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cherry-valentine · 4 years

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Spring 2020 Anime:

Kami no Tou is one of my favorites this season. It’s unique in that it’s based on a Korean web comic rather than a Japanese manga or light novel. This gives it a different feel than most anime. The series centers on a massive tower that, when climbed, will grant a wish. Only the strongest warriors can hope to climb the tower, and even attempting it requires passing several grueling tests. The protagonist, Bam, initially enters the tower to find his friend Rachel, but ends up joining a team of three to climb the tower together. For the majority of the first episode’s runtime, I wasn’t really into this series and was pretty sure I wouldn’t watch anymore. It had a pretty vague opening that left me underwhelmed. But just before the episode ends, we get a really awesome sequence that sets the tone for the rest of the series, and I was hooked. The tests to climb the tower are surprisingly brutal, with frequent deaths until the cast is whittled down to the main players. The core group of characters is made up of a refreshing variety, with plenty of badass ladies. The main team of three are all likable. I honestly thought I wouldn’t like the lizard-like Rak very much, but he grew on me very quickly. The art is great, rarely going off model. The animation quality is pretty good and the design work is fantastic. The opening and ending themes are among my favorites this season. Probably my favorite new series of the season.

Kakushigoto covers several types of series all in one. It’s a comedy at its core, with a focus on quick skits and gags. It’s also adorable and heartwarming, following a single father named Goto raising his young daughter, Hime. The hook of the series, and the source of most of the comedy, is that Goto is a manga artist who draws “ecchi” manga (when I first read the description, I had something else in mind, but it turns out he just makes silly, slightly perverted gag manga) and he’s desperate to hide this fact from his daughter, so he pretends he’s a regular “salary man”. His interactions with Hime are so sweet and wholesome, it really makes you just sigh and say, “Awww!” However, the series also covers another type of anime: the tearjerker. The scenes talking about Goto’s dead wife are almost hard to watch, as it’s very clear that losing her was incredibly painful for him, but he had to move on quickly for his daughter’s sake. There are little things, like the fact that the wife apparently prepared boxes for Hime to open at every age containing things she thought Hime might need or want at each age (and it looks like she prepared boxes for Goto as well!), that make it hard to stay dry-eyed while watching. There are also scenes taking place several years later, involving a teenage Hime, that imply some extremely heartbreaking things I’d rather not think about. Basically, any given episode will have you gushing over the cuteness, then laughing hysterically, then crying and batting away some dark and depressing thoughts. The art has a very unique style. To be honest I’m not entirely sure if I like it or not. The colors and backgrounds are lovely, but some of the character designs are a little... odd. In particular, Hime is probably the least cute “young daughter” type character I’ve seen in anime. Something about the way her face is drawn is just... off. Oh well, might be good for warding off the gross perverts who might be watching the show for all the wrong reasons (it’s anime, so I suspect the worst). The music is perfect, with the best ending theme of the season (seriously go watch it, right now! It’s a true visual delight with an amazing song to go with it). Highly recommended unless you have no soul.

Kaguya-sama Love is War Season 2 was something I was looking forward to very much. I enjoyed season one way more than I expected to, and so far season two is just as good. The series follows two highly intelligent but extremely awkward students at a fancy private school who are in love with each other but each is trying to force the other to confess their feelings first. It’s a genuinely funny comedy that also captures the feeling of being in love with someone but being too shy (or too prideful) to tell them. Season two introduces a couple of new characters who, in my opinion, aren’t super interesting but thankfully aren’t around enough to wear out their welcome. This is one of those shows where no actual progress can ever be made, because if these two characters actually get together, the entire premise of the show falls apart and there’s no reason for it to keep going. Despite that, the show continues to be funny and entertaining, and it’s consistently well done, from the art to the writing to the music.

My Life as a Villainess is one of the quirkier “isekai” series out there. It follows a modern teenage girl who suddenly dies and is reborn in the world of her favorite otome game. The catch is that, instead of being born as the lovely heroine that all the guys fall in love with, she’s born as the villain, Catarina, who makes life hell for the heroine and, in every route in the game, ends up either dead or exiled. Upon realizing this, Catarina decides to do everything in her power to avoid these potential fates. This mostly amounts to her being nice to everyone (especially the game’s heroine, whom she meets in this world’s equivalent of high school) and trying to improve both her magic power and her fighting skills so she can defend herself, as well as learning to grow food in a garden so she can feed herself after being exiled. The show’s true (and obvious) twist is that everyone (regardless of gender) ends up falling in love with Catarina. It’s actually a pretty nice message, that people won’t automatically love you, but if you work on improving yourself and be genuinely kind to others, people will gravitate to you. The series is actually really funny and overall light-hearted. It’s particularly amusing if you’ve ever played an otome game and are familiar with the tropes. The art is nice, if a little generic, and the music is fine. Not my favorite this season but certainly worth a watch, especially since the season grew a bit dry a few weeks in.

Major 2nd Season 2 is a baseball anime sequel to the series Major, which I really want to watch (but is clearly not required for enjoying this one). In the second season, protagonist Daigo (the son of the previous series’ protagonist) is now a second year in middle school, and is the captain of the team after most of the third years quit. Almost all of his team mates from the first season have split up and gone to other schools, but Sakura, one of the few girl players, is still on his team. It’s interesting to me that the majority of Daigo’s team is made up of girls, to the point that other teams have a tendency to underestimate them. I didn’t even realize that in middle school, teams could be mixed like this. It’s actually refreshing, as the girls are very skilled (Daigo points out very early on that the girls follow the exact same training regimen as the boys). In fact, the girls in general are much more talented than the boys (Daigo himself even gives up his position as catcher to a first year girl who proves she has more skill than he does). It’s just really nice that these are good players, not “good for a girl”. Another fun aspect of the series is the fact that previous teammates from season one are popping up as opponents in season two. The animation is fine and the music is good. If you like baseball at all, this is the show for you. If you like sports anime in general, give it a shot. It doesn’t really have that “lots of hot guys who are super close with each other” vibe that most sports anime has, so keep that in mind.

There were a few others I was watching that had to be put on hiatus due to the pandemic. Since I only watched three or four episodes of them, I’ll wait and do write-ups for them once they resume.

EDIT: Added Major 2nd Season 2 because it resumed airing.

Carry Over Shows From Previous Seasons: Black Clover (now on hiatus) Ahiru no Sora

Best of Season: Best New Show: Kami no Tou Best Opening Theme: Kami no Tou Best Ending Theme: Kakushigoto Best New Male Character: Goto (Kakushigoto) Best New Female Character: Catarina (My Life as a Villainess)

#Anime Reviews #Anime Recommendations #Seasonal Anime #Anime #Spring 2020 Anime #Text #Kami no Tou #Kakushigoto

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