To a Musicart with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I'm adding braces and styling the title of {tákt: op. Destiny} this way because doing so approximates how it appears in the anime. It also seems appropriate because the series itself is also very stylish, possibly to its detriment. It is a neat looking show, but I don't know if I can call it good. Nevertheless, at a minimum, the idea of using eccentric superpowered girls to fight off the monsters that attack whenever they detect music is sort of interesting. It's not exactly the sort of anime that everyone will like, though.

Walküre should definitely be singing while fighting.

It would probably benefit {tákt: op. Destiny} to feature more music. Since the focus is on classical music, I guess it's not realistic to expect the Musicarts to sing while fighting, Symphogear style. I would absolutely enjoy an aria or two, but Takagaki Ayahi is not in the cast, and I don't expect there are many other seiyuu who would theoretically be up to the task.

I find it odd that no one is riding shotgun.

This is also a road trip anime. I appreciate those because they're sort of rare. (I get the feeling Japan's extensive rail infrastructure contributes to the relative scarcity of road trip anime.) It works here because {tákt: op. Destiny} is set in the United States. I guess it's not technically a road trip anime, but there is a road trip in it. Close enough, eh.

"I can see my house from here."

There are plenty of other shows I'm watching that I should probably write about instead, but y'all getting an IDOLY PRIDE update instead. Deal with it. Okay, so after six episodes, I don't know why there is a ghost. Mana gives Makino someone to talk to, but there's no reason why she needs to be dead. She could have just retired, or started her own production company instead, or any number of other options. Or she could still have died, but not returned as a ghost. So far, Mana returning as a ghost has had no meaningful impact on the story.

I wonder if Mana can change her outfit.

And we do have confirmation that she's an actual ghost (as opposed to a hallucination). One of the other idols can see her, although they haven't continued interacting after the episode with the initial revelation. If we're racking and stacking idols in the show, I do like Mana best, so I appreciate having her around, but I was sort of expecting her whole phantasmness to have a bigger role in shaping the IDOLY PRIDE lore. As far as I can tell, there aren't even any other ghosts in IDOLY PRIDE—former idols or otherwise.

Those of you who know who myco is likely remember her as the seiyuu and singer who voiced the lead character in Full Moon wo Sagashite, the best anime of all time. Apart from FMoS (which ended in 2003), myco has had very few other voice acting roles. However, she did release at least one solo album, my-collage, which you can still buy, And I think the album she released with Quintillion Quiz, Memento Mori, is also available, although I've only ever seen it offered on the iTunes; I've never found a physical copy of the album.

Fortunately, myco recently announced a new channel on the YouTube. Since then, she has covered a few songs and I'm hopeful that she will continue to update the channel regularly. I'd really like to see a new album someday. I was pretty disappointed Quintillion Quiz did not release more music. Memento Mori is different from myco's single album or the FMoS music she did with Changin' My Life, but it was fantastic.

Hozuki is still Best Girl even though she's nice to people now.

The second cours of Kono Oto Tomare! Sounds of Life continues to satisfy with its steady stream of people being judgmental assholes. That bit from the first cours where smug douches jump to conclusions based on false accusations and totally unfair assumptions reappears here, but still manages to avoid crossing into irritating territory. It's a fine line, but I like how the show doles out the inevitable comeuppance and vindicates the accused.

You're okay. Try not to drive into a hedge.

I don't know how the source material is paced, but a bunch of characters are piling into the show as of the most recent episode, presumably in a rush to work in all the bits related to the upcoming competition before the season ends. This does work to its detriment, but it's the sort of thing I'm willing to excuse since the sum of the parts totals favorably. I'm not expecting further episodes of Kono Oto Tomare! after this season ends, but I'd watch more.

I can appreciate a girl who looks down on people.

Somewhat surprisingly, I am enjoying Kono Oto Tomare! Sounds of Life the most out of the shows I'm watching this season. Although my initial impressions were positive, I was still somewhat dubious until Hozuki's appearance in the second episode sealed the deal for me. I suppose if you wanted to distill her appeal down to standard anime cliches, you could chalk it up to the power of gap moé or tsundere conventions, but I do appreciate that she's the only member of this koto club who can play the instrument worth a damn. I'm also glad that her putative love interest in the show appears to be the angry delinquent kid and not Potato-kun.

Yaoi hand.

It also helps that the conflicts between Angry Delinquent and Potato-kun in the first episode feel more like something out of a shoujo manga than a shounen one. (The source material is described as shounen and runs in Jump SQ.) There were some borderline scenes in the first episode that involved clichés I hate, though. Notably, the anime convention where the first person at the scene of a crime is seen by the second person at the scene and immediately assumed to be the perpetrator. (See, for example, Boku dake ga Inai Machi (ERASED).) However, the way this plays out in Kono Oto Tomare! is at least related to preconceptions people have about others and not just the the dumb cliché in its raw form. Luckily, my own preconceptions for Kono Oto Tomare! itself did not bear out and I'll get to watch Hozuki shred for two cours.

This was a blatant effort to encourage anime tourism.

I starting watching Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight thinking it was going to be an idol anime that would contrast nicely when watched back-to-back with Ongaku Shoujo. Yeah, that turned out to be wrong. It's not an "idol anime" at all, or at least it's less so an idol anime than it is a "wack ass giraffe fight club" anime, as I've seen it characterized on the IRC. To tell you the truth, I'm not entirely sure what to call it.

Très bien!

Not that there's any compelling need to slot Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight into some sort of category. All the really matters to me is that the audition portion of the first episode blew my mind. The fact that we got three straight episodes of "auditions" is rather astounding, although I don't imagine this is something we can reasonably expect an animation studio to keep up week after week. I'm calling them auditions, but you should bear in mind that these segments in Revue Starlight are auditions the way tank battles in GIRLS und PANZER are school sports.

I'm looking forward to these two becoming bitter rivals.

Naturally, since Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight is about nine girls vying for the top spot, I've already picked sides and chosen favorites. There is also some expectation that various pairs will be forced to turn on each other as the competition heats up (it is right there in the OP, okay), but at least we're not likely to see loved ones dematerialize into green sparkles. I mean, they do still need people to put on the show.

Junna here setting totally unrealistic bed head expectations.

After four episodes, Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight holds the top position in my Summer 2018 anime rankings, ahead of even Hanebado! even though Hanebado! has a lot more bitches being bitches. Naturally, I like the Revue Starlight supporting characters more than the leads, but that's pretty much how these sort of things go for me. In fact, I don't see anyone displacing the current top four, incidentally.

Well, there is a forest.

I only watched the first episode of Piano no Mori (TV) because of the Gainax name attached to it. Hopefully, Sakuga Blog will at some point lay out how much of the Fukushima Gainax has anything to do with the Gainax of yore, if anything. Regardless of how much the name might even matter anymore, it at least served to expose me to an episode of anime I would not have otherwise considered watching. I won't call the first episode stunning, but it was at least surprising and better than I was anticipating. I went into the show knowing nothing aside from a brief vague description about two boys who play piano in a forest. That's technically true, but doesn't really detail what the show is about.

For one thing, one of the characters is a prostitute.

As far as what a curious viewer might expect, I don't think I can offer reliable predictions based on a single episode, but think it's likely comparisons with Nodame Cantabile, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, and, uh, Piano will be inevitable. You know, because all of these shows are about people playing piano. There is some imperfect 3DCG in Piano no Mori, but I get the feeling this is an increasingly unavoidable component of anime in this particular era. In any case, it was not distracting enough to take me completely out of the show. It's certainly should not be a reason to dismiss it out of hand. I can't promise Piano no Mori will be good, but I at least claim the first episode is different and worth your time if you are still finding your way around the new anime season, trying to figure out what might be worth watching.

Something something Maria, something something huge tomatoes.

I don't write about Symphogear as much as I ought to, consider that it's FUCKIN' GREAT. It's basically a miracle that we've gotten four seasons already with a fifth season supposedly on the way. This season, Senki Zesshou Symphogear AXZ ended up my second-favorite show, after Re:CREATORS but ahead of Princess Principal (which is itself way better than I expected). Still, I don't have much to say about Symphogear except that it's Symphogear. You either understand the appeal or you don't. It's definitely not something I expect to have any success in describing though text. Not in any way that does it justice, at least.

Something something the appeal of a girl made of saws.

No doubt, there are still dubious readers on the fence about the whole thing. To be honest, the famous Symphogear meme chart pretty accurately describes the typical first-time viewing experience, aside from some outliers (like me) who were totally on board ever since Zwei Wing hit the stage in episode one of the first season. As to what you might expect in Symphogear AXZ? More singing while fighting (fighting while singing?), and more solving problems by punching them. The Hell else do you need?