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Following the well-received first season of Amanchu!, J.C Studios have brought along another season that everyone who hadn’t read the manga was expecting much the same content as the previous season. I personally was part of this group, but I had heard of some comments at the announcement of the new season. Safe to say, whilst it does have a lot of the same story elements that made the first season so great, it doesn’t overall feel the same with the inclusion of some more new elements.

Just a pointer that there won’t be any major spoilers, just some general comments about plot devices or themes, ... and it does relatively follow off the first season. However, if you have a pretty good recap of the show, there’s nothing crucial that was revealed in the prior season.

~ SCORES ~
Story: 7/10
Art/Animation: 8/10
Sound: 9/10
Characters: 8.5/10
Enjoyment: 7.5/10
Overall Score: 8/10

~ REVIEW ~
Story: Near to the beginning of the series it starts out much how it ended. Calm feels, combined with a steady journey continuation on the introduction of deep sea diving. I was pleasantly surprised by this as, as mentioned previously, the comments that I read prior to watching this season did infer about some other elements. Admittedly though, there were two parts of this new ‘supernatural’ element that was added into the story. In the beginning it does seem to meld well with the story, not sacrificing the integral theme of the show itself. However, as time goes on it does seem to take a bigger role in the story’s direction, and the overall the tone begins to shift towards something much more dramatic than I was not only not prepared for but also a bit uncomfortable in adjusting to. Alongside this, the theme of diving is eventually brought back near the end and the show seemingly moves back to its roots, but if anything, this feels more disjointed. It began to feel like the whole theme of diving was just forgotten for nearly half the series and was only brought back near the end as a seeming ‘round-off’ to remind the viewer what they were watching for originally. That’s not to say that the story itself wasn’t great, I did enjoy the construction around and the depth of some themes that were discussed (the majority of which I can’t talk about more in depth unfortunately, but overall it felt like there was two stories competing for the major dominance of the narrative that the show was going for.

Characters: Arguably one of the primary reasons that Amanchu! did so well in its initial season was the characters and their specific development throughout the course of the series. Teko and Pikari were the undeniable stars of the show, making every moment enjoyable and fluffy in every sense. All the major main characters returned for Advance, but there was some much-needed development that I found in several of the main cast that felt under-represented in the first season, as is very common with a lot of slice-of-life anime. The new characters felt like a nice addition to the crew, with none of them necessarily intruding on the prominence of the original cast with no meaningful contribution. Some had lengthy arcs that took place in a tertiary story throughout, whilst some had almost a full episode dedicated to their stories. Again, I won’t spoil who is who, but they did feel like a nice edition with good character designs.

Art/Animation: A slight irk I can have with J.C Studios is that their emphasis on detailed drawings for frames can sacrifice some of the fluidity with the Key-frames. Nonetheless, this series didn’t feel like any sacrifices were made that obviously. The animations felt nice enough and the character outfits chosen, more specifically in one episode I would like to point out, didn’t seem to hinder the animation too much (though I do still wonder about those school uniforms haha). The big standout here for me though would have to be the background art used in the show. Time and time again the feelings of comfy-ness came flooding in every time I saw a new landscape or a new underwater view. The detail that was put into the everyday things in life such as the school itself felt nicely done too. I don’t honestly think it was anything to jump off the walls screaming about or that it made the show, but the Art especially played a significant role in aiding the show’s execution supported by some decent animation.

Sound: It’s hard to review this as it always seems to depend on the series what I say about it regarding either the sound as a standalone, or the comparison of the sound with the new previous series. I will just clarify here that the critiques themselves are referring to the music and voice acting of this season only, not about the original Amanchu! Most of the original music was used in the second season, however it felt like there was a bigger presence of simple piano instrumentation which I felt did work with some of the more sombre moments of the season, in comparison with the season before which all relatively had a lot of the same music style. Voice acting as always was top notch, with the relationship between Teko and Pikari wholeheartedly believable through a wonderful mesh of adorable yet real dialogue and the delivery of such.

Enjoyment: Overall, I would say that I did enjoy this season, don’t get me wrong, however there was something that felt slightly more off compared to the original. I get that there can be the issue of that fans should be able to move along with a development in the show’s theme, and that the changes that take place had already been written in the manga before, but for me as the show had heavily marketed itself as a show about diving in the first season, to take such a radical turn away from it did hinder my enjoyment somewhat. Nonetheless, I did try and take every moment as individually as possible unless it referred to possible character development, and with this I enjoyed these moments a lot more than I initially thought I would.

~ CONCLUSION ~
To conclude, Amanchu! Advance was a well-made and enjoyable sequel to Amanchu! though despite this enjoyment it couldn’t be ignored that the series does take a sharp change in direction halfway through which could hinder one’s enjoyment of it. However, given the genre that it does switch to, this can be on a person-by-person verdict and some may love it, some may hate it. I would recommend giving it a watch once you’ve caught up on the first season though.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a pretty shallow person when it comes to picking the next anime to watch. And by that, I mean the opening theme pretty much determines what I watch. New Game caught my eye and I decided to watch it. I’d already watched Shirobako, and according to recommendations, it seemed quite similar, so I thought why not? And after finishing these 12 fun episodes, I have to say that I pleasantly enjoyed New Game.

Game production has always intrigued me for a while so New Game felt like a nice show to cover that topic. It does cover the main aspects of ... the game making fairly well, but truth be told, I’ve seen it better done on other shows. It’s not like the show doesn’t cover anything within the gaming industry, I just felt like (and this is coming from someone who has never had experience within the industry, so never take my opinion as final) it could’ve gone deeper. The protagonist’s department that she works on actually seems to get a fair amount of attention, however other areas are only touch on lightly and I would’ve wished that they would’ve received more depth. But, I still have to put in perspective that the series was only 12 episodes long and it can’t do everything in that amount of time, though.

The show falls under the slice-of-life and comedic genre and it truly does live up to it. The show is quite laid back and that creates the more light-hearted feeling when watching it, in my opinion. Some episodes do appear to be more serious than others, but it still does feel nice watching them. The art definitely helps the show. The colour schemes shown throughout are extremely bright and vibrant, making the entire environment that the show is set in feel much more alive and buzzing. The inside areas more or less felt the same but the outside scenery is what really caught my eye. It wasn’t spectacular in the way that other anime have done it, but everything felt … fun. I couldn’t help it but love watching the show.

The episode plots were, whilst not conveying too much story progression throughout, helped massively by the characters of the series. I appreciated the fact that most if not all were introduced by the end of the first couple of episodes mainly because of the fact that I knew I had a longer timeframe within the show to learn about each personality. However, there were some minor problems I had with the characters, one of which mainly ties into the plot. Whilst I did say before that I was looking forward to lots of insight into the characters, some just didn’t feel that they had that much attention during the span of the show. In a way, I felt like those characters’ personalities were sort of being used as an excuse to not be given more detail, as it could’ve possibly have been contradicting what they were like. In terms of another season to go into the characters in more depth, I would probably have to say that’s probably not likely. Not because I don’t want it, but mainly because of the ending, which I won’t spoil doesn’t really open up for another season.

On another note, sound I thought was a very good aspect of the show. The music used was extremely catchy and upbeat, definitely fitting comfortably into the general theme. The opening and ending themes I thought were especially good, fitting well with the crazy mood that the show sets. All in all, I found New Game to be an extremely enjoyable anime and I recommend you watch it if you haven’t already. If you’re fans of shows like Shirobako then New Game might be a good choice since they are quite similar in theme. To conclude, great show, hampered slightly by lack of development of characters but sound and art for example more than make up for it, creating an extremely well made show.

This was the first anime I started watching (excluding Pokemon) and I'm not sure if it was too big a leap into the feels end. One of the main things that attracted me to it was the music, especially the opening.

I watched all 13 episodes if the main series and I can confidently say I ws in tears at the very end. I won't spoil the plot of the series but I do think it was quite an emotional one and contained really good lessons about moving on in life. One thing I would have to say would be at quite a few points I ... thought the plot was missing quite a few vital factors of it, such as a background story for some of the characters belonging in the afterlife. Even at some points, they showed their past life, however, especially with Yuri, it didn't show how she actually came to the afterlife. Additionally, the ending felt slightly rushed, as it left me wondering 'Oh, so is this the end?' I'm not saying the entire story is bad, not at all. There's something that makes the story worth watching, absolutely, but I can't put my finger on it. It made me feel happy and sad when watching it and for that I really admire the anime as a whole.

I really enjoyed watching the characters, they were funny at moments, but really felt developed, in a way. As I mentioned before, a lot of the backstories and origin stories for some of the characters did frustrate me slightly. But they did make me laugh, and I really felt that most of the relationships developed between certain pairings really felt deep, albeit some of them felt a bit underdone and not 'completed'.

Overall, even though it was my first anime that I watched, it still stays more or less at the top of my lists of series and despite some issues that I had with the story line development, I still found it overall an extremely enjoyable anime to watch, that tugged on my feels so much I was virtually waterworks by the end of the anime.