Girls Try Their Best… In Vaguely Fantasy Lands

Yohane's Parhelion – SUNSHINE in the MIRROR
https://www.yohane.net/
Studio: Sunrise
Genre: Idols
Premieres June 25th

Show Premise: 
Girl wants to be an idol. Is magical.

Random Thoughts:
This is a spinoff of Love Live based on a gag comic and originally announced as an April Fool's joke. The first episode did air (it's doing a week-ahead thing on Abema) and it was… certainly just more Love Live. She wants to be an idol. She tries to be an idol. She does a generic song and dance. Everybody in the area claps. Also there's a talking dog. The last part is technically new, and the most 'magical' thing about the new setting for it, but the original had alpacas to start with, so adding a voice isn't mixing things up much.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

5nowdog5.

Atelier Ryza – The Queen of Eternal Darkness and the Secret Hideout
https://ar-anime.com/
Studio: Lidenfilms
Genre: Thighs
Premieres July 1st* (one hour premiere)

Show Premise: 
Magical teenagers wear booty shorts.

Random Thoughts:
Yes, that's the full actual title, not "Ever Darkness" or whatever. And no, the first shot in the PV isn't her thighs. It's her chest, and then her thighs, and right after, another closeup of her thighs, then her ass, then more of her thighs and chest. You can't say that they aren't following the game's marketing cues. I mentioned this with the Eschalogy adaptation, but while I (mostly) enjoyed Iris and Dusk, and consider much of Khemia to be shockingly brilliant, the rest of the Atelier series is a wide miss, especially Mysterious and Ryza which are reaching comical levels for how half-assed they've been. The adaptation certainly appears to be in that trend, and Liden is an uneven studio at the best of times. It's not like there's been a lack of not-Atelier knockoff adaptations as is anyway. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 

How about just angry dwarves instead?

Helck
https://www.helck-anime.com/
Studio: Satelight
Genre: Variable
Premieres July 11th

Show Premise: 
Hero who slayed the demon lord seeks to replace him.

Random Thoughts:
This is another curious one. The manga starts out as corny slapstick not dissimilar from Mashle; a lantern-jawed idiot with an explicit power level of over whatever performing feats of dexterity and intelligence by posing and yelling loudly while the female lead overreacts and yells "THAT WAS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED TO HAPPEN." But it meanders its way into the super racist genocidal humans shockingly being revealed to be evil, but also controlled by eldritch horrors using RPG tropes for, again shockingly, evil. A real twist on the formula, if you ignore every single RPG going back to, I dunno, let's say Ultima in 1981. It is Satelight handling the animation, but they really phone it in for adaptations and reserve the real effort for their originals. The promos are definitely not up the standards of stuff like Symphogear or even Sakugan, nor are any of their more talented people on this. It's not a long manga, and I'm a firm believer in presentation over twists, but the promos do have a lot of the girl screaming BAKA, and I'm already sick and annoyed of that, so if that's how the story's going to be told…

Preseason Swing Rating: 

If the last boss isn't the Christian god, it's space Cthulhu.

Deeply Unhealthy Relationships, Romanticized

About My Small Senior at My Job
https://chiisaisenpai.com/
Studio: Project No.9
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 1st

Show Premise: 
See title.

Random Thoughts:
Despite every volume of the source manga here being the titular's character's chest inflated about six more sizes to take up about 75% of the cover, and the side marketing stuff just being straight up softcore porn, there's actually not a ton of T&A in the source. It's mainly light flirting between the two, both blush, everybody goes "SO, YOU TWO HOOKING UP OR WHAT!?" and then they blush again. If you're expecting things to progress even so far as accidentally brushing the other's hand, you're in for disappointment. The PV does play up the fanservice and chest shots, as Project no 9 is wont to due. Just another one of these dumb things with the particular fetish being short girls with large chests.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Double stuffed dumplings.

The Dreaming Boy Came to His Senses
https://yumemirudanshi.com/
Studio: Studio Gokumi
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 3rd

Show Premise: 
Dude realizes he's being a creep by constantly harassing his crush.

Random Thoughts:
I'd like to give this the benefit of the doubt, but it's not exactly a rejection of that kind of misogynist silliness when the girl transparently misses it and blushes constantly over not being lavished with attention by a stalker. So you have this dude who internally narrates that he was being completely superficial and a jerk, and every female around falls for him for… well, pretty much just existing, both as a stalker and in telling them "maybe being a stalker is bad." A win/win, because he's the protagonist, with plenty of them blushing and glomping him so he can internally narrate how their chest is pressed against him and what a boner that gives him. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Still less self-aware than a Pikmin.

The Girl I Like Forgets Her Glasses
https://anime.shochiku.co.jp/sukimega/
Studio: GoHands
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 4th

Show Premise: 
See title.

Random Thoughts:
GoHands is doing some weird stuff this season. Okay, that's not wholly accurate. GoHands (K, Hand Shakers, etc) stuff is weird by default, so weird for them means they're doing incredibly boring melodrama/slice-of-life braindead vapidity, but that doesn't mean they're going any less hard on the bloom, CGI, or excessively detailed over-animation. This is the same as the other hojillion dude with no personality meets quirky girl shows. That's the whole premise and storyline. She forgets his glasses and he fusses over her. Nothing more intense than breathing the same air, yet hyperventilating about that will absolutely ensue. Will GoHands's production be enough to carry it for the people who can tolerate this dreck? It's at least in line with their usual godawful pacing, so… maybe?

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Then she'll be vulnerable when the frog kunoichi attack.

My Happy Marriage
https://watakon-anime.com/
Studio: Kinema Citrus
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 5th

Show Premise: 
Girl is forcibly married off to a supposedly cruel man, but is actually the perfect husband.

Random Thoughts:
There are technically some magical powers involved here, but this is much more of a "woe is me" kind of story, where every single character, protagonist included, spends the entire thing explaining over and over and over and over again how cruel life has been to her even while she lives in the lap of luxury with every want and need immediately attended to. The kind of 'drama' where every issue is resolved immediately but the lamentation about past injustices remains eternal, with some rando popping up every now and then to yell at her. I guess at least this time the dude isn't secretly a lion demon. Nice to have a temporary break from that trend. I mean, if the currently airing one wasn't just going straight ahead for another twelve episodes.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Another show that would be better if they were all dwarves.

Temple
https://temple-anime.com/
Studio: Gekkou
Genre: Boobs
Premieres July 8th

Show Premise: 
Dude wants to be less horny, so becomes a monk at a temple full of horny half-naked girls.

Random Thoughts:
And they immediately all start fighting over who gets to rub themselves on him the most. It's that kind of manga. Because despite constantly tripping and ripping off clothes, walking in on them undressing, so on and so forth, he's a Nice Guy™. Are these dumb things making a comeback from 20 years ago? But even if we're comparing it to its ilk from the times of yore, it doesn't seem like there's much to stand out. Just lazy fanservice. Nobody's a secret ninja or magical girl or fell into a weird Chinese gender swapping spring. Just… horny dude with a bunch of horny girls.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Most likely to have a booty shaking ED.

Obligatory Cheat Power Corner

Am I Actually the Strongest?
https://jitsuhaoresaikyo-anime.com/
Studio: Staple Entertainment
Genre: Paining Me
Premieres July 1st

Show Premise: 
Reincarnated idiot has cheat powers.

Random Thoughts:
Yeeep. The magic scouter only goes to two digits, so him with his power level of a zillion hojillion yada yada same as every single goddamned one of these. Couldn't it at least be like a calculator where they misread what "2e15" means? He immediately enslaves a super wolf that transforms into a large chested maid slave and uses his cheat powers to embarrass all those other bad nobles while lamenting that all he wants is a regular life. One day, I'll just copy that paragraph from some other show and see if anybody even notices. Who am I kidding? This is a blog in 2023. Nobody already notices. Promos look at bad as the premise sounds. Next.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Lamentations for the future of writing.

Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander Dungeons
https://jihanki-anime.com/
Studio: Studio Gokumi
Genre: Can You Not
Premieres July 5th

Show Premise: 
See title.

Random Thoughts:
What a wacky and unique premise, completely unlike being reborn as a slime, cat, sword, or microphone. Totally unlike that one from a season back about summoning crap from grocery stores, except for the part where everybody worships basic sundries like flavored water and potato chips. See? We're combing the two into a completely new bread sandwich of banality. He is, of course, immediately picked up by a giant chested girl who brings him everywhere, including into hot springs. With such jokes like "use mentos in coke to defeat monsters." Can't goddamned wait.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

"I was reincarnated as a garbage can but my power level is maximum."

I'm Level 1 But I'm the Strongest Because of My Unique Skill
https://level1-anime.com/
Studio: Maho Film
Genre: How About No
Premieres July 8th

Show Premise: 
See title.

Random Thoughts:
His unique skill is that every enemy drop is OP, so he immediately has a full set of god equipment. And consumables. That give him maximum stats. What an incredible twist on this formula that has brought it back from the edge of creative bankruptcy and breathed new life into it, he said with the deepest of sighs and a growing despair. If this is what human intelligence is going to keep coming up with, maybe it's better to just let ChatGPT write some shows. What's the worst it can do? Make a show that's half Excel spreadsheets? Oops, that's what the promos already are here. It is legitimately advertising itself by going "Look at these numbers! They're so big!" Human ingenuity wins again.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Backscratcher of Vecna.

Magical Boys Fight With Overdesigned Clothing

Ayaka
https://ayaka-project.com/
Studio: Studio Blanc
Genre: Drama?
Premieres July 1st

Show Premise: 
Pretty boys fight monsters.

Random Thoughts:
Technically an original, so there's not a whole lot to go off of, but what exists isn't promising. The promos are mostly a bunch of pretty boys in silly costumes striking poses in the wind while narration tries to explain how super duper melodramatic it is, the writing is being done by GoRA (the entire K series fiasco), and Studio Blanc has done almost nothing but zero budget fanservice schlock. At least K had a budget behind it. I couldn't even tell you what they're fighting, but assuming it's just "K but on an island instead of downtown," probably each other, except not really even that.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Just, so god damned many sparkles.

Reign of the Seven Spellblades
https://nanatsuma-pr.com/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Action
Premieres July 7th

Show Premise: 
Magic teenagers go to magic fighting school.

Random Thoughts:
This is an odd duck in that it bills itself as a dark Harry Potter meets typical magical teenager fighting school, but unlike the latter, supposedly steers clear of the harem/magic girlfriend/fanservice tropes. Though at the same time, people randomly changing genders due to *handwave* magic is apparently a common thing here, though also not for giggles and apparently handled relatively deftly? I'll believe it when I see it. The author's the same as Alderamin, if you remember that. Nothing interesting about the staff, but JC Staff is long past their prime. The promos are very generic, but at least still not the fanservice you'd expect. It's weird to feel so neutral with so much promo stuff out there and a wikipedia article the size of a small novel, but… uh, dark Harry Potter, I guess? Whatever the hell that really means.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Still probably something you'd prefer not to be seen with.

Liar Liar
https://liar-liar-anime.com/
Studio: Geek Toys
Genre: Fanservice
Premieres July 8th* (one hour premiere)

Show Premise: 
Compulsive gamblers go to compulsive gambling school.

Random Thoughts:
Yet another of the many fanservice magical high school fighting things this season. This one TECHNICALLY involves no magical powers, but most of the 'games' that they play are VR fighting nonsense, which is more of an excuse to explain all the rules at exhaustive length, and then rules lawyer over how they cheated or bluffed through them to win. That is when it's not forcing the girls to dress in fetish maid outfits and be servants and such, because yes, it's that kind of high school. It probably depends on how well they present the games and whether they lean into a heist-like presentation, or just exposit themselves all over the place. History says it'll be the latter.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

God help these idiots at an American county fair.

Classroom for Heroes
https://eiyukyoushitsu-anime.com/
Studio: Actas
Genre: Fanservice
Premieres July 9th

Show Premise: 
See title.

Random Thoughts:
Remember GJ Club? This is by the same dude, which should set expectations for story or characters not high. Unlike spellblades above, this is an unabashed fanservice harem affair with I think three characters in the PV alone referring to the dude as their master, one of which is a dragon wearing approximately one doily worth of clothing. It is the first Actas show since they were bought by Bandai-Namco in 2017, but they were never a great studio, and the promos for this are definitely playing up the T&A over any kind of fighting, so there's not a lot to be optimistic about, even if the protagonist does seem like a can-do kind of imbecile, which is always easier to watch than Yet Another Kirito.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

What this setting uses for bras.

Club Shows Are Now Live-In Caretakers

Level 1 Demon Lord and the Sudio Apartment Hero
https://lv1room.com/
Studio: Silver Link
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 3rd

Show Premise: 
Reborn demon lord wants to whip lazy hero back into shape.

Random Thoughts:
The first episode had a pre-air and it was not a pleasant experience. This premise has been done to death in every form, from random monster roomate to scumbag hero, to vaguely homoerotic magical girls, and all this brings to the table is somewhat more shouting than usual. And I guess one character in a swimsuit for constant crotch shots for no particular reason. Well, the reason is that it's creatively bankrupt and flailing for a fetish. But I'm happy to play ignorant.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Oh boy! Bed bugs!

The Capable Cat is Once Again Depressed
https://twitter.com/dekineko_anime
Studio: GoHands
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 7th

Show Premise: 
Lady takes in a gigantic cat that does house work.

Random Thoughts:
The really weird part here is that GoHands is doing this, with all their weird-ass animation quirks. Random but weirdly competent CGI all over the place, excessive bloom on everything, and the actual animation almost disturbingly smooth with enough frames that you know some poor sweatshop employee probably went without dinner for a week to animate it.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

65% more furry than the usual anime platonic live-in spouse.

The White Saint and Black Pastor
https://shiroseijyo-anime.com/
Studio: Dogakobo
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 12th

Show Premise: 
Saint girl is secretly lazy and needs to be taken care of.

Random Thoughts:
This is primarily a 4-panel comic format where she makes silly faces and jokes like "I should clean up. Oops, I dropped the broom. … Cleaning is hard. *comically underdrawn pout*" We do not aim high, and boy, do we not hit our targets. The promos are amping up the slapstick, by which I mean excessive overreactions and swatting each other with paper fans to indicate that a joke as been made. The core of true humor. Just last season we had this exact premise for an elf, and in the past have seen it for everything from shut-ins to princesses. All we're doing is changing the dressing, guys.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Maybe do this premise with William Birkin instead.

You Thought There Were Only Three Reincarnations?

Sweet Reincarnation
https://okashinatensei-pr.com/
Studio: SynergySP
Genre: Stop It, Japan
Premieres July 3rd

Show Premise: 
Pastry chef is reincarnated with cheat powers.

Random Thoughts:
The title's a pun between "odd" and "pastry", which is about as much creativity as could be mustered here. He, of course, has a cheat power and is a super duper ultra genius at everything. Also, his name is Pastry, son of Casserole. Which may be the most amusing and engaging part of this entire schtick, although a snappy title that isn't an entire paragraph is also welcome. Not enough to make it stomachable, ironically enough, but hey, you almost tried but then didn't at all, and that's still worth absolutely nothing.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Stop. Making. These. Goddamned. Things. Already.

The Mightiest Evil Queen, Bringer of Calamity, Shall Serve The People
https://lastame.com/
Studio: OLM
Genre: Is This Necessary?
Premieres July 6th

Show Premise: 
See title.

Random Thoughts:
Reincarnated as the villainess of a game, but wants to avert her fate and be good? Well butter my biscuits, we have all the creatives at work for the reincarnation crap this season. I feel like we must be getting near to the point where there are more of these bizarre light novel stories about being reincarnated as the evil queen of a girl-harem game than there are actual girl-harem games, especially ones where there's some kind of evil rival who gets killed. Is that really such a prevailing cliche in them that we need a half dozen of these shows every year now?

Preseason Swing Rating: 

A real twist would be if they actually ran with the evil overlord role.

The Great Cleric – The Path of a Salaryman Trying to Survive in Another World
https://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/seija/
Studio: Cloudhearts
Genre: What in Rein-tarnation?
Premieres July 6th

Show Premise: 
See title.

Random Thoughts:
Apparently this web novel to light novel is somewhat infamous for having horrendously awful editing and being a typo-mangled mess. Is that the way that you 'ruin' a reincarnation cheat power thing? Okay, admittedly, this is far from the cheatiest of powers. He just heals himself to endure extra hard training and people are like "that is societally weird, let's get back to enslaving beast girls. Also, it's weird that guy isn't racist to all these large breasted demihumans." Not having explicit super powers is about as much creativity as there is to be found here, but don't worry, he doesn't do heroics with ingenuity or pluck instead. There just aren't heroics to be done. This was a web novel in it for the long haul and isn't concerned with things like pacing or having a plot. There's typos to be made!

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Might vanquish a crepe. Might.

I'm The Prettiest Monster Fighting Monster

Wandering Samurai
https://rurouni-kenshin.com/
Studio: Lidenfilms
Genre: Action
Premieres July 6th

Show Premise: 
Samurai wanders.

Random Thoughts:
Yes, more traditionally known as Rurouni Kenshin, written by a prolific collector of child pornography. Fortunately for me, like Harry Potter, I don't need to take any kind of principled or otherwise stand about its provenance and can just dislike it for on its own merits. Another one of Japan's recent "We decided the old classic anime everybody loved actually sucked and now we're going to re-adapt it to have 15% more fidelity to the original." Joke's on you. I'm not interested in either, even without the author concerns. And the promos, just a bunch of shots of the pretty dude standing in the wind, long hair billowing, or posing dramatically while slashes appear around him, certainly don't make me regret that stance.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

What's in the box, Nobuhiro.

Dark Gathering
https://darkgathering.jp/
Studio: OLM
Genre: Thriller
Premieres July 9th

Show Premise: 
Magical teenagers hunt ghosts.

Random Thoughts:
Horror flavored here, especially of the body horror variety, but it's just viscerally disturbing and still well below even stuff like Buffy or Supernatural as far as being bloody monster hunting. The titular gathering is them capturing the ghosts to fight each other, but it takes the form of giving them whatever minor ghost power is needed at that moment rather than being ghost Pokemon. However, most of it is largely overreactions to the girl being 'quirky' spooky. It is a Jump manga after all, and very quickly goes all power levely. Not so much random stories about people that end up being haunted as going to a place everybody knows has some super ghost and yelling at it until it shows up to force them to vomit hair or whatever.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Very unshaven.

Undead Girl Murder Farce
https://undeadgirl.jp/
Studio: Lapin Track
Genre: Exposition
Premieres July 5th

Show Premise: 
Monster detectives solve monster crimes.

Random Thoughts:
It's never a good sign when the first crime is "stabbed with an icicle to hide the murder weapon." But it's a vampire that was stabbed with a holy water icicle, so that and the titular character being an immortal severed head are your gimmicks. It is unfortunately the standard Japanese take on Holmes where they piss around for a bit and then spend three times as long explaining all the random nonsense and previously undisclosed powers or unshown observations that prove their genius, and the culprits, as soon as they're accused, turn into slobbering maniacs, confess everything, hulk out, and it devolves into punchies, though the promos don't seem like they've got the chops for that. Nor has this studio ever done anything even half decent, so I don't have high hopes this'll be their first hit. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 

I'm more of a Columbo or Rockford kind of detective.

Oh Right, Science Fiction Also Exists

The Genes of AI
https://ai-no-idenshi.com/
Studio: Madhouse
Genre: Drama
Premieres July 7th

Show Premise: 
Human doctor treats androids.

Random Thoughts:
The manga here leans towards the intellectual, posing questions like "is having your mind reset any different from death?" but doesn't go beyond basic musings. Still, that does show more thought than most things, even if falling short of the kind of philosophical questions of machine life posed by Star Trek, let alone Asimov or Heinlein. Everything is very self-contained and short though, but a lot comes off as just the cliffnotes from better sci-fi philosophizing. It's potentially intriguing, but I already suspect you'll get deeper transhumanism musings from a season of Battlestar Galactica. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Why make sentient androids when you could make tanks?

Zom 100 – Bucket List of the Dead
https://zom100.com/
Studio: Bug Films
Genre: Comedy
Premieres July 9th*

Show Premise: 
During a zombie apocalypse, a dude decides to live out his bucket list.

Random Thoughts:
Don't expect any kind of horror or deep thoughts. This is mainly a fanservice comedy where most of the female zombies and almost all of the female humans are in bikinis for no particular reason. The promos are quite animated though, and there's a lot of staff here from Summer Time Render (Bug Films is a spinoff of OLM), so the people involved here have recently made a decent horror-adjacent show, but the manga isn't all that story nor character driven, except in the most banal "I like making people smile… and boobs!" sense. Hopefully at least it gets episodic stories done well.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
I'm guessing become Yokozuna isn't one of them.

Synduality: Noir
https://synduality-noir.com/
Studio: 8bit
Genre: Action
Premieres July 10th

Show Premise: 
Teenage mecha pilots fight monsters.

Random Thoughts:
There's this whole Synduality franchise apparently coming, this being one of the first prongs to be released. It looks, however, like 8bit just testing out their CGI. Or maybe it's Sunrise Bandai Namco's CGI on loan since it's their franchise. Blocky mecha and generic monsters with the token fanservice android magical girlfriend make up most of the promos. Director's been around forever and done all sorts of stuff, while the writer is more of the trend chasing LN melodramas like Pet Girl and Rascal Doesn't Dream, so expect extra EXTRA stupid teenage melodrama even above and beyond the standard Sunrise mecha.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Why does nobody ever pilot a half-mech anymore?