An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

(Inter)Planetary Romance – Waiting in the Summer Spoiler Review

Sometimes creators come back to an idea after some time has passed. Whether the world has seen the “old version” or not and however the two stack up to each other in terms of quality, it’s pretty inevitable. After all, most creators tend to create things they would like, and if what you like doesn’t change a whole lot, it’s inevitable that you’d return to certain concepts.

I mention this because Waiting in the Summer is the spiritual successor with a very similar pitch and from the same creator to a property called Onegai☆Teacher. If that sounds somewhat familiar to long-time readers it’s probably because I reviewed the semi-sequel to it, Onegai☆Twins some time ago. While Twins had its own independent story, it did of course have some inheritance from Teacher, so while I haven’t to date taken the time to view Onegai☆Teacher, I am at least somewhat aware of its facts: Alien comes to earth, bumps into boy, and through some more-or-less contrived coincidences ends up both his teacher and his fiancee.

Twins largely dropped the space alien angle, other than with its mascot critter’s presence, while keeping the same setting. Waiting in the Summer, meanwhile, is a new property with a new setting and no in-lore connection to the Onegai series. However, it features a very similar pitch: Alien comes to earth, bumps into boy, is a cute girl who’s really bad at disguising the fact she’s a space alien, romantic comedy ensues.

Viewing this, as is necessary for me, as its own thing and not in light of Onegai☆Teacher, how does Waiting in the Summer do?

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