Otaku Digest: Gender Bending Dragon Survival
Here we are at the beginning of another season. Welcome one and all once again to Otaku Digest as we dive face-first into a whole new host of anime series in this summer season. What did you guys think of last season? There were some serious heavy hitters in the spring season so any upcoming shows have a lot to live up to.
If you are new to what we do here on O.D., we take the first episode of all new anime (new being the optimum word here) and see if they would be worth sticking with for a whole series; first impressions are everything here. Now we’ll jump straight into the summer season with Aoharu x Kikanjuu, Charlotte and Chaos Dragon: Sekiryuu Sen’eki.
Aoharu x Kikanjuu
This is the first anime of the season, so the pressure is on for action, comedy, shounen, gender bender and slice of life (ugh). Aoharu x Kikanjuu, or Aoharu x Machinegun, began airing on July 3. Within the anime we see high school student Hotaru Tachibana, a female student attending school disguised as a boy, who finds herself involved in a series of world survival games hosted by one Masamune Matsouka. Together along with an ero-manga artist called Tohru Yukimura they form a team with one aim; to be the best Japan has ever seen. A girl disguised as a guy in a team with two guys as they try to survive… what could go wrong?
If you’ve read O.D. before now, you likely know of my hatred for slice of life anime. If so, you’re probably wondering why I’m kicking off the season with the genre I supposedly despise. I choose the anime featured in this weekly column at random, not knowing a thing about them before I watch them, which is part of the fun. It’s like the lotto. I have a serious hate for slice of life but I’m willing to give any anime a chance. This anime is confusing and slightly hectic in its pacing; it can be very slow and drawn out at times, and then the next minute it appears rushed and frantic. The story feels like the creator took popular concepts from other anime and mashed them together; hosts, gender-bending and basically the entire underlying narrative from Ouran High School Host Club and the whole survival games aspect from, well, all popular action anime in the last 5 years. I found myself at random moments just sitting there and questioning everything happening on-screen. There are good aspects in there too, however, as although the characters are just rehashes of other much loved characters they were actually enjoyable to watch and were mostly entertaining.
Will I Continue To Watch: I was on the fence until the end, but no. To me, this is a lazy anime that it basically rehashing previously acclaimed anime and not even hiding it.
Charlotte
Next up this week is Charlotte which first aired on the on July 5 and is a supernatural drama. This anime is set in a world where a small percentile of boys and girls obtain special powers during puberty. Most of these children, like Yuu Otosaka, live generic and normal lives and can use their powers without the vast majority of the world knowing. Yuu is one of these special people trying to live a normal life. That is, until a young woman, Nao Tomori, appears before him and his meeting with her unravels and exposes the true fate of those who have the ability to use these special powers.
Straight off, I cannot stand this main character, I get that he is meant to be portrayed this way but, to me, he simply comes off as a generic, arrogant and over-privileged school boy. Thankfully, they do give him a small glimpse of humility when we see his home life; not much, but some. Saying that, the actual anime itself is pretty interesting. The entire ‘powers’ premise is interesting and, since they don’t exactly go into depth about it, there is room for so much development of not only the powers aspect but with the characters too. I look forward to the other characters beating the arrogance out of the main character.
Will I Continue To Watch: Yes! The story is interesting and the characters are really entertaining.
Chaos Dragon: Sekiryuu Sen’eki
Lastly this week we have Chaos Dragon: Sekiryuu Sen’eki, a fantasy anime that started airing on July 2 and is set in the year 3015, otherwise known as the sparkling era. This anime tells us the story of the cold war between the two great nations of Kōran and Donatia, dividing the world in their conflict as they fight for the ultimate supremacy of the world. Hidden from the masses is the island nation of Nil Kamui, a nation that lost its independence and stands in the middle of this deadlock.
The animation is outstanding. I could kiss it. I won’t, but I should. It is really gripping and absolutely beautiful. This anime took an interesting take on the fantasy genre of anime in that it didn’t follow a bloated storyline about the history of the anime’s world. What and why was explained very well and it had a great flow to it. Saying that, though, this anime dragged on quite a bit in what seemed like exposition but felt more like unneeded filler for most of the first half of the episode. In the second half, things got real and they introduced the dragon and fantasy aspects to the anime much more and it is worth every second. It is slightly confusing at first but they really play that up to their advantage. They manage to make you think the anime is a regular drawn out filler-filled anime at the beginning and then hit you with the action and feelings-packed second half. I see what you did there, anime.
Will I Continue To Watch: If it can keep the pacing of the second half of this episode, I don’t see why not.
What are you watching this season? Do you want to see a certain series here on Otaku Digest? Let us know in the comments!
