Author: SuperWooper

Uzumaki

Short Synopsis: One by one, the residents of a small Japanese town fall victim to a spiral-themed curse.

Mario: It feels surreal that we finally get to watch Uzumaki after all the delays. This is my first time watching Uzumaki material (wrong judgment on my part given I wanted to watch this anime afresh, and how many years did it make us wait again?) despite being familiar with Junji Ito’s styles through his other works. The result is delightfully mixed. For example, I kind of see the reasons why Uzumaki goes black and white. It’s much more faithful to the source material that way, and it elevates Junji Ito’s iconic character designs. But on the other hand, this is the kind of material that would greatly benefit if it has a strong impressionist color palette (I think the 2000 live action version used green as its dominant color). The same could be said for the events that unfold in this episode. At its best, it provokes the Lynchian surreal feelings of something terribly wrong happening, the extremity of obsession and not knowing what will come next. And many of the characters’ visions are striking and disturbing. At its worst, however, there’s ridiculously bad dialogue, to the point that it’s more pulpy than scary. You won’t feel for any of the characters because most of them are unlikable and hard to relate to. Nevertheless, I had a crunchy time watching it and definitely will see it to the end.
Potential: 50%

Lenlo: I was actually pleasantly surprised by Uzumaki. Remember how in the season preview I was concerned about the adaptation to animation, and how I felt it would lose some of Junji Ito’s original magic? Well I’m happy to report that I was wrong, and the adaptation actually does a solid job. Movements are still stilted, a lot of my concerns from the PV are still there, but when made into a full episode it becomes disconcerting in a way that works well with Uzumaki’s horror. I will say, I disagree with Mario that it would be better in color. I actually quite like the black and white, and think color would only serve to distract from the imagery, or dilute it perhaps, as the way Junji Ito uses black and white is such an important part of his works. It’s not perfect, some of the dialogue is awkward like Mario said, but overall I think that if you enjoy Junji Ito’s work or are looking for a solid lovecraftian horror anime, Uzumaki will be perfect for you. That said, I think it might be best to wait until all the episodes are out and to then binge them in one sitting, just like you would read the original work in one sitting.
Potential: 75%

Let This Grieving Soul Retire

Short Synopsis: An incompetent clan leader mismanages his faction, but everything still works out for him in the end.

Wooper: There are two parts to this fantasy premiere. The first takes place at a clan recruitment event, where the main character goes undercover to observe the potential trainees; the second follows him to his workplace, where he grovels at his boss’s feet to avoid the consequences of an explosion at the aforementioned event. Both are kickstarted by a flashback featuring the protagonist’s childhood friends, and quickly chased with line after droning line regarding Grieving Soul’s world, which is about as unimaginative as it gets. Very basically, there are treasures hidden in ruins and guarded by monsters, and hunters have organized themselves into parties and clans in order to defeat the monsters and secure treasure for themselves. Nothing about that bone dry premise suggests that Grieving Soul will be worth watching, so it comes down to the characters to carry the show, but they can’t and don’t. The undercover clan leader is a charisma vacuum, and his airheadedly supportive friends and obsessive female admirer are no better. The skirmishes that break out in the pub during the episode’s first half possess no visual spark, and all the dialogue in the second part is lifelessly staged. No worthwhile commentary or humor about the difficulties of managing a fantasy clan is offered. There is nothing here for anyone who cares about anime beyond using it to space out their gaming sessions.
Potential: 0%

Amun: Honestly, this was worse than I’d hoped. I think the premise of having a reluctant glue guy lead a bunch of geniuses is decent. However, the execution here is just….kind of lifeless. It was hard to connect to anyone off the bat, and the big reveal fell VERY flat. There was a bit of a fight, which had no stakes – then matters devolved from there, and our MC exited stage left. The back half of the episode was neither funny nor interesting, and I’m pretty sure it was going for the former. What makes me sad is the animation and character designs are much better than the writing or direction deserves. What a waste. I’m usually pretty positive on these kinds of shows, but this was just a stinker of a start.
Potential: 5%

Lenlo: Holy exposition batman. So much of this episode is just an excuse to have the MC explain the world/setting to us. Dudes meant to be this master hunter, leader of the greatest party of hunters, yet here he is just… explaining the basics of the world to no one in particular, thinking it in his own head for some stupid reason. Amun is right in that the idea here could work, characters failing upwards because others assume the best is generally fun. And I Parry Everything from last season proved how much sincerity and passion can make up for a lackluster production or stereotypical setting/world. But This show… it doesn’t have that sincerity, that passion. It is, as the others have said, lifeless. Like it was made by a committee. As such, it’s an easy pass for me.
Potential: 0%

I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History

Short Synopsis: A girl reincarnates as her favorite otome villainess (pretty much what it says on the tin).

Amun: I’m a fan of this oddly specific isekai subgenre (basically reincarnating as a villainess in an otome game). There are some pretty decent incarnations of this genre from the past couple of seasons – sadly, I fear “Villainess Who Goes Down in History” is unlikely to join them in the hall of decent seasonal anime. I have seen pretty much this exact same episode several times now, so I’m coming up with metrics to predict future season quality: how much I engage with the lead in the first episode. In “Villainess Who Goes Down in History”, that amount was…minimal. Her newfound motivation to be the best bad guy is uh, a bit contrived to say the least. Plus, an 8 year old having a political discussion with the nation’s sovereign on advanced political maneuvering? That’s a bit too much. The animation and character designs aren’t anything to write home about either. I’ll probably keep watching for a few episodes, but I’m pretty sure this anime won’t be winning any best in class awards.
Potential: 10%

Lenlo: Why have we been getting so many of these “Villain in an otome game” series? I swear we’ve gotten one every season for like… 2 god damn years. On the plus side, that means there’s plenty to choose from for fans of the genre. On the down side, it also means you get some stinkers, which is exactly what this show is. To put this in perspective, midway through the episode the king of nation decides it’s a good idea to ask an eight-year-old about the geo-political situation of his nation, as well as how to fix the economy. Why? Why ask a child? What does this have to do with being a villain in a romance series? Why in g=God’s name does an eight-year-old have an actual answer?! Simply put, you’re better off watching one of the villainess anime from previous seasons than this, because it’s just nonsense.
Potential: 0%

The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant

Short Synopsis: An admitted war criminal and a part time worker face off…and fall in love.

Lenlo: On the surface, this seems like a pretty standard magical girl show. Transformation sequence was alright, effects are good enough, girl is sort of cute. The issue with standard magical girl shows though is that you always have to recon with the Precure series, because if you can’t do something better than them, or sufficiently different, there’s no reason to watch your show. That’s just the reality of Precure. So what does this one do to set itself apart? Well surprisingly, a rather cute romance. I’m always down for that Romeo and Juliet “Opposing Sides” formula, and Evil Lieutenant puts enough care into the small moments like eating cake together that it was rather cute. The big issue for me is that the lead girl is an emotionless doll with no personality beyond what you project onto her. She’s a blank slate to be loved and lusted after while appearing pitiful and incompetent in her daily life. Hell, her relationship with her mascot almost feels like she’s being pimped out. All for our male lead, the Evil Lieutenant, to “save” and “care” for her while hiding it from his bosses. If Evil Lieutenant can give the female lead an actual personality, and grow their relationship, it could be fun. But I don’t have faith in them to do that. I might give this another episode to see where it goes, but I’m not keeping my hopes up.
Potential: 10%

Amun: Eh, I think Lenlo’s being a little harsh here. Evil Lieutenant was a perfectly fine take on this emerging sub-genre of enemy lovers (I wouldn’t call it Romeo and Juliet, since the anime approach is much more of a slow burn and doesn’t usually end up with so many dead people). While the main girl is a bit of a blank canvas, she does show some spunk about her convictions of being a magical girl (her magical sidekick being a yakuza shakedown is pretty funny). I expect to see more of her personality develop as the show continues – if it doesn’t, then this ship is sunk.
Potential: 50%

Too Many Losing Heroines!

Short Synopsis: A high school loner befriends his female classmate after eavesdropping on her doomed romantic confession.

Lenlo: Heroines feels… Manufactured. Which is an odd complaint I know, all anime are, it’s a team effort to make. But watching Heroines, I never once felt any sort of… authenticity from it? It’s like everything was exaggerated, the melodrama, the comedy, the personalities, the situations. Everything feels fake and unnatural, synthetic, making it impossible for me to connect or click with anything that happens. A single 20 minute episode felt like an hour as I waited for anything interesting to happen. It’s a shame, because the show looks good. That’s A-1 Pictures for you. Clean lines, nice colors, good designs and such. But I feel like I’ve seen all of it before, nothing stands out as unique to this show. I guess what I’m saying is that Heroines feels like it should be a good show, like it should be on the same level as Shoushimin, but it lacks any sort of character or personality to make it interesting.
Potential: 5%

Mario: Welcome to my domain! I always have a soft spot for LN adaptations about a narcissistic loner who can’t help but attract young girls along the way. Heck, my all-time favorites are Monogatari Series and (to a lesser degree) OreGairu. Even second tier shows like How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend or Bunny Senpai are still great joys to watch, and “Too Many Losing Heroines” could be a worthy addition to this second tier list (with an added bonus for having a know-it-all imouto). First, our down-to-earth MC’s snarky remarks work best when they parody the romance tropes of other light novels. His reaction to a girl who’s just been rejected is, “Please pay me the money back.” It helps that the girl in question here is very expressive and vocal in her struggles. Adding to that, the visuals look great in this episode, and the script offers some sort of sincerity at the end. With many other losing heroines to come (two more have been hinted already), hopefully this show can balance the humor and romance without becoming the very thing that it pokes fun at.
Potential: 50%

Why Does Nobody Remember Me in This World?

Short Synopsis: A soldier is transported to an alternate reality where humans lost a cataclysmic war against various supernatural races.

Wooper: Were I to take this anime’s title as a genuine question about itself, my answer would be, “Because your first episode was so forgettable.” I could tell within seconds of starting this premiere that I’d need to take a ton of screencaps to remember anything about it, so my desktop is currently littered with JPEGs, which I’ve pieced together to determine just what this show is all about. I won’t bore you with the details, though, especially since there are way, way too many of them; if I remember anything about the experience of watching this episode, it’s the swift mental checkout I performed upon realizing how much lore-dumping I was about to witness. Obviously, series like this one, which drone on and on about ancient prophets and supernatural heroes and shining swords and heavenly gifts, are largely written and directed by hacks. But I do wonder if closer communication between those two sides of an anime’s production wouldn’t result in a more watchable sort of hackery. Several times during this premiere, you see something happen (for example, a training dummy’s holographic overlay disappearing), then there’s a line confirming that it happened (“Mythical beast dragon type hologram deactivated”). If only the people working on these C-tier shows cared to cooperate, some of their issues could be solved, from little redundancies like that one to bigger, dirtier habits (like stuffing your characters’ mouths with backstory right upfront instead of building their personalities).
Potential: 0%

Lenlo: Tolkien would be proud of the amount of lore dumping this show did. It wasn’t good lore dumping, as it was neither interesting nor novel, but there was a lot of it! Now if only there was anything else. Actual characters, a decent fight, maybe a plot beyond our Kirito knockoff doing “cool” shit. Cool is in quotes because it was, in fact, not actually cool. Anyways, Wooper goes into a lot more detail and I don’t care enough to repeat everything he says, so just know he’s right. There are better shows this season.
Potential: 0%

Na Nare Hana Nare

Short Synopsis: Cute girls doing cheerleading, and all the drama behind it.

Mario: There are so many strikes against Na Nare Hana Nare that I am surprised that it still holds up so well by the end of this premiere. It’s about… cheerleading of all things. Its 3DCG performance scene is competent but distracting – it features one character who jumps across roofs and street lights like a ninja, and another character whose name is Anna Aveiro Nakamura dos Santos Moreira Cuccittini (no, I’m not making that up). But somehow, it gets off on a strong foot. I reckon its biggest strength so far is that the cast has well-defined personalities – with distinct traits and flaws – and we can see plenty of room for conflicts to come. Take our main girl Kanata for instance. She must have felt responsible for her friend Megumi’s injury. The show is in no hurry to explore these personal dramas though, instead letting the eccentric ones (and there are plenty in this episode) pull the string of the plot so far. It’s to no surprise that the director / series composer is the same one that did last year’s BanG Dream It’s MyGO. And the background art, with their many shades of purple, look stunning as well. When our girl Kanata takes flight at the end of the episode, the show does too.
Potential: 50%

Lenlo: To be honest I’m surprised Japan even knows what Cheerleading is, nonetheless participates in and hosts contests for it. It just feels so quintessentially American, maybe that’s why they have it at all. Anyways, as a show Nare Hana is fine? The CGI routines aren’t terrible, and the continued inclusion of their injured friend as she recovers to rejoin the team was sweet. Really the biggest mark against it is that I just don’t care about Cheerleading. It lacks that same competitive edge something like Volleyball has, and the girls themselves seem more concerned with their friendship and hanging out together than actually winning anything. If you’re looking for a wholesome Cute Girls Doing Cute Things show but in cheerleading outfits, I imagine this will be right up your alley. Personally though, I can’t say I care much.
Potential: 5%

Mayonaka Punch

Short Synopsis: A desperate streamer makes a pact with a vampire who wants to suck her blood.

Lenlo: There’s a surprising amount of YouTube/Media focused anime this season. Where others seem to be about the video/media creation process however, Mayonaka Punch focuses more on the drama inherent in running a channel and how audience reaction can affect a performer. Honestly, it’s not a terrible idea. Before the horny vampire bullshit, Mayonaka was surprisingly compelling. The fallout of a YouTuber group, the anxiety from reading comments, the fear about her future. I was interested, I wanted to see how she would overcome it, how she would reinvent herself, and what kicked off their fight to begin with! Instead it shifted to a bunch of shitty jokes around a house of worthless vampires, one a loli the other a horny mess. Maybe you can find some fun there, anytime Mayonaka focuses on its actual protagonist it isn’t bad. But the vampires are unnecessary and just ruin the whole thing.
Potential: 5%

Mario: There’s something to be said about our current obsession with stardom and hate posts. Many real-life up-and-coming stars, especially in Korea and Japan, have committed suicide due to the pressure of so-called “social disapproval” from the internet. Mayonaka Punch works best when the main character Masaki experiences that same rejection, both from the people she doesn’t know and the ones who used to be her best friends. The way she’s obsessed with hit counts and every online comment and her anxiety over her ex-bandmates’ interview are dark and raw in a good way. Ditto the sober moment later in the episode where Masaki attempts to repeat the group’s first viral hit by visiting an abandoned hospital just to find that she’s completely alone. It’s just too bad that the show also thinks it’s a good idea to frame these moments as a comedy instead of drama (the interview sessions, for example). In addition, the “vampire” part sucks up all of that message, and the vampire girl sadly only functions as a character who has the hots for our female lead, in more ways than one. As a result it is hard to stay invested in these characters and their relationship thus far. Also, vampires cannot be captured by a camera lens, now can they? Get your facts checked.
Potential: 10%

Koi wa Futago de Warikirenai

Short Synopsis: Twin girls angst over their feelings for the same guy.

Wooper: Summer 2024 really is the season of taboos, huh? First we had a guy falling in love with a robot, then the setup for a stepsibling romance, and now we’ve got a love triangle with identical sisters involved. The plot of Love Is Indivisible by Twins (the show’s strained English title) surely syncs up with the fantasies of a lot of young men out there: two girls with slightly different personalities and interests, both equally beautiful, and both equally in love with you. How will the main character ever choose between them?! In case you’re interested in the answer to that question, there are a few unfortunate hiccups in Koi wa Futago’s presentation that you’ll have to deal with as you watch, the biggest of which is the show’s brightness. The majority of characters and backgrounds in this premiere had an uncomfortable softness to them, as though the lighting were constantly overpowering them. This effect wasn’t reserved only for childhood flashbacks, either, though they comprised around half of the episode. Then there’s the dull character designs and subpar animation – I don’t expect every TV anime to excel in both of these categories, but you typically need either the first (so your series looks good in stills) or the second (so it looks good in motion), and Futago has neither. Writing the two halves of the episode from the different twins’ POVs didn’t convince me of the male lead’s crushworthiness, either, so I have no desire to give them another shot at it.
Potential: 0%

Lenlo: Let’s call this what it is, another wish-fulfillment romance with a nothingburger MC for weebs to project themselves onto while twins fall for him without him putting any actual effort into it. I can only assume as the series goes on we will get more embarrassing situations, some twin fan service, maybe even some drama as they both compete for the same boy, standard low-brow romance stuff. Personally though I won’t be around to see it, because there are just better, more genuine romances airing this season.
Potential: 0%

Isekai Shikkaku

Short Synopsis: Osamu Dazai tries to commit double suicide but ends up in an isekai instead!

Amun: Honestly, this premiere was everything that I had hoped for. The touchy subject of suicide (integral to our lead character) was kept somber and light hearted at the same time (I actually burst out lauging at Truck-kun being used seriously). The gloominess of the “adventurer” surrounded by a standard fantasy troupe just hits all the right notes for me. Sure, he assembles a somewhat unlikely harem to go find his lost suicide partner. Sure, he has a silly poison effect that is overpowered. I don’t care, Dazai’s gloominess has won me over, and I’m stoked to spend the rest of the season moping through this!
Potential: 75%

Lenlo: I was… legitimately impressed with Shikkaku. I was fully expecting a mediocre “Using author names as window dressing” show like Bungou Stray Dogs. Instead I get an actually funny, gallows-humor filled Isekai dialogue that I actually want to pay attention to and a lead whose problems aren’t magically solved just by getting hit by a truck and isekai’ed into another world. Yeah it still has a lot of the standard trappings like stats, harems and OP magic powers, and yeah those remain the weakest part of the show. But between the Annette’s slow disillusionment with Isekai Heroes and Dazai’s unreal ability to give every line he speaks the weight of a suicidal man’s last words, which I suppose they are, even those tropes got a few chuckles. Even the truck gag got me, coming out of nowhere mid-suicide attempt. And as Amun says, it’s not like the suicide is played entirely for laughs. It’s somehow able to switch between a legitimate attempt and a joke at will. And it’s pretty damn effective! If Shikkaku could just drop the normal ecchi bullshit that occasionally crops up it could be fantastic. As is I’ll settle for gallows humor I so rarely get and an amusing lead who is absolutely done with everything. And if it happens to go somewhere, to keep my interest across the entire season, then more power to it.
Potential: 55%

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin

Short Synopsis: An intergenerationally wealthy harvest goddess is banished to the human realm after failing to protect her parents’ stockpile of rice.

Wooper: After one episode, the clearest thing Sakuna has going for it is its pretty background art, which mostly depicts floating, interconnected palaces comprising the show’s lofty realm. Many of these shots are set against powder blue skies with wispy clouds, or the pinkish-purple hues of twilight, making them highly memorable – which they’ll need to be, because based on the events of this premiere, we’re about to leave the lofty realm behind. Sakuna’s punishment for allowing a quintet of hungry humans to enter this godly domain and ransack her rice reserves is banishment to a demon-infested island, where her parents disappeared untold generations ago. It’s a nice setup for a coming of age story, as she’ll now be forced to rely on her own survival abilities to get by, rather than her parents’ reputation, but she’ll have the opportunity to search for them at the same time. Still, it’s hard to definitively call this one of the season’s better offerings, since it’s apparently going to spend the vast majority of its time in the human realm, and it hasn’t even set foot there yet. I don’t mind that temporary uncertainty, nor are the kid-friendly character designs an issue for me (as I imagine they are for Very Serious anime fans). I also like the Shinto vibes and the traditional Japanese soundtrack. It’s just that Sakuna doesn’t have a ton of momentum behind it going into episode 2, so it remains to be seen whether it’ll be worth a season-long commitment.
Potential: 50%

Lenlo: I wasn’t very impressed by Sakuna sadly. The childlike, chibi size designs were really unappealing to me, especially when contrasted with the kid-friendly but still adult proportioned human characters in the same scenes. Sure the backgrounds are nice, the Shinto stylings are appealing like Wooper says, and it’s decently animated. But that’s really all it has going for it. I can’t say I care for our lead nor their mission to cleanse a demon-filled island. The idea itself is fine, but the presentation of it feels so… safe? Toothless? There’s nothing to it, no bite, no hook. And that makes this a pass for me.
Potential: 5%

Elf-san wa Yaserarenai

Short Synopsis: A massage therapist deals with fat elves trying, and failing, to lose weight.

Lenlo: You know, this season did feel a little lacking in the ecchi fetish department. Yeah we had the Russian Girl show, the Cosplay show, and the regular isekai bullshit. But this is the first one I’ve watched that really has absolutely nothing going for it outside of its fetish. And what a fetish it is. I can understand big tits, I can understand lolis (to an extent), elves, orcs, yandere, all of it makes sense on some level. But god damn I was not prepared for such an unapologetic fat fetish. I’m talking full gut. What’s more, Yaserarenai is that rare ecchi that somehow got permission to go completely uncensored. That’s right, no steam or convenient camera angles, it’s just full on giant nipples and fat stomachs shoved in your face. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t kind of disgusted.
Potential: 2Fat4Me

Monogatari Series: Off & Monster Season

Short Synopsis: The new season of Monogatari, covering various side stories not included in previous arcs.

Mario: It feels right at home to see these characters back. This is going to be a Monogatari season without Araragi’s involvement – which for me is for all the better. Not that he’s a badly-written character, I do like his narration from time to time. It’s that he has a skewed point of view and it’s often filled with his perverted urges and his hero complex. So telling these stories from the girls’ point of view opens up this world and their complex web of relationships tremendously. Take this 30-minute premiere for example, it pairs up Tsukihi and Yotsugi together – two of the most underused characters out of this harem. Yotsugi is stoic and unresponsive, whereas Tsukihi is dynamite. Yet, it’s hilarious to see Yotsugi attempt to trick the younger sister as a Magical Girl and fail miserably at it. All her encounters with other girls are inspiring and have lots to do with immortality and relationships as well. Funny, heavy on wordplay, visually striking with emotional resonance… If this episode is any indication, we will have an absolute blast this season. My only complaint is that we don’t get an OP yet, but then again nothing can beat Platinum Disco (Tsukihi does that dance in this episode as well).
Potential: ∞ (infinity)

Lenlo: Monogatari is always an exceptionally difficult series to judge. The quality varies so much arc to arc that I can’t make a judgment on the entire season just by one episode. That said, this one episode was pretty good. Visually it’s the best premier I’ve seen so far, both beautifully animated and shot. I know some people aren’t a fan of how out there Monogatari can get, how quickly it cuts, but there was not a single moment in this episode’s entire 30 minutes run where I was not enthralled by the visuals on some level. Seriously, it looks great. Meanwhile narratively, Tsukihi was always one of my favorites, so getting 30 minutes all about her and her involvement in the town was nice. Maybe I’ve changed since the first time I watched Bakemonogatari, but this new season feels… right up my alley so far. Just so long as it can keep a lid on Araragi being a pedophile, I think we’re in for a good time.
Potential: 80%

2.5 Dimensional Seduction

Short Synopsis: Manga club president Okumura is obsessed with his fictional waifu when he meets an underclassman who just so happens to cosplay her, and she wants his help to model all of her new outfits!

Lenlo: Dimensional Seduction feels like it wants to be a passionate love letter to cosplay and geek culture, but it fails to tap into even a fraction of what Sono Bisque Doll did. The leads are both full-on otaku with nothing else to their character but their love for the series, and their interactions amount to nothing more than ecchi-bait and sex jokes. Maybe if the male lead actually brought anything to the relationship it could work, like Gojo’s passion for sewing and the joy he got from dressing people up, but the female lead made her own costume so she doesn’t really need the guy at all. I just… Watching this, it felt like it wanted to tap into that “Sexy girl cosplays” market without caring about cosplay and just wanting to slap a girl with huge tits on the screen. It really feels like an inferior Bisque Doll in every way.
Potential: 0%

Mario: While I applaud this episode for its “go with what you’re interested in” message, this is the kind that short-sells the appeal of being an otaku instead of promoting it. Damn, it features a main character who swears off “3D girls” and shouts in every single sentence. This episode also works as a wet dream for him as well, as a beautiful girl comes knocking on his door, asking to join his club and changing clothes in front of him, and requesting him to take pictures of her? Now, I’m down to have more shows about cosplaying or learning more about it, but the episode doesn’t really delve into the subject – she already has her clothes and garments ready. By the end of this episode where he grabs her (by accident, of course), it just adds a sense of discomfort for me.
Potential: 0%

Tasuuketsu

Short Synopsis: A student finds himself in a game of survival as half of the human population disappears each night!

Lenlo: Everything about Tasuuketsu just feels… lazy? The character designs are the same from the neck down on basically every character, the animation is basically nonexistent, and it can’t pace or properly transition between shots to save its life. As far as the narrative, it’s a pretty straight forward death game. The questions and the fact the majority side of each question will die is kind of interesting, but the existence of special privileges that will break the rules kind of undercut it for me since it means the original rules of the game probably won’t be relevant for long. By the end the only interesting part about it was that the MC seemed to die, though seeing as he’s the lead character and in the OP/ED I would be absolutely shocked if he stayed that way, which of course only raises more concerns if the dead can be brought back to life. In general just not very inspiring.
Potential: 1%

Mario: Tasuuketsu is a death game anime and it’s not a good one at that. In order to build a suspenseful hook you need either a set of clear rules so that you can anticipate how one character will outsmart the others, or well-written characters worth rooting for. Tasuuketsu fails on both fronts at this stage, and it doesn’t help that the pacing is a mess and the animation is lacking. First, none of the characters – that includes our male lead – operates like a human being. They show no concern or empathy towards the people who die, they are way too calm for this kind of situation. Second, the show is purposely vague in its rules – at one point the cast even raises questions about its vagueness – with the only goal being that no matter what question is asked, the majority side will die. But then they have a “privilege” vote – which I think will save our MC – which already breaks the rules that we hardly know anything about? I don’t think I will stick around for this.
Potential: 0%

The Elusive Samurai

Short Synopsis: The would-be inheritor of the Kamakura shogunate flees his birthplace after his family is betrayed by a powerful warrior.

Lenlo: Competing with Monogatari, Elusive Samurai is probably the best animated show of the season. It doesn’t quite have the same level of direction and shot composition that Monogatari does, it was actually uncomfortably punched in a lot of the time, making it hard for me to pick which I like more. Still, it definitely moves beautifully, and I love the colors. Narratively… It has promise, but christ is the humor bad. It’s loud and over the top, often clashing with what is happening on screen and what characters are saying/talking about. The tonal dissonance between an entire clan being slaughtered in incredibly gory fashion while a priest mumbles to himself or smiles and screams over a young boy’s shoulder is insane. If Elusive Samurai can figure that balance out, can cut down on the mediocre humor or at least time it better, then this could be something special. As it is though… I’m unsure if it can stick the landing. I’m going to keep watching it for now at least.
Potential: 50%

Wooper: Between the background information on The Elusive Samurai’s historical period (the early 14th century), the names of various lords, priests and samurai, and the details surrounding the untimely deaths of several characters, there’s a lot to wrap your head around in this premiere. A piece of closing narration informs us that the series’ story will span two years, so we’re not in for Heike Monogatari levels of compression, but it’s likely that audiences will have to be mentally nimble to keep up with this show (or in my case, mainline Wikipedia articles to make up the difference). Even if you’re slow-witted like me, though, Elusive Samurai is absolutely worth checking out for its visuals, which will surely go down as some of the year’s best. Usually I’ll point to either animation or art direction as a series’ strong suit, but in this case they’re equally impressive, as main character Tokiyuki runs, jumps, flips, and parkours his way through background after beautiful background. The more scenic landscapes strike a delightful balance between detail and delicacy, but what’s even more impressive is that shots of manmade structures maintain that same balance, constantly accounting for the ways light might touch a stone wall or a wooden rooftop. I’m less enamored with the show’s overall tone, which goes to some bizarrely glib places for a prologue where the protagonist’s family and future subjects perish en masse. But for an anime like this one with both an intriguing setting and top tier production, I can push past an annoying character or two.
Potential: 65%

Twilight Out of Focus

Short Synopsis: A second year college student wrestles with his emerging attraction to his male roommate, who volunteers as an actor in his film club.

Wooper: My initial thought after watching this episode was, “It’s gonna look pretty bad if I give the BL anime a lower score than the step-sibling anime,” but as long as I’m being honest, I have to say that I enjoyed virtually nothing about Tasogare Out Focus. Everything about it is aimed squarely at the fujoshi market, from broad stuff like the uniformly tall, male and handsome cast, all the way down to the tiniest details, like the male/female coding of the lead characters’ plush birds. The “Let’s shoot a BL movie (no homo tho)” attitude of the film club’s leader is awkward, and his goofball personality feels like it’s designed to handwave that issue. And then there’s the scene where one of the main roommates drunkenly pins down and licks the other (strike one) while mistaking him for his sensei (strike two), but is nonchalantly forgiven the next morning with the phrase “it was just an accident” (strike three). Tasogare is clearly trying to have its non-consensual BL cake and eat it too, and although that’s par for the genre’s course, it doesn’t have to be – the Given adaptation from 2019 is proof of that. I’ll give this show a few points for being fairly well-drawn, but really, this is a gentleman’s zero.
Potential: 5%

Lenlo: Basically everything Wooper said above, this is pretty basic fujoshi bait stuff. The only thing it has going for it is that it looks decent, but unlike Wooper I’ll just give it the 0 it deserves. Honestly it’s actually rather creepy in a lot of places.
Potential: 0%

Senpai is an Otokonoko

Short Synopsis: A first year high school girl befriends a crossdressing boy after unsuccessfully confessing her love to him.

Wooper: You’ll want to brace yourself before watching Senpai is an Otokonoko, but not because of its crossdressing or genderbending themes, which are quite mild (after one episode, anyway). No, the reason you’ll need to prepare your kokoro is the constant swapping between two different art styles, which was more aggressive here than in any other anime I’ve seen this decade. I’m assuming this choice was meant to match the manga’s use of deformed character designs, but it was so distracting that I can’t get a handle on whether the show has any promise apart from its bizarre presentation. There’s a relentlessly genki first year girl whom I might have liked, if only her most impulsive moments hadn’t been depicted in that alternate style, and while the protagonist’s childhood friend didn’t leave an impression on me, he might have had a shot at memorability if not for that same issue. As for the main character, it was really just the quiet final scene (where he changed out of his feminine clothes in a storage shed and bid himself goodbye) that garnered my interest. If I were a ‘three episode rule’ kind of anime fan, I might give the show a chance to display that side of itself in the future, but in terms of first impressions, this was a miss.
Potential: 0%

Lenlo: Wooper is right, the switches between artstyle were really jarring and came at completely random times. Do we really need to swap between them in the middle of the same scene, the same conversation, the same damn shot? Really took me out of what was happening. Aside from that, I can’t say it was very interesting. I don’t see how this makes for a long-term story since the guy’s secret is revealed in the first 3 minutes of the episode. Maybe it works as a gag comedy series or something? But with how ugly and unappealing the chibi art style is, which it uses for every single one of its gags, I don’t see it working.
Potential: 0%