Hyping Up Fall 2018

As we move into the final stretch of the year, it’s time to run some shows down…but for some reason, I seem kind of disappointed at this lot.

2018 was best in the spring, methinks…to the point where even though the situation isn’t as dire as when I used to throw all hopes at 2 shows a season (and managed to keep it that way for half of 2015), it’s still looking pretty bad – even with tacking on “I kinda didn’t like this but I’m desperate” shows…14 shows.

You know the drill – it’s most hype to least. Bold will be accessible to me (at least, that I know of so far) and underlined are part of the resolutions.

• Golden Kamuy 2: Finished first season for the second, so here we are.
• Goblin Slayer: Initially signed up for Ume’s return, but then re-evaluating the prospective competitors made it go from under Bakumatsu (which hasn’t moved positions since I compiled the list) to second place (!!!). In a season where gore is Golden Kamuy‘s niche, this’ll have to win me over…but it’s getting a bit of talk now, so it seems good enough to move here.
• Double Decker! Doug and Kirill: I’ve dodged spoilers for episode 1 impressions, so I’m going in blind. Hoping for cool/hot boys and competent girls – that alone will make me a happy camper.
• Han Gyaku Sei Million Arthur: There was this one hot boy with long hair in one of the visuals (Wanderer Arthur)…I pretty much fell for him immediately, so now I want to find out more about him!
• SSSS.Gridman: Apparently this is a revival of some older series I don’t really know about. However, there was an AnimeJapan livestream which I caught for Boueibu Happy Kiss‘s sake and there was promotion for this there…it does look kinda cool, not to mention it’ll be interesting to see how they update it to a modern-day setting. Hey, it might even incorporate IT stuff…
• Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san: It’s got Kazutomi Yamamoto, Toshiki Masuda and Kotaro Nishiyama on staff! That’s a trio of OG Boueibu VAs! (Normally you get 2 at most…) Also, I’ve heard good things about the manga and want to see some spooky memes for Halloween. Is that too much to ask?
• Bakumatsu: Here for resolutions, because apparently it’s more sci-fi oriented than its source game. Plus hot boys, because I’m shallow like that…
• Beelzebub-jou no Okinimesu-mama: The fluffy creatures are adorable! Also, Rikuya Yasuda – Manza from Boueibu Happy Kiss – is Murin.
• That Time I Was Reincarnated into Slime (Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken): Judging by buzz around this show, it’s one of the better isekais out there.
• Zombieland Saga: I thought it was going to be a good time, considering that logo looks like your typical B-grade horror flick…and then it turns out it’s a cute girls doing zombie things show. Not that that’s bad in itself, but…I already have Gakkou Gurashi on my PTW at this point in time, so this may affect my opinions of that…
• Rerided: Derrida Who Leaps Through Time: Jacques Derrida was a guy whose language studies influenced the post-development school of thinking (which falls under international studies). Unfortunately, by the time I’d gotten on to this show’s hype train to see whether it was feasible to “mix business with pleasure”, so to speak, the show had been panned and turns out Derrida the real life dude has no relevance to the show whatsoever, aside from it being a cool name and the name of the engineer who sparks the plot…so now I’m just here for the trainwreck.
• Radiant: Decided to tack this on to the end of my watchlist with a bit of reluctance (reluctance mostly because the last fighter shonen I started in the simulcast lineup was Black Clover) after seeing there were some women in the cast in Crunchyroll promotion. From my experience of French cartoons, French works tend to be pretty good with their female characters, even stereotypes like “token chick”. Also, it’s a French manga that’s become an anime in pretty much the purest sense of the word…a development which will shake the framework of anime and its codependence on global factors as we know it, possibly more so than Urahara or any given Netflix/Amazon anime…so I’m watching this space.
• Kitsune no Koe (Huli Zhi Sheng): Kind of reluctant on this one as well, since its visual identity doesn’t make it stand out well (it looks like it came from Yu Gi Oh, to be honest), plus idol anime don’t tend to fare well with me (exception: Idolish7). However, there is a white-haired boy I’ve got my eye on – no, I haven’t got my eye on the guy whose selling point is his beauty, haha – so I’ll keep my fingers crossed if he turns out to be something to stick around for.

Shorts:

• Jingai-san no Yome: Yusuke Shirai’s here!

Rerided and Double Decker have already debuted on Crunchyroll and at this point, I already have first impressions of the latter written up. However, I want to pair these two together for first impressions due to how early they were…so don’t try touching the link I put in this paragraph until October begins. It’ll only give you a dead end otherwise.

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So, the load’s looking even lighter than it did in the summer but that means less to sift through. Plus I have to work through the rest of the anime for the watching challenges I’m doing, so that’s where my time will go instead.

Well, did I miss anything good? How many shows are you thinking of checking out for the fall season?