Sunoharasou no Kanrinin-san – 01

I described my take on Sunoharasou no Kanrinin-san as “very mild sleeper vibes” in the Summer Preview, so it’s fair to say I had at least modest expectations for it.  If I’m honest I wasn’t too impressed with the premiere, though it wasn’t terrible or anything.  My hope was that this might be one of those shows that passes itself off as ecchi and tropey, but is actually smart and sweet with a deeper story to tell.  Maybe it is, but the premiere suggests it’s basically just ecchi and tropey.

The plot such as it is concerns a girlish-looking boy named Shiina Aki (played by the eponymous Kitamura Eri) who grew up in Shizuoka and was constantly treated like a girl (especially by his sister).  Somehow he apparently convinces his parents to let him attend middle school in Tokyo, where he is to reside at the Sunoharasou boarding house, whose busty caretaker Sunohara Ayaka is played by the also=eponymous Satou Rina.  She too mistakes Aki for a girl at first, but what’s especially galling to him is that she treats him exactly the same once he tells her the truth.

Believe it or not I do see some potential in this premise, but the first episode is mostly just mild ecchi and gags about Aki’s appearance and embarrassment at Ayaka’s hands.  Also – I know this is a trope, too, but why do manga and anime boys sick of getting treated like girls not get a different haircut?  How the introduction of the three female student council members and Sunaharasou residents will impact the story I don’t know, but I don’t think this is a harem in the sense that none of them seem interested in Aki (indeed, one of them is clearly in love with another, the chibi seitokai president). Maybe Sunoharasou no Kanrinin-san will indeed prove good-natured enough to overcome its baser instincts, but the premiere suggests otherwise.

Satsuriku no Tenshi – 01

That was certainly a contrast to Sunoharasou.  As mediocre as both shows were, it’s kind of a reminder of why anime is such an interesting medium, because you can certainly encompass a wide tonal range in any given season.  Now, we just need better anime within that framework.

Satsuriku no Tenshi was fairly well-done, I thought, but the overall vibe is that of a standard exploitation slasher pic.  It’s based on a game, I understand, which is certainly how it plays – random stuff happening for the sake of itself and the titillation it provides.  On the plus side Okamoto Nobuhiko and Sakurai Takahiro are obviously having a lot of fun playing psychopaths, and the cinematography is actually rather interesting.  Now if it evolves into a bonding story about a 13 year-old girl and a scythe-wielding murderer it might score some points just for sheer audaciousness.

It’s hard to imagine there being enough in Satsuriku to keep me around for long, but I’ll nibble at one more episode just to try and get a sense of whether there’s an actual premise here or not.  Not that I’d be expecting it to be a gripping one or anything, but I’m curious enough to at least take one more glance.