Author: Lenlo

Ao no Orchestra

Short Synopsis: A former violinist is conscripted by his gym teacher to teach a schoolmate how to play.

Mario: Adding to the long list of Blue-themed titles (on that note, which one is your favorite? Mine would be “Sweet Blue Flowers”), Blue Orchestra’s first episode, despite walking a familiar path, is a solid episode all around. What this episode did right was providing a main lead worth caring for. Anime is no stranger to portray listless bored male leads, but here he never comes off as boring. Hajime is occupied with his own thoughts throughout the episode, but it provides quite well his internal conflict between his love for violin, the hatred for it because it associates with his Dad. Even when he sees the practice room, he cannot shake his memories of his Dad. The show looks pretty decent, thankfully, but it’s appropriately the sound that makes an impact here. The violin sound from an unknown girl ticks him off and he lashes out at her, the only one time in this episode where he clearly shows his emotions. The ending is where it gets a bit too conventional but the premise where he can play again (this time in an orchestra) is compelling enough for me to follow more.
Potential: 60%

Wooper: I talked down this series’ prospects in the season preview post, but Ao no Orchestra’s premiere wasn’t too bad. It opened with an impressive musical sequence as Aono (first name Hajime) recalled a time when he still enjoyed playing the violin, and slowly provided hints as to what killed his motivation as it progressed. The trouble is, when I say “slowly” provided hints, I really mean it – the pace of this episode was ponderous, with around half the script being given over to Aono’s internal monologue. Director Seiji Kishi seems to have made a lot of good calls in shaping this series, as he punctures the gloomy atmosphere with humorous outbursts from time to time, and the leisurely speed of the story is necessary so as not to overwhelm the middling animation staff. But the tone is still highly dramatic, and I don’t know that Aono can carry such a heavy version of the show with just an Asuka clone and an adult sidekick for support. (I know more characters will be introduced soon, but the guy’s name is a pun on the series’ title, so it’s clear he’ll be the focal point.) Layouts like these also feel uncomfortably vacant, meaning the show has to fight an uphill battle on the visual front. I do want to stress that Ao no Orchestra is better than I expected, though – you may enjoy it more than I did.
Potential: 30%

Summoned to Another World for a Second Time

Short Synopsis: Isekai 2: Electric Boogaloo in Another World (Again).

Lenlo: I’m tired of impressions by this point, so let me just be upfront: This is taking the idea of someone being isekai’d, bringing their whole class with them, and turning them into the most popular and powerful person around. Except this time instead of just having one harem of anime women, now they have two to pull from! I’ll be honest, if this was trying to riff on the idea of Isekai akin to Isekai Ojisan, I might be able to have some fun with it. But I sort of just tuned out the moment the lead slapped a strong female character on the ass and turned her into a domesticated seat. Yeah, no thanks.
Potential: -100%

Amun: Ah you know, what’s a little masochism among old party-mates? Okay, in all fairness, that was a pretty strange (and a bit off-color) twist. However, I didn’t completely hate the rest of the premise – it feels like the isekai genre is trying to evolve, and these various mutations are the means to do it. Summoned a second time? That’s at least something slightly original, so props for that. Now, the implementation from the mediocre animation to the use of a hero as a chair leaves something to be desired, but I think there’s at least a glimmer of hope for an enjoyable show here (the use of magic for the promised haircut was a nice touch too). Now, mind you, it’s only a glimmer – more than likely this devolves into a power fantasy harem, but let me hope here. At least one isekai will exceed expectations this season, right?!
Potential: 15%

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear 2

Short Synopsis: Wearing bear related attire gives an adventurer super powers, and there are lots of cute girls.

Amun: This show is a bit of a meme, but it’s a cute meme. Yes, it’s just cute girls doing cute things in a world seemingly devoid of men, but come on – who doesn’t love bear pancakes? There really isn’t too much to think about here, but it is interesting to see our loveable adventure bear getting pulled more into the world’s politics. Also, who knew that a bear’s weakness was fighting other bears? That’ll be interesting to see if Yuna ever has to face off against her own kind – fortunately, that wasn’t this episode. If you didn’t watch the first season, this probably isn’t for you, but if you don’t mind some nauseating cuteness and the bear motifs everywhere – Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear 2 is your ticket. I’ll be watching it, but I will certainly forgive anyone who doesn’t want to come along for the ride.
Potential: 60%

Insomniacs after school

Short Synopsis: Two sleepless kids meet at their school’s astronomy observatory.

Lenlo: Insomniacs… Wasn’t bad. Maybe it’s because insomnia is a bitch, and I myself find it difficult to sleep at night. I can connect with that. Two people bonding over it in their little clubhouse for day-time naps is kind of cute. And the show looks fine! The character designs remind me of I Am A Hero, a manga I’ve long enjoyed. Just enough realism to their proportions and structure to feel nice without being prohibitively hard to animate. For all intents and purposes, Insomniacs seems like a solid enough highschool romance. The real question is just if that’s enough. Will it be able to remain interesting during its run, will it hold my interest? Or will I check out by episode 3 because it’s just another highschool rom-dram? Only time will tell, but it’s enough to make me give it a shot. I have a bit of hope though, because the second half as they wandered around during the night was much better than the first half.
Potential: 40%

Mario: It’s interesting to see the differences in approach between this show and last year’s “Call of the Night”. While the vampire show provokes such a distinct feeling of roaming the street at night, “Insomniacs” doesn’t go to night time until the last 5 minutes. Its focus is entirely different, about two sharing the same secrets, that of they both can’t sleep at night, and that they find a place completely their own. At its best moments, “Insomniacs” successfully sells their unusual bond where they can sleep soundly together. But at worst, the show still has its romance / coming-to-age trappings that make it feels more familiar with other romance anime. In fact, “Insomniacs” reminds me more of “Let Me Eat Your Pancreas”, a film with a similar lead girl – hyperactive but sickly girl and a premise of them spending time together “as friends”. Overall, the episode is functional, the show provides good reasons for these two to know and spend more time with each other, but it doesn’t have the nuance that I found in better romance shows like say Skip and Loafer.
Potential: 50%

Magical Destroyers

Short Synopsis: Japan cracks down on Otaku-ism and carts them off to otaku camps. A resistance forms and is…surprisingly successful?

Amun: “Magical Destroyers” is one of the few original works this season, so not much was known about it coming into the premiere. What we’ve got is a “specialized dystopia” (a la Shimoneta or to a lesser extent Kill La Kill) where being a rabid fan of anything is punishable by incarceration. Seems pretty extreme to me, but Japan historically has not been known for public policy moderation. I just wasn’t enchanted so far – the main character designs felt more appropriate for supporting cast, and the enemies feel downright lazy. I do think some of the little jokes are pretty good, like the magical girl transformation where she has to change her shirt manually. This is pretty clearly going to be a love-letter to otaku culture, but I don’t think that’s really enough to carry a full season. We’ll see, but so far, I’m not just not feeling it (although that ED was quite a trip).
Potential: 5%

Mario: There’s just something missing in this premiere that doesn’t click with me. The episode provides a neat backstory of a “post-apocalyptic” world (not really!! But it feels like that to these otaku) where the world is against the otaku population. It also has a vibrant style and a clear love for the culture, which will obviously appeal to some fans out there. However, Magical Destroyers does a very poor job of establishing its characters and their abilities, so there’s a huge gap in-between “2008” and the present-day that I cannot cross. Take Otaku Hero, our… ahem… hero, for instance. He says that he’s tired of the ongoing wars and he wants to quit. Fair enough, except that we haven’t seen one goddamn thing he achieved beforehand. Every member in the resistance keeps saying that “we are totally dependent on him for everything” – but what is “everything”? I don’t see any of that here. The show then attempts to give us some brief slideshow-type flashbacks on how Otaku Hero enjoys fighting with everyone, but for me they function like implant memories because he did next to nothing up to that point from my perspective. Furthermore, we have Anarchy, a magical girl who… doesn’t transform for unknown reasons, and then she has these overpowering skills out of nowhere. I mean, if they stick with real life (2008’s flashback is the world we lived in), then adding anime-power just doesn’t gel at all.
Potential: 0%

EDENS ZERO 2nd Season

Short Synopsis: Guy who was raised by robots and a wannabe influencer with a robot cat are trying to find the celestial being at the center of the universe for fun or something.

Amun: One of my (few) complaints about Edens Zero is the weird non-linear temporal narration. We see it again here in the opening episode, and honestly, it’s just confusing. With Weis’ older/younger self situation, there are way more elements of time travel in this show than there’s any reason to be. Aside from that small complaint, Edens Zero is back to where we left off – the team is off to fight Draken Joe and looking space sexy doing it. It’s pretty straightforward what this season’s conflict will be, and that’s perfectly fine. As long as Edens Zero can avoid wandering into weird future/past paradoxes, I think we’ll be in for another fun ride!
Potential: 80%

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Season 2

Short Synopsis: Season 2 of Gundam Mercury, now with 100% more war crimes.

Lenlo: I will admit, I was a little bit miffed that Gundam Mercury returned to the status quo at the school so quickly after the end of the previous season. I was hoping for a bit more time to deal with the fallout of the attack, Suletta committing war crimes and Miorine generally freaking out. But it looks like Gundam Mercury wants to slow-roll us on that by spreading it out across the season and taking us back to the innocence of school, letting reality slowly bleed into it once more. Will that work? Probably, it worked last season and all Gundam Mercury needs to do is stay the course. But there is a chance it gets lost in this school setting and flubs it all away. After all, Guel is still expelled and we have a war brewing. So long as it doesn’t completely turn its back on the more serious war drama happening in the background though, I expect to enjoy this season a lot. Plus it still looks good, and that ED, man, hair-down Suletta looks great.
Potential: 80%

Edomae Elf

Short Synopsis: Shrine deity is a reverse isekai’d elf…who is an otaku shut-in (and weirdly sensitive about her ears).

Wooper: The best part of this episode was the product placement for Red Bull, the brazenness of which had me laughing as though it were a legitimate meta joke. Elda, the elf from the title, is a game-obsessed otaku, so her Red Bull addiction sort of makes sense – as does her NEET lifestyle, which is a major point of contention between Elda and her shrine maiden Koito. Their odd couple energy wouldn’t be capable of carrying the show by itself, but Koito has a life of her own, attending high school and socializing with the townspeople who live close by the shrine. Her sister and her best friend have already made appearances, her grandfather (the attendant before her) has been mentioned, and Elda’s left field connection to Tokugawa Ieyasu could produce a humorous flashback or two in the future, so the show isn’t limited to making jokes about whatever nerdy fixation Elda is saddled with each week. Now if only the visuals didn’t have such a manufactured look to them – all the streets and buildings in the series’ shopping district feel as though they were arranged by last-gen AI with a penchant for clutter, and virtually none of the furniture on screen appears to have been drawn by the background artists. More and more art directors settle for this plasticky look every year, but it’s especially ill-suited for a series that draws on Shinto aesthetics, even if they’re mostly in the background.
Potential: 30%

Amun: Hey, this was a good premiere for one of the flimsier premises of the season. Main leads are solid, the setting is nice, and what I thought would be a longer mystery was resolved in the first episode. Behind the silliness is a pretty interesting foundation: the one girl in the town who isn’t under the elf deity’s spell is her main attendant. Now that’s something I want to see explored a bit more. Can this fizzle out like last season’s “Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten”? No doubt – we’ve seen it a thousand times. But this was a good start, and I liked it. I’ll have more of this, please.
Potential: 60%

The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses

Short Synopsis: A guy plans to sell an old cafe he inherited from his deceased grandma, only to find out there are five girls who live in it.

Lenlo: Is… Is this just Love Hina for a 2023 audience? Because that’s what this feels like. A more explicit, slightly better produced version of Love Hina. If that’s what you’re into, if you literally just want ecchi bait ass and titty, then Cafe Terrace is probably going to be right up your alley. Personally I’d suggest you just go read/watch some porn, you might actually get off from that. But if you really want to just be edged for 24 minutes with 0 actually engaging story and 0 nipple, then Cafe Terrace will give you exactly that. Personally though? I’m pretty content with the amount of nippleless breasts in my life. I don’t need much more.
Potential: 0.001%

Mario: Boy, talking about starting off on the wrong foot. The main guy walks into the house and finds five girls naked for no good reason. To make it worse, these girls (also known as the Goddesses) are like an inferior non-sibling version of the Quintuplets, and throughout this episode they only have one mission in mind: to seduce this guy into agreeing for them to stay. Yes, the show is self-aware enough to know that these efforts are ingenuine, but when one of the girls got her housemate drunk to send her to his room, I dropped the last bit of my interest in investing in them. The creator Seo Kouji is known for his infamously sappy harem romances such as Suzuka, A Town Where You Live, and Fuuka, so this new one is within his comfort zone and unlikely to improve. If you are a fan of the aforementioned titles, by all means watch this one. I’m once again jumping off this train before it goes off the rails.
Potential: 0%

TOO CUTE CRISIS

Short Synopsis: Upon visiting Earth, an alien inspector is stunned to discover how cute cats and dogs can be.

Wooper: Kawaisugi Crisis is just about the simplest anime I’ve ever seen. The first minute or two, which showcased its conceit of an alien who must decide whether to vaporize all life on Earth, tricked me into thinking that the show would make use of that idea going forward. Instead, the alien (Liza) visits a cat cafe and becomes so enthralled with the kitties that the chance of anything getting atomized is reduced to zero – she may as well be an interstellar tourist for all the relevance her background has to the story. Sorry, did I say story? What I meant was “pattern of cute animals prompting exaggerated displays of emotion,” which is all that this episode boiled down to. Future installments will introduce new animals, and more of Liza’s shipmates will likely get beamed down to Earth to experience the cuteness for themselves, but this show isn’t built for anything beyond that. The ED even throws in the towel and features a slideshow of real life animals, just to be as transparent as possible. This should have been a series of five minute shorts, not a full length anime.
Potential: 5%

Lenlo: Ok so this show is just… An alien discovers cats? Is that the level we’ve stooped to? Just throwing cute girls in shows about cats? Except the girl isn’t even cute because the show doesn’t have the production ability to draw anything cute at all, despite it being in the show’s very name? Yeah no thanks. We’ve reached the point in impressions where I’m tired and have nothing funny to write. The show doesn’t deserve to be a show, like Wooper says.
Potential: 0%

The Legendary Hero is Dead!

Short Synopsis: Idiot farmer tries to lure a monster to a spike fall and instead kills the hero.

Amun: Hmmmm. This is a tricky one for me. The humor didn’t land at all for me (Is anyone else randomly reminded of Blood Lad for some reason?). The characters, especially the main girl, are not great. But I think this premise has a ton of potential, and I tend to like this general story style. It’s just…the radish fetish is where I start to check out. I guess it comes down to animation, and I really don’t think there’s enough horsepower there to make this worth watching. Pity, I was hopeful for this too.
Potential: 10%

Lenlo: Ok I’ll give Hero is Dead one thing, it has an absolutely fire OP. That, plus the premise of the great hero being dead, had my interest for a bit. Then the OP went into a montage about putting thigh-highs on girls and had the MC practice on a radish. Imagine with me, for a moment, an Isekai that attempted an actually serious story without any of these ecchi jokes and perverted characters. One that killed off the Hero and then forced some random shmuck to do the job instead, all the while carrying said hero’s corpse along for the ride. There could be some good stuff! Some good crisis of identity and shit! Instead I get thigh jokes, scantily clad women and a harem but 12 minutes in. Maybe… Maybe I don’t actually like anime anymore.
Potential: 0%

MASHLE: MAGIC AND MUSCLES

Short Synopsis: It’s LITERALLY One Punch Man x Harry Potter.

Lenlo: Welcome to Mashle everyone, a Harry Potter x One Punch Man fanfic. What does that mean? It’s a comedy about an overpowered muscle bro in a school of wizards. Is it funny? Sometimes. Some of its jokes are actually pretty good! Stuff like Mash fixing coins with his hands, or the reactions of animals are kind of amusing. And these stick around for a while until Mashle gets a bit too serious. Other jokes though… Stuff like Mash being to stupid to remember which way to open a door, or his obsession with cream puffs… These are the lowest common denominator jokes that just don’t work. And it’s those, combined with the mediocre dramatized story that eventually comes, where Mashle falls short. Oh and I guess the production is fine too. Nothing terribly impressive, but it’s certainly not a detriment to the show either.
Potential: 20%

Amun: Lenlo’s being a little harsh here – I had a pretty good time. Alright, forgetting how the door on your house works is pretty dumb (“haha, musclehead dumb, amirite”). That’s pretty lazy writing, but the rest of the episode was decent. I don’t think we’ve seen the real meat of the show yet, but I think there are good pieces to work with here! Animation was good, the doting father was fine, and the main stage was set. Basically, Mashle boils down to “can a genius in an underestimated area overcome the world’s common sense?” That’s a good premise, and door jokes aside, I think Mashle did a good enough job showing the potential for me to watch some more.
Potential: 50%