And here we are – having finally arrived at our third and final installment of the Summer 2010 Anime preview – although, in truth, it has become more of a review at this point, since many of the shows have already started airing. What’s more, because of deals struck by such online entities as Crunchyroll, Funimation and AnimeNewsNetwork, a number of these shows are already available to watch online.

Which is great if you have a nice broadband connection to play with. But I’m not here to discuss the internet – moving on, let’s take a look at three or four more shows I have an interest in.

Asobi ni Iku Yo

http://www.asoiku.com/

The Story: The series follows young high-school freshman Kakazu Kio, who lives in Okinawa. One day, while attending a memorial service for his ancestors, a girl with cat-ears appears before him, claiming to be an alien. She introduces herself as Eris, and it doesn’t take Kio long to realize that she may be more trouble than was apparent at first.
Starting: 10 July (13 Episodes)
Genre: Romantic Comedy, Sci-Fi

There really isn’t a lot of info available about this series just yet – it is based on a series of light-novels by author Okina Kamino. It looks to be one of your fairly standard, almost run-of-the-mill romantic comedy/harem anime (yes – I do think more than one girl (including catgirls)  is going to have an interest in our main character). I’m posting this particular series as a favour to one my readers – and fanatical cat-girl supporter. The English translation for the title is “Let’s Play!” – says enough, really, doesn’t it? Looks like a relatively fun watch anyways.

Kuroshitsuji II

Kuroshitsuji

The Story: Set in 19^th century England, the story follows two new characters, Alois Trancy, and his rather mysterious butler, Claude Faustus – who happens to have even more mysterious talents. The events depicted in this new series take place a year and three months after the events of the first series.
Starting: 1 July (13 Episodes)
Genre: Supernatural

I did quite enjoy the first series of the Black Butler, although I watched it long enough ago to be somewhat at a loss regarding how it finished. Ciel Phantomhive (the protagonist in the first series) had a definite role in the series, and it remains to be seen if Alois plays a similar role. For myself, I have this vague suspicion that something ties the butlers, Claude and Sebastian (from the first series) together, apart of course from their profession and origins. Whether that suspicion gets confirmed remains to be seen, but I’m a little on the ropes regarding this series. Curiosity, more than anything else, will probably make me watch it.

A few things about the image bother me a little though. A boy wearing shorts, with thigh-length stockings, heeled boots … and are those purple ribbons on his boots?!? I think they’re taking a sharper aim at the girl-crowd with this one.

High School of the Dead

http://www.geneonuniversal.jp/rondorobe/anime/hotd/

The Story: Komuro Takashi is a normal high-school boy (aren’t they always?) – until an infectious pandemic breaks out that turns people into zombies. Takashi teams up with some of his classmates and the school nurse in an attempt to survive the chaos.
Starting: 5 July (13 Episodes)
Genre: Horror, action

OMG!! Zombies!! Dawn of the Dead style. Plus hot anime girls fighting zombies!! This just sounds awesome. And it really does. There is just one problem – and this is based on one relatively bad experience already. The series initially focuses on the survival of the core characters, but later on also presents the threat of moral decay on the part of the survivors, the collapse of civilization and other dangers. It sounds awesome, but the fact that this all gets compressed into thirteen episodes concerns me a little – and reminds me of Rosario + Vampire, where the manga was all kinds of awesome, but the anime decided to dump the awesomeness and focus on the fanservice. Based on comments from reviewers on AnimeNewsNetwork though, I think I can rest easy. And look forward to watching this. Besides – OMG!!! Zombies!!! And hot anime girls fighting zombies!!! I want.

One more series making an appearance that I’m quite interested in, being a fan of the franchise, is .hack//Link – but information is very sketchy about it at the moment. Based on what I’ve seen so far, a number of characters from past series and games will be making an appearance, including Tsukasa and Subara from .hack//Sign, and Haseo from .hack//G.U. – so for that reason I want to watch and see what happens.

And that ends my series on the Summer 2010 anime releases. I’ve been a lot more brief than the guys on ANN and THAT Anime blog – but my time is limited, and I’m doing this by myself, after all. THAT lists about 20 series starting in July, and I’ve covered nine – meaning there’s more reading to be done.

Once again, the links:

THAT Anime Summer 2010 Anime preview
ANNs Summer 2010 preview guide

That’s my bit for now. I’ve got one or two series that I’m watching at the moment – so I’ll be back to reviewing something soon. If you want to read back to the first two sections I did to refresh your memory a bit – here’s Part 1, and here’s Part 2.