bad shows I picked, but I think I might be okay…yeah, 4 new shows plus Symphogear…well anyway, what do you think of the new season so far? Have you gone for the more popular shows? Has any show you picked been a let-down? Also, Anime Expo in Los Angeles and Japan Expo in Paris were this weekend too; if you went, how did it go for you? Feel free to hit that like button and air your opinions in the comments below…