Summer Anime 2024: Quiet Time Under the Sun

Huh. Not a lot of exciting stuff is on this season, is there? Or am I just burnt out on other worlds, magic academies, and high school rom coms?

Oh, god. I really am getting old…

Unlike the last few anime seasons, there aren’t a whole lot of sequels this time around. Beyond the obvious highlight of Oshi no Ko, at least. But unless I’m missing some hidden gems, we can skip the highlights list this time around.

Fine with me. That just means we can get straight into the meat and potatoes.

Tower of God Season 2

It’s been eighty-three years…

The first season of Tower of God dropped all the way back in 2020 towards the beginning of the pandemic. As I didn’t have anything else going on at the time – beyond panicking over a global pandemic and losing my job – I watched it. And I really enjoyed it!

Beautiful animation, an intriguing world, likable characters, interesting and creative action sequences, and to top it all off: a cliffhanger ending that had me screaming to know more. This series checked off all my major boxes and then some. Everyone told me to read the web comic, that it only got crazier from there, but I resisted, holding out hope for season two.

And then I forgot about it. It’s been so long that I’ll have to rewatch the first season before going into the second. Even so, I’m just glad to see this series continue after such a long wait. If it lives up to the hype, all the better.

It won’t take much. Just let Rachel be punished for her crimes. Shove that brat off the top of the tower and it’ll be a slam dunk.

My Deer Friend Nokotan

The OP singlehandedly put this one here. Some things are so insane that you simply can’t ignore them.

Unhinged is the best word to describe ‘My Deer Friend Nokotan’. It feels more like a shit post than an anime, and I mean that as a compliment. When the CGI deer are somehow the most normal thing going on in your show, then say no more. I’m already in.

First Nichijou, now this. What is it with anime and deer? They’re like the Florida gators of Japan.

Suicide Squad Isekai

Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like Warner Bros. has no idea what to do with the Suicide Squad IP. We got two movies, and the only good one flopped because of COVID. Then there was the recent game, which crashed and burned in record time. Now they’re throwing their hands in the air and saying, “Fuck it, make it one of them isekai thingies! Slap Harley Quinn on it, people will watch anything with her in it!” Am I crazy, or have we lost the plot here?

At least they’re trying new stuff, I guess. Better get a new thing than the same derivative copy-pasted slop. Cough cough Marvel cough.

In all fairness, sticking the Suicide Squad in an isekai setting is an idea so absurd it could loop back around to being great. If not that, than at least entertaining. If nothing else, the comic/manga hybrid style the animation team has been using isn’t half bad, so at least the artists are giving this crazy idea their best.

More than anything, I’m curious to see how this will affect the pipe line of DC content as a whole. Between this and ‘My Adventures with Superman‘, Warner has been putting a fair bit down on anime-style content. If this series succeeds, what kind of unhinged madness will follow in its wake?

So long as they don’t use AI images like the comics, I’ll be excited to find out.

Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest

Getting back to surprising returns…

Fairy Tail was one of the first anime I watched back in my earliest days as a budding weeb. Being young and impressionable, I thought it was great! And with no social life to distract me, there was nothing else for me to do, so I binged it until I was caught up. At that point, I was fully invested in this series.

By the time the final season came out, however, I had grown considerably older, and my tastes had grown and changed. I could no longer ignore the numerous glaring flaws of the series. But I had come that far already, so I saw the final arc through to its end, if only to give that little piece of my adolescence some closure.

This series is basically shounen junk food. It revels in all the worst tropes in the genre; too many characters, nonsensical writing, fan service bordering on hentai, nonsensical power systems, the list goes on. But the fights can be fun and that music is unironically fantastic; it had style rather than substance. It’s like an anime Michael Bay movie; just turn your brain off, give in to your most basic animal instincts, and watch the dumpster burn.

Now here we are again. With a new season of Fairy Tail. A whole new start with the same world and characters. The nostalgic twelve year old in me wants to leave things like ‘critical thinking’ at the door and be that starry-eyed kid again. The jaded critic in me wants to watch just to see how this insane mess develops from here.

Both agree on one point: I ain’t missing this shit for the world! Give me the tattoo and let’s shout about the power of friendship! I’m rejoining the guild!

Conclusion

Honestly, I’m glad for a slower, more quiet anime season. Keeping up with the massive torrent of shows we’ve been getting these last few years has been downright exhausting. I’ll gladly take a more relaxed change of pace.

Besides, this gives me time enough to catch up on my ever growing back log. Vain as that effort has been for the last… ten years of my watching anime. Some battles will simply never end.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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