Author: Lenlo

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

Short Synopsis: A lowly bronze-ranked adventurer travels off the beaten path, gets killed by a dragon, and comes back as a Skeleton. Is this the beginning of his journey to greatness?!

Oops, missed this one when it aired. Unwanted Undead was… Fine? I was sort of hopeful at the start, the idea of an adventurer turned undead, the world passing them by as they decomposed, forced by their status as a monster to clash with those they once called friends, it seemed like a decent enough idea. But then Unwanted Undead sort of just… sidestepped that? Turns out he became a skeleton in only like… 24 hours? And if he kills enough stuff he can level up into greater undead, eventually gaining the ability to speak and act human, etc etc. It feels like the series is taking everything interesting, everything creative about its premise, and slowly but surely writing it off until the series becomes a rather basic OP MC fantasy series. I’m going to give it another episode or so to see if it does anything with it, but I’m not particularly hopeful right now.

Potential: 30%

Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san

Short Synopsis: Event Super Sentai villains need a day off, this one just so happens to enjoy looking at Pandas.

Do you remember that one anime from a few seasons ago about a Super Sentai ranger falling in love with a monster on the opposite side? Well imagine that, take away the romance, and swap the leading role to the villain and you have Kyuujitsu. The entire thing is wholesome interactions built on an intrinsically unwholesome/evil character. And you know what? It’s… Fine? It’s basically the same sort of genre as that Princess torture show I mentioned in the last first impression. The kind where you’re supposed to sit back, chuckle at the absurdity of the situation, and sort of just chill out while absolutely nothing stressful happens on screen. If that’s what you want I think Kyuujitsu fits the bill. Personally it’s not my thing, and even if it was the torture princess show is just better in every way I feel. Maybe pick this up if you want a male lead instead of a female one I suppose.

Potential: 10%

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!

Short Synopsis: When an engagement is broken off a princess must find her own way in life, over and over and over again as she resets to that moment each time she dies.

Where do I really begin with this… On the one hand, having a time loop OP MC with a female lead is kind of nice, it tastes slightly different, like getting vanilla bean ice cream instead of just vanilla. I like that across all her many loops she’s grown a backbone and isn’t hesitating to speak out and push back, it’s appreciated. On the other hand… There’s nothing really new here. Hell, she gets asked to marry the big bad in episode one. I imagine the whole show is going to be about them falling in love and her working to prevent whatever big war he plunges the world into, only for him to reveal the war is necessary for some vaguely good reason that she has to struggle over. I feel like I can already map out all of the arcs it will have. And on top of that? It just doesn’t look very good. I don’t know, something about the lighting, the faces, the hair textures, it all looks off to me. Maybe you can get something out of it, it’s certainly better than a lot of the other stuff I’ve seen in the season and isn’t aggressively bad in any way, it just doesn’t stand out is all.

Potential: 20%

Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!

Short Synopsis: Big town Tokyo boy moves to small Hokkaido town, immediately gets picked up by Hokkaido gyaru.

Look, I need to get something off of my chest. I’m not proud of this, but it’s the way things are alright… The lead girl Minami is kind of cute. I don’t understand it, I’m normally not a fan of the blatantly over sexualized blond gyaru girls. And make no mistake, that’s exactly what she/Hokkaido Gals is. Giant breasts, suggestive phrases/poses/situations, it’s complete and total ecchi wish fulfillment. Yet something about this one…I don’t know, it has this odd mix of wholesome interactions and absolute horniness. I think a lot of it is just the novelty of Hokkaido as a setting, because I adore snow and Hokkaido Gals has a lot of it. I doubt I’ll stick with it for the entire season, but if nothing else for now I’m calling dibs on the white hair one we see in the OP. It’s too late, you can’t beat me, I already did it.

Oh and I guess it looks fine. Has that “Knee/Boob blush” thing going on.

Potential: 30%

Hime-sama, “Goumon” no Jikan desu

Short Synopsis: A princess get’s captured by the Demon King and is subjected to all manner of terrible torture! Who knows what delicious food or experience they will tempt her with next in this wholesome and terrible dungeon!

Who could have guessed we would have two food focused series? Or well, maybe it isn’t food focused for its entire run, but this episode sure is. Anyways, Hime-sama is cute, really expressively animated, and I want Tortura to step on me- I mean, looks like a fun time. There’s this fun balance between “This is a serious torture session” and “Lets dance while eating toast”, all without getting weirdly sexual about the eating or the torture like many anime this season would. Tack on that it looks good, and I mean really good, like one of the best animated premier I’ve seen so far, and I think there’s a lot of fun to be had here if you enjoyed series like Sleepy Princess. Sadly I don’t think I’ll stick with it myself, it’s very slow and I have enough waifus- I mean series to keep up with this season as it is. I’m also not a big enough fan of this sort of thing for it to keep my interest for more than an episode or two, even if the one-off is nice. Still, I recommend it to others if a cute, low-stakes, fun series is what you’re after.

Potential: 50%

The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil

Short Synopsis (Anilist): Masatora Akutsu, a demon on a recruitment mission in a human high school, is drafting allies for Hell against the heavenly angels. But when seated beside the captivating Lily Amane, he’s in for a devilishly hilarious celestial surprise!

The biggest mark against Foolish Angel has to be the horniness. Everything else, the girl, the lead, the idea, that all seems fine. Lily is cute and has some nice reactions, Akutsu isn’t a bland faceless self insert and actually has some personality, even if some of it is bad jokes, and the idea of an Angel and a Demon competing to influence a local highschool is kind of clever. It lends itself to a lot of silly situations without going full-blown fantasy ridiculousness. There’s even a decent fight, though I wouldn’t expect there to be very many of those in the future. Everything I’m seeing says this is more of a romance than it is an action series. The only issue is that right at the end, right as it was about to cross the finish line, it chose to go full blown fetish collar horny.

That really turned me off. I was having some fun with it, and maybe this is a one time thing and it chills out a bit as the series continues, but I sort of feel like Foolish Angel has shown its true colors here. This isn’t going to be a cute and wholesome romance, it’s going to be more of a raunchy one, and that’s just not what I’m looking for right now. If you are, give it a try, I think the rest of the show is solid and you’ll probably have a good time. For me it’s a pass though.

Potential: 15%

Solo Leveling

Short Synopsis: 10 years ago portals, and those with the abilities to combat that which came out of them called hunters, appeared in the world. This is the story of the weakest hunter.

So I’m cheating a bit, in that I’ve already read Solo Leveling front to back. I know where it goes, what it does and if it’s any good. And trust me, it doesn’t go anywhere great. For now though, this early on? It looks like a solid adaptation. I really like how Solo Leveling still looks like a Manwa, it hasn’t been super anime-ified or anything. Overall it looks nice. On top of that, it’s changing things up just enough, introducing characters and plot points early, so that it actually feels like it’s building up towards something. That’s something the original Manwa didn’t have for a long time. Makes it feel like some effort is being put in to tighten up the story, which is appreciated. It’s still held back by just how uninspiring the setting is, what with ranks, power levels, goblins and such. But so long as it can nail the action I don’t see why it can’t be a fun weekly popcorn show.

Potential: 45%

Tales of Wedding Rings

Short Synopsis: Isekai protagonist gets powers from marrying and collecting girls. Proceeds to create a harem.

It’s an isekai ecchi harem series with blown out lighting and that weird “blushing boob” thing so many series like to do. What I’m saying is, there’s absolutely nothing here beyond a harem of different girls with unique hair/body type/personality combinations for our lead to marry and then sleep with to gain power. There’s nothing unique or interesting about it in the slightest. Need I say more? I don’t think so. Easy skip.

Potential: 0%

A Sign of Affection

Short Synopsis: Deaf girl falls for local world-traveled tall boy, it’s very wholesome.

This was pretty cute. Affection is straight forward, not really doing much new that I can see, using a lot of classic tricks like “Mysterious world-traveled boy”, “Save them from the random foreigner” and “Pull them out of the way of something”, but it does them all rather well and never goes to far. I appreciated that the foreigner was just a normal dude asking for directions and not some creeper, or that the guy actually seems pretty normal without any excessively dark issues, that sort of stuff. Add on how the Female Lead is a cute, very expressive deaf girl and how she’s able to express herself with her full body while still selling her shyness? It’s pretty good. I’ve been told that the Male Lead gets kind of toxic later, but having not read the manga myself I can’t really comment on that. For now at least, I’m going to keep watching and hope Affection stays a solid, wholesome romance. Hopefully it goes better than Koe no Katachi did for me.

Oh also it looks kinda nice. Yeah.

Potential: 65%

Saikyou Tank no Meikyuu Kouryaku: Tairyoku 9999 no Rare Skill-mochi Tank, Yuusha Party wo Tsuihou Sareru

Short Synopsis: Tank gets kicked out of an adventuring party because they don’t understand how important tanks are, proceeds to create his own adventuring party with Black Jack and Hookers. Ok not really, but that would have been better.

So it’s an MMO style fantasy series in every way, including stats and party compositions and such, except for actually just calling itself an MMO? And we have a stereotypical asshole coming in and kicking out the lead and taking his stuff because… why not? This is literally just a Walmart brand Shield Hero, in that the guy got kicked down by terrible people, or BOFURI, watching a tank use their abilities offensively. Even its production is pretty weak, unable to look good at… well any point in the episode at all. I just don’t see why you would watch this when you have so much stronger fantasy, isekai or MMO fare in this very season.

Potential: 0%

Sasaki and Peeps

Short Synopsis: A Japanese salaryman discovers a magic bird and starts making inter-dimensional trade deals with an isekai world before getting caught up in a secret psychic organization.

I figured out why this premier felt so long. Turns out, it’s actually a double feature! That explains a lot. Getting into the actual show, is it weird that I liked the first half that was just a down in the dumps salaryman picking up a pet and rediscovering joy in his life more than all of the psychic espionage crap? Or him finally gaining confidence and striking out on his own a bit? This larger psychic plot just feels unnecessary, like Sasaki and Peeps is trying to do too much. Do we need a magical talking bird, an isekai world, magic powers, and an organization of psychics with an agenda? Why can’t we just have a chill show about a salaryman doing progressively sillier trade deals with an isekai kingdom? Or said salaryman just doing the psychic stuff? Why are we stacking them all on top of each other? As for how the show was visually, it was pretty weak. Sasaki has neither the expressive designs of Dungeon Meshi nor the flashy animation of something like a battle shounen. As such the only real draw is the story, and I think the show mucks that up by shoving too much into the series. Maybe it will figure that out before the end and drop the psychic stuff, who knows. I won’t be there to find out though.

Potential: 20%

The Demon Prince of Momochi House

Short Synopsis: A 16 year old girl moves into a house with a bunch of pretty boy spirits with distinct hair colors in a reverse harem rom-com.

Let’s see what we have here… Pretty boys with distinct hair colors each assigned to a different stereotypical personality? They are all sexy fox spirit yokai? And a 16 year old girl ends up, through complete happenstance, living with them alone in the woods? Oh, it’s also all presented in the blandest way possible with plenty of soft gradients and this weird diffused lighting. Yeah this sounds like a pass for me. It’s a pretty standard reverse harem setup with a yokai flavoring. The end makes it seem like there will be a tad more spiritual conflict than the usual reverse harem pretty boy show, but it wasn’t very good and really just came out of nowhere to have an excuse to make the leads kiss and kick off their “romance”. If a pretty boy show is what you’re looking for this might sate your needs this season. It doesn’t look like a particularly good take on the idea though.

Potential: 5%

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

Short Synopsis: Three kids are isekai’d after school, one of them manifesting the extremely rare ability to… heal! Time to abuse it to its fullest!

When I first started watching Wrong Way, my expectations were rock bottom. It looked like if you took the cast of Kaguya-Sama, isekai’ed them to another world, and made Ishigami the MC. Pretty uninteresting stuff if I’m being honest. But as I watched… I kinda started to enjoy it? A little? The cast sort of had personality, making jokes and having interests outside of school and showing genuine concern for each other? Plus I liked the joke that everyone else in this kingdom is scared shitless by a healer. Like… Maybe it’s because my expectations were so low, but I was genuinely pleasantly surprised by Wrong Way. It will eventually become an OP MC power fantasy, they always do. But for now, this early on, while it’s establishing things and having fun with its premise before it goes standard “Slay the demon king”? I think I’ll stick with it. Just in case.

Potential: 35%

Pon no Michi

Short Synopsis: Local girl kicked out of her house takes over her grandfather’s mahjong parlor and turns it into a clubhouse for her and her friends. Oh and also they play Mahjong.

The best thing I can say about Pon no Michi is that the lead, Nashiko, is cute. And pretty damn expressive, all things considered. She has a lot of good faces. In fact most of the cast does, this is a pretty good set of cute girls, I’m calling dibs on the goth one. Anyways, at it’s core Pon no Michi is really just “Cute Girls Doing Cute Things” Mahjong edition. You’ll learn the rules while hanging out with cute girls. It’s actually pretty lively in it’s presentation, with the girls making jokes, visual gags, references to series like Kaiji and Akagi, all sorts of stuff to liven it up. Outside the CGI hands and mahjong table, it looks pretty good. If you like Mahjong, or enjoy the CGDCT genre, I think this is actually a really solid choice. I probably won’t be keeping up with it personally, it’s not my thing, but I was honestly impressed by it.

Potential: 60%

Delicious in Dungeon

Short Synopsis: An adventuring party runs out of food and has to eat the local monsters to survive. And wouldn’t you know it? They come to enjoy it!

Let’s get something out of the way, Dungeon Meshi is not an adventuring show. It is a cooking show that happens to use fantasy adventure monsters. So much so that, if I’m being honest, it kind of bored me at times. Like it went all in on the cooking, in detail bordering on the obsessive. I’m talking cooking techniques, flavor profiles, specific parts of each creature and how they contribute to the overall dish, not to mention the actual ecology of the world itself. While cool, it makes for a detailed world, there were times I feel like I was reading a Wiki entry rather than watching a show. Still, it looks fine enough, the designs are quite nice, in particular I think Marcille looks great and is incredibly expressive. There’s not a lot in the way of animation yet, it’s more focused on detailed backgrounds and food, but that’s fine. Good art direction can make up for that. I’m down to give it a few more episodes to show off and be what it wants to be. So for now I’m going to stick with it and see where it goes. My hope is it dials up the adventuring and party interactions a tad and dials down the cooking just a little. Because while the cooking is great, I think it’s skewed a tad too much in that direction for me. Seriously, at what point does fantasy Gordon Ramsay show up and call Marcille an idiot sandwich?

Potential: 50%

My Instant Death Ability is Overpowered

Short Synopsis: OP MC gets Isekai’d to another world with all the usual tropes and trappings. It’s terrible.

I don’t know how to explain everything wrong with this show other than to point at the title and tell you to read it again. Instant Death is the epitome of lazy, garden variety, every stereotype in the book Isekai garbage. Big boobed classmate shoving her breasts into the MC? OP MC that can annihilate anything just by looking at them? A poorly made magic system that looks like code and frames the entire thing as a video game despite ostensibly being a fantasy world? Scumbags who try to sexually assault the female MC the moment they appear on screen? There is absolutely nothing about this show that you couldn’t get from other, better series, and plenty of things you don’t actually want at all. I’ve read some people saying that it’s bad because the author wants it to be bad because he hates isekai and the anime industry? Well he succeeded, because this is terrible. Akogarete was creepy, but at least it was good at what it was trying to do. This is just bad. In every way. With no redeeming qualities.

Potential: Say no to OP MC Isekai Garbage kids.

Chained Soldier

Short Synopsis: In a world where only girls can get powers from magical peaches, a young man is granted the ability to enhance their powers.

Where Instant Death was bad to an almost comical degree, Chained Soldier is just a regular sort of bad. The CGI monsters are mediocre, the female MC is a bunch of fetishes bootstrapped together into something resembling a character, and the power system is designed specifically so the MC can have sloppy makeouts with the female MC. But you know what? Chained Soldier seems to know exactly what it is and revels in it. I can respect that, or I can after having watched Instant Death at least. Is it good? Is there any reason to watch it? Will anyone care about it after the season ends, or even halfway through the season? The answer to all of those is a resounding no. But it’s better than Instant Death. Which means I can at least see some people having a fun “It’s so bad it’s good” popcorn watch out of it.

Potential: 1%

Fluffy Paradise

Short Synopsis: Grown woman gets isekai’ed with the power to make non-human creatures love her. Also she’s like… 6. Disney Princess the anime.

The new season is here! And the first show we start off with is… An isekai. And a dull one at that. As far as isekai go this one is rather harmless. It’s a fluffy, cute, non-serious show about a girl petting magical creatures. Does it look good? No. Is it narratively compelling? No. Is there any reason to watch it beyond de-stressing while a little girl looks after some animals? Not really. Yes there’s an implied dragon fight at the end, but I bet 50$ that the next episode will start with that dragon falling in love with the little girl and turning into a goddamn house cat. If I’m being honest though, the older I get the more I come to see the appeal of this sort of show. Personally it’s not my thing. I think Fluffy Paradise is boring as sin. It’s just not how I like to relax. If you want to relax to an anime Disney Princess chilling with animals though, I won’t judge you.

Potential: 5%

Gushing Over Magical Girls

Short Synopsis: Middle schooler gets transformed into a Mahou Shoujo villain, proceeds to sexually assault all available magical girls.

Ignoring the blatant and disturbing fetishization of middle schoolers, with full nipple at that, Akogarete is nothing special. The production is average at best and mostly forgettable. The comedy is mediocre, though whether that’s due to the jokes being bad or this just not being my brand of humor is up for debate. Whatever the case, I can’t say I laughed at anything. That leaves the elephant in the room, the fetishization of middle schoolers. Akogarete is, in a word, disgusting. That makes it pretty standard an ecchi series, where the only reason to watch the show is to get a weekly dose of children being groped and sexually assaulted in a variety of ways while another kid watches and gets off to it. Unlike shows like Onimai however, which can at least attempt to claim some greater purpose like the trans experience, Akogarete is softcore porn and nothing. I cannot understate how much I hate this show. Do not watch it. I will judge you for this one.

Potential: We’re all going to jail for watching this.

Ishura

Short Synopsis: Local jackass Isekai MC with a sword fights giant monsters without caring about property damage. Local girl takes issue with this, decides to try and lead him to his death.

The good thing for Ishura is that after watching Akogarete the floor is so low, I could not possibly be disappointed or upset by it. From the looks of things though, Ishura doesn’t need it. Production wise it isn’t anything too special, at least not for the most part. The CGI robots look fine enough, nothing great, and the giant fuck-off lazer was pretty cool, especially with the choice of coloring. I’d say the two words that most embody Ishura right now are “Ambition” and “Gore”. It tries for things that the production team doesn’t seem sure it can do, like the whole “Climbing the robot” sequence. I can respect that, I think ambition goes a long way, even if it doesn’t always work. For Gore, well… Ishura is pretty brutal so far. I’m talking ripping off arms and legs, blood splatters, it’s a pretty gorey show! If that’s not your thing you’ll probably hate it as much as I do Akogarete, because it’s very much a “murder porn” first episode. If you can get past that though, it might be fun. I’d say the biggest thing holding it back right now is the OP MC who is less of a character and more of a wild animal only looking to fight strong things. If not for the Female MC, who plans on leading him from fight to fight hoping to find one that can kill him, there probably wouldn’t be much here. For now though? I’m curious to see where it goes, I’m down for generally villainous MCs, and while the production isn’t the best I want to see how far Ishura’s ambition will go. Will this be the highlight of its season, the most it can give us? Or will it push itself until the production falls apart? Or maybe it will even be that 1-in-a-million show that shoots its shot and somehow lands. I don’t know! But I’m intrigued enough to follow along. For now.

Potential: 50%