Summer 2024 Anime Season Roundup

Written by Rei Caldombra 9/23/24 Video: https://youtu.be/NwNdA1sHeLw

Hello, the time of the seasonal change is among us once again. By coincidence, like last season I watched 6 anime, 5 of which I finished and 1 that I dropped. Let’s get into what I watched this season and what I plan to watch next season. There will be no plot related spoilers. I also have other posts I have made relevant to what I talk about here at the bottom of the page.

Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction

Inio Asano’s works tend to be hard to explain, the easiest thing to say is that it was an interesting watch. I enjoyed the exploration of human nature and society mixed with sci-fi elements. The key theme of this one for me is the normalcy of life alongside crazy sci-fi events. It’s human nature for people to become used to their surroundings, even with major changes. The exploration of this theme is very compelling and feels truly unique to this series. But this is one of those series that is not about clearly defined themes and messages. So sometimes it can be hard to get what the “point” of it is. Whether that is good or not really is up to your own tastes. I tend to like some ambiguity that leaves the viewer to theorize and contemplate things on their own, but it has to be done well (see my analysis on character secrets if you are interested in that topic) and clearly conveying your messages can absolutely be better. I think it does a mix of good and not quite as good. Goodnight Punpun is still my favorite work from Asano, but I did enjoy another foray into his strange and thought-provoking worlds. 

Monogatari Series: Off & Monster Season

I’m a fan of the Monogatari series, and this season felt like the core essence of what makes Monogatari great. The characters in the Monogatari series are fantastic and we have a great time exploring the already existing ones while also introducing new characters that are immediately appealing and engaging. This season has all the hits of Monogatari- hilarious with its witty dialogue brand of humor, the diverse and beautiful direction the anime adaptation is known for, great art and animation, and tells interesting stories with themes and events that meld perfectly with its characters. This is more great Monogatari. If you like Monogatari, don’t miss this one.

Vtuber Legend

Am vtuber. As a big fan of vtubers and a vtuber myself, I was very interested in seeing how someone adapts this space and content as the main focus. I plan to write a full review soon, so I’ll include my non-spoiler thoughts here. This is an extremely authentic portrayal of the corporate vtuber space (Like Hololive) purely in a positive light. The energy, lingo, jokes, events, etc are spot on. You feel the love for vtubers emanating from the screen, and see it in production value such as using actual live2d models. I did enjoy it all the way through, but I do think it lost steam as it went on. A lot of the comedy was very funny, like the degenerate humor and referential gags, but some bits were a bit overused and caters to some more specific niches. Honestly, this is a hard one to recommend. If you have tried vtuber content and it doesn’t appeal to you, I can’t see this changing anything. I mentioned I like the degen humor for the most part, but if sexual jokes are not for you then steer clear of this, as it is openly graphic. If you are already a big fan of corporate vtubers, you will likely enjoy this story written by a fellow fan. But it can feel so authentic at portraying vtubing that at times it genuinely feels like you are watching animated vtuber content, which could be exactly what you asked for but also make you question why you don’t just watch real vtuber content instead. The non-vtuber fan group I do think I can recommend this to are people who are curious to get a glimpse of the vtuber space. I believe giving Vtuber Legend the 3-episode treatment would give someone a solid impression of the vtuber space that would be easier than looking through clips and videos online. I did enjoy it as it fits my tastes fairly well, but it is not one I would call memorable or outstanding.

Twilight Out of Focus

My Boys Love virginity has been taken... As a romance, Twilight Out of Focus was very sweet and cute with a great cast of characters. You get a variety of relationships and dynamics that are each distinct and enjoyable. This show also has great art and animation, while using its setting to great effect for the characters and drama. If you want to see my in-depth thoughts, please see my full review. Even if you don’t have a taste for BL specifically, if you like romance as a whole I recommend giving it a chance.

My Hero Academia Season 7

The final season isn’t over just yet as of writing this, so I don’t want to give any firm verdicts on the season as a whole yet. I’ll just give some broad feelings. I’ve been following MHA since the anime first came out, with my interest peaking with seasons 1 and 2, lowering a lot, and picking back up with season 5 but never reaching the heights of before. I think it’s a good series overall, but it has issues like pacing and stereotypical anime action convenience kind of stuff. I honestly think the main conflict between OFA and AFO is not as great as the secondary plots like the Todoroki family and League of Villains. So far season 7 has some great stuff but also some stuff I am not a huge fan of. The emotions don’t hit as hard for me as I wish, because it went on for too long and my investment never fully returned. Perhaps when it is over I’ll write on the series as a whole which would include the ending and/or I’ll do a focused analysis on some of the themes that I really like. No promises but I’m considering it. My Hero Academia Season 7 is more My Hero. If you like MHA or want to stick it out to the end, there’s some good stuff here.

Shikanoko

I won’t go into too much detail here as I already wrote about dropping Shikanoko. It has some great gags that lived up to the hype set up for it, but for a pure comedy, it was not funny often enough for me to feel watching the whole season was worth it. It’s not an objectively bad anime, it just did not appeal enough to me to make up for not offering anything else as a story. I got plenty of comedy between the other series here. If you want a zany comedy, give it a try. A lot of people liked it more than me, but I know I’m not alone in this feeling too.

Conclusion on Summer 2024

I have some stuff I really liked, but I think I would put it as my least favorite of the 3 seasons I have covered here. Twilight Out of Focus was my favorite, I was throughly surprised with how much I enjoyed it and got sucked in. Monogatari Off Season I would give the rank of best overall quality and Shikanoko the worst as it was pretty disappointing.

Looking to Fall 2024

Moving into next season, we gotta talk about isekai. I am a big fan of Re: Zero so I will be watching the 3rd season. It’s my favorite isekai, with Ascendance of a Bookworm and Konosuba filling out my top 3. I’ve been eagerly awaiting more and am super hyped for it. 

I saw the premiere of Loner Life in Another World at Anime NYC this year and was pleasantly surprised. I went into it not knowing it or planning to watch it beforehand. It was nothing incredible, but I had a fun time with the first episode. It had some solid gags and I would like to see how the system it set up is used as the story progresses. Parody isekai tend to be funny at first but then fizzle out (that’s how I felt with Overcautious Hero, I genuinely enjoyed the first two episodes a lot but then lost interest) or end up falling into the usual isekai tropes to keep the series going. The first episode left a good enough impression for me to give this one a proper shot. Hopefully, neither of those issues comes to pass. 

I’m late to jump on the Shangri-La Frontier train, but I’ll be watching season 2 as soon as I get done with season 1. So far it’s a super fun show that oozes with love for gaming. As long as I keep enjoying it, I’ll catch up and then give season 2 a try.

Dandadan and Uzumaki look awesome and are highly regarded so I’ll be checking them out, simple as that. 

I’m a big fan of Dragon Ball (I have written one post about the series if you want to get a taste of what kind of DB fan I am) so I will be watching its next big anime, Dragon Ball Daima. This is the last work the late great Toriyama worked on, so I hope this turns out excellent. From what we’ve seen so far I think it’ll be good. I hope the premise of everyone being turned smol will be used well and the intention to have it feel more like the original Dragon Ball will work. That’s my favorite part of Dragon Ball, so I hope to see that adventurous spirit return.

After reading the synopsis and watching the trailer I thought 365 Days to the Wedding sounded cute, and I like that it is a romance with an adult cast. 

That concludes my report on the Summer 2024 Anime season and my interests in the next. Its looking like I will have more than 6 things to talk about in my next Roundup. Please follow me if you want to see more, thanks for reading! Let me know if you like this format of bolding the names, as I am not using pictures for all of these shows.

My Patreon if you would like to support me and the website (which now has a poll you can vote in as a paid member, and by becoming at least a free patron you can get email notification for when I post on the website): patreon.com/ReiCaldombra

Twilight Out of Focus Review: https://www.blogunderalog.com/blog-collection/twilight-out-of-focus 

Shikanoko Review: https://www.blogunderalog.com/blog-collection/shikanoko-nokonoko-koshitantan-ive-had-enough-deer-watching 

Issues in Dragon Ball Z and Super: https://www.blogunderalog.com/blog-collection/dragon-ball-z-and-super-share-a-lot-of-the-same-issues-im-tired-of-z-worshippers?rq=dragon%20ball

Vtuber Legend full: https://www.blogunderalog.com/blog-collection/vtuber-legends-review