The spring anime season has started, and it’s shaping up to be a good one. Some of it’s new series, while the rest marks the return of some very good stories, so let’s get to it.
For some reason, this season has a lot of ‘slice of life/romcom’ story lines. One of the new ones it “Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie”. The premise is an old one: an unlikely couple that gets together in grade school and become inseparable. In this case, the male protagonist, Izumi, is a bad luck magnet. He’s the kind of guy who can toss what looks like a perfect strike while bowling, only to have the ball veer off course inches from the pins. He’s the sort of person who can find the one bad seam in his family’s front walk to trip over on his way to school. But he is luck in one way: his girlfriend and childhood sweetheart Shikimori is not only incredibly cute, she also seems to have a sixth sense when something bad is going to happen to Izumi, and she has the skills to protect him from his misfortune like some sort of superhero when she’s around. This one just started, but it’s looking like it’s going to bring plenty of humor with it. You can find it at:
https://www.crunchyroll.com/shikimoris-not-just-a-cutie
Another new anime in the same vein is “Aharen Is Indecipherable” (also titled “Aharen-san wa Hakarenai”). In this story, the protagnists aren’t childhood friends, they’re a pair who meets on the first day of high school when they’re sitting next to each other. One is the boy Raido, who everyone finds intimidating because he rarely smiles. His hope is that high school will allow him the chance to make the friends he hasn’t been able to make earlier. He ends up sitting next to Aharen, a girl who’s so short and slender that she looks like a child. After trying repeatedly to engage Aharen in conversation and failing, Raido returns an eraser Aharen drops. And with that simple gesture, he finds her suddenly very close indeed, as in inches from his face close. Aharen, it turns out, doesn’t speak very loudly, and worse, she has problems judging when she’s invading someone else’s private space. Things get strange from there, but the good sort of strange. This one appears to be aimed at being funny, and so far, it’s succeeding. You can find it at:
https://www.crunchyroll.com/aharen-san-wa-hakarenai
Now, for some ‘romcoms’ that are returning. One of the funnier ones is “Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 3”. If you’ve seen this one, you know the plot: Miyuki Shirogane is not only the top student at a prestigious high school, he’s also president of the student council. The vice president is Kaguya Shinomiya, an equally smart girl from a wealthy family. They fall in love almost at first sight, but both are determined to make the other one admit their feelings first. To say ‘chaos ensues’ would be an understatement as the two try different, and often elaborate, schemes to force each other into confessing their feelings. Season 3 is already shaping up to be even more hilarious than the earlier ones. You can find it at:
https://www.crunchyroll.com/en-gb/kaguya-sama-love-is-war
“Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It Season 2” is another odd couple romcom. In this case, it’s a pair of dedicated scientists who meet and fall in love. They have no problem admitting they’re in love, it’s just that, as scientists, they feel the need to prove they’re in love through different experiments. Yeah, it is ridiculous, but it also quite nice to see them come back to the same conclusion after each experiment- yes, they are in love. You can watch it at:
https://www.crunchyroll.com/science-fell-in-love-so-i-tried-to-prove-it
Last season, “Komi Can’t Communicate Season 2” made me laugh more than a few times. As the second season starts, the most beautiful girl in her school still has trouble talking in front of anyone, but with the help of her slowly expanding circle of friends, she’s still hoping to make a hundred friends before she graduates from high school. And yes, her first friend Tadano is still there, doing his best to guide her forward towards her goal. It’s supposed to start dropping episodes in Netflix on April 27, but if you want to get an early look, you can try:
https://gogoanime.be/watch/komi-cant-communicate-part-2-JYD2-episode-1/
Be advised: I do not stand by this site as far as security goes, so if you have a Windows-based machine, I’d advise you to set shield to maximum and be cautious what you click on.
Not all the new stuff is romcoms. One of the new series that promises to ask some uncomfortable questions is “I’m Quitting Heroing”. And those uncomfortable questions start in the first episode. Leo Demonheart is a hero. He’s fought a great war for the human world against the forces of the demon queen Echidna, and he’s won the war nearly single-handed. Unfortunately, now that the war is over, nobody knows what to do with him. His incredible victories on the field of battle are legend, as are the terrible powers he acquired to achieve those victories. People wonder openly if Leo might also be a demon, and no one is comfortable around him. In the end, the king he defended exiles Leo to appease his uneasy subjects. So what does an out-of-work hero do? In this case, he goes to the demon queen he defeated and offers his services in rebuilding her army. I feel there’s going to be a fair amount of comedy in this series, but that humor might be the sugar that gets people to think about what happens when a government turns it’s back on the people who defended it. If you want to know more, here’s another site I would not go to unless your sure of your computer’s security:
https://9anime.vc/watch/im-quitting-heroingl-17978?ep=89205
The isekai, or transportation to another world, trope is a popular one in anime, as is the idea that the people who undergo such transportation gain incredible powers. So what happens when those people can’t, or won’t, control those powers? “The Executioner and Her Way of Life” has a stark, and rather cold-blooded, solution: those people, and the ones who summon them, are executed a cadre of select prietesses. So why would someone risk this punishment? Simple: the powers these strangers bring offer incredible advantages to those who summon them, at least if they can control them. But when those powers can include being able to conjure something like a miniature black hole at will, as the first of the Summoned (as they’re called) can, it’s also easy to understand why controlling them is difficult, and the desire to kill them intense. This one is also looking like it will ask some difficult questions, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. You can catch it here:
https://9anime.vc/watch/the-executioner-and-her-way-of-life-17503?ep=89057
And last, but very far from least, “The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2” has started dropping episodes. I’ll admit this was one of my favorite anime when it dropping it’s first season, so I’m glad it’s back, Naofumi and his crew are return, and he’s picked up some help> It looks like he’ll need it, because this time, rather than face the monsters brought to his isekai world by the Waves, they face an even more terrible threat. This is the Spirit Tortoise, a being some huge it carries an entire section of the world on its back. Will Naofumi be able to bring it down and save the day? You can find out here:
https://www.hulu.com/series/the-rising-of-the-shield-hero-97f1d394-0ac7-48c2-bb1b-7b2575848441
And that’s it for now. I hope you find something enjoyable here.
The Andrew Reynolds site 