Introduction
It happens. It’s not like we go out of our way to hate something. You just cannot be bothered to start some shows sometimes. It’s the truth. Rather than paint everything in a beautiful, rosy picture, it’s best to be honest and realistic. Would you want us to lie to you and tell you that everything is good? No. That’s no fun. No one wants that. So, today in our next type of article we will be introducing summer shows that we are not even going to bother to start. Now the reasons are various. For some reason we are either not interested in the art, the staff, the story, or the PV is not bringing us in. These are not necessarily all of the shows that we are passing on, but when we saw them or learned about them, it was a hard swerve left.
1. Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni
Just a bit of a backstory, this series is all about Tomoya Mochizuki. The story opens with him dying! No really, that is exactly how it went down. Tomoya dies, but he is not supposed to have died. So the gods have mercy on him and let him go live in another world. As a benefit, they give him a smartphone *coughnotaniphonebutlooksjustlikeitcough* that will work in this other world which has magic, supernatural beings, and more! He is going to travel the world with newfound friends unlocking the secrets around the world and bringing kingdoms together.
Welp, if that was not the most generic adventure story setup ever, which is from the official site, let’s give him a smartphone because that would make total sense. The isekai trend is booming right now, but the pretense of this is just flat out bad. In fact, this actually might make a good hate watch due to how generic it is. OH! Just to try and cast a wider net, let’s make it a harem! Hopefully that will get people into the series! Unless this is magically going to be some ecchi harem anime out of left field where the girls start whipping out their tittes, all aboard the fail whale. Kudos to the author for getting their series picked up as an anime, but in reality, this may backfire for them and make people be turned off to the series overall and the isekai setup. Sure, we all want every anime to be good, but this, this is not something that is going to make me interested in the long run, the short run, or even at all.
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2. Clione no Akari
Clione no Akari is a slice of life anime is about sickly Minori. She is constantly bullied and coupled with her poor health, Minori leaves school. Two more main characters, Takashi and Kyouko, reach out to her right before she leaves, and for a moment the only kindness she has known from her classmates exists. Two months later, a letter is delivered to the two and it is an invitation to a summer festival. The two go since there is no return address.
I really do not know even where this anime is going to go. Beyond the three characters mentioned, the rest are all children who work at yatai or food stalls at this festival. The story barely makes any sense, and unless it takes some massive turn to become some supernatural hit, it’s safe to say that I will not give this show a second glance. There is zero promise here. This is also the first show from Studio drop, and while I want to say that I would like to see them be a success, the art is rough. I do not mean that it is hard to look at, I mean it is R-O-U-G-H rough as in it looks like it has been dragged through a desert of fire, sandpaper, broken glass, and cacti. It’s so bad, seriously watch the PV, that I am reminded of Gakuen Handsome. The difference between these two is that Gakuen Handsome is meant to be drawn poorly as a joke, while Clione no Akari & studio drop are taking this seriously. Bless.
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3. Tsurezure Children
All aboard the generic train! Next stop: Basic Romcom Town. Tsurezure Children is about four couples who are trying to start dating, but are all very different. Literally that’s it. So expect a lot of jokes that rely on the inability to read a situation, jokes that rely on someone who has said too much or not enough, or that one couple where the roles are reversed and someone is a sadist. Other than that, it will just be long and drawn out.
I am sure someone is going to fight me because of the next sentence, but this is basically Tsuki ga Kirei 1.5 from what it looks like. The couples thing is a good attempt to split up storylines, but then in order to make storylines, the studio is going to have to make them all stereotypical personality characters where the character itself is just going to have to kick out line after line that belong to their trope. I love a good romcom, but there is nothing interesting about Tsurezure Children. No hook, no interesting backstory, just fluff. Now, there is nothing wrong with that at all, but I just want a show that has some sort of pretense other than saying, “this will be touching, this will be funny, this will be dramatic” for me to watch it. I applaud Studio Gokumi for trying this, but I would rather watch Toji no Miko, their upcoming original anime, much much more than I would like to spend any more time talking about this show that I am never going to watch.
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4. Battle Girl High School
Here we have one of those giant groups of girls who battle creatures which are taking over the Earth-type anime. Battle Girl High School follows the Hoshimori (Star Protectors) and their fights against the Lulus. Think High School Fleet but with giant swords instead of boats and you pretty much get the idea. In the game the anime is based on, there is of course a sole male teacher who joins the girls and they probably all fall in love with him. From the PVs I’ve seen of the anime, it looks like he’s been thankfully erased from the scene.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for powerful girls kicking ass. But that’s not really what this sort of anime is about, is it? This is about how cute the girls are, and which one you want as your waifu. If you’re into that, Battle Girl High School has all your usual character tropes for you to pick from: the happy ball of energy, the tomboy, the cool beauty, blah blah blah. If they seemed to have any depth to them I might actually give it a shot but as it stands, they don’t. Again, if this was like other similar game promo anime and was a short, I might use it to waste a few minutes, but it’s not. So excuse me while I pass on this one.
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5. The Reflection
The Reflection, aka Stan Lee’s Japanese cartoon, is set in a world where a phenomenon takes place after a certain disaster, leaving survivors with superhuman powers. A collaboration between Stan Lee and Studio DEEN, the project certainly sounds interesting, like an inventive meeting of Western-style comics and cartoons with Japanese anime. So, what’s the problem?
The fact is, I’m just not into Western comic books or cartoons. And rather than being inspired by Western art as I expected, resulting in something similar to Boku no Hero Academia, the artwork is 100% cartoon. Which in itself isn’t a bad thing, but it’s just not to my tastes. The colour pallette, too, is just dull and not aesthetically pleasing. Then there’s the generic super power storyline. The characters sound interesting enough, and if it does a good job of storytelling and pacing then maybe it would be passable but as it is, I just don’t care enough to give it a try. Next.
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6. Kaito x Ansa
Oh boy. Finally, we have Kaito x Ansa, which is basically Nazotokine with boys added. I’m pretty sure I could leave my explanation at that and you’d understand, but allow me to go on. Like Nazotokine, this anime is set in Tachikawa, but now the city is under threat from some kind of furry chibis and a hot bad guy. I don’t know. Anyway, in order to save Tachikawa, best friends Kaito and Ansa have to answer riddles to unleash some magical stone or something.
Honestly, the only thing this anime has got going for it is the cast, which includes Daisuke Ono and Takahiro Sakurai, and I have no idea how they got them to do it - probably a large sum of money they magicked up from somewhere. Everything else just looks…Awful. The set up sounds bizarre (and not in the entertaining way), the art is meh at best (the bad guy is the only one who looks half decent) and basically, if it’s anything like its sister show, it’s going to flop big time. This gets a big thumbs down from me.
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Final Thoughts
Well, that’s it for our top 6 anime we didn’t even bother to start this summer 2017 season. We all have different tastes, but you can’t watch everything every season, and some shows you just have to pass on. Have you tried any of the above shows and care to disagree? Or maybe you want to add your own anime to the list? No matter what the case, let us know in the comments!
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Anime Summer 2017 Chart
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