LAST EDITED ON Jul-22-24 AT 02:43 PM (EDT)
So, I'm watching a lot of stuff. This is a sampling which makes no pretense of quality, and more the stuff I felt like talking about.Cute Girls Doing Cute Things
Okay, Narenare -Cheer for you!- is pretty obvious from its title. Misora Kanata was a top cheerleader until she lost the mind-body connection necessary for acrobatics, at which point she was dropped from Hawk Wings. In the first episode, she meets a parkour fanatic, an aspiring streamer, a gymnast, and the streamer's friend. They come together with the intent to give the streamer something to show off, forming PoMPoMs, a group more focused on dance than acrobatics.
VTuber
VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral after Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream gives the setup away rather nicely. Yuki Tanaka went from foul-mouthed alcoholic employee of a black company to a sweet, lovable VTuber at Live-On who is only foul-mouthed and alcoholic when she's off the clock. Then the title happens, her fans find out about her love affair with Strong Zero (did Suntory pay for the mentions? They should have.), and her low-to-middling numbers go through the roof.
Amusingly, the VTubers always appear as their streaming characters, although whether it's because that's how the source did it or because it's cheaper to just make one character model is beyond me.
Romantic Comedy
When second-year drama club member Eiji Kitahama meets Rin Nanakura, he doesn't expect that mentioning his dream of having a harem will result in her demonstrating that whether tsundere, cool, impish, or shy, she can be a Pseudo-Harem by changing her personality on the fly.
Rin's problem is, she isn't just doing this to amuse Eiji; she really likes him, and she can't manage to say it without playing a role.
Protagonist SMASH Puny Bad Guy
While on a field trip, Touka is isekai'd by the goddess Vicius, along with the rest of his class. Per the recent trope, he's the Weakest Hero Ever. This results in his being exiled to ancient ruins, because that's the tradition.
Of course, since this is Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything with Low-Level Spells, his ability of status effects is far more powerful than anybody realizes. Backed by the fact that his background character image at school was a veneer over his ruthless attitude forged by an abusive father, he sets out for revenge against Vicius.
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On the other end of the scale, there's Rick Gladiator, the protagonist of The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible. Rick is only weak in his own mind, mainly because he was trained by the members of Orichalcum Fist, an S-rank party, which has skewed his standards rather badly.
Most adventurers begin training young, to build up their magic reserves (essentially his mana pool) while they can. Rick didn't; instead, he became a Guild clerk at sixteen, then set out to be an adventurer at thirty. Since he's so lacking in reserves, he's been trained to death in the other areas. "Trained to death" is not hyperbole, by the way.
Madcap Comedy
I decided to edit this one in, because My Deer Friend Nokotan is just that good. Personally, I like the Japanese title, Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan, because it has one of the catchiest opening songs this season, and the song uses the title heavily.
Koshi Torako has reinvented herself for high school, and it's an impressive job. Going from middle school delinquent to high school honor student and Student Council president isn't easy. Then she meets antlered deer girl Shikanoko Noko, who can smell delinquent, uses her antlers to detect virginity, and has neither filter nor volume control.
I could go on, but I'm watching twenty-seven shows, only three of them aired previously, and I should leave something for everybody else to talk about.Peter Eng
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Insert humorous comment here.