Today’s long haired anime guy of the day is:

夏コミC102参加しました！

There's something about Komi Witch Lara's main villain that gives off this energy and it cracks me up, so I had to redraw a scene from Chimimo with him XD It's pretty nice how a lot of things in this show endear me and somehow he's one of them, good for you Black Hood (name pending because that's how the wiki calls him)

The original screenshot:

Bucchigire

Took a chance on this one, didn't really pan out but oh well. It's far too generically shounen, especially in the way the main character and especially the main antagonists are the worst parts of it. There's really only one aspect that consistently delivers and it's the spicy Akira/Kogurou romance (a vanishingly tiny part of the show). Apart from that, it's not terrible but not good either. 5/10

Kakegurui Twin

Kakegurui S2 already wasn't very solid and Twin is not righting the ship. It's still technically Kakegurui nonsense, which makes it mildly entertaining, but it's lacking the special something that made S1 so exciting. Heavyhanded color correction also makes it remarkably ugly for no reason I can determine. 6/10

Extreme Hearts

This one is probably nobody's favorite show but it does have a few ideas that make it stand out from the crowd, such as the bizarre concept, the idea of padding out a 5 member plot with literal bots and some of the rivals. But on the other hand, it still is a very basic idol show with not particularly memorable characters and low production values. An attempt was made. 6/10

lmao of the Arsnotoria

This is an extremely weird one. At its core it's a competent but only slightly above average cute girls doing cute things in a cute setting. It's decent at it but that's it. However, it also randomly cuts to edgy dudes doing edgy things sometimes, with a vague implication that this may eventually matter. Well joke's on you, because the whole thing ends up feeling mostly like a prank. So while this does absolutely not deliver on the one real hook it has, it refuses to deliver to a degree that it's hilarious. Thankfully it's just good enough for the whole thing not feeling like a waste of time anyway, but again: it really is a mostly content-free cutefest that occasionally cuts to the most chuuni edgelords imaginable decapitating people and talking about Australia(?) for no apparent reason, and then right back to talk about cake or whatever. It's kinda amazing, but also not. 6/10

Chimimo

Chimimo is another very basic show in that it's a cutesy slice of life comedy with a mild twist. It's pretty well made and has no real weaknesses, but it's also not really punching above its weight and the strengths are rare. Entertaining, but hardly more. 6/10

Gooberploink Edgelords

Now here's a big one, and right off the bat I have to say that I can't be entirely contrarian this time. It's not as great as people think, because there's fairly severe problems: it's 90% clichees (if something isn't a cyberpunk clichee it's probably an anime clichee instead), the pacing is off (it starts annoyingly slow and ends in a dumb, ridiculously overblown yet still anticlimactic boss fight), the characters are somewhat lacking (they're not bad per se, but also not nearly fleshed out enough to provide the depth that the script seems to be aiming for), and Imaishi's penchant for comedic ultraviolence occasionally undermines any attempt at seriousness anyway. But I'd still take a bunch of clichees halfway competently strung together over whatever the fuck TRIGGER writing usually is (apart from the Gridmens, which are definitely better written than this). And writing aside, it's fun; Imaishi's thing is great in small doses and this script affords to let him go wild just about exactly the right amount. It always looks cool and occasionally super cool. So yeah, had a good time but don't believe the hype. 7/10

Summertime Render

I have a weird relationship with Summertime Render, because it definitely adheres to the shounen school of "no idiot left behind" writing. Half of every episode is basically exposition, with graphs and numbers and similes that really destroy any mysticism this show might have (and it's almost always the first half, which looks to me like an attempt of the scriptwriter to leave each episode off with a positive impression - which actually works!). I'd say those parts are pointless for about the first half where the plot is very simplistic, but then the second half hits and things get excessively convoluted. In a way, then two weaknesses cancel each other out: There's an absurd number of complicated twists but they're silly and not worth picking apart logically, so it's a plus that you can just take the show's word for it because it makes damn sure to provide it. So that's the bad parts but apart from that, it's actually surprisingly good. The first half has a solid, Twin Peaks-esque mystery vibe and while the second half devolves into complete schlock, it's very entertaining schlock. Also, it not only has an ending, but a well-paced, satisfying one at that - which is surprising given the nature of it (yes, it's exactly what you'd assume it is three episodes in). 7/10

Shadows Haus S2

I really liked Shadows House S1 almost despite itself, and S2 removes a lot of the problems such as the entire middle bit being a very contrived quest arc. S2 also has a lot better defined characters, and a ton more of them to boot. However, since we now know a lot more about what's going on, it's also significantly less creepy than S1, and that was really the best part about it. S2 is almost a different kind of show, more of an outright character drama. So while it's an improvement in almost all ways, I don't consider it significantly more enjoyable all in all. Which is completely fine, because it was plenty enjoyable to begin with. 7/10

Love Live Superstar S2

Similarly, Superstar S2 is just Superstar S1 but better. Since Superstar S1 was already arguably the best Love Live yet, that makes it pretty damn good. The two-stage group building really pays off here, because the character introduction arcs are historically the best part of any Love Live and this way they take up the vast majority of the show. And the new characters are great: Kinako is very cute, Natsumi is delightfully trashy and Mei and Shiki are the gayest thing to come out of this already exceedingly loaded franchise. They do try to ruin it again in the end (also a tradition at this point) with a drama arc that goes precisely nowhere, but the prompt promise of an S3 softens this blow enough to it still coming out on top of the Love Live heap rather easily. 8/10

Made in Abyss S2

We’ve battled through the desert of the summer season to find out what shows have beat the heat.

The team split up the three-episode reviews between staff volunteers, with one person putting together a short(ish) review on each series. Like we do with our check-in podcasts, we started from the bottom of our Premiere Digest list and worked our way up.

If we didn’t watch a show for at least three episodes, we skipped it, and we’ve used nice bold headers to help you quickly jump to the shows you’re interested in. We’ve also excluded shows that are continuing on in basically the same vein as our premiere review to conserve space.

Unless specifically noted, we’re only discussing the first three episodes, even if a show has released more than that.

We don’t have the time to keep up with everything, so please let us know about any gems we might be missing in the comments!