We just barely finished recapping 2017 but new anime starts TOMORROW, so there is no rest for us here at The GLORIO Blog. Part 1 of our Winter guide is headlined by the return of classic magical girl series Cardcaptor Sakura and… a whole lot of shows with random, extremely thin premises. So if you’re interested in things like camping, ramen, Sanrio, or babysitting, we’ve got you covered.

Here’s how our anime previews works:

The guide includes:
• New full length TV series we intend to watch and write about at least one episode
• Sequels we intend to watch and write about at least one episode

The guide does NOT include:
• Sequels we do not intend to watch and write about
• Continuing series from the previous season
• Shorts
• Movies
• OVAs or other one time specials

Some of the shows that will not be included but you might be interested in:

Sequels	Continuing from Last Season
1/6 The Seven Deadly Sins: Revival of the Commandments 1/8 Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru (The Doga Kobo one) 1/9 Yowamushi Pedal: GLORY LINE TBA Overlord 2	The Ancient Magus Bride Black Clover Dies Irae Garo -Vanishing Line- March Comes In Like a Lion Mr. Osomatsu Season 2

Now, on to the previews!

A Place Further Than The Universe

Uchuu Yori mo Tooi Basho

Anime Original by MADHOUSE Air Date: 1/2/2018

Director: Atsuko Ishizuka Series Composition: Jukki Hanada

In today’s game of “let’s grab a random activity out of a hat and make a group of high school girls do it”, our intrepid heroines go on a trip to the South Pole. The trailer seems to be a balance cute and serious, although I’m questioning whether the series is about them actually making the trip or just preparing for it. That’s actually very dangerous and it could be interesting to watch a group of your typical anime schools trying to ganbare their way through a life and death situation. Either that or it will be slow and boring, which is more what I’m expecting. Could be worse, we’ll see.

Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles

Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san

Manga Adaptation by Studio Gokumi Air Date: 1/4/2018

Director: Kenji Seto Series Composition: Tatsuya Takahashi

Koizumi is a cool, classy lady who loses her compsure when she’s around a good bowl of Ramen. I’m guessing she probably starts or joins some kind of ramen club or something with a group of other girls that check off the list of various anime nerd fetishes. Sorry if I sound a bit cynical here, but that premise is really think and I need to fill this paragraph out. To the show’s credit, the trailer looks more like food porn than regular porn and has legit made me hungry. So maybe it won’t be all that bad.

Yuru Camp△

Manga Adaptation by C-Station Air Date: 1/4/2018

Director: Yoshiaki Kyougoku Series Composition: Jin Tanaka

In a surprise twist, Yuru Camp combines the previous two shows we just discussed. It’s about a group of girls who go camping and eat cup ramen together. Yup. That’s pretty much all we got. I guess in this case this seems to be more “camping porn” as the trailer lovingly details all the gear like their tent being set up. Personally I find that even less exciting than well animated ramen, but hey it seems relatively harmless. I’m sure it will find an audience.

Katana Maidens

Toji no Miko

Anime Original by Studio Gokumi Air Date: 1/5/2018

Director: Koudai Kakimoto Series Composition: Tatsuya Takahashi

You’ve heard of ship girls and sword boys, now get ready for SWORD GIRLS. While the concept of super-powered, sword-wielding, school girl shrine maiden cops fighting bad CG monsters kind of sounds amazing in a campy sort of way, the trailer gives me the impression they are taking this way too seriously. Throw in character art ripped from the cover of a bad light novel and it’s hard to see anything special here. My highest hopes for this show are “not as pervy as you would think”, which is to say the bar is real low on this one.

Junji Ito: Collection

Manga Adaptation by Studio DEEN Air Date: 1/5/2018

Director: Shinobu Tagashita Series Composition: Kaoru Sawada

I did not know anything about Junji Ito up to now, but since I am a serious anime JOURNALIST I did a quick Google search and kind of wish I didn’t. Ito is known for writing and illustrating horror manga with some pretty detailed, disturbing imagery and that is totally not my thing. I’m cool with horror that focuses on suspense, but I’ll pass on graphic visuals. As for the anime, this series looks to be a collection of stories written by Ito so I would suspect the actual plot and premise will jump around. At the very least it’s something different, and if you’re into this kind of thing it looks pretty good.

Record of Grancrest War

Grancrest Senki

Light Novel Adaptation by A-1 Pictures Air Date: 1/6/2018

Director: Shinichi Omada Series Composition: Satoshi Yano

So basically all these rulers have these crests that they should be using to fight the big evil thing, but they are fighting each other instead. Our heroes actually want to fight the big evil thing which will no doubt cause problems for everyone. Reading plot summaries of this series make it sound like they are going for some kind of messy political intrigue with royal houses and what not, so in before someone tries to market this as “the Game of Thrones of Anime”. The trailer looks like a competent, if generic, action fantasy anime that seems hand picked by A-1 Pictures to keep the Sword Art Online audience around. That might be OK if you’re in the mood for that kind of thing, but call me if they actually do something original here.

Sanrio Boys

Sanrio Danshi

Anime Original by Studio Pierrot Air Date: 1/6/2018

Director: Masashi Kudo Series Composition: Takashi Aoshima

I thought some of those earlier shows had thin premises, but this is next level. Sanrio Boys is about a couple of boys who like Sanrio. If you are somehow reading an anime website and don’t know what that is, it’s Hello Kitty and her friends. It is interesting that the cast is high school age boys and I guess the message they are going for is “it’s OK for boys to like cute things” but let’s be honest, this is about getting a bunch of attractive anime guys in a room to make eyes at each other. I mean, it’s certainly not the first time Sanrio has made a laser focused push at a specific demographic, right?

citrus

Manga Adaptation by Passione Air Date: 1/6/2018

Director: Takeo Takahashi Series Composition: Naoki Hayashi

Things are going good for Yuzu, until one day her mom re-marries, she transfers to a strict all-girls school, and her new step sister tries to fight her and make out with her in the same day. WELP, I guess we’ve had plenty of anime about guys lusting after their (not blood related) little sisters so might as well throw in a story about a girl lusting after her (not blood related) little sister. Seeing as I’m an equal opportunity hater, I don’t see myself getting behind this one either. Citrus is a pretty popular yuri manga and that often means lots of problematic relationships and skewed depictions of sexuality that I feel grossly unqualified to comment on, so I’ll just leave what I do know here and let you judge for yourself.

Slow Start

Manga Adaptation by A-1 Pictures Air Date: 1/7/2018

Director: Hiroyuki Hashimoto Series Composition: Mio Inoue

Look, I’m trying to write a funny and interesting guide for you folks but this season is KILLING me right now with these paper thin setups. Slow Start is about a girl who is a year behind in high school. That’s it, that’s the show. Ironically, she looks like she’s about 8 years old while her classmates look like they might be 10 so I guess it really doesn’t matter in the long run. The extremely young looking characters and their squeaky voices in the trailer make me want to quit anime forever, so needless to say this is not at the top of my “to watch” list.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card

Manga Adaptation by MADHOUSE Air Date: 1/7/2018

Director: Morio Asaka Series Composition: Nanase Ohkawa

The much loved classic magical girl series returns after nearly 20 years. I never got into it myself as it definitely skews toward a young audience, but as an anime fan you can’t miss it in passing. Unlike the recent Sailor Moon revival, it appears the new series will be continuing the story and feature the same key staff and cast. My only question, as someone from the outside looking in, is how will they balance making this new viewer friendly with playing up to the nostalgia of old fans. Oh, and the fact that this is based on a manga for children and a lot of those old fans are probably well into adulthood now. We shall soon see.

Mitsuboshi Colors

Manga Adaptation by Silver Link Air Date: 1/7/2018

Director: Tomoyuki Kawamura Series Composition: Shogo Yasukawa

It’s sad, but any time we get an anime starring elementary school girls it sets off all kinds of alarms. I’d love to give Mitsuboshi Colors the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s not pedophile bait, but I seem to get burned every time I think that. To be fair, the trailer looks harmless and the concept of three little kids pretending be heroes and doing good deeds sounds really sweet. So please anime, prove me wrong, and let me just take this one at face value. Please.

IDOLiSH7

Anime Original by TROYCA Air Date: 1/7/2018

Director: Makoto Bessho Series Composition: Ayumi Sekine

I think I used up all my words about idol shows on last season’s batch so I don’t really much else to say here. There is absolutely nothing to differentiate IDOLiSH7 from any other idol show except maybe the color of the characters’ hair. So if you want to watch another batch of cute, innocent boys ganbare their way to stardom, be my guest. I’m sure as long as it can stay competently animated (which was a challenge last season) it will do just fine.

Babysitters School

Gakuen Babysitters

Manga Adaptation by Brains Base Air Date: 1/7/2018

Director: Shuusei Morishita Series Composition: Yuuko Kakihara

After Ryuuichi’s parents die in a plane crash, he is taken in along with his baby brother by the head mistress of his school who also lost her son and daughter-in-law. As payment she asks him to work at the school’s daycare and… wait, that’s REALLY dark, isn’t it? And yet looking at the trailer, it appears to be a pretty colorful, light hearted comedy that probably rarely touches on those things. That can be a winning formula for sure, depending on how they blend it altogether. Consider me cautiously optimistic on this one.