We’re deep into our First Looks of the season, but there are still a few shows we need to preview before they air later this week. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like things are going to improve… Part 3 of our guide is headlined by… uh.. UHHHH… P.A. Works is doing an action show? That’s all I got. I hate to have to ask this, but is Summer 2018 the worst season of the GLORIO era (since 2012)? What do you think?

Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger

Anime Original by P.A. Works Air Date: 7/12/2018

Director: Masahiro Ando Series Composition: Keigo Koyanagi

​P.A. Works, the studio best known for shows about hard working young ladies in sleepy, rural towns, doing a serious action show about vampires and werewolves set in 1930s Japan? Sure, why not. In fact, controversial anime opinion: I think the best show P.A. Works has ever done is Another, a pretty dark horror story. Yes, better than Shirobako and better than Angel Beats, fight me. Point is, I think they are perfectly capable of handling something like this and I would be shocked if it wasn’t at least respectable.

Revue Starlight

Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight

Anime Orignal by Kinema Citrus Air Date: 7/13/2018

Director: Tomohiro Furukawa Series Composition: Tatsuto Higuchi

​Oh look, another attempt to start up an idol anime franchise. Something about TWO FRIENDS, UNITED AGAIN BY FATE, READY TO SHARE THE STAGE TOGETHER or whatever. *Yawn*. I’m kind of curious why they all have weapons but at this point it will take a LOT more than that to get me interested in this.

High Score Girl

Manga Adaptation by J.C. Staff Air Date: 7/14/2018

Director: Yoshiki Yamakawa Series Composition: Tatsuhiko Urahata

​A cute romantic comedy set in 1991 about a girl trashing some boy at Street Fighter II and other games sounds like something I could get into. Then I watched the trailer… wow. I can be really forgiving on technical execution but this show looks like trash. Even if it wasn’t 3D, the character designs and animation and just about every aspect of the visuals is hard on the eyes. If that’s how the show is going to look, this will need to be the best written series of the year to win me over.

Lord of Vermillion: The Crimson King

Lord of Vermillion: Guren no Ou

Game Adaptation by Asread Air Date: 7/14/2018

Director: Eiji Suganuma Series Composition: Masashi Suzuki

​In near future Tokyo, a mysterious sound knocks out a bunch of people and when they wake, they have super powers. Sure. If you can detect the sarcasm in my voice, it’s mostly because this is based on a long running collectible digital card game so I’m not expecting a whole lot out of the story. In fact, after watching the teaser PV I’m not expecting much at all beyond some generic anime action. “Not offensively bad” is about as good as I can hope for, which sadly may make it one of the better shows this season.

Happy Sugar Life

Manga Adaptation by Ezo’la Air Date: 7/14/2018

Director: Keizou Kusakawa, Nobuyoshi Nagayama Series Composition: Touko Machida

​SPEAKING OF OFFENSIVELY BAD, this show is about a high school girl who likes to sleep around until she meets a little that she falls in love with. I’m not entirely clear under what circumstances they begin living together (does she kidnap her???) but she will do anything to protect their new life together… EVEN KILL. I think they are going tor some kind of psychological horror thing here but no matter how you want to spin it, it sounds very bad. We’re kind of used to pedophilia casually popping up in anime, and now we’ve found a new version of it! YAY! That actually might be the worst sentence I’ve ever written, please make it stop.

Grand Blue

Manga Adaptation by Zero-G Air Date: 7/14/2018

Director: Shinji Takamatsu Series Composition: Shinji Takamatsu

​A show about a dude moving to a seaside town and taking up diving with friends might make this sound like the male version of Amanchu or possibly a competitor for Free! (which is coincidentally returning this season), but watching the trailer makes this look a bit sillier and more fun than either of those. I mean, at the very least it seems like there’s a lot of getting drunk and checking out hot ladies so that already puts this in a separate category. I’ll have to see the show to gauge if its actually funny or not, but it seems worth a look at least.

Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs

Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san

Manga Adaptation by Xebec Air Date: 7/14/2018

Director: Tsuyoshi Nagasawa Series Composition: Hideaki Koyasu

​So this is basically a softcore porn ecchi harem show. You know the drill. The plot isn’t important but if for some reason you care, some dude who keeps getting possessed by ghosts moves to a boarding house at an old hot springs which – you guessed it – is completely filled with hot, barely clothed anime women. They’re probably all ghosts or something but I don’t know and I don’t care. There’s only one reason to watch this and you will know right away if that reason is for you.

Tsukumogami For Rent

Tsukumogami Kashimasu

Novel Adaptation by Telecom Animation Film Air Date: 7/22/2018

Director: Masahiko Murata Series Composition: Kento Shimoyama

​Tsukomogamis are interesting bit of folklore you see pop up in anime from time to time – basically it’s normal inanimate objects acquiring a spirit and becoming a living thing. In this story, a brother and sister run an Edo-period rental shop and occasionally rent out tsukumogamis to their clients. What impact this has on anything I’m not really sure, but it’s a broad enough premise to tell a lot of different types of stories and the trailer looks decent, so I’ll take what I can get. Worst case it will probably just be boring, but we’ll see.

Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation

Muhyo to Rouji no Mahoritsu Soudan Jimusho

Manga Adaptation by Studio DEEN Air Date: 8/3/2018

Director: Nobuhiro Kondo Series Composition: Yasuyuki Suzuki

​So these two kids are magic lawyers? Like they studied magic law at magic law school and will help you with your magic problems? That sounds pretty interesting but from what I can tell that basically boils down to them being exorcists. It’s hard to gauge what kind of show it is by the trailer, as half of it seems kind of silly and half seems deadly serious. I guess we’ll have to see when this show airs in AUGUST, assuming we don’t forget about it by then (we probably will).