Three Cs for Spring 2020
From
anthony.baranyi@bell.net@21:1/5 to
All on Thu Apr 2 18:26:27 2020
The early anime releases of each new season are often mediocre and Spring 2020 seems to be holding up to that tradition quite well. “BNA” was no great shakes, but I find these next three new series to be even less interesting. And yes, I am going to
cover three new series in this post because I can’t be bothered to spend the time or energy to try to say enough about any of them to justify three stand-alone posts.
“Appare-Ranman!” is a new original anime from P.A. Works. Unfortunately, nothing “works” for me in this pseudo-steam punk comic adventure. But then, I never cared for 1965’s “The Great Race” so it’s not surprising that this distant
descendant pushed all the wrong buttons for me. An unlikeable Japanese “super mechanical genius” and an painfully unfunny pseudo-comic relief samurai go through some boring misadventures and end up in a late 19th/early 20th century Los Angeles where
they join in a cross-country road race with a steam car (of sorts). Yes, the animation is colourful but the story is garbage and I don’t like the characters so I can’t see any reason to continue with this. My final rating is C.
“Kakushigoto (TV)” is an adaptation of a manga by Kouji Kumeta, author of “Zetsubou Sensei”, and it shows. This comedy about an uptight Father who doesn’t want his little daughter to know that Dad is a hentai manga author has all of the feel
and look of “Zetsubou” without the comedy. The father is too uptight and irritating and his “kooky sidekicks” are just copies of the supporting characters in “Zetsubou”. Neither the premise nor the execution work for me and I don’t care
about the characters so I’m not bothering with more and my final rating is once again C.
“Kami no Tou” is an adaptation of an apparently very popular web manwa. I’ve glanced at the manwa in the past but I found it to be just another magical battle fantasy and I never bothered reading it. So I’m completely baffled as to why I decided
to watch the first episode of the anime version because I can’t remember what made me decide to mark it for try out. In any event, my assessment of the manwa has held up in the first episode of the anime. It’s generic shounen wish fulfillment with no
edge to it. The best thing that can be said is at least it isn’t yet another isekai story. In any event, I saw no reason to want to watch more and again my final rating is C.
Dave Baranyi
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)