Look at that poster. That is a fucking amazing poster. I came back from Japan a few weeks ago and after strolling around a bunch of bookshops, something I hadn’t realised was just how huge the Tanya the Evil...
Look at that poster. That is a fucking amazing poster. I came back from Japan a few weeks ago and after strolling around a bunch of bookshops, something I hadn’t realised was just how huge the Tanya the Evil novels actually are compared to all the other light novels. Not just in sheer size, but also the density of the writing. There is a Tanya the Evil sequel movie coming out this season, which is why I’m starting this post by randomly talking about that series. Because yes, it is time for the The Cart Driver’s Anime Season Preview, Winter 2019 Edition. Yeah I may not have made a single post since the last season preview, but you will have to chop off my hands before I stop writing these. The fall season has been kinda awful for me in terms of anime worth watching, but there’s a handful of anime this winter I’m very interested in, and that’s about all I can ask for really. So let’s get to it.
Promised Neverland
This is one of those rare series that will pop up in Shounen Jump every now and then, a bit like Death Note. The series where if you squint at them then sure, I suppose it looks like a classic shounen series, but by any regular metric sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the numerous spiky haired battle manga and pervy highschool romcoms. Promised Neverland is a horror story about orphans trying to escape their doom and is far more of a suspense horror thriller than a shouty battle story. It’s apparently already set to end soon despite only being 12 volumes long, again much like Death Note. I’m making a bunch of Death Note comparisons, which I shouldn’t be doing since the series aren’t really alike. More their circumstances feel rather similar. Cloverworks are doing the animation, a new studio spun off from A-1 Pictures, and appear to be doing well for themselves so far. It’s definitely the newest series that could have the highest ceiling.
Revisions
Goro Taniguchi is one of my favourite anime directors and I’ll watch anything his name is attached to, for better or for worse. Between Code Geass and Infinite Ryvius, I’m down for whatever he does. Which is why it’s a shame he’s locked himself in CG anime prison lately. I was one of the only people on the planet who watched ID-0, his last CG mecha anime and it was…fine I guess. This is some new disaster series with the guy who wrote the Psycho Pass script (not Butch Gen, unfortunately). Which on paper sounds amazing but ehhhh there has just been something about all these CG series that just never click right for me visually. From Knights of Sidonia to Kado, all series I liked but ultimately felt were much worse off with their CG. The only one that I felt truly succeeded was Land of the Lustrous, and that was such a strange, weird, otherwordly series that I’m not sure there are many lessons you can learn from that success.
The Magnificent Kotobuki
Speaking of directors, Tsutomu Mizushima! I like this guy, even if he has some serious misses along with his hits. Yeah there’s Shirobako, Girls und Panzer, Hare Guu, Prison School and these strange variety of series he’s able to drag far more out of than a less competent director would be able to. But then you get Another, Blood C, Mayoiga and, well, just keep the guy away from horror stories, that’s all I’m saying. This isn’t a horror story thankfully. It’s cute girls fly propeller planes as bodyguard hires in a steampunk world. I’m sorta imagining something like Last Exile maybe? That would be cool. Whatever, I’m interested at least. Mizushima has his duds but I like the guy and what he tries to do most of the time.
Domestic Girlfriend
The manga opened with ACTUAL FUCKING IN A SEINEN ROMANCE so right away we have separated ourselves from the blue-ballers of the world and are into the more trashy, ellicit world of series like Scum’s Wish. Actually I think that’s being unfair on Scum’s Wish, which was at least going for something and had clear themes apart from sexy love triangles with your hot teacher.
Dororo
This is a horrible admission to make. I know how important Tezuka is to manga and anime. He is basically the reason the medium exists as it is today. The problem is…well, I kinda don’t like much of what he’s written. A lot of cool ideas in concept but ham-fisted in execution. Which is fine when speaking about his work from a historical context, but reading his work today without looking at it as a historical artefact feels like criticising the play of retired football players in testimonial matches. Which is why I’m reluctant to place too much hope on Dororo. On the surface it sounds cool. Some robot kid fighting demons to get all his internal organs back. But I’ve been burned before, and this has the director of Neo Yokio so yeah.
Boogiepop wa Warawanai
Man, a new Boogiepop anime. The original Boogiepop Phantom anime came out in 2000 and was put into the same weird artsy anime with minimal dialogue like Serial Experiments Lain. While Lain endured in fandom consciousness, Boogiepop was sorta forgotten. In many ways Boogiepop was the start of the light novel craze in Japan (although I’m sure people could argue that point for years). It has very little in common with most modern light novel plots, being more a series of loosely connected vignettes than a complete story. I was never into the first series back in the day, but that was a long time ago and I’m more than happy to give this one a shot. It’s Madhouse animating with the director of One Punch Man, Acca, and a couple of Space Dandy episodes. It could be quite good.
Rising of The Shield Hero
Oh boy light novels, you sure do like to have something truly….problematic rise to the top of the sales charts. First it was Goblin Slayer and we love showing graphic rape. Now it’s Shield Hero and its defense of slavery, especially if it’s used for sexy times. Also pedophilia I think? It’s hard to keep track of all these sucked into an alternate world light novels sometimes and which is the one with the slave fucking and which is the one with the pedophilia and which is the one with Japanese imperialism is the best themes and which is the one with all 3. At least Goblin Slayer was on the right page by saying Rape is Bad (but boy we love showing it). Shield Hero perhaps not with its slavery. Look at what you started with these light novels Boogiepop. This is your fault you know.
Price of Smiles
I remember I used to get excited for any and every random new mecha anime because hey I like robots and science fiction. It shows how few good new mecha anime there have been over the past several years that I have basically given up on that. The last anime original mecha series I watched was Darling in the Franxx and frankly I feel a little done with the whole genre now. What’s that, this is by the director of that series everyone definitely remembers Rinne no Lagrange and Heroic Age? Does the promo material feature samey looking CG mechs and a cute little princess girl who will be the main focus of the series? I don’t know what happened to science fiction anime lately, but I feel pretty sad about it.
Quintessential Quintuplets
One of those manga that a horny teenage Scamp would have been all into. Genius yet socially awkward teenage boy with severe financial difficulties is hired as a tutor for his new classmates – 5 pretty quintuplets with a variety of wacky personalities. It seemed perfectly fine from what I read of the manga. Then again I’ve been quite bad at predicting which of these random shounen romcoms would be hits lately.
W’z
Oh dear oh no GoHands what are you doing no we don’t want another one of these please Hand Shakers was enough and christ did you seriously call this thing W apostrophe Z like are we supposed to pronounce it like Wizz like piss oh no I’m just going to move on.
Ueno-san wa Bukiy?
It’s a gag manga about a genius inventor who uses her inventions to try get the boy she likes to drink her piss. At least that was the first chapter. Woman after my own heart she is.
Magical Girl Special Ops Asuka
Reading the manga to this, I was struck by how absurd anime and manga are that I just started glossing over some of the shots. These girls wearing pseudo French Maid outfits with Wolverine blades and another girl in a fetish nurse costume with what looks like a heart shaped electric guitar are standing over a war torn battlefield while a military man in shock because his arm was torn off stands aside and says “those girls are are only hope now”. It’s a hilariously grimdark take on magical girl stuff with more fetish outfits than you can shake a sparkly wand at.
Girly Air Force
It’s about cute girls that are also fighter jets…or robot girls that control fighter jets? I couldn’t quite work it out from the trailer because I was too preoccupied laughing at the line of text that appeared on screen saying BARBIE01 READY FOR DEPARTURE. Anyways, it’s some light novel trash that looks an awful lot like the series they were making in the second half of Shirobako which was supposed to be a parody of what light novel trash are.
D?kyonin wa Hiza, Tokidoki, Atama no Ue
The trailer for this took a very strange turn. At first it was all here’s a cute boy and a cat, aren’t they adorable. Then there was one scene where it looked like the cute boy was dead and then he and the cat walked into the gates of heaven all without the calming piano music ever changing and then the trailer ended? So yeah, the cat dies I think.
There are a bunch of other series that be can described as “something something also cute girls”. Endro is cute fantasy girls that looks like its trying to be a collectathon gatcha mobile game which is where the real money is made nowadays. Pastel Memories already is a game with cute girls wearing cute outfits. Watashi ni Tenshi ga Maiorita is cute girls in a 4-koma manga, which feels almost old school now. Grimms Notes meanwhile is a game adaptation that looks so generic I couldn’t even be bothered to write a proper preview for it.
Sequels
The sequel I am most interested in is Mob Psycho 100, a series I was very fond of, much more so than One Punch Man, the author’s other well-known work. I’m not sure how much Mob Psycho needs a sequel, but I’m open to the idea at least. Compulsive Gambler, or Kakegurui, is the other sequel to a series I have actually seen that’s coming out. I’m less sure on this one though since I could very easily see myself realising I actually don’t need to see more of this within the first 2 episodes. I was kinda done with the gimmick halfway through the first season. Most of the rest is just cute girl series like Date a Live and BanG Dream, the latter of which is huge in Japan judging by the number of ads I saw for it scattered everywhere when I was there. I had seen some of the first season of Kemono Friends, which remains one of the most baffling success stories of the decade in anime. There’s a whole heap of drama over the new season due to the change of director and all sorts, and frankly being able to make one of the cheapest looking, doomed to fail series to be the massive success that it ended up being, to dump the director feels very unfair.