Kobayashi-san Chi no Maidragon S

Short Synopsis: A programmer and her live-in maid are threatened by a bizarrely proportioned interloper (who gives Kobayashi-san an unexpected package).

Wooper: You can’t keep a good studio down, and with all the dirt we’ve learned about the anime industry in recent years, Kyoto Animation might be the only good studio left in the game. Their TV comeback would be worth celebrating no matter what form it took, but thankfully it took Dragon Maid form – the sequel to my favorite recent show of theirs. The changes in series and art directors didn’t stop this episode from looking fabulous, from well-timed comedic gestures to meticulous background design to the effects-heavy dragon duel during the second act. My favorite part of this premiere had to be Tohru’s employment at a maid cafe, as it made excellent use of her personal pride and high-energy temperament. Everything to do with newcomer Ilulu is where I’m more mixed, and not just because her aggressive attitude threatens the series’ trademark domesticity. It’s more that her tire-sized tits and pubic pranks mark her as an obvious conduit for the author’s fetishes, which aren’t exactly up my alley. I have faith that her interest in Miss Kobayashi will eventually exit the sexual realm, but it’s hard to get too hyped for the rest of this season when a prominent new character seems intent on perverting as much of it as she can.

Potential: 70%

Amun: If you’re not cheering for KyoAni to get back on their feet, then you’re not an anime fan. Period. And what better show to do it with than the warm and fuzzy, feel-good story of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid? A wholesome show of the everyday-life interactions between a powerless human and her ridiculously overpowered, but platonically playful, live-in dragon maid. Well….that was the plan anyways until a busty, pants-less loli shows up and causes our heroine to grow a new member. I’m sorry, what?! Everything else was fine – this first episode looked gorgeous, the fight scene was great, nice reintroduction to all the dragons around town….but yeah. I just foresee this going down an oddly specific route, and that’s not necessary – service didn’t make the first season succeed. Honestly, I’m a little upset – there’s just no need to do that and ruin a perfectly good thing (that’s what Miss Kobayashi said ^_^). I’d even say this was the best slice of life setup currently airing. Most seasonal watchers are counting on Kobayashi-san to carry as one of the few tent poles this season, but suddenly I’m concerned about the only show I thought was a guaranteed win.

Potential: I don’t even know.

Seirei Gensouki

Short Synopsis: I forgot so I had to google it – some generic isekai, childhood friend, magic, torture, revenge crap.

Amun: Man, Wooper had his old man rant in the last post – at that point, this season had still not broken me. After watching Seirei Gensouki, that all changes. It’s as if the creator thought “if I pour every component of every isekai into one, surely it will have a soul.” Friend, that’s actually a homunculus, and FMA – an actually good show – discussed how that all turns out. Seirei Gensouki is just regurgitated garbage with new characters, old plotlines that we’re supposed to care about – despite seeing these tropes many, many times – in fact, there are better versions this season. Despite that, there’s at least one fan – and they’ve written a tremendous character summary on Wikipedia. Not that it entices me to watch the show, but wow, someone cared enough to type all that out. Maybe I should take up golf as my hobby instead…

Potential: Get off my lawn

Armitage: See, there’s ‘MC getting into an accident and waking up in a fantasy world’ and then there’s ‘a whole moving bus being side-rammed by a ZOOMING FREIGHT TRAIN and the MC still waking up in a fantasy world’. And since the latter does happen in Seirei Gensouki, it’s one of the first signs that just mayyybe, this isn’t a very subtle show. But you know, first impressions can be deceptive. Let’s give it a fair shot. So, our protagonist needs to protect the female lead who was his childhood friend? Well, sure. We need to give the audience something to relate to, obviously. What’s that? He also needs to take revenge for his mother?? Oh, uh, okay. Guess he’s a savior-of-all-women type. Sure… Huh? What’s that you say? He’s also an immigrant (a term defined in the MC’s own words as someone who “lives in slums and wears dirty, tattered clothes”) and named after the most famous city in South America?! Um, just try and be somewhat careful of the ground you’re treading on her— and we now have the immigrants massacred. So, the boy gotta take revenge for that too. Brilliant. Remind me when the aliens show up to teach our MC time travel, will ya?

Potential: Generic isekai trash: Model #242

Cheat Kusushi no Slow Life: Isekai ni Tsukurou Drugstore

Short Synopsis: Unnecessary isekai about a drug store.

Amun: Ah, instead of Isekai Restaurant simulator, we get Isekai drugstore simulator. Oh, so it’s going to be like that Monster Musume Doctor show? Wait, there’s only 3 characters? And they were designed in Microsoft Paint? Also, what’s up with the love of energy drinks? Last season’s second slime isekai (no, not the good one) had an energy drink vendor there too. Oh there’s a dog-girl…I feel as if those have supplanted cat-girls. I also really enjoy watching like 5 minute meltdowns of characters I just met. You know, this show isn’t funny – this is some uncomfortable emotional trauma. By the way, these are actually a bunch of shorts bundled into a full time slot. Hey look, it’s over. I hope reading this meandering paragraph convinced you never to watch this show.

Potential: 0%

Mario: Some would argue that Drugstore Isekai is unassumed and relaxed, for me it’s just lazy. And it’s funny how watching the entire first episode I still don’t get where the “Cheat” in the title came from, guess I’ll never find that out anymore (they missed their chance to call it Drugstore Cowboy!!!). Like any generic isekai, our transported protagonist has it a bit too easy – by the time the episode begins, he’s already famous to the point that every villager compliments his products as “delicious” – weird considering it’s medicine he’s selling. Then there’s the shameless fan-service as he already has cute animal girls working for him, causing me to shrug when I saw half a dozen other girls lining up in the OP. The show tries hard to please people – to put audiences into their comfort zone, but it’s just too broad to leave any lasting impact. It might put viewers to sleep, though, and if that’s the goal, it does its job miraculously (or is it his “delicious” potions at play?).

Potential: zzz

Getter Robo Arc

Short Synopsis: An irradiated human being teams up with a part-dinosaur pilot to defend Earth from an alien invasion.

Wooper: Arc is the fifth installment in Ken Ishikawa’s Getter Robo series, starring the son of a major character and a pilot from the original series who now plays the role of brilliant scientist. You need some prior Getter knowledge to make these connections, but they aren’t vital to understanding what’s going on, because what’s going on is simple: aliens are attacking, and they have to be stopped. There’s a crudeness to the art in this new series that makes it look like a cheap Saturday morning cartoon, but it’s synergistic in a way – most of the characters are the rough-and-tumble sort (especially Takuma), and the ruined future where the series takes place doesn’t exactly require a polished rendering. The biker gangs and junkyard mafias who populate this new Earth might have some facial features out of place, but since their faces exist to get punched, that’s no big loss. Even the CG used for the Getter mechs is a step up from what we saw in the original PV. It’s weird to see Ryoma’s son say that something looks “jank as hell,” but liberties in translation aside, Arc is still the Getter you remember – for better and for worse.

Potential: 50%

Mario: I honestly wasn’t aware of the Getter Robo franchise before watching this, but the old-school artstyle and designs and its epic battles remind me a good deal of Giant Robo. Had it stuck to the “old-school” all the way, the episode would fare much better than this. One of the first issues with Getter Robo Arc is that the obvious CG alien design doesn’t mesh very well with the rest of the story. It feels as if we are watching two different shows altogether. The second issue lies in its pacing. The show assumes the audience has basic knowledge of the characters and their abilities beforehand (I presume?), because it proceeds almost incomprehensibly. Many things are unclear: the main characters’ relationship is unexplained, the reason why they have to fight the aliens is never explained, and what the heck is the mecha that they pilot? All these make it a premiere that is epic in concept, occasionally interesting to watch, and totally unattached when it comes to emotional connection. Too bad!

Potential: Too bad!

Tantei wa mou, Shindeiru

Short Synopsis: An extremely unlucky middle schooler is conscripted into being a now-deceased detective’s assistant.

Armitage: I must really be losing my ability to overlook how juvenile LN writing can be at times because I lost count of the number of times I rolled my eyes at the screen in this premiere. The fact that it was an hour long special didn’t help its case either as so much of it felt like needless padding. The show tries to make its lead into a “quirky” detective with deadpan quips like she’s the anime embodiment of RDJ from those sub-standard Sherlock movies, but it just doesn’t work. The very few times I laughed during most of the runtime, I was left wondering if it was a joke that the characters played off as or were they being deadly serious?? And most of the time, they are being deadly serious. This is a show that makes you feel dumb by pretending to be wayyy smarter than it is. While in reality, it’s kind of a poor-man’s Elementary with almost none of the charm. Either way, I personally would not be watching any more of it.

Potential: 15%

Amun: Ah. This is familiar ENGI studio fare. If you’re worried about the opening quality – you should be, it’s a bad sign. I see all the hallmarks of animation overambition and shortcuts to try and make it work. The result is an almost passable episode that I have no faith in going forward. I will say that the premiere itself was handled pretty well in terms of direction and adapting sub-par source material. The dialogue didn’t drag on like in the manga and the banter was halfway decent. The problem is the chemistry between the leads will be entirely gone next episode as, well, the detective is already dead. I’m normally pretty optimistic, but this is a sinking ship, no two ways about it.

Potential: 30%

Genjitsu Shugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki

Short Synopsis: High Schooler who read half of “The Prince” is better at ruling a country than a 13th generation monarch.

Amun: (I will not mention Amagi Brilliant Park, I will not mention Amagi Brilliant Park…). So I have actually read some of the source material here…and truthfully, it was better than this premiere. I mean, it didn’t really make sense in paper form, and it sure doesn’t make a lot of sense in moving pictures (what on earth does finding a family have to do with running a country?). That said, this should be pretty hard to screw up – a studious, overly serious Japanese man brings order to a bunch of idiots and accidentally gets a harem on the way. You won’t win any points for originality, but there are worse ideas for a show (like, this season. There are worse ideas this season). It doesn’t look that bad either – some of the character designs have some rough moments, but overall I think this level of quality should be doable for thirteen episodes. The bar is just set so low, that I think if it can manage this level of animation and maybe a slightly more interesting plot (just throw new characters at it, it’ll be fine), then I’ll see this one through. Goodness, this season is terrible.

Potential: 60% (any other season would be 20%)

Wooper: Do you all ever stop and think about the consequences of all these isekai adaptations for anime fandom as a whole? Most people who still read text blogs are on the older side, meaning we formed an image of what anime was in our youth, but there are thousands of kids coming to anime every day without any such preconceptions. They’re not going through the Toonami gauntlet or watching whatever gets dubbed in their native language – they’re typing “watch anime” into Google, settling on the most operable pirate site they can find, and clicking on whatever looks cool. And really, what’s cooler than a thumbnail of a normal-looking guy surrounded by cute girls in appealing fantasy outfits? What choice could be safer than a show whose title makes it sound like a gamer’s dream? For some of these teenage newcomers, this subgenre is not just a corner of the anime market; it’s the cornerstone of their pop culture diet. Ask them what anime is, and once you get past its country of origin and general aesthetic, words like “reincarnation” and “summoning” are likely to crop up. There’s a potential future out there where isekai supplants shounen as top dog, which would result in a lot more Genjitsu Shugi Yuushas – and given how unspeakably dull this one was, I’m not eager to see that future realized.

Potential: None for me

Hamefura S2

Short Synopsis: A reincarnated high schooler finds out she’s the villain of her favorite game and feels safe, having avoided all of her doom flags.

Mario: Our poster girl is back for another season. As much as my heart screams “YES”, to be completely fair, this premiere will satisfy fans but offer little to change distractors’ minds. Part of the reason why is that it rehashes the formula from the first season: Bakarina just goofs around while other guys (and gals) fawn over her. It’s a prime example of characters running around in search of plot since there’s no real urgency at the moment. To add to that, the characters are not distinct enough solely because they all have the same attitude and feeling towards Katarina. Maybe that’s why I enjoy the red-haired dude the most since he is the only one who isn’t crazy about her. As long as the show fixes these two issues I can see it becoming a force to be reckoned with. If not, well, at least we always have Bakarina.

Potential: 50%

Amun: Season 2 of Hamefura was always going to have a problem: what happens when the central conflict, actually the central premise, of the show is resolved? From this first episode, the answer seems painfully clear – instead of avoiding exile or death, our heroine/villainess now must avoid another sentence – marriage. I’m expecting an expanded cast as well – we’ve already met some brothers and introduced the idea of the Magic Research Institute or equivalent institution. This sounds like I’m being pessimistic – which I am – but the first episode still hit all the fun notes and made me laugh just like the best bits of the previous season. I don’t think the magic’s lost, but I think there are going to be some challenges towards the back half of the season. That said, Hamefura has a long way to fall before I drop it – especially considering the other prospects this season.

Potential: 75%

Bokutachi no Remake

Short Synopsis: A wannabe game developer gets a second chance at his dream career after traveling ten years into the past.

Wooper: As soon as I booted up this hour-long premiere and saw the slow crawl of the progress bar, I braced myself for a bad time, but Bokutachi no Remake was merely mediocre. The premise wasn’t too far-fetched for a time travel anime, as the lead character doesn’t use his knowledge of the future to his advantage – he’s just making the most of the mysterious opportunity to redo his college years. Actually, you could argue that the show’s normalcy is its biggest issue. The script is overflowing with safe conversations between students and teachers, which seem designed to pad out a double-length episode rather than illuminate their personalities. Even the protagonist’s reactions to the fanservice scenes seemed a tad too mild (though anime has poisoned the part of my brain that evaluates that stuff). A semi-realistic look at art college isn’t far from my sort of show, but despite the series’ low key atmosphere thus far, I don’t think I’ll continue with it – the aggressively cute female characters and the superficiality of the classes don’t hold a lot of interest for me. Still, there’s a chance that Remake will deepen its scope as it goes, so if you enjoyed this premiere, don’t let me put you off.

Potential: 40%

Lenlo: Bokutachi is… rather dull to be frank. I was rather interested in the beginning! We don’t get enough anime following adult characters and I think the struggle not only to find a job but to manage a videogame project, ala Shirobako, could have been really interesting! But then it decided to go down the time travel route. And I don’t know about you but between Erased and the recent Tokyo Revengers I’ve been burned more than I would like by time travel anime. They so often fall into the common pitfalls of time travel, namely that half-assed writing/adaptations fall apart where in regular series they could coast. Bokutachi has one advantage in that it’s going back to college instead of high school or middle school but overall I’m just not that interested in another time travel “Fix my past mistakes” series. I don’t want to watch people fix those mistakes! I want to watch people recognize and overcome those mistakes!

Potential: 20%

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei

Short Synopsis: Viewers can now see the glory of One True Tatsuya from the perspective of his biggest fan – his sister.

Amun: Irregular at Magic High has always had two primary characters and an otherwise forgettable cast. This episode was…exactly what two seasons of this universe would have you expect, so I’m not going to dwell on that too much. What’s more interesting to me is the ED, which seems to indicate a more sports-themed focus on the minor characters. It also seems that the little sister is the narrator this time around – which I absolutely couldn’t care less about. I guess that means the female side characters will have more screen time? Last season started tackling issues that I felt were a little too large (literal multiverses) to be taken seriously, so I’m glad this season (which is something of a prequel? I think?) will be getting back to small-scale silliness. I still like this world and it’s a fun romp of power-magic fantasy with pretty characters, so I’m onboard. Just don’t hurt yourself thinking too hard about the plot – this isn’t that kind of show.

Potential: 65%

Wooper: I must be getting soft in my soon-to-be-middle age. The sort of dumb anime bullshit that used to get on my nerves only makes me laugh these days. And just like its parent series, this Mahouka Koukou spinoff is positively dripping with dumb anime bullshit; incest bait, protagonist worship, and obsession with female purity all made appearances in this single episode. This thing is written by and for dudes whose contact with women is limited to their immediate family members (who had better dress modestly whenever they set foot outside the house). But as I said earlier, I’m a changed man – these are no longer disqualifying factors in my mind, just distractions from whatever larger appeal a show might have. Just because anime as a whole is overrun with cardboard characters and busty babes doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed for its better qualities! So the question is, barring Miyuki’s lustful narration, Tatsuya’s crowd-moistening sophistication, and all that evil female flesh on display, what is the appeal of this franchise?

Appeal: 0%

Vanitas no Carte

Short Synopsis: Vampire Hunter V: Bookworm.

Lenlo: I have to admit, Vanitas surprised me. I wasn’t expecting much from another vampire show, especially not after Mars Red. But the unique blend of Studio BONES visuals and the Monogatari Director Tomoyuki Itamura’s flashy, over the top style blend together in interesting ways. It’s dramatic but doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, often utilizing the same chibi visuals we saw in Sk8 earlier this year. Though one might argue it uses them too much. The fights themselves also aren’t terribly impressive but they also aren’t uh… terrible. The only part that I’m up in the air on is the story. So far it’s pretty rote, happy ending type stuff. Good guy saves the girl, etc etc. The only part that has me interested is how Vanitas tells us, right from the get go, how it’s going to end. That’s always a ballsy move in my book and if it can pull it off, I’ll count myself as satisfied. All in all I would say this is a decidedly average showing from BONES. But in a season as dry as this it’s at least worth watching for a bit.

Potential: 50%

Armitage: Unlike Lenlo, I had rather lofty expectations from Vanitas no Carte and it met those satisfactorily for the most part. This was more of an introductory episode getting us acquainted with our lead duo and the lovely catto, Murr. It looks like this is going to be a vampire hunting show which is what almost all vampire anime ever seem to be. So not much in the name of a unique premise. Still, I have always adored the Victorian Steampunk aesthetic and the nice backgrounds do tend to render the setting well. The real highlight of the premiere for me was the score composed by personal favorite Yuki Kajiura. It amplified the atmosphere and picked up any slack in the animation department to make the premiere feel interesting throughout. The narrative itself has just about started to unfold but the hook delivered at the end makes me really excited for what’s to come. So, in parallel with Jun Mochizuki’s Pandora Hearts, Vanitas has also been slow to start off, but I expect it to make for a highly enjoyable experience once it hits its stride.

Potential: 70%

Kanojo mo Kanojo

Short Synopsis: A high school boy enters a throuple with two cute girls by begging and shouting a lot.

Wooper: Kanojo mo Kanojo depicts the realization of every teenage guy’s dream: dating two girls at the same time, both of whom are cool with the arrangement. How does it approach such an unrealistic scenario? As unrealistically as possible, of course. That’s the secret to the show’s appeal – every line is delivered as theatrically as possible, and developments like the three kids moving in together are basically achieved by magic. The male lead’s noisy demeanor isn’t winning, exactly, but he’s so persistent that he warps the rules of courtship to his will – a top five superpower for sure. The visuals are just as loud, with plenty of closeups on the characters’ shocked faces and scrolling rainbow effects in the background. Even the soundtrack was manic, but I guess it would have to be, as the episode would crash and burn otherwise. All in all, I got a few laughs out of this premiere, most of which stemmed from its stupidity, but I can’t deny its commitment to the bit. Just don’t go in expecting Tsuki ga Kirei or anything on that level.

Potential: 20%

Mario: Frankly, the show already lost me after its first 10 seconds. Here we witness a boy’s wish fulfillment wet dream cranked up to 11. There’s a line in the show that perfectly reflects my sentiments: “What is it about him that you fell in love with?” One thing I can say is that he doesn’t bullshit about two-timing, but does the show expect him to get away with his plan just because he’s honest? The girls, then, are created solely to please both their boyfriend and the males in the audience, and guess what, based on the ED even more girls will join the cast. OF COURSE THERE WILL BE MORE GIRLS. The only point I can give Kanojo mo Kanojo is its sheer commitment to its message, aligned with the boy’s unflinching devotion to NOT let anyone go. For me it’s just painful to see girls written and acted this way.

Potential: 0%

Re-Main

Short Synopsis: A boy wakes up from a coma with missing memories, but can’t say no to the power of water polo and muscular dudes.

Mario: It’s tricky to write about a protagonist who has amnesia going on with their life. It works best in the mystery genre because of the way it utilizes the unreliable narrator – for comedy, though, it’s tough to get it right. Re-Main reminds me a fair bit of the 2010 film Colorful, and it suffers the same problem as that film. First, throughout the 20 minute episode it wasn’t clear how much time had passed since the accident. I reckon the writing is to blame for this, as it tends to replace a lot of events that would show him navigating his new life with “a few months have passed.” Second, the way the lead boy behaves is not at all believable. It’s a three year time span that he lost, but apparently he can still enter high school after just eight months of self-study? I don’t buy that at all. Re-Main glosses over so many details which would have been compelling in their own right and focuses on the water polo part, but it doesn’t actually show us a match, leaving me disinterested in both aspects of the show. Just like the amnesiac protagonist, it’s better to erase this water polo series from our memories.

Potential: 10%

Lenlo: I… what? What are these scribbles? Is this how badly MAPPA is running out of animators? I know that staff/animators are leaving en masse, op-eds about hellish working conditions are being published, and people are literally going to the hospital there but come on! What’s that Wooper? Get off my soapbox? Fine, back to Re-Main. My general impression is one of utter boredom. Visually, narratively and tonally there is absolutely nothing that engages me about this show. Maybe it can get a story out of the family working through the effects of the MC’s coma but that’s about it. But all of that aside, you wanna know what the real crime is? That MAPPA couldn’t even give us some quality butts. Seriously, you’re going to give every guy in a show about speedos and swimming some cardboard asses? Are they all Ken dolls?! I’m very disappointed.

Potential: 0%

Sonny Boy

Short Synopsis: Infinite Ryvius but set in the only place scarier than space: High School.

Armitage: I can safely assume that most of you reading this have not seen HBO’s The Leftovers, though I highly recommend you do so as I consider it to be the best story I have experienced in all of entertainment media. Sonny Boy’s core concept is basically a rip-off of The Leftovers but set in a more constrained setting of a high school, because anime. There are also elements of Lord of the Flies, the art is reminiscent of Anthem of the Heart and the school kids have superpowers, because anime. Basically, it’s not a highly original setup. But it’s the presentation of all these disparate elements conjoined together that makes for an incredibly arresting viewing experience.

The world, well… the school, truly feels like an actual place with paint coming off from the walls and iron rails covered in patches of rust. This is very much a place that’s been standing for years, maybe decades. Even with the empty void that surrounds it, it feels like a place that people lived in. A place now inhabited by a cast of somewhat emo teenagers who just want to escape. To be anywhere but here. The ‘punishment rules’ in place are supposed to mirror a totalitarian governing system and I do believe the superpowers and lack thereof would lead to some scenarios of prejudice reminiscent of BnHA and MP100. But while watching this premiere, I couldn’t help but get that nagging feeling of having seen it all before. That is until the last 30 seconds of the episode when Sonny Boy took a deep dive into uncharted territory. There’s every chance that it might still end up rehashing established genre tropes but it’s given itself a solid opportunity to stand out as something more than the sum of its parts.

Potential: 80%

Lenlo: I’ll be frank: I have no idea what this show is. High school? That’s normal. Superpowers? Ok, we’ve seen it before. Transported to another world? All’s good in the hood! Yet Sonny Boy’s strange mix of them all feels… unique. Perhaps that’s just the mystery of the whole thing tinting my perception. Whatever the case though I am intrigued by what Sonny Boy is doing, even if it doesn’t yet make any sense. Meanwhile production wise Sonny Boy is right up my alley. The loose style reminds me a lot of Yuasa’s more fluid, low-detail character designs – the kind that tend to allow his team to distort the bodies to really fit the movement they are trying to sell. Top that off with some great effects work on the powers, such as shattering the entire screen (plus some iffy CGI), and you have my hope for the season (he says after watching one show so far :p).

Potential: 70%

Scarlet Nexus

Short Synopsis: A psychokinetic teen and his childhood savior fight against alien flower monsters.

Wooper: I’ve seen some recent pushback against the habit of calling anime adaptations “advertisements for the source material.” I get why people are moving away from the phrase, since it paints with too broad a brush, but a series like Scarlet Nexus demonstrates why it became prominent in the first place. The show started airing just days after its parent video game’s release, and it’s so disinterested in its own story that spending 60 dollars on the game seems worth it, if only to avoid the anime. Characters talk in bullet points, introducing themselves and providing background information with robotic precision. The very second they’re finished reading their lines, aliens appear, creating a sterile transition into unexciting combat scenes. A little girl unleashes a classic cry of “Momma!” as a means of motivating the rookie protagonist to join the battle and Save the Children. If you’ve ever read or watched a piece of dystopian fiction, Scarlet Nexus won’t have anything new to offer you (apart from its bizarre antagonists, which might best be described as legged floral arrangements).

Potential: 10%

Lenlo: As far as sci-fi video game adaptations go Scarlet Nexus is… fine? Wooper hits all the notes above, it’s a straight laced, stereotypical dystopia with a sci-fi aesthetic. And the sad part? I actually think the video game looks better. The outfits are clearly designed for 3D models and are far too complicated to animate any complex actions. Meanwhile the pacing, as Wooper points out, is more suited for a game than it is a 24 minute-per-week TV show. In fact I actually went and watched the opening hour of the playthrough and I think you would get more value out of just watching the cutscenes or a Let’s Play of that game than you would watching this anime. I don’t know whose idea this series was but the money would probably have been better spent taking everything they put into this and instead recycling it back into the game.

Potential: 5%

Peach Boy Riverside

Short Synopsis: A runaway princess meets a demihuman rabbit who then follows her to repay her debt.

Lenlo: I don’t think there is a single unique or creative thought in this show. It’s a medieval fantasy with a big-breasted female lead and shallow racism that, for some reason, our lead has never heard of and doesn’t believe in despite growing up in this world just like anyone else. There’s nothing about Peach Boy that in any way catches my eye, except maybe like… the cute rabbit monster.

Potential: 1%

Mario: Apparently Peach Boy Riverside’s director chose to rearrange the source material for the anime, which explains why it starts in media res. It’s not that hard to grasp the story, though, as it’s pretty straightforward. So far it’s a road trip where the main girl finds out about demihuman discrimination and her own bloodlust, but neither she nor her discoveries are appealing so far. The way Peach Boy tackles discrimination is totally on the nose, and the fact that she was previously unaware of it is so unnatural. Moreover, what I found most underwhelming is how it approaches the story. The tone is all over the place, to the point we have no idea if certain scenes are supposed to be funny or not. In one sequence, when offered octopus, the main girl immediately thinks of tentacle sex. The way the show focuses on her bouncy boobs, the rabbit girl’s habit of wearing a modern school uniform despite the fantasy setting… all the obvious otaku pandering left a distasteful impression on me. (sigh) I did have some hope for the show before watching it, but with its generic setup, shallow exposition and thinly-written characters, Peach Boy Riverside sets the bar incredibly low for this Summer season.

Potential: 0%