Summer Anime TV Guide 2019, Part 3

And we’re back with the last part of this season’s summer anime guide! If you missed them, the first and second parts can be found before the guide begins. This final part is…honestly enough isekai to convince people anime really is out of ideas, but who knows? There might be a few gems among them.  Let’s get into it!
Part One
Part Two

Kochoki: Wakaki Nobunaga: The fearsome warlord, the demonic king—Oda Nobunaga! Before he was trying to rule over Japan, he was a teenager who began his path to greatness with his younger brother and faithful followers. Through succession, betrayal, battles, and bonds between one another, the struggles these boys face promise a future where they can blossom into powerful men. (Funimation)
Thoughts: On the one hand, this is being animated by Studio DEEN, and while this trailer doesn’t look bad there’s a difference between ninety seconds of footage and the 17000+ seconds even a one cour series would have.  On the other, it’s being directed by Noriyuki Abe, a guy responsible for series like Yu Yu Hakusho and most recently Heroic Legend of Arslan.  But ultimately, I think I’ve had my fill of stories about Oda Nobunaga ever since they did like two fantastical versions of the guy’s life in a single season with Nobunagun and Nobunaga the Fool.  But there are far worse series people could try this season.
Premiering: July 8th.

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest: Hajime Nagumo and his high school class are suddenly summoned to a fantastical land as heroes. But while most of his classmates have powerful stats and abilities, Hajime does not. Underappreciated and unprepared, he tumbles into the depths of a monster-infested dungeon where voracity and sacrifice are his only options. To thrive in this savage world, he’ll have no choice but to welcome the abyss. (Funimation)
Thoughts: This sounds vaguely Shield Hero-y, what with the main character being underpowered and having to fight their way into relevance. It’s a White Fox series which means expect tons of violence, but it’s director Kinji Yoshimoto is also responsible for that awful Seven Mortal Sins anime and Queen’s Blade. Ultimately this is going to come down to the talent of the original creators of the light novel, and just how tired you are of isekai stories.
Premiering: July 8th.

Cop Craft: 15 years ago, a hyper-dimensional rift appeared above the Pacific Ocean linking Earth with a magical world. San-Teresa City became a melting pot of cultures and species, but despite peace on the surface, there’s always an underbelly. That’s where Detective Kei Matoba and knight Tirana come in—partners with different perceptions of life and law, working together to keep the city safe. (Funimation)
Thoughts: If nothing else, this trailer hopefully proves that Millepensee has learned their lesson and no longer animates the way they did for Berserk a few years ago.  But it’s also being directed by Shin Itagaki, who does more roles on a single project than Eddie Murphy, so they might not be cured of their love for taking shortcuts just yet.  That said, they’ve got series creator Shoji Gatoh handling series composition work.  If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s best known for creating Full Metal Panic, the series that combines mecha action with slice of life shenanigans. Hopefully this series leans more sci-fi than FMP did at its beginnings.
Premiering: July 8th.

Isekai Cheat Magician: Taichi Nishimura and Rin Azuma find themselves in a new world after being engulfed in light.  This new world is a place of swords and magic, but unlike most these two find they have magical power and physical talent far beyond what is considered normal. Thus begins their story as “cheat magicians”.
Thoughts: Encourage Films has worked on a number of projects in the past, but usually their resume is a bit more…pastel-tinged than this. It’s good they’re stepping outside their comfort zone as a studio, somewhat.  Isekai Cheat Magician is taking a director that to my knowledge has never led a project before (Daisuke Tsukushi) and pairing him with a writer that’s best known for Penguindrum, so I’m not actually sure how this plays out. I will say that shows that revel in how overpowered their Gary Stu protagonists are tend to work out much better than ones that pretend their leads are underpowered. It allows them to accomplish more with their series when they’re more willing to admit the flaws in the genre, turning certain ideas on their head.
Premiering: July 10th.

Given: Ritsuka Uenoyama was once a guitar player that gradually lost interest and walked away from playing.  But when he meets Mafuyu Sato and sees his broken guitar, he decides to fix it for him and teach him how to play out of a sense of nostalgia.  It starts out unwilling, but once he hears Mafuyu’s voice, Ritsuka can’t help inviting Mafuyu to join his band.
Thoughts: This is getting some attention as NoitaminA’s first major BL (boys love) series, though I think equally of note is both the creator of the manga and the lead writer on the show are both women. Lerche is a fantastic animation studio, so really it’s all going to come down to director Hikaru Yamaguchi, who’s never been handed a project on this scale before. BL series aren’t particularly my thing, but honestly in a season literally drowning in isekai series, the more series we have that aren’t variations on the same genre the better.
Premiering: July 11th

Machikado Mazoku: The story follows Yuko Yoshida, a 15 year old girl who suddenly develops dark powers and discovers that she is the descendent of a tribe of demons. Yuko is tasked with defeating the maidens of the Tribe of Light by her ancestor, Lilith, so Yuko challenges magical girl Momo Chiyoda to a fight. However, Yuko is not a very strong demon girl, so Momo is easily defeats her. Afterwards, the two strike up an unlikely friendship. (Crunchyroll)
Thoughts: I’ll probably never, ever forgive J.C. Staff for butchering UQ Holder, but this actually looks pretty funny.  A demon girl tries to throw down with a magical girl and gets pieced up because no one ever taught her how to fight.  That’s actually a pretty logical outcome, and Hiroaki Sakurai has done more than enough magical girl-related work to know what he’s doing on a comedy focused series like this that would probably turn a lot of the traditional tropes on their head.
Premiering: July 11th.

A Certain Scientific Accelerator: Welcome to a world where mysticism and science collide, and supernatural powers are derived from either science or religion. At the heart of this world is Academy City, an advanced metropolis whose population is comprised mostly of students. The majority of students are enrolled in the city’s “Power Curriculum Program,” where they must learn to master their latent psychic powers. (Seven Seas Entertainment)
Thoughts: Aside from Fate/Stay, there’s probably no other light novel series that’s quite as popular as the “A Certain Scientific…” series.  It’s gotten several sequels and even the spin-offs are getting full-length series. How people feel about this series depends on a handful of factors. If it’s too entrenched in existing lore, it might be a bit hard to get into for anyone who wasn’t already a fan of the series, But if it works on being approachable, the change in existing characters might bring in people who weren’t drawn in with the first two series.  Hopefully it’s the latter, as A Certain Magical Index failed to grab me back in 2008, but this looks good enough to give the first episode a try.
Premiering: July 12th.

Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?: A new kind of momcom roleplaying adventure! What would you do if you got transported into a video game…with your mom?? That’s the dilemma facing high schooler Masato Oosuki, who has been unwittingly thrown into an RPG world with his doting mother close behind as part of a secret government scheme. As an avid gamer, Masato is eager to show off his skills…but that’s hard to do when your mom is an insanely overpowered, dual-wielding, multi-target specialist! (Yen Press)
Thoughts: After years of making series about NEET characters sucked into other worlds, they finally decided to send a mom along with their geeky kid to make sure they don’t get into too much trouble.  I’ve done a bit of research and have been assured that this won’t go in a more…disturbing direction. Instead we just have some adorable mom looking after her brat kid, and being a bit of a helicopter parent: she’s absurdly powerful so she can handle any threat, and the series has harem elements because she wants to finally marry her stupid kid off.   This has a lot of potential to be cute and stand out amidst a forest of isekai series for the season.
Premiering: July 12th.

Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon II: Based off of a light novel of the same name written by Fujino Omori and illustrated by Suzuhito Yasuda, Is It Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is set in the world of Orario, where adventurers band together and look for treasures in an underground labyrinth known as Dungeon. However, for Bell Cranel, fame and riches are secondary to what he wants to find the most: girls. He soon finds out though, that anything can happen in Dungeon, and winds up being the damsel in distress instead! (Crunchyroll)
Thoughts: DanMachi was pretty high up on the list of light novel anime adaptations I was hoping would come back.  Bell Cranel is one of the few legitimately compelling stories of growth anime has provided in the last decade, from his own personal growth to how his family and party was gradually filled out. Even the world itself  is pretty fascinating, feeling a lot more like a video game turned into an anime than most fantasy series.  Now if I cross my fingers maybe a group will finally take care of Legend of the Legendary Heroes and No Game No Life.
Premiering: July 12th.

Try Knights: The story of the series focuses on Riku Harima, a high school student who approaches rugby from a strategic perspective, and Akira Kariya, a naturally gifted athlete. Despite their clashing personalities, Riku and Akira explore a passion for the sport together.  (Crunchyroll)
Thoughts: A BL(?) rugby series animated by Gonzo?  Honestly, I’ll take anything that isn’t an isekai or another baseball series.  At least until the inevitable plot twist that this somehow takes place in an alternate world where rugby involves giant robots or something.
Premiering: 2019.
And that wraps up another season!  What series are you looking forward to this time around?