Summer Anime Season 2016 Plans

Spring has ended and I guess it sort of delivered! A lot of shows that were fine-to-good, a couple of stand outs (My Hero Academia stunned me and Kiznaiver was so much my kind of thing it was spooky), more JoJo’s, and the few brave shows that dared to be garbage. Above average season if you ask me.

Summer has already started and I’ll tell you what, there sure are some anime airing. There’s only one series I’m actually pre-emptively excited for, however. There’s stuff that looks interesting. There’s stuff that I’ve heard with great manga. But there’s very little there for which I have any reason to be excited for yet.

thank you anichart.net

Hopefully this summer will prove to be the dankest renaissance in anime creativity now that we’re all free from Brussels’ icy, pro-citizen, regulatory grip.

• 91Days
• Amaama to Inazuma
• Amanchu!
• Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu LOVE! LOVE!
• Fukigen na Mononokean
• Handa-kun
• Hitori no Shita: the outcast
• Kono Bijutsu-bu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!
• Mob Psycho 100
• Momokuri
• New Game!
• Orange
• ReLIFE
• Rewrite

WORDS WORDS WORDS:

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Joker Game

I never knew how much I wanted World War II anime spy fiction until Joker Game started airing, but it managed to hit a spot that was apparently there all along. Well, touched a spot; I wouldn’t say this series has exactly satisfied me entirely.

Set in the run up to World War II, Japan is initiating its own ambitions on the world stage and as part of that has established a spy organization known only as “D-Agency”. It trains its young men ruthlessly so that they might carefully, efficiently, and of course secretly carry out various missions both domestic and abroad in the name of intelligence gathering.

The eponymous ‘joker game’ is a bit of fun the spies in D-Agency have – a game among them that tests every aspect of being a spy. It is shown as what appears to be a simple card game, but that is merely a front for the real game of hidden and subtle alliances, double-crossing, signalling and otherwise working with, between and against everyone around you to accomplish your own victory. An outsider from the Japanese military experiences this first hand, and then again when tasked with rooting out an American spy with D-Agency’s spies as disguised subordinates – a way for them to prove his own capability.

It is in this context that D-Agency embarks on many missions of espionage on a grand scale…

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Kuma Miko

Kuma Miko is a show I wish I could say I liked. For all of its top-notch humour and charm during its best moments, its central relationships and driving forces are unpleasantly and disturbingly abusive.

It’s not that the premise is inherently flawed. Machi, a middle school shrine maiden (hence the Miko in the series’ name) from the countryside wishes to go to high school in the city; however, she’s hopelessly naïve and clueless about city life and the modern world, something her friend and guardian Natsu is all too aware of. So he sets up a series of trials to test her knowledge, teach her what she needs to know, and let her gain valuable experience. Only if she can pass all of them will he let her go. Naturally, there are comedic misunderstandings and plenty of fish-out-of-water moments to make it all entertaining (and the absurdity of Natsu being a talking bear. Did I not mention that? The village worships the mountain bears, which talk, hence Machi and Natsu’s closeness), but in the end lessons are learned and everyone becomes closer. Naturally.

Right?

Right?

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