Hola Señors and Señoritas!
Another season is upon us, which means more anime to run through and dabble with in my free time. This season I’m gonna forgo anime I’m not feeling and just give you the potential bangers and personal choices I’m feeling in the early moments of the Fall 2021 season (and anime I’m finally getting to. I’m busy, give me a break).
Let’s go:
Not many times do you see horror blended with comedy, but poor Miko has gotta live with it. Miko, a low energy go-with-the-flow high school student, has her day-to-day life turned for the worst when horrific, ghastly monsters emerge from every corner trying to garner Miko’s attention. Not knowing what they will do if she tips off her attention, she plows through everyday life in attempts to save herself and her friends.
A slow first half of this episode doesn’t do Mieruko-Chan any favors, but soon it really pulls in the laughs watching this poor girl try to avoid confrontation. It also intrigues why she’s in the situation in the first place, as they give you no insight and leave you as lost as Miko is. The premise definitely has me interested, though it really could do with less provocative shots because, Jesus I have to look over both shoulders when I watch, and it’s not for the horror aspects.
Yeah, this came out last season and I didn’t get to it. I’m workin’ on it. Legoshi and Co. shouldn’t need much introduction going into the hotly anticipated 2nd season but man, I’m ready. After the crazy twists and turns of the first season, a new Beastar is to be awarded on who can find out who murdered the Alpaca student from the 1st season, and all the tension, drama, and complex emotions deluge into this new season in full force.
I can’t wait to finally get down and finish this one, because I’ve somehow avoided spoilers until now and that’s worthy of its own praise. The first season took the internet by storm and after being in Netflix Jail for most of 2021 it finally found its way onto the popular subscription service in July. The characters are well-fleshed out, the dub is surprisingly good (and the way I’ve been watching it), and the private school teenage drama is *chefs kiss*. Can’t wait to settle in and burn a weekend and just blast through this.
HOCKEY. ANIME. FUCK YEAH. At first glance you will be thrown about seeing a full Idol performance after what looks like Team Japan pulling a last-second win over Team Canada in some tournament, but it’ll make sense in a minute. Junior high student Manaka Mizusawa and her rag-tag group from the Embroidery Club get pulled into Ice Hockey tryouts after Manaka’s interest peaks from handing out said flyers for a fellow friend. While they go over the basics of ice hockey, Coach Yōko Matsunaga slowly devises her long-sought after dream of combining the red-hot popularity of Idol Groups to the sport of Ice Hockey to bring more eyes to the sport like never before!
The beginning montage and ending theme of Puraore! show some serious oomph in graphical quality, so I’m excited to see how far The Budget stretches for those anime-ass slapshots. Otherwise, this anime feels very safe in execution: cute girl group with an Idols for Dummies lineup of personalities with some possible mild slapstick (sorry) and a little how-to into a sport most anime watchers probably have zero interest in. It’s kinda meta that this anime will try to get the sport of Hockey to as many eyes as possible: in the anime and to it’s Idol-targeted audience in real life. As a guy who likes Hockey but not really Idols: count me in.
The sole proof of what happens when you give a beloved rom-com the time, care, and budget of something like Studio BONES’ One Punch Man. Shouko Komi’s first day at Itan Private High School becomes the inevitable coronation for the school’s proclaimed prettiest girl. The only problem is Komi develops a crazy stutter and freezes up when faced with any face-to-face conversation. When Hitohito Tadano tries to read the room and stay away from any issues at school, he falls flat into a one-on-one with Komi and takes the opportunity to become Friend One of Komi’s wish to have 100 friends, where they work together to fix Komi’s social anxiety one written word at a time.
I gotta give kudos because the pacing and comedic timing are absolutely stout. Not wasting any second of its first episode, Komi Can’t Communicate provides an overflowing of emotion, laughter, and tear-inducing wholesomeness-laden perfection I haven’t seen in a long time. Bound to be this season’s Horimiya and then some: be ready for a lot of this show to be thrown about on the internet as Netflix rolls this out every Thursday, mercifully away from the usual Netflix Jail-”binge the whole season a whole season late” style anime watchers have grown used to. Expect this on many Anime of the Year lists when this season ends.
Reviews as Fair as a Die Roll 