Summer 2015 Anime: First Impressions

A new anime season has started, which means I will be collecting all my first impressions together in this post to let the people who read this blog know what I think about the shows I have started to watch.
I’ll be going through the shows roughly in the order I saw the first episode for each – Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya 2wei Herz! debuts fairly late (July 24th), so I probably won’t mention it until my usual mid-season post that covers on what I think of the stuff I’ve watched so far.
Without further ado, first impressions time.

Miss Monochrome: The Animation 2
Miss Monochrome is back, and she goes on tour with an album… though Manager Maneo doesn’t quite get it right. Fairly enjoyable, even if it is another series of shorts.

Gatchaman Crowds insight
This started with an ‘episode 0’, which served as a recap and introduction to what to expect from the second season. Hajime and her allies are returning, and they are facing an organisation called VAPE. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the rest of this – especially the new Gatchaman.
As for the actual episode 1, I enjoyed. I like the new characters Tsubasa and Gelsadora, and I’m looking forward to seeing more.

Symphogear GX
Symphogear GX is amazing, simple as. Well, that’s my personal opinion, which is biased as the Symphogear series is one of my all-time favourites. Still, we got action, incredible music and the introduction of mysterious antagonists – oh, and it took next to no time at all for the yuri to appear. Symphogear pretty much embodies everything I love about anime.

Dragon Ball Super
There wasn’t really much happening in the first episode, but Dragon Ball has returned. There was almost a Kamehameha, but Goten reconsidered… anyway, I’m sure once the action kicks off, things will become a lot more fun.

Chaos Dragon
From what I’ve seen so far, this one could shape up to pretty interesting. The way it ended definitely makes it seem that there will be quite a lot of death occurring in the future.

Non Non Biyori Repeat
The first episode was a flashback to Renge’s first day of school, with Renge being great as usual. As ever, Non Non Biyori is laid-back, and just goes at its own pace. Hotaru only had a brief appearance in this episode, but it seems like normal service will be resumed next time.

Bikini Warriors
Well, this one definitely lives up to its title. It seems that each episode is going to be naught more than 4 minutes of fanservice – though the whole bikini armour thing managed to get a laugh out of me. Also, there’s more than a few elements in this that are reminiscent of Dragon Quest…

Seiyu’s Life!
Think Shirobako, but with the focus being on the voice actors – that’s probably the best way to describe this. Seems pretty interesting. The ending theme had a bit of Neon Genesis Evangelion‘s opening theme thrown in there, so I’m wondering whether there will be theme tune cameos from different shows in the future. There’s quite a lot of exposition as well.

Million Doll
An idol show that is a series of shorts. The first episode introduced two different types of idol fans, and showed that the main character is able to help the popularity of idol groups using the power of social media. There wasn’t much more to it than that, but what do you expect when it’s only 8 minutes long.

SCHOOL-LIVE!
I was aware of the premise of this one, but the end of the first episode caught me off-guard regardless. I kind of wish I had started watching this without any prior knowledge, because I reckon that twist would have been even more effective. Definitely looking forward to seeing how the rest of this series plays out.

Well, that’s almost everything I’m watching this season. The fact that Symphogear has returned already makes it the best season this year on its own for me, and Gatchaman Crowds insight and Non Non Biyori Repeat are nice bonuses. Seiyu’s Life! and SCHOOL-LIVE! are also certainly shaping up to be interesting.