Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Jigokuraku S2

Short Synopsis: Season 2 of Jigokuraku, where we hunt down a bunch of Taoist immortal monsters for the elixir of immortality.

Lenlo: So like many sequels, I feel pretty comfortable saying that if you didn’t like the first season, the second won’t change your mind. Yes, this is where I feel Jigokuraku’s narrative starts to pick up a bit, with the Tensen taking center stage and many of the mysteries around Tao and the Island beginning to be answered. So if your main issue was that nothing was happening, then you might enjoy this more. But at its core, Jigokuraku remains a shounen battle series fueled by Taoism where our unlikely heroes team up and defeat a bunch of immortal monsters. In my eyes, so long as the animation is solid (it is) and the story doesn’t interfere with it (it doesn’t), then that’s all I need.
Potential: 40%

Oshi no Ko S3

Short Synopsis: Oshi no Ko establishes its new status quo now that Aqua is busy with his variety show and B-Komachi is gaining popularity.

Mario: Here we have the new, hopefully final, season of Oshi no Ko. I’d say that this episode is more of the same, as it still has insights into the Japanese entertainment industry (Aqua has to shoot 4 episodes of his TV show in a day), with some twisted drama and heightened romance, sometimes not in a good way. I’m still not sure why Aqua, for example, avoids Kana for fear that her reputation would be affected if they were dating (or worse, that a stalker might attack her like they did Ai), but is still dating Akane anyways? Doesn’t he hold the same concern for her? The aspect of this episode I do like is how it is told from Mem-cho’s perspective, as she has been overshadowed by her teammates in previous seasons. What’s the deal with the man Ruby seeks out at the end? I guess we will find out in the next episode.
Potential: 40%

Sousou no Frieren S2

Short Synopsis: Season 2 of Frieren, where a pair of children babysit a 1000 year old elf as they travel the world.

Lenlo: And so we come to the final show of the season. I have to say, I’m really mixed on this first ep. A lot of the highs are still there (Himmel was once again the best part of the episode), it’s animated beautifully, and something about Atsumi’s performance as Frieren just pulls me in. But… Man has it never hit the same highs as those first four episodes. I’ve already gone on a rant about the stupid crystals in Discord, how they found a palm-sized one on the side of the road but somehow no one has found or noticed the cave with literal billions-of-dollars’ worth of crystal like, 50 feet under the main road? Hey Wirbel, those demons? Walk 20 minutes down the road, you might find something to help! It’s stuff like this, or the exam arc, that don’t live up to the carefully crafted world and story that I initially fell in love with, which makes it difficult for me to really recommend Frieren. I think, overall, there’s still a lot to love and enjoy about the show, and it’s most likely going to be one of the prettiest shows of the season, but I can’t confidently say it’s going to be one of the best.
Potential: 60%

Trigun Stargaze

Short Synopsis: Trigun, but it’s not really Trigun, it’s a weird new Trigun, but man does it look really pretty.

Lenlo: Hey, Milly is finally back! I’ll admit, I don’t remember much about Trigun Stampede, as it was kind of all over the place. So a decent bit of this first episode made absolutely no sense to me, especially after how season 1 ended. Even with that hurdle though, I had fun. Studio Orange continues to make CGI work, with beautiful animation and incredible facial and full body expressions, Trigun really does look great. But outside that… I’m torn. I’m really not sure how much fans of the original show will enjoy this remake. If you’re able to separate it from the 90s anime, think of it as its own unique thing (which I suspect anyone still interested after the first season will be able to), then it should be a good, if confusing, time. If you’re not though, if you’re somehow still stuck on this being Trigun and not Trigun Stargaze, I think you’ll be put off by how different everything is. Personally though, Studio Orange go brr, I wanna see what their take on the series is and watch some pretty lights as they do.
Potential: 40%

Prism Rondo

Short Synopsis: The young adult heiress to a kimono boutique enrolls at a prestigious art school in early 20th century London.

Wooper: Prism Rondo (Love Through a Prism) may be the most Netflix anime ever to Netflix. I don’t typically bring up streaming services when doing these impressions, as they’re really just delivery systems for the shows themselves, but this one falls so neatly into one of its home site’s subgenres (young woman navigates life in a trendy European city) that I was taken aback. Not every anime set at an art college needs to match Honey & Clover’s level of oddity, but Prism Rondo falls on the opposite end of the spectrum, opting for total straightforwardness, and I wasn’t convinced by that choice. The school where protagonist Lili enrolls is quite traditional, so some amount of presentational simplicity is appropriate, but the “become the top student in six months” mandate from her parents offers too clear a path forward in my mind. On the plus side, the visuals are very nice, especially the background art, which is the biggest draw of this premiere. Yasuko Takahashi’s character designs, too, give everyone a striking appearance – even passersby on bustling London streets and within the halls of St. Thomas Art Academy. I’ll keep watching this one for its setting and female focus, but something tells me I won’t make it through all 20 episodes.
Potential: 30%

The Holy Grail of Eris

Short Synopsis: A young girl is possessed by the spirit of a disgraced dead noblewoman who helps the girl navigate the noble court.

Lenlo: So I guess we’re haunted by the spirit of a dead noblewoman because we witnessed her last moments, and she occasionally decides to help us out as we navigate noble society? If I’m being perfectly honest, I zoned out roughly halfway through Eris. Neither Scarlet nor Constance were particularly interesting to me, and the opening scenes of the execution and the ballroom that were meant to set the series up both fell flat. I guess if you’re looking for some kind of girl-boss rising through the ranks of the nobility with the help of Casper Scarlet the friendly ghost, this could be fun, but for me it was a whole lot of nothing. Still, there was nothing offensively bad about it or anything. It was just dull.
Potential: 5%

Shibou Yuugi de Meshi wo Kuu

Short Synopsis: Cute girls participate in death games for money, and no matter what happens so long as they survive they’ll be put back together.

Lenlo: I’m really not sure how I feel about Shibou. Narratively I’m probably in, decently executed death games with casts who take it seriously are fun, and Shibou seems to have just that. It wasn’t afraid to off people right from the start, and it managed to be brutal about it without being excessively gory or over the top. Visually though… Someone is trying something here, and I’m not convinced it works. Are we Monogatari, with the numbered scenes, pastel color palettes, and weird low-detail splotchy wide shots? Or are we Hand Shakers with the diffused lighting, rapid cuts and weird, excessively detailed eyes? I don’t know! There’s a distinct possibility that Shibou is blowing everything it has on its first episode with a double feature and that the rest of the show is nothing like this, it is Studio DEEN after all. But to figure that out I’ll have to watch more, so Shibou has at least succeeded at hooking me for a second episode, and that’s all you can really ask of a premiere.
Potential: 60%

Jujutsu Kaisen: The Culling Game

Short Synopsis: Season 3 of Jujutsu Kaisen, you know what this is at this point, don’t yell at me.

Lenlo: So the thing about JJK is, it’s really just a vibe at this point. The narrative, the characters, all of that is kind of mediocre to me, none of it is interesting or particularly well written, aside from a quick arc with Maki I do quite like. So the question then becomes, why bother watching it? Well because someone as MAPPA is clearly in love with it, because the production is bonkers, in more ways than one. Sometimes beautiful and fluid, sometimes incoherent and messy, JJK is never not visually interesting to look at. So many different color palettes, it’s not afraid to just splash some purple or green or red on the screen, some really stark lighting at times that I love, it just looks good. So as I said at the top, don’t watch this for the narrative, watch it because it’s a vibe and someone at MAPPA took drugs while animating parts of it.
Potential: 50%

The Case Book of Arne

Short Synopsis: An immortal, all-powerful vampire solves cases involving mysterious monsters, and then murders them.

Lenlo: I dunno, it’s fine? Arne feels like it can’t decide whether it wants to be a mystery thriller about a vampire detective solving supernatural mysteries akin to Undead Murder Farce, or an action series with an OP MC “Strongest vampire king” who utterly destroys and overpowers the “evil” supernatural forces. It’s clearly meant to be like, the endgame of each story is Arne defeating them physically after figuring out their scheme, but it doesn’t really work for me. Slap on a vampire obsessed child following our lead around, and the knowledge this is based on a mediocre video game, and I’m just not interested enough to try out a second episode. Still, there isn’t anything outright terrible about it, so maybe you can find some fun?
Potential: 10%

Champignon no Majo

Short Synopsis: A day in the life of a forest-dwelling young witch who is known for her poisonous mushrooms.

Mario: Woah, this show came out of nowhere and charmed my socks off. While witches are a common topic within anime, this one just breathes and feels different from these other shows. Heck, I don’t even know where Champignon no Majo is headed after this episode. For now it’s about Luna the Black Witch, who lives alone but not by herself, as she has a bunch of familiars and spirits whom she can talk to. Every time she heads to the nearby village though, everyone would be scared of her because poisonous mushrooms appear after every step she takes. The art style itself is soft and pleasant – the show doesn’t go big on animation but I feel the static shots work well in this context. The script is really big on narration, which isn’t a bad thing in this case as it communicates a lot about things we wouldn’t know otherwise (like how the apothecary and the librarian clean up everything she touches). While I don’t really know about the big picture, what we’ve seen of Luna’s life so far has already convinced me to continue watching it. At least I know I have a protagonist worth rooting for.
Potential: 60%

You and I Are Polar Opposites

Short Synopsis: A neurotic yet cheerful high school girl and her reserved seatmate kick off their new relationship after holding hands one afternoon.

Wooper: As far as romcom premieres go, this one was impressive – maybe my favorite since Komi-san’s first episode in late 2021. Polar Opposites (Seihantai na Kimi to Boku) has a narrower gap between its quiet and loud moments than that show, since its soft-spoken character actually speaks, and the personalities of its supporting cast aren’t as exaggerated (so far). But both have strong visuals, attention-grabbing character designs, and noteworthy OPs. That last point is especially true for Polar Opposites, as although it dabbles in the same smartphone theme as a lot of recent high school anime, its opening also throws in a handful of other styles for good measure, from manipulatives to chalk to Lego (both 3DCG and physical). The episode itself wasn’t as experimental, but its willingness to cartoon-ify its heroine made her relatable rather than merely quirky, and the wordless boldness of her crush pushed us into reciprocal romantic territory with a speed befitting a modern entry in the subgenre. There’s already a sense that Suzuki and Tani-kun are compatible despite their differing personalities, as she sometimes craves the sort of calmness he provides, and he appreciates her energy despite his own quietness. Theirs ought to be an amusing relationship, so I’ll be following it this season.
Potential: 70%

Yuusha no Kuzu

Short Synopsis: A bounty hunter (known as a Brave) is approached by two junior Braves to help them rescue their kidnapped friend.

Mario: I’m not sure if I can get behind this show’s main concept: there are people known as Braves who use their special powers (by injecting ether into their cheek) to fight monsters and save the world? Somehow we just get thrown in the middle of the story so it’s hard to navigate at times. What is clear is that our main character, a washed-up Brave, thinks differently than his peers about the so-called noble profession they share. Yuusha no Kuzu doesn’t skimp on the brutality, and the MC’s slippery personality contrasts well with the earnestness of the younger characters. This wasn’t that bad of a premiere, but I’m not that excited to watch more of it either.
Potential: 30%

The Darwin Incident

Short Synopsis: A human-chimpanzee student goes about his daily life while eco-terrorists plot in the background.

Mario: I suppose the reason for Darwin Jihen’s appeal is that we still don’t know where it wants to go with this premise. On the one hand, I do like Charlie as the main character and the way he navigates the world. He has a different point of view than a typical human protagonist, and he isn’t afraid to be who he is. On the other hand, the way the show blatantly delivers that message by having a lot of humans who say terrible or racist comments to him just for the sake of it is just… too in-your-face. I feel the plot is going to evolve much more than what we see here, but if the show can keep Charlie as the main protagonist, I am fairly confident that he can carry the show. Just maybe… ease up on the humans.
Potential: 30%

Lenlo: So like… When I first saw the key vis for this, I thought Darwin was about like, a monkey playing chess or something? But instead it’s about a human-chimpanzee hybrid going to high school with his best friend/love interest, and the animal-rights people who rescued him are now back as terrorists? I’m so confused. Why does this exist? Who made this? Why? Everything about it is kind of just weird, from his offputting design to this basically just being a loner story but there’s actually a damn good reason for this kid to be a loner this time. It’s kind of just an odd show. There’s nothing especially bad about it, but there’s nothing particularly good or noteworthy either. It sort of just… exists.
Potential: 15%

Osananajimi to wa Love Comedy
ni Naranai

Short Synopsis: A high schooler is torn between romancing either of his childhood friends, both of whom are head over heels for him.

Mario: This is the first of the harem shows I mentioned several posts ago, and to be brutally honest it’s even worse than the title makes it sound. This dude has two childhood friends who want to eat him alive, and we see things from both his perspective (acting cool despite being aware of their attraction), and the girls’ perspective. The MC having no personality is pretty much a given, but what’s worse is the blatant ways they try to seduce him in front of their class via the “childhood friend” wildcard. Looking at the OP, there will be a few other girls joining this harem as well. This is the first show I watched in 2026, and it wasn’t a good way to start the new year at all.
Potential: 0%

High School Kimengumi

Short Synopsis: Numerous five-person clubs full of oddballs vie for influence in a school where no one is expected to learn anything.

Wooper: I expected to rely on fansubs for this show (a remake of a comedy manga adaptation from the 1980s), but one streaming service or another actually picked it up despite its lack of western appeal. That’s unmistakably a good thing, but as for this premiere itself, it was unmistakably bad – more than that, it was one of the most obnoxious anime episodes I’ve seen so far this decade. It started innocuously enough, with a transfer student making a minor fool of herself during her introduction, then expressing her amusement at a Mad Max-parodying quintet who busted into the classroom afterwards. Coming into this episode, I knew their superdeformed antics would power Kimengumi’s comedy, so her interest in their club of dumbasses didn’t throw me. What did surprise me, though, was just how little breathing room the show left itself once these five pranksters got going. Trampling rival clubs, emerging from desks like Jack-in-the-boxes, stuffing bread down people’s throats while sprinting around campus, biking downhill fast enough to warp the space-time continuum – there was no rhyme or reason to anything that happened in this episode beyond the first few scenes. Even a comet bearing the label “GRADUATION” crashing to Earth and aging the characters up to high school wasn’t weird enough to serve as a conclusion, since the show went on for five painful minutes after that point. Even by gag manga standards, this was total trash.
Potential: 0%

The Demon King’s Daughter
is Too Kind

Short Synopsis: One of the Demon King’s lieutenants repeatedly tries and fails to rid his boss’s daughter of her kind-heartedness.

Wooper: There must be at least 50 Demon King-themed anime in existence by this point, so I didn’t think much of this show when I was going over the winter 2026 chart, but this episode surprised me with its charm. Misaki Kuno was cast as the king’s daughter for her trademark baby voice, I’d imagine (she also played Momo in 3-gatsu no Lion), and your tolerance for her delivery will be the biggest factor in whether you enjoy the show. Personally, I found it somewhat cloying, especially when combined with her character’s incorruptible innocence, but the daughter’s relationship to the rest of the cast made up for it. I like the concept of a ruthless demon who wants to conquer the entire universe, but has to put his plans on hold due to the soothing influence of his daughter (maybe I’m just at the age where I’m beginning to want a kid, even though I work with kids all day). On the older side of the spectrum, there was a subplot about an elderly human dollmaker, complete with flashbacks to her loved ones (now deceased) to whom the dolls had once belonged – that scene, along with the mutual love between the dollmaker and the demon princess, had me tearing up at a couple points. This show won’t bowl anyone over with its visuals or story, but it made me smile, and that’s worth a little something.
Potential: 30%

An Adventurer’s Daily Grind at 29

Short Synopsis: A traveling swordsman adopts an ordinary-looking orphan girl who turns out to be a succubus.

Wooper: Let’s address the Japanese elephant in the room upfront: the cute little kid adopted by this show’s adult protagonist is a succubus who transforms only at night, staring lustfully at her new caretaker’s sleeping form. Somebody had better check Freud’s grave, because this premise may have been Oedipal enough to bring him back from the dead. This plot twist doesn’t feel especially compatible with the show’s comedic tone, seeing as it’s packed with chibi cutaways and ironic on-screen text, but a bit of Googling tells me that this bit of bait isn’t particularly relevant to the overall story of the manga. Even so, I’m not interested in making Adventurer’s Daily Grind part of my Weekly Anime Grind, as its dungeon-crawling lite fantasy world is entirely nondescript. The animation maxes out at “competent,” which renders the humor ineffective – scenes of secret succubus Rirui failing to defeat a lowly slime monster, for example, might have been funnier if they weren’t composed mostly of still images. The edgy episode-opening flashback to adventurer Hajime’s unforgiving childhood didn’t do the show any favors, either. Guess it’s back to waiting for Frieren’s second season to rescue fantasy anime from their self-imposed hell.
Potential: 10%

Dead Account

Short Synopsis: A rage-baiting YouTuber harnesses his spiritual power to fight his dead sister’s ghost, born from her social media account.

Wooper: There are a bunch of anime subgenres and trends that I’m not into, but works themed around social media are near the top of the list, if not number one. Dead Account is one such series, opening with a narrator asking the audience what happens to deceased people’s social media accounts after they die. The real world answer is obvious, but we’re deep enough into the internet age that this question might captivate younger viewers, especially if they’re into the paranormal, since the show’s answer has to do with ghosts. Yes, Dead Account is yet another ghostbusting battle shounen, and one riddled with additional tropes on top of its already tropey premise: a protagonist who does dirty jobs to pay for a family member’s medical expenses, an antagonist with a narratively pointless verbal tic, a secret school where the hero will be taken to awaken his spiritual power. I found this premiere to be extremely tiresome, especially because it lacked the high production values of other shows in its niche (one of which is airing its third season this winter). It’s more plain than it is ugly, but the real killer is the writing – it’s a twisted coincidence that the show’s plot revolves around dead people’s SNS, since this episode may as well have been written by a corpse.
Potential: 5%

Golden Kamuy S5

Short Synopsis: The final season of Golden Kamuy.

Lenlo: And so begins another wild season of Golden Kamuy. I won’t lie, I have no idea what’s going to happen, or where this is going. But that’s kind of the charm of Golden Kamuy for me. You never know who will side with who, what wacky characters will show up, or who will win any given confrontation. In that sense, there’s nothing quite like it out there. As always though, you need to take this praise with a grain of salt. Golden Kamuy is weird, it is crude, it is often disgusting. There are a lot of dick jokes, casual conversation about skinning men alive, and a character who investigates by jacking off as he walks around to see what place “feels right.” Not all of it will land, it doesn’t with me. But at the core of this bullshit is a fun cast, a good story about a young woman figuring out the history of her people, and a man discovering a reason to keep living. Just… If you liked Gintama, I think you might like this.
Potential: 65%

Mario: I’ll be frank, it’s difficult to watch this show seasonally as it’s hard to keep up with 2 dozen characters, each of them with their own quirks. In fact, I felt kind of lost for the first 5-7 minutes before the plot started to make sense to me. It’s not hard, however, to get into its groove as Golden Kamuy finds the right balance between ridiculousness and seriousness, between crudeness and humor. While the entirety of this episode is just a set-up to catch a Jack the Ripper copycat, there’s an iconic moment when Asirpa stands tall between Sugimoto and Hijikata and manages to get these two stubborn men to cooperate. As this is the “final season”, we are reaching the climax of the series’ overarching story now, so I’m sure there will be even more iconic moments just around the corner.
Potential: 50%

Yoroi Shinden Samurai Troopers

Short Synopsis: 35 years after Demon Emperor Arago’s banishment from Earth, his forces have returned to do battle against a false quintet of Samurai Troopers.

Wooper: Given the nearly four decade time skip between this sequel and the previous Samurai Troopers anime, both in-universe and in the real world, I figured this episode would take things slow, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. No sooner were we granted a look at the ostensible lead characters than a set of gates emerged from beneath the ground, allowing the Demon Emperor’s forces to flood the streets of Tokyo like it was 1988. I say “ostensible” leads because the new generation of Samurai Troopers are little more than a political spokesgroup, lacking the mystical armor suits that made the original squad so formidable. Maybe I’m reading too much into the revival of a franchise I know nothing about, but this read like metacommentary to me, criticizing modern shows that lack the power of the works they exume. One of the demons even hummed the theme song from the 80s anime 80s J-pop hits as he and his brethren massacred hundreds of Tokyoites in the early minutes of the episode. Was that meant to be a simple Easter egg, or a self-aware acknowledgment that Troopers 2026 is aimed at the same nostalgia-hungry audience as so many other series? I don’t know for sure, but I’ll give this show another episode to clarify its stance, as the hybrid 2D-3D animation appeals to me (even if the color design is too bright by half).
Potential: 30%

P.S. Thanks to barano in the comments below for the correction about the songs the demons were humming!

Mayonaka Heart Tune

Short Synopsis: A high school boy joins a broadcasting club of four girls to look for a girl he loved in the past.

Mario: Mayonaka Heart Tune is the second consecutive harem show I’ve watched for these First Impressions (the other one comes later), and overall the better one. Not that it had a high bar to clear, but the premise points to something similar to The Quintessential Quintuplets (which I like) – our MC has to figure out which of these girls is the one of his dreams. In addition, having them each focus on different aspects of vocal performance (like Vtuber, voice acting, broadcasting, singer) is an interesting concept to explore. That said, I am not confident the show has what it takes to carry that across, both writing-wise and production-wise. For instance, the scene when our boy Yamabuki is doing the self-introduction is just badly written. For visuals, I don’t understand the decision to have the flashbacks in muted colors. If it was supposed to be the time in his life that the main character cherished the most, you would need to go in the opposite direction, right?
Potential: 20%

Ikoku Nikki

Short Synopsis: A plain-spoken woman accustomed to living alone takes in her niece after the death of her parents.

Wooper: What I liked most about Ikoku Nikki’s first episode was its nonlinear structure. It began with a scene from the not-too-distant future, where Asa (an orphaned teenager) and Makio (her aunt and guardian) had reached symbiosis in their new living situation, then rewound to their first encounter in many years, with Asa’s parents having just passed. After depicting their awkward first morning together (nicely contrasted with the much warmer opening scene), the story jumped backwards again, finally dialing in on the moment when Makio agreed to assume responsibility for her niece’s housing. There were no visual indicators and no on-screen text telling the audience when these shifts happened – Ikoku Nikki just expected that we’d keep up, which I appreciated. The nonlinear approach fit the theme of grieving, a state that can certainly play tricks on your sense of time, and was further supported by the metaphor of Asa in the desert (alone in her grief), which cropped up in more than one stage of the premiere. I’d call this more of a screenwriting success than a directorial one, but the storyboard did pull its weight, reserving its close-ups for contemplative moments, and the Kensuke Ushio soundtrack found him in the same piano-as-percussion mode that he’s been exploring in his recent collaborations with Naoko Yamada. Ikoku Nikki is such a low-key affair that I don’t imagine it’ll capture a wide audience, but early signs point to it being one of the year’s better character dramas.
Potential: 75%

Lenlo: I’m getting some real Great Passage/Shion Miura vibes with Ikoku Nikki, which is a pretty strong compliment if you know me. Just off of this first episode, it feels very quiet, and personal. Like the author was using it to process their own grief through the characters in a way. I’m not entirely sold on it yet, there’s nothing that stands out as bad or a red flag or anything, these sorts of stories can just get away from the author really quickly in my opinion. But I’m interested, and I want to stick with it. The fact that Ikoku Nikki is a complete manga, and that we’re probably getting a full adaptation, does fill me with a lot of hope that it will stick the landing though.
Potential: 60%

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes S2

Short Synopsis: Season 2 of Vigilantes, you will never be free of My Hero Academia.

Lenlo: And we’re back! You thought My Hero Academia was over just because the main show was done? Well too bad, Vigilantes still has like… 1-2 more seasons of content for you! And generally, I think it’s pretty good content, that covers some of the themes and plot points the main series never managed to get to, it’s more street level. Now yes, I don’t think this season is going to cover the strongest arcs, the Osaka stuff doesn’t hold up to how the first season ended and might be the weakest arc of the season. But if we get to where I think we will, there should be at least one arc with some fantastic content, Aizawa fans specifically who wish he got a bit more in the main series finale should be ecstatic. So yeah, it’ll probably be solid, but the start is going to be slow for a bit.
Potential: 50%

Wash It All Away

Short Synopsis: A beautiful amnesiac spends her days running a one-woman laundry service.

Wooper: I’m surprised this isn’t a P.A. Works show given what an obvious tourism ad it is. This premiere contains multiple looks at Atami Station (Atami being the story’s real world setting), as if inviting people to travel there by train, and there’s even an establishing shot that replicates the lead photo on the city’s Wikipedia article. Unfortunately, the art direction falls far short of what P.A.W. is capable of, rendering the seaside scenery rather lifeless – an issue which extends to the premiere as a whole. The strategy here seems to have been focused entirely on the character design for the protagonist, an alluring young woman who tirelessly cleans the garments of other Atami residents day in and day out. She cheerfully provides an essential service for her community and they, in turn, will presumably help her recover her memories, as the only thing she remembers is how to operate her business. The problem, at least for me, is that the scenes of her work don’t communicate anything apart from her diligence at laundering clothes, which is universally considered one of life’s most tedious tasks. None of the side characters introduced here are the least bit interesting, either – I’m at a loss as to the appeal of Wash It All Away (Kirei ni Shitemoraemasu ka), and that’s coming from a slice of life fan.
Potential: 10%

Sentenced to Be a Hero

Short Synopsis: “Heroes” are just criminals sentenced to immortal penal legions, and our MC is basically Judas, all stuffed into a classic dark power fantasy.

Lenlo: You know, for what first seemed a pretty standard “Slay the Demon Lord” power fantasy, I was pleasantly surprised by Sentenced. I’m kind of into the setting that’s being painted here. Criminals forced into undying, resurrectable penal legions who lose more of themselves each time they are brought back, secret weapons making pacts, legitimately cool and unique monster designs based around this weird glowing fungus. The token loli isn’t even bad! Combine all of this with a pretty good, surprisingly colorful production, and you get a pretty solid first episode. The final bit has me a bit worried about how edgy it will be, but if it can rein itself in and keep itself from going full pariah revenge power fantasy, I think Sentenced could be pretty damn good.
Potential: 70%

Kunon the Sorcerer Can See

Short Synopsis: OP MC High Magic Fantasy Harem Show, but the MC is blind. That’s it. That’s the show.

Lenlo: I’ll be frank, this is your rather standard high fantasy OP MC power fantasy. Kunon opens on this sad introduction about how our lead can’t see, and thus won’t be able to do anything or be all that great a mage, but within two minutes we’re already operating fine despite the disability, and by the end he’s already surpassing his tutor. There’s nothing special here, neither in narrative nor production, so unless you just want a standard OP MC fantasy show to veg out to, I’d dodge Kunon. It’s not worth your time.
Potential: 5%

The Daily Life of a Part-time Torturer

Short Synopsis: What if Torturers had normal lives outside the dungeon, and were hot ikemen?

Lenlo: This show is kind of just… Weird? It tries to be lighthearted fun, using the juxtaposition between how happy these guys are and the pride they take in their job, and torture of all things. But unlike a show like ‘Tis Time for “Torture”, Princess, which does this successfully, Part-time Torturer actually plays the torture straight, even trying to make out the torturers as good guys because they only torture “villains.” Basically, it’s trying to have its cake and eat it too, resulting in the whole thing falling apart. I can’t enjoy the lighthearted bits because they are talking about torture and such all the time, and there’s no suspense around the torture because the show is afraid to dive fully into it for fear of making us dislike the leads, not realizing we already do. All in all, the show just… doesn’t work.
Potential: 0%

Tamon’s B-Side

Short Synopsis: A high school girl discovers that the frontman of her favorite idol group is a nervous wreck in private.

Wooper: Tamon-kun Ima Docchi didn’t have a bad first episode. It was fairly well-drawn, used tons of amusing cutaways that showcased the characters’ wild imaginations, and featured a great transition from its final shot into the music video ED. If you’ve enjoyed male idol anime in the past, you’ll probably dig this one, too. Personally, though, I was mentally weighing it against Oshi ga Budokan for nearly its entire run time, and Tamon’s B-Side got the short end of that stick. Both series center on the experience of being a fan, rather than making main characters of the idols themselves, but where Budoukan both celebrated and skewered that lifestyle (at least initially), B-Side is only interested in the former. It presents relationships with idols as attainable through the female lead’s housekeeping job, which coincidentally sends her to the apartment of her favorite performer, and makes him so pathetic that he becomes dependent on her to function in private. Of course, this is only a cartoon, but preying on our ability to form one-way relationships through screens is what the idol industry is built on, and B-Side is nakedly tapping into a similar fantasy. Not only does it suggest that the viewer may one day meet one of these manufactured personalities, it also implies that they need our help “to take a selfie without throwing up” (a real line from this premiere). That’s just about my least favorite flavor of Japanese snake oil, so I’ll have to pass on this show.
Potential: 25%

Fate/strange Fake

Short Synopsis: Masters, Servants, and Observers gather in Snowfield, Nevada to play their parts in a prearranged Holy Grail War.

Wooper: This is exactly what I was talking about in the season preview with regards to Fate adaptations – they look great, but they’re more enamored with explaining themselves than with storytelling. Take the second and third scenes from this episode as an example: Faldeus and Aldora’s conversation about the Grail War at their headquarters, and El-Melloi II and Rohngall’s conversation about the Grail War at the Clock Tower. They weren’t identical, of course, but these two dialogues served too similar a purpose. The former went over the War’s participating Masters, both confirmed and not, making it a good refresher; the latter mostly speculated about the motives of the conflict’s unseen benefactors, and felt fruitless as a result. Better to show us the War in progress and let us learn about it firsthand than to jump across the pond for a convo that offers no new information. Even with such redundancies built into Fate’s presentation style, though, this episode was super stylish – one thing I appreciate about modern anime is Japan’s willingness to let rookie directors play around with established franchises, which has me more interested in this show than I might be otherwise. The premiere also featured two fun late-game moments in Francesca’s amusement at Saber’s arrest, plus Flat’s videobombing of the accompanying newscast, so it wasn’t all dialogue and effects animation. I’m on board with Strange Fake, but only for now – we’ll see how far into its War I manage to wade.
Potential: 50%

Hana-Kimi

Short Synopsis: A teenage girl moves to Japan and crossdresses as a boy in order to attend the same high school as her track and field idol.

Wooper: I’m amazed that it took so long for Hanazakari no Kimitachi e, or Hana-Kimi for short, to receive an animated adaptation. The manga ended in 2004, and though it’s been spun into two separate J-dramas in the years since then (the first of which was a massive hit), its secret crossdressing premise makes it a natural fit for the frivolous world of anime. I don’t mean to imply that all crossdressing plots are trivial, but Hana-Kimi’s certainly is – based on this episode, its main purpose is to set up situations where the female lead (Ashiya)’s classmates can call her “cute” or sarcastically caution her against “getting pregnant” while assuming that she’s a boy like the rest of them. Ashiya’s motivation for attending an all-boys school is that she wanted to be peers with a particular track and field athlete, but the show is clearly more interested in the dimensions of his face than the height of his jump. Visually, the old school character designs were expected, but the subpar animation and plain compositing weren’t – I didn’t think a beloved property like this would fall so far down the industry totem pole. No doubt many fans will continue watching out of loyalty to their favorite Osaka High bishounen, but I can’t help but feel that they deserved a bit better than this adaptation.
Potential: 20%