With the heat and sun soon behind us, it is time to get excited about fall weather. I love the colder air, the ability to sleep under a blanket without sweating and the earlier darkness. It’s the perfect atmosphere to sit down, relax and watch some anime. But first, before we start looking ahead, let’s look back on a very successful season of summer anime. Because there are actually quite a few series I want to talk to you about this time around, I have decided to split everything up into two different posts. Today we’ll be looking at new shows and next week we’ll be looking at sequels. This is mainly because there are quite a few sequels that aired this past season that I’d like to take a moment to talk about as well. There’s also an anime I watched this season that will get its own dedicated review because of how much I enjoyed it. That anime is of course the work of Hiromu Arakawa: Daemons of the Shadow Realm. That review is scheduled for two weeks from now, so look forward to that! With that out of the way, let’s start with a classic anime revisited.

The Ghost in the Shell

I’m not the biggest fan of Science Fiction. I’m aware that a lot of the political intrigue, drama and personal journeys can be very similar to fantasy stories, but the setting doesn’t nearly excite me as much as one with dragons and magic and swords and bows. Still, I know a good show when I watch one, and when I watched the Ghost in the Shell movie several years ago I liked what I saw. A story about what it means to be human in a world where machines and artificial intelligence are reaching scary levels of believability, that’s an experience so far removed from our present day that it is pure science fiction. Yeah, I only watched this movie like five years ago and look how much things have changed. Enough that watching the new Ghost in the Shell adaptation that aired this season felt like an almost scary look into our future. A future that is flashy, boisterous and loud but has a lot of nastiness bubbling underneath all of that. If you’re new to this story, we follow Kusanagi Motoko, who is this ghost within a shell. Ghosts are people’s consciousness and shells are artificial bodies they inhabit. Together with a squad of misfits she works for Public Security section 9 in an attempt to deal with the rampant corruption and criminal activity in this world. This version of Kusanagi is much more molded after how she was in the manga – from what I’ve been told, I have not read it – and has much more personality than the grittier version we’ve seen in early versions. It makes sense. Even in a dystopia there are still vices and why wouldn’t you partake in those regularly. She’s quite tongue and cheek and I would be too in her position. She’s caught up in the middle of international subterfuge as well as a mysterious cyber criminal known as the puppet master. If you like shows that are loud and boisterous but also say a lot during their quiet moments, definitely give this one a watch.

Smoking behind the supermarket with you

If you’re like me and after a busy day at work you might not need all the loudness that GITS has to offer but instead you just want to relax and recharge some energy, then perhaps this next show is for you. Imagine you’re Sasaki. You’re in your forties, single, working a difficult job with a loud and obnoxious boss and all you have to relax is your smoking break. That and of course Yamada-san who works the counter at the local supermarket with her healing smile. One day when Sasaki makes his way home from work he is disappointed that he doesn’t get to see the kind cashier and lights up a cigarette outside the store, to the dismay of the other customers. He quickly scurries to the back of the supermarket to hide his vice in shame where he runs into another smoker. This red-haired woman with a leather jacket and piercings looks a lot like Yamada-san from counter 2 but has a very different vibe about her, so it must be a different person, right? This is how our romantic comedy between exhausted office worker Sasaki and friendly supermarket employee Yamada – I mean Tayama – starts. I said this was a romantic comedy, but a lot of this show is much more focused on the comedy part of it. There’s a lot to like about the banter between Tayama and Saski, but due to their age difference and their relatively recent friendship, there aren’t any big developments when it comes to the romantic side of this story, but after a long day of work it’s a very pleasant show to watch. Sasaki is very anxious and socially awkward, but not to the point that it becomes annoying and Tayama’s teasing nature matches him perfectly to create a great dynamic. The supporting cast is great too, and it is quite refreshing to see a romance anime that has some adult characters instead of your standard teenagers. Nothing wrong with the latter, but as someone in their thirties, it’s nice to believe that even at my age there’s still hope to find a cute girl wearing a letter jacket that doesn’t mind a little bit of social awkwardness.

Liar’s Game

This show was a bit longer that rest, having run for two cours, and I’m glad it did because it gave us the opportunity for some of the characters in the show to grow on us. Kanzaki Nao is a young woman who has a kind heart and is very trusting of everyone around her. The perfect victim for a scam. One day she is roped into playing something called the Liar’s Game. She is given 100 million yen (560.000 euros) and is told to keep it safe from her opponent while trying to get her hands on his money instead. You see, the goal of the Liar’s Game is to make money at the expense of others. After the game ends, the Liar’s Game Office will seek to collect the initially 100 million yen from the contestants once more. If you’ve lost some of the money, you are now in trouble, but if you’ve managed to get your hands on some of your opponents’ money you can now get away with a nice bit of cash. How does that work legally? Don’t ask too many questions or this show’s believability falls apart. There are two rules. Don’t question if the core plot could actually work and don’t question why Nao is so ridiculously stupid. Both of those are purely because it moves the story along. As everyone expects, Nao is immediately conned into giving her money away to her opponent, an old teacher of hers who she really liked, and when she finds out that he does not plan to safely return it to her by the end of the game, she needs a plan fast. Luckily for her, there’s a young man named Akiyama who has just been released for jail. What was he in jail for? Conning a massive corporation until it went bankrupt. The perfect person to help her out with this game. He will only do it if he gets part of the money from Nao though, and not for free. Thus the two set out to get Nao’s money back from her former teacher so she can safely get out of these games. Without going into the spoilers, the two quickly reach a common goal within these games and start working towards a better outcome for everyone involved. Along the way they meet several characters, the most interesting of which is Fukunaga Yuuji, a trans woman who uses her ability to appear both feminine and masculine to her advantage. She is by far the most interesting character as she acts the most like a real person and is kind of a scumbag. The reason I said earlier on that this show having 2 cours was a boon is because we get to see more of her character journey and it elevates the show. If you like the first few episodes of this show but aren’t sure if you want to keep up with it, definitely consider sticking it out for the second half is much better than the first. And outside of the anime itself, please do yourself a favor and check out the music video for the first opening  “Abuku” by Yorushika. It’s fantastic.

A witch’s life in Mongol

For some people, conquering others without regard for their welfare isn’t just a goal, it is a way of living. It is in this part of the world we are dropped as Genghis Khan is at the height of his power, conquering his way through the steppes all the way to Persia, where our young protagonist Sitara simply wants to live her life with the people she lives with as a slave. Despite being enslaved, Sitara’s life is relatively decent here. Of course, there is no freedom, but she is being treated well and even taught a fair few things about life, including being able to read some books. That ends when one day the son of the Khan – Tolui – comes into town and ransacks the place. Sitara and the lady of the house hide in a shelter under the house, but are found by Tolui who is looking for a book for one of his wives. In the scuffle for this book, the lady of the house is killed in front of Sitara and she is then enslaved into the Khan’s following. Having lost everything, Sitara – who has now renamed herself to Fatima to appear more important as a slave – is hellbent on revenge against the people who killed her found family, took her books and took her freedom away. But a simple slave girl will not have a lot of chances at revenge in such a dangerous place. Luckily the balance shifts after Genghis Khan dies and his son Ogedei becomes the new Khan. Fatima (Sitara) finds her way into the employ of queen Toregene, who is also hellbent on revenge against the Mongol army for similar reasons. Together, the two plot out a way to destroy the kingdom from the inside while other forces are hard at work to either destabilize certain factions within the army or attempt to improve their own position. All of this political intrigue is accompanied by a gorgeous art style that is unique. The character designs are kept very similar to how they are in the manga – having the one downside that it’s really hard to guess how old characters are – but it allows the show to catch your eye from start to finish. If you like historical drama shows then this one is a must for you and even if it’s not normally your genre, I would still recommend you watch at least the first 2 episodes to see for yourself. It has been likened to shows like Apothecary Diaries and Ranking of Kings, both of which are shows I have put in my personal top 10, so that is high praise.

One Piece Heroines

I love One Piece and will enjoy most things that are even remotely related to it, but as you know from my opinion on the live action series that has not stopped me from criticizing the series when it’s deserved. Whereas a while ago we got an absolutely fantastic special episode titled “Fan Letter” that any fan of the show should watch, we now got another special called “Heroines”. This time we do not focus on the pirating side of being pirates but instead on the fashion side of being pirates. Yes, it feels mismatched to me too, but sometimes these strange sidequests work out well. Unfortunately in this special, that is not the case. What One Piece is trying to do with this special is tell a story about strong women being able to come out of their shell and be the bad-asses they want to be. What ends up happening instead is a kind of half-assed attempt at this, with some of the women coming out much less competent than they are in other parts of this story. Nami is somehow completely unable to function as a pirate due to her shoe not fitting her perfectly and doesn’t even manage to then get a refund for the shoes without having to do far more work than the shoes are worth. Essentially, the women end up being exploited more so than becoming powerful role models. If I were to give this one a compliment it would be towards the art style. This special looks very different from the rest of One Piece and I think the style they chose for this special works well for the story they were trying to tell but unfortunately I do not think this one stuck the landing.

And that is all for this season’s Quick Reviews. Except not yet, as there are still a whole bunch of sequels to talk about. And we will do so, next week. For now, thanks for reading!