Welcome to part 2 of the Summer anime first impressions series! You can read all about my thoughts on Berserk, Days and Orange here.

To recap: I won’t be reviewing all the series that are coming out this summer – some I know that I just won’t like – such as harem series or really intense shojo ones. But I shall try to watch as many as possible. At the end I’ll let you know which ones I’ll be keeping up with You can check out the full list of summer anime series at Anichart. Just a quick rundown of my voting scales:

0-2: Wow that’s part of my life I’ll never get back

2-3: Reasonable, would need to watch the next one or two episodes to see if it’s worth continuing

4-5: That was absolutely fantastic! Give me the next episode now!

D.Gray-man Hallow

THE HYPE IS SO REAL FOR THIS ONE. Okay so I first read D.gray-man when I was in high school, and also began watching the anime right up till the end. Then there was the major hiatus with the manga, and the anime got canned after 108 episodes in 2008. So I have been waiting for 8 years for this new anime adaptation, the expectations are so very high!

D.gray-man Hallow starts off roughly when the last anime series ended, also thankfully where I gave up reading the manga. The old Order headquarters had undergone a major Akuma attack, some weird 14th stuff is happening with Allen and Lenalee has the new crystal type of Innocence. So this first episode mainly acted as a way to anchor audiences to where the story was going – nothing much happened. But for those of us, like me, who pretty much forgot everything, it was a nice refresher.

D.Gray-man Hallow big nose.png — dat nose

My main problem with the episode is that there didn’t seem to be much attention or care to detail in the character designs. You can see Lenalee’s nose in the image above – like what the actual heck!? There were continuous frames where character’s features were obscured or just drawn terribly. It was really disappointing to see in an anime that everyone is really excited for. Another issue, although smaller, was that Allen’s voice was that of a pubescent boy. It was really off putting ,especially since he had obviously grown since the previous series.

Overall it didn’t quite meet my incredibly high expectations. Also the series is only planned to have 13 episodes -not sure how much plot they’ll be able to squeeze in. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how it develops. 3/5

Taboo Tattoo

Seigi is a middle schooler who lives up to his first name of ‘Justice’. Trained in martial arts by his grandfather, he protects those he can. The episode opens with him doing just that, saving a homeless man from a group of ruffians. As thanks, the man gives him a tattoo which contains an incredibly power. Seigi must quickly work out how to use his new found abilities while also dealing with an American taskforce trying to find these ‘tattoos’ and also others wanting to capture him.

So there’s really nothing ‘new’ about this series. You’ve got a generic protagonist who is thrown into a strange situation with a group of girls. There’s bouncing boobs, weird cat actions that characters do (like licking to drink), and lots of tight/ revealing clothing. On top of that, information about the tattoos and the wider political context were just quickly thrown at audiences without any explanation. The only good aspect was that the fight scenes were really well animated. Overall it wasn’t a very impressive first episode 1.5/5

Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu

Sakaguchi is a high schooler with a little secret – he’s obsessed with BL manga. He buys series in bookshops and even participates in online discussions of recent series. This short anime series, with each episode about 3 minutes long, goes into Sakaguchi’s everyday life. As he explains exactly what a ‘fudanshi’ is, makes friends with other BL enthusiasts and tries to convert his best friend. Overall it’s a really funny series, especially if you like BL! 4.5/ 5

Bananya

There’s really not much to say about this series. It seems to be just a silly 2-3 minute episode about cats in bananas (I think?) It’s actually really cute and funny, but not much of a plot line. I guess something really mindless to watch when you’re bored or need a break 3/5

tumblr_nbcoroTZs81shxu4jo1_500 — I’m out

That’s it for now! I’ll be (hopefully) writing up part 3 sometime tomorrow! The series that I will be continuing are: D.gray-man Hallow, Fundanshi Koukou Seikatsu and Bananya (purely because it was so cute). I’ll try to write up a review of them every 3 weeks, as I find it a bit of a drag to do weekly episode reviews! We’ll see how I go 😛

How are you finding the new anime season? Any favourites so far?

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