Vanitas no Carte S2

Short Synopsis: A bunch of vampires, vampire hunters, a vampire doctor, and some spooky clowns go to fight an ancient monster, only to get time warped and fight each other.

Armitage: It’s kind of strange to see vampire anime making such a return to the mainstream all of a sudden. I have been known to bemoan the lack of representation for bloodsucking white people in this medium but lately I have been feeling spoiled for choice. Sure, most of them are still your standard fare and barely better than mediocre. Your Vlad Love and your Kyuuketsuki (Mars Red is good tho, fight me) and it’s easy to see Vanitas no Karte belonging to the same crop. But it really does do enough to stand well and above the rest of its clan. Its light-hearted colorful exterior is an affront for a philosophical, dark core and it isn’t afraid to tear its own chest apart to give us a glimpse of its beating heart. It’s good stuff, to put it shortly. And while this season 2 premiere doesn’t necessarily kick things off in blistering fashion, it has earned enough goodwill from me in its previous season to be fully onboard with what comes next. I see this following in the footsteps of Golden Kamuy and building up on a first cour that laid the groundwork to turn into something truly special as it goes along.

Potential: 80%

Amun: Well that was pretty weird. No secret that Vanitas’ first half didn’t have the strongest ending – but the second half has certainly started off strangely. Our merry band of frenemies (and legitimate enemies) goes out to find this “Beast”, only to get time warped. Alright then. I’m getting tremendous Re:Zero S2 vibes from the timeskip, the snow, and the mysterious new goth girl. Which isn’t really a bad thing, but a bit unexpected from our buddy French vampire show. The fights and animation still look great, so I’m along for the ride – but I’m concerned that the story is starting to wander.

Potential: 75%

Futsal Boys!!!!!

Short Synopsis: Two high school boys put some mean ol’ bullies in their place with mad futsal skills.

Mario: I admit that I had reasonably high hopes for this original sports show, and as a result I was let down by the first episode. But while the premiere isn’t a standout by any means, It’s still a functional one. In the span of 20 minutes it establishes the basics of futsal, introduces the team and the personalities of our main characters. The only issue with that is that by doing so it forcefully creates a mock-match and pushes the drama in all directions. The production is subpar for a sports show, unfortunately, hence we get a fair share of still screens even in this first episode. I’m still intrigued to see how the team will shape up so I will be checking in for the next few episodes, but as with any sports show my concern is whether or not they could end this conclusively in a cour.

Potential: 30%

Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan to

Short Synopsis: Two guys are whisked away from their mundane lives to live in a fantasy world, but one of them loses an important package in the process.

Wooper: Congratulations to the makers of this show for waiting until the 20 minute mark to display a midair menu detailing the main characters’ stats. I know it’s hard not to replicate every trope of reincarnation anime immediately upon summoning your protagonists to their new world, so the fact that Fantasy Bishoujo was able to delay such a well-loved staple for so long is proof of its rookie director’s patience. I hope to cultivate the same sort of patience within myself as I wait for this isekai romcom, which has already hooked me after a single episode, to air each week. It will take a determined heart and a diligent mind not to read ahead in the manga and find out whether these thirty-something men, one of whom was cursed with the body of a teenage girl, will confess their feelings for each other. But damn it, if a first time director can master her impulses and put the focus on her characters before feeding us those oh-so-sweet video game menu screens, I can surely restrain myself for seven days at a time. Those week-long waits will make each new episode that much better, I just know it!

Potential: 0%

Sabikui Bisco

Short Synopsis: A bow-wielding terrorist crosses a lifeless desert in order to meet a doctor specializing in illegal mushrooms.

Wooper: Sabikui Bisco may be the most ambitious anime of the winter season. It’s set in a future where rust is spreading across both planet Earth and the bodies of its inhabitants; its far-out costume design has half the characters dressed in masks and/or cloaks; and its fixation on mushrooms dips into the realms of both medicine and combat. More than its setting or visual themes, though, the main thing I noted about this premiere was its habit of jumping between locations and conversations. From a man trying to hide his identity from a pair of border guards to a black market mushroom dealer haggling with a food stall owner to a teenage doctor operating out of a brothel, Sabikui Bisco did a more than decent job of keeping things connected despite its plethora of characters and ideas. It ended on a strong note as well, with two people who we’d seen on opposite ends of a desert finally meeting in the episode’s last scene. I’m less enthused about the show’s production, unfortunately, as the eye-catching scenery isn’t sufficient to distract from the stiff character animation or the shortcuts taken when depicting Bisco’s mushroom barrages (rather than sprouting, the toadstools simply appear in frame with a cluster of airborne rubble hiding their point of origin). I’ll be sticking with this show for a while, but it’s got a lot more to prove if it wants to be truly memorable.

Potential: 60%

Armitage: I love this world. I mean, not our own, obviously, but the world that Sabikui Bisco paints across the densely packed 24 minutes of its runtime. Desert dunes and retro-futuristic cities. Traders of skin and automaton lizards for car rides. It’s all just dripping with cool while never feeling overly moreish. It almost feels like Xam’d lost Memories went on a cyberpunk bender and was found on the side of the road the night after. The character writing here isn’t going to win any awards and like Woop mentioned the actual character animation is not all that great. But these are all issues I am willing to overlook if we can get a deep dive into the underbelly of a world that for now appears to be a living breathing thing of its own. Hopefully, this will FINALLY be an LN adaptation that doesn’t crash and burn after a promising start.

Potential: 70%

Koroshi Ai

Short Synopsis: An assassin cons a bounty hunter into going on a date with him by doing her job for her.

Lenlo: I’ll be honest, there’s nothing in Koroshi Ai I haven’t seen done better elsewhere. Visually it’s pretty weak, but in a season as bad as this it’s still probably in the upper half. The storyboards are uninspired and everything looks like it’s lit from a singular source from directly above at all times. It’s just not that good looking. Meanwhile narratively the premise of competing assassins/spies/whatever falling for each other is fine but I can’t help but think of works that have done it far better. Stuff like the currently releasing (and soon to get an anime) Spy x Family. Koroshi Ai is trying for something darker than that, true. But I don’t think it has the chops to pull it off if this episode is anything to go by. It couldn’t sell me on the assassins, it couldn’t sell me on the romance, and it couldn’t sell me on it being a visually interesting watch. And if you can’t sell me on any of those… Why bother watching?

Potential: 0%

Mario: In a rather weak season – the weakest in recent memory actually – Koroshi Ai remains one of the most promising shows, but I still have heaps of issues with it. I feel like I’m in the minority who buys into this “creepy” advance of Ryong-ha Son, an assassin who has the hots for our lead girl. He’s unpredictable for one thing, and he can be over-the-top and still fit into the premise. But my interest in the chemistry between them doesn’t hide the fact that the show looks pretty bad at times. Furthermore, for the pulpy mystery elements I’m feeling a bit mixed. The show doesn’t tone down the violence on any of its killing scenes, but why is that exactly? Wouldn’t it need to go much darker later on? Despite some issues, I’m in for a few more episodes to see where the lead relationship goes from here.

Potential: 40%

Kenja no Deshi wo Nanoru Kenja

Short Synopsis: In a riveting turn of events, an MMO player decides to change his character’s appearance from male to female.

Wooper: Full disclosure: I bailed on Kenja no Deshi’s premiere halfway through the episode. Once you get a look at its first two images you’ll understand why – this is an anime for people so addicted to MMOs that they feel uncomfortable watching any other sort of story unfold. It opens with a bunch of narration explaining the lore of the game, and follows that up with scenes of characters praising it as though they were part of an in-game advertisement. The OP sounds like the sort of karaoke song that would only be selected if somebody got really drunk and picked it by mistake. The mid-episode battle scene is so poorly laid out and relies on such unattractive CG that it’s a wonder nobody pulled the plug on the entire show after seeing it. (Then again, the people who greenlit this show probably don’t care.) Usually I can get some satisfaction out of dunking on these greasy light novel adaptations, but this one was so hideously unimaginative that I couldn’t make it through. Do not watch this anime.

Potential: 0%

Lenlo: You know, I thought Wooper was exaggerating. I thought that I could come in here, make an MMO joke, something about “Just go play FF14” since that’s been my addiction lately. But when I watched the episode it was… it was one of the most aggressively mediocre things I have ever seen. Even people who like the Isekai MMO genre will find nothing here. Everything Wooper said above is true and more. Just go watch Leadale. Or Log Horizon. Or hell SAO, at least that one looks pretty decent most of the time. Just don’t watch this.

Potential: Why does this exist %