Dr. Stone: Stone Wars

Short Synopsis: A science whiz freeze dries ramen to give himself the edge in an impending war.

Wooper: I have to respect Dr. Stone for launching into its second season after the briefest of recaps. Many long-running anime in a similar situation would spend 10+ minutes holding the audience’s hand during the catchup process, or else fill time with a thin side story to remind us who the characters are. Of course, it helps that Stone’s limited animation keeps the per-episode work on the low side, so the story can progress without delay. That’s been this show’s M.O. from the beginning, though, so there’s no sense in docking points for it now. Rather than concern itself with looks, Dr. Stone is all about concepts, and the tactical introduction of freeze dried food and mobile phones into a prehistoric setting is a hell of a concept. I’ve got to shout out the series’ music, as well, which is easily the best component of its production. The soundtrack is not only varied, but well-deployed, bridging scenes by extending and cutting songs at just the right length; the return of that seamless experience is just one of the reasons to be glad for Dr. Stone’s return. I won’t be watching this one week to week, but it’ll probably get the marathon treatment around the mid-year mark.

Potential: 60%

Lenlo: Like Wooper says, Dr. STONE launched right back into the story with a gusto I found impressive. Even the way the recap was done, presenting it as Gen telling a story, was a nice bit of detail. Meanwhile the episode itself did a good job of reintroducing characters while still moving the plot forward. Bringing them in slowly, giving each of them things to do or small lines to remind us who they were. By the end of the episode it felt like the series had never left at all! As for the animation, while it was never Dr. STONE’s strong suit I do think the way it balances between comedic exaggerated gags and serious, sharp linework is praiseworthy. Personally, my only major concern is the shift in focus towards the Stone Wars conflict. Dr. STONE was never an action series, and its combat scenes in the first season prove that. Maybe we will see an improvement here, but if not I fear that we may be in for a bumpy ride anytime the science isn’t front and center. All in all though, if you enjoyed the first season of Dr. STONE then I would wager you are going to enjoy this. It just needs to give us more of the same.

Potential: 65%

Slime Isekai S2

Short Synopsis: A shapeshifting teacher quits his job and re-assumes command of a nation of monsters.

Lenlo: I’ll be honest, I lost interest in Slime about halfway through the first season when it shifted away from a game of fantasy civilization and towards a more action focus. When it does that, Slime has a tendency to abandon all that made it interesting and become just another isekai power fantasy. Sadly, that appears to be what we are seeing here as well, with the episode ending on yet another pointless fight. There might be some potential in the politics focus and maybe we will get to see more development of them as a budding nation, but I don’t have my hopes up. That said, if you liked the end of the first season then it appears you will be getting more of the same here.

Potential: 30%

Wooper: That Long Title Ending with Slime is back for another season of pretty yet patronizing nation-building. This is the only show in the reincarnation genre that I’ve ever managed to tolerate for a full cour, let alone two, but I’m not sure whether I’ll continue with it beyond this point. The backgrounds are still attractive; detailed, geometrically-pleasing buildings and stylized vegetation make Tempest look like a place where you might actually want to be reborn. The characters are also neatly drawn – the series’ motley depiction of goblins and ogres is one of the best things about it. Meanwhile, the tendency to worship its ultra-powerful, meccha kawaii hero continues to be one of Slime’s worst qualities. Rimuru’s strength is essential to the series because it allows him to rule benevolently, I get that, but if you played a “MC gets praised” drinking game while watching this show you’d be dead in a matter of hours. It subtracts from the challenge of raising a country from scratch, a process that looks to be this season’s focus as Rimuru welcomes hostile messengers and sends envoys to neighboring kingdoms. Will the show concern itself more with the intricacies of that process, or push the “slime to win” button and gloss over the things that make it interesting? It’s essentially a coin flip, hence the grade.

Potential: 50%

Log Horizon S3

Short Synopsis: A group of MMO-bound players deal with setbacks in their quest to return to the real world.

Lenlo: I struggled for a long time to figure out what to write about Log Horizon here. It doesn’t feel as if anything has really changed, yet is this a good thing? I still remember the characters fondly, and the general plot along with it. The setting is still nice and I enjoy the continued focus on MMO-style politics. But anime has changed since 2014 but it doesn’t feel like Log Horizon has changed with it. Everything about its production still feels the same as it was 6 years ago and I can’t help but feel underwhelmed by that. Maybe as it goes I will rediscover my passion for the series, but for now I can’t help but look at it and think that my nostalgia might have lied to me.

Potential: 40%

Non Non Biyori Nonstop

Short Synopsis: A shy high school girl travels to the idyllic countryside for some flute practice.

Wooper: Non Non Biyori is often lumped in with “cute girls” shows, but I’ve always viewed it as an iyashikei series first and foremost. You need only watch the first two minutes of this episode to confirm its healing powers; they depict, in near-silence, a series of beautiful rural landscapes, followed by the quiet morning routine of a curious country girl. The show’s habit of implying actions without visualizing them allows NNB to maintain that mood for long stretches of time. For example, the still image of a shrine with a floor pillow in front of it allows the viewer to absorb Renge’s honoring of a family member without pushing the viewer into a sad place. Of course, the show can be humorous and charming, as well, and this premiere was certainly both. The girls’ creation of dolls with toothpicks and tape led to an absurd set piece, and the musical bond that formed between Renge and new character Akane was both comically and tenderly executed. Come for the scenery and stay for the laughs, or vice versa – either way, Non Non Biyori has you covered.

Potential: 75%

Mario: I can point you to the first minute and the last minute of this premiere to highlight the appeal of the Non Non Biyori franchise. The first minute uses a deliberate pace and slowly takes us to the calm, peaceful everyday life of the Japanese countryside before Renge enters the picture with the sound of her recorder. The last minute showcases Non Non Biyori’s sharp comedic timing and punchlines when we realize whom Renge wanted to play music for. The rest of the episode is no fluke, either, as in the first half the girls carry such a strong and natural chemistry and bounce off each other neatly, while the second half focuses on a new character. It has variety, it controls its pacing with grace and it’s always a blast to see these cute girls doing whatever cute things they can think of.

Potential: 70%

Ex-Arm

Short Synopsis: A teenager wakes up as a disembodied brain sixteen years in the future and learns that he was responsible for Japan’s destruction.

Lenlo: I’m not quite sure how to rate this. Ex-Arm is not simply bad. It’s… advanced bad. Ex-Arm is so bad that I can’t give it a 0% without changing my scores for everything else, because nothing deserves to be on the same level as Ex-Arm. The CGI? Terrible. The camera work? Abysmal. Name literally any aspect of a production? I don’t think they even tried. I’ve watched some bad anime for these before, hell I have even reviewed some on this site. Japan Sinks of last year was one such anime, but even it wasn’t THIS BAD. Ex-Arm isn’t even the funny kind of bad either. It’s like someone took the Berserk 2016/17 people and told them to try even less this time. This does not look like it was made by professionals and there are series on Youtube by amateurs better than it in every respect. Makes sense since the man directing it has never made an anime before. At all.

So yeah, don’t watch Ex-Arm, forget about its existence. It’s going to win Worst Show next year and it’s not even close.

Potential: -100%

Wooper: Ex-Arm’s first episode was a truly terrible piece of work, but I’m glad it exists. That’s not because its floaty, disjointed combat sequences made me laugh, or because its piss-poor facial modeling reminded me of Sonic Adventure from 1998. It’s not because the lack of clarity in its script made it a perfect guide for how not to write your dystopian novel’s prologue, or because the show’s blatant ugliness creates a strong case for the superiority of hand-drawn animation. All of those things are true, but none of them come close to Ex-Arm’s greater purpose: showing arrogant anime bloggers the error of their ways.

I’ve been doing this for over three years now: sitting in my ivory office chair, legs tucked under my boring IKEA desk, typing up a storm about the new depths to which anime sinks every three months. Though I’ve never misrepresented my feelings about any of the premieres I’ve viewed, my propensity for hyperbole has led me to make unfair criticisms. It took a show as wonderfully inept as Ex-Arm to show me that. How could I dismiss other shows on the basis of their pandering plots and awful art direction when a failure like this one was just around the corner? All the scornful words and failing grades I’ve given to past series are like rags to me now. I gladly renounce them in light of anime’s newest, most shameful benchmark. May it reign for years to come.

Potential: A Humbling Experience

Wonder Egg Priority

Short Synopsis: A lonely girl is granted a chance to reverse her friend’s suicide by fighting monsters in another dimension.

Mario: How is that for First Impressions? Wonder Egg just blows me away for daring to do things its own way. It has a lot to say though, switching back and forth between the real world and dream world, between the present and the past, between its lighter moments and its heavy themes such as bullying and suicide. I can’t blame the PVs for being vague because basically after this episode I still can’t tell you what just happened or what route it might take (and whether it will crack under its own weight – but hey, it’s an egg), but like Flip Flappers (the show I’m most reminded of while watching this) I can tell you what this show is about. It’s a literal psychological journey of a girl (or many girls) to find their connection and their own self-worth, to overcome their guilt and their shortcomings. The trippy, surrealist visuals are my jam, and the character designs are a delight. Not only does this first episode prioritize visual storytelling (there’s a lot of show-don’t-tell here), they do that in smaller scenes with subtle character expressions and gestures as well. One such scene is where Nagase sits next to our main girl in her tent. It’s a quiet moment that perfectly captures the tension between them. At the end, in a mere 20 minutes, I found myself intrigued, impressed and most of all, touched.

Potential: 90%

Wooper: My experience with Wonder Egg Priority was dominated by perplexed interest, but once I reached the final seconds of the premiere and heard Kanata Aikawa’s final “Tsuzuku!” a huge grin overtook me. This was such an assured start to a series that will inevitably go down as one of the year’s boldest experiments. It deals largely in metaphor, with escalators descending into dream worlds and humans hatching from eggs, which put me in mind of another director whose name I’m sure has already popped into your mind. That’s about the highest compliment I can pay to a first episode, but there’s more to admire here than layered abstraction. Main character Ai Ooto has a modern, Masayoshi Tanaka-influenced look, but the high cheekbones of several other girls seem to stem from Yuri Kuma Arashi’s elegant character designs. The hair animation is really good, too, and it’s tied back to Ai’s nervous curiosity, obscuring and revealing her differently-colored eyes as it shifts and sways. The soundtrack’s use of carnival music is both playful and suspenseful, and the concluding surprises promise a depth of imagination that stretches far beyond a single episode. I can’t wait to see what the next one looks like.

Potential: 85%

SK8 the Infinity

Short Synopsis: A skater boy introduces a Canadian transfer student to the world of underground racing.

Wooper: The thing I found most striking about this episode was its design work. All the characters were attractive and easily distinguishable from one another, and I mean all the characters – even crowd members were given unique outfits, hairstyles and expressions. That kind of detail counts for a lot when you’re trying to build a world like this one, because SK8’s premise is frankly ridiculous. The show’s midnight races are supposed to be top secret, but the abandoned mine course they’ve built is so brightly lit that you could see it from space. There’s also a snowboarder who duct tapes his feet to a skateboard and slaloms downhill at 60 mph on his first attempt, because all extreme sports are the same, bro. Despite all this stupidity, this anime looks to be a lot of fun because its characters move and speak dynamically. Reki is passionate without being obnoxious, and Langa is cool-headed rather than dull. The former uses big gestures to communicate, while the latter is given life via minute facial expressions – it’s a neat dichotomy that I’ll be observing each week this season.

Potential: 70%

Lenlo: Yuri on Ice did it for ice skating, Hajime no Ippo did it for boxing, Welcome to the Ballroom did it for dancing and now Sk8 is going to do it for skateboarding. This was unironically the best and most entertaining first episode of this season. Someone on this team has a tremendous love for skateboarding and its community, and it shows. The care put into how the characters move, the aesthetic, the in-anime community around the sport. It’s soaked into every facet of this show. Sk8 isn’t just an anime based around skateboarding because it’s cool. Sk8 IS skateboarding. And I loved it. I have a slight worry about the “Cute Boys Doing Cute Things” vibe I sort of get from it, similar to Hyp Mic from last season, but even with that I loved this premiere and will without a doubt be watching it this season.

Potential: 95%

Project Scard: Praeter no Kizu

Short Synopsis: A bulletproof gunman chooses a successor with whom to entrust the fate of a lawless city.

Mario: GoHands has such a bad reputation that everything from them ought to be viewed through a harsh filter. But I’m here to be a contrarian on this one: this premiere about hot boys fighting against the system is pretty solid. Cheesy? Yes, but the sentimental ending works to set things up in the future. What it sets out to do is sell a brief relationship between the “Hero” and our MC – I can’t say it succeeds based on how quickly the plot goes, but I’m not lying when I say that they’re the most interesting characters in GoHands’ body of work (which admittedly is a low bar). We have a setting that immediately establishes the conflict between the hotboi team – or as they term it, “Scards” – and the other organizations. Visually, it’s a GoHands production alright with an over-saturated color palette and those weird white dots everywhere on-screen, but otherwise I don’t take much issue with it. Like Shaft, it has become their in-house “style” so we’re better off just rolling with it. It has some dynamic action scenes, though. I reckon the show will get dull later on, but after this first episode I am willing to give it more tries.

Potential: 50%

Wooper: As the credits rolled on Project Scard’s premiere, GoHands’ logo appeared on screen, accompanied by the slogan “Animation entertainment to advance.” My question is, advance what? The number of eye doctor visits taken by the average anime fan? The blazing light sources and blue-green color filters on display here would certainly accomplish that purpose. Maybe they intended to advance people’s free time, since about five minutes of Project Scard’s first episode involved characters explaining what had just happened in the previous scene. How thoughtful of GoHands to put a skippable segment into their show so we could make a sandwich midway through! Or maybe they wanted to advance the downward trend of people’s expectations for media mix TV adaptations – that would make sense, since this was one of the worst I’ve seen in recent years. There are just so many ways to interpret “Animation entertainment to advance,” but you know, that’s the mark of a great slogan: it really makes you think!

Potential: 0%

Kai Byoui Ramune

Short Synopsis: A girl who cries mayonnaise is treated by an eccentric “doctor.”

Lenlo: So to be perfectly honest, this is just a bad discount Monogatari mixed with a bad discount Great Teacher Onizuka. The doctor solves occult diseases that are based in your emotional/psychological troubles just like Monogatari, except the actual emotions and ways of fixing them are (at least from the first episode) trite and straight forward. Meanwhile its trying for the same sort of wholesome conflict resolution as Great Teacher Onizuka, confronting the parent and having the truth talk and realizing what is really important to you, but it does so in such a superficial “look at me” manner that it lacks all the heart Onizuka had.

If Monogatari was too wordy for you but you still want something occult akin to it, or Onizuka is too dated for you and you are ok with bargain bin heart-wrenching resolutions, then maybe this can be for you. Personally though? All I see is Walmart brand anime where everything in it was done better somewhere else.

Potential: 0%

Mario: The “solving weekly supernatural cases” anime is not entirely new in this medium, with HellGirl and xxxHolic or GeGeGe no Kitarou coming to mind. And even within that sub-genre Ramune ends up at the bottom of the barrel. While the manga was first published in 2017 (and is still on-going), it has the look and feel of a much older anime. And I mean that in a negative way, with the titular doctor being the main offender. First off, his unorthodox method of curing patients is intentionally ambiguous and makes us slightly uncomfortable – but I was more turned off by his “shout-until-it-sticks” behavior. Worse, while I appreciate how the sickly girl’s current issues deal with psychological stress, in the end she’s just a victim of her shouting doctor and screaming one-dimensional mother, so I feel the solution was pretty unearned. Add to that an annoying MC, unremarkable cast and even less remarkable production values, and unfortunately Ramune doesn’t offer much.

Potential: 10%

Beastars S2

Short Synopsis: One wolfie boy cannot decide whether to eat or “eat” a rabbit (why not both?).

Amun: For starters, I love the OP (and ED? I think they’re one song?). Sounds like Billie Eilish, Japan edition – pretty fitting for the amount of angst present. This premiere is angling more towards the horror undertones we were promised in the first scene of the first season and then promptly ignored for the furry love triangle. The production still looks great, and the plot is progressing fine – Beastars is best when it’s toeing uncomfortable lines. I don’t see anything that tells me it’s time to abandon this furry fleet of ships.

Potential: 65%

Mario: It’s business as usual here in Beastland. The second season picks up a few months after the concluding events of the first, and the gang is back to their normal lives. It’s a quite a low-key start after the climax of last season, merely introducing our mains and their new status quo. I’d say that this returning episode is a bit slower than I would have preferred, with Louis and Juno making way-too-brief appearances… Heck, even Haru doesn’t appear that much. It focuses more on old school “mystery” much like the start of the first season, and we are bound to meet new characters, which is always welcome. The visuals keep up from the stellar previous season, and the OP is an eye worm. Although this episode doesn’t really provide a lot of meat to chew on, it’s always great to have Beastars back on board.

Potential: 50%

Soukou Musume Senki

Short Synopsis: A girl gets transported into a mecha world, which she must save by fighting monsters.

Mario: Ho boy this one was bad. Story-wise it clumsily follows two girls in present-day, before clumsily forcing the main girl into the middle of a mecha fight. Visually, the cel-animated part is sparse in animation and looks stiff at all times, but it is still better than the CG battles that look outright horrible. Then there are 2-3 full minutes of transformation scenes, plus the main girl is so out of her wits that it’s painful to watch. This show is just too generic and offers nothing new to the table. It’s exactly what it aims for at the end: A toy advertisement.

Potential: 0%

Lenlo: Is it weird that I liked this show more before the giant robots, mecha suits and 2 straight minutes of transformation sequences? I thought I had finally found one of those shows that’s just girls talking and hanging out that I could enjoy, before it goes full on Symphogear. That said, this does seem better than Symphogear, however low that bar is. I like that it’s already playing with ideas such as what our lead has lost, that they can die in this world, it’s not just a game, etc. I have no idea if it will stay this way or fall into the same traps. But if it can avoid becoming just another terrible season of Symphogear then I might be able to have some fun with this one. Not much, but some.

Potential: 25%

Ore Dake Haireru Kakushi Dungeon

Short Synopsis: A lowborn noble acquires godlike adventuring skills through no effort of his own.

Wooper: This is the early frontrunner for Worst Premiere of 2021. It ticks pretty much every box of badness possible, especially with respect to the cast: Kirito look-alike protag, sister who’s obsessed with him, childhood friend with two massive “personalities,” and goddess who grants the main dude a bunch of powerful abilities on a whim. He already had one super-powerful skill, but it gave him migraines that could only be cured by kisses (I swear I’m not making this up), so he was clearly in need of a few others. Life point counters pop up on screen throughout the episode so we can track his progress, including how much mana it takes him to shrink his FWB’s tits. Armed with these incredible powers, he decides to apply at the local hero academy (cleverly named “Hero Academy”), and ends up shattering their entrance exam’s high score by several orders of magnitude. Oh, I almost forgot the best part: the main character’s name is Noir Stardia. NOIR STARDIA! It sounds like something out of a fantasy-themed porno – come to think of it, I’d rather watch one of those than another episode of this show.

Potential: 0%

Amun: Oh come on now, it wasn’t that bad…wait. It was pretty bad. Pretty sure they’re also going for “kink by committee”, with representatives from the imotou faction, the chains-bondage bloc, and vanilla-childhood-friend party, reporting in. I guess I’m a little more favorable to the visuals, since that was passable, but the story and characters are not great. I’ll give it another episode or two, but this feels like 100-man to me – pretty bland. Go watch the other weird revenge-healer isekai this season if you want something more extreme.

Potential: 1%

Back Arrow

Short Synopsis: A ripped nudist emerges from an extraterrestrial capsule and transforms into a gooey robot to defend an old west town.

Wooper: It takes a special kind of trust in your show to base its name on a pun (Back Arrow is a mishearing of the Japanese word for idiot, “bakayarou”). It’s a fitting title, since the whole thing is pretty stupid. It’s the special kind of stupid that anime does rather well, though, where an unwieldy blend of styles and story elements is carried by confident presentation and in-your-face characters. Back Arrow is a dead ringer for the less operatic Gundam series in that way – Turn A especially, given its use of both terrestrial and cosmic motifs. The gaggle of troublemaking children (who double as cheerleaders for the main character) are highly reminiscent of Gundam, as well, only they’re animated with considerably more skill than most entries in that franchise ever managed. As a matter of fact, this whole premiere looked pretty nice. Back Arrow’s “world within a wall” setting doesn’t intrigue me, exactly, but it does feature a lot of pretty geography, with treacherous cliffs and cascading waterfalls giving it a real sense of place. The featureless CG mechs sucked, but pretty much everything else had me entertained – I’ll give this one at least two more episodes.

Potential: 65%

Lenlo: What the fuck did I just watch. Like, I get it, it’s the same guy who made Promare and BNA, wrote Kill la Kill and the Gurren Lagann movie, but what is this? Is he just recycling ideas? Going crazy? I’m really not sure. Because we have a male Ryuko, TTGL’s giant robots, cowboys, techno samurai and… a wall. I honestly have no idea how to even rate this show because after BNA this could easily be a trash fire, but after Promare it could maybe be good. I think the only answer is to uh… watch another and see what happens?

Potential: ???

Kumo desu ga, Nani ka?

Short Synopsis: Most of a class gets reincarnated as rich people. One unlucky girl is reincarnated as a spider.

Amun: First things first – I’m not a fan of 3DCG. I get that it’s necessary – hand animating this show would be insane. Particularly the frog venom fight was fully rendered and stood out – in a bad way. Other than that, Spider-isekai exceeded all expectations. My goodness, the spider character (currently unnamed) is dynamic, well animated, and weirdly cute. It’s strangely impressive that this show can use a spider as such an expressive canvas. I’m also not one to normally comment on VAs, but unnamed spider-chan’s is on point. Nice work Aoi Yuuki! There’s some other plot around reincarnated class members (and the obligatory guy in a girl’s body – that felt a bit forced, to be honest), but the star of this show is clearly our darling spider.

Potential: 90%

Wooper: Ordinary anime series tend to put a lot of effort into their first episodes in an attempt to ensnare potential viewers. KumoDesu is not an ordinary anime, though – it’s an amateurishly directed botch job from none other than Shin Itagaki, the man behind Berserk 2016. That fact will be sufficient cause for most of you to stay away, but for you lucky few whose eyes were never scorched by that show’s repulsiveness, I’ll elaborate on this new spider show’s failings. For one thing, the main character is rendered in unconvincing CG ninety percent of the time, and hardly seems to make contact with the ground whenever she’s shown crawling. The Arifureta-esque starting cave is totally computer generated, as well, so Itagaki can wreck his own show with the pointless camera revolutions and extreme closeups for which he is now infamous. The self-aware dialogue about light novels made me wish that the poison-spewing frog from the show was real so that it could shoot acid into my eardrums. The only thing I didn’t hate was Aoi Yuuki wailing, “Oh, Jesus!” after witnessing her new arachnid siblings cannibalizing another spider. In short, it’s shit.

Potential: 5% (solely for the absurd ED)

Tenchi Souzou Design-bu

Short Synopsis: A new member joins the design team that handles God’s outsourced animal designs.

Lenlo: This is weird. I really expected to dislike this series to find it boring and yet… I was engaged. By Edutainment. I really enjoyed the comedic, yet informative nature of this show. How they worked through possible evolutions/designs of animals, explored different ideas such as with the birds, and ultimately saw how they played out. Or how they explained why Pegasus won’t work, or eventually landed on Giraffes. It was really interesting and the real life animal segments worked surprisingly well. Each of the main team members seem to have actual personalities and tastes/preferences with their work/animals as well. I don’t think this is going to be an Anime of the Season contender and I have no idea if it will actually be able to keep this up long. But as far as first episodes go, I actually really enjoyed it. It’s weird yo.

Potential: 75%

Amun: Heaven’s Design Team’s first episode landed at the top end of my expectations. We’ve seen this format a couple times now – this is basically the professional version of Seton Academy (complete with the explanation cuts on actual animals). Where Heaven’s Design Team gains better marks is the lack of perversion or furry bait – plus better focus on story and characters. The animation is pretty dull, but we expected that going in – this isn’t the highest budget show from the season. I’m curious if we keep the episodic nature or if an overarching story will occur – if I had to guess, the final project will be humans. The interactions between team members, the various revisions, and failed prototypes resonate true for anyone who has ever been involved in product design. I’m sure the cast will expand to include other professional supporting roles. All in all, there’s definitely space in this story to be good. Probably not great, but definitely good.

Potential: 75%

Yuru Camp S2

Short Synopsis: Rin prepares for a solo camping trip to ring in the New Year, while her friends discuss their holiday plans.

Mario: It’s hot as hell here Down Under so I can’t say I’m in need of its warmth, but cozy and comfy Yuru Camp does indeed excel at creating that feeling. The premiere of this second season traces back to Rin’s very first solo camp and it’s just a joy to watch. She makes mistakes all the beginners make and it adds an extra level since we know how experienced she is now. This new episode wastes no time to display detailed backgrounds, chill soundtracks, and confident, slow pacing that threatens to envelop you and put you into a comfort zone. The second half goes back to the present day and while it’s not as enjoyable as the first half, the natural flow of characters’ dialogue and interactions are fun to watch. I’m still a bit ehh on our animated mascots because it just takes me right out of the flow, but all in all, this premiere is a winner.

Potential: 70%

Wooper: Even though it’s been three years since Yuru Camp first aired, its return to the small screen feels seamless. The new OP and ED are performed by the same artists as before, the earth tone backgrounds are still picturesque, and the pinecones still squeak their customary hellos when the camera captures them up close. That sense of familiarity is a perfect fit for this premiere, which eased us back into the show with a flashback to Rin’s first camping expedition. She’s the group’s most experienced camper, so the sequence where her younger self learned to set up a tent and took notes on starting a fire was very welcoming. “It’s okay if you’re new,” Yuru Camp seemed to be saying. “Everybody has to start somewhere!” Those opening minutes were the highlight for me, but the girls’ present-day conversations did give us some hints as to what we’ll be seeing in the next few weeks – meeting some extended family members sounds like a fun prospect. This is a series designed to be watched with a blanket on your lap and a mug of hot cocoa in your hand, so it’s come along at just the right time for those of us in the northern hemisphere.

Potential: 75%

2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu

Short Synopsis: A star volleyball player moves to the boonies after his harassment of a former teammate ends in disaster.

Wooper: Just as Skate Leading Stars aims to escape the shadow of Yuri on Ice, this show (which I’m dubbing “Volleybros”) has its own Little Giant to slay. It’s not off to a bad start, either – the animation might not be a match for its older cousin, but it’s still pretty good, and the light-accented designs give it an entirely different look. The characters’ heights are more pronounced, as well, which comes into play during not just volleyball practice, but also the high number of dialogue-driven scenes. Volleybros is just as much a drama as it is a sports anime, and it wants you to know that right off the bat. Sulky and confrontational are two of its cast’s more common modes of operation, and two mentions of a transfer student’s dark past bookend the episode with as much subtlety as a spike to the face. Parts of this episode put me in mind of Hanebado, the schizophrenic badminton show from a couple years ago, but there was plenty of good conversation between the two leads, as well. They’re a poor match for each other, but they’d prefer not to be – that’s a tough dynamic to capture in a single week, and Volleybros did a decent job of it. I don’t know if I’ll watch another episode of this, but I hope somebody does – it’s not the knockoff that many will assume it to be.

Potential: 60%

Lenlo: I went into this expecting knockoff Haikyu, but surprisingly wound up with something completely different. Where Haikyu is a more fast-paced action type of sports show, “Volleybros” as Wooper puts it is much slower, but not in a bad way. I agree that it did a decent job with the lead’s dynamics though at times it does feel like it’s ripping off Haikyu a bit. My main hope here is that the “dark past”, which is a bit more extreme than Kageyama’s though the same in function, is properly used and integrated into the story. I want it to be more than just shock value for this initial episode and to see the event handled with the proper weight and respect the subject deserves.

Production wise Volleybros didn’t do too bad either. The animation definitely isn’t as dynamic or expressive as Haikyu but Director Yasuhiro Kimura of Golden Wind fame isn’t letting that hold him back. Instead of relying on sakuga magic he actually has some pretty clever and well timed cuts to add impact and a feeling of speed to the sport. If he can keep that up then I think Volleybros will hold up well, despite the occasional weightless block that the ball just bounces off of. All in all I am tentatively excited to see where this goes and will definitely be keeping up with it this season. I just hope it doesn’t go the yaoi route…

Potential: 75%

I★CHU Étoile Stage

Short Synopsis: A group of idols face expulsion from idol school unless they sell 3000 CDs in three months.

Lenlo: I hate how much effort went into the opening shot of this series, I really do, because it actually looks kinda good. I have no idea if this is a one off, if it will all get replaced with CGI models, or if fans might actually get a well-animated bishounen idol series. But the fact remains that production wise I★CHU shocked me out of the gate. Beyond that though… I don’t really have much to talk about. It’s a bishounen idol show, what you see on the tin is what you are going to get. Wooper may be right, there may be some small arcs for the characters here and there, but with how large the cast is I don’t expect any of them to do anything meaningful. Meanwhile I have never liked the premise of idol schools to begin with and the Idol industry in japan itself is uh… very concerning.

So yeah, if you like Idol shows then you might have a winner here with some decent production and solid but flat characters. If you don’t, then this show isn’t for you. I know it’s not for me.

Potential: 1%

Wooper: We’re only three months removed from the premiere of Hypnosis Mic, which had the best opening shot of any bishounen idol series I’ve seen. With that in mind, I sat down to watch I★CHU, feeling it would be premature to dismiss the subgenre’s next offering sight unseen. It seems my optimism was rewarded, because even though this show is even less substantial than a pack of soggy tissues, it didn’t give me second-hand embarrassment the way bishie anime typically do. There are close to 20 idols in the cast here, and while this episode didn’t do much more than assign gimmicks to each one, I got the sense that decent arcs were in the cards for a few of them. That feeling comes mostly from the earnest teambuilding of the show’s primary trio, who managed to put on a crowd-pleasing performance after some initial dysfunction. It was a plot befitting a children’s show rather than a late night TV anime, but it also wasn’t terrible. Oh, and the principal of the idol school (for there must always be an idol school) wears a bear costume, so there’s that.

Potential: 10%

Skate Leading Stars

Short Synopsis: A former athlete and an aspiring coach team up to dethrone a rising star in the Japanese ice skating world.

Wooper: This show has some pretty big skates to fill, given its most obvious point of comparison, but it did manage to carve out an identity of its own in this half hour. We’re dealing with teenagers instead of adults, and skate leading (essentially team figure skating) instead of solo routines. All we’ve seen thus far is one-man flashbacks and exhibitions, but the presence of a high school club promises plenty of cooperative performances. That’s what worries me most about this series’ future; though there was some slick athletic animation on display here (the smears during Reo’s routine were a highlight), depicting five skaters at once will be far more taxing than anything this premiere offered. In the likely scenario that the production buckles, it’ll be down to the characters to keep the show afloat, and I don’t know that they’ll be up to the task. The protagonist is one of those “shout until your dreams come true” types, so of course his rival has to be cold as ice, right down to his white-and-blue color scheme. I’m betting on the revenge-driven teenage coach as the breakout character, though I probably won’t give SLS enough episodes to see him or anyone else truly shine.

Potential: 50%

Mario: Skate Leading Stars starts off on the wrong foot and goes far too melodramatic and ridiculous for my taste (the 10-year-old kid will swear off the sport he loves just after losing his parents if he loses to the top kid in town. He loses, the story begins), but thankfully it picks up afterward and I have no problem recommending it. While I’m never too hot on hot boys’ shows, the show infuses just the right amount to make the characters likeable, especially that sneaky coach with Hachiman-scheming eyes. Story-wise it has been conventional so far, but the story beats didn’t lose me and this first episode wasn’t afraid to display some sharp skating routine sequences. While they are not as polished as say Yuri on Ice (the show to which we’ll hear a lot of comparison), they don’t rely on CG and they are solidly animated. Certainly worth a few more tries for this one.

Potential: 40%

Urasekai Picnic

Short Synopsis: Two young women form a tentative friendship while exploring a dangerous parallel dimension.

Mario: Such a strange beast Urasekai Picnic is. Part-yuri, part-surreal, part-horror show about hunting urban legends AKA monsters? Yes – although so far I’m not totally convinced with everything it does in this premiere. As for the positives, I like that the show starts in media res. Just like the characters themselves, we have to pick up bits and pieces of this mysterious Otherside along the way. The sense of eeriness and isolation are all there, and the Otherside’s grey palette certainly compliments that empty void vibe. The narration is a bit more hit-and-miss for me. While I enjoy a portion of Sorao’s inner thoughts – especially when it deals with her detachment from her real world – Sorao is still not an interesting lead to follow. That actually helps to make the dynamic between her and the new girl she meets much more vibrant, so it works out for now. The thing is, there’s still a lot of questions about the rules of the new universe, about the show’s endgame, about what this show really is about, that makes this premiere feel more like a side OVA to some established franchise than a proper introduction to the show. As a result, Urasekai Picnic still keeps me at arm’s length, but I do recognize its efforts.

Potential: 40%

Wooper: I have so many questions. How did Sorao first access the Otherside? What prompted the main characters to dash into that abandoned building after the OP, and where was it in relation to their previous location? What was with that stuttering dialogue during Sorao’s confrontation with the Wiggle-Waggle? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing that Urasekai Picnic is generating some intrigue, but I do wish it had been clearer regarding the barrier between its two dimensions. And as long as we’re making wishes, it would have been nice if the show hadn’t periodically replaced pieces of basic character animation with ancient CG models. There are other nitpicks I could make, as well, but they’re overshadowed by the show’s biggest strength: the strong impressions that Toriko and Sorao made on each other. Urasekai Picnic accomplished this simply by giving them plenty of opportunities to talk, allowing them to discover how their differing personalities could nevertheless be compatible. By the end of the episode, I felt as though their future trips to the Otherside would be much more successful if they paired up, and that I’d like to watch that pairing evolve over time.

Potential: 65%

Tatoeba Last Dungeon

Short Synopsis: Super strong country boy with imposter syndrome cooks a witch breakfast and starts building a harem.

Amun: Tatoeba Last Dungeon was one of the shows I’ve had my eye on since it was announced. The first episode was mostly as advertised, although I’m a little concerned about the quality of the animation – one particular faceplant was notably bad. If the first episode is having issues – that’s not a good sign. The other concerning aspects are pacing and humour. This episode actually went through a ton of material from the manga and felt quite rushed. The humour – shout until it’s funny – highlights the one dimensional aspect of the plot’s gimmick…another bad omen. Plus, I’m worried about the random service that showed up halfway for no reason – doesn’t bode well when we’re turning to those “plot” devices so early. No question, major red flags here – I’ll give it a few more episodes to turn around, though.

Potential: 33%

Lenlo: I swear to god these Light Novel titles and premises are just getting more and more ridiculous. What happened to just having a good story? What happened to compelling characters? When did it all get replaced with gimmicks and what do I have to do to get the Twelve Kingdoms style of fantasy back?

If that wasn’t telling as to my experience, I don’t know what will be. I found Tatoeba to be painfully dull. Generic fantasy, overpowered MC, fanservice, fantasy world. About the only danger flag of mine that didn’t tick was “Isekai”. My biggest issue by far though has to be the MC, who is apparently perfect at everything. It’s only been one episode and we already have 3 women fawning around him, 4 if we include the loli grandma, but I won’t for Tatoeba’s sake. I just don’t have anything to invest in at all here, with the only possible exception being the last 30 seconds. Maybe it goes to interesting places! Personally I don’t expect it to, and I won’t be watching long enough to find out.

Potential: 5%