Summer ’24 Mid-Season Report, part 1

The week of 8/11 marked the official halfway point of the Summer 2024 season, so it’s time to take a look at how various series have been faring.

Though I watched at least the second episode of most series this season, I persisted past episode 3 with “only” 23 of them. Somewhat to my surprise, My Deer Friend Nokotan is not one of them. I normally go for these kind of absurdist comedies (I was a huge fan of Excel Saga back in the day, for instance), but I found this one too insufferably stupid to tolerate after just two episodes. I also lost interest in Suicide Squad Isekai after the initial three episodes, found TASUKETSU too shaky on writing merits to tolerate past two, and couldn’t jump on the bandwagon of The Elusive Samurai because the tonal dissonance between its cheery and incredibly dark parts bothered me too much. Of the ones that I did follow further, Spice & Wolf and Oshi no Ko will not be covered here or in part 2 because they’re getting episode reviews.

That still leaves 21 titles, so I am once again breaking this exercise into two parts. This part covers series which have aired at least their seventh regular episode of this season by 8/17/24, as well as special case Our Last Crusade.

2.5 Dimensional Seduction

Rating So Far: B-

I generally enjoy series about characters who are living out the joy of their fandom, and this series is most certainly that. Sure, it leans a bit heavy into the fan service angle at times, but that doesn’t bother me. All the little tidbits about the nature of cosplaying and cosroms are also interesting, even if this series isn’t as thorough about the former as, say, My Dress-Up Darling (the title it’s clearly emulating) was. The weakest part of the series so far is the childhood friend character who’s the wannabe-romantic rival (although she’s the only one at this point acknowledging that romance is involved), but the teacher who’s a former elite cosplayer who becomes the club sponsor is more promising. Not a great series, and it has had its occasional artistic failings (the screen shot comes from one of its weakest points), but it is involving and entertaining enough that I’ll certainly continue with it. It also has one of the season’s better EDs.

Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian

Rating So Far: B

The flak this series has taken for how its titular character isn’t the series’ most interesting or engaging female character is warranted. Alya’s quirky take on the standard tsundere archetype, where she only shows her affection for Masachika by speaking in a language she doesn’t realize he understands, is rather cute, but his sister Yuki is far more vibrant and entertaining with her snarky, playful attitude and indication of a more complicated family situation, and in recent episodes Alya’s sister Masha is starting to outshine Alya, too. Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s even possible for the series to course-correct on this at this point, but it’s not a crippling problem, either. The series still works pretty well as a light dramedy, as long as the incest-leaning elements don’t bother you much. (Yuki clearly has some not-entirely-sisterly feelings for Masachika, but he doesn’t see her that way and it is mostly played off as provocative teasing.)

Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools

Rating: B-

This one has suffered from enough quality control issues that it not taking a week off yet, when several others have, is somewhat surprising. I disagree with those who label it the worst-looking series of the season, but it definitely has its visual flaws, and even my favorite character design of the season (Dahlia, in the get-up she’s wearing in the screenshot above) cannot offset that. This is a series which operates at a very relaxed pace as isekai titles go, with the emphasis entirely on Dahlia overcoming her father’s death, failed marriage plans, and budding relationship with Wolf as she develops new artifices, but I don’t mind that, and a good chemistry is starting to develop between the two leads. If the artist merits would at least stabilize at a medium level then this could be a favorite low-key title.

Days With My Stepsister

Rating So Far: B-, I guess?

Of the series in this group, this one is easily the hardest for me to rate. That’s because I respect what it is doing even while not being convinced that its approach is working. This is definitely a very slow-burn series, one that almost takes too gradual and delicate a pace to showing how Yuta and Saki are trying to establish a proper step-sibling relationship while avoiding (partly in vain) being attracted to one another. It generally looks pretty good, and I especially appreciate how stylish its female characters look when not in school or work uniforms and how the series shows both Yuta and Saki’s viewpoints almost equally. However, while there is a mild sense of tension throughout, it lacks the strong spark and energy necessary to be fully compelling. I can still mildly recommend it, though you should not expect to be blown away by it.

I Parry Everything

Rating: C+

I started out liking this series a lot, and will definitely finish it out, but it has its own share of technical problem (though more erratically so). And man, protagonist Noor is just too unbelievably dense. Him not having a proper sense of scale on how strong he is worked well at first, and I still like how he can take such enormous advantage of skills that would, in an RPG setting, be equivalent to cantrips. Increasingly, though, he is feeling deliberately rather than accidentally obtuse, and that’s not a good look for this concept. Still, of the two series this season about a 30ish guy who doesn’t appreciate his own overwhelming strength, this is the better one.

Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World

Rating So Far: C-

Whether because of the Olympics or production issues, there have been a lot of weeks off for anime series this season, but this is the only series (so far) to have completely collapsed. It got four episodes out before its production issues became too much, and that it was struggling was pretty obvious on the visual front. The plot focused almost entirely on intrigue within the Nebulus Sovereignty and Iska’s team’s efforts to get Sisbell back home in the wake of an assassination attempts on the Queen, and it wasn’t doing badly, but it wasn’t anything special, either. The series is on indefinite hiatus, so there’s no telling when the rest of this will air at this point, and its return is not something I will be highly anticipating.

Quality Assurance in Another World

Rating So Far: B

This was one of the biggest surprises of the Preview Guide for me, and it has proven to be a solid (if unspectacular) performer since. The creativity with which it implement various video game flaws into its storytelling is impressive and it raises numerous interesting questions, such as what happens to a bug tester when they’re stuck out of bounds or in a loop and still can’t log out? (Or does that actually kick them out?) And why does Nikola seem to be different among NPCs? Surely it’s just more than one of the game’s major guiding AIs occasionally possessing her, right? It’s far from the greatest at action scenes, but it makes up for that with an engaging core cast. The rabbit character shown in the OP and ED has now joined, so only the elf warrior now awaits.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime s3

Rating: C+

Can I just get away with saying “it is what it is”? This half still has the spate of meetings which dominated the first half, but this times many of the meetings are more audiences and the people of Tempest are in the thick of putting together the city’s grand “coming out” festival. There are still some minor plots buzzing in the background, but honestly, this series is almost more fantasy slice-of-life than fantasy adventure at this point. It still has just enough going for it in the characters, setting-building details, and large-scale structuring to be mildly interesting, but it has fallen far from being a priority view at this point.

The Strongest Magician in the Demon Lord’s Army was a Human

Rating So Far: C

The strongest aspect of this one is its absolutely bangin’ OP (far more on the strength of its song than its visuals), which is easily one of the highlights of the season, if not the year, in that category. The actual episode content impresses far less. The Demon Lord’s character design is a plus (those eyes!), but the CG monster designs and animation aren’t, and action scenes which lean more on massed battles tend to be rather drab by fantasy anime standards. Nothing much interesting is going on in the plot here, either, although the writing does specifically emphasize that problematic types exist in both among the demons and among the humans. I still find this one watchable, but only as a low-priority time-filler.

Come back on 8/24/24 for part 2!