Magic Knight Rayearth

Short Synopsis: Three high school girls get transported to a fantasy realm where they become knights who must save the world.

Wooper: My biggest question coming into this reboot was the level of involvement that Yuki Kajiura would have in the soundtrack. That can’t be determined after a single episode, but so far we’ve only gotten one composition of hers, which played during the henshin sequence toward the end of this half hour. I guess that counts as a personal disappointment, but most folks are probably more concerned about things like art style and tone, as they should be. Despite not being a Rayearth expert, I’ve seen enough of the original series to know that this new version is shooting for a similar atmosphere: earnest heroism from Hikaru, exaggerated peril posed by Zagato’s flunkies, and regular use of superdeformed shots for comedy. Regarding that second point, Alcyone (one of said flunkies) does appear in this episode, but she doesn’t immediately begin her pursuit of the main characters as she did at the start of the 1994 show. That means this new version is taking a more leisurely approach to adapting the manga, which is a good sign. As for the art, it’s more detailed in its depiction of Cephiro (now subtitled as “Cefiro”) at large, but the tactility of the original’s effects animation is greatly reduced in exchange. The waterfall in Zagato’s stronghold, in particular, is neutered here – but on the whole I’d say it looks alright. Even if Rayearth is a bit silly for my taste, this Rayboot should work well for new viewers, and longtime fans without an attachment to cel aesthetics may enjoy it, too.
Potential: 30%

Mario: We have yet another 90s manga adaptation that features a girl (this time, three girls) getting sucked into a fantasy world… Really, Japan? Just be more creative. On the serious side, though, I have watched a few episodes of the 1994 original show so I knew what to expect, and I like how this episode speeds through the setup phase and gets the girls in action right away. At the same time, this new version keeps their distinctive character designs (courtesy of CLAMP), easily distinguishable personalities, and magical girl transformations. I also appreciate how the show gets straight to the point about our heroines’ main mission: save the world, then you can get out of here. Add the updated visuals to the mix, and I am happy with how this remake proceeds so far.
Potential: 60%

Choujun! Choujou-senpai

Short Synopsis: A policeman with psychic powers makes trouble for his rookie partner.

Wooper: The kindest thing I can say about Choujun! Choujou-senpai is that I generally liked the look of its first episode. The solidly-outlined characters stayed consistent at various distances, and the measured use of color kept it in touch with its manga roots without falling down a screentone rabbit hole. As for the rest, let’s just say it’s not a great sign when you don’t crack a single smile during a comedy anime. Maybe jokes about mind reading are just tough to design, since a key element of humor is surprise, which this show’s psychic central character can never experience. His bad reputation has left him stranded in a police precinct with only minor crimes to solve, but if he’s really got such a bad rep, maybe Choujou-senpai should have pushed the envelope a bit more in introducing him. Sure, he terrorizes the public by levitating a crane and wrecking ball in the third act, but he was already considered a menace by then. What has he done, exactly, to make him so reviled? Speaking of that crane incident, the script telegraphed that he’d blame it on his optimistic young partner minutes before it happened, which sucked the air out of the episode’s final few minutes. And we didn’t even get one word of dialogue from Robo-kun the police droid despite his prominence in the OP! An all-around bummer.
Potential: 15%

Firefly Wedding

Short Synopsis: A girl who is slated for an arranged marriage gets kidnapped and saved by a heartless killer. She then proposes to him to save her own life.

Mario: I’m not sure how to feel about the two leads’ marriage proposal at the end of this first episode, given that it is based on a great pretense. But then again, Satoko’s entire life thus far is also a lie. She has been living just to measure up to her father’s expectations, her stepmother and stepsister hate her, her heart condition only allows her to live for a few more years… And then on the other side of the coin we have Goto, a merciless killer who takes pleasure in killing as if it’s the only thing he’s great at (it probably is). There’s some tender moments between them in this episode, but so far they’re also strictly business. For Goto, it’s either kill her or kill the others. For Sakoto, it’s her life. I’m glad that the show doesn’t tone down the more gritty parts of the story – they are there so we can see how desperate and understandable Sakoto’s moves are. She has to do it to survive. Even though she claims that her life is orchestrated to meet her father’s expectations, there’s another fire inside her to live on. So yes, while I remain split on their romance so far, the characters in this show are solid enough to carry this premise so far.
Potential: 55%

The Laid-Off Cheat-Granting Mage
Enjoys a Second Lease on Life

Short Synopsis: An Enchanter gets fired from his guild and goes off on his own journey.

Mario: Here’s the thing I can wholeheartedly recommend about this show: Laid-Off Cheat-Granting Mage is a breeze to watch. It doesn’t really take itself seriously, which works for its benefit. All the main characters are fun, and even though our boy Rein runs crying and screaming because he gets betrayed, his energy serves as a good foil against the other characters. But for all its spark, it’s still a show that follows the same well-worn fantasy anime formula: guilds, stats, hero class, and the main character becoming overpowered way too quickly without doing anything. To top it off, many details from this episode don’t really add up when you think about them: if Rein feels as though his old guild was keeping him from pursuing his dream, why does he immediately join a new one after getting kicked out? He also receives these enhancement points, but technically I don’t think he can just apply them to his blade or his clothes because they would break, right? Also, any character outside the main cast is laughably one-note so far… If you don’t want to think much while watching an anime, though, then this show does its job.
Potential: 20%

Horemajo

Short Synopsis: She’s a witch and her crush wants her to make a love potion.

Wooper: Both the Japanese and localized English titles for this show are prohibitively long, so I’ve (very professionally) opted for its hashtag. The Japanese title starts with “Doumo, Suki na Hito,” and if you want to know the English title, just change the third person pronouns in the synopsis above to first person. The main character is indeed a witch and her crush does indeed request that she make a love potion for him. Why does she have a crush on this guy? Well, it’s because he cleared the unbelievably high bar of not being racist! The flashback toward the end of this premiere reveals, via a frankly horrendous dialogue scene, that he doesn’t discriminate against witches for their magic or their secretive habits. Part of what makes the scene so terrible is what an obvious analogue it is for real world racism without having to address it as a real world issue, but who cares, he’s a handsome knight and not a weird bigot! Witch-themed anime are on the upswing right now, but this one doesn’t make great use of the supernatural elements inherent to the trend, so in addition to being unromantic it’s also generally dull. I’m sure it’s someone else’s cup of magic-infused tea, though.
Potential: 5%

Psyren

Short Synopsis: A high schooler is handed a mysterious red telephone card which transports him to a dark world.

Mario: I reckon that so far, nothing in this episode surprises me. We all know our blue-haired hero will use the phone card (mentioned above), and we can tell the moment his friend disappears that it won’t be the last we see of her, yet we’ve still learned next to nothing about the Psyren world. The characters are forgettable so far; even our protagonist doesn’t have any real standout personality, except for his hatred of Earth. In fact, that’s one of the only aspects that draws my attention here, as I think the show would connect that to the larger Psyren world. As this is yet another 90s-00s manga adaptation, we see a dash of old school stuff in here, like the telephone booth (those have almost gone extinct now) or the literal “knock some sense into you” trope from his sister. I bet that the show will kick off once we learn what the hell Psyren is about (the parallel world, not the series), and how our boy and his friend plan to survive in that world, but personally I am not keen to find out.
Potential: 10%

Seitokai ni mo Ana wa Aru!

Short Synopsis: A teenage boy is asked to join a student council full of weirdos.

Mario: This show is proof that doesn’t matter how trashy and edgy your premise is, all that matters is the delivery. Yes, this episode is raunchy and it might very well turn off certain viewers with its humor, but so far the comedy lands well (and it’s a gag-a-minute show). Its jokes are well-timed, off kilter but with purpose, and they are supported by its sheer energy and solid visuals. I am not sure if the show can retain this high energy throughout the rest of its run, but as far as this first episode goes, I had a great time with it.
Potential: More please!

Wooper: Ecchi has never been a favorite subgenre of mine, but Seitokai (the lewdly localized “Even the Student Council Has Its Holes”) was forecasted to have some real production chops. Given that visuals are an increasingly important personal factor when shaping my seasonal watchlists, I decided to give it a try, but it turns out I’m still too square for fanservice of this magnitude. There’s something odd about introducing a seemingly female character, giving the audience a peek down her shirt, then revealing she’s actually a boy. But whatever – anime has been playing fast and loose with sex and gender for longer than I’ve been alive, so how was the rest of the premiere? Well, it did go big with its comedy, putting a rabbit mating video (not a euphemism) on screen during a high school assembly gone wrong, and utilizing Nichijou-style violence against one of the robotics club’s creations at an early point. The smaller stuff was packed together between eyecatches, hinting at the source material’s 4-koma format, and the resulting rapid pace did work pretty well. Smart background art choices were made from scene to scene, including detail when necessary and stripping it away when not. At the end of the day, though, groin shots, bloody panties and topless teachers aren’t what I want from an anime, especially when it falls back on cute designs rather than committing to its crudeness.
Potential: 80085

From Far Away

Short Synopsis: A high school girl gets transported to a new world where she is “the one” and gets rescued by a handsome boy.

Mario: Right after Red River last season, we have yet another adaptation of a 90s manga with a very similar premise. To be fair, I regard From Far Away’s first episode as much stronger than Red River’s, however, some of their issues remain the same. Our main girl Noriko spends the entirety of this episode crying, fainting and finding herself out of her depth, plus the boy who rescues her is way too powerful. I also like the way that these two don’t know each other’s languages but can still understand each other anyways, but damn if the show doesn’t repeat that fact like 30 times during this episode. On the bright side, the fantasy world is intriguing, and the show’s pacing so far is snappy enough to move things along nicely. One thing that piques my interest is that Noriko can seem to shift back and forth between the two worlds, so it could be interesting to see how she balances that, and how her actions in one world can affect her life in the other.
Potential: 20%

The Seven Knights of the Marronnier Kingdom

Short Synopsis: A general’s seven sons are made ambassadors to a kingdom’s seven neighboring countries.

Wooper: Insomniac, Fraternity, Feverish, Chilly, Beast-Tamer, Swordsman, and Hungry. These are the names of the seven knight siblings of Marronnier, at least according to the subs provided by Amazon, whose translations are notoriously subpar. If I were covering this show week by week, I might write out the brothers’ romanized names (Nemukunai, Hakuai, etc), but Marronnier doesn’t have quite that level of promise. It’s one of the more interesting anime of the fall from a tonal perspective, at least – even though its main cast is about to be dispersed among their birth kingdom’s surrounding territories, the mood is light and the focus is just as much on the natural world as on their mission. Chilly spends an afternoon helping a disguised princess gather nuts for her massive pet squirrel, and several of his brothers must prune grapevines before they can attend combat training. The tone is so easygoing, in fact, that I’m not sure when Marronnier will see its central siblings off. Characters like the aforementioned princess, her motherly attendant, the overworked Castellan and his tomboyish daughter Ellie seem just as important to the show so far, and there was no glimpse of a foreign landscape in the next episode preview. How this series’ larger story will unfold remains to be seen – I wouldn’t want to rush anything, but right now it’s airy enough that broadening the setting will be key to filling out Marronnier’s remaining 19 episodes.
Potential: 35%

A Tale of the Secret Saint

Short Synopsis: A girl who wants to be a knight finds out that she was a saint in her previous life, and makes a pact with a dragon in the process.

Mario: This is a perfectly solid episode, if you are willing to forgive the main character’s clumsiness. That clumsiness is not in the way she stumbles over her words or doesn’t know how to fight properly, but more about how she tends to say out loud what she thinks or feels, mostly in service of the plot. It’s her dragon that she makes a pact with that is a more compelling character to me. The way the dragon shakes her head when she hears about our main character’s terrible white lies is neat comedic timing there. The main plot is intriguing so far, with her finding out about her past life as a Saint – but at the same time it looks as if she wasn’t traumatized after being betrayed by her brothers at all. I will come back for more of this.
Potential:: 30%

Suikoden: The Anime

Short Synopsis: Two militant young men are framed, pursued, imprisoned, sentenced to death, and rescued, all by a huge cast of characters.

Wooper: I haven’t played any of the JRPGs in the Suikoden series, least of all Suikoden II, the franchise’s most acclaimed entry and the one selected as the basis of this adaptation. That lack of context wasn’t a barrier to understanding this first episode, though. If you want to follow along here, just pause every time a new character’s name is given, either through dialogue or on-screen text, then point at the screen and say, “That’s [character name].” After doing this around 25 times, it will become clear that you’re not actually expected to remember who anyone is. At that point, you can enjoy watching the two characters that actually matter (Riliu and Jowy) get captured and freed repeatedly until the double length premiere is over. Suikoden was inspired by Water Margin, a centuries-old Chinese novel with hundreds of characters, so it’s no surprise that the game nor this anime would unrelentingly throw new faces at the viewer, nor that so many of them would be walking cliches. As long as they accept that characterization is near the bottom of Suikoden’s to-do list, this adaptation may actually please fans of the game; the production suffers only a few dips in nearly an hour, and the protagonists are so consistently persecuted that it’s easy to wish for their freedom. I’ll leave it to them to judge the remainder of this show, as 50 minutes was more than enough for me.
Potential: 10.8%

Tank Chair

Short Synopsis: A braindead former assassin who can temporarily transform into a superhuman kills off bad guys.

Mario: My lord, does this episode look terrible. It’s from Polygon Pictures, the studio behind CG 3D anime like Ajin (hit and miss visually), Drifting Dragons, and Kaina of the Great Snow Sea. I don’t mind the look of those last two, but Tank Chair is utterly uninspired. Even the pink blood can’t give it any personality. The half-human characters aren’t convincing either; they feel like Planet of the Apes clones added for no clear reason. The one thing that intrigues me in this hot mess is how Nagi’s brain damage is handled, and how it pushes his sister Shizuka to take on these jobs in the first place. But that isn’t enough to make me think twice about the show.
Potential: 0%

Zombie Sagashitemasu

Short Synopsis: A trio of zombie hunters becomes a quintet after bonding with two travelers in a home improvement store.

Wooper: Did I miss episode 0 or something? Zombie Sagashitemasu (“I’m Looking for Zombie”) opted to skip its setting’s descent into an undead apocalypse, which is totally fine, since everyone understands the basics of zombie fiction in 2026. What the show actually lacks is a backstory for its three protagonists. There’s only one flashback to a single conversation between Aki (the blue-and-pink haired heroine) and her father, and it’s not even set outdoors, so we don’t have an idea of what their village was like – only that they didn’t learn kanji there. Aki and her friends are already on the road when we meet them, searching for her dad’s zombified body (likely cueing up a “he’s still alive” twist for the future) and having a blast in the process. I’d be more admiring of that fun-loving tone if we knew the characters better, but the personalities of Aki’s two friends can be boiled down to just a couple keywords: “fashionable” for Natsuki and “brawny” for Haru. The two girls with whom they join forces are a little more fleshed out, with one in particular having felt non-essential in her own village due to a preference for books over physical conditioning. Still, it’s difficult not to feel as though something is missing from this premiere. The characters are enthusiastic about their quest to survive, but they’re not written in a way that makes their survival feel particularly important.
Potential: 20%

Romelia Senki

Short Synopsis: After her royal engagement is called off, a count’s shrewd daughter prepares to move to another country.

Wooper: Watching the first episode of Romelia War Chronicle is akin to watching a lengthy series of cutscenes in a video game. There’s an opening fight against the Demon King that looks far better than anything else in the premiere. Most subsequent scenes are engineered strictly for forward narrative momentum, and most characters deliver their dialogue dispassionately. Romelia, who plans to leave her home country in the wake of her broken engagement, returns home merely to tend to a few financial matters and say goodbye to her parents, and then she’s off again (with her childhood maid in tow). That wouldn’t give me any pause if the goodbyes were a little sentimental, but the only sign of emotion she allowed herself after bidding her hysterical mother adieu was a brief gaze out the window. The whole thing is pretty detached, but then she is a woman with a mission: eliminate the remaining demon forces using human slave labor. Since she no longer has the political leverage to achieve that goal in her homeland, she seeks to build it elsewhere, likely with the help of half a dozen bishounen if the OP is to be believed. Apart from solid visuals (a definite win for the newly formed studio Atra), I don’t believe Romelia Senki presented a strong reason to follow that mission, but even if the show is a cold fish, it’s a competent one as well.
Potential: 25%

Sgt. Frog

Short Synopsis: After Keroro is captured by a rogue military police unit, his friends must band together to prevent his discharge.

Wooper: It turns out that Sgt. Frog really is being rebooted – but not until this series’ second episode. The first one was an original story featuring a plethora of secondary characters, all of whom already knew each other, and some of whom I knew from my limited experience with the 2004 show. A convoluted setup involving a shrink ray and an automated military task force served as an excuse for all the new voice actors to get their cords wet, and I found that most of the Keronian performances were faithful to those of the original actors. The Hinata siblings sounded off to me, though, particularly Fuyuki’s slightly deeper (but still boyish) and more action-ready delivery. Maybe Yuuki Sakakihara only played him that way because of the Gundam-esque nature of this standalone story, where Fuyuki was forced to pilot an unfamiliar robot in order to save the day. I guess fans will be able to compare for themselves as the remake goes on, but I’ll be sitting it out – the visuals here only made me miss those from the first anime, which had both looser animation and more background detail, despite premiering in the early digital era. This new episode’s use of slapped-on color filters for different characters’ fight scenes was particularly unattractive, but hey, maybe this isn’t the sort of show that ought to be nitpicked.
Potential: Tune in next week

Overgeared

Short Synopsis: An MMO addict’s bad luck begins to turn when he stumbles upon a super rare item.

Wooper: The very first line of the fall season’s first premiere is, “Humans are constantly working hard and improving.” That’s an attractive idea, but in the world of Overgeared (Tempal: Item no Chikara), it’s merely a lie. Forget the main character’s video game addiction and dead end job; even the average person in this show is an MMO lifer (its most popular game, “Satisfy,” has two billion players), and the zillionaires who run the world are so vehemently anti-work that they’ve found a way to make MMO bucks just as valuable as first world currencies. These kinds of stories have been around for an entire generation at this point, and Overgeared brings nothing new to the table, unless you consider the concept of falling below level 0 to be earth-shattering stuff. And some people certainly do – there’s a three minute scene of R&D suits discussing the protagonist’s de-leveling, written in such a way that even people “watching” the show on their third monitor will absorb the roadmap for his eventual ascension. Ultimately, that’s what these “what if video games = real???” shows are: third rate entertainment for third rate anime fans. I know I sound like a gatekeeping prick, but that’s the sort of reaction that trash like Overgeared is uniquely capable of getting from me.
Potential: -3%

FX Senshi Kurumi-chan

Short Synopsis: A math-savvy college student adopts her mom’s self-destructive forex trading habit.

Wooper: I know absolutely nothing about the foreign exchange market, and having just seen the first episode of FX Senshi Kurumi-chan, I’m happy to remain uninformed. Making bets on currency exchange rates sounds addictive, and I’d rather my life not reach the level of ruin portrayed in this premiere. Of course, it’s a little weird that the vehicles for such despair will be fancifully designed anime girls, several of whom can be glimpsed during the closing montage – for now, though, what we have is a prologue about the breakup of a family over forex trading debt, and it’s quite an effective one. After an opening PSA about the real life hazards of the show’s subject matter, the show gets to work shaping its protagonist’s past, introducing her as a cheerful middle school girl before slowly stripping away everything she has to be happy about. The guilt that Kurumi feels about her mom’s poor choices hits hard, and her own decision to follow her into the FX market is tragic in its predictability. This episode’s exaggerated voice acting and blunt (but mercifully brief) flashbacks distract, but don’t detract, from the sadness of its story, which is about all I could ask for. Now that it’s caught up to the present, will it take a black comedy angle or morph into a Kaiji-esque gambling thriller? I’m not sure, but I’ll gladly (not too gladly) watch for a couple more weeks to find out.
Potential: 60%

Pan Dorobou

Short Synopsis: A rodent disguised as a loaf of bread liberates one of his fellow loaves from a local bakery.

Wooper: Like all the best thieves, Pan Dorobou has a code. He aims for freshly-baked bread, steals only one loaf at a time, and eats with gratitude; in other words, he’s tasteful, mindful, and grateful. He’s also the star of a popular Japanese children’s book series, which has now been adapted into an anime with nine minute episodes (six minutes if you don’t count the OP, ED, and episode-ending maze segment). The show has a pleasant picture book style to it, which is especially helpful in giving texture to the different kinds of bread that are so often on screen. Pan Dorobou’s mousey snout and malleable limbs are well-animated, giving him a lot of visual appeal, but not as much as his house in the forest, which is filled with furniture made from bread. If he only steals a loaf at a time, he must have gone hungry for several days to furnish that room! Not that I’d hold it against him – nor would any of the bemused human or animal residents of the neighboring city where he does his pilfering. Pan Dorobou, both the character and the show, are simply too cute to criticize, though I do wonder whether the bakers whose wares he absconds with will be made into villains in the future. Guess I’ll have to keep watching to find out!
Potential: Delicious/10