❚ Summer 2024
A very uneventful summer...
Tasogare Out of Focus (黄昏アウトフォーカス)
Queer teens fall in love, keeping it a secret, kinda.
I saw the Tasogare word on the title and thought it could be related to "Our dreams at Dusk", and while I quickly found it wasn't I still saw it was a queer show so yeah, I saw a couple of episodes and that's it. Some young folks find they're intersted in each other, both closeted as well, while their relationship is taking shape they're working on a short film for a school club, a short about queer teen love, so they gotta keep it in secret but also be kinda uncomfortable with working on a film that touches the same thing they're in, specially because one of them has to be the male lead who kisses and has to be openly affectionate in front of another person who is not their partner.
I'm not the audience this shows is meant to be directed, beyond the teenage queer relationship, I don't vibe with romance shows with teens anymore.
Shoushimin Series (小市民シリーズ)
A recovering pedantic and a hot blooded individual try to pretend everything is okay and blend into society, but it's worth doing it?
Our male and female lead have bonded over their desire to be as normal as possible, in a market of shows where they scream "I'm a teen/young adult that can barely fit into society, please let me be quirky here and there", having this premise rubbed me wrong way but it's not about the teens trying to adapt to society, it's the "what are they running from" that intrigued me. Well, it's their respective traits of their personalities, and as I far I saw they were trying to enjoy life as they could, but sometimes things would come up that they would fall indulge into their habits (and when I mean "things" I mean mysterious situations where they can't help but resolve the puzzle).
I was intrigued by the show, it slow pace felt alright for a couple of episodes, and when things started to pickup and show an interesting first arc they put the fire out by the mystery resolving by itself out camera, HUH!?, and then the subsequent episode puzzles felt flat to me, I couldn't keep myself interested in it. Dropped it.
Quality Assurance in Another World (この世界は不完全すぎる)
Oh hey, that's fun for once, to see games show their seams and bugs, and these to be the part of the narrative
Our male lead is a good kid who turns their bug reports and test places and mechanics thoroughly until not finding any potential exploits in this virtual reality mmorpg. And just like bandai's .hack//, this kid and their colleagues can't log out of the game, in this situation, some choose to live their life in the mmorpg, others abused of it out of boredom, and conflicts will come out of it.
The story it even has their super AI entity that lives within the mmorpg just like Aura, but the comparison ends there, the narrative is sprinkled with comedy as you get to see a sort of 4th-wall-breaking situations here and there, characters T-posing, the main leads running against geometry to see if any clipping, falling out of the world, abusing pve battles with simple items, etc. Haven't finished it, just waiting for the episodes to pile up and then binge.
The Magical Girl and The Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies (かつて魔法少女と悪は敵対していた)
tags: Enemies to lovers
Good natured girl is too good for this world, works like 4 jobs including being a magical girl, the villain of the story is a moe addict and can barely keep their feelings in check when he sees the object of their affection, the magical girl who is meant to stop him.
The joke works exactly one episode, and after that is just some hair pulling monotony of the dude becoming more ironically unhinged as he tries to fulfill his duty as villain but he softens quickly at the sight of the magical girl, the girl has no charm, no depth, just cute, a little naive and soft-spoken, she exists for the sake of the comedy. I don't know why I haven't dropped this shit, I have nothing to lose either way
Ghost Cat Anzu-chan(化け猫あんずちゃん)
A movie where a yokai cat hangs out with a kid called Karin, who is commended to look after this kid by Karin's grandfather, a monk, and some supernatural stuff happens, haven't started watching.
Your Colors(きみの色)
A bunch teens start a band because yolo, one of them can see other's aura as well, some shenanigans ensued as they don't know how to play. Haven't watched it yet.
A Few Moments of Cheers(数分間のエールを)
I have no idea what to write here, I barely watched the trailer, but it seems to be a resgined musician made music teacher and a teen with a passion for video production, who states he wants to make the world see their teacher's talent with their video production abilities, that's it, haven't watched it yet.