3 Animes This Season

HELLO THERE!

I find myself wondering why I only have 3 animes that I'm following this season. Really, just 3. These are: This Art Club Has a Problem! (Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!), New Game!, and Sweetness and Lightning (Amaama to Inazuma).

In one glance (assuming your knowledge of anime is progressive and you're well informed), you can tell that these animes are quite similar to one another. All three feature comedy and all three have heart (though Kono Bijutsubu has that to a lesser extent).

This Art Club Has a Problem! is a show surrounding the wacky characters in an art club and their wacky interactions. Mizuki Usami is the main character and she serves as the viewpoint, possessing a normal personality except for her occasional tsundere flares whenever the topic of her crush comes up. That's about the only normal thing. You then have a boy who's in love with 2D waifus, a small girl who's probably suffering from ADHD and a senior who is the embodiment of sloth.

There are other characters who join later but for the most part, you get the main group interacting with each other with (usually) two different subplots per episode. Really, because it's pretty much a gag comedy anime, there's no real way to describe the episodes. They're there for comedic purposes and I'd say it works well. Mizuki Usami's VA is especially great.

New Game! is a story about Aoba Suzukaze who joins her dream games development company as a new recruit right out of school. She looks loli but you must remember she is not, in fact, loli. The anime follows her interactions with her various colleagues and bosses and, while it is primarily a comedy anime, it also followed Aoba as she learns and grows as a game designer. If you're a gamer, remember that classic game you used to play that you always imagined yourself working on? Or maybe developing the sequel? Yeah, she's basically that person but unlike us failures, she actually did something about it.

Also, Hifumi is waifu.

Sweetness and Lightning is perhaps more heart than comedy. It follows Kohei Inuzuka after the death of his wife in taking care of his daughter, Tsumugi Inuzuka. Due to the story picking up around a few months after her death, it immediately feels very genuine in its interaction. Kohei desperately tries his best to balance his work (he's a teacher), his playtime with Tsumugi and her well-being (in the form of ready-made meals bought from the store). Eventually, a chance encounter with one of his students, Kotori Iida, opens up the world of cooking to him and Tsumugi.

This begins the actual 'plot' of the story whereby the three of them will try and learn to cook something (usually something Tsumugi wants or needs). In that sense, it becomes an educational cooking anime (as opposed to an erotic cooking anime) but what's really captivating about this show is the relationships between the character, particularly the father and daughter. You watch as they struggle and come to terms with having no wife or mother and how they learn to adapt and bond with each other as a result. It really plucks at your heartstrings and I've already gone WAY ahead of the anime via the manga.