Fall Anime TV Preview, Part 4

Over three dozen anime later and we’re finally finished! If you hadn’t seen them, here are parts one, two, and three to our guide!

Run with the Wind: A series set around the Hakone Ekiden, a major marathon relay race.
Thoughts: Of all the sports I saw being turned into an anime, relay races was absolutely not one of them. But then, once they turned competitive bike racing into one I should have known all bets were off.
Premiering: October 3rd.
 

The One I Love is a Little Sister But She’s Not My Little Sister: Described as an “awkward sibling romantic comedy”, OreSuki follows a young woman named Suzuka Nagami who writes a novel about a sibling relationship where the younger sister dotes on her older brother. But when she wins an award for it, she asks her older brother Yuu to accept it for her and start working under a pen name.
Thoughts: Absurdly long title indicating this is a light novel adaptation? Check.  Creepy familial relationship complete with equally creepy age discrepancy? *sighs* Double check.  Me pretending this show doesn’t exist?  That’s a confirmed triple check.
Premiering: October 10th.

As Miss Beelzebub Likes It.: Beelzebub–the formidable right hand of Satan–commands fear and respect throughout Pandemonium. What her underlings don’t realize, though, is that she’s an airhead with a love for all that is fluffy and adorable! The only thing she might enjoy more is teasing her new attendant, Mullin, who is learning that serving Beelzebub is both heaven and hell…  (Yen Press)
Thoughts: Anime has two never-ending quests: to make an anime of every sport that’s ever existed past or future, and to turn literally everything ever into a cute girl. Admittedly, turning demons into cute girls isn’t anything new, and this pastel-tinged nightmare doesn’t seem to have much to it to set it apart either.
Premiering: October 11th.

Karakuri Circus: Masaru Saiga is filthy rich after the death of his father. Normally that would be a good problem to have, unless everyone knows about your newfound fortune and now wants to kill you for it. Thankfully, he has Narumi on his side–a kung-fu master who protects him as best he can…until they run into mysterious beings revealed to be puppets with incredible abilities. Eventually, the puppets prove to be too much even for Narumi, though fortunately for him and Masaru, someone eventually gives Masaru a puppet of his own to fight back with.
Thoughts: An anime about…puppets? I’d call this the weirdest thing I’ve seen in a while but realistically? This is anime, so not even close. Anyway, this is based on a long running manga by creator Kazuhiro Fujita, best known for his work on 90’s classic Ushio and Tora. The same animation group responsible for bringing U&T to life is back here, giving Karakuri Circus a 36 episode run that will presumably be extended at least once since this series is actually even longer than U&T. This is definitely a weird enough series with a convincing enough plot to be worth following, but given I’m already at risk of drowning underneath all the Fall TV series, I’m going to try and steer clear of this one.
Premiering: October 11th.

Merc Storia: Based on a cell phone game, Merc Storia follows Yuu, an apprentice healer. One day Yuu gets a strange gift from his father–a bottle with a young girl made entirely of liquid, named Merc.  With Merc having lost all her memories, Yuu decides to help her, and the two set out on a grand adventure.
Thoughts: From the trailer it’s difficult to tell where they’re going with this. It seems like a breezy little popcorn series, but lately anime series based on games have been getting better. (At least when it’s a cell phone game.) I’d love to get a Shingeki no Bahamut-esque surprise from this, but I’m not holding out much faith.
Premiering: October 11th.

Senran Kagura: Shinovi Master – Tokyo Youma Chapter: The second anime season set around the popular game series. Follow high school student Asuka and her friends as they train to become ninja!
Thoughts: No. Absolutely not. Crunchyroll’s supposedly running this in censored and uncensored versions, and I’m sitting here wondering where this series got the support to even waste the bandwidth on the first, nevermind the second.  Whatever you’re after here, you can get it somewhere else but better. Ninja stuff?  Boruto.  Action series primarily involved around women? Symphogear, Nanoha, or even Revue Starlight. Even the fanservice-y bits you can get in shows that make more of an effort than this, like Sekirei or High School DxD.
Premiering: October 13th.

Ingress the Animation: After scientists discover a mysterious substance that can influence human minds, two factions wage an all-out battle to control its awesome power. (Netflix)
Thoughts: The anime based off a game that’s the game Pokemon GO’s based off. Surprisingly, this series seems like it might have a bit of potential–the animation is surprisingly solid to be primarily 3D, and the brief glimpse we’ve gotten at fight scenes looks inspired. The downside though is it looks like this is a Netflix series, which means there’s a better chance than not we won’t see it until after it’s finished airing in Japan.
Premiering: October 18th.

Tsuru-ne: Kazemai’s High School Archery Club: Despite deciding to give up archery in middle school, after meeting new friends in high school Minato Narumiya decides to pick up his bow again, and the group aims to win their city’s tournament.
Thoughts: We just talked about a sports anime about relay races so a series about archery sounds almost bad-ass by comparison, honestly.  Judging from the trailer, they won’t be going for any over the top displays (unfortunately), but this does look like it’ll be one of the strongest slice-of-life sports series coming out for the fall.
Premiering: October 22nd.

Million Arthur: An anime based on Square-Enix’s popular MMO, which is itself based on the legend of King Arthur.
Thoughts: Something like this could probably be good, if half the character designs weren’t exploitative as hell and they actually put some work into the world building. There’s a ton of really cool stuff to be done with the King Arthur mythology instead of just shoving the character into the Fate universe and calling it a day. But this definitely doesn’t look like it’ll be the series to do it.
Premiering: October 25th.

Inazuma Eleven: Seal of Orion: A collection of the best Inazuma kids from multiple generations will face off against teams from around the world.
Thoughts: You have to admire Level 5’s willingness to go all out. If you didn’t know what a soccer game looks like you’d think it was a battle anime.  Someone kicked the ball and it looked more like firing a Kamehameha, then that got blocked by a dude using a summon of two giants made of lightning. They’re not even trying to be realistic, but I think that works to the show’s benefit.
Premiering: October 5th.