Winter Anime TV Preview, Part 3

After a brief break, we’re back with the second half of the Winter TV Preview. We’ve still got almost twenty series to go, so don’t get worn out just yet!

Dimensions High School: A bunch of real life boys are transported into an anime world after one of them finds a strange rock.
Thoughts: A tokusatsu where the hero bits transform the main characters into toons?  The next level in isekai stories. This feels like enough of an oddball idea to give at least an episode. How well they combine the real life and anime bits are what’s going to decide how well this all works. On that note, it’s probably not a good sign the animation is so…bad.
Premiering: January 10th.

Girly Air Force: Based on a light novel series, Girly Air Force is set in a world where strange creatures known as Zai appear in the skies. Boasting drastically more powerful aerial abilities than humans, to fight back humans are forced to develop new weapons.  Aircraft called “Daughters” are built, and AI resembling young human girls known as Anima, help to beat back the Zai forces.
Thoughts: It’s Macross without the singing and more women added.  As a Satelight fan I’m digging the design of the characters and world, but something about the promo screams “boring” to me.  The music suggests slow pacing and a rhythm that will leave me half sleep before I’m more than five minutes into the first episode. I’ll still try it though, just to be sure.
Premiering: January 10th.

The Promised Neverland: The orphans of Grace Field House live an idyllic life with warm beds, good clothes, and delicious food. They’re allowed to play as much as they want, and are only ever asked to pass their daily exams.  But there’s a secret to Grace Field House: the “adopted” children who leave are actually being fed to human-eating monsters! Can Emma, Norman, and Ray find a way to escape?
Thoughts: Promised Neverland is going to be the next big hit coming out of Shonen Jump.  It’s already got a lot of excitement just off the manga alone. I’m personally not big on horror, but I’m curious enough about the premise to try it, just to see where the story develops from here.  Is there any action? Do they have any hope of fighting back, or is it more like the new school scary video games where they don’t give you weapons and you just run til credits roll?
Premiering: January 11th.

Quintessential Quintuplets: “Five girls who want to do anything but study, and their tutor: a high school boy who’s got book smarts and not much else. Futaro Uesugi took the tutoring gig because he was desperate for cash, but when his students—the five beautiful daughters of a wealthy businessman—find five times the excuses to slack off, what can he do?! At this rate, the sisters won’t graduate, so if he wants to get paid, Futaro must think of a plan to suit each of them … Which feels hopeless when five out of five of them think he’s a loser!” (Kodansha Comics)
Thoughts: I’ll give the creator this: this is a clever way of setting up a harem series, and all the characters look visually distinctive enough that even these few seconds of preview gives you an idea of each of their characters. But without some sort of decent twist or particularly compelling lead character, harems are a hard watch.  The girls think Futaro’s a square, so why should I see it any differently?
Premiering: January 11th.

Grimms Notes the Animation: Based on a popular mobile RPG in Japan, Grimms Notes is set in a world where everyone has a book with their entire story written in it, and the world is created by so-called “Story Tellers”.  But when a few story tellers start going bad and changing people’s books, it requires those with blank books to try and shut them down.
Thoughts: The game is known for having Robin Hood and Little Red Riding Hood, so this is like Anime Fables.  Adaptations like these are either really great or incredibly dull, and we’ll know before the first episode finishes which one.
Premiering: January 11th.

Date A Live III: Ordinary high school boy Shido discovers a mysterious girl at ground zero of a recent spacequake. Shido learns, through his sister Kotori, that the girl is one of the Spirits: mystical creatures responsible for the spacequakes. Shido is recruited to help “seal” the sprits and end their threat to mankind. There’s just one catch: the only way to seal a spirit—is to make her fall in love with you.  (Crunchyroll)
Thoughts: I like that they’re still trying to adapt all of the light novel for this series. But they switched to JC Staff, and what I’ve seen from this series and it’s pre-air first episode tells me they’ve put far too much on their plate to handle this series. This might sink the franchise altogether.
Premiering: January 11th.

B-Project: Zecchou * Emotion: The male idol group B-Project is confronted with a new challenge as they add the group KiLLER KiNG to their ranks!  Can their A&R, Sumisora Tsubasa, handle this many groups while maintaining B-Project’s success?
Thoughts: I’m actually surprised there aren’t more shows like this; there’s a billion girl idol shows, after all. The promo is really basic, and my biggest problem is the same problem I always have–there’s way too many characters and the abrupt shift in animation whenever the dancing starts is really off-putting. I respect them for trying, though.
Premiering: January 12th.

Domestic Girlfriend: High schooler Natsuo is hopelessly in love with his cheerful and popular teacher, Hina. However, one day at a mixer, he meets a moody girl by the name of Rui and ends up sleeping with her. Soon after, his father announces that he’s getting remarried to a woman with two daughters of her own. And who shows up in tow, other than both Hina and Rui?! Natsuo’s outrageous new life starts now! (Kodansha Comics)
Thoughts: I love how anime turns situations which shouldn’t last very long into situations that last entire seasons. The main character claims to be in love with a girl, but he got wasted and banged her sister.  That should be the end of the story, since you’ve already violated some level of trust here. Worse yet, there’s a weird age gap between the girl you like anyway. And now you’re both step siblings, but since this is anime that’s actually the least problematic of all these issues.  (I should be happy you’re not actual siblings…) This is inappropriate on so many levels, in real life you’d just tell dude to get over it.  Here?  Nope, let’s figure out how he gets the happy ending, I guess.
Premiering: January 12th.

Magical Girl Spec Ops Asuka: Humanity fought against monsters who nearly destroyed civilization with the help of a collection of magical girls. After the victory, those girls hoped to finally enjoy the peace of the world…but were instead confronted only with more threats, and forced to continue protecting the world.
Thoughts: “The magical girls’ battle…is neverending.” I confess to being a simple man, because this is easily the most interested I’ve been in a show of all these potential series so far.  If this can steer away from being overly pretentious like Madoka and steer into being over the top action like Symphogear, even if it’s not as optimistic, this would be a strong contender for me.
Premiering: January 12th.

Bermuda Triangle: Colorful Pastrale: A spin-off of Cardfight Vanguard, Colorful Pastrale follows a collection of mermaid girls through their day to day lives before they became an idol group.

Thoughts: See? We couldn’t even get through this preview without getting another spin on girl idol groups. Anyway, I saw the Snorks back in the late 90’s so I think I’m good on this series.
Premiering: January 12th.
And that brings us through another ten series. We’re at thirty now, and closing in on the last few series of the season!