Star Crossed Anime

I Parry Everything

Short Synopsis: Noor has wanted to be a hero since he was a child, but he was never good enough at anything to do so. After years of training he was only able to learn a single skill, parry. With only one path before him, he takes that skill to its absolute limits.

Mario: Well, even though the episode feels familiar, at least the main character is so earnest that it’s hard to hate him. The show spends an entire episode showing us his journey to become an adventurer, from when he’s a teenager until now. Throughout all his hardships, and displaying no talent at all, he still keeps going at it. I guess the punch line here is the same as that “BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense” show – he maxes out his parrying skill, so much so that it actually becomes his primary weapon. The girl he saves is a princess so she will take him everywhere with her… I think the show will have all the familiar beats here, so if you still like the main character after this episode and don’t mind the tropes, you will have a good time here.
Potential: 10%

Lenlo: As Mario says, there’s nothing particularly new here in Parry. The MC has a highly specific OP skill in a fantasy world ruled by video game logic, saves the girl who then falls for him, pretty standard power fantasy stuff. But… Parry executes on it competently. It doesn’t rush into the OP bullshit from the first minute, the MC isn’t some Isekai chosen one who doesn’t put in any effort to obtain his skill, and in fact he’s kind of a decent person, helping everyone out and being your friendly neighborhood hero. There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about Parry, but I also can’t say I hated it. If you’re looking for a fun OP MC action fantasy series, you could do far far worse than Parry than season.
Potential: 20%

Bye Bye, Earth

Short Synopsis: Belle Lablac doesn’t really fit in as the only human being in a world full of anthropomorphic animals. No fangs, no fur, no scales, no claws. Lonely and eager to discover where she comes from, Belle journeys to find answers to the questions of her heart. Carrying nothing but her giant sword, the Runding, she faces a world of possibilities and pitfalls in hopes of discovering the truth.

Mario: Sometimes, you can feel the air of racism in an anime so thick that you could taste it, and that’s what the first half of this episode does for me. It’s a bit sad, really. For all of its efforts to differentiate itself from the normal isekai settings (there are a whole range of different races here), it just tries a bit too hard on isolating our main girl from this world. In fact, “trying too hard” is what I feel about the whole episode. There are some neat worldbuilding details about nomad and enola, but because the episode tries to cram so many details, it gets lost in the middle. Belle’s flashback, for example, clashes a bit with her current time with her teacher. As a result, it is hard to get emotionally invested in their farewell fight as we don’t spend enough time with them together. Still, the music is nice, and at least the show is trying. Still, I’m not sure if I’m gonna stick around for more.
Potential: 20%

Lenlo: The way I feel about Bye Bye, Earth can best be described as… Curious. I’m curious about this world, and why everyone in it are animals, and not sexy “fox/cat girl” animals, I mean actual insect humanoids/Minotaurs/Centaurs. I’m curious about why our lead is the only human, and what that means for her. I’m curious about this sword, a spell inscribed on the blade, and this curse she undertook to become a Nomad. I’m not sold on any of it yet, the action isn’t great and there’s some pretty basic fantasy racism going on. But there’s enough here that I want to give it a few episodes and see where it goes, plus Penkin’s music, while mixed a tad loud for my taste here, isn’t bad. Hopefully it does something with itself.
Potential: 50%

Atri: My Dear Moments

Short Synopsis: A one-legged man discovers a remarkably lifelike robot sleeping in the undersea ruins of his grandmother’s former home.

Wooper: In the seven years since I started writing for Star Crossed, our quarterly first impressions periods have ended on a stinker around half the time. So, which side of the decent-to-dud divide does our final premiere, Atri: My Dear Moments, fall on? Happily, I’d say it’s the former. The show boasts an interesting (if not original) setting featuring risen sea levels and dilapidated highways, and though its characters are clearly trope-driven, the composition of the cast gives off a mid-2000s charm that I can at least tolerate. The main character is sullen, but he’s got a good reason for it (more than one reason, really), and the cutesy android he discovers on the seafloor near the start of the episode will surely appeal to fans of little sister types. She’s granted a few bits of expressive character acting here, and the protagonist’s 3DCG submarine looks pretty good, too – and even when it didn’t, as in a shot of its extendable arms pinching at nothing in particular, the clumsiness put a smile on my face. My Dear Moments doesn’t have a strong narrative thrust behind it after one episode, but it’s raised a couple questions about its main character’s past and its setting that may bring people back for more. I won’t be among their number, but I can at least appreciate the show’s redeeming qualities – and its place as a decent finisher to the summer season.
Potential: 25%

Lenlo: I was pleasantly surprised by Atri. I wasn’t expecting much, initial impressions weren’t great since we open on an Onee-san type flashing her cleavage and thigh gap at us. But as the show went on it became more and more of a vibe. Sailing through the ocean, floating underneath the sea, an MC with good reasons to be moody for once. It felt like someone actually cared while making this, unlike a great many of the shows airing this season. I think whether or not you like this will come down entirely to whether or not the vibe is one you connect with. Personally, while I enjoyed it for this episode due to all the other seasonals I had to watch for these posts, I know it’s not something I could keep up with for an entire season. Still, if you’re looking for something that’s more about experiencing a world and the characters living in it, rather than a set narrative, I think this could work for you.
Potential: 35%

The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant

Short Synopsis: An admitted war criminal and a part time worker face off…and fall in love.

Lenlo: On the surface, this seems like a pretty standard magical girl show. Transformation sequence was alright, effects are good enough, girl is sort of cute. The issue with standard magical girl shows though is that you always have to recon with the Precure series, because if you can’t do something better than them, or sufficiently different, there’s no reason to watch your show. That’s just the reality of Precure. So what does this one do to set itself apart? Well surprisingly, a rather cute romance. I’m always down for that Romeo and Juliet “Opposing Sides” formula, and Evil Lieutenant puts enough care into the small moments like eating cake together that it was rather cute. The big issue for me is that the lead girl is an emotionless doll with no personality beyond what you project onto her. She’s a blank slate to be loved and lusted after while appearing pitiful and incompetent in her daily life. Hell, her relationship with her mascot almost feels like she’s being pimped out. All for our male lead, the Evil Lieutenant, to “save” and “care” for her while hiding it from his bosses. If Evil Lieutenant can give the female lead an actual personality, and grow their relationship, it could be fun. But I don’t have faith in them to do that. I might give this another episode to see where it goes, but I’m not keeping my hopes up.
Potential: 10%

Amun: Eh, I think Lenlo’s being a little harsh here. Evil Lieutenant was a perfectly fine take on this emerging sub-genre of enemy lovers (I wouldn’t call it Romeo and Juliet, since the anime approach is much more of a slow burn and doesn’t usually end up with so many dead people). While the main girl is a bit of a blank canvas, she does show some spunk about her convictions of being a magical girl (her magical sidekick being a yakuza shakedown is pretty funny). I expect to see more of her personality develop as the show continues – if it doesn’t, then this ship is sunk.
Potential: 50%

Too Many Losing Heroines!

Short Synopsis: A high school loner befriends his female classmate after eavesdropping on her doomed romantic confession.

Lenlo: Heroines feels… Manufactured. Which is an odd complaint I know, all anime are, it’s a team effort to make. But watching Heroines, I never once felt any sort of… authenticity from it? It’s like everything was exaggerated, the melodrama, the comedy, the personalities, the situations. Everything feels fake and unnatural, synthetic, making it impossible for me to connect or click with anything that happens. A single 20 minute episode felt like an hour as I waited for anything interesting to happen. It’s a shame, because the show looks good. That’s A-1 Pictures for you. Clean lines, nice colors, good designs and such. But I feel like I’ve seen all of it before, nothing stands out as unique to this show. I guess what I’m saying is that Heroines feels like it should be a good show, like it should be on the same level as Shoushimin, but it lacks any sort of character or personality to make it interesting.
Potential: 5%

Mario: Welcome to my domain! I always have a soft spot for LN adaptations about a narcissistic loner who can’t help but attract young girls along the way. Heck, my all-time favorites are Monogatari Series and (to a lesser degree) OreGairu. Even second tier shows like How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend or Bunny Senpai are still great joys to watch, and “Too Many Losing Heroines” could be a worthy addition to this second tier list (with an added bonus for having a know-it-all imouto). First, our down-to-earth MC’s snarky remarks work best when they parody the romance tropes of other light novels. His reaction to a girl who’s just been rejected is, “Please pay me the money back.” It helps that the girl in question here is very expressive and vocal in her struggles. Adding to that, the visuals look great in this episode, and the script offers some sort of sincerity at the end. With many other losing heroines to come (two more have been hinted already), hopefully this show can balance the humor and romance without becoming the very thing that it pokes fun at.
Potential: 50%

Why Does Nobody Remember Me in This World?

Short Synopsis: A soldier is transported to an alternate reality where humans lost a cataclysmic war against various supernatural races.

Wooper: Were I to take this anime’s title as a genuine question about itself, my answer would be, “Because your first episode was so forgettable.” I could tell within seconds of starting this premiere that I’d need to take a ton of screencaps to remember anything about it, so my desktop is currently littered with JPEGs, which I’ve pieced together to determine just what this show is all about. I won’t bore you with the details, though, especially since there are way, way too many of them; if I remember anything about the experience of watching this episode, it’s the swift mental checkout I performed upon realizing how much lore-dumping I was about to witness. Obviously, series like this one, which drone on and on about ancient prophets and supernatural heroes and shining swords and heavenly gifts, are largely written and directed by hacks. But I do wonder if closer communication between those two sides of an anime’s production wouldn’t result in a more watchable sort of hackery. Several times during this premiere, you see something happen (for example, a training dummy’s holographic overlay disappearing), then there’s a line confirming that it happened (“Mythical beast dragon type hologram deactivated”). If only the people working on these C-tier shows cared to cooperate, some of their issues could be solved, from little redundancies like that one to bigger, dirtier habits (like stuffing your characters’ mouths with backstory right upfront instead of building their personalities).
Potential: 0%

Lenlo: Tolkien would be proud of the amount of lore dumping this show did. It wasn’t good lore dumping, as it was neither interesting nor novel, but there was a lot of it! Now if only there was anything else. Actual characters, a decent fight, maybe a plot beyond our Kirito knockoff doing “cool” shit. Cool is in quotes because it was, in fact, not actually cool. Anyways, Wooper goes into a lot more detail and I don’t care enough to repeat everything he says, so just know he’s right. There are better shows this season.
Potential: 0%

Na Nare Hana Nare

Short Synopsis: Cute girls doing cheerleading, and all the drama behind it.

Mario: There are so many strikes against Na Nare Hana Nare that I am surprised that it still holds up so well by the end of this premiere. It’s about… cheerleading of all things. Its 3DCG performance scene is competent but distracting – it features one character who jumps across roofs and street lights like a ninja, and another character whose name is Anna Aveiro Nakamura dos Santos Moreira Cuccittini (no, I’m not making that up). But somehow, it gets off on a strong foot. I reckon its biggest strength so far is that the cast has well-defined personalities – with distinct traits and flaws – and we can see plenty of room for conflicts to come. Take our main girl Kanata for instance. She must have felt responsible for her friend Megumi’s injury. The show is in no hurry to explore these personal dramas though, instead letting the eccentric ones (and there are plenty in this episode) pull the string of the plot so far. It’s to no surprise that the director / series composer is the same one that did last year’s BanG Dream It’s MyGO. And the background art, with their many shades of purple, look stunning as well. When our girl Kanata takes flight at the end of the episode, the show does too.
Potential: 50%

Lenlo: To be honest I’m surprised Japan even knows what Cheerleading is, nonetheless participates in and hosts contests for it. It just feels so quintessentially American, maybe that’s why they have it at all. Anyways, as a show Nare Hana is fine? The CGI routines aren’t terrible, and the continued inclusion of their injured friend as she recovers to rejoin the team was sweet. Really the biggest mark against it is that I just don’t care about Cheerleading. It lacks that same competitive edge something like Volleyball has, and the girls themselves seem more concerned with their friendship and hanging out together than actually winning anything. If you’re looking for a wholesome Cute Girls Doing Cute Things show but in cheerleading outfits, I imagine this will be right up your alley. Personally though, I can’t say I care much.
Potential: 5%

Mayonaka Punch

Short Synopsis: A desperate streamer makes a pact with a vampire who wants to suck her blood.

Lenlo: There’s a surprising amount of YouTube/Media focused anime this season. Where others seem to be about the video/media creation process however, Mayonaka Punch focuses more on the drama inherent in running a channel and how audience reaction can affect a performer. Honestly, it’s not a terrible idea. Before the horny vampire bullshit, Mayonaka was surprisingly compelling. The fallout of a YouTuber group, the anxiety from reading comments, the fear about her future. I was interested, I wanted to see how she would overcome it, how she would reinvent herself, and what kicked off their fight to begin with! Instead it shifted to a bunch of shitty jokes around a house of worthless vampires, one a loli the other a horny mess. Maybe you can find some fun there, anytime Mayonaka focuses on its actual protagonist it isn’t bad. But the vampires are unnecessary and just ruin the whole thing.
Potential: 5%

Mario: There’s something to be said about our current obsession with stardom and hate posts. Many real-life up-and-coming stars, especially in Korea and Japan, have committed suicide due to the pressure of so-called “social disapproval” from the internet. Mayonaka Punch works best when the main character Masaki experiences that same rejection, both from the people she doesn’t know and the ones who used to be her best friends. The way she’s obsessed with hit counts and every online comment and her anxiety over her ex-bandmates’ interview are dark and raw in a good way. Ditto the sober moment later in the episode where Masaki attempts to repeat the group’s first viral hit by visiting an abandoned hospital just to find that she’s completely alone. It’s just too bad that the show also thinks it’s a good idea to frame these moments as a comedy instead of drama (the interview sessions, for example). In addition, the “vampire” part sucks up all of that message, and the vampire girl sadly only functions as a character who has the hots for our female lead, in more ways than one. As a result it is hard to stay invested in these characters and their relationship thus far. Also, vampires cannot be captured by a camera lens, now can they? Get your facts checked.
Potential: 10%

Koi wa Futago de Warikirenai

Short Synopsis: Twin girls angst over their feelings for the same guy.

Wooper: Summer 2024 really is the season of taboos, huh? First we had a guy falling in love with a robot, then the setup for a stepsibling romance, and now we’ve got a love triangle with identical sisters involved. The plot of Love Is Indivisible by Twins (the show’s strained English title) surely syncs up with the fantasies of a lot of young men out there: two girls with slightly different personalities and interests, both equally beautiful, and both equally in love with you. How will the main character ever choose between them?! In case you’re interested in the answer to that question, there are a few unfortunate hiccups in Koi wa Futago’s presentation that you’ll have to deal with as you watch, the biggest of which is the show’s brightness. The majority of characters and backgrounds in this premiere had an uncomfortable softness to them, as though the lighting were constantly overpowering them. This effect wasn’t reserved only for childhood flashbacks, either, though they comprised around half of the episode. Then there’s the dull character designs and subpar animation – I don’t expect every TV anime to excel in both of these categories, but you typically need either the first (so your series looks good in stills) or the second (so it looks good in motion), and Futago has neither. Writing the two halves of the episode from the different twins’ POVs didn’t convince me of the male lead’s crushworthiness, either, so I have no desire to give them another shot at it.
Potential: 0%

Lenlo: Let’s call this what it is, another wish-fulfillment romance with a nothingburger MC for weebs to project themselves onto while twins fall for him without him putting any actual effort into it. I can only assume as the series goes on we will get more embarrassing situations, some twin fan service, maybe even some drama as they both compete for the same boy, standard low-brow romance stuff. Personally though I won’t be around to see it, because there are just better, more genuine romances airing this season.
Potential: 0%

Isekai Shikkaku

Short Synopsis: Osamu Dazai tries to commit double suicide but ends up in an isekai instead!

Amun: Honestly, this premiere was everything that I had hoped for. The touchy subject of suicide (integral to our lead character) was kept somber and light hearted at the same time (I actually burst out lauging at Truck-kun being used seriously). The gloominess of the “adventurer” surrounded by a standard fantasy troupe just hits all the right notes for me. Sure, he assembles a somewhat unlikely harem to go find his lost suicide partner. Sure, he has a silly poison effect that is overpowered. I don’t care, Dazai’s gloominess has won me over, and I’m stoked to spend the rest of the season moping through this!
Potential: 75%

Lenlo: I was… legitimately impressed with Shikkaku. I was fully expecting a mediocre “Using author names as window dressing” show like Bungou Stray Dogs. Instead I get an actually funny, gallows-humor filled Isekai dialogue that I actually want to pay attention to and a lead whose problems aren’t magically solved just by getting hit by a truck and isekai’ed into another world. Yeah it still has a lot of the standard trappings like stats, harems and OP magic powers, and yeah those remain the weakest part of the show. But between the Annette’s slow disillusionment with Isekai Heroes and Dazai’s unreal ability to give every line he speaks the weight of a suicidal man’s last words, which I suppose they are, even those tropes got a few chuckles. Even the truck gag got me, coming out of nowhere mid-suicide attempt. And as Amun says, it’s not like the suicide is played entirely for laughs. It’s somehow able to switch between a legitimate attempt and a joke at will. And it’s pretty damn effective! If Shikkaku could just drop the normal ecchi bullshit that occasionally crops up it could be fantastic. As is I’ll settle for gallows humor I so rarely get and an amusing lead who is absolutely done with everything. And if it happens to go somewhere, to keep my interest across the entire season, then more power to it.
Potential: 55%

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin

Short Synopsis: An intergenerationally wealthy harvest goddess is banished to the human realm after failing to protect her parents’ stockpile of rice.

Wooper: After one episode, the clearest thing Sakuna has going for it is its pretty background art, which mostly depicts floating, interconnected palaces comprising the show’s lofty realm. Many of these shots are set against powder blue skies with wispy clouds, or the pinkish-purple hues of twilight, making them highly memorable – which they’ll need to be, because based on the events of this premiere, we’re about to leave the lofty realm behind. Sakuna’s punishment for allowing a quintet of hungry humans to enter this godly domain and ransack her rice reserves is banishment to a demon-infested island, where her parents disappeared untold generations ago. It’s a nice setup for a coming of age story, as she’ll now be forced to rely on her own survival abilities to get by, rather than her parents’ reputation, but she’ll have the opportunity to search for them at the same time. Still, it’s hard to definitively call this one of the season’s better offerings, since it’s apparently going to spend the vast majority of its time in the human realm, and it hasn’t even set foot there yet. I don’t mind that temporary uncertainty, nor are the kid-friendly character designs an issue for me (as I imagine they are for Very Serious anime fans). I also like the Shinto vibes and the traditional Japanese soundtrack. It’s just that Sakuna doesn’t have a ton of momentum behind it going into episode 2, so it remains to be seen whether it’ll be worth a season-long commitment.
Potential: 50%

Lenlo: I wasn’t very impressed by Sakuna sadly. The childlike, chibi size designs were really unappealing to me, especially when contrasted with the kid-friendly but still adult proportioned human characters in the same scenes. Sure the backgrounds are nice, the Shinto stylings are appealing like Wooper says, and it’s decently animated. But that’s really all it has going for it. I can’t say I care for our lead nor their mission to cleanse a demon-filled island. The idea itself is fine, but the presentation of it feels so… safe? Toothless? There’s nothing to it, no bite, no hook. And that makes this a pass for me.
Potential: 5%

Elf-san wa Yaserarenai

Short Synopsis: A massage therapist deals with fat elves trying, and failing, to lose weight.

Lenlo: You know, this season did feel a little lacking in the ecchi fetish department. Yeah we had the Russian Girl show, the Cosplay show, and the regular isekai bullshit. But this is the first one I’ve watched that really has absolutely nothing going for it outside of its fetish. And what a fetish it is. I can understand big tits, I can understand lolis (to an extent), elves, orcs, yandere, all of it makes sense on some level. But god damn I was not prepared for such an unapologetic fat fetish. I’m talking full gut. What’s more, Yaserarenai is that rare ecchi that somehow got permission to go completely uncensored. That’s right, no steam or convenient camera angles, it’s just full on giant nipples and fat stomachs shoved in your face. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t kind of disgusted.
Potential: 2Fat4Me

Quality Assurance in Another World

Short Synopsis: A player tries to save a village with a bugged strategy to kill a dragon.

Mario: There’s more to Quality Assurance than it lets on, at least for the good first 15 minutes of this premiere. I’m pretty sure everyone would consider “the twist” a legit gamechanger (pun intended here), as it opens up more layers for both the story and the main character Haga. For me personally, it comes off as a bit clunky. How can Haga have so many resources in the first place, and how did he bring them all there by himself before his showdown with the dragon? Does this also mean he witnesses Nikola and the villagers die every time, but only this time Nikola comes back to life? I reckon the show will address the second point later on, as there are still many ambiguous circumstances that await Haga and Nikola on their journey. For now, the character designs remain mixed as well. I really enjoy the designs and costumes that remind me of Kemono no Souja Erin and the Bookworm anime, but the Dragon design is a bit off (are they… dragons?). And the concepts of “debugging” and “non-player character that becomes a main character” aren’t something new anymore. This one does delve into a darker theme and more serious tone, which is always a welcome change, but I suppose we will get a full taste of it in the next episode – when Haga and Nikola explore the world and figure out a way to get Haga back to real life.
Potential: 40%

Amun: That was not what I expected. I thought we’d get something similar to the other Dungeon show (Working!! Dungeon edition). Instad, we’ve got something of the SAO stuck-in-VR setting meets To Your Eternity – not necessarily bad, but not necessarily good. I agree with Mario, those dragons are…not good. The overall story I guess is fine, and the characters are at least mildly engaging. I don’t personally love the designs or most of the visuals, but I’m a bit interested in the premise and the mystery of the world. The twist is fun, so I’m interested in this for at least a few more episodes. Not expecting anything great though.
Potential: 50%

Tower of God S2

Short Synopsis: There’s a tower that grants whoever climbs it fully whatever they wish for. Also, when betting on yourself, make sure to not go into debt so much that you have to sell your organs.

Amun: Ah man, four years since the last Tower of God, and I vaguely remember what was going on (just remember blonde girl is worst girl and something or other about Jahad). This definitely feels like a soft reboot, introducing a new lead. I guess it’s okay since Bam filled the role of the energetic newbie last time, but it just feels like a step back, storywise. I don’t entirely mind, I guess it’s okay to bring in new characters who I won’t remember in four years. I’m not sure I love our new lead, but I’m willing to give him a chance – everyone sitting waiting by the elevator was really funny. The action wasn’t super snappy, and the characters feel more….normalized than season 1. I really liked the first season since it was something a bit different than we usually see – a self-contained world with different factions, powers, and rules (something of a more serious DanMachi). This feels a little more standard fair (especially the character designs), but I’m still interested enough to carry on. I don’t have very high expectations though.
Potential: 50%

Lenlo: So this is where I have to be a bit of a negative nancy. I know a fair number of people were looking forward to this, that they enjoyed Tower of God, both the WebToon and the anime, and were excited for Season 2. But personally? I’ve always found this to be one of the series’ weakest sections, which is saying something for how bad it gets. It wants to do this “Who is he” mystery with the cloaked FUG member while simultaneously making it incredibly obvious that it’s just Bam with a new edgy coat of paint. It also tosses in a bunch of new characters that never really come into their own, but are shoved center stage because Tower of God doesn’t want to reveal anything with Bam after just reintroducing him. It’s just… Narratively it’s unsatisfying, always has been, and the only worthwhile thing I can see coming are the fights. Yet even those don’t seem very promising judging by what we got this episode. Maybe Tower of God has something coming, there are a fair number of fights in this arc, and Kevin Penkin’s OST is always pretty good. Just don’t expect anything great from it.
Potential: 5%

My Deer Friend Nokotan

Short Synopsis: A high school girl befriends a transfer student with antlers growing from her head in the hopes that her violent past won’t be exposed.

Wooper: I was originally holding out for fansubs on this one, since the official subs suffer from constant formatting errors, but we’ve got impressions posts to write, so I bit the bullet and watched what was available. Having seen it now, I don’t think spiffier subtitles would change my evaluation of this premiere by much; My Deer Friend Nokotan is supposed to be dumb fun, but instead it’s just dumb. I like non sequitur humor, which is most of what this show has to offer, but my issue is that this episode doesn’t establish a sense of normalcy that it can go on to break. Sure, there’s a school setting, which is probably good enough for some viewers, but from the moment Shikanoko transfers into said school, she speaks with a squeaky voice, causes property damage, and violates the laws of common sense at every possible turn. Even giving her a teenage speaking voice, rather than a babyish drawl, might have helped to establish some sort of mundane baseline against which her more bizarre actions could be contrasted. We never got that baseline, but this show isn’t totally without hope – there was a scene near the end, where a pair of characters flattered the main girl with progressively outlandish praise, that demonstrated some solid comedy fundamentals. That was the only moment where I cracked a smile while watching, though, so I don’t think I’ll be back for round two.
Potential: 5%

Lenlo: Look, it’s a meme show. There’s no other way to put it, Nokotan is a meme that lives and dies by its absurd comedy. If something about poorly composited CG deer and stupid physical/gross out gags from her deer-horned classmate sounds fun, then have it. I have plenty of friends who are raving about this thing because this sort of humor is right up their alley. Personally though, I was bored out of my mind this entire episode. None of these jokes are particularly clever, and I feel like it will run out of material by episode 3 at the latest. So yeah, as with most slapstick gag manga, this is a hard pass for me.
Potential: 0%

Shoushimin Series

Short Synopsis: A girl who loves sweets and a boy who is really trying his best to be normal solve a mystery and (temporarily) get some tarts.

Lenlo: It’s funny, despite being slower paced with a lot of wide shots like the Stepsister show, I found Shoushimin to be much more palatable. Maybe it’s the lack of pretentious piano music playing over everything, or the subject matter and soft-spoken dialogue being more engaging, I honestly can’t say. What I can say though is that I kind of enjoyed this episode. The way they solved the crime and found the bag was a bit out there, walking straight towards where it was hidden with minimal work. But the leads are cute, I enjoy their dynamic, and that sudden rude ending felt like a slap in the face, in a good way I mean. One that tells me this isn’t just going to be sunshine and roses. I get the feeling that any mysteries or conflicts they get up to won’t actually be particularly important, with their relationship being the real meat of the show. If that’s the case, I think I’ll enjoy Shoushimin quite a bit. At least if it can continue to sell me on this relationship.

Edit: I keep seeing these Hyouka mentions, maybe I need to give that a shot. Never seen Hyouka.

Potential: 50%

Amun: Hyouka remixed. That’s what this is. And that is…absolutely great! Instead of having the excitable girl and the underhanded, energy conserving boy in Hyouka, we have a mysterious sweet loving girl and a helpful detective boy here in Shoushimin. I love the vibe, I love the low stakes mysteries, I love the mysterious atmosphere, I love the opening, I love the ending, I love the character designs, I love the cozy setting. I just love pretty much all of this. There is this weird obsession with being normal, so that’s a little odd (and there were some weird cuts in the middle, but we’re going to just ignore that). For all of my hopes for a first episode, Shoushimin crushed it – I’m fully onboard this train (since both characters made it very clear, this isn’t a ship). This is my pick for anime of the season so far.
Potential: 99%

VTuber Legend

Short Synopsis: A VTuber forgets to end her stream, drunkenly rambles in front of her computer for a while before falling asleep, and wakes up to discover she’s trending.

Wooper: I decided to preview this episode as a challenge to myself, since I didn’t know anything about its subject matter. Now, having finished it, I still don’t. Not that it’s VTuber Legend’s responsibility to educate somebody like me, especially since the majority of its audience will come with all the relevant knowledge built in – and even for those of us that aren’t in the know, the show seems easy enough to follow. It’s all about a streamer who accidentally becomes famous in the VTuber space, kind of like fantasy anime protagonists accidentally get transported to other worlds, or shonen heroes accidentally discover that they’re the Chosen One. After waking up to her sudden fame, there’s a bit of reflection on the heroine’s part regarding her new situation, and that comes across well enough, but mostly this show is just a vehicle for uninhibited goofiness. There’s over-the-top product placement, gleeful lesbian innuendo, and one of the VTubers even plays a phallic food-based fighting game. Occasionally there’ll be a neat twist in the storyboard, such as a character pushing the previous frame off camera in order to mark a scene change, but there aren’t enough of these moments to equal the chaos of the script. That mismatch makes it hard for me to recommend VTuber Legend, but then again, my opinion of this show is the last one you should ever consider.
Potential: 10%

Lenlo: Unlike Wooper, I’m rather familiar with the VTuber space. I even have an Oshi, Dokibird for indie and Korone for Hololive. So I have a pretty good idea of what VTuber Legend was going for, and you know what? I think it pulled it off. One of the funnest parts of watching VTubers is that slow descent from their on-screen personality back to their real one, where the Seisou falls away and you get to see who they really are as they become more comfortable streaming. VTuber Legend speedran that a bit with the whole “falling asleep on stream” thing, but that’s happened to actual VTubers as well so it’s hardly unrealistic. Basically, as far as the VTuber side of things goes, VTuber Legend was solid and did a good job showing off the culture, the tech, the attitude, all of that. As for our lead, Awayuki, she reminds me of Houshou Marine quite a bit, enough that I think any Marine fans in the audience will have a good time watching her. She has a foul mouth, drinks, makes lewd jokes, she’s un-Seisou in basically every way. Personally this isn’t my style of humor, Marine is fun but I can’t watch her or her clips for any extended length of time and that carries for Awayuki as well, but I could see a lot of people enjoying this. If you like VTubers and want a weekly comedy show, I think VTuber Legend is a shockingly solid choice.
Potential: 30%

Dungeon no Naka no Hito

Short Synopsis: A hotshot thief breaks into a dungeon, only to end up joining its staff.

Amun: I’m way more optimistic than Lenlo below, but I do agree with a confusing target demographic. With such simple character designs, a more visually stimulating series is a bit out of the question – but they still insisted on several beheadings. Not entirely sure about that. However, I’m a bit more sold on the dynamic between the very serious thief girl and the overpowered, happy-go-lucky dungeon boss. I think this ends up being a cutesy – and a bit stabby – working under unique circumstances. Hey if Dungeon Meshi managed to do a fantasy cooking show (yes, I’m aware Restaurant to Another World exists), why can’t we have an everyday workplace in a dungeon? All in all, I’m going to stick around for a few more at least.
Potential: 45%

Lenlo: I’m really not sure who this show is aimed at. It’s not cute or wholesome enough for the relaxed Slice of Life crowd, there’s too much blood and combat for that. Yet at the same time said action is mediocre and dull, with an emotionless cutesy moe girl doing voice over. This may just be a case of first-episode confusion while the series figures itself out, as the second half tries to transition to a more cutesy managerial depiction of a dungeon where the monsters are employees and this is all put on for the adventurers. This is probably more up the SoL folks alley, but will definitely turn off those looking for more adventurous fantasy fare. Personally, I thought it was rather dull and neither of the characters were all that interesting. Suffice to say, I’m going to have to pass here.
Potential: 0%

Monogatari Series: Off & Monster Season

Short Synopsis: The new season of Monogatari, covering various side stories not included in previous arcs.

Mario: It feels right at home to see these characters back. This is going to be a Monogatari season without Araragi’s involvement – which for me is for all the better. Not that he’s a badly-written character, I do like his narration from time to time. It’s that he has a skewed point of view and it’s often filled with his perverted urges and his hero complex. So telling these stories from the girls’ point of view opens up this world and their complex web of relationships tremendously. Take this 30-minute premiere for example, it pairs up Tsukihi and Yotsugi together – two of the most underused characters out of this harem. Yotsugi is stoic and unresponsive, whereas Tsukihi is dynamite. Yet, it’s hilarious to see Yotsugi attempt to trick the younger sister as a Magical Girl and fail miserably at it. All her encounters with other girls are inspiring and have lots to do with immortality and relationships as well. Funny, heavy on wordplay, visually striking with emotional resonance… If this episode is any indication, we will have an absolute blast this season. My only complaint is that we don’t get an OP yet, but then again nothing can beat Platinum Disco (Tsukihi does that dance in this episode as well).
Potential: ∞ (infinity)

Lenlo: Monogatari is always an exceptionally difficult series to judge. The quality varies so much arc to arc that I can’t make a judgment on the entire season just by one episode. That said, this one episode was pretty good. Visually it’s the best premier I’ve seen so far, both beautifully animated and shot. I know some people aren’t a fan of how out there Monogatari can get, how quickly it cuts, but there was not a single moment in this episode’s entire 30 minutes run where I was not enthralled by the visuals on some level. Seriously, it looks great. Meanwhile narratively, Tsukihi was always one of my favorites, so getting 30 minutes all about her and her involvement in the town was nice. Maybe I’ve changed since the first time I watched Bakemonogatari, but this new season feels… right up my alley so far. Just so long as it can keep a lid on Araragi being a pedophile, I think we’re in for a good time.
Potential: 80%

2.5 Dimensional Seduction

Short Synopsis: Manga club president Okumura is obsessed with his fictional waifu when he meets an underclassman who just so happens to cosplay her, and she wants his help to model all of her new outfits!

Lenlo: Dimensional Seduction feels like it wants to be a passionate love letter to cosplay and geek culture, but it fails to tap into even a fraction of what Sono Bisque Doll did. The leads are both full-on otaku with nothing else to their character but their love for the series, and their interactions amount to nothing more than ecchi-bait and sex jokes. Maybe if the male lead actually brought anything to the relationship it could work, like Gojo’s passion for sewing and the joy he got from dressing people up, but the female lead made her own costume so she doesn’t really need the guy at all. I just… Watching this, it felt like it wanted to tap into that “Sexy girl cosplays” market without caring about cosplay and just wanting to slap a girl with huge tits on the screen. It really feels like an inferior Bisque Doll in every way.
Potential: 0%

Mario: While I applaud this episode for its “go with what you’re interested in” message, this is the kind that short-sells the appeal of being an otaku instead of promoting it. Damn, it features a main character who swears off “3D girls” and shouts in every single sentence. This episode also works as a wet dream for him as well, as a beautiful girl comes knocking on his door, asking to join his club and changing clothes in front of him, and requesting him to take pictures of her? Now, I’m down to have more shows about cosplaying or learning more about it, but the episode doesn’t really delve into the subject – she already has her clothes and garments ready. By the end of this episode where he grabs her (by accident, of course), it just adds a sense of discomfort for me.
Potential: 0%

Tasuuketsu

Short Synopsis: A student finds himself in a game of survival as half of the human population disappears each night!

Lenlo: Everything about Tasuuketsu just feels… lazy? The character designs are the same from the neck down on basically every character, the animation is basically nonexistent, and it can’t pace or properly transition between shots to save its life. As far as the narrative, it’s a pretty straight forward death game. The questions and the fact the majority side of each question will die is kind of interesting, but the existence of special privileges that will break the rules kind of undercut it for me since it means the original rules of the game probably won’t be relevant for long. By the end the only interesting part about it was that the MC seemed to die, though seeing as he’s the lead character and in the OP/ED I would be absolutely shocked if he stayed that way, which of course only raises more concerns if the dead can be brought back to life. In general just not very inspiring.
Potential: 1%

Mario: Tasuuketsu is a death game anime and it’s not a good one at that. In order to build a suspenseful hook you need either a set of clear rules so that you can anticipate how one character will outsmart the others, or well-written characters worth rooting for. Tasuuketsu fails on both fronts at this stage, and it doesn’t help that the pacing is a mess and the animation is lacking. First, none of the characters – that includes our male lead – operates like a human being. They show no concern or empathy towards the people who die, they are way too calm for this kind of situation. Second, the show is purposely vague in its rules – at one point the cast even raises questions about its vagueness – with the only goal being that no matter what question is asked, the majority side will die. But then they have a “privilege” vote – which I think will save our MC – which already breaks the rules that we hardly know anything about? I don’t think I will stick around for this.
Potential: 0%

The Elusive Samurai

Short Synopsis: The would-be inheritor of the Kamakura shogunate flees his birthplace after his family is betrayed by a powerful warrior.

Lenlo: Competing with Monogatari, Elusive Samurai is probably the best animated show of the season. It doesn’t quite have the same level of direction and shot composition that Monogatari does, it was actually uncomfortably punched in a lot of the time, making it hard for me to pick which I like more. Still, it definitely moves beautifully, and I love the colors. Narratively… It has promise, but christ is the humor bad. It’s loud and over the top, often clashing with what is happening on screen and what characters are saying/talking about. The tonal dissonance between an entire clan being slaughtered in incredibly gory fashion while a priest mumbles to himself or smiles and screams over a young boy’s shoulder is insane. If Elusive Samurai can figure that balance out, can cut down on the mediocre humor or at least time it better, then this could be something special. As it is though… I’m unsure if it can stick the landing. I’m going to keep watching it for now at least.
Potential: 50%

Wooper: Between the background information on The Elusive Samurai’s historical period (the early 14th century), the names of various lords, priests and samurai, and the details surrounding the untimely deaths of several characters, there’s a lot to wrap your head around in this premiere. A piece of closing narration informs us that the series’ story will span two years, so we’re not in for Heike Monogatari levels of compression, but it’s likely that audiences will have to be mentally nimble to keep up with this show (or in my case, mainline Wikipedia articles to make up the difference). Even if you’re slow-witted like me, though, Elusive Samurai is absolutely worth checking out for its visuals, which will surely go down as some of the year’s best. Usually I’ll point to either animation or art direction as a series’ strong suit, but in this case they’re equally impressive, as main character Tokiyuki runs, jumps, flips, and parkours his way through background after beautiful background. The more scenic landscapes strike a delightful balance between detail and delicacy, but what’s even more impressive is that shots of manmade structures maintain that same balance, constantly accounting for the ways light might touch a stone wall or a wooden rooftop. I’m less enamored with the show’s overall tone, which goes to some bizarrely glib places for a prologue where the protagonist’s family and future subjects perish en masse. But for an anime like this one with both an intriguing setting and top tier production, I can push past an annoying character or two.
Potential: 65%

Twilight Out of Focus

Short Synopsis: A second year college student wrestles with his emerging attraction to his male roommate, who volunteers as an actor in his film club.

Wooper: My initial thought after watching this episode was, “It’s gonna look pretty bad if I give the BL anime a lower score than the step-sibling anime,” but as long as I’m being honest, I have to say that I enjoyed virtually nothing about Tasogare Out Focus. Everything about it is aimed squarely at the fujoshi market, from broad stuff like the uniformly tall, male and handsome cast, all the way down to the tiniest details, like the male/female coding of the lead characters’ plush birds. The “Let’s shoot a BL movie (no homo tho)” attitude of the film club’s leader is awkward, and his goofball personality feels like it’s designed to handwave that issue. And then there’s the scene where one of the main roommates drunkenly pins down and licks the other (strike one) while mistaking him for his sensei (strike two), but is nonchalantly forgiven the next morning with the phrase “it was just an accident” (strike three). Tasogare is clearly trying to have its non-consensual BL cake and eat it too, and although that’s par for the genre’s course, it doesn’t have to be – the Given adaptation from 2019 is proof of that. I’ll give this show a few points for being fairly well-drawn, but really, this is a gentleman’s zero.
Potential: 5%

Lenlo: Basically everything Wooper said above, this is pretty basic fujoshi bait stuff. The only thing it has going for it is that it looks decent, but unlike Wooper I’ll just give it the 0 it deserves. Honestly it’s actually rather creepy in a lot of places.
Potential: 0%

Senpai is an Otokonoko

Short Synopsis: A first year high school girl befriends a crossdressing boy after unsuccessfully confessing her love to him.

Wooper: You’ll want to brace yourself before watching Senpai is an Otokonoko, but not because of its crossdressing or genderbending themes, which are quite mild (after one episode, anyway). No, the reason you’ll need to prepare your kokoro is the constant swapping between two different art styles, which was more aggressive here than in any other anime I’ve seen this decade. I’m assuming this choice was meant to match the manga’s use of deformed character designs, but it was so distracting that I can’t get a handle on whether the show has any promise apart from its bizarre presentation. There’s a relentlessly genki first year girl whom I might have liked, if only her most impulsive moments hadn’t been depicted in that alternate style, and while the protagonist’s childhood friend didn’t leave an impression on me, he might have had a shot at memorability if not for that same issue. As for the main character, it was really just the quiet final scene (where he changed out of his feminine clothes in a storage shed and bid himself goodbye) that garnered my interest. If I were a ‘three episode rule’ kind of anime fan, I might give the show a chance to display that side of itself in the future, but in terms of first impressions, this was a miss.
Potential: 0%

Lenlo: Wooper is right, the switches between artstyle were really jarring and came at completely random times. Do we really need to swap between them in the middle of the same scene, the same conversation, the same damn shot? Really took me out of what was happening. Aside from that, I can’t say it was very interesting. I don’t see how this makes for a long-term story since the guy’s secret is revealed in the first 3 minutes of the episode. Maybe it works as a gag comedy series or something? But with how ugly and unappealing the chibi art style is, which it uses for every single one of its gags, I don’t see it working.
Potential: 0%