Doctorkev’s Thoughts on the Summer 2024 Anime Season: New Shows
It’s been a while since I last wrote about anime — partly because I took a month or so off writing mainly for health reasons (a combination of a shoulder/arm issue that still isn’t resolved, a deeply unpleasant stomach bug that’s thankfully now gone, and a particularly horrendous wisdom tooth extraction. Let’s just say it’s not been that much fun to be me these last few weeks.) I also recently completed a mammoth Ghost in the Shell retrospective that frankly burnt me out. I’ve been relaxing by playing my way through the excellent TYPE-MOON visual novel Tsukihime — A Piece of Blue Glass Moon, and I recently reviewed it. Now I need to try and find time to read the fan-translated original VN from 2000!
In the background, I always keep track of currently-running anime, though I’ve tried not to go too nuts this season. In total, I’m following eighteen shows, eight of them new, ten of them ongoing or sequels. We’ll discuss the new shows today. As much as I’d like to watch the new Suicide Squad Isekai show, for some reason DC has decided they don’t like UK fans, leaving us with nowhere to legally stream it. Although it streams on Disney-owned Hulu in the US, we don’t get it on Disney+ here. I don’t care enough to pirate it. Similarly, retro throwback giant robot show Grendizer U isn’t streaming legally in the West either, which is a shame.
Generally, I’m not really feeling it with the new shows this season. Apart from a couple of standouts, I’m mostly underwhelmed. Perhaps I made poor choices this time? Other shows I’m thinking of trying include: Shoshimin: How to Become Ordinary, Why Does Nobody Remember Me in this World?, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, Wistoria: Wand and Sword, Quality Assurance in Another World, and Bye Bye Earth, though none of these sound like absolute must-watches. Perhaps someone lovely readers could recommend me something in the comments?
Anyway, let’s get on to the new shows I am watching. Unless otherwise stated, assume they’re streaming on Crunchyroll.
Mayonaka Punch — Mondays — watched 6 episodes
This one I like a lot. It’s another one of those YouTuber-based anime, of which there’s been a minor explosion of examples recently, except this one has vampires in it. It’s an anime-original story from studio PA Works, who usually produce high quality, interesting shows. This is no exception. Even if you’ve no interest in YouTubers/VTubers/influencers, Mayonaka Punch is worth watching as it’s full of fun characters, daft comedy, and even significant depths of pathos.
Masaki is a failed “NewTuber” who is fired from her channel by her friends following a live-streamed violent episode. She somehow winds up roping in a bizarre group of four strange vampires into streaming videos for her instead, while she remains resolutely behind-the-scenes. Pink-haired vampire Live is besotted with Masaki, and is extremely open about her desire to drink Masaki’s blood, giving Mayonaka Punch a somewhat skewed yuri vibe.
It’s always colourful and usually very amusing, except for episode four. Episode four made me cry. I won’t explain why, for fear of spoiling it. You should really check this one out, even if YouTubers aren’t your thing.
Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian — Wednesdays — watched 7 episodes
I should really learn to treat fellow AniTAY podcaster Raitzeno’s recommendations with a little more skepticism. Apparently this show would be “amazing” because the main character is “adorable”. Sorry, but a semi-adorable main character with an inability to express her emotions in a language the others around her can understand, isn’t enough to carry what is frankly a dull as dishwater high school anime comedy/drama. The titular Russian Alya has only one personality trait, and that is that she likes Masachika, a boy in her class, but can’t admit out loud she does so, except in Russian. She doesn’t know he understands Russian. That’s the joke. I was over it after the first episode.
What does make the show at least vaguely entertaining is Masachika’s shit-stirring gremlin of a sister. For vaguely-defined and honestly contrived reasons, he’s not allowed to tell anyone she’s his sister (they have different last names, as is common in Japan following divorce, when each child lives apart with the other parent.) This is funny for a couple of episodes, as Alya is convinced his sister intends to date him, and the sister does everything she can to fuel this misconception, but I’m tiring of this schtick too.
Comedy that relies on repeatedly poor communication between characters becomes tiresome quickly for me. Add in a hopelessly dull story about Alya and Masachika running for School Council President and Vice President respectively, and I struggle to care. Other characters are portrayed villainously for suggesting Alya and Masachika are poor candidates, but they are. They’re hopeless, disorganised, pathetic communicators, and have no redeemable features or skills. I’m considering dropping this.
My Deer Friend Nokotan — Wednesdays — watched 7 episodes
Never believe the internet hype. This irreverent sketch-based comedy was deliberately crafted to ride the hype train to viral sensationalism… and kind of fell flat. For a comedy show, I find there are disappointingly few decent laughs per episode, partly because every single joke seems to be stretched out to breaking point, with a glacially poor sense of timing. Slicing the episode durations in half to make this a short, while doubling the density of content, would likely make this far more tolerable. Instead its an exercise in eye-rolling boredom, waiting for the deliberately obtuse Nokotan to get to the point.
Sometimes the show is genuinely funny, and its rare moments of true deranged inspiration are just enough to keep me watching. My eldest son tried watching it with me, as he normally enjoys surreal humour, but after three episodes he asked if we could please stop. So now I endure Nokotan and her repetitive antler-based humour alone. It’s a lonely existence, but someone has to do it. Again, I’m not sure how motivated I am to continue, as I think I’ve already seen the best this sadly diluted comedy has to offer.
Dungeon People —HIDIVE — Fridays — watched 6 episodes
Although not as exceptionally high quality as last season’s Delicious in Dungeon, this incredibly sweet slice-of-life/fantasy show bases its world on similar D&D-esque mechanics. Dungeon People sees shy, introverted assassin Clay infiltrate her local dungeon to deeper, more difficult levels than any of the larger parties she declines to join. Recognising her exceptional skills, secret Dungeon Administrator Belle offers her a job helping to run the Dungeon behind the scenes.
Clay enters a strange world, where behind the Dungeon’s walls are living quarters and offices for the workers who keep the Dungeon well-stocked with monsters and treasure-filled caskets. It’s a little like Cells at Work, except instead of a body, it’s set in a dungeon, and instead of cells, the workers are adorable little rock golems, dwarves, dragons, and other fantasy creatures. There’s not a whole lot of drama, but Clay and Belle make a delightfully awkward pair of goofy friends, two lonely people who have never had the opportunity to open up to anyone before. It’s a low stakes, comfy and enjoyable show that although it won’t crack my top ten for 2024, I’m still happy to recommend it to to all and sundry.
Atri: My Dear Moments — Saturdays — watched 6 episodes
Initially I wasn’t too sure about this one, but it’s growing on me. Atri is the name of an android girl, discovered deep underwater in the remains of a flooded town by Natsuki Ikaruga, an orphaned boy who lost his leg as a child in an accident. Some kind of sudden environmental catastrophe has caused a deluge, drowning low-lying towns and cities. Natsuki’s island has been mostly deserted, and he scrapes a living by salvaging materials from the nearby drowned town. Although Atri is an incredibly rare, self-aware android worth a significant fortune, Natsuki decides to keep her around. What follows, at least to begin with, is a gently sci-fi-tinged slice of life show, as Natsuki and Atri interact with friends, and work to restore power to the local half-flooded school.
Atri starts slowly, and your patience may be tried by the shrill and irritating titular character (she reminds me a lot of Hina from The day I Became a God, a show I have extremely mixed feelings about). She calms down a bit over time, thankfully, and the show hints at some intriguing mysteries lurking just below the surface. Natsuki has plenty of unresolved trauma to work through, and Atri’s damaged memory presumably holds many secrets, of which one major revelation occurs in the most recent episode. As Atri is based on a visual novel, I fully expect the plot to kick into overdrive fairly soon, as is usually the pattern — slow start, followed by dramatic developments, one after another. I’m quietly confident that Atri may turn out to be something quite special.
The Elusive Samurai — Saturdays — watched 7 episodes
I feel I’m meant to be enjoying this anachronism-filled historical comedy-drama more than I should be, but something isn’t gelling with me. Studio Cloverworks have done an impressive job with the presentation, with some exceptionally high quality action animation that manages to integrate some relatively decent CG when needed. We’ve got a large and eclectic cast of characters, all of whom have fun quirks and personalities. There’s usually a light touch to proceedings, with plenty of sight gags and knowing winks to the camera… that’s all frequently undercut by scenes of graphic, brutal violence and cruelty. It’s like the term “tonal whiplash” was invented for The Elusive Samurai. This is obvious from the first episode, which is an excellent episode of anime, but… I’m not sure it’s really for me.
I’ll keep watching for now, but I’m stuggling to emotionally connect to young main character Hojo Tokiyuki or his gradually growing collection of friends. I don’t know if it’s the humour or the randomly dark tone that distances me from the characters, but I find myself seeing them more as a collection of tropes and special abilities rather than individuals to care about. Also creepy monk/priest/god/clairvoyant Suwa Yorishige creeps me out.
Dahlia in Bloom — Saturdays — watched 7 episodes
So I started this isekai anime about a modern Japanese lady reincarnated into the life of a red-headed fantasy world denizen, with little expectations. The first couple of episodes set up a vaguely interesting premise where Dahlia, the main character, inherits a magical item-creating business from her father, who sets up an arranged marriage for her before he randomly pops his clogs. Her fiance turns out to be an asshole who blows up not only his personal life, but also his business when he cheats on Dahlia with a random woman. Dahlia decides she doesn’t need a man (certainly not that creep, anyway) and continues her business alone.
I feel this show should be more interesting than it is, but the last couple of episodes I’ve found very dull. Dahlia has found a new guy, and there’s an extremely slow-burn romance that’s quite sweet (for now they’ve agreed to remain merely friends), but it’s so visually uninteresting, and it struggles to keep me awake. I may drop this and come back to it later.
Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines — Saturdays — watched 6 episodes
Along with Mayonaka Punch, this may be the one new show I look most forwards to watching every week. Initially I wasn’t going to bother with yet another high school romcom, but this one is different. For one, it’s acutely aware of all the usual tropes and storytelling cliches, and skewers them all in interesting ways. Protagonist Kazuhiko Nukumizu feels he’s nothing but a background character, yet he finds himself in the middle of several female characters, all of whom have been unlucky in love, rejected by the boys they profess their love to.
Makeine is one of those shows that you can tell will be special from the outset. For one, it looks gorgeous, with incredible attention to detail, from characters’ facial expressions and body language, to beautifully painted backgrounds and incredible lighting. Every character is intricately written, with multiple foibles, faults, and other endearing aspects. Blue-haired Anna is the main poster girl, bright, peppy, and very food-driven. Tanned, sporty Lemon may well be my favourite. Red-haired, shy Chika’s voice actress does some amazing things with the weird noises she makes, she also appears to be an unrepentant fujoshi (female boy’s love manga obsessive).
These eclectic charcters all bounce off one another in unpredictable ways, and they remind me so much of the friends I had as a teenager. Despite the romcom label, there isn’t an awful lot of romance in Makeine, it’s about the fallout when romance doesn’t blossom, and the importance of friends to help you pick yourself up and move on. I adore it.
Macross Frontier — Disney+ — watched 13 of 25 episodes
Finally, this isn’t exactly a new show, but it’s the first time it’s been available legally in English, ever since it first released in 2008. A couple of years ago, the complex web of rights that prevented anything Macross-related from being released outside of Japan was finally resolved, and a while later Disney announced they had acquired worldwide streaming rights. Weirdly, while regions like the UK and Australia have both Macross Frontier (2008) and Macross Delta (2016), plus associated movies, they’re yet to appear on either Disney+ or Hulu in the US. I guess this is one of those few examples where it pays to be a UK anime fan?
I’d really hoped we’d get 1994's Macross 7 first (set in 2045), as that precedes Frontier by fourteen years, but perhaps that will turn up later? Frontier is set in 2059, on board a massive colony ship as it sets off into the cosmos. True to its origins as a Macross show, it features flashy space battles, idol singers, and a central love triangle. It’s kind of cheesy and silly, but I love it so far. I watched the original 1982 Macross in its bastardised Robotech form in the late 1980s, and a couple of years ago revisited it via the DVDs from Manga Entertainment. It’s a shame this streaming release is sub only, as I’d like to be able to watch it with my younger son, as he really enjoyed the original Macross.
This time, our main protagonist is Alto Saotome, son of a famous theatre actor who has rejected his heritage (being sick of cast in female roles, it seems, considering his long hair, beautiful androgynous looks, and school nickname as “Princess”), and longs to be a fighter pilot. He becomes friends with young, naive Ranka Lee who aspires to become an idol, while also becoming entangled with actual idol singer Sheryl Nome. The three of them develop complicated relationships with one another against the backdrop of war with aliens called the Vajra. I’m only halfway through the show so far, so I’ve no idea how everything turns out, but I’m delighted I’m finally able to watch this!
That’s everything as far as new shows go for this season. In my opinion, most of the hype shows are sequels, so I’ll be back to cover them later in the week. Thanks for reading!
