Boskov's Anime Recommendations 4

Yep, this is definitely a thing now.

Since my last recommendations list I’ve binged on a few new anime series and I’ve got a few more to recommend. As usual, most if not all of the anime I recommend can be found at Watch Cartoons Online (https://www.watchcartoononline.com/).

I’ve only got a handful anime series for you this time though. I’ve simply not been watching as much anime lately. My attention’s been diverted elsewhere. Still, these are the few anime I’ve watched since last time and enjoyed and hopefully you will like them as well.

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Amagi Brilliant Park

This comedy series hits kinda close to home for me as I’ve lived around theme parks my whole life and I’ve even worked for theme parks before. Amagi Brilliant Park, or AmaBri, focuses on Kanie, a mildly narcissistic high school boy who gets asked out at gunpoint (literally) by a girl who takes him to a rundown and under attended theme park, the titular Amagi Brilliant Park. After a cringe worthy tour of all the rides and attractions, some of which are dangerously unsafe due to poor maintenance, Kanie is brought before the park’s owner, Princess Latifah, an actual Princess from the magical world of Maple Land (no joke). It turns out that AmaBri is a sort of secret refugee camp for the denizens of Maple Land and that the various employees thrive on the positive energy generated by the humans who visit the park.

Unfortunately, due to mismanagement and other factors beyond their control (such as a mislabeled bus route that leads to a love motel instead of the park), the park is set to close in three months unless they can bring in 500,000 guests before the end of the three months. In addition, they are already at 250,000 guests for the year (and in theme park attendance terms, that’s really-really bad for a yearly total. To put it in perspective, the theme park I worked at averaged around 4,000 guests a day in the off-season and it was a small park at that). If this happens, it would result in many of the park employees, simply, ceasing to exist without the positive energy, especially the Princess who has been cursed to require a larger amount of animus, the positive energy, to survive. Kanie is convinced to become the acting GM for the park and launches a campaign to revitalize the park to bring in the target number of guests before the deadline, competing against the contracting firm who will get the park if they fail to meet the deadline.

The series is fairly humorous and kinda stereotypes the personal lives of theme park employees in some cases. The series does have a few “WTF?!” moments such as incidents that would’ve killed an actual theme park or buried it under legal fees so the series requires a little suspension of disbelief for its continued survival in spite of controversy. Like a mascot punching out a guest or actual otherworldly pirates appearing in the water park section and taking the guests and staff hostage (with intent to sell the women and children off…yeah, kinda messed up).

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Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions

If you’ve seen enough anime with a school setting, you’re more than likely to have heard the phrase Chunibyo, or Eighth Grader Syndrome. Chunibyo is the childhood delusional phase where some kids assume they have supernatural powers and act out these delusions in their everyday lives, even going so far as to make or buy items or costumes to help them carry out these delusions. The source or cause of these delusions can differ and vary. Most of the time it’s a coping mechanism for kids to deal with situations that they just don’t know how to cope with yet.

In this series, the story focuses on Yuta, a recovering ex-Chunibyo who’s just enrolled in a new High School after having made a fool of himself as the “Dark Flame Master” (his former Chunibyo persona) during his middle school years, and enrolls at this new school to escape his past. However, to complicate his recovery, he briefly relapses into his Chunibyo persona which is witnessed by Rikka, a fellow Chunibyo who calls herself the Eye of the Wicked Lord and goes out of her way to wear a medical eyepatch over her perfectly good right eye to obscure a gold colored contact lens. Yuta manages to get swept along with her delusions which leads to their regular misadventures. As the first season progresses, the source of Rikka’s delusions are explained and the final episode of season one delivers a really tender payoff.

The second season of the series is named Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions: Heart Throb and introduces new characters while continuing the story. Most of the episodes of the second season are small side stories but near the end of the season, the drama starts to emerge. One thing I particularly liked about season 2 is that it seems to add more of a fantasy vibe to it. Whenever the blatantly Chunibyo characters enter a “magic battle” you’re shown more of the battle from the chunibyo point of view.

The anime is two seasons at thirteen episodes each (including OVAs), and film. The film is more of a very long, commercial free, recap of the first season though, and aside from a few segments at the beginning and end, the movie is largely irrelevant and can be safely skipped.

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The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

This series is considered a classic by many anime enthusiasts. The series focuses on a boy named Kyon who, on the first day of school, encounters a pretty but outright bizarre girl, the titular Haruhi Suzumiya, who on day one asks that only Espers, Aliens, and Time Travelers speak to her. Haruhi later hijacks Kyon into forming a club for the sole purpose of finding said Espers, aliens, and time travelers. As luck would have it, three such individuals end up doing just that only Haruhi doesn’t know and they only reveal their true nature to Kyon as, according to them, Haruhi herself possesses almost god-like reality altering powers but she doesn’t realize that she possesses them. The series delves into a strange supernatural world surrounding Suzumiya and the efforts of Kyon and the other three club members to keep Haruhi “entertained” so that she doesn’t get bored and rewrite the whole universe.

The series is divided up into two regular seasons (Identified by the years they premiered) that total 28 episodes altogether, a movie (the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya) and a third chibi-styled comedy spinoff called The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya.

I didn’t get far into the series though as it couldn’t hold my interest. But like all my recommendations, I always take a “you-be-the-judge” stance so if you’re interested then check it out.

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And of course this month’s NSFW recommendation…

Aki Sora

This is a series that makes me wonder why it’s not classified as softcore hentai instead of simple Ecchi Anime. The series focuses on Sora Aoi who is something of a meek beta-male due to the fact he’s never had a father figure or any masculine male figures around to guide him. He instead has just his mom, older sister Aki Aoi, and twin sister Nami in his life. He’s such a pushover that he’s forced to crossdress on occasion. He has incestuous feelings for his older sister Aki though and what follows is a softcore pornographic story that focuses on Sora and Aki’s taboo relationship as well as his relationship with some of the other women in his life. The series does not feature full-frontal nudity, Genitalia are artfully obscured thanks to camera tricks but there is some obvious boobage and sex scenes involved. This is one of the few series I’ve found on both traditional anime sites and on hentai sites as it seems to bridge the gap.

There’s only three episodes to this but again, NSFW.

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And that’s it for this month’s suggestions. There’s a short list of animes that I want to see but I’m not sure when I’ll get around to them. I’m not going to give a recommendation for or against a series until I’ve seen it. The ones I want to see though are…

Blend-S

Acchi Kocchi

Aho Girl

A Channel

Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale (I mentioned this one in a previous listing but Watch Cartoons Online recently added the English Dub so that’s on my list)

In most of these cases, I’ve seen some video clips of these series that’ve peaked my interest. I’ll let you know come February.

Boskov.