Watch The 2016 Autumn Anime Preview: Part 2 on YouTube
It’s been a few days since I put forward my views on four of the new shows airing this autumn. It’s time to look at a few more to see if they impress after their first episode, or if they’re destined to be dropped quicker than a bad simile.
If you want to watch my thoughts rather than read them, be sure to check out the video on my youtube channel linked above, where you can also watch the first part, and my Loot Anime unboxing videos.
Airing on Mondays, we start with Scorching Ping Pong Girls.
Why are they scorching? I don’t know. They weren’t massively on fire in the first episode, but I did notice that they were sweating a lot at various points, so maybe someone just turned the central heating up too high.
Ping Pong Girls, as I’ll now be calling it to save time, is a show that for all intents and purposes, is “Saki: The Table Tennis Version”.
Looking the main girls, we start with the super-competitive star player Agari. A girl so destined to top the “Twintails Subreddit” best girl poll, that she even has an upvote in her hair! She’s the school’s star player, she’s best at everything, and boy does she know it. She doesn’t play for the love of the game, but for the loving stares of her underclassmen.
The other lead girl is Koyori, the super-energetic puppy (seriously, she has a bone in her hair, and that’s not a euphemism as I don’t recall seeing a male character anywhere in the first episode) that Agari finds lost at the school gate when she transfers in. Koyori is good. She’ll play anyone, work up a sweat (did I mention the sweat yet? This show is a Salophiliac’s dream!), and beat them in a resounding bouncy smile.
The other three characters we’ve not really been introduced to fully yet, but there’s the quiet and aloof girl Hokuto, the other energetic, and slightly perverse dim girl Hanabi, and the walking pair of breasts with a ping pong bat Mune. It’s almost hypnotising watching her play.
Overall, Ping Pong Girls just about gets a pass from me. It’s a bit of harmless fun with a whole lot of silly fan service and jiggley-pokery (coming mostly from Mune and Hanabe in that order) that shows promise to become a more in depth sports anime.
A bit like Saki, only with more sweaty balls.
Scorching Ping Pong Girls is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.
Next up is the first of three “shorts” in today’s preview video. Ninja Girl & Samurai Master, also known as Nobunaga’s Shinobi.
It’s a short comedy series where the young Iga shinobi girl Chidori is recruited to serve as one of Oda Nobunaga’s shinobi, with her childhood friend (and secret admirer) Sukezou in tow.
Chidori is enthusiastic, cute, but overall a real good ninja. She really admires Nobunaga after he saved her life as a kid. Nobunaga meanwhile is shown as the same stern faced leader he usually is, but shows a softer side when dealing with Chidori unofficially.
It’s not going to be winning any best new show awards, but for a three minute diversion after a long hard day in work, it’s worth watching.
Ninja Girl and Samurai Master is airing on Crunchyroll on Tuesdays.
Next we join the forces of the 502nd Joint Fighter Wing: Brave Witches.
A spinoff come sequel to the 2008 and 2010 series Strike Witches, Brave Witches brings is forward to a brand new front of attack into another World War 2 era, alternative Europe.
Seriously, this is the second anime this season so far, that not only takes place in an alternative World War 2 setting, but also features a witch as one of the main characters. Between this and Izetta however, we won’t be having much trouble figuring out which witch is which, as the two shows so far are vastly different.
Izetta appears to be going for a “realistic, except for magic” route, whilst Brave Witches, is very much an idealised Europe fighting aliens war setting. 
We join our lead girl Hikari, who isn’t Yoshika Miyafuji, no matter how much they seem to have in common to begin with, in her little part of the Fuso Empire (aka Japan). She’s a very enthusiastic girl with little skill to show to begin with, the usual rough diamond we start with at the beginning of a show like this. She wants to be a Witch to fight the Neuroi and protect everybody like her sister, who is somewhat of a local (and national) hero.
Sadly for Hikari, she’s a bit of a dunce when it comes to doing combat drills and flight manoeuvres, but we’re given the obvious hint that she fails as she’s trying too hard, and that she actually has a bit of skill, and an obscene amount of stamina locked up in her small body.
One thing leads to another, and she ends up facing off against the mean girl who picks on her, and through a series of expected turns, ends up saving her life, as you would do if you’re a nice person and the main character in an anime.
If you’ve seen any of the Strike Witches series before, you already know if you’re going to like this or not, so it’s not really worth me telling you to watch it or not. However for those on the outside looking in, Brave Witches, if it follows the same pedigree as previous series, will be a somewhat cheesy, a lot of fan service, but overall interesting look at aerial combat against aliens.
Fans of cute girls wearing no trousers, and World War era dogfights, apply within.
Brave Witches is airing on Wednesdays on Crunchyroll.
The second short of the day is Nazotokine, an anime about an office girl, who is secretly an otaku (and tokusatsu fan) who ends up being transported to a strange dimension where she has to solve puzzles.
Yep, I’ve got no idea either. Maybe the puzzle is trying to find the plot? But then again, chalking in at 7 minutes 30, this isn’t really going to be a plot-heavy series.
We’re quickly introduced to the three main girls, the lead girl being Natsuko, a perfect office lady except her hobbies that are surely going to factor in to something at some point, I’m sure.
We also have Yoshie and Kyouka, the receptionists and Natsuko’s friends. Don’t ask me anything about them, as I haven’t got a clue yet, except one apparently is also a fan of tokusatsu.
I’m going to give this one a second chance, as it was cute enough, but it really didn’t stick with me, and I’m not holding out much hope for this to be the next Galko-chan.
Nazotokine is also airing on Crunchyroll, on Wednesdays.
The third short is a returning series I mentioned last time out, “I’ve Had Enough of Being a Magical Girl, Second Season”.
For such a short series, lasting just four minutes per episode, it really has heart, and packs a whole lot of fun into those four minutes. For those who haven’t seen the first series, you really need to go back and watch it. It’s about a girl called Yuzuka, who gets tricked in to being a magical girl (not seen that before) but with no negative consequences, except her costume being a cute pink bikini.
That’s pretty much it.
Nothing really happens in it, and the episodes never really have much of an obvious punch line or end-point, they just end. But this is part of its charm, as you never know when the end will happen, and they don’t try to telegraph the obvious punch line that some shows do.
Definitely a show you should watch if you like cute girls doing cute things, in cute costumes. I especially like Yuzuka’s friend Chiya, who is a little TOO invested in Yuzuka, in a slightly-more-than-platonic way.
You guessed it, I’ve Had Enough of Being a Magical Girl 2nd season is on Crunchyroll, on Wednesdays.
Finally, we have another highly anticipated return this autumn.
Sound Euphonium 2.
As ever when talking about sequels, it’s always a good idea to have a quick recap of the first series. The main girl Kumiko is in a brass band at her new school, along with her new school friends Hazuki and Sapphire (sorry, Midori – she doesn’t like being called Sapphire). She also befriends eventually a girl from her old school Reina, who she’s initially wary of, as Kumiko feels like she’s the subject of hate.
A lot of band drama later, and they’re playing in and doing very well in concerts.
And so the band girls are back for another season, and probably a whole lot more drama revolving around, from the looks of it, the mysterious problems caused by the second-year-students mentioned in the first series.
As you might be able to tell from the artwork, this is very much a Kyoto Animation series, and it really shows, from the fluid animation, to the great camerawork, and the unexpected but interesting scenic shots. Seriously, KyoAni are legends when it comes to making a show interesting.
And we’re treated to something extra special with Eupho season 2, with the first episode being a dual-length special, reintroducing us to our already known girls, and also bringing to the fore some girls that were already in the last show, only in the background, such as the quiet girl Mizore.
Sound Euphonium is a very multi-layered series, with lots of plotlines progressing simultaneously at the same time, so if you’re not too interested in the yuri-pandering, but never beyond, friendship between Reina and Kumiko, you can always look at the story between Natsuki, Mizore, Yuuko, and Nozomi, and then there’s many more layers to it I’ve not even broken the surface of.
All surrounding a central plot of a brass band trying to reach the nationals. It’s compulsive viewing.
And another interesting thing about the show, for a series focussing on music, they really make a point of using the lack of music in some scenes to its advantage. In a world where we’re used to having some background music in every scene, at points on Eupho 2, it’s very loud in its absence. It sort of punches home the feeling some scenes are meant to have.
If you’ve not seen the first series, it’s on Crunchyroll, and is being released in America by Pony Canyon. Season 2 is airing on Crunchyroll on Wednesdays.
And that’s your lot for today. I’ll try to bring together my thoughts on a few more series later on in the week, so be on the lookout for that.
If you want to keep an eye open for when I upload my next video, be sure to subscribe to my Youtube channel on the link above!
