I could kind of tell based on the preview, but this is going to be one of those seasons with a shit-ton of bubble series.  Pretty much everything I’ve seen so far falls into the “maybe” column – not great, not terrible.  And that fits with the general trend of homogenization in anime, the Medical Mechanica effect of the production committee system.  The worrying thing is that even the shows that aren’t cookie-cutter cutouts on paper have ended up falling into that vast mediocre middle – at least so far.

That certainly applies to Nami yo Kiite Kure.  If I’m looking for the bright side, I liked the second half of the premiere far better than the first (when I was almost ready to bail).  My concern is that the A-part may end up being more typical of the series’ default mode, but we’ll see.  Cookie-cutter this isn’t – it’s a show about adults and not teenagers, set in Sapporo and not Tokyo, and centered around a medium – radio – that even in analog-infatuated Japan is squarely on the decline.

The mangaka here is Samura Hiroaki, whose most famous work is of course Immortal.  His current work is certainly a thematic change of pace, of which I heartily approve in principle.  It’s the story of a woman named Minare who gets drunk (which seems to be a nightly occurrence) and vents her spleen to her seatmate at the bar after being dumped by a guy from Fukuoka who she’d just loaned ¥500,000.  To her misfortune (or fortune, I guess we’ll see) he turns out to be a radio producer.  The next day at work in a soup curry (one of Sapporo’s greatest cultural contributions) restaurant, she hears her drunken tirade being broadcast on the radio.

That part was kind of amusing.  But the episode opens with a flash-forward involving Minare and a bear and a made-up story about broadcasting live from the mountains.  Maybe this was intended to give us a framework for what sort of “show” Minare puts on but boy, it didn’t work for me.  I found the whole sequence incredibly shrill and unfunny (Hokkaido and bears – a dangerous combo for anime).  It wasn’t the best introduction to either the protagonist or the premise, which makes the fact that I ended up sort of liking her anyway somewhat encouraging.

The draw here for me is pretty simple – a series about adults with adult problems.  I think the fact that Minare was able (after sobering up) to realize how misguided her rant was is a sign that she’s got a decent head and heart.  She’s surrounded by a potentially interesting bunch of oddballs, with some old-time seiyuu getting uncharacteristic and uncharacteristically meaty roles, and Sapporo is grievously underrepresented in anime.  But it’s way too early to even guess where I land with Wave, Listen to Me!, because I still have no idea what this show really is.  It’s squarely on the bubble – though perhaps with a greater range of potential outcomes than most of the others.