So the new season begins. A lot has happened to me in real-life. Moving home, getting my teaching qualification, being a all-round independent adult. This means I have had to miss out on Anime Expo once again. This is my usual routine, you see: buying registration for the following year as soon they are available, and sometime around December or January, it dawns on me that I won’t be able to make it. So I end up doing what I do every year, and that’s following it via social media.
Sports appears to be the genre of the moment, both in the anime I watch and in real life. I’m obliged to follow the soccer World Cup and support my home country of England (right now they’re semi-finalists, and have a fighting chance of making the final for the first time in over 50 years, which everyone here is making a massive deal out of). I’m also a keen follower of Formula 1, and July is full of races. There’s Wimbledon too, but I’m not so much into tennis anymore, and there’s all the non-physical e-sports that I follow…
Then there’s the very harmless Harukana Receive that’s about volleyball.
High-school second-year Haruka Oozora finds herself moving into her grandmother and cousin’s house in Naha, Okinawa when her mother has important business overseas (as they always do). After getting excited at the possibility of being close to the water for swimming, diving and surfing, she settles in very quickly. At her first day on the beach, she meets 2 beach volleyball players, Narumi and Ayasa. Narumi grows cold at Haruka’s idea that people can become aces at the sport, and when her cousin Kanata shows up, Narumi challenges the both of them to an impromptu match. This is her (and ours effectively) introduction to beach volleyball, one of the most summery sports out there.
I’ll tell you something: Okinawa looks like a beautiful place indeed, and I’m surprised that there aren’t that many translated manga set out there. Harukana Receive certainly makes out to be the most summer-themed show this season, and I’m sure a lot of otaku will want to save up and check out Okinawa when this is over. So far, it has set up a decent background story of the former beach volleyball player backing out for reasons so far unknown, and Haruka potentially being the catalyst for getting her back into the sport.
Harukana Receive is looking to be a real feel-good show for this summer; something that I haven’t seen in a while, and something I sorely need considering my current mood after moving home. It has very likable characters, an excellent happy-sounding soundtrack and even its own Ton-chan in the form of Kanata’s pet turtle (cos Okinawa).
…and to think Anichart.net listed this as an ecchi anime…
Moving onto my other sports anime this season: Hanebado!
The show begins in a very interesting manner: a very animated scene of badminton against two badminton aces, Nagisa and Ayano. We see Nagisa despair on why she is even playing this sport when she can’t seem to score any points, and when the match is over, it’s Ayano’s turn to despair on why she is even playing for very different reasons. Six months later, the two meet again, and while Nagisa is playing the slave-driver in her school’s badminton team and blaming others for mistakes she makes as a captain (causing people to quit in protest), Ayano is looking for a new club to join, and to be as far away from badminton as possible. The reasons why this is are still quite unknown, but I’m sure they must be very good ones considering how much of an ace she was at the game.
This comes just as the new badminton coach and class alumni Kentaro arrives with the hope to whip the team into some shape. He sees a lot of talent in Ayano and is very keen to get her back into the game. In the meantime, Nagisa keeps pushing herself to the limit without a single care for anyone else in the team, and as Ayano thrashes her in an impromptu game, it shows.
Hanebado! has some truly excellent animation, with each serve, shot and smash given great detail. Right now, though, there’s no real singular protagonist, as the show is cutting between Ayano, Nagisa, Kentaro and other badminton player Yu. The ending of episode 2 opens up another strange character to look out for, but aside from that, this show has relied a lot on both its animation team and its devotion to the original manga.
Both of these sports shows I’m watching this season are rather new territory for me. Also considering that so many sports shows of anime past have been male-oriented (Haikyuu!!, Free!, Yuri!!! on Ice, Yowamushi Pedal), it’s very good to see something from a female perspective, and not just something lewd like what Keijo!!!!!!!! was. So far both Harukana Receive and Hanebado! have started off extremely well and I’m very happy with both of them. This won’t be like last season, where I would only be half-awake; this time you have my undivided attention 🙂
The other two shows I am doing, Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight and Hi-Score Girl, won’t be starting until the end of this week, and I’m looking forward to what both of them have to offer. I figured that, as I’m staying far away from the major anime franchises once again, I ought to find something I’ll actually enjoy…and not curse to the high heavens.
Instead of going on a Twitter poll like I normally do, I wanted to choose Serial Experiments Lain as my classic/out-of-season show for this season, and my reasons were down to its 20th anniversary now…plus the fact that, even after all this time of owning it, I still have not seen it. Borrowing my brother-in-law’s machine in order to watch my Region 1 DVDs of this.
If Lain is too ancient for you, here’s a refresher on how the show starts. Lain Iwakura is a 14-year-old loner at school. Her father’s work means he is online all-day every day (here the internet is referred to as The Wired) and both her mother and older sister seem so distant to her. One day, Lain receives a message from a schoolgirl who recently committed suicide, stating that she has discarded her body and now lives in The Wired, where she claims to have met God. Suddenly curious to know what this is about, she convinces her father to give her an old computer so she can connect to The Wired and discover the truth herself. And so begins her long and surreal journey into The Wired, and what she finds there.
Despite technology advancing dramatically in the space of 20 years, Lain doesn’t appear to have aged. It kicks off with heavy mystery right from the very start, and keeps us hooked constantly. This was released in 1998, and anime hadn’t really gone in this kind of direction before. Sure enough there had been plenty of shows and movies touching on all corners of science fiction, but Lain was an innovator when it came to philosophical and psychological context. The meaning of identity and what it means to exist is questioned constantly, and Lain’s sudden fascination with The Wired is shown as both interesting for her and unhealthy for her.
Anime Expo gave out a lot of decent announcements; one such is the Netflix release date of Dragon Pilot: Hisone & Masotan. It came out in the Spring season, and Netflix bagged the license for it early, to be released in September. I still review Netflix shows on my other group blog Japan Curiosity, so be sure to check that out.
In the meantime, what shows have you picked for the summer season? Are you succumbing to the major anime franchises? Are there any Anime Expo announcements you’re looking forward to? Does knowing that Serial Experiments Lain is 20 years old make you feel ancient as well? Feel free to air your opinions in the comments below…