thin slicing waiting in the summer
Categories: digest of episodes
Tagged: waiting in the summer
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Do the Rinon dance!
Wow, I didn’t expect JC Staff to produce two enjoyable shows this season (sorry Zero no Tsukaima, not you), it’s like they pooped in the fridge and ate the wheel of cheese. There’s a lot to like about Waiting in the Summer (Ano Natsu de Matteru). One, it returns most of the staff, notably director Tatsuyuki Nagai and character designer Masayoshi Tanaka, from the excellent slice-of-life Friendship Anime (or as the less cool kids call it, Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai). One of the things I wish I had time to do was write a proper post about Friendship Anime… highly undervalued show and probably best slice-of-life anime that I’ve seen in a while.
Two, it’s got the setup of Birdy the Mighty crossed with Super 8. Which was pretty much revealed to us in the first 22 seconds. I think the prime directive of anime is that if any cute alien crash lands on earth killing a poor high school student, she’ll share her life force for him.
Three, the main character, Kaito, has Hosaka-class delusions where he’s the socially awesome penguin– being smooth and scoring chix0rs while videotaping it… only he’s the exactly opposite socially awkward penguin instead. I know this setup is used a plenty in anime, but Kaito executes it well. And all his delusions involve scoring a girl while videotaping it. Swiftly approved.
(And, yeah, the point is that Kaito did get Ichika into his house. So, yeah, maybe he’s not as awkward as he think he is.)
(I like the ED too. It reminds me a lot of Friendship Anime‘s, which isn’t a bad thing, since it fits for this series as well. Except it’s sung and written by Nagi. If Waiting in the Summer is the spiritual successor show a la Guilty Crown and Code Geass, I’m fine with it. I just hope we don’t have a Manma moment here. Goddamn, nothing as disturbing as seeing Manma cosplayers at AX last year.)
Rinon is cute. It’s the best mascot character since Kyubey, except it acts more like R2-D2 than the Prince of Lies. Also, I like how the plot involves Ichika and Rinon crash landing into earth because they collided with our space junk. Maybe we should keep more space junk out there as some sort of barrier shield for earth.
Remon is awesome. She is such a rabble-rouser. I really enjoy her “fufufufufu” after she hatches a plan.
(She wrote a screenplay about giant mecha and zombies and sent it to George Lucas? Awesome. Except I think she should have sent it to Sunrise.)
I am enjoying this show quite a bit. Waiting in the Summer doesn’t break new ground in the slice-of-life genre, but it does it well. There’s just the right amounts of sappiness, comedy, fanservice, exhibitionism, intrigue, and cute mascot to keep my attention.
7 Responses to “thin slicing waiting in the summer”
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I’m convinced you should just do a part 1 and part 2 thin slicing at this point. gonna have half a season gone before some of this stuff airs. On a different note, I agree Ano Natsu has been fairly enjoyable
What? And not a single dig AT ALL at the VERY OBVIOUS nod-nod-wink-win references to the Onegai Series? T
Damnit wheres an edit function when you need one… What I meant to conclude was, to the point where one character is either the SAME character from the Onegai franchise (Remon being really Ichigo, down to the VA), or that the shows are actually in the same timeline.
This whole thing practically feels like I am watching Please Teacher all over again.
Alien is a Senpai instead of the teacher, still live together. On earth for weird reasons. Have retarded cute mascot that controls ships functions.
Originally the boy suffered from “stand still comas” and now this boy is dying thanks to her crash.
The “eldest” in the group is a loli shit disturber.
And of course the rest of the “fluff” cast.
Same characters, remolded, telling a near identical story.
Its more like some anime weaboo watched Please Teacher then made a “fan fiction” about his own “original characters” that totally wasnt ripping off Please teacher, and anyone who says so gets swiftly banned from their website.
Lemon obviously attended the Haruhi school of Ultra Directorship. Ridiculously confident in her own questionable script writing abilities, and the same belief that getting the actors drunk will increase their acting abilities. Only instead of being the jealous type she’s more of a voyeur. Which is fine.
Thanks Jason, if not for this post, I’d have skipped this show.
This show is basically one epic fan service to people who like Ano Hi and/or Please Teacher (but with 100% more budget).
And while it is very obvious that the overall plot is almost identical to Please Teacher, I personally like the execution here better than the original. The story, while starting out largely the same, plays out better (where it goes from here remain to be seen). The characters, while largely similar (most of them are archetypes anyway), have better characterization and are in general much more interesting than the ones in Please Teacher (I hate how boring the male lead in Please Teacher was). Hell, the whole show could be said to be like Please Teacher, but better.
Also, the fact that the show seems to be very self-aware really added to my enjoyment of it. Hell, it feels as if the show knows that it is basically Please Teacher 2.0 and drops hits and callbacks at every opportunities that it got (I hope other Please Teacher fans have as much fun spotting them as I’m). It also wasn’t afraid to make fun of itself, which is what I get from the whole Lemon thing (which is very awesome, by the way).
Of course, it’s not perfect, but as a fan of both Ano Hi and Please Teacher, I’m enjoying this show way, way more then I should. :P
Can’t wait till they reveal that Lemon is actually daughter/granddaughter/whatever of Ichigo, and that the whole show is actually a sequel to/in the same continuity as Please Teacher, that would be awesome.
@zodmander: I’m pretty sure it is a sequel in the same continuity as Please Teacher. If you’ll notice, both lead females share the same eye and hair color. I also remember reading somewhere that the voice at the end of Waiting in the Summer (when the unlock the memory) is the same voice as the female lead of Teacher, and that the lake was a location returning from Please Teacher. Now, I can’t say for sure if any of that is true, since I have yet to watch Please Teacher, but it wouldn’t take much at all to convince me that it’s true. In fact, I’m already convinced. Pretty sure the two lead females are related by blood, and that Waiting in the Summer is a direct continuity sequel to Please Teacher.