Wrapping Up 2015: Five Short-Form Summer Anime Series

My rate of keeping up with newly-debuted anime series has fallen in the past few years. I had decided to not participate in this year’s Anime Secret Santa project since I figured I might not be able to completely watch and subsequently write a review of a recommended anime within the given timeframe. I also passed on joining other bloggers in the 12 Days project that started on December 14th because I didn’t feel like I had completed enough anime since January to adequately compose 12 posts.

I ended up beginning more series from 2015 than I’ve finished and there are others I would still like to try out, though I likely won’t get through those until the first couple months of next year. (My curiosity in wanting to sample new shows has gradually led to a long list of half-watched anime, especially since the growth of simulcasts has allowed me to easily try out a first episode on a whim.) I’ll attempt to wrap up watching as many 2015 series as I can before year’s end and write about the ones I complete.

The bulk of my current anime watching involves series with episodes lasting less than 15 minutes. Those shorter runtimes mean smaller weekly time commitments for me as a viewer and also mean the shows featuring those shorter episodes sometimes have more focused writing and pacing compared to their full-length counterparts. Over the past few months, I completed watching five such anime from this summer.

Miss Monochrome season 2 [Crunchyroll]
This follow-up to the 2013 android idol comedy series featured Miss Monochrome putting together parts of her upcoming live concert tour with the help of her manager Maneo, her robot companion Ru-chan, a dual-nature promoter named Yayoi, and other people along the way.

Monochrome started to show more humor in season 2 including making some joking suggestions that Yayoi mistook as serious requests. I’ll likely watch through the third season, which began in October, within the next week.

Teekyu season 5 [Crunchyroll]
Another batch of 12 fast-paced gag comedy episodes that takes less than a half-hour to watch. Like how Miss Monochrome went straight from season 2 to season 3, Teekyu rolled into its sixth season in October (and will transition into season 7 in January).

Wakaba Girl [Crunchyroll, Hulu]
My favorite 2015 show among the ones I’ve completed so far. It was fun to watch the rich and out-of-touch Wakaba striving to become a normal high school student with the help of her classmate friends.

Sea urchin cresson (from Wakako-zake)

Wakako-zake [Crunchyroll]
This dining-focused series was a late addition to Crunchyroll’s simulcast lineup in mid-August. Each episode was only two minutes long but still managed to pair good-looking dishes with Wakako reflecting on what she’s eating.

Wooser’s Hand-to-Mouth Life: Phantasmagoric Arc (season 3) [Crunchyroll]
Bearing an American comics-themed opening and a cute, poppy ending sequence, Wooser’s third season was more ambitious in its episode subjects than past seasons, such as a game of Werewolf where the main camera rotated at the center of a table the characters sat at and another where characters opened and closed coffins lying on a beach.