Sunday, August 7, 2016

Summer season 2016 short anime reviews

Fukigen na Mononokean (The Morose Mononokean)
This feels like a mixture between Natsume's Book of Friends and Kyokai no Rinne. Though I thought the latter got boring after a while, I love the former, so I have high hopes for this series. There's this school boy who realizes he can see yokai one day after he's possessed by one. He seeks the help of an exorcist, who happens to be a classmate. To pay for his exorcism, he has to help him.

I have the feeling, this might be my favourite anime of the season. I'm really looking forward to where the realtionship between these two is going. It's seems to start off kind of as a mentorship, but not quite, since their the same age. Also there seems to be the yokai of the week, so I expect we get to see many different creatures.


Hatsukoi Monster
This girl falls in love with a guy and starts dating him. So far it looks like an average shoujo anime. Only that the boy and his friends - even though looking like they're straight out of some idol anime - are primary school kids. They don't look like it, but act like it, complete with "wiener" jokes and all.
I was thinking "WTF" throughout most of the first episode and then dropped it. This isn't only a bad reverse harem, it's worse. It's not even funny in an ironic way. It's just really, really bad. Why does something like this even get produced?


Handa-kun
I love Barakamon! It's one of my favourites, both anime and manga. I have to say that my high hopes in the prequel Handa-Kun were a bit disappointed. It's a different genre and not a masterpiece like Barakamon. But maybe Handa-Kun is more suited to be an anime?

High school student Handa-kun thinks no-one likes him. When people do something he interprets their acts accordingly. But in reality people at school admire Handa-kun and they interpret his action as extremely cool and aloof - even if he's just frozen out of fear. And now you know the plot of each episode: one misunderstanding after the other.
Handa-kun is very episodic - extremely so. Actually there's like two or three seperate stories per anime episode. It's just comedy with the same theme to it every time. It's not bad, but... it's just the same over and over again. Maybe the show should be called Confirmation Bias.
The first half of the first episode is some Gintama-like breaking of the fourth wall. I thought it was a little too much, but for some reason it was only the first episode. What I think is a little creepy is how everyone except the main characters has no eyes - they look like Dr. Who monsters or something.
I really like the song in the ending, though.


Amaama to Inazuma (sweetness & lightning)
It seems food-centered anime is all the trend right now. This is another one. It's about a single parent and teacher, whose wife died a few months ago. He works all day and is not good at cooking so his daughter gets only ready-made bento from the convenient store. Until they meet a pupil and daughter of a restaurant owner. They meet up at the restaurant to cook together while the mother is away busy with work at a TV station.
The setting is a bit weird, but the series isn't too bad. It's not great either. It's nice to watch.

I'm a really bad cook, so maybe this will make me want to learn how to cook? On the other hand, some of these food combinations are really a bit... foreign.
Still, definitely one you shouldn't watch while hungry.


Bananya
This is another short series, with an episode only lasting about 3 minutes. If you thought the other short animes were wacky... this one is about a cat that lives in a banana.
It's kinda cute but really makes no sense at all.


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