Gate is okay. Very much an isekai harem power fantasy, just with a slightly different twist to the power aspect. Rory best girl though.
Isn't Gate literally sponsored by JSDF / Japanese Military? They're very hoo-rah about showing off their weapons and how awesome being in the Military is, so I've kept hearing that as a rumor.
Nothing wrong with some pro-military propaganda mind you. I enjoy my fair share of it from any country. But there's just a lot of signs of possible official sponsor ship here that intrigues me given how detailed the military acts.
Unfortunately, the actual story wasn't for me.
Soroiro Utility looks like a fun Moe Golf show. I'll be checking it out for comedy.
Hmmmm. Minami is nerd-moe, obviously the girl who is designed to fit in with Otaku kind of an audience. She plays lots of video games, makes lots of video game / gachapon jokes, she's bad at every sport and is currently not part of any school club. (gasp!!!) On a random occasion, she helps an 80+ year old man who was struggling to carry a large bag in a parking lot. And as she carries his bag into his destination, she realizes its golf clubs and she is helping him walk to a driving range.
At the range is Haruka is an actual serious golfer who is practicing when Minami walks in. And Haruka is super excited to see someone new walk in. So she definitely pushes Minami to take some swings and... even pushes Minami towards playing a round of golf on a short course by the end of the 1st episode. For any golfer, this is going way too fast. But Minami is clearly n00b, but has a good attitude about the whole thing. And Haruka's love of the game is certainly contagious.
I don't know what I was expecting from the 1st episode, but... its not bad. I'll have to watch more before I give solid recommends, but this actually has promise. The bar is set low: "Have that ONE good shot that makes the whole round of golf worth it", which is honestly the best way of looking at this difficult game. But I'm sure in the 2nd episode we will see just how poorly the round of golf goes. Hopefully the n00b Minami gets some joy from her first round despite literally being on the 2nd day trying this game (Haruka is obviously way too excited about pulling in a newbie here, lol).
I'm somewhat curious if this will take the more traditional sports anime where Minami / main character has hidden talents and becomes an expert quickly. But that'd bore me and it isn't very "golf" like for that to happen. It seems more like this show is going towards just Haruka sharing her excitement of this sport and pulling Minami in, no matter her skill level. Golf is one of the few games that can be enjoyed by two people of grossly different skill levels after all, so I hope they keep the spirit of golf true between these two characters and not feel the need to pressure Minami to actually get gud.
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For now, I'm impressed that they've drawn Minami as a n00b, while drawing Haruka like she knows what she's doing. They definitely studied enough golfers and worked on the animation. It feels like a reasonable amount of quality and effort went into the drawings and music, which itself shows confidence and promise for future episodes.
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So I guess for me personally, that puts Zenshu and Sorairo Utility as the top two new shows this season so far. I'll be going down the rest of my list soon but somehow these are the anime that are working with my personality and sense of humor.
