The Rising of the Shield Hero S2

Short Synopsis: Unexpected giant spirit tortoise terrorizes the world!

Amun: Shield Hero is best when it’s the edgy underdog that isn’t afraid to get a little scummy. For me, season one ended in a strange place – it felt like the world was expanded larger than it should have been. Season Two looks to narrow the scope with just one special event boss to fight…wait, a giant spirit tortoise? That’s seriously what it is?! The subplot of the newest party member probably will be a decent sized plot line…which I honestly don’t really care about (I don’t even really remember who that is). The most striking plot device so far is the rage shield – it’ll be interesting to keep an eye on. The visuals are still good, and I think the “mood” or “vibe” is still properly sour – I expect this to be pretty similar to season 1. Only thing is, after seeing this episode I just feel a bit down – maybe it can counteract some of the other sweeteners of the season.
Potential: 75%

Lenlo: I’m sorry, you can’t make me watch this, something something trashy slave fantasy bad.

Deaimon

Short Synopsis: A former runaway returns to his grandparents’ confectionery and discovers that they’ve already chosen a successor to run the store.

Mario: This was, for my money, the first truly solid first episode of the season. Deaimon has many admirable qualities: its art is pleasing to the eyes, its backgrounds are vivid and lived-in with a soft color palette (they remind me of Tsuki ga Kirei, which is a good thing) and the characters are thoughtful and well-developed. Well, it’s still guilty of many anime tropes (the red eyes, I never got those) and this first episode doesn’t really break any new ground story-wise, but it more than makes up for these shortcomings with grounded characters with intimate relationships. We already get to witness a deeper side of both Nagomu and Itsuka, both their personalities and their insecurities. Itsuka’s fear of rejection might not steal our tears away like 4-year-old Kotaro did (did Kotaro Lives Alone air this season, or last? It’s hard to categorize), but the bittersweet emotion at the end is well earned. I am certainly looking forward to more.
Potential: 60%

Wooper: Deaimon is sweet like the treats sold at the series’ confectionery, but it’s not particularly filling. It’s an informally adoptive father/daughter story (Japan seems to put out one of these every couple years) with an emphasis on mild comedy, even relying on a bit of costumed street music to resolve its first dilemma. The conflict between disapproving father and prodigal son is smoothed over with some comedic overreactions and a scene of the dad playing sergeant as his son does push-ups at five in the morning. That’s all fine – a light tone comes as a welcome change after oodles of anime that bear a grudge against decency – but I struggled to find anything to hold on to while watching. The ten year old girl helping to run the sweet shop has a past full of parental abandonment, but the premiere merely glances at it before averting its eyes. The chain of events that led the son to run away from home is beyond silly, making his return much less of an event than it ought to be. Deaimon is a pleasant enough watch, and the fuzzy filter used for the background art is easy on the eyes, but it’s not funny or warm enough to make up for its airiness.
Potential: 30%

Skeleton Knight in Another World

Short Synopsis: More “gamer wakes up in an MMO” bullshit, now with bonus rape.

Wooper: What’s the point of a “viewer discretion is advised” notice if it appears while the scene requiring discretion is already underway? Skeleton Knight in Another World (or “Skeleknight,” as I was planning to nickname it before I gave up twenty seconds into this episode) opens with just such a warning, only by the time your eyes shift to the top of the screen to read it, a girl’s skirt has already been torn in half by her would-be rapist. His accomplice has her friend pinned down a few meters away, breasts mostly exposed, camera perfectly positioned for maximum jiggle. As if things couldn’t get any sicker, the first guy gleefully announces that his soon-to-be victim has peed herself. This was the point where I closed my video player, feeling more disdainful than disgusted. There’s little doubt in my mind that the hero of the show stepped in to rescue both girls just seconds later, but that doesn’t change what a garbage pile this premiere was bound to be after that sort of beginning. If I’m going to watch an anime that contains sexual violence, it’s going to be Ninja Scroll or Berserk – something that uses the act to comment on the cruelty of its world or characters. If you open your seasonal isekai (strike one) with a rape scene (strike two) just so your hero can save the damsel in distress (strike three), you’re out.
Potential: None

Lenlo: You have no idea how tempted I was to, in the first 2 seconds of this show, immediately close it. However seeing that is exactly what Wooper did, I felt the need to stick it through. To really see what this show is about. My conclusion? It’s just crappy Overlord. Which is saying something, since Overlord already wasn’t very good. It’s like someone saw the arc where the lead dresses up as a knight to hide being a Lich, thought “That was cool”, and made an entire show about it. And that includes all of the shitty MMO skills/stats/gear crap that has come to permeate the Isekai genre. The sad thing with Skeleknight though is that, at least going by the OP, it could have been something! It could have embraced all the stupidity of its concept and gone full-camp and been fine! It wouldn’t have been a good show. But it would have at least been mindless fun. You can see it in a few places that actually got a chuckle out of me, like the randomly assigned backstory. But it’s like a single glittering copper piece in the dung pile that is the rest of this show. And that’s just sad.
Potential: 0 Copper Pieces

Amun: As the resident isekai enjoyer, I must thank Mr. Wooper for sacrificing his eyeballs to warn us of this opening. I only wish someone had warned me with Goblin Slayer…

BIRDIE WING: Golf Girls’ Story

Short Synopsis: Blondie with a tragic upbringing plays underground golf to survive.

Mario: Most of its runtime Birdie Wing is ridiculous and inconsistent, but that’s precisely the reason why it has its own charms that other sports anime seem to lack. It frames its main character not as a traditional sportsperson, but as an underdog superhero at times (what’s with all the special moves and money-shot still images?). The plot carries the same bizarre sense of logic – you have a girl who poses as another pro golfer and gets away with it, inconsistencies across the board (look at the tree that gets chopped down within just a few frames), and uneven production that looks bad half of the time and looks great only in key moments… but guess what? I’m buying it all. At least, all the characters are fun to watch and I cannot wait to see what ridiculousness they can cook up next. Count me in on this ride.
Potential: 50%

Lenlo: The sad truth of Birdie Wing is that… it just doesn’t look good. It’s ambitious at times, I’ll give it that. Going for these full-green camera shots, following the ball as it bursts through trees and over the rough. But the CGI is painfully bad and the composite is about the same. I understand why Birdie Wing did it. They had to try anything they could to make golf of all things interesting to watch. So they made it about hot girls, added in some Jojo-esque super-powered swings and tried to have some crazy action shots. It’s kinda fun and wacky, going for that same energy Sk8 had last year. But unlike Sk8 or Jojo, Birdie Wing fails to nail that thin line where camp is good for me. At the end of the day this is still an uninteresting golf show and I have little desire to watch more of it. Which is a shame, because I was hopeful that this might be a surprise of an otherwise sequel laden season. Least the blondie is kinda cute.
Potential: 20%

The Greatest Demon Lord Is Reborn as a Typical Nobody

Short Synopsis: If you don’t have friends, just reincarnate! [This is actually a really, really terrible message if you think about it]

Lenlo: Dear Lord who art in Heaven, please free me from the garbage Fantasy Light Novel trend. Surprisingly enough, despite its similarity to I’m Quitting Heroing in premise, this isn’t the worst series I’ve seen today. Turning a big demon lord into a chuuni got a chuckle or two out of me. I don’t think that’s enough to carry the show, I was still checked out for most of it. But it’s more promising than the other crap I’ve watched today so for that it gets a slightly higher score. Watch this if you want the not-worst fantasy light novel of the season to fill some time.
Potential: 5%

Amun: I’m pretty sure you could graph Lenlo’s scores vs mine and find a perfect inverse correlation. While he thinks Greatest Demon Lord is better than I’m Quitting Heroing, I think it’s quite a bit worse. This is an annoying evolution of isekai – the reincarnated OP demon lord trying to find friends. However, I think this is likely better than last season’s Shikkakumon, which was a monotonous march to the finish. There’s some potential for an interesting backstory with the reincarnated pair with betrayal, elf-racism, etc. – but I really didn’t engage with either character’s sob story. This is Silver Link, so expect some of the awkward fight scenes they’re known for – I’m not expecting this series to look amazing. The bottom line? “Watch this if you want the not-worst fantasy light novel of the season to fill some time.” (See – Lenlo and I did agree on something.)
Potential: 35%

RPG Fudousan

Short Synopsis: A pink-haired mage finds employment as a real estate agent and gets to know her coworkers (and shows superior knowledge of flowers to close a deal).

Wooper: This is Tomoaki Koshida’s fourth attempt at directing a series that anybody cares about, and from the looks of this premiere, it’s destined to be his fourth failure. This episode commits a big faux pas not even a minute into its run, when it directs two characters to excessively praise the female lead for something she’s not very good at (in this case, her unremarkable singing). Whenever you read a script or watch a series that flatters its own protagonist this way, you can be reasonably sure the rest of the story will take the easy route as well. Sure enough, RPG Fudousan does this at every available moment. In place of a plot, it tosses off a few lines about its fantasy land experiencing a post-war golden age, then busies itself with vapid exchanges and gags among its cast. The characters are designed with a single-minded focus on cuteness, to the point that they don’t seem capable of anything other than basic biological functions and cloying pleasantries. There’s a girl named Fa who exists strictly as pedo bait, shedding her clothes at various points and speaking with a childish lisp that’s sure to drive its intended audience wild. That’s the only value RPG Fudousan has, really – as a honeypot to attract lolicons so they don’t congregate around better shows.
Potential: 0%

Amun: Mmmm, this was a bit of a letdown. If you came in expecting cute girls to work in a cute workplace, doing cute things – this was spot on. I was hoping to see a slice of life dealing with a forced change of professions based on post-war circumstances in a fantasy land. What I got was a nudist loli dragon, an exhibitionist/type-A/genderbender warrior, a blonde perfect girl, and our generic lead – who, and this is weird that it bothers me this much, has shoes that do NOT match the rest of her outfit. Seriously, those little heel boot things completely clash with the rest of the quasi-Victorian witch outfit going on. Her professional attire matches them a little better, but still – get her a different pair of shoes! Like some flats with a cat design buckle would have been perfectly on character there – even given her some extra depth. Maybe it was to drive home the point of a country girl trying to not look it – it still annoys me. Sorry, we got off track there. There are probably better slice of life series this season – go watch those.
Potential: 15%

Black★★Rock Shooter: DAWN FALL

Short Synopsis: Sleepy robot (?) girl saves some kids from bad robots.

Amun: I think I’ve seen the original ONA, and I definitely watched the 8 episodes that came out about a decade ago. Obviously there’s the original song and music video that catapulted the titular character to fame. However…I have no idea how any of that is related to Dawn Fall, except that the character design looks very similar. If my foggy memory serves, last time Black Rock Shooter was in a high school and switching between the post-apocalyptic world; this time around seems pretty set in the dystopian future of man vs machine (maybe she was fighting the same big boss at the end?). There are some pretty common robots-becoming-human themes here – although Mr. Sexbot 3000 was a bit of a surprise in his, erm, approach to deeply understanding humanity. There’s a bit of self-aware humor here (which, given some of the translation issues, might be more of a fansub editorial than the actual script), but the dialogue is pretty sparse. Given the oddities with the release licensing (Disney+ strikes again), I think the best hope is a legitimate fansub group picks this up. The big takeaway is that Dawn Fall looks great – in fact, I think they could have slowed down a few of their shots in the fighting sequence, there was just so much action packed in. Sure it’s CG, but that was always BRS’s MO, so no surprises there. My guess? It’ll be easy on the eyes and light on the plot. Sounds good to me!
Potential: 60%

Mario: I came to Black Rock Shooter without any real expectation and I got out of it mildly impressed. I have no prior knowledge to Black Rock Shooter franchise, but I have no problem following the story as 1) it is a reboot and 2) Dawn Fall is very light on plot and big on explosions. Yes, the story is such a mess (when you see a battle right off the bat without knowing whom to root for, it’s a bad sign), the characters are just cardboard figures at the moment (the main character has – yeah, you guessed it – amnesia), its visuals look consistently confident at all times. The CG fights blend together well, so does the choreography of the fights. At the moment, Dawn Fall is one of the titles that flew under the radar the most – it is only streaming in Japan and hardly gets a proper sub, and its appeal is mainly for those who have experienced the franchise before – but I am here to claim that it looks more polished than half of the current season’s offerings, if you can shut down your brain because the plot doesn’t really matter.
Potential: 40%

I’m Quitting Heroing

Short Synopsis: Single-handedly defeating a demon army does not provide the expected job security for a hero.

Lenlo: I really wonder if me and Amun watched the same show because seriously if it walks like isekai trash, quacks like isekai trash and has all the visual blandness of isekai trash then lets just call it isekai trash. Yeah there’s no opening scene where some schmuck gets hit by a truck and gets teleported, yet aside from that everything about this series has the structure of one. From the oft-repeated shallow fantasy crap to what I consider to be bland and standard visuals. This show is just painfully boring. It took me an hour to get through a 24 minute episode because none of it had any charm. Visually and narrative this comes off like a series made by a bunch of old men in committee, not by someone with any actual passion. So yeah, count me out. I’d rather watch Shield Hero than this. At least that revels in its trashiness.
Potential: 0%

Amun: This is one of my most anticipated non-sequel shows of the season (the other being Spy x Family). From the first episode, I’d say….they probably spent all their budget on the premiere. You can tell from the little animation tricks, especially when fighting the full formed demon. Which, if this turns out to be even decently animated, I think it’s still fully serviceable – I’m just a little concerned to see some shortcuts this early on. The character adaptations from the manga feel okay, although I feel as though Leo came off a little wooden (I imagined him a bit more cocky, but he feels pretty bland for someone who is that OP). That said, I love this premise – and I think even this MC has some potential. Normally, we’re seeing MC’s with “soft-skills” who are wildly weak or reincarnated, overpowered heroes who were supposedly awkward in their past life but still end up with the harem – Leo lacks people skills to such an extreme that he managed to go from the savior of the country to the villain. Now that’s talent. However, it’s hard to strike the balance between a character the viewers want to cheer for and someone completely insufferable. All in all? I’m still here for a few more episodes (probably the whole season, to be honest), but I’m trimming my expectations slightly.
Potential: 70%

Tomodachi Game

Short Synopsis: Five students are dragged into a series of psychological games in order to repay one person’s debt.

Lenlo: The best way I can describe Tomodachi Game is knock-off Squid Game. It’s not that Tomodachi Game is a bad premise, nor that the game played is dull. Rather it’s that Tomodachi Game falls into the same trap that every other series trying to mimic Kaiji does: It cares more about the games than it does the players. Despite the fact that it’s the players, the characters and their circumstances and why they are playing to begin with, that makes these series work. Squid Game works because we care about Seong Gi-hun, Abdul Ali, etc. Kaiji works because of how much time we spend with him and how we come to know him. But Tomodachi Game dives right into a 5-person game, only giving us a single second of flashing character cards and a few small scenes for each. I don’t know, or care, about any of these people yet. I don’t buy their friendship or their bond. In fact, because of the way this show is framed, I have doubted its authenticity from the beginning. Suffice to say that this was a miss for me, despite some colorful directing.
Potential: 20%

Wooper: I was sure that this was going to be terrible, but Tomodachi Game’s playful storyboarding managed to rescue this episode – during the gambling scenes, anyway. The consistent use of diagrams explained the rules and illustrated the stakes for each character, and a few colorful backgrounds gave the games an exaggerated feeling that I kind of liked. There’s a clear mandate here to emphasize the psychological aspect at the expense of everything else – probably the right call given the show’s limited resources, but it does handicap the characters in a major way. The series is in such a rush to get to the debt repayment games that it introduces the cast with on-screen paragraphs, and the way it pits Money and Friendship against each other in the protagonist’s flashbacks is some of the most blatant theming that any anime has served up in recent years. All five kids are such nonentities that there’s no reason to care whether they get through the games or drown in debt; the brown-haired girl in particular is a nauseatingly transparent representation of innocence. Tomodachi Game might be worth somebody’s time if future episodes get much crazier, but it’s so thinly written that I’m done after one.
Potential: 25%