Midterm Review of 2019 Summer Anime by Anime Writers [Anime Column].

We pick out five titles based on manga from the 2019 summer anime lineup. They are "How Many Dumbbells Can You Hold?" serialized in "Ura Sunday" and "Manga One." and "Weekly Young Magazine," "Tejutsu Senpai," serialized in "Comic Newtype," "GIRLS' High School Student's Wastefulness," serialized in "Manga Time Kirara Carat," "Machikado Mazoku," serialized in "Bessatsu Shonen Magazine," and "Raging Season Otomezu yo." The following five works will be introduced.

How Many Dumbbells Can You Hold?

In this muscle training anime, overweight high school girl Hibiki Sakura goes to a training gym to lose weight and improve her body. Various characters appear, including Akemi Sadanariin, a young lady with a fetish for muscles, and Satomi Tachibana, a teacher with a hidden secret, but the most impressive feature is the trainer, Naruzo Machio, who is both handsome and macho.
In the "Machio Trainer's Muscle Training Course," a section of the book, you can learn about the structure and function of each muscle, making it fun for those who have only learned about the human body through manga cross-sectional illustrations to try muscle training. Another key point is the casual appearance of characters from "Kengan Ashura" by the original author Sandorovich Yabako and "Tada-kun wa Koi-no-Kunai", an original title by Video Studio.

Senior high school student who does magic tricks

A short comedy about a high school student "Senpai" who loves magic tricks and her new student "assistant" who creates commotion in the magic club. The senior's magic tricks are a series of failures, and the highlight is the naughty twist in which the senior not only reveals her tricks, but also shows off her unmistakable appearance every time. The senior's healthy style, as well as his extreme agoraphobia and sweaty nature, give him a strange presence, and the scene in which his blouse gets wet and his underwear becomes transparent is very exciting. The scenes in which the assistant is a good, lecherous character are also a nice touch in these days when the disappearance of sexual desire from male characters is lamented.
The magic tricks are surprisingly serious. Four to five episodes are crammed into a 15-minute slot, and the tempo is pleasantly fast-paced.

The Wastefulness of High School Girls

This school comedy depicts the daily lives of a group of slightly unfortunate high school girls. The characters are called by nicknames thought up by the idiots, such as Baka (Tanaka), a problem child who lives by instinct, Otaku (Kikuchi), who loves anime and manga, Robo (Sagimiya), who does not show his emotions, and Waseda (Sado), the homeroom teacher who loves the college girls, and it is a nice friendly design that allows the viewer to intuitively recognize the characters' names.
Each episode begins with Baka's line, "Can I tell you something amazing now? The "wow" part animation is provided in each episode, which begins with Baka's line, "Can I tell you something amazing now? The animation is full of various ideas, including effective use of close-ups, parodies, and almost single shots, and we can't wait to see how it will be presented next time.

Machikado Mazoku

This is a magical comedy about a high school girl who awakens to the power of a dark family and struggles to break the family curse by offering the lifeblood of a magical girl to an evil goddess statue. Although the setting alone sounds serious, the charm of this story lies in its relaxed worldview, as seen in the fact that classmates do not mind the horns and tails that grow out of the girl's head. A friendship gradually develops between Shamiko, who is a "mazoku" but not a strong one, and Momo, a magical girl who has the power to stop a dump truck with one hand.
As the title "Machikado Mazoku" suggests, the scenery of the town is also impressive. In particular, due to the curse of living on 40,000 yen a month, the apartment Shamiko lives in, Banda-so, is too shabby, giving it a retro flavor. Personally, I think that the line "Buchikoroso" in the original story was inspired by "Kai! Cromartie High School" director Hiroaki Sakurai's anime adaptation is deeply moving.

O ye maidens of the stormy season!

This is an ensemble coming-of-age drama about five high school girls in a literary club who grow up while being swept away by their sexuality. It is a common practice for adolescent anime to have emotionally charged protagonists running at full speed, with the girls running backlit in the OP anime and the William Tell Overture playing in the original comics commercial (Athletic Meet!). This work is no exception. But the running scene in "Maidens of the Raging Season!" is not a pleasantly liberating experience, but rather, it is a confinement from which there is nowhere to run.
In the first episode, the protagonist, Wasa, is unexpectedly confronted with her sexuality, and she runs out of her room, only to find that everything she sees in the city is a sexual metaphor, and she becomes increasingly confused. She manages to escape from the shopping district, but this time she witnesses a train going into a tunnel (Hitchcock!) and I sit there. The song playing in the room, "TRAIN-TRAIN" by THE BLUE HEARTS, somehow becomes an insert song, and it seems to be nothing more than a terrifying song that follows Kazusa wherever she goes. Will there ever come a day when Kazusa will be free from sexuality?

(Text by Katsunori Takahashi)

(c) 2019 Sandorovich Yabako, MAAM, Shogakukan/Silverman Gym
(c) Azu, Kodansha/Tejutsu Senpai Production Committee
(c) Bino/KADOKAWA/High School Girls' Wasted Production Committee
(c) Ito Izumo/Hobunsha/Machikado Mazuku Production Committee
(c) Mari Okada, Nao Emoto, Kodansha/Arao Otsu Production Committee