Category: Other:

D_Cide Traumerei the Animation

Short Synopsis: Handsome fighter fights some hands.

Mario: I’m most forgiving of fully-3D shows compared to the rest of the writers here, so I tend to be in favor of Sanzigen’s products, no matter how off-putting they look. D_Cide looks solid as I’m in tune with its aesthetic, and occasionally its use of color looks impressive to me. What I’m not sold on at all is the story, as so far it’s nothing to speak of. The main character jumps between dreams and reality – an intriguing plot in its own right – but sadly the show uses it more as a plot device to bring him to battle with CG monsters. The only storytelling beat where I feel the show gets it right is when our protagonist practices kick-boxing before all this happens. That scene speaks to me as I can see his personality right there, making his grief for his brother’s passing part of his routine, while at the same time foreshadowing his ability at the end. His war cry of “KNOCKER UP” kills the vibe a tad bit, but as things stand I am willing to give the show a few more episodes.

Potential: 30%

Wooper: Of all the stupid battle-oriented CG anime I’ve sampled over the years, D_Cide is among the stupidest. To provide a bit of context, I can’t decide whether it’s better or worse than this season’s Scarlet Nexus, which was terrible in its own right. Everything from the main character’s scalene triangle earring to the female characters’ overwrought designs to the good guys’ combat titles (Knocker-ups) are dumb with a capital “D”. The only thing I liked about the story was the main character’s martial artistry, which provides some insight into how he processed his brother’s passing – taking his departed sibling’s passion and making it his own. That fighting style is carried into his Knocker-up form, allowing him to punch giant hand monsters right in their smug zipper mouths. Those scenes are about as nonsensical as they sound, and the show’s flirtation with dreams and portals will surely muddy the waters as D_Cide progresses. Between its strange mishmash of visual ideas and its relative lack of interest in character building, there’s not a lot here to hope for. When the best thing about an anime is the ten second piano/guitar lick at the start of the OP, you know it’s a skippable experience.

Potential: 10%

Deatte 5-byou de Battle

Short Synopsis: A lone gamer dies and is summoned to a Gantz-like world for a battle royale (I made it sound more interesting than it really is).

Lenlo: I don’t know if I like Deatte or if it’s just one of the least-bad things I’ve seen so far this season. Visually it’s a mess. Deatte can’t seem to figure out how people move, how objects interact with each other or that desks don’t just fall through people. Meanwhile the characters are about as shallow as you would expect from a “death battle with super powers” style anime. Maybe some fun will be had with our borderline autistic MC who has no emotions and can’t view the world as anything other than a game, but I doubt it. No, the only value in Deatte will come from how interesting it can make its battles. The MC’s power is actually rather clever and I think if utilized well it can lead to some fun mind games. There issue there though is that I have 0 faith in Deatte to be able to avoid bullshiting its own system. For now though I can at least give it the benefit of the doubt in this drought of a season, and listen to some… interesting (?) cat girl voicework along the way.

Potential: 10%

Mario: If there’s ever been a subgenre that I don’t give a damn about, it’s Death Games. The premise for these kinds of shows is simple: you need to clear several missions, or you’re dead. While they provide many fun twists and turns, they suffer in almost every other arena. The characters are cardboard cutouts. The story runs on game logic, and has plot holes and inconsistencies all over the place. The lead boy is charmless and even unlikeable. The same extends to the whole cast and even the cat girl who pushes the boundaries of annoying voicework. Deatte 5-byou is a good example of all the ways this subgenre can screw up. It’s a silly premise with an empty cast and mediocre production. No reason to revisit this one.

Potential: 5%

Night Head 2041

Short Synopsis: Psychics time travel to a futuristic post-WW3 city and go up against a team of cyberpunk super soldiers.

Armitage: Apart from having a title that can be easily mistaken for a hentai doujin, this show doesn’t do a whole lot more to stand out. Still, it’s just the absolute mediocrity of this season that had me getting some sort of enjoyment out of its runtime. The premise is right out of a 12-year-old’s fever dream but apparently the writer who came up with that storyline forgot to think about any characters who would carry said story. That’s why most of the characters end up feeling stiff CGI caricatures simply present to list out names and motivations of other characters, most of whom never even get introduced during the premiere. The writing in general is very obtuse and expository and might very well alienate its target audience. The one positive is definitely the setting. “That’s cool and all, but make it cyberpunk” seems to be the new narrative model of late when it comes to entertainment media but thankfully Night Head 2041 does seem to get the environmental ambiance right most of the time. The CGI while still very noticeable doesn’t look nearly as bad as Ex-Arm. So that’s… good. I guess?

Potential: 35%

Lenlo: Night Head is a weird show. Visually it’s all over the place. The CGI characters, as CGI does in Japan, look stiff and lifeless 90% of the time. Meanwhile the backgrounds and general aesthetic of the show look quite nice! The lighting and diffusion, backgrounds, some fun camera shots/movements that can’t easily be done in 2D. Night Head was clearly envisioned as 3D from the beginning and makes use of that but is limited by the CGI anime pipeline. On the story side of things I think it’s… fine? It’s basically the X-Men, which I’m down for. But I’m unfamiliar with author George Iida’s other works, so I don’t know how it will pan out. For now though I’m curious enough to give it a shot, if only to see what the director can do in his debut.

Potential: 20%

Shiroi Suna no Aquatope

Short Synopsis: A failed idol and an overworked highschooler collide in a quiet, mystical…aquarium?

Mario: Ahh P.A. Works, how conflicted my love for you. Watching Aquatope, I have two conflicting trains of thoughts toward it: as the quality of the episode itself, and as an input towards the studio’s canon. As far as the former goes, they deliver an overall excellent episode. There’s an air of melancholy from the way the main character navigates this new world, or to be more exact, runs away from her own that I found believable, and the two main girls’ interaction so far sparkles with great chemistry. On top of that, it’s these side characters (don’t know if they reappear) that the main girl interacts with steal the scene they are in – special shoutout to the cheeky fortune teller. On the flip side, however, Aquatope has the same “feel” as P.A. Works other works, and the fact that most of their works start out strong, then crumble in the last half (last year’s Kamisama, the director’s last effort’s Irozuku just to name a few) doesn’t bring me much confidence in this. I’m afraid this is gonna be another case where there’s little plot to move forward, so the characters retreat to the variations of the same themes. Time will tell on that front, but my point remains that I keep my expectation reasonably medium so that it won’t let me down, hard, like their previous efforts.

Potential: 60%

Amun: I like most P.A. Works projects – well, more accurately, most of each P.A. Works project – and Aquatope is a welcome sight for sore isekai eyes this season.  This episode looked great – wonderful settings, great atmosphere, just a wholly enticing package.  I would be incredibly hopeful….except we just had Kamisama ni Natta Hi start exactly like this.  However, I’m seeing parallels to the more successful projects with the characters here – so far, it’s a pretty tight crew.  That’s good.  There’s also some mystical nonsense taking place – that’s bad.  Director Shinohara worked a good amount on Hanasaku Iroha, and I feel a very similar vibe from this opening, so there’s some real potential here.  Plus I’m enough Japanese to feel spiritually connected to fish and the ocean, so I’m really this show’s to lose here.  Come on Aquatope, you can do it!

Potential: 75%

Tsuki ga Michibiku Isekai Douchuu

Short Synopsis: Highschooler gets reincarnated into another world in Isekai’s latest shallow attempt at humorous meta-commentary on the genre.

Lenlo: Let’s be honest: This is just a crappy Konosuba/Cautious Hero/”Insert Isekai Deconstruction here”. Like these other shows Tsuki wants us to believe it’s different. That it’s aware of the tropes, that we are all in on the joke and that by acknowledging that fact we can all laugh at the meta-humor that is Tsuki’s main shtick. But like the rest of these Isekai Tsuki fails to realize that acknowledging the tropes and the jokes is not the same as deconstructing them. There are still levels, the MC is still powerful, there’s still a harem/waifu’s, etc etc. Tsuki falls into all the same traps on purpose but fails to do anything remotely interesting with them. Instead it approaches all of them with an on the nose and obvious sense of humor. And if you ask me? The humor sucks. There is nothing in Tsuki that you haven’t seen done better before. I don’t even like the other shows I listed here but at least they had the novelty of trying to do it first.

Potential: Watch anything else instead.

Mario: There are two contraction ideas that run through Tsuki isekai’s first episode that kind of negate each other’s power: that the show is meant to be a parody of the genre so it has the main boy character who can predict what will happen to him (mostly off the mark though), but at the same time, it sticks by the rules conveniently (as much as he proclaims otherwise, he’s still OPed as heck). The fact that despite all these it remains funny kind of speaks to its strengths. The satire humor is present there, where our man serves as a straight man that serves as good foil against his mean Goddess, the Dragon and the situation he ends up with. Should he remain helpless and have no clue how the new world works, it would bring something more interesting to the table. The ability he acquired – that he can speak other races’ languages – is interesting but yet to reach full potential. It’s a better isekai (which admittedly a low bar to begin with), and potentially a better show out of this underwhelmed season.

Potential: 30%

Meikyuu Black Company

Short Synopsis: Financial-bro gets reincarnated and has to do manual labor.  

Amun: So this is a strange trend I’ve noticed gaining some traction: anti-heroes.  Not like “shades of grey” – no, these are just terrible human beings who we have to follow around for a story.  Sometimes, it’s funny.  Last season was Sentouin, Hakenshimasu! which had a few bright spots.  No such luck with Meikyuu Black Company – this is a drab 20 minutes.  Animators’ wrists were worn for the creation of this.  Can you believe that?  They could have done another season of Heaven’s Memo Pad (never going to give that up), but nope – we get this instead.

Potential: Please make it stop.

Armitage: Okay, yeah. This is bad. This is Isekai satire done so black that its stains never wash off. Or at least I think it’s a satire? Though I might very well be giving the show too much credit because on face value, this is a story focusing on a downright hateable character. The protagonist, a self-made, high-functioning, multi-billionaire NEET feels like he’s always looking down on everyone including the audience. Instead of trying to make him stand out as much as possible the show goes so over the top with his mannerisms and monologues that it makes you want to quit watching this premiere after 5 minutes of maniacal screaming. But I am a professional who does her job judiciously, so I stuck with it to the bitter end. See, lovely reader? This is the kind of thing we put ourselves through so you don’t have to.

Potential: Advil needed.

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maidragon S

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

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

Potential: 70%

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

Potential: I don’t even know.

Seirei Gensouki

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

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

Potential: Get off my lawn

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

Potential: Generic isekai trash: Model #242

Cheat Kusushi no Slow Life: Isekai ni Tsukurou Drugstore

Short Synopsis: Unnecessary isekai about a drug store.

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

Potential: 0%

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

Potential: zzz

Getter Robo Arc

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

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

Potential: 50%

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

Potential: Too bad!

Tantei wa mou, Shindeiru

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

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

Potential: 15%

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

Potential: 30%

Genjitsu Shugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki

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

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

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

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

Potential: None for me

Kageki Shoujo!!

Short Synopsis: A tall girl joins an Opera troupe to play Lady OSCARRRRR. 

Armitage: Kageki Shoujo is an anime featuring an all-girls central cast, a light academia aesthetic and focusing on students training to be opera(!) performers. Yeah… um, where do I sign??

Apart from the core elements being practically tailor-made for me, this show’s highlights are by far the elegance with which it treats its theme and characters. Even the comedic moments are all graceful, never leaning into over-the-top slapstick hijinks. And that’s what makes the central dynamic between Watanabe and Ai so interesting. Though they clearly serve different purposes in the narrative. Ai, a former idol, represents the ugly side of the idol industry serving as a reminder of how pervasive celebrity fandom can be while also acting as a critique for mindless cancel culture. Watanabe on the other hand is the polar opposite of what the performing arts industry demands from its poster children – tardy, loud, uncaring about her perception in front of others; graceless. She values her family and the people who are part of her life more than keeping up appearances for strangers. In stark contrast with Ai who can barely even text her mom every once in a while. It’s a fascinating duality and one that’s bound to be the core of the show going forward. As for the production, it’s nothing out of the ordinary, but the character designs, by Takahiro Kishida of *Baccano! fame, and the backgrounds stand out well enough to cover up any shortcomings on the animation front. While the premiere served mostly as an introduction to the setting and characters, I have it on very good authority that the source material is compelling enough to hold its own. A definite keeper for me.    

Potential: 85%

Mario: There’s a sense of familiarity in watching Kageki Shoujo, but in this case I don’t regard it as detrimental. You can see all the shoujo/josei tropes in this first episode, and the overall story – of several girls with different backgrounds and personalities joining the troupe – is something that we have seen before, but the show provides some solid groundwork for the cast. Each character is distinctive and has their own voice, and the real winners here are Sarasa and Ai as their contrasted attitudes play off each other very well. Visually, the show doesn’t stand out much but the direction does very well to complement the story. Its focus on small moments is another highlight. Kageki Shoujo won’t be “the next big thing” by any measure, but it’s definitely my definition of a sleeper hit.

Potential: 50%

Uramichi Oniisan

Short Synopsis: A world-weary ex-gymnast hosts a children’s exercise show.

Wooper: Uramichi Oniisan is one of those adaptations where the manga is slapped straight on screen, which means that unless you’re blind and need voice acting to follow along, you might as well read the comic. There are a bunch of A-list seiyuu attached to the project (four of whom have supplied voices for Levi Ackerman, Light Yagami, and both boys from Haruhi’s SOS Brigade), but not even they could stop this episode from feeling about 15 minutes too long. I like the concept, and some of the gags are cleverly conceived, particularly the mascot actor who refuses to take off his rabbit head in order not to make eye contact with Uramichi. Then there’s the exhausted early-30s protagonist who, despite being in peak physical condition, is Literally Me. Despite finding the show humorous and somewhat relatable, though, it has maybe three jokes, and tells variations of them far too often to give me confidence in its next 11 episodes. If the concept of a cynical children’s entertainer and his costumed friends appeals to you, the manga scanlations are 26 chapters deep, so I’d recommend that route instead.

Potential: 15%

Armitage: In theory, Uramichi Oniisan sounds like the perfect comedy anime aimed at adults and the existential dread a lot of us constantly deal with every so often. It’s the perfect premise for a highly relatable gag comedy that would have been a welcome change of pace from all the high-school comedy shows we usually get. The only issue? It’s not funny. The gags can be seen coming from a mile away, the same template is used for almost all jokes, hell even the reaction faces are predictable. With arguably THE BEST voice acting cast in any anime… ever(?), featuring industry titans in Mamoru Miyano, Hiroshi Kamiya, comedy royalty Sugita Tomokazu, Nana Mizuki, Yuichi Nakamura, Daisuke Ono, the list goes on, really. It is such a damn shame that a dream collaboration like this is wasted on a sub standard series like the one we’ve got here.

Potential: 10%

Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid

Short Synopsis: Everyone realizes the young duke is lethal to be around…except for his busty maid who decides that actively seducing him – which would be fatal – is a great pastime.  

Mario: And here we have another show where the girl character makes “unwanted sexual teases” to our poor boy, but as weird as it might sound I do consider them a success so far. So why, you ask? The show balances out its hormonal hijinks with its sad story beats underneath, considering that our boy is cursed with death touch that forbid him to touch living things. That means, no physical contact whatsoever. That tonal shift is not always smooth, but it’s certainly layered where you can sense the sadness behind their (or lack thereof) interactions. Created by the staff behind Hi Score Girl, I expected its full CG animation would take a bit of time to get used to, so I’m genuinely pleased with what we got in this premiere. The gothic background is simple but pleasing, so does the whole production as it looks decent to me most of the time. The main draw here is certainly the titular characters, so if you don’t put off by the amount of sexual teases in this first episode, you will have a good time with it.

Potential: 60%

Amun: You know what, I like this spin on the anime female tease – if you wanna thot at our MC’s expense, then at least put some stakes on it.  In this case, touch him – you die (I actually think that because Alice already loves him, then she’s immune to the curse.  My reasoning: Duke O’ Death had a flower that she also touched and she was fine).  I think Shinigami Bocchan actually played it straight and explored aspects of the premise in an intelligent manner.  I don’t normally love 3D renders, but Shinigami Bocchan looks pretty good so far.  Despite the silliness, there’s a real story here – and for this season, that’s good enough for me.

Potential: 70%

Hamefura S2

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

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

Potential: 50%

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

Potential: 75%

Bokutachi no Remake

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

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

Potential: 40%

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

Potential: 20%

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei

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

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

Potential: 65%

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

Appeal: 0%