天下制覇

My Hero Academia
http://www.heroaca.com/
Studio: Bones
Genre: Screaming Teenagers
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 1st

Show Premise: 
Sequel season. The continuing adventure of a boy in a world where almost everyone has a super power. He didn't, but now he does, and wouldn't you know it, but it's one that gives infinite power as long as he believes in his (friends/dreams/self).

Random Thoughts:
It's a Jump show, need I say more? Fine. The sole joke is overreacting to everything, every single goddamned thing must be explained to the audience at exhausting length, everything boils down to believing in friends/frienship/yourself, and it's paced like even if it's not intended to go on forever, wants to make you feel like you've been watching it forever. I barely survived the first episode, which featured jokes like "You have no powers!? Kill yourself!" Wait, I think I told that wrong. "You have no powers!? Kill yourself! *vibraslap* *shocked expression*" There we go. Comedy/action goddamned masterpiece.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Attack on Titan
http://shingeki.tv/season2/
Studio: Studio Wit
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 1st

Show Premise: 
Sequel season. The continuing adventures of a bunch of teenagers fighting giant CGI anatomical dummies terrorizing the world, occasionally by becoming them.

Random Thoughts:
I still remember the swashbuckling action advertised for the first season, and how instead, the first three episodes were 50-75% exposition and staring at the camera in horrified shock. The remainder had some of the promised swashbuckling, but was mostly CGI medical dummies crashing around… while characters stared in horrified shock. And the screaming. So much screaming. Not about the giant CGI giants, just in general. That was supposedly the good part too, before everybody and their aunt was revealed to secretly have the dark darkness of giant giantness lurking within them. So no, not a fan of the glacial progression, the awful cast, or the wangsty overly melodramatic everything.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Giant floppy titan dicks.

Granblue Fantasy
http://anime.granbluefantasy.jp/
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Genre: Merchandising
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 1st

Show Premise: 
A boy, his pet dragon, and random magical girlfriend, set out on an adventure to find his father while fleeing from The Evil Empire.

Random Thoughts:
This exists to shill one of Japan's premiere cellphone gambling games of the same name. Like so many other things this season, while the premise promises fantasy and adventure, the promos promise people standing around, yapping, and occasionally posing. This was also originally meant to air last season, but was pulled at the last minute and a miserable-in-every-way two episode quasi-OVA was spat up instead. I wouldn't be shocked in the slightest if that ended up being the first two episodes of the actual broadcast series. Maybe they'll even add some animation to them. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Deposit $50 for a 1% chance to draw a 5* episode.

Re:CREATORS
http://recreators.tv/
Studio: TROYCA
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 8th

Show Premise: 
Heroes and villains from various made-up anime, manga, and video games, almost entirely magical girls, start coming to life and fighting, because that's what they do. So of course the story centers on a bland, nerd shut-in nobody to which one of them must be his magical girlfriend.

Random Thoughts:
This definitely has one of the very few impressive trailers for the season, putting the action and colorful cast at the very forefront with budget to spare. What's less enthusing about the promo though is that the secondary focus is very clearly on the godawful protagonist who checks every awful box, from shut-in nerd to insecure teenager. I'd prefer if it seemed like they were having a bit more fun with the knockoff and exasperating premise, but it's not like it's full of girls melodramatically clutching their chests and bawling either, so it remains to be seen how weighty events in it are actually going to be. This is mostly the same staff as Aldnoah, although the writer's replaced with Black Lagoon's. Certainly someone who knows how to write story of over the top characters, but not always a deft hand when it comes to the heavier stuff either, especially when it comes to trying to wedge in particularly terrible muggles for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Aino Heart wouldn't suffer this BS.

Eromanga Sensei
http://eromanga-sensei.com/
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Genre: Causing Me Pain
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 8th

Show Premise: 
Masamune is a teenage light novel author who works with a perverted artist. One day, he discovers that the artist is his own shut-in stepsister who secretly wants to bone him. Also, practically everyone they know is also secretly a famous author or illustrator, and wants to bone him.

Random Thoughts:
Of course this comes from the same author as OreImo, because why not create the exact goddamned same piece of otaku-pandering incestuous garbage as long as people are going to keep paying you for it. But this time, instead of being superficially hostile and a pop idol, she's demure and an illustrator. Formula completely revamped. Comedy made fresh. Everything is new again. The amazing thing though, is that I'm not sure I've seen even a whiff of a joke anywhere around this. Not in the promos. Not anywhere. Someone writes an overly long love letter at some point, I guess? This is supposedly a comedy, but just like OreImo, it's difficult to see where even the creators think the humor is. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 

No intelligent life here, Captain.

Atom Astro: The Beginning
http://atom-tb.com/
Studio: Production IG
Genre: Drama?
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 15th

Show Premise: 
After a major national disaster, two scientists collaborate on creating the ultimate hope for the future that will one day become Mighty Atom Astro Boy.

Random Thoughts:
My best guess is that this is supposed to be an action show, but that's based on a robot throwing a punch in the promos, some actiony-looking stills, and some blatantly evil looking… I'm guessing robots again, but maybe mutants and metahumans. It's based off a manga, but even descriptions of that are basically just "Uhh… science fiction?" and complains about the lack of any real story back that up. There's a robot. They make him do random things. It comes from the same creator as Rideback, so, yeah… not exactly story or character driven, which is perfect since IG's put the 'Bodacious' Space Pirates guy on the case, and who knows better than him how to do non-sci fi without story, characters, or a budget?

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Robot piranha starter project.

Alice and Zouroku
http://www.alicetozouroku.com/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 2nd (one hour first episode)

Show Premise: 
A girl with the power to make her dreams into reality escapes from experimentation and ends up hanging out with a grumpy old man named Zouroku who's set in his ways and doesn't like surprises. Surprises ensue.

Random Thoughts:
If you're hoping for an odd couple comedy, let me disabuse you of that notion immediately. The promos are all sad girls maudling on about precious family while standing in a nuclear sun's worth of bloom. They're soon joined by a bunch of other girls, all with their own super powers, all wanting nothing more in life than friends and family despite the magical other world WONDERLAND and scientists who wanted to use its power through exploiting children yada yada so on and so forth. Same as ever. And of course, one of the super powered children is evil. The "old man" part of this seems to exist only to not be a teenage male, either to make it less creepy or more creepy, I'm not sure which. This director and head adapter are a special breed of miserable too, featuring such greats as Tsukihime and Rescue Wings in their resumes.  

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Drink me.

Tsugumomo
http://tsugumomo.com/
Studio: Zero-G
Genre: Action?
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 2nd (one hour ep 1-2 web special)

Show Premise: 
A play on the Japanese word for “object spirits” which I don't care to translate into some bad pun. A bunch of them are horny teenage girls who throw themselves at some pathetic clod, as do his sister, neighbor, classmates, etc.

Random Thoughts:
The promo features a couple hilarious jokes. The magical girlfriend hugs him in his sleep and he screams about how awful that is, and she punches him. Those are two completely different jokes. There's also an upskirt shot of the sidepiece looking down scornfully at him, all the way up her dress to her underwear. I made the mistake of glancing at the source manga, and was subjected to other 'jokes' like the protagonist being overly oblivious, girl B walking in on girl A naked and beating up the protagonist, and narrating everything as if it was a dating sim from the turn of the century. There's at least one non-'comical' punch between all the promos, so I guess that's the action quotient. Zero-G has been pretty miserable on the production front to date (Battery, Piace), so maybe that's all they can budget. 

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Flagrant cloth abuse.

The Eccentric Family
http://uchoten2-anime.com/
Studio: PA Works
Genre: Drama?
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 9th

Show Premise: 
Sequel season. The continuing non-adventures of a tanuki family in a village of tengu and humans, mostly rambling aimlessly and in search of any kind of narrative.

Random Thoughts:
Every time I try to read why people liked this show's first season, I'm struck by two things; first, the invariable invocation of liking a completely different show related to this one by nothing but having the same author of the original source material. Second, how it must always be qualified by the declaration that sure, there doesn't seem to be a narrative, development, progression, so on and so forth, but it's super compelling anyway. Because… uh… it just is and it's genius. Hardly a unique happenstance within anime, I know. Bonus points every time someone says "world building" as an excuse for "no narrative, development, or conflict." Nothing new on the cast or staff front, and completely undramatic 'dramas' are PA Works bread and butter… somehow… so let's move right along.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Half a half a half dozen eggs minus one half.

The Laughing Salesman
http://warau-new.jp/
Studio: Shin-Ei Animation
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 3rd

Show Premise: 
When people are in trouble, a salesman appears and provides them what they need, but always screws them over in the end.

Random Thoughts:
This comes to us from the late 60s/early 70s, although it's had adaptations, games, live action things, etc nearly once a decade since then.A lot of the premises say that the mark has to wrong the salesman in some way before he takes revenge, but in the few bits I quickly browsed, I saw none of that. It's just petty evil all the way down. For example, one of the situations is that a guy sucks at golf, so the salesman tells him to imagine a coworker's face is the ball so he can hit it. Then, later when golfing, he hits the coworker instead. In another one, he tells a woman looking for a man to go to an island resort, where she sabotages other women to get her dream guy. The salesman then films them having sex to sell the video. The humor is how… uh… how they… Yeah, you got me. No clue. Some people might believe there's nowhere to go but up from there, but that seems undeservedly optimistic when it comes to Japanese media. They'll probably just update it from a porn VHS to the internet. Each episode will be two segments at least, so the awfulness will at least be contained to ten minute bits.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Something something twelve inch pianist..

High School Star Musical
http://hstar-mu.com/
Studio: C-Station
Genre: Merchandising
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 3rd

Show Premise: 
Sequel season. A new year of attending the most nonsensical school for music supposedly encompassing literally all different types of bands/orchestras/styles, but actually just for JPop a bunch of new CD singles to shill for Blando McBlandenstein and his boy band.

Random Thoughts:
Looking back on my notes from the first episode of the original season of this, the biggest sin was the music sucked. And that it was essentially just a series of advertisements for the CD singles associated with the pop twinks they're trying to push with some incredibly bland padding in between them. Not fabulous enough to dare for flamboyance, not garish enough to stand out from the other eighty nine thousand six hundred and forty three (I counted) identical shows. Just slightly more advertisements baked in.  

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Has their first album gone lead yet?.

Frame Arms Girl
http://www.fagirl.com/
Studio: ZEXCS
Genre: Merchandising
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 3rd

Show Premise: 
Frame Arms Girls are a line of toy dolls in exo-suits. Some halfwit gets mailed one. It fights other ones.

Random Thoughts:
No, it's not related to that Clamp one with this exact premise, nor that one where they were a harem, nor the one where they fight cockroaches. This is some other toy line. I was on the fence whether to even include this or not because the 'mech' girls are entirely CGI, but I figured if I gave Etotama a bye, this probably should get one too. Rest assured that they all have striped underwear, as the numerous… numerous… upskirt shots in the promos are keen to highlight. Boy, I can only imagine what else it might have in store. …Actually, I'm not sure I can imagine them even bothering to try much of anything.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Girl? I identify as the prow of a battlship.

The Grimoire of Zero
http://zeronosyo.com/
Studio: White Fox
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 10th

Show Premise: 
Some guy is a weretiger but wants to be a human. Some witch is looking for a super book with the origin of all magic that can do anything, but may or may not destroy the world. They team up to fight against werebeast/witch prejudice.

Random Thoughts:
Yet another in this season's line of shows with promos that promise absolutely nothing of value. This one's promos have not only a slow pan over a map, but also a shot of the tiger-dude looking at and poking the map. Boy, I can't wait to find out what that's all about. What kind of story does that map have to tell us? White Fox tends to be pretty woeful in production regardless, with occasional brief bits where they actually put in genuine effort, but if they can't even find any bits of those to advertise the show, things are looking pretty dire. At least (???) they put nobodies on it instead of the usual overly melodramatic clods that always characterize White Fox shows.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
So that's where cat girls come from.

The Akashic Records of a Bastard Magic Instructor
http://rokuaka.jp/
Studio: Liden Films
Genre: Exposed Midriffs
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 4th

Show Premise: 
Glen is a slacker and pervert who hates magic, yet his job is to teach a bunch of barely clothed horny teenage girls magic. You won't believe the hijinks they get up to! Also, he has a tragic past, partial amnesia, and a completely unique form of magic all to himself, to make sure all light novel tropes are covered.

Random Thoughts:
Despite having a number of promos, the closest to action that this 'action' show is advertising itself on is characters striking poses while magic circles appear. They do go out of their way to highlight the principal in a bondage outfit with copious shots of her cleavage, the girls slapping the protagonist, the girls blushing in embarrassment, and the protagonist grinning like a moron. That's not terribly surprising considering that this is Liden, firmly on the low end of talent in animation. Terrible director, and the head writer has been either soulless at adaptation (Tears to Tiara), or terrible when given free reign over original material (Chain Chronicle). Ogle some tummies and moving on.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Definitely a certain kind of school.

The Royal Tutor
http://heine-royal.com/
Studio: Bridge
Genre: Pretty Boys
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 4th

Show Premise: 
Heine appears to be a child… BUT IS ACTUALLY AN ADULT MALE!? He tutors a gaggle of princes.

Random Thoughts:
The really amazing thing is that this has a 40 second promo that conveys literally no information about the show at all. It's just a montage of pretty boys staring at the camera, half of the time in the wind. Granted, there's another promo where characters talk, and a couple shots in a cartoonish style to indicate a humorous situation, as well as characters looking aghast at normal things, but the main point of that promo was to shill a CD, not the comedy. The jokes seemed to be "he spilled coffee on a book and looks shocked at it." Boy, I can't wait to see that joke put into context so I can fully enjoy it. Truly, the experience this director earned on Idol Memories has paid off.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Mr. Trollstein has no time for this crap.

The Anonymous Noise
http://fukumenkei-anime.jp/
Studio: Brains Base
Genre: Melodrama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 11th

Show Premise: 
Nino likes Momo. Yuzu likes Nino. They're in a high school band club because Nino wants to become a good enough singer to win over Momo, who's been secretly cashing in on Nino's music because he's a dick. Also, she wears a mask because holy smokes is she a ridiculously melodramatic ponce.

Random Thoughts:
Japanese teenager melodrama is just a thing I can no longer find myself even slightly able to deal with. I get enough of that bad stuff through the DC live action shows lately, and at least those have murdering, sex, and the keeping of dark secrets as their causes, not existential teenage angst, insurmountable insecurity, and forty-seven shots of standing in the wind per minute, and boy do the promos promise to deliver all that. Especially with Jack currently doing bleak so well. I enjoy wondering about the circumstances that would get this director from Keijo to here, but the head adapter is much more boring and just a veteran of all manner of low end girly romance-but-not-really-romance-just-angsty-melodrama.

Preseason Swing Rating:

Pon pon pata pon.

Do you have what THE END? Are you busy? Shall you save XXX?
http://sukasuka-anime.com/
Studio: Satelight
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 11th

Show Premise: 
Monsters have driven humanity to ruin and random demihumans have risen instead. The protagonist is one of the last humans, has a tragic past, and has a penis. He sumbles into a harem of living weapon magic girlfriends with super powers based off of (ie not based off of at all) legendary swords for fighting the monsters.

Random Thoughts:
The Japanese attempt at the goddamned paragraph of a title is too awful to not use. This is one of the seasonal "looks like standard LN magical girlfriend harem, smells like magical girlfriend harem, tastes like a magical girlfriend harem, but it totally isn't because of its genre awareness of exploration of cliches and narrative philosphicalities of *SSSNNNNIIIFFFF* Oh, excuse me. I was distracted by the armoa of my own flatus." Yeah, I've heard that before, and even if the LN is the word of God itself, how much are you willing to bet that the director of such greats as Nagato Yuki and Ragnastrike Angels is going to bring that across, or the author handling the adaptation of their text to script. And let's check in on the promo. Girls wandering around, pan over half naked girl, girls turning to look at the camera, more girls wandering around, maids, girls blushing, girls doing laundry, girl bending over to better display her boobs, girl standing in sunset. Yeah, I think I know what page they're on.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

GWAAAAAARGH

An Armed Girl's Machiavellianism
http://machiavellism-anime.jp/
Studio: Silver Link
Genre: Feet, maybe?
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 5th

Show Premise: 
After dropping out of high school and beating up a bunch of people, Nomura is sent to a remedial school full of heavily armed magic girls who try to break the spirit of boys and turn them into ugly drag queens. He teams up with a female former cross dresser to beat up the girls instead.

Random Thoughts:
Another 'action' show where the promos go out of their way to show as little actual action as possible. To be fair, they don't show much of anything really; hardly any action, fanservice, humor… but there is a shot of someone's feet as they walk around. Good news if you were hoping for that, I suppose. No judging here. Nobody really worth mentioning on the staff either; not newbies, but nothing I'd call notable to their names either, leaving us with just a somewhat more abhorrent than usual light novel high school arena premise. I'm pretty sure the drag queen quirk isn't going to sell it, least of all when they all start tripping over themselves to get at a taste of protagonist wang.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
  
Still possibly Japan's most mature characterization of transvestites.

Sagrada Reset
http://sagrada-anime.com/
Studio: David Production
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 5th

Show Premise: 
In a town full of people with minor super powers, Sumire can reset the world up to three days, and Kei has magic super memory that's immune to people resetting time. Together, they fight crime. Well, not crime. Melodrama. They fight melodrama. And create melodrama. There's a mysterious plot device that they literally call The MacGuffin.

Random Thoughts:
It's probably a silly thing to complain about, but the first thing that struck me in the promos is that the always-awful CG vehicles are next level lazy and terrible. On the other hand, what else is there to say about the promos? "A bunch of teenagers stare at the screen with concerned looks?" "Teenagers stand in the rain looking melancholy?" "Teenagers stand in the wind, pondering their next poop?" It's not setting my mind afire with the possibilities for this story. Given the director's vast experience with wangsty go-nowhere teenage melodramas, it seems a perfect fit. Not so much the head adapter, who's a bit more of a mercenary, and I'd describe as mostly competent with some hilariously awful failures like Aldnoah and almost all of Shaft's low end comedies from a few year back. I'm pretty certain he's not going to be given enough rope to hang himself like he was elsewhere though. David is nothing if not consistently dull and boring.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Gonna carry this weight…

Sakura Quest
http://sakura-quest.com/
Studio: PA Works
Genre: Potato
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 5th

Show Premise: 
Some girls work in their town's tourism department. That's it. That's all the information about anything that they're willing to put out about this. Oh, and they're made to wear costumes.

Random Thoughts:
But since it's PA Works, I shouldn't be surprised at that. About 135% of the shows they put out are "girls exist and are incredibly mundane, but they're girls, so lap it up, douchenozzles!" Which is something that they've now apparently decided to codify as a thing, declaring this as part of the same 'series' as two of their previous shows. Which two? I'll leave that to you to guess, but rest assured, it'll be the same over-idealized sloppy blowjob as ever. No 30 Rock or Ron Burgundy satire here. Just precocious (not really precocious) girls try really hard (put in the minimum effort), are stymied by forces beyond their control (temporarily inconvenienced at worst), but thanks to the power of friendship (casual acquaintances), they succeed (accomplish nothing of merit and learn nothing, but feel good about themselves). There's something especially disgusting about advertising the tourism industry. It's not even being staffed by the same people as usual, but rest assured that they're just as guilty of being dullards.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Burn it. Burn it all. Leave no survivors.

The Moon is Beautiful
http://tsukigakirei.jp/
Studio: Feel.
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 6th

Show Premise: 
Teenagers go to school. Seriously. That's it. That's the entire premise. It also goes out of its way to state that they're really plain, and that they'll interact with each other. Christ, Japan.

Random Thoughts:
Oh, what's this? Better watch out, PA Works, because Feel is trying to horn in on your garbage racket. Kishi, what on earth are you doing directing this? You can't make this a faux Persona like you try to do with everything but your comedies, and you lost your sense of humor the moment they made you work on Jump shows. Maybe he was recruited by the head writer since they worked on P4 together before she moved on to nothing but maudlin dramas (Orange) and terrible LN adaptations (Bahamut Chronicle). His involvement would explain the excess of bloom in the promo though. I don't know what you're expecting from me. It's an original show where the promo is literally 50% shots of scenery and the description is the Japanese equivalent of lorem ipsum.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

OH ECSTASY YES ITS THE SAME THING FOR THE SEVEN THOUSANDTH TIME

Clockwork Planet
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/cp/
Studio: Xebec
Genre: Action
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 6th

Show Premise: 
In the far future, the Earth is 'dead', but humanity mechanized it so not really. A sullen loner SUPER GENIUS high schooler with super hearing powers who's bullied for having a crush on a girl ends up with an extra magical robot girlfriend dropped on him. You'll never guess who ends up forcibly bound to who!

Random Thoughts:
Boy, if there's anything I associate with a post-apocalyptic world, it's thriving megalpolises and high school attendance. Yet another in our parade of action shows that are fleeing from that label, but not actually towards anything except for maybe striking poses. The big distinguishing feature here appears to be a fetish for CG gears and Victorian-era costumes, also things I always associate with post-apocalyptic settings. Other members of the harem include another teenage super genius and her bodyguard, and yet more super magic super robots. Staff's not green, but their resumes are light, and experience with action shows (or 'action' shows) is nonexistent. Xebec's a crap shoot on the production side, but nothing in the promos suggests that they're spending any real effort on this one.

Preseason Swing Rating: 
 
Two retro actually clockwork robots.

KABUKI CLUB!
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/kabukibu/
Studio: Studen DEEN
Genre: Pretty Boys
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 6th

Show Premise: 
Kurusu starts a kabuki club. And recruits a harem of other boys to kabuki with him. And they kabuki. But also gaze at the camera while sparkling and/or in gusts of cherry petals, because it's THAT kind of kabuki.

Random Thoughts:
There's more kabuki in the image to the left than there is in any of the promos for this show. In fact, if not for a character yelling "Please join my kabuki club!" I'm not sure you could tell what the gimmick of the show was supposed to be. Just high school boys. In a club. A pretty one, a rough one, a serious one, a twink, and the beard. Between the promo of unanimated boys staring deeply at the screen, Deen handling the production, and that the head writer's done more light homoerotica than an entire Brokeback Mountain range, I feel safe pigeonholing it as such.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Like a breakdancing rat.

The Very Lovely Tyrant of Love
http://renaiboukun.com/
Studio: EMT^2
Genre: Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 6th

Show Premise: 
Seiji, Normal Guy Who Wants Normal Life, is forced by an angel (dressed as a reaper) into a polygamous relationship with her, and his psychotic crush. Also with the angel's cousin. They (and his sister) all beat him up a lot in between rubbing their boobs on him.

Random Thoughts:
The promo features the protagonist looking permanently distressed from interacting with females, and closeups of one of the harem's flopping chest. One of the hilarious jokes it showcases is him yelling "EEEEEEEEEEH!?" I don't know about you, but I'm laughing already. No, wait. That's just internal bleeding. I get those confused so often. Director's certainly been around, but I don't think that the 2001 epic Legend of the Condor Hero nor a series of fanservice shorts about doing calisthenics elucidate much. Or maybe they do. The head writer has a rich history in boy harems, featuring 0-1 females. Also probably not relevant, unless it scarily is. Both seem to have settled on the traditional approach to Japanese gags though, pan for the camera, overreact, and preferably scream. Then show a closeup of some breasts and a criminal lack of understanding of physics. Can't wait.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

…Boobs! Hahahahahaha…

How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend
http://www.saenai.tv/
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Genre: Drama
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 13th

Show Premise: 
Sequel season. The continuing adventure of a bore and his harem, all of which are secretly famous otaku super stars, to create a visual novel, based around the most boring girl they could find.

Random Thoughts:
I barely survived the T&A-heavy first episode, which was itself a flash forward to how things were apparently going to develop into the world's most boring set of dullards talking about all the cliches they were wallowing in. That's the awareness here that makes it Not Just Another Otaku-Pandering Harem™. For you see, by having a character say what they're doing, that means that they're aware of it, and it is therefore not just another pile of trash, but ironic. And it was making a promise that after some unknown number of episodes, this would be where it ended up. Good bloody god, why? All the same staff, so just another few bits of teenage melodrama at absolute best to suffer through as everything goes completely nowhere.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Maybe it just needs to be stabbed more?

Hinako Note
http://hinakonote.jp/
Studio: Passione
Genre: Not Comedy
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 7th (early web ep1 premiere March 26th)

Show Premise: 
Mentally invalid former scarecrow, moves into house with girl who eats books and girl who likes to dress like a maid but is not a maid. They exist. At excruciating length.

Random Thoughts:
The first episode of this already aired early on Nico Nico. It was terrible. A bunch of breathy girls wandering around aimlessly, a few gags repeated over and over and over where the actual punchline is panning for the camera, and… that's really about it. Oh wait, I almost forgot one of them getting naked and a few closeups of her ass-cleavage in the bath at the end. Because of course there is. And I really can't overstate how pervasive the breathiness is, or how much they talk through their noses in a futile attempt to be cute. Stop, Japan. Just stop.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Remember how I used to tolerate Hidamari Sketch? I barely do.

Twin Angel BREAK
http://twinangel-break.com/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Action?
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 7th

Show Premise: 
Sumire and Meguri are magical girls. They're not twins, or related at all. The title is a lie. They take orders from a hedgehog.

Random Thoughts:
This is part of that seemingly everlasting Twin Angel pachinko machine franchise, despite seemingly having absolutely nothing to do with any previously existing characters. The first time (technically the second) it had an adaptation, it produced something that was about 18 minutes of dross each week and four minutes of quirky bizarreness. The Tuxedo Mask analog kept showing up half-naked and always completely useless. In the end, someone fought a cultist wearing an elk head that had been on the wall for the rest of the show's run while the actual heroines launched into space to fight an evil cult satellite or something. If only such things were indicative of the rest of the show, which did a lot of minor things surprisingly well for a piece of Japanese media, but not enough to elevate it beyond mediocre at best. It's 100% the same main staff and studio on it, so it's probably going to wind up much the same; approaching competence but not quite reaching it, occasional moments of surreal weirdness, mostly boring dullness.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

How about a show where the magic girls are just sharks?

Rage of Bahamut – VIRGIN SOUL
http://shingekinobahamut-virginsoul.jp/
Studio: MAPPA
Genre: Adventure
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 7th

Show Premise: 
Sequel season. Ten years after the first giant war of gods, demons, and humans over world-killer Bahamut, humans are predictably upsetting the balance of power yet again, threatening the world with destruction.

Random Thoughts:
The original series of this started out very strongly, but the story lost its legs as things went on and it kind of sputtered out in a mess of bad writing, characterized by almost every antagonist tripping over each other to reveal that they were the REAL evil-doer behind killing protagonist father(s), not to mention a ton of characters who chewed up the scenery yet contributed absolutely nothing. This does have the same director, but a brand new (neophyte) head writer, so who knows whether or not it solves its writing problems. They have been releasing a few ~7 minute shorts promoting this, but they're dull as snot; Jeanne and Kaiser training briefly before blathering at length, Favaro and his mother… blathering at length. It's not doing a good job indicating that adventure is forthcoming, just more blathering, which is what killed all the fun of the original. Hopefully the new girl will at least be less idiotic than the old.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Stop being a pussy and let's have some adventures, damn it.

Sin: The Seven Deadly Sins
http://www.7-sins.tv/
Studio: TNK
Genre: Tits
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 14th

Show Premise: 
To become queen of hell, Lucifer must defeat the six other deadly sins, all giant breasted, scantily clad women. Also, she has a high school girl sidekick for no real reason. Said sidekick's skirt is so short it almost doesn't even reach the hips.

Random Thoughts:
This is being pushed out by Hobby Japan to advertise… something, but it's not abundantly clear what, since it was supposed to be an OVA in 2012, and has somehow become a full series. Hobby Japan, you probably know as being the primary force behing things like Queen's Blade, which should set your expectations firmly titsward, which the promos certainly back up, full of groping, tentacles, naked bathing, and general rubbing of genitals. Don't worry though, there's no shortage of camera shots up the ass either. They even got Queen's Blade's director to be in charge of it. So, uh… boobs.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

*boing* *boing* *boing* *boing*.

Sword Oratoria
http://danmachi.com/sword_oratoria/
Studio: JC Staff
Genre: Tits
Staff/Cast Information
Premieres April 14th

Show Premise: 
Spinoff of that show about picking up girls in dungeons focusing on the secondary fanservice sidepiece's adventures. The Railgun to that awfulness's Index.

Random Thoughts:
Another show where I only barely survived the first episode and didn't last through the second. It took what was ostensibly a fantasy dungeon adventure and decided that the fantasy part, the dungeon part, and the adventure parts were the lame things to be skipped, but fanservice and exposition. That's likely partly because the budget was nonexistent. Still, it was insulting how half-assed everything was. "I need to get stronger." –60 second montage– "This piece of paper says I've gotten stronger." "Oh god, yes. I love you so much for how hard you tried." That wasn't some bridge in the episode. That was the moment of triumph before it went back to its primary focus, closeups of cleavage and asscracks.

Preseason Swing Rating: 

Ball and cock ship.