Yes, you're actually still a main character.

Hanebado! is one of my favorite shows from the Summer 2018 anime season for pretty much the same reason why most of the Twitter seems to hate it. It is, like, wall-to-wall cunts. Oh my God, Ayano has turned into such a bitch. She's mean to basically everyone around her now for essentially no reason. Or at least for no reason she can pin on them. This show is wonderful.

A ghost with legs? Inconceivable.

The main reason why I started watching Shichisei no Subaru (Seven Senses of the Re'Union) and Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san (Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs) was because both shows featured ghost girlfriends and thus gave me an excuse to pad the Ghost Girlfriends tag on my blog. Besides, Tasogare Otome x Amnesia and Nanana's Buried Treasure were both good, even if Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? was, uh, not.

They might be making Genta bigger. That's him behind Conan.

If you're familiar with the spreadsheet I use to keep track of the anime I watch, you may have noticed that I have Detective Conan identified as the control for comparing the scores I assign to different series season by season. The idea being that a show like Detective Conan which has now run for more than 900 episodes apparently without any change in quality could be useful in qualifying the numerical 1-to-5 scoring system I use. (Think of it as 😠 ☹ 😐 🙂 😀 I guess.)

Ran and her alcoholic dad haven't changed much.

However, it seems the average quality of Detective Conan episodes has declined somewhat lately. The apparent change isn't dramatic, but it's enough to make me wonder what's going on. Based on information from the the Detective Conan wiki, I guess I'm blaming it on the block of anime-original episodes. These tend to be just a bit more contrived and unsatisfying instead of merely overly convoluted like normal episodes. Despite these concerns, I suppose I can still claim Detective Conan is as good as it's always been. Or at least it's probably still good enough to use as a basis for comparison against a bunch of other made-up numbers.

Emiru is probably remembering that everyone at school still thinks she's nuts.

Now well past the halfway mark, Hugtto! Precure is better than it has any right to be. Based on the number of strikes it normally would have against it, I shouldn't be enjoying it so much. Namely, it's got a magic baby. It has a shrimpy Cure. And it has my least favorite battle costumes of the entire franchise. It turns out, though, that the magic-baby scenes are not as objectionable as I had feared (although I could still do without them). The battle costumes are tragic; I guess that's not going to change. On the plus side, though, the shrimpy Cure is tops.

Actually, most of the cast is pretty good.

Cure Muse basically ruined shrimpy Cures for me. Cure Ace, I guess she was okay. Aguri was definitely more endearing than Ako. Emiru, though, as Cure Ma Chérie? Emiru is frickin' great. It's mostly because she's completely neurotic, which we got to see ahead of time in her two really good pre-transformation introductory episodes. It also helps that she's partnered with RUR-9500. The two of them bring out the best in each other's scenes. I suppose I can't quite say the same thing about Cure Amour, although they are fine together as well. After all, they do have beam-rifle guitars.

This counts as chemistry, right?

I started watching ISLAND basically for the same reason as Anime War Crime Tribunal. I.e., hoping it would be entertainingly bad. I guess not entirely for the same reason. I'm also partially in it for the Yukarin lead and, uh, I guess maybe that's it. Unfortunately, ISLAND has been mostly unremarkable. It does have some wacky twists and unexpected revelations, but they are the sort that mostly just don't make much sense and not the variety that might stun you with disbelief. I guess I'm complaining that it is not sufficiently schlock.

Enri put on her best clothes for the visit, but not only did Nfirea
not even bother to change his shirt, it isn't even tucked in.

The third season of Overlord thankfully had only a three-month hiatus following the second season. The break between the first and second season was more than two years, which was entirely too long for casual fans of the anime who had not read the books. A lot of the events that occur in Overlord happen simultaneously or close to it, so it's helpful to keep the timeline and chain of events straight as more and more characters get introduced. That was a lot harder to do when I could barely remember a lot of the context I was supposed to know.

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.

I love that Ayano has Mystic Eyes of Badminton Perception.

Impressive animation in the PV guaranteed I was going to give Hanebado! a try, despite knowing essentially nothing about badminton. Through four episodes, the animation quality remains higher than I would have expected, and the show itself continues to land solid hits on many of the sports tropes I enjoy. Notably, its star is a preternatural talent who is weighed down by a hefty load childhood drama.