In addition to the multitudes of full-length anime this season, we also have a handful of shorts! Here’s the rundown on what I think it worth watching, and what can easily be skipped.
Space Battleship Tiramisu
When it comes to shorts, I think comedies are the most successful. In Space Battleship Tiramisu we follow Subaru, an ace pilot, who is constantly getting into crazy situations in the midst of battle. Whether it’s having a serious pork-skewer breading malfunction, having to hide his weird nipples or change his shirt mid-battle, things always seem to go dramatically wrong for him. The first episode has some great gags and I can guarantee that everyone will be seeing out of context screenshots from this anime all over Twitter in the weeks to come. The animation isn’t bad either! I was pleasantly surprised by the quality considering this is just a seven minute short.
Love To-LIE-Angle
Do you love tatas so much that you don’t care about whether there’s any semblance of plot, funny jokes or characters? Then Love To-LIE-Angle (the most forced pun in the history of anime, probably) is here for you! If you still think that the joke about women having large or small breasts is the height of comedy then you’re in luck, because that’s the only joke in the mercifully short episode. This girl has big boobies! This girl has small boobies! This girl’s boobies are just right. On the other hand, if you want to watch something good maybe you just can skip this one. I know I will be.
Alice or Alice
Next up, a show that makes Love To LIE-Angle look subtle! Alice or Alice is a 3 minute show about a pair of twins who really love their brother. The first episode wastes no time; it knows what you came for, after all, so the very first shot is a close-up of one of the girls’ breasts flopping about unnaturally as she rolls over in her sleep, and transitions seamlessly to a second camera that seems to be positioned up her arse as she leans up to get out of bed. These shots, along with the shots of the girls’ faces when they tell their older brother how much they love him, are the only properly drawn parts of the episode: the rest is done in a low effort chibi style because they know those bits are just wasting time to get them to the three minute mark. Unless you have a very specific set of tastes and a very low bar for quality, you can easily skip Alice or Alice.
My Sweet Tyrant
You can’t tell a girl you like her or else you’ll look like an idiot! Or at least, that’s what Kagari thinks. Although he’s obsessed with his girlfriend, he treats her like absolute garbage whenever she’s around and only allows himself to express his love for her when she’s a safe distance away. I guess the joke is mildly amusing for the three and a half minutes of the episode, but I think that it would start to wear thin even by the second episode, let alone the end of the series. Also I get that this is a jokey, light-hearted show, but it seems to reinforce the whole toxic “oh, if a guy pushes you down in the playground that just means he likes you, sweetie!” idea that’s so prevalent. Honestly I’d prefer it if this was more of a reverse Momokuri situation where he’s actually nice to her and can barely contain himself from constantly freaking out about how cute she is all the time.
You Don’t Know Gunma Yet
Another three and a half minute short, this time we have a comedy about a guy moving out to a rural town that’s in an area that ranked last in the 2012 Prefecture Attractiveness Ranking. He tells his friend who already lives there that he’s moving there, and he is quickly informed of what a hellscape it is. The train to Gunma quickly gains an aura of death, and the train attendant tells him that nothing but an empty void awaits him and the rest of the passengers. The jokes are kind of funny, but it’s the sort of comedy that works better if you’re actually familiar with the place, which I’m not. I’d recommend checking out the first episode because it’s not much of a time investment, but I won’t be continuing with this one myself.
Crossing Time
Crossing Time is about two girls, Tomo and Ai, who are apparently never going to get to school, and are instead doomed to wait at the train crossing for all eternity as their personal form of purgatory. In the meantime they’re going to enjoy their youth to the fullest by… screaming the name of the person they like at the train. Tomo shouts Ai’s name and tells her in a very straightforward way that she has a crush on her and would like to date. It’s refreshingly honest, and even though Ai doesn’t answer in this episode I am curious to see what might happen next. Although it does end quite abruptly this three and a half minute short was surprisingly charming!
Isekai Izakaya: Japanese Food From Another World
Clocking in at almost fifteen minutes, Isekai Izakaya is the longest of the shorts this season. Much like last year’s Restaurant to Another World, the basic premise is that various characters from a fantasy land come to the restaurant to sample its out of this world food. The shorter runtime means that rather than spending half of the episode getting to know these characters before they come and eat the delicious looking food, Isekai Izakaya gets right to the meat and potatoes of its premise. I actually prefer that, because the main reason I’m watching the show is to look at food porn, not learn about characters who we won’t be seeing much of again.
One thing that does bother me about this show is the amount of logos and subtitles that are all over the screen through the entire episode. It looks cluttered and makes it harder for me to focus. Other than that, however, Isekai Izakaya is a great show if you just want to kick back and watch people enjoy their tasty looking food. Although I probably won’t be keeping up with it week on week, I’ll definitely be revisiting as the mood takes me.
Remain in Memories 
I was fooled by Crossing Time’s first episode, too. Apparently every episode features two different characters. I had really liked the first episode but the second one is up/down there with Love To-LIE-Angle and Alice or Alice.
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