He’s a jaded chain-smoking detective out to avenge his partner.
She’s a loli knight elf with a chip on her shoulder.
THEY FIGHT CRIME.

From the author of FullMetal Panic! and Amagi Brilliant Park, with character designs by Range Murata (who also illustrated the light novels). The first two episodes were better than I expected, so I watched the third as soon as it was released on Funimation. There’s nothing terribly new here if you’ve heard of Alien Nation or Bright, but so far the execution looks solid, if a bit rushed. I doubt it will get as lively as the OP animation, however.

They’ve got 6 light novels of source material to work with for 12 episodes, so they shouldn’t run out. Just in case, though, the credits promise loli-elf-service, and episode 3 delivers a bit of it. Caveat: there are some gaps in the storytelling that feel like they were a little too focused on making sure they only spend four episodes per book.

On that note, it looks like book 7 is timed for mid-season, after a three-year hiatus.

Short clip after the jump.

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…is mostly disappointed with this season.

I gave the obvious pandering-fan-service series a look: Are You Lost?, Magical Sempai, and Hensuki.

Sempai is just a weak premise poorly executed; I gave it two episodes, which is two more than it deserved. The writers of Lost seem to have already forgotten which trope each girl is built around, except for Survival/Exposition Girl; honestly, the high point of the third episode is that they finally stopped making urine-drinking references. Hensuki at least has well-drawn girls who are visually distinctive, with a premise that’s more chūnibyō than kink-of-the-week. Our Hero, however, is duller than stale white bread, so as each girl reveals her “kink”, she also has to spend several minutes telling this dateless loser why he’s so amazing that she fell for him. I’m going to go out on a limb here and bet $10 that clingy little sister is behind it all.

Not sure if I’m up for watching the Accelerator spinoff of the Railgun spinoff of Index. I kind of lost interest in the whole franchise while trying to catch up a while back.

The OP for DanMachi season 2 gleefully spoils the outcome of the first story arc, but since I already knew it was coming from the light novels, it’s no big deal. The opening act’s a bit of a slog, though. The bright spot is that Lili now shows off her figure without being beaten to a pulp first. This is a distinct improvement over the first season, where the combination of casual brutality and Lili-service was jarring (yes, someone turned those scenes into a doujin porn comic or three, sigh). I could do with less Snidely Whiplash from the villains, but I’ll just have to grit my teeth and hope that the upcoming damsel-rescuing makes up for the mustache-twirling ugly people spitting into the camera.

Speaking of pandering fan-service, I recently got around to watching the second season of Rosario And Vampire, which had all the flaws of the first season and a few new ones, but was worth it for Kurumu. I also skimmed the wiki for the manga, and it sounds like the attempt to reconcile fluffy and dark went about as well as you’d expect, with increasingly-convoluted plotting and power-ups leading to Our Hero Becoming The Strongest Ever and Getting The Girl But Not That Girl.

I also rewatched some good stuff: various episodes of Endro, Dog Days, Manaria Friends, and Restaurant To Another World, as well as the AsoIku OVA (nekkid alien catgirls!). I think what makes these series stand out for me is the obvious affection the creators have for the characters. It’s like the anime were just created as an excuse to spend time with them.

In live-action news, I’m already two weeks behind on Krypton, because even though Lobo appears to be out of the picture (woo-hoo), it feels like they hired a bunch of old-school soap opera writers for this season. Like when Seg makes a desperate attempt to turn Lyta against Zod by schtupping her like there’s no tomorrow.

I don’t think it’s possible to parody the isekai genre, so clearly it’s time to make my own…

(art by Milkpanda; swiped from Pixiv without permission)

1: This Clumsy Princess Is Falling All Over Me!

2: A Wild Loli Appears!

3: Holy Shit Those Tits Are Huge!

4: Her Cooking’s Terrible, But At Least She’s Naked!

5: All The Maids Wear Glasses!

6: Everything’s Better With Catgirls!

7: This Butch Palace Guard Secretly Collects Plushies!

8: My New Robot Girlfriend Needs An Off Switch!

9: Naughty Elves Need Love Too!

10: The Secret Valley Of Monster Girl Sex Slaves!

11: That Alien Nympho Is Over 18 Officer I Swear!

12: There’s Always Room For Slime Girls!

13: Trapped In The Lyin’ Witch’s Wardrobe!

14: Turns Out My Little Sister Is A Succubus!

…

23: Where Does The Third One Go?

…

29: Hers Is Bigger Than Mine But She’s Still A Girl So It’s Okay!

…

37: Mom Is That You?!?

23 33 confirmed dead in arson attack at Kyoto Animation’s studios. Many more seriously injured.

Thoughts and prayers.

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Japan Times says at least 33 dead, but there’s no link to details. Sentai Filmworks has a GoFundMe page that’s already raised nearly $700,000.

BBC agrees with the 33 number.

ANN has details with links to sources.

Rune Soldier.

The loosely-related Record of Lodoss War series is collected on Bluray and available for streaming from Funimation, but I doubt RS will ever get a re-release.

Fortunately I have the DVDs, although I suppose I should rip them to avoid eventual bit-rot (and load them onto my iPad for the next trip to Japan…).

(OP video after the jump, because Youtube embeds just keep getting heavier and more intrusive, and I haven’t had time to set up a “click static thumbnail to load video” wrapper).

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One of the more entertaining random quotes in the DanMemo game:

In related news, the movie is coming to (some) theaters on July 23, and the second season debuts July 12th.

In an idle moment, I checked out the glass-half-empty that is the current anime season on Crunchyroll, and found a series where the weak pun in the title is being mistranslated as Are You Lost? (more sensibly, “Are We Shipwrecked?”).

The first 15-minute episode sets up the scenario quite simply: four busty high school girls are washed up on a deserted island after their student cruise goes wrong, and must survive with their convenient array of tropes. I watched it only a few hours ago, and already I can’t remember anything but their defining clichés and their bustlines.

I think the second season of DanMachi starts in two weeks; maybe that will suck less than the Sword Oratorio side series (aka “Is It Wrong To Make A Deranged Lesbian Fangirl The Protagonist In A Spinoff?”).

…there was a spinoff manga featuring her adventures before the gate opened.

…at a generously-drawn age 14.

File under peculiar the fact that while Amazon is swimming in a sea of rapidly-translated dumpster-fire light novels, Gate is nowhere to be found. If you want to read it in English, there’s a mostly-complete fan translation of the first novel series, but not the eight-volume side stories or the new “season 2” series, because the only group that’s interested can’t find a Chinese translation to work from.

Someone briefly licensed the manga, but abandoned it after releasing the first volume.