天下制覇

Dog and Scissors
http://inuhasa.jp/
Studio: Gonzo
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 1st

Summary: 
Harumi was shot and killed during a robbery, but reincarnated in the body of a dog owned by a sadistic, scissors using novelist. Together, they fight crime.

Personal Thoughts:
Oh boy, Gonzo doing a magical girlfriend light novel adaptation? I can hardly contain myself. Staff’s a bunch of nobodies too, although the head writer was the guy behind Tokyo Majin, which certainly has a lot to be said about its writing, good and bad. The promo was a bit filled with speedlines, bad splash screens, and dachshunds screaming, so I think it’s a safe assumption that this is going to be cheap and filled with the blaring klaxons of the low end of Japanese humor.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Probably more successful than cat and fork.

BROTHERS CONFLICT
http://www.bc-anime.com/
Studio: Brain’s Base
Genre: Romance
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 2nd (Very early morning)

Summary: 
Ema’s father remarries and she ends up living with her 11 new stepbrothers and becoming closer to all these new men her age in her life.

Personal Thoughts: 
The part of the premise that disturbs me the most, it’s that this woman apparently has nearly a dozen male sons, all of approximately the same age. It’s creepy whether she was going around adopting underaged boys to then throw into a mansion all alone with a strange girl, or if they’re all hers. The best I can think to say about the staff is that the head writer has a lot of experience doing boring shows where absolutely nothing ever happens. Brain’s Base isn’t what one would call an animation powerhouse either. And I don’t even see a single monocle on any of them.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Why can’t we all get along? Ah right, it’d end in a mass gangbang.

Grand Justice!! Kanetsugu and Keiji
http://gifuu.jp/
Studio: DEEN
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 2nd

Summary: 
The story of Kanetsugu and Keiji’s friendship during Japan’s sengoku era. Together, they fight evil.

Personal Thoughts: 
"Fist of the North Star, but in Japan," probably sums it up pretty well given the source and director. And like such and every single one of it and its countless editions and offshoots, I assume it will have a budget of whatever they can find in the couch cushions and be a whole lot of dour looking men glaring at each other. Okay, so I cheated and already saw the awful animation in the promo, as well as men looking deeply into their eyes while cherry blossoms swirl around them. It doesn’t take a clairvoyant here.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Two straight men.

Tamayura ～More Aggressive～
http://www.tamayura.info/
Studio: TYO Animation
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 3rd

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures of Fuu and her friends. Also, they take pictures or something.

Personal Thoughts: 
I didn’t bear too much ill will toward the first episode of the first season. It was nicely atmospheric, characters were lively, and it was even occasionally cute at times, but it was still like looking into a strange world where I had no idea what the point of anything in it was supposed to be. I’ll never understand these kinds of shows. Even Lassie managed to have a plot every week and all that was about was "boy loves dog," not even in the creepy Japanese way where the dog was secretly his childhood girlfriend all along. I’m also not sure what makes this "more aggressive." Maybe they’re adding a bear.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

As aggressive as mechanized hamster troops.

Free!
http://iwatobi-sc.com/
Studio: Kyoto Animation / Animation Do
Genre: Wet Boys
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 3rd

Summary: 
The life, times, and rivalry of the boys of a high school swim team.

Personal Thoughts: 
One of the big questions is "what is this show actually about?" One that continues to go unanswered besides "dripping wet boys." It’s not even clear who’s really in charge here, KyoAni or… uh… A.Do. Yes, the initial ad was animated well. KyoAni’s involvement always makes things look good, except for Munto, but we don’t talk about that. "Pretty but vapid and soulless" more or less sums up the whole KyoAni field in recent years as far as I’m concerned. I do know that I’m not a fan of sports shows, no matter how well animated they may be, nor do I think I’d feel comfortable watching glistening naked men prance around talking about friendship and doing their best before getting back to wetly grunting and gasping for air.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Absolutely 100% Sticky Icky Nuts-On-Top Straight.

Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C³
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/stella/
Studio: Gainax
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 4th

Summary: 
When Yura transfers to Stella Academy, she’s roped into joining a club that participates in survival games.

Personal Thoughts: 
Technically, the source’s title has a few more adjectives attached to it, but the adaptation cuts off the first four words. I only didn’t include it because it didn’t fit. Any attempts to understand what exactly this show is besides "girls in a club with airsoft guns" were met with something of a brick wall with no promo material to speak of or any meaningful descriptions of the source material anywhere except "it exists," and I’m not even going to take that on faith. I don’t even know what the selling point’s supposed to be. GuP at least pretended to be about tanks and Upotte about moaning girls in thongs guns. Oh, and the staff’s a bunch of nobodies plus Gainax adaptations are right up there with Gonzo original works in terms of general success rate for the last half decade or so.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Blitzkrieg the C³.

Danganronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair
http://www.geneonuniversal.jp/rondorobe/anime/danganronpa/
Studio: Lerche
Genre: Thriller
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 4th

Summary: 
15 students, all the elite in their fields, are invited to join a prestigious academy, but upon arriving, are trapped inside. The only way out is to commit a murder without being caught, which will sentence everyone else to death. If they are caught, then they’re immediately put to death themselves.

Personal Thoughts: 
Don’t let Lerche being the studio confuse you. This is the exact same staff on the directorial and writing side as Devil Survivor 2. Well, and Carnival Phantasm. Lerche’s last attempt at a TV show (Majikoi) was a tad underfunded for what they clearly were trying to do. Game adaptations generally don’t turn out well though, and I’m not sure how an investigatory who-dun-it removing all the actual investigatory interaction from the story could work well with Japan’s usual "copy and paste the script, call that the screenplay" approach to adaptations. Maybe they’ll be ambitious and write their own set of mysteries using the same characters. And maybe my bowel movements will suddenly turn a delightful plaid.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
                          
A true gentleman leaves no puzzle unsolved!

Rozen Maiden
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/rozen/
Studio: DEEN
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 4th

Summary: 
Seven magical gothic dolls fight each other to become the perfect girl in the eyes of their original creator.

Personal Thoughts: 
It’s not really known yet if this is a remake, continuation, spinoff cooking contest, or what yet. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first season, but it pulled itself together well toward the end. The second season was relatively solid for the most part though. Of course, with a new staff, studio, and having no idea what they’re even doing with it, who knows? I’m not too concerned about the switch from Nomad to Deen in studio. Granted, they’re doing four shows this season, but they’ve been handling the production of their non-BL shows pretty well for the last few years, and definitely can flex their animation muscles when the stars align, even if the writing has been mostly less than stellar. It’s enough to be cautiously optimistic. If any of their shows this season are going to get their talent, it’s going to be this one.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
     
Too goddamned much tea.

Love Lab
http://www.love-lab.tv/
Studio: Dogakobo
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 4th

Summary: 
Riko walks in on Maki practicing kissing on a pillow, and is forced to become her confidant as well as help her learn more about romance.

Personal Thoughts: 
Yuruyuri’s staff and studio here, in another world mysteriously empty of penises, except imagined or drawn on pillows. It seems like a harmless enough reboot of Yuruyuri with a different set of characters and a slightly greater focus on romance. None of them look to have quite the same charm of… whose her face with the red hair… or Kyouko’s energy, as sick of that as I got at times. It’s on a very full day though, so I suspect whether or not I follow this will likely be determined more by whether or not other shows impress or annoy me.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Super Stamp It Stamp It No Erasies Mega Straight.

Symphogear G
http://www.symphogear-g.com/
Studio: Satelight
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 4th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures of magical girls powered by singing fighting against the invading Noise.

Personal Thoughts: 
I really liked a lot of the first season. I also was bored to utter death by a lot of the first season, very frequently in the same episode. The action was very well animated, directed, choreographed with great musical direction, and perhaps most importantly, maintained through the entire season. Everything else ranged from tedious to utterly inane, and the scales only tilted more and more to the maggots-in-the-writer’s-brains end of the scale as the second half went on. Of course, with mostly new staff here, god only knows which direction the sequel’s going to lean in or if it’s going to spazz off in some other direction. Hopefully it can keep up its great fight scenes most episodes and solidish main characters that were the strengths of the first season. The more it cuts away from the whining normies in the show, the better, and the one real promo for it does seem to be 100% on the magical girls and action. When you have singing valkyries using guns and swords the size of skyscrapers, coughing up lungs in attempts to make up for the death of their experimented-on totally platonic crazy friend, nobody wants to see a bunch of incompetents stuck in an elevator, struggling to push a button, crying about hurt feelings.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

One quarter bi on its father’s side.

The Records of the Going Home Club
http://www.ntv.co.jp/kitakubu/
Studio: NOMAD
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 4th

Summary:
The life and times of a club of girls who go home early to hang out.

Personal Thoughts: 
What a unique premise that certainly isn’t anywhere else this season. Staff’s nothing noteworth either. Newbie director, and the crown in the head writer’s tiara is Shin Koihime. Nomad’s at least generally competent, I guess, although not much moe than that, and not releasing any real promo material isn’t really a great sign that the production is going to impress. Or give any real idea about how they’re going to spin this to make it stand out from the already hundreds of "girls in a club do nothing," besides the mindblowing twist of the club being not at school.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Two clefables with attitude.

Servant x Service
http://www.servantservice.org/
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 4th

Summary: 
The life and times of a bunch of workers at a welfare and social services office.

Personal Thoughts: 
The studio and source share Working’s pedigree, but not the head writer or director, who are from that Rock Lee Naruto spinoff and Squid Girl/Problem Children respectively. They also seem to be releasing a neverending series of promos of just one character jumproping. I’m not sure what that means. I guess it seems harmless enough if they can actually hit the comedy again like with Working, but again, Thursdays are packed this season and I’m not really seeing any big hook here from the staff, studio, premise, or presentation thus far.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Two government repesentatives.

Ro-Kyu-Bu! SS
http://www.ro-kyu-bu.com/
Studio: project No.9
Genre: Fetishism
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 5th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures of coach Subaru and his team of ball handling underaged, panting and gasping little girls.

Personal Thoughts: 
Yet another show I didn’t make it past the first episode of (a continuing theme for this season), but what I do remember was that it was almost all just fetishizing the little girls. Making them sweaty, dressing them up in maid outfits, panting, gasping, moaning, squealing, and when ideas ran out, just watching them shower. And this was just in one episode, although from glancing around, the OVA released just recently released has… well, let’s say it involves him grabbing one of them, wrenching her thighs open, and shoving his fingers into her crotch. Without that, there’s… uh… Subaru twiddling his thumbs like the useless sack of flesh he is? Same staff too. Oh, 7Arcs director. What ever are you doing here?

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
REMEMBER ME! REMEMBER ME! REMEMBER ME!

Golden Mosaic
http://www.kinmosa.com/
Studio: Gokumi
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 6th

Summary: 
Shinobu loves foreigners, and has even lived in Britain for a while. Her friend from there is now coming to Japan to live alongside her.

Personal Thoughts: 
Oh hey, yet another show of four to five girls hanging out together. They could just call it the Britain club and remove the last trace of anything threatening to be even slightly unique. I’m also betting that the whole "Britain" thing ends at some bad pronunciation and blondes. Its source is one of those four panel comic things too, and the promos look like they’re taking it strictly by the books and couple probably be replaced by any of the dozen others.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

The most influential foreigner in Japan.

The Sun Shines Through Illusions
http://www.geneitaiyo.com/
Studio: AIC
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 6th (Pre-air special June 27th)

Summary: 
A group of magical girls use the power of the tarot to read other people’s fortunes and handle supernatural events that occur.

Personal Thoughts: 
There’s some reason to be optimistic for this one. It does have Loli Basketball’s staff in more of their magical girl/action natural environment and AIC certainly can animate, although not always does. The promos look fairly solid too, featuring some actual animation, and some interesting visual direction, both a rarity for this season. It’s a completely original show, so there’s not a whole lot to say besides gawking a bit at the promos. I guess the large cast hopefully means they’ll be cruising right along, always a good thing. Hopefully it won’t be vacuous tripe with a budget that collapses out from under it in the first couple episodes.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Four dancing robot frogs.

Fate Kaleid Liner: Prism Illya
http://www.prisma-illya.jp/
Studio: Silver Link
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 6th (Niconico)

Summary: 
Spinoff of the Fate series, featuring Illya getting Magical Ruby instead of Rin and becoming a magical girl collecting magical things vs other magical girls.

Personal Thoughts: 
Unlike their last few shows, this is Silver Link through and through, director, writer, etc. I’ve generally liked their very expressive artistic direction and strong production, even if some… or many… of their gimmicks don’t really work out. At least they’re trying, and have a lot more tricks in their bag than Shinbo does these days. Plus, of course, I did like Type Moon well enough to translate Battle Moon Wars, so I think I count as a biased fan. So long as it doesn’t test my patience by throwing waves after waves after waves of dour talking heads at me like some show I could name, it’s pretty much a shoe-in as far as I’m concerned. Hopefully they can pull the writing and pacing together a bit better than they have for their adaptations over the last few years though.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

75% chance that Neco Arc is the final boss.

Monogatari Series Second Season
http://www.monogatari-series.com/2ndseason/
Studio: Shaft
Genre: Talking
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 6th

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures of Araragi, ex-vampire and sole owner of a penis, which makes him uniquely qualified to unquestioningly solve the problems of every single female within a 15 mile radius. 

Personal Thoughts: 
I’ve made my distaste for Shinbo’s love for throwing random crap up on the screen while an audiotape plays and calling it a day. Or his love for putting all the budget into 30 seconds and leaving most of the other 20 minutes unanimated. I didn’t find the dialogue clever nor the visuals anything more than perhaps desperate for attention, yet somehow also often cheaper than piss. I can still see that godawful playground from episode 3 of the original series when I close my eyes. I’m sure I’ll gawk at the OP since Shaft always does those well. At least assuming they manage to finish it before the end of July, but don’t count on much more than that from me.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Excess of chicks, lack of culling.

Genshiken: The Next Generation
http://genshiken-2daime.com/
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 6th

Summary: 
The club for the study of modern visual culture’s life and times, recruiting a new class of people for their anime and manga ‘research’ club. 

Personal Thoughts: 
While I generally enjoyed the first season, the second decided that its premise wasn’t really working out and it wanted to be a somewhat infuriating relationship melodrama instead, although melodrama may be too heavy a word for it since the primary thing keeping events from happening was a fat lot of stammering and blushing between two characters without a single personality trait between them… and I think it lasted the entire damned season. Same head writer as the show’s always had and same director as the second season, which just makes me preemptively foam at the mouth.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
If it’s college, where’s all the beer?

The Sunday Without God
http://www.kami-nai.com/
Studio: Madhouse
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 6th

Summary: 
15 years ago, God left the world. Nobody is born anymore, and the dead cannot rest at peace. Ai is a Gravekeeper who tries to give the dead respite, but a man appears in her village and reveals something that changes everything she knows about the world.

Personal Thoughts: 
This could be interesting. It certainly has probably the most interesting premise of the season, although that’s not saying much. The head writer’s a little unfortunate (UtaPri being the most recent show), with every single adaptation they’ve worked on moving at an ant’s crawl, but the director’s last show was Nobuna (also with Madhouse), so that’s not too bad. The promos are a little too focused on the scenery porn to excite me too much though. At least it’s pretty scenery, but that’s not what’s going to carry a show.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Look upon your gods and despair.

Fantasista Doll
http://www.fantasistadoll.com/
Studio: Hoods
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 6th

Summary: 
Uzume finds a bunch of magical cards that can summon magical dolls. She accepts a contract and uses them to protect the world.

Personal Thoughts: 
Hoods’s first foray into something not disturbingly fetishistic, but who knows? Maybe the cards have to be squeezed between her thighs or only work when licked then rubbed on a nipple. It’s an original series, so the sky’s the limit! It’s not their usual director either (Haganai/SoraOto), plus the ‘genius’ behind the whole concept and whatnot is Geass’s creator. Hoods has never been known for wowing anybody with the technical side of their production. That certainly makes it a lot of things, but I’m not sure how many of them are things to be excited about. Its token Tuxedo Mask bishie does have a monocle though, so that’s one thing it got right that so many other shows flubbed.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Wrong dolls.

High School DxD
http://www.haremking.tv/
Studio: TNK
Genre: ‘Action’
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 7th (Pre-air special June 25th)

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures of Issei, the pawn in a chess themed gang of demons and their fight against clothing worn by females.

Personal Thoughts: 
For the life of me, I cannot remember almost a single thing from the first season and looking back at my own posts would be cheating. I can’t even remember the OVA I watched a month or two back. There was a rapist priest or something, and then the last battle was in an arena maybe? I think an episode was about finding a pokemon too. That doesn’t speak highly to it. I do remember that it didn’t have much of an animation budget and it violates Dutch angles so badly they won’t be able to walk straight for a week. Just Another T&A Harem Show™ sums it up pretty well, but unlike its previous season, it’s not airing up against nothing, although the competition for Sundays isn’t exactly fierce either. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Powerless in a pantsless world.

Ecstatic Family
http://www.uchoten-anime.com/
Studio: PA Works
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 7th

Summary: 
Humans live alongside the tanuki and tengu, although not exactly completely peacefully. This is the story of a family of tanuki and what happens when their father dies.

Personal Thoughts: 
It’s hard to get a good read on the source, and no, reading Amazon reviews of the novel didn’t help much. It seems to be a largely absurdist modern fantasy-type world and style of humor. Japan usually hasn’t excelled at that though. It does have one of the more impressive promos of the season though, but that’s not too surprising for PA Works. Them and I don’t usually get along very well, but it’s not their usual staff. Director’s never been in charge of directing before, and the head writer’s the grand vizier behind things like last season’s Teenage Romantic What’sit and Lagrange. I don’t really know what to think, I guess.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
One third an ecstatic family.

Eight Dogs of the East
http://www.hakken-den.com/
Studio: DEEN
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 7th

Summary: 
Continuation from winter. The continuing adventures of a bunch of magical boys running away from the church and looking for magical rocks.

Personal Thoughts: 
The first season didn’t even keep my interest to the end of the episode. Poorly animated, slow, talky, uneventful, boring characters… And this was the episode that was supposed to hook me. Staff’s completely the same anyway, so don’t expect any great changes. Just another in Deen’s very, very long line of lightly homoerotic male adventure things that remain disturbingly profitable for them.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Straighter than a turgid submarine full of seamen

Blood Lad
http://www.bloodlad.jp/
Studio: Brain’s Base
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 7th

Summary: 
Fuyumi accidentally wanders into the demon world  finds a vampire there who’s obsessed with human culture. She ends up killed and turned into a ghost, so he agrees to try to bring her back to life so he has a chance to experience the world that fascinates him.

Personal Thoughts: 
This isn’t exactly the A Team for comedy, with Library Wars being the only thing between the entire staff that even comes close. Brain’s Base has been on the rather low side of production lately too. The promo wasn’t exactly impressive either, with some particularly painful abuse of speedlines and the massive full screen visual whizbang that Japan so often needs to signal a joke. "Wacky supernatural male and his human female sidekick," isn’t going to be burning up the charts for creative premise either, so try as I might, I’m not seeing much here that sounds very promising.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Two Batmen and half a Doc Ock.

Devils and Realist
http://makai-ouji.com/
Studio: Dogakobo
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 7th 

Summary: 
William suddenly finds his family bankupt, and while searching his home for anything valuable to sell, he accidentally summons a demon who tells him that he needs to choose the substitute ruler of Hell. The candidates start joining his school and courting his favor so he’ll pick them.

Personal Thoughts: 
Ah, Chiaki Kon, returning from her directing hiatus and right back to a little boy on boy action. What tremendous joy. I guess it’s a little bit of a surprise that Dogakobo’s here since they’ve traditionally been on the lesbian side when it comes to homoerotic pandering. Maybe they’re trying to horn in on Deen’s territory. But again, not even one of them seems to have a monocle. Do these people have no idea what they’re doing whatsoever? Also, the promos were cheap and anything but impressive. Color me excited.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

150% Mega Duper Ultra Deluxe Slapsy Slapsy No Take Backs Straight.

The World God Only Knows
http://kaminomi.jp/
Studio: Manglobe
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 8th

Summary: 
Sequel series. Keima’s continuing adventures, curing the hearts of girls and providing Manglobe ample material with which to shill CDs.

Personal Thoughts: 
Did I finish the first season? I don’t think I did. I’m fairly certain I kept the second season far away at any rate, and I can’t imagine that I’d pick it back up now. Manglobe is nothing if not consistent, and I have every reason to believe that The Unlimited is going to remain their magnum opus for a long time to come. It does have a ‘new’ director (did one of the OVAs for the series), but same old stretch-this-crap-out-because-we-need-more-insert-songs head writer, so hoo-bloody-ray for that, eh?

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
Please rest in peace. Please.

No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular!
http://www.watamote.jp/
Studio: Silver Link
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 8th

Summary: 
After being upopular all her life, Tomoko has studied up and is determined to be popular in high school, whether or not anybody else likes it.

Personal Thoughts: 
The twist here is that the source isn’t a light novel, it just has an obnoxious title like one, although Yen Press decided it wasn’t obnoxious enough and added a few extra words to it just to be contrary. Silver Link’s other show for the season with the exact same director, and yet for some reason, I don’t feel particularly enthusiastic. The staff’s got the talent and experience, but the promo just looks dull as dishwater. Barely animated, overdone reactions for punchlines to jokes not even in the PV, and just kind of poor all around. There’s a few hints of Silver Link’s style, just not very many. Maybe all the time and effort got funneled into Illya.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
   
The Sheep Man Award for second most ill thought out name of the season.

Silver Spoon
http://www.ginsaji-anime.com/
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 11th

Summary: 
Yuugo assumed that by joining an agricultural school, he’d be able to excel without even trying, but farming’s a lot more work than he expected and he has a lot to learn.

Personal Thoughts: 
Awwww. noitaminA’s back. Well, partially. The other show for this season is a rerun again. Still, it’ll be the first noitaminA I’ve had to nap through since last October. Anyway, the snoozeariffic director of Sword Art Online and the glacially boring head writer of Bunny Drop combine their super powers to recreate Moyashimon without a single one of the things that made it even vaguely interesting, namely the bacteria and crossdressing. As I’ve said, Thursdays are packed this season. Unless that cow is going to shoot bees out of its mouth, I imagine this will be as exciting as watching someone learn about grass growing.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Zzzzzz………snrk………zzz………

Hyperdimension Neptunia
http://www.nep-anime.tv/
Studio: David Production
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 12th

Summary: 
In the video game world of Gameindustri, four faction and their goddesses all live in peace and have adventures along with their little sisters.

Personal Thoughts: 
Ah, David Production. Spawn of Gonzo. You have yet to make a show that did not bore me. Somehow, I doubt that adapting a game I already found boring to read and painful to play is going to change that. Well, technically, from what’s been written about it, it’s less an adaptation and more just screwing around in the universe. Director and head writer are at least new for them. And for everything. The promos are far from impressive as well… or even average. Which is kind of appropriate given the terrible game origins, I guess. I suppose what I’m saying is that I do not see any reason to expect anything.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Unabashedly homosexual.

Gatchaman Crowds
http://www.ntv.co.jp/GATCHAMAN_Crowds/
Studio: Tatsunoko Production
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 12th

Summary: 
Hajime joins Gatchaman, a group of superheroes protecting the world against aliens and the mysterious forces of MESS.

Personal Thoughts: 
This is a reboot/reimagining of the very very old Gatchaman series, although this time with fewer bird costumes. The main staff is also coming right over from that noitaminA fishing show, so… that’s weird. There’s no promo material to speak of here either, so uh… I guess Tatsunoko generally does a good job with animation, although C seems the closest thing to compare it to of theirs and that certainly had a large number of production issues. Your guess is as good as mine.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Real superheroes dress like birds that crashed into a spandex truck.

Milky Holmes
http://www.milky-holmes-anime.com/futari/
Studio: JC Staff / Artland
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 13th (Pre-air special on the 6th)

Summary: 
Sequel series. The continuing adventures of the incompetent superpowered girl detectives, now with even more girls.

Personal Thoughts: 
While I adored the first season, the second season rather unfortunately just smushed all the protagonists together into a single obnoxious squawking amorphous mass, only kept the first season’s antagonists and side characters around to make cameo appearances, and threw every single egg they had into the singular punchline of "How random was that!?" Aaaand since this has a whole new staff behind it, god only knows which of the two directions they’re going to go in. Flip a coin, and then throw it out because the default for shows is just bland blandy blandness anyway.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

One and a half Monobears.

A Town Where You Live
http://kiminoirumachi.com/
Studio: Gonzo
Genre: Romance
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres July 13th (short airing???)

Summary: 
Yuzuki moves to the rural countryside to attend highschool, but she already knows and has a crush on a boy there who likes someone else. This is the story of their relationship developing.

Personal Thoughts: 
Ah yes, the OVA that was so boring that it made me temporarily appreciate that awful show about a college student whose nieces were trying to have sex with him. Okay, so probably not too relevant since it’s a different staff and studio, but it’s still not a positive first impression. You know me though, maudlin relationship nonsense which is primarily based on crippling Japanese social anxiety just makes me want to throttle absolutely everyone involved in it. I’ve seen them handle it well before, so I know it can be done, but the first two relationship shows I enjoyed that come to mind involve dream eating space bugs and a perpetually horny, sexually unsatisfied female virgin, so perhaps it’s all about the seasoning after all. Of which this seems to have very little except the tangy taste of Gonzo. Yuck.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
       
Five bottles of warm piss.