Oh right. I need to actually post this.
Unlike last season, my site is actually functional this time around, so I have only my own procrastination to blame. That and the hojillion summer shows. Even setting aside all the sequels, and a weirdly large number of mini-series that are only six episodes (Takopi, Let’s Go Karaoke, Food Court, etc), there’s A LOT. Not sure how many of those I want to even tackle in the first place since they’re all heavy on the melodrama, but I’ll probably at least glance at a few eventually. Let’s start with the list of sequels that I assume everybody already has an opinion on and doesn’t need any prodding.
Dandadan
Bisque Doll
Monster #8
Call of the Night
Sakamoto Days
Shield Hero
Rascal Dreams
Dr. Stone
Grand Blue
Panty & Stocking
7th Prince
Cuckoos
Reincarnated as a Vending Machine
Toilet Boy
Osomatsu
Puniru
Cute High Defense Club
Cardfight Vanguard
Sweet baby Cthulhu. Granted, I did survive to the end of the first season of a couple of those, but I can’t say that I’m eager to continue. We’ll see how the mood strikes. I’m sure my hottest of takes on Jump are the most hungrily anticipated thing in the dying world of anime blogs.
The Return of the Harem Rom Com
Tutor To Her Royal Highness – The Little Bit Cheaty Magic Lessons Begin!
https://koujodenka-anime.com/
Studio: Studio Blanc
Genre: Harem
Premieres June 28th
Show Premise:
See title.
Random Thoughts:
Brainless harem, and absolutely would’ve been porn as his schtick is to make “mana connections” with his students to bring out their magic, which absolutely puts it in the “kinda creepy” category since he’s supposed to be like 19 and most are 12. Not a reincarnation deal, but he’s the superest of super genius who fails his magic test because he kicked the prince’s ass too hard. He’s the best at absolutely everything and beloved and respected by all. If any of this is reminding you of Assassin’s Pride or Akashic Records, it’s because it’s virtually the same show, except with all the potentially interesting parts sanded off for extra haremness and nothing attempted at any kind of story. Granted, those shows didn’t live up to their premise either, but at least it was aiming higher than girls wanting to do their best, and/or snog the teacher.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Just saying. A little horror wouldn’t make things worse.
Bad Girl
https://badgirl-anime.com/
Studio: Bridge
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 5th
Show Premise:
Girl tries to misbehave but is very bad at it.
Random Thoughts:
A 4-panel comic from Kirara Carat, same as stuff like K-On, New Game, Hidamari Sketch, so on and so forth. There’s a certain pattern here. The theme this time is gyaru stuff. There’s been numerous of even those before, but usually with a dude protagonist. There’s still plenty of trashy fanservice though, both in the bouncy boobs department and pet play gift shop with the sadist hall monitor who’s the object of her crush. It didn’t scream incessantly at me in the promos though, so as far as comedies go, that puts it in the upper echelon.
Preseason Swing Rating:
If you’re not overthrowing the government, how bad a girl even are you?
The Fainting Hero and the Assassin Princesses
https://kizetsuyusha-anime.com/
Studio: Connect
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 5th
Show Premise:
Overpowered hero passes out from any dirty thoughts is in a party with women secretly trying to kill him.
Random Thoughts:
Shoved here instead of in the cheat power category because that was getting a little too crowded, though the titular hero is mainly a prop anyway as the focus is more on the trio both trying to assassinate/enslave him and each other. Naturally, they all blush when he says he’ll protect them or saves them from their own schemes that blow up, and it is indeed very fanservicey, with one of them a straight up dominatrix, but generally his role is to pass out so they can do whatever, or to show up after they start a fight with some random slavers or bandits to save the day. The manga is honestly pretty harmless as far as RPG world things go, without delving super deep into the minutia or thirty pages on guild ranks and much more like Slayers approach to fantasy despite the extreme Dragon Quest inspired character designs, though it’s not exactly brimming with comedy nor action either. Connect is as mediocre as they come too (Undead Adventurer, Ayakashi Triangle). So… I dunno. It’ll probably be okay enough.
Preseason Swing Rating:
This is not the Dragon Quest you’re looking for.
Cultural Exchange with an Arcade Girl
https://gacen-girl-anime.com/
Studio: Nomad
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 6th
Show Premise:
Boy meets English girl at arcade.
Random Thoughts:
If you ignore that he’s supposedly in college, and she’s a 7th grader, it’s pretty harmless, but that’s a bit of an ask. At least it’s a one-sided crush of her on him, with no fanservice to speak of, though the adaptation could certainly change that. The source also avoids constant factoid dumps about arcades. It just mostly takes place in one. With the awkward main character girl’s schtick being that she can’t speak Japanese. Still it respects the audience’s attention at least enough to assume they understand what a claw game is, which is more than usual. As far as the sub-genre of cute girls exist, it seems to at least have a cute girl who makes faces and makes a cutsey whimpering noise like “hau hau” or “uguu” or whatever the hell VTubers are doing these days, but that’s as much substance as there is.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Right. Mall staff. The pinnacle of sexiness.
The Three Mikadono Sisters Are Surprisingly Chill
https://mikadono.family/
Studio: PA Works
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 9th
Show Premise:
Orphan dude is adopted by family with three genius sisters.
Random Thoughts:
The big ‘twist’ here is that they’re all tomboys, but otherwise, just your typical 2000 era harem. They’re all horny for him and spontaneously ovulate at his ability to do household chores and fry an egg while he says “Golly gee, she sure likes hugging me, I’m sure it’s just platonic.” They are perfect geniuses and the entire world revolves around them, with their only flaw being how much they want to bang the dude but aren’t actually going to. That’s also a description of its jokes, which is becoming a theme for the comedies of this season. You’d also think that this would have a lot of trashy fanservice, but that’s missing too, so I’m not actually sure what the draw is meant to be.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Whoa. Special.
Random Things Happening Mainly Randomly
Detectives These Days Are Crazy
https://mattan-anime.com/
Studio: LIDENFILMS
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 1st
Show Premise:
Aging washed up private eye mentors overly excitable girl.
Random Thoughts:
This is completely slapstick with no actual crime solving going on, except on accident. His gags are mainly that he’s old and doesn’t understand modern technology. Hers are that she yells a lot, makes wacky faces, and pulls random impossible things out of nowhere. Less letherman, more rocket launcher. I guess that’s better than usual, but the promos are nonstop screaming, so more of the kind of modern Japanese humor that has made modern comedies so abrasive to me. Hopefully the show itself isn’t that bad, as genuine absurdism has been sadly lacking in anime these days.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Accurate summation of anime humor lately.
With You and the Rain
https://amekimi-anime.com/
Studio: Lesprit
Genre: Comedy?
Premieres July 5th
Show Premise:
Lady adopts a tanuki.
Random Thoughts:
She says, or it writes on a piece of paper, that it’s a dog. Then people say “That’s not a dog,” so they repeat that it’s a dog. That joke is repeated about eight times for the first 40 or so pages of the manga. That’s pretty much how all the humor goes, but at least it makes it past that joke… eventually. But it just replaces them with things like “I’m going to take a bath. Oh, did you want to take a bath too? Okay, we can take a bath together.” Repeat for going to the beach. Repeat for eating dinner. I genuinely don’t understand these kinds of things in the slightest. Contains girl. Contains tanuki. Fills 4-5 pages. Family Circus has more twists, turns, AND jokes.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Could be worse. Could be a pug.
City
https://city-the-animation.com/
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 6th
Show Premise:
Shenanigans.
Random Thoughts:
Remember Nichijou? This is that again. Quite literally. Same studio, same author, everything. Same non-sequitur jokes too. Remember that gag about randomly suplexing a deer? The promo makes sure to advertise that they also remember and will be doing it once more. But we’ve updated the comedy a little more, so now there’s a lot more yelling. Which is kind of weird since it’s also going for a very retro art style that makes it look somewhere between a manga and 2003 flash animation, but with a higher framerate than Netscape could handle. The humor of Nichijou didn’t click with me, and I doubt upping the volume is the spice that was missing, but who knows with comedy. Or me, for that matter.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Steven Sea-gull. Get it?
Nyaight of the Living Cat
https://nyailivi.com/
Studio: OLM
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 7th
Show Premise:
Zombie apocalypse, but cats.
Random Thoughts:
The inverse of School Live or any of the zillion dark magical girl things. Melodramatic zaniness where they overreact to regular cats. The problem being that overreacting to the mundane has increasingly become the only tentpole around which anime comedy is based, and putting all your eggs into a single joke is possibly eye-catching for a single gag, or maybe one episode of something like Galaxy Angel or Keroro, not something that’s going to be funny when you go back to it over and over for an entire season. Maybe if you did cat-based parodies of all manner of classic horror things, but no. The manga is just the joke of “what if zombies, but cats” to death.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Would be legit horror if it was geese instead.
What Would a Flat Chested Girl Like Me Do on an Island Straight Out of a Porn Game?
https://nukiani.com/
Studio: Passione
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 18th
Show Premise:
Siblings are exiled to a mandatory free-use island.
Random Thoughts:
Wow. A porn visual novel adaptation in the year of 2025. The VN is a bit infamous for its general weirdness and being a nonstop barrage of cultural references and sex jokes, though not so much jokes as going “Hey, look! A dildo in public!” Despite the premise, it’s about a holier-than-thou dude preaching about no sex before marriage and leading an armed resistance with sex toy weapons where he gradually discovers that his entire harem are also virgins due to various contrivances, but mostly marketability and not angering the VN audience. At this point, that absolutely counts as creative, ignoring things like ShimoNeta that did this 14 years ago, or 8 years before the game, as this adaptation is not exactly timely. Then again, it’s Passione, a studio that almost exclusively does low budget trashy fanservice, and from the PVs censoring everything, I’d be concerned the censoring is going to ruin everything. That could just be for Youtube though, as they’re being cagey as to if it’s appearing anywhere other than AT-X, home of everything uncensored.
Preseason Swing Rating:
No, I will not be explaining free-use either.
Magical Teenagers Fighting Evil Spirits
Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show
https://anime-necronomico.help/
Studio: Studio Gokumi
Genre: Action?
Premieres July 1st
Show Premise:
People are tricked into an alien survival gameshow.
Random Thoughts:
Very much an original, in every sense, though survival VR games aren’t the freshest fish on the market. The big warning flag on this for me is that the studio and head writer are the same as Yuuki Yuna, a franchise that hammered the same drum over and over again, and this looks like it very well could be going for the same thing with putting a hospitalized “just friend” front and center. I’d hope they learned from that, but since they repeated it with the power of friendship resetting every bad thing that happened each season only for the next to say no, there was an even greater price to be paid, wait, no, you’ve proven your worth through the power of friendship once again, all has once again been reversed. That sentence is a disaster. Again, original. No idea. Seems interesting. Hopefully it won’t suck.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Needs at least 25% more cosmic horror.
Clevatess – The King of Dark Beasts, A Baby, and an Undead Hero
https://clevatess.com/
Studio: Lay-duce
Genre: Action
Premieres July 2nd (1 hour premiere)
Show Premise:
King of dark beasts adopts a human baby to test if humanity is worth sparing.
Random Thoughts:
Same kind of dark(ish) fantasy as things like Ubel Blatt, right down to the protagonist being a overpowered twink. The dark part though is mostly that literally everybody but the pet harem is comically evil, a lot of people get dismembered constantly, and there’s constantly naked, beaten women, though not actually particularly fanservicey for how these things normally are. It’s fairly generic though, just that he and his undead slave girls are also carting around a baby with a weird focus on breast feeding it for far longer than is comfortable for everybody. Lay-duce is a pretty awful studio too (Compass, and that one show about pop star jockeys), and no real animation is on display in the promos. I expect little.
Preseason Swing Rating:
The only undead princess I stan.
9-nine- Ruler’s Crown
https://nine-anime.marv.jp/
Studio: PRA
Genre: Action
Premieres July 5th (1 hour premiere)
Show Premise:
Teenagers get super powers. Some become evil.
Random Thoughts:
A second porn VN adaptation in one season? Be still my heart. This one’s a lot more generic in the vein of stuff like 11Eyes or Chaos;Head, if you can remember back that far. Unfortunately, PRA (Twilight Hotel) is very low end and the promos do not advertise any either action or murder mystery, just the standard bevy of girls. There’s some poses to try to pretend like there’s action happening, but it’s not looking all that ambitious, plus it’s going for that really annoying post-Fate chuunibyou thing where everybody has excessively complicated and nonsensical powers that end up more like an obnoxious 14 year old doing improv. Like the power of flight, which gets rules lawyered into meaning that it ignores the laws of physics, so also lets one throw fireballs and travel through time. Or in layman’s terms, complete wankery nonsense.
Preseason Swing Rating:
The power of extremely thick thighs.
The Earthbound Mole
https://dekinnomogura.com/
Studio: Brain’s Base
Genre: Mystery
Premieres July 7th
Show Premise:
Kids befriend magcal ghost hunting dude.
Random Thoughts:
Fairly standard ghost hunting club schtick. Same author as Hozuki’s Coolheadedness, and a similar level of deep dive into Japanese folklore that requires ten minutes on Wikipedia just to understand what the hell anybody is talking about. The biggest reach is that the characters that appear to be ten year olds are meant to be in college. The promos look shockingly low budget, even for Brain’s Base. Supposedly it’s a little more ghost hunting and less just hanging out with various supernatural entities, but even if the manga WAS action packed, the adaptation appears to be struggling to have the budget to even animate multiple people walking simultaneously.
Preseason Swing Rating:
You face me, the third strongest mole.
Cheat Power With Reincarnation or Party Kicks, Again Again
Get Stronger – New Saga
https://tsuyosaga-pr.com/
Studio: Studio Clutch
Genre: Action
Premieres July 2nd
Show Premise:
After saving the world, dude goes back in time to re-do his adventure, but better.
Random Thoughts:
At last, we enter the cheat power reincarnation arc of the season, and buckle up, because even with having skipped all the sequels, it’s going to be an ordeal and it’s only downhill for the rest of this rundown from here. The most interesting thing about this one is is production history. It’s been bounced between multiple studios, starting with the godawful Yokohama Animation and eventually landing in a brand new studio’s hands. I don’t understand how, to be honest, as it’s the same cheat powerharem slop as a hundred thousand other shows. Even the exact premise of the hero going back in time has been done to death. So here’s that again, but with massive production issues. Starting out powerfully. Almost making me miss the “The demon lord was a SEXY GIRL!?” era.
Preseason Swing Rating:
At least have it take place in France or something.
The Water Wizard
https://mizuzokusei-anime.com/
Studio: TYPHOON GRAPHICS
Genre: Yawn
Premieres July 3rd
Show Premise:
Dude is reincarnated with water based cheat powers.
Random Thoughts:
What a restrained title for the utter tripe this actually is. Reincarnated with immortality, but just wants a ‘slow life’, and after X years, has become the strongest wizard ever. There have been around a dozen shows with that premise as their title. Promos are cheap. Premise is intellectually deficient on every level. The protagonist even wants to make cliches happen. That’s a ‘joke,’ of it. “Saving a wagon from bandits! That’s a fantasy cliche! I’m in!” Please laugh.
Preseason Swing Rating:
We all know what happens to moist boys.
Welcome to the Outcast’s Restaurant! – The Chef Who Was Exiled From The Strongest Party Opens Up a Restaurant
https://tsuihosha-shokudo.com/
Studio: OLM
Genre: Blegh
Premieres July 3rd
Show Premise:
See title.
Random Thoughts:
You can probably guess all the high points by now. Kicked out because he’s the support but he’s actually level 99 and best at everything. Immediately buys a demihuman slave girl. Entire rest of his clientele is a parade of girls being abused in some way that he saves by beating up the guy tormenting them with his maximum power level. And then a picture of excessively detailed Japanese food. That’s right. In their European setting, they’re out here serving ramen. As you do. Which is so delicious that it makes their clothing explode off them. As would happen to any medieval peasant discovering umami. Technically not reincarnation, but at this point, it may as well be since the only thing you’re changing is the world of origin.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Enjoy your authentic western sushi rolls.
A White Mage Who Was Kicked Out of the Party Was Picked Up By S-Rank Adventurers – This White Mage is Completely Unbelievable!
https://tsuiho-shiromadoshi.com/
Studio: Lantis
Genre: Trash Butts
Premieres July 5th
Show Premise:
See title.
Random Thoughts:
Yet again. He was actually super buffing everybody and the first party immediately fails without him, but he’s already moved on to an all female party who dotes on him hand and foot while he golly-gees and mumbles about how he’s not all that special while being the strongest in the world. Legitimately, this would be improved if it was porn. At least then you’d have fanservice and something that if you squinted could be mistaken for a relationship. Anybody remember MØUSE? Let’s do that again. But I guess if Persona 5 couldn’t get a phantom thief fad going, nothing will.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Why does nobody ever get kicked out by having to walk the plank?
Other World Apocalypse Mynoghra – World Conquest Starts with the Doomed Civilization
https://mynoghra-anime.com/
Studio: Maho Film
Genre: Barf
Premieres July 6th
Show Premise:
Dude is reincarnated into game as the king of the evil empire.
Random Thoughts:
Status screens. Elf slave harem. Cheat powers. Nation building via ‘realism’ (ie not being a frothing racist). All your favorite godawful tropes of this horrible genre. But it seems like we are trapped with it forever. And this is one of the ones that feels like it’s extra clever by being double extra gamey, as it turns out that all the major antagonists are also reincarnated with their own game based cheat powers, so first you get this dude with his RTS stuff, then the turn-based guy, then the Souls guy, then probably the Cooking Mama guy, when we really need the Expedition 33 guy to gommage this entire goddamned genre.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Artist depiction of the writer’s room.
Ugly Mug, Epic Fighter
https://busamen-gachi-fighter.com/
Studio: WHITE FOX
Genre: Repetition
Premieres July 6th
Show Premise:
Dude goes to RPG world. Uses charisma as dump stat to max out everything else.
Random Thoughts:
Yeah, yeah. Very different from being reincarnated as a vending machine, or dragon, or hot spring, or pig, or whatever other supposedly non-sexual thing with cheat powers. Which now includes physically unattractive people, but not so repulsive that he doesn’t have a cute girl sidekick. Something that has also been done multiple times previously, sometimes more convincingly than others, lest we forget that one where the utterly generic Kirito dude supposedly had a boring face and that was the cross weighing his life down before he got cheat powers. More of an attempt at slapstick, but as the promos show, that just means a whole heap load of yelling and overreacting, so indistinguishable from any other comedy.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Uncle Fester was absolutely a sex symbol of the 1990s.
Hot Blooded Dudes Shouting Out Their Effort
Onmyou Reverse – Re:Birth
https://onmyo-kaiten.com/
Studio: David Production
Genre: Action
Premieres July 2nd
Show Premise:
Dude is transported to onmyou land. Immediately dies and goes back in time. Pilots mecha.
Random Thoughts:
We escape cheat power shows only to barrel headlong into noisy shounen. An original, as most mecha seem to be. Real dearth of mecha manga and LNs, huh? Nobody writing trashy webnovels about giant robots? Anyway, as an original, there’s not much to go off of except the promos, which are typical spiky haired shounen mech dude yelling alternately about how he’s gotta get stronger for what he believes in, and just yelling “RAAAAAGGGGGGGH!” and janky CGI, also a mecha staple. It’s… certainly a mecha show, I guess, with all that entails.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Mecha shows could be using free copyright IP so much more interestingly.
Hell Teacher Nube
https://nube-anime.com/
Studio: Studio KAI
Genre: Action
Premieres July 2nd (1 hour premiere)
Show Premise:
Teacher with demon hand fights demons.
Random Thoughts:
Yet another in this trend of re-doing old shounen, but RIGHT this time, ie with 37% more fidelity to the source. In this case, it appears to be casting off the late 90s goofy anime aesthetic, same as the Ranma redo, and pretending that a 90s Jump manga was super duper serious despite the monsters of the week being stuff like “ghost that haunts elevators.” I’d have more stomach for these things if risks were actually taken to modernize the old characters/stories or put their own twists on them, instead of regurgitating 30 year old jokes, characters, urban legends, etc, but that’s extremely rare, and practically non-existent now that Tatsunoko has given up their whole schtick of revamping their old franchises. Nothing interesting in the promos. Kai is a low end studio (Fuuto PI, 7th Time Loop). It’s episodic Jump. Old Jump at that.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Keep your weird hand to yourself.
Complete Garbage
https://gachiakuta-anime.com/
Studio: Bones Film
Genre: Action
Premieres July 6th
Show Premise:
Dude is thrown into magical garbage pit filled with garbage monsters. Gets garbage powers.
Random Thoughts:
Goofy-ass CGI trash dragons notwithstanding, there’s at least a lot of movement in the promos, but at least half of it is closeups of faces, usually of someone’s eyes widening for dramatic effect or their face swinging around. I prefer the camera in my action shows to not be locked to six inches away from characters’ cheeks. And my trash dragons to not be ugly CGI. It’s yet more bad shounen where the gimmick is their magic widgets are based on how much emotion they have, which is to say, not actually any different at all. Hell, there’s even a character whose gimmicky trash power is that they can see people’s power levels. I expect better from Bones, though nowadays, I don’t know why I should since My Hero Academia seems to be the only thing they’re putting effort into anymore.
Preseason Swing Rating:
How do you even mess up trash monsters?
Dark Demon of Paradise
https://tougenanki-anime.com/
Studio: Studio Hibari
Genre: Action
Premieres July 11th
Show Premise:
Demon dude fights demons and demon hunters.
Random Thoughts:
Shounen through and through. He goes to demon high school where everybody’s a kung-fu fighting demon fighter with themed powers. But first, an entire test arc where they play an overly elaborate game of tag. Fighting tag. Fighting high school tag for serious teenagers. And then? A training arc, so he can learn to level up the dark power inside him so he can do his best but more. The studio’s Hibari, so while the promo doesn’t seem too bad, the only action show they’ve ever done that looked even temporarily good was High Card, and that fell off a cliff. So it’ll just have to carry itself on its incredibly shounen writing and premise. Not sure I’d bet on that.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Did someone mention a FIGHT?
Hobbies, The Hot New Thing Among Teenage Girls
Ruri’s Jewels
https://rurinohouseki.com/
Studio: Studio Bind
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 6th
Show Premise:
Girl yearns for the mines.
Random Thoughts:
Girls in a club mundania, where the club is minerology. You see, the titular Ruri sees a shiny rock, and that becomes her entire life. Yes, at around age 15, this is the first time she’s seen *checks manga again* a piece of quartz. And so, she yearns for the mines, and just so happens to find the local geologist super fan. At least it’s a club thing that I can’t say I remember having ever been done before, but also, it’s girls looking at rocks while reciting factoids about rocks. Better than the tourism advertisements that have become en vogue? Maybe. But not by much.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Yes, that is indeed, a rock.
Singing is Mille-Feuille
https://utamille.com/
Studio: Jumondou
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 6th
Show Premise:
Girls are in an a capella club.
Random Thoughts:
Technically original, but it’s just another idol show. This is part of a gimmicky pseudo-franchise that has been quietly existing for a few years as multiple idol groups, but the time has come for a marketing push to get those CDs selling, so here we are. And they’re really missing the point because, and this is subtle, but watch this video and see if you can spot what’s wrong with their a capella performance. Yeah, sure, some of their songs are a capella, but many are also not in any way shape or form a capella. Saying “shoobie doowa” doesn’t make something a capella. Which makes them just idols singing over a karaoke track, same as every other idol group. So they don’t even stick to their own gimmick. Pathetic. And I say that as someone whose college had like 14 separate feuding a capella groups roaming the campus like Gangs of New York.
Preseason Swing Rating:
How about tuba idols?
Turkey!
https://turkey-project.com/
Studio: BAKKEN RECORD
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 8th
Show Premise:
Girls bowl.
Random Thoughts:
It’s an original, so there’s not much to go off of except the very generic shots of CG bowling balls and girls declaring that they’re going to do their very best. I don’t expect to be surprised here though. Bakken Record is the spinoff of Tatsunoko that did things like Jouran, so they have SOME talent, but it’s still a sports club show, and about bowling at that. Then you look at the site and the promos it’s posting are about the VAs doing tourist adverts for the city this takes place in, and it all becomes even more clear. That promo image also looks extremely dangerous to have everybody swinging bowling balls so close together. Are they all bowling on the same lane simultaneously? That’s just reckless, but I guess combat bowling would make this much more interesting.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Come see Chikuma’s many bowling alleys.
Solo Camping For Two
https://2solocamp-anime.com/
Studio: SynergySP
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 10th
Show Premise:
Dude who solo camps is glommed onto by college girl.
Random Thoughts:
Laid Back Camp, but a girl with a dude twice her age. If your issue with that show was the lack of a dude or creepy sexual tension that won’t actually go anywhere, then good news. It’s honestly not even really about camping so much as it is about camping food. Rarely does a chapter pass where they don’t cook something excessively detailed so they can both make a face with sparkly eyes and go “SO TASTY!” That’s also what’s meant to pass as the humor. At least it’s not yelling. That’s… something. Kind of. Not really.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Beware the fancy mushrooms.
Awkward People With Poor Social Skills Learn That They’re Great
Silent Witch – The Secrets Hidden by the Wordless Witch
https://silentwitch.net/
Studio: Studio Gokumi
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 4th
Show Premise:
See title.
Random Thoughts:
Her secret is that she’s shy, and doesn’t like talking. It’s essentially Shy, except fantasy, with boys and puberty. And even less heroics. And more high school. Because just because you have super powers in fantasy land doesn’t mean you don’t have to go to high school. Which I guess makes it less like Shy and more like every single other one of these damn things about a nervous girl who’s actually super great. All the other cliches are in full force, rich girl ringlets, pointy-chinned pretty boys, talking cat familiar, etc. Somebody stab someone else already.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Turn someone into a frog, you fraud.
The Abused Noble Girl is Doted on By Her Sister’s Ex-Fiance
https://zutaboro-anime.com/
Studio: LandQ studios
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 4th
Show Premise:
See title.
Random Thoughts:
Another one of these things where the parents or king or whoever are cruel and send the princess/saint/whoever away to the other kingdom where everybody adores her unconditionally for being the pure, perfect, infallible maiden that she is while she meekly simpers and fidgets from the attention. Even her sister, who fakes her own death for her. Not as prolific as the reincarnated as a villainess schtick, but I feel like we have at least 1-2 of these every season going back a year or two. Actually, where are the reincarnated villainesses? I remember people saying they were gaining in popularity and could overtake cheat power reincarnation stories. So goddamned much for that.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Brought to you by xanax.
Bouquet for an Ugly Girl
https://busunihanatabawo.com/
Studio: Silver Link
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 4th
Show Premise:
Girls meets boy.
Random Thoughts:
Another shoujo thing where the girl is an awkward self-denigrating wallflower, but captures the attention of the handsomest most popular boy in class and it turns out that everybody actually loves her and other than the popular girl being a mean girl for one chapter, everything is sunshine and rainbows even as she stammers and stutters about what a shy awkward nobody she is. The big twist here is that the girl is 15% more unattractive than usual instead of turning into a supermodel as soon as her bangs are brushed out of her face.
Preseason Swing Rating:
…I got nothing.
Fermat’s Cuisine
https://www.fermat-anime.com/
Studio: Domerica
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 5th
Show Premise:
Struggling chef hires struggling mathematician.
Random Thoughts:
Unusually, the live action miniseries adaptation of this was localized on Netflix a couple years back, but now it’s here in anime form, which means that its attempts at character drama are a bit undermined by over the top reactions and character designs that are indistinguishable from Food Wars or Yakitate. The waitress’s glasses have spirals for pete’s sake. It is indeed much more of a melodrama of two insecure dudes learning that friendship is the secret spice, but totally not romantically, unleeeessssss… You’d also think that it’d focus on molecular gastronomy or something, but it’s just standard cooking things, only with slightly extra focus paid to exact math, which isn’t much different from any of these anime involving food in any way.
Preseason Swing Rating:
You’ve reinvented the McChicken.
The Fragrant Flowers Bloom with Dignity
https://kaoruhana-anime.com/
Studio: Cloverworks
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 5th
Show Premise:
Rich girl meets ne’er do well boy.
Random Thoughts:
A throwback to the ToraDora era where every other light novel was about a short girl befriending a guy with a ‘scary’ face, or blond hair, which from light novel cliché standards, you’d think would be the equivalent of walking around with a machete dripping blood. It is at least a romance, but one of those completely inoffensive ones where everybody is completely good natured, and the greatest conflict for entire volumes once they get past the initial rampant classism is accidentally interrupting someone by sneezing and not apologizing profusely enough, so feeling guilty until they can TRULY apologize, and then call later to apologize for not apologizing soon enough. Not quite human interactions here, let alone horny teenagers.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Nah. Eat the rich.
Awful People With Toxic Social Skills Learn Nothing
Watari’s ***** is About to Collapse
https://watarikunxx-anime.com/
Studio: Staple Entertainment
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 4th
Show Premise:
Toxic girls throw themselves at toxic dude.
Random Thoughts:
The promos have me a little confused. The LN is very much in the vein of things like Scum’s Wish or Domestic Girlfriend; a bunch of jackasses being jackasses to each other for maximum melodrama, but horny teenagers, so sexually charged. Including his ten year old sister, which is extra creepy for obvious reasons. One toxic girl per volume as it works its way through stalking, gaslighting, violent abusiveness, etc. But from the promo art and trailers, it appears to be trying to recast itself as a regular trashy fanservice harem. It absolutely could be trying to hide the drama for better impact, or maybe it’s sanding down all the edges to just be fanservice. I don’t even know which would be better as I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed any of those melodramatic shows about miserable people being self-destructive asses, but at least it’s somewhat more unusual than the alternative.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Toxic AND haunted.
The Summer Hikaru Died
https://hikanatsu-anime.com/
Studio: Cygames Pictures
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 5th
Show Premise:
Dude dies and is replaced by a creature in his body.
Random Thoughts:
This isn’t really a horror story, at least the original source. I’m not entirely sure what to call it, as its whole schtick is a bit weird. It’s very heavily insinuated that the two had feelings for each other, and the doppelganger is confused because that’d be GAY, and what’s up with that? And the still-human dude is all “Look, I loved him, and therefore I love any eldritch horrors puppeting his body.” And so he’s really conflicted when crop circles or dismembered goats appear whether to out the monster or not, even while things don’t escalate much further than that. I’m not sure that’s the greatest metaphor for struggling with your sexual identity, or grief, or anything.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Dude. It’s 2025. People are horny for monsters. Get with the times.
Hotel Inhumans
https://hotel-inhumans.com/
Studio: Bridge
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 6th
Show Premise:
People work at a hotel exclusively for assassins.
Random Thoughts:
The same nonsensical premise as The Continential, but instead of being a flimsy pretense for putting a bunch of criminals in a building and having them try to kill each other, it wants to be a more human story where every amoral killer is just doing this as their day job and is actually a dedicated family man, or was driven into it by being kidnapped as a child. So feel sorry for these people doing the bidding of the rich and powerful, for they too are people just like you and me. Not the kind of story I ever enjoy, and especially not now given *waves hands* let’s just say the state of the world. Also, it’s Bridge, and they’re quite awful (Farmagia, Shaman King).
Preseason Swing Rating:
So few classic noir criminals these days.
There’s No Way I’d Be Your Girlfriend, That’s Impossible! (*It’s Not Impossible)
https://www.watanare-anime.com/
Studio: Studio MOTHER
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 7th
Show Premise:
See title.
Random Thoughts:
Yes, that is the full title. It’s the very trashy fanservice flavor too. The LN cover has someone’s hand up the other one’s crotch and the promo is mostly a montage of her being slammed against various surfaces while the other one mounts her. Fair’s fair, this is old hat for dudes on dudes, but it’s not exactly unique for girls either, nor do I have any personal fondness for those kinds of shows regardless of gender. It’s basically a parade of the main girl being molested by each new girl that shows up, only to have a different one interrupt before someone actually has an appendage inside the other. Maybe the anime adaptation will tone it down, but it sure doesn’t seem like it.
Preseason Swing Rating:
Extra yeasty.
Wrapup:
Whew. There’s a lot this season, plus To Be Hero is continuing, though that’s already transitioned in my head to about the same place as Lazarus where I’m mainly watching for the animation. I guess the story hasn’t gotten anywhere near as dire as Lazarus’s did though. Who knows, Dandadan or Call of the Night may win me back, but as I recall, both ended on some really messed up attempted rape stuff, so I don’t have the fondest memories. At least there’s quite a few originals and action shows, though can’t say any blew me away with their animation. We shall see.
