Unnecessary Conversation

More new premieres, starting with Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku, and tangentially-related conversations about ahoges, Love Lab, and how Dogakobo wins at restyling Amu Hinamori for the modern age, Kami no mizo Shiru Sekai Megami-Hen, where we GODDESS now, and finally Watamote, because being anti-social is the cool thing.

 
 

 

Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku
“AHOGE~”
Natsuki Andou is a high school student who upon being asked what club she was going to join, jokingly replied “The Go-Home Club”. Little does she know, the club is very real, headed by Sakura Doumyouji, and two other members, Claire Kokonoe and Botan Oohagi. Here, they spend their club time doing seemingly random things, such as feeding pigeons, listening to Oohagi’s bear wrestling stories, or indulging in Kokonoe’s wealthy upbringing. There is never a dull moment in the “Go-Home Club”.

On the surface, it very much appears like another standard slice-of-life in a club story. Besides Andou’s rather-large ahoge, and her tendency to break-in to the dialogue to comment or refute it, the broken-up scene structure separated by title cards sort of lends it a visual 4koma style that makes each scene end up more like inter-connected skits. I often wonder why Japan hasn’t just started a long-running variety/SNL-like show using anime where they just spin shit like this off for an hour and include some VAs and J-POP bands. Seems like that might be a hit. Still, it’s worth a few laughs, though Love Lab might be a couple notches above this in the raw jokes department.

TLDR Watch This: You really wanted to shout MAHO~ whenever Andou comes on screen.
TLDR Don’t Watch This: Thought Claire wasn’t a good rich-girl name.
Sub Group: Horrible
First Rating: 7

Kami no mizo Shiru Sekai Megami-Hen
“Aw shit son, we’re dealing with halos now. Shit just got real”
I did not realize they aired the Tenri arc before this started, so I was confused when she showed up in the beginning of the episode with the halo on her head and everyone pretended they knew who she was. I closed the episode right then and there, downloaded those episodes, and watched that shit before starting the episode back up. So fair warning, if you’re retarded like me, fill yourself in on those facts before you begin this season, it makes understanding what is going on easier. Also Kanon 100%, though I skimmed that.

TWGOK’s Goddess arc focuses on the goddesses that inhabit Tenri and Kanon, and how they are connected to the history of Heaven, Earth, and Hell, leading to the creation of the organization Elise, Haqua, and the others work for. So we’re now starting to at least understand why Elsie and Co. has been hunting the loose souls, how Keima got wrapped into it, and how he’s going to get everyone out, I guess. TWGOK is a show that really hooked me in with the OP music, and this one did not fail to deliver either. The show itself is fairly standard fare, but it’s got good characters and a decent story to keep me watching. Tenri/Diana and their introduction to the series really got things going a bit, because I wondered how long we were just going to watch Elsie and Haqua fuck around with souls. I’m sure everything makes sense if I read the manga, and I should, but fuck man, so much to watch and read, I am but one simple man… who needs a job…

TLDR Watch This: For the adorable Tenri face before Diana steps in and makes it more awesome.
TLDR Don’t Watch This: If you’re too emo for halos.
Sub Group: Horrible
First Rating: 7

Love Lab
“Everything Shugo Chara could’ve been without the magic.”
Riko Kurahashi is a high school girl who comes off as tomboyish and cool to other girls, but due to this fact doesn’t hold much weight with guys since they see her as one of them. Natsuo Maki is the student council president who also is admired by everyone for her hard work and cheerful demeanor. Riko accidentally walks in on Natsuo kissing a pillow with a drawn-on depiction of a boy, which kicks off a chain of events that sees Riko as an unofficial member of the Student Council, only her role is to help Natsuo understand love and gain popularity from the boys, something she is unaccustomed to since boys see her as one of them. Meanwhile they are flanked by current or previous members of the Student Council who were ousted for various reasons.

Every girl goes though that period in their life (haw) where they spend a lot of time arguably by themselves trying to understand love. My sister did it in the nineties with every square inch of her room plastered with magazine cut-outs of the boy group Hanson. Being a guy, I can’t completely speak for the female gender, but I have to imagine that when you get two girls together, one of the traditional well-liked, honor student, hardworking variety, and pair her with the tomboyish, athletic, down-to-earth variety, you get Love Lab, where character spin-offs of Precure’s Nagisa and Honoka meet in the student council room to talk about love, or some abstract form of it. Dogakobo typically never fails to deliver a good show, especially after GJ-bu and Yuru Yuri, two of my past favorites. So I’m pretty hype for where this one will go.

TLDR Watch This: If you’re hoping for a Chitose that bleeds all over the floor at the thought of yuri.
TLDR Don’t Watch This: If you’re hoping for time-traveling Akarin to step in and hijack the show.
Sub Group: Commie
First Rating: 7

Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui
“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”
Kuroki Tomoko is a high school girl who in the virtual world has conquered guys in dating sims time and time again, but in the real world, she is a borderline-shut-in with a gloomy disposition on life and the people in it. Unpopular and unnoticed at school, she has difficulty communicating with everyone except her family, and internally mocks the people around her for being superficial and fake. But she desperately wants to be a normal girl and have normal friends and a relationship.

So if SNAFU didn’t gel with you last season, this season presents a much better portrayal of anti-social, shut-in mentality from the lone female perspective. Yes, Watamote delivers something that registers as part-TWGOK with the dating sims and part-Welcome to the NHK with sheer internal dialogue of how incredibly boring and lame people are, how they’re all dicks and bitches, and how life is so much better alone. I’m sure older folks would just say this was everything written in The Catcher and the Rye and everyone is just a phony, but I’ve heard the manga is pretty good, and probably worth my read now as I wait for the next episode. Was this me in high school? Maybe a bit. Even for as anti-social and nerd I was, I managed to have one or two friends to talk to often, and I could hold a conversation. If anything, Tomoko is me now as an adult, where I only have one or two people to talk to, mostly in my family, and I generally detest the outside world. My how the times have changed.

TLDR Watch This: To remember your nostalgic swirly days, you nerd.
TLDR Don’t Watch This: You were “well-liked” in high school
Sub Group: FTW (FFF + UTW)
First Rating: 8

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Gin no Saji is the only premiere left this week, otherwise we’re on track for the rest of this season.

Also, Saimoe should be coming up within a matter of weeks, so this week I am going to start prepping some things for this season’s bouts. The format will be largely the same as last year, and depending on where I’m at with a job in the coming weeks, should stay regularly updated. Check out TL;DR Saimoe for that, and keep an eye on Animesaimoe dot org for more information.