Summer Anime 2019 Breakdown

Until this summer season, I’ve been in an anime rut. Then, Carole and Tuesday and Dr. Stone came along. I’ve watch several anime that I count as decent, but not much beyond that. Most anime lately have been mediocre and tired. Isekei, I’m looking at you. I’ve been watching Demon Slayer, which was good up until the comedic characters appeared. Demon Slayer lost its focus on Tanjiro and his sister Nezuko. Many episodes devolved to Tanjiro yelling and the antics of Zenitsu and Inosuke. All the yelling between the three shattered the wonderfully dark story. Is it wrong that I hope Zenitsu and Inosuke die?

That’s the problem I’ve had with anime lately. They ruin themselves by breaking with the feel they established and by losing their focus. I still like Demon Slayer, but it has lost its luster.

Likewise, I delved into the aging High School DxD. Now, I know going in that this one is an ecchi, and that I will be irritated by it. I was right, but the anime keeps with its established themes. It has some decent moments among the fluff and follows anime’s trend of missing moments for great characterization. There’s so much fan service in the anime that clothing becomes fan service!

In one High School DxD scene, Issei, the protagonist, saves his friend Asia during a ritual to extract her magical powers. As expected, she wears a filmy dress and one of her breasts escapes. Here is where the anime fails at characterization. Issei sobs over her as she dies, but the moment is ruined by her exposed breast. If he would’ve tenderly covered her, his affection for her and good nature (despite his pervyness) would be apparent. Instead, her exposed boob overs in the corner of the frame throughout the scene. Ugh, but I should expect such poor writing from ecchi.

The trouble is how anime in general follows this trend. Demon Slayer breaks the tone for comedy and loses chances for tenderness between Tanjiro and Nezuko. It loses chances to develop Tanjiro’s insecurities, just as DxD loses the chance I described. But just as I consider a hiatus from anime, good ones come along. In this case, Shinichiro Watanabe’s Carole and Tuesday and Dr. Stone. Carole and Tuesday doesn’t miss a moment to build characterization. You’ll see all sorts of body types in this anime, and the typical moe style doesn’t appear. The anime follows a disparate pair of girls on their quest to make it in the music industry. Set in the future on Mars (it is Watanabe after all), they have to contend against AI-written music and their pasts. Like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, Carole and Tuesday focuses on the interaction between characters in various situations. Bones animates dance and playing sequences well–if you overlook some lip syncing problems in the dub.

Carole and Tuesday lacks fan service, path deviation, and dropped characterization moments. Instead, it captures the dynamics between friends and plays with the role of AI in our lives. Each episode features an attempt to progress their careers as performer-songwriters, but the characters remain more important than the plot.

Dr. Stone isn’t as literary as Carole and Tuesday. It’s a love letter to science. After a strange light petrifies all humans, nearly 4,000 years passes. The protagonist, a genius named Senku, breaks out of his petrification and decides to rebuild the science-focused world he loves. It’s not realistic that one person can know as much about, well, everything in science. However, the show grabbed my attention because of its intelligence. It offers actual scientific formulas for inventions that changed civilization, such as gunpowder. It warns about the danger of the formulas. It touches the problems of civilization: the problem of property, greed, and the tragedy of commons.

Neither of these anime are perfect, but I found them refreshing. They encourage me to not give up on anime despite the flood of mediocre stories, disappointing stories, and character frustration. As I get older, I tolerate anime’s…animeisms less. Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell Second Gig, and Samurai Champloo form my anime taste. I want to see more anime on their level of caliber. Carole and Tuesday‘s character focus certainly reaches them. Dr. Stone’s intelligence and interesting focus on science makes me think of Fullmetal Alchemist (the original) and Ghost in the Shell.

When Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop number among your first anime, it becomes hard to “slum” your tastes. I want substance and character dynamics. Cute girls and breakneck action is fine every once in awhile, but that’s the diet lately. Of course, I’m also an older anime fan, and much of the anime we get in the US doesn’t target my age group. But good stories and themes transcend age groups. Carole and Tuesday and Dr. Stone redeem this season of anime.

I struggle to watch middling anime like Demon Slayer more than what I consider lower end. I begin an anime with low expectations. Sometimes those expectations remain low, such as with If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord. That anime has an interesting single-father dynamic, but it remains little more than fluff with little development. Then Demon Slayer builds my expectations only to damage them with unnecessary and annoying comedic characters that shift the tone.

So to rank my Summer 2019 watches from best to worst. I don’t have a lot of time to watch, so my list is short:

1. Carole and Tuesday
2. Dr. Stone
3. Demon Slayer
4. Fruits Basket
5. Is it Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon Familia
6. If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord

Fruits Basket has great character dynamics, but too much yelling and angst for me. It’s a classic story that plumbs damaged psychology. Is it Wrong to Pick Up Girls provides a guilty fantasy romp that’s middling at best.

What anime did you enjoy during the summer season? What frustrated you and why?