Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Karasu wa Aruji wo Erabanai

Short Synopsis: As four women from four different provinces vie for a prince’s hand in marriage, a male representative from the northern province is sent to serve as the prince’s attendant.

Wooper: From its double length premiere to its massive cast list to its elaborate fantasy setting, Karasu wa Aruji wo Erabanai is one of this season’s most ambitious shows. Not every facet of that ambition makes for great TV, but I’ll be following it for the foreseeable future, since I like historical anime. Karasu isn’t grounded in history, of course, but its costume design and court politics are strongly reminiscent of medieval Japan, and the mythos surrounding the yatagarasu (the three-legged crow whose name appears in the show’s localized title) reads like historical fantasy lore. I say “reads” because that’s exactly what this show requires of you – there’s a ton of table setting in these episodes, so you’ll be chugging through not only the plentiful subtitles, but also the on-screen names and ranks of around 20 characters. That’s going to feel too much like homework for a lot of viewers, and at this point I wouldn’t disagree, but Karasu’s wordy beginning works in service of an Apothecary Diaries-esque palace intrigue plot, with four female representatives competing to wed a reclusive prince, and a POV character serving as our window into said prince’s life. The yatagarasu stuff is what’s most interesting to me, as several characters can shapeshift into crows; we don’t get a good look at those transformations, but the production is otherwise solid, with just a single dip during a kendo scene across these first 50 minutes. I wouldn’t recommend this one to a wide audience, but for those who don’t mind dedicating their time and their full attention to a new fantasy series, there may be something here.
Potential: 50%

Whisper Me a Love Song

Short Synopsis (Anilist): After performing a song at her school’s opening ceremony, musician Yori Asanagi receives an apparent love confession from freshman Himari Kino. But just as Yori decides she wants to return Himari’s feelings, Himari reveals that she did not “love” her, but “admires” her! But you can’t unring a bell once struck, and Yori is determined to make Himari fall for her, not just her music. Will their hearts ever beat as one, or will their love fall out of tune?

Lenlo: Look it’s the last post so I’m just going to lay this out there, you have at least 3 better music based shows airing this season. From Hibike to Girls Band Cry to Jellyfish, each and every one of them brings more to the table than this. I’m not saying it’s bad, it isn’t. It’s definitely better than most of the usual seasonal stuff. But that isn’t an achievement and it’s competing in a very contested genre at the moment. The characters aren’t as compelling as Jellyfish, the visuals aren’t as polished as Hibike, and it doesn’t move anywhere near as well as Girls Band Cry. If none of those were up your alley, but you’re still itching for a music show, maybe give this a shot and see if this somehow does it for you. Personally though? I’m music’ed out and this lost the race.
Potential: 25%

THE NEW GATE

Short Synopsis: Kirito from SAO stays in the game a tad too long after beating it and is sucked into an Isekai world exactly like the game, but now with all the standard isekai tropes on top of it.

Lenlo: Imagine if you took Sword Art Online, created a carbon copy in every way, made every aspect worse by about 50%, nuked its production from orbit, and then turned it into a fantasy Isekai by teleporting Not-Kirito into the game world for real after he beat the game and everyone else logged off. That’s how you get New Gate. It is, in every way, an inferior Sword Art Online, Log Horizon and Shangri-La Frontier. Watch literally any of those instead, they have better narratives, better production, better characters, better music, better voice acting, just better… everything.
Potential: Can’t believe I’m saying this, but just go watch SAO.

Seiyuu Radio no Uraomote

Short Synopsis: Two voice actors just so happen to go to the same highschool. When a director catches wind of this, he puts them on a podcast together!

Lenlo: Seiyuu Radio pleasantly surprised me. Early on it felt like an excuse to get Miku Itou and Moe Toyota, the lead VAs, to effectively do an animated podcast. But as the episode went on, I found myself enjoying it more and more. It’s all about public personas vs real personal selves. How someone on screen, or on a podcast, or in a book, or any form of media really, is putting on a character because they know that’s what sells. Some of it is about knowing the real you won’t be accepted, won’t get you work, like with Yumiko. Meanwhile Chika, she just doesn’t understand why people like her public idol self, and sees that more as a criticism of who she really is since she acts nothing like her alter ego. Throw these two in a room, get them talking after a terrible first impression and see them slowly become friends, and you have a pretty wholesome show that peels back the curtains a bit on the VA/Idol industry. Not in an expose “This is how terrible it is” sort of way like a lot of shows, more in a “VAs are people too” way, and I like that. Plus the way the show gets them together isn’t even all that contrived, a Director got his show cancled, knew they went to school together, and said “Fuck it, puttem on a radio show, should be funny”. So yeah, I’m going to watch it for a bit. No idea if it will hold, it’s on the lower end of my list, but I enjoyed it. It felt very personal at times.
Potential: 50%

Viral Hit

Short Synopsis: Local kid decides to become a YouTuber to make money for his sick mother. The idea? Fight people on the internet to go viral! The catch? He’s a wimp.

Lenlo: I… Enjoyed Viral Hit, as weird as that is to say. Youtubers, bullying, pathetic leads, mediocre comedy, Viral Hit has a number of things against it. Yet despite all of that, despite attempts at a more “realistic” artstyle similar to the failing Fable, it worked. Viral Hit doesn’t try to hide how shitty YouTubers are, how all of them are in it for the money, how predatory the system is and the kind of actions/personalities it encourages. Instead it dives head first into the system, focusing on how it’s a way poor people can make money by debasing themselves in front of the world. In that sense, it’s really not all that dissimilar to combat sports like boxing and MMA, which is funny considering Viral Hit is all about a kid fighting on the internet to make money. What I’m getting at is that Viral Hit goes in on a lot of the worst aspects of YouTubers, and it does so in a way I find engaging. I have no idea if this will last in the long term, but for now at least I’m in.
Potential: 50%

Kaiju No.8

Short Synopsis: Kafka Hibino once made a promise to his childhood friend to join the Kaiju Defense Corps and rid the world of Kaiju! Now he works cleaning up the aftermath of their battles.

Lenlo: For the first 20 or so minutes, Kaiju 8 was great, almost everything I could have wanted. An older MC working a dead-end job who has given up on their dream, their passion reignited by a younger employee and a traumatic experience that pushes them to try once more. The detail that went into the Kaiju itself, not just in the design but its biology and just how large a cleanup operation would be post-Kaiju, as well as the knowledge you could gain from being around/cleaning up so many. Even the relationship between our lead, Kafka, and his new kouhai, Ichikawa, was pretty good as Ichikawa becomes both Kafka’s inspiration as well as the first person he’s ever saved. Visually it was a bit rockier, sometimes looking great, other times getting a tad too ambitious with the wild camera movements and such, but overall still solid I feel. My issue with Kaiju 8 comes in the last 2 or so minutes where it takes the novel idea of an older protagonist working an actual job that deals with the aftermath of the big fights trying to find his niche in a young man’s profession, and turns him into a standard shounen protagonist with a unique super power. Kafka didn’t need that to be interesting, to succeed in the Kaiju Corps. He had knowledge few others did due to working with them so often. But now that’s going to get sidelined in favor of him being able to turn into a badass monster. Will it still be fun? Will it still have decent fights and shit? Probably. But it lost what made it unique in my book, and is now only worth watching for the cool fights.
Potential: 40%

Unnamed Memory

Short Synopsis: A king’s line is cursed to never be able to bear children. Their solution? Go find a witch, conquer her trials, and use their one wish to ask her to be the prince’s wife. What could go wrong?

Lenlo: You know, for a fantasy series about a guy tricking/forcing a girl to live with him for a year in his castle so he can try to woo her into being his wife, all because she’s the only woman capable of handling the raw unadulterated magical power of his penis I mean curse, Unnamed Memory wasn’t actually that bad. The premise is still stupid as shit, but if you can ignore it the production isn’t bad, the cast seems decent, and it isn’t nearly as ecchi or perverted as the premise would make you think. I don’t think it has much staying power, the whole thing is about an unflappable hero trying to woo a beautiful witch into being his wife. That sort of premise tends to be a flash in the pan in my experience, very wholesome and cute early on but unable to sustain/change itself up in the long run. Still, I’ll check it out for a few more, just to find out.
Potential: 30%

Boukyaku Battery

Short Synopsis: A talented pitcher-catcher duo join their no-name high school’s baseball club after the catcher loses his memory.

Wooper: I’ve got a soft spot for sports anime, so I was looking forward to this one, especially since it has some promising staff members attached. Action animation director Junpei Tatenaka, for example, is a baseball anime veteran, with credits on both the Major and Diamond no Ace franchises, and art director Yuuki Funagakure previously handled the backgrounds for Wonder Egg Priority. Unfortunately, while this talented group did turn in a good-looking premiere, Boukyaku Battery has a problem outside the realm of visual presentation; it desperately wants to be funny, and it simply isn’t. One of its two lead characters is Kei, a former baseball prodigy who lost his taste for the game upon losing his memory, and he’s got a new, extremely goofy personality to go with his amnesia. We’re talking weird faces and hand gestures, quirky vocal inflections, an array of nipple-themed jokes, and (sadly) much more. His batterymate Haruka provides a strong, silent counter to his endless clowning, and the show demonstrates some self-awareness about its use of sports anime tropes, but Kei is going to be too much to handle for some viewers, especially those with an aversion to shouty shounen stooges. I might go back and try a couple more episodes in the future due to my enthusiasm for the genre (and for the Pillows-esque ending theme by newish band Macaroni Enpitsu), but I can’t recommend Boukyaku Battery based solely on its first outing.
Potential: 30%

Lenlo: The more I look at Battery, the more I weep for what could have been. The first 3 minutes were great, the tension at-bat, the heavy shading, the shot composition, it all looked great. And a lot of that is still there for the rest of the episode as well! Like Wooper says, Battery looks pretty good for the whole episode. But then the rest of the episode starts and it just… It goes from a dramatic baseball drama to a character driven comedy with bad jokes and a worse plot. Why amnesia? Why all of the shitty jokes? Why can’t we just have a good baseball anime? Anyways, suffice to say I was very disappointed by Battery. Maybe it will walk things back as it continues, cutting down on the bad comedy and going back to actual baseball, but I don’t have much hope for that. If you can stand Kei’s shitty (literally) jokes you might get something out of it though. Personally I wanted to turn it off after about 10 minutes.
Potential: 15%

Mysteries, Maidens, and Mysterious Disappearances

Short Synopsis (Anilist): Sumireko Ogawa’s dream of becoming a novelist is reinvigorated with new rumors of mystical incidents. Now a clerk at a bookstore, she enlists her young coworker, Ren Adashino, to investigate urban legends, black magic, and ghost stories across the city. Sumireko has a knack for triggering magical events, and Ren has a dark secret of his own. Will they survive their investigation unscathed?

Lenlo: I’m very conflicted on Mysterious Disappearances. When not hyper fixating on the absurdly large breasts of its female lead, Ogawa, it was actually pretty good. The whole thing about losing her imagination, her ability to write, as she got older, her accidental run in with the supernatural and subsequent desperate bid to hold onto her youth despite the dangers because of the creativity it gave her. It was very “Hand of Midas”, or “Monkey’s Paw Curls”, I liked it a whole lot. And while Adashino wasn’t particularly interesting, I did still enjoy his dry wit, how supportive he was of Ogawa, and the underlying darkness to his knowledge of the supernatural. The only issue is that Mysterious Disappearances has decided to weave a bunch of pointless, degrading, and occasionally concerning sexualization into a story that doesn’t need it. Why are Ogawa’s tits larger than her head? Why do we need PoV cleavage shots into her valley? Why is there so much focus on her body while she’s turned into a child? If those weren’t there, this would probably be the strongest premier of the season for me. As it is, I’m very interested but the ecchi bullshit feels like it’s going to ruin a lot of otherwise really promising episodes. Maybe that falls off as we go, Horikoshi slowly wrote Mineta and his weird sexualized tendencies out of My Hero Academia, early decisions made to sell copies don’t have to stick around. If that’s the case then awesome, this should be good. But I can see it turning a lot of people off and I wouldn’t blame them. Anyways, for now, I’m going to keep up with it.
Potential: 50%

Yozakura-san Chi no Daisakusen

Short Synopsis: A traumatized orphan marries into a family of spies in order to stop his new bride’s brother from killing him.

Wooper: I don’t have an encyclopedic memory for Shonen Jump adaptations, but Yozakura-san might be the least promising one I’ve ever seen. A lot of that is down to Taiyou Asano, the protagonist – at least, based on the minimal amount of thought I’m willing to spend on this show. He seems to have been designed by someone desperate for him to stand out, but not willing to put in any effort to ensure it, with a thin scar over one eye and one huge, impossibly curly strand of hair sticking out from his classic spiky mop. Even when you get past his appearance, there’s nothing remarkable about him, and he spends most of this episode either explaining his tragic past or saying, “Huh?” so other people can feed information to him (by which I mean the audience). To be fair, he has a lot to catch up on, since his teacher wants to kill him for getting too close to his childhood friend, who is also the teacher’s sister, and both of them are part of a secret spy organization along with the rest of their siblings, and ALSO Taiyou has to marry her in order to keep from being murdered. Did you get all that? The show doesn’t overcomplicate things, but it does present both its background info and its action scenes in pretty dry fashion. A couple of flashy cuts make their way across the screen as the siblings display their borderline supernatural combat techniques (I thought this was supposed to be a spy series?), but on the whole the storyboarding displays very little ambition. There just doesn’t seem to be a hook here, at least from my perspective – Yozakura-san isn’t terrible, but neither is it worth picking up.
Potential: 15%

Lenlo: Wooper basically has the right of it, Yozakura is almost comically tropey. Orphan? Check. Tragic backstory involving his entire dead family? Check. Unique hair color no one else has and a scar as his defining features? Check. A female lead blatantly in love with him for absolutely no reason? About the only novel thing about it is the spy setting, but even that gets ruined as the “spies” basically end up with otherworldly super powers anyways. It’s clearly trying to set itself apart with a unique setting, but it isn’t able to do that without falling back on the common Shounen bullshit. What I’m getting at is this: Unless you really, really need a battle shounen and neither Wind Breaker nor the upcoming seasons of My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer do it for you, don’t bother with this.
Potential: 5%

Rinkai!

Short Synopsis: Cute Girls Do Biking

Lenlo: Within seconds Rinkai has already introduced its entire cast of color-coded waifu’s for viewers to pick from. And you know what? They don’t look too bad. Then, mere moments later, we are treated to some of the worst CGI models I’ve seen in a while. They just look so… flat, both in their colors and how they all move the same way, like robots. The closeups are nice enough, we get 2D animation for those and the bikes/movements look decent there. As for what’s actually going on, it’s a classic Cute Girls Doing Cute Things show as the cast jointly figures out what bike racing is and collectively decide to take part for reasons about as simplistic as you’d expect. Still, despite the CGI, basic premise, and samey characters… It was alright? Maybe it’s because CGDCT about sports is just inherently more interesting to me, like Moi Ippon was a few seasons ago, but I find myself enjoying this more than most of the seasonal fare. Not enough to sit through an entire season of it, but I think someone could find some value here.
Potential: 15%

Tadaima, Okaeri

Short Synopsis: A salaryman and a househusband move into a house in the suburbs to raise their biological son together.

Wooper: I thought about pretending to write this impression as though I had no clue what the Omegaverse was, but I actually learned about it a couple days ago, after seeing people mock this episode upon its release. Personally, I find anime’s obsessions with reincarnation and RPG mechanics to be worthier targets for mockery, but I’ll admit to finding the idea of male pregnancy to be pretty fucking weird. It does seem to be a widespread fantasy, though (so much so that it has its own “-verse”), so who am I to kinkshame? Anyway, this premiere wasn’t terrible. Sure, it was cloying (the main couple’s toddler is unreasonably sweet and well-behaved) and uneventful (the biggest source of conflict here is an ornament falling from a Christmas tree), but it wasn’t unwatchable or anything. Ironically, the clear-cut alpha and omega hierarchy here allows for tenderness between the central male couple, as opposed to the implied alpha/beta dynamic of many other BL shows, which are typically dominance-based. Maybe that gentleness isn’t what the majority of Omegaverse enthusiasts are seeking, but for an unadventurous cishet guy like myself, this episode was a good-enough introduction to this strange fictional world.
Potential: Ω%

Lenlo: Dear Lord in heaven help me they did it, they made an actual Omegaverse anime. Why? Why would you do this to me God? Wooper may have been able to look past that and find something underneath, but personally? I’ve always found it disgusting. Not the gay stuff, that’s fine, hell I’m down for more shows being upfront about it. No, I’m talking about the Alpha/Beta/Omega power dynamic bullshit. From the looks of things Japan hasn’t gone full “Sexual Assault/Rape story” like most western Omegaverse media, which is good. But the whole male pregnancy thing is still weird and I generally detest the alpha/beta/omega crap from the debunked wolf study because of the kind of attitudes it promotes. To make a long story short, I wish this anime didn’t exist, but at least its not the weirdest Omegaverse story I’ve ever seen.
Potential: Better than Western Omegaverse shit, but still Omegaverse shit in a lot of ways.

Tonari no Youkai-san

Short Synopsis: In the small town of Engamori, Yokai and humans live together as they have for generations, working together to protect their easy going way of life.

Lenlo: Tonari is… fine? Wholesome? Dull? It’s a really basic “Rural town Slice of Life” style story where we watch these Yokai and Humans live regular lives side by side. The issue though is that these Yokai really don’t change anything about the setting or story. There’s nothing all that unique about them beyond them not looking human. You could replace their looks with those of normal people and the episode doesn’t feel like it would change at all, it’s meaningless flavor for those who think looking at a cat or a Tengu is more interesting than actual people. And you know what? I get it, it is more interesting watching a cat sit like a person and drink from a tea cup. But that novelty wears off fast and what you’re left with is a run-of-the-mill country slice-of-life. I’m sure for some people that will be enough, something relaxing to watch after a long day. For me though? It’s way too slow and uninteresting. Still, I wouldn’t call it bad. Definitely has more going for it than most of the season.
Potential: 10%

Blue Archive the Animation

Short Synopsis: A quintet of firearms experts protect their abandoned high school from invaders.

Wooper: Blue Archive was a last minute addition to our seasonal docket, but I’m glad it got added, as it provides a timely reminder that not all gacha game adaptations are utterly soulless. I’m never going to download the app, and there’s almost no chance that I’ll watch another episode (though I’ll probably rewatch the OP at some point to admire its abundance of beautiful animation), but this one wasn’t bad at all. The main reason for my favorable impression here is the series’ sense of restraint – though it prioritizes the cuteness of its five female characters, it’s not distasteful about it, nor is the script in a rush to over-explain itself. That left me with plenty of questions, of course, such as, “Why is it important that the girls protect an abandoned school building?” and, “Why do they all have differently shaped halos?” and, “Why are all the background characters animals?” But for fans of Blue Archive, those questions don’t need answering, and for the rest of us, they can either provide a reason to keep watching or serve as simple aesthetic quirks. Speaking of aesthetics, the compositing here is really nice, with thin lines and a bit of blur providing a soft bed for the show’s blood-free gunplay – gunplay which is mostly well-drawn, especially as it relates to the characters positioning themselves on the battlefield. A lot of the dialogue is trivial, and the lone male character transparently exists for player self-insertion, but apart from those issues, this is a well-made premiere that’s sure to please existing Blue Archive devotees, and maybe earn a few converts, too.
Potential: 35%

Lenlo: I’ll admit, when I read Wooper’s bit above about how Blue Archive actually wasn’t that bad, I didn’t believe him. It’s a gacha game adaptation from a series that, as far as I’m aware, is notorious for how many loli’s it has. But having watched it… Well I still wouldn’t call it good, it’s definitely a gacha game with its focus on color-coded cute girls and the story doesn’t actually make a lot of sense yet, but I think I can understand why fans of the game would actually enjoy this. There’s some effort here, both in its visuals and the cast. Had I more time this season I may have been willing to see where it went. As it is, I’m going to chalk it up to a pleasant surprise and a win for Blue Archive fans, but little else as I doubt it’s going to convert anyone who isn’t already a fan.
Potential: 25%

The Fable

Short Synopsis: Infamous prodigy hitman known as “Fable” must go undercover as a normal person, doing his best to not kill anyone.

Lenlo: The biggest issue with Fable isn’t its emotionless protagonist, uninteresting setting, or bland direction. No, the biggest problem I have with Fable is that it simply looks terrible. The lighting, the character designs, the background art, the animation. It’s all bad! It’s clearly trying to be “realistic”, with real world proportions and such. But I feel like it’s gone too far in the direction without the detail necessary to back it up. As for the narrative itself, it’s… Fine? I guess? It was very dry. The opening was a little exciting, but the weak production made it fall flat, and the rest of the episode was a bunch of talking between uninteresting and uncharismatic characters. There’s a chance Fable can do something, a solid criminal underworld story could work well. But I won’t be bothering to stick with it.
Potential: 1%

This is the 2nd of 2 posts going up today, so make sure to scroll down for the other set of impressions!

Ooi! Tonbo

Short Synopsis: Disgraced pro-golfer moves to a small island town to step out of the spotlight and try to remember who he is. There he runs into a little girl named Tonbo, who has her own troubles.

Lenlo: Take Barakamon, yes the 2014 Iyashikei about a calligraphy artist moving to a small rural town to get away from the busy and demanding life of metropolitan Tokyo and more in touch with himself and nature, and then rip out all of the good parts, replace calligraphy with golf, and make it astoundingly ugly, and then you’ll have Ooi! Tonbo. I’m not joking, it’s just a drastically worse Barakamon in basically every single way. Do not watch this, just go watch Barakamon, if you haven’t seen it you’ll thank me later and if you have it’s time for a rewatch anyways.
Potential: 0%

HIGHSPEED Étoile

Short Synopsis: Race Cars go vroom vroom on magical new fuel called “Hex”.

Lenlo: I just… It’s mediocre CGI racing with super powered cars? Sort of? It’s hard to tell, but to be honest the racing isn’t very interesting. There’s no good sense of speed since the super-special-energy-fuel just turns everything into neon lights, and the way the show is shot with a lot of random rotated and upside down shots doesn’t do it any favors either. Add on to that CGI visuals that honestly don’t look all that bad, at least until any character steps on screen in a vomit of clashing colors and skin tight suits dear god are these character designs atrocious, and you have a show that just leaves me wondering… Why? Why is this made? Who is this for? And can we stop making anime for them?
Potential: -10%

Touken Ranbu Kai: Kyoden Moyuru Honnouji

Short Synopsis: Weapons of famous heroes are brought back to life as living warriors to defend the timelines from a meddling shadow army that seeks to destroy the world as we know it

Lenlo: Considering Touken Ranbu was the first show I ever blogged on this site, I thought maybe it would be nice to revisit the series and get a look at what it has become. Turns out, that was a mistake, because Touken Ranbu is just a knockoff Ufotable Fate now. It goes for the same after-effects ridden visual style, over the top action, and is filled with vaguely historical characters made into color-coded bishounen sexy boys, but isn’t able to get anywhere near Ufotable’s level on any of them. Maybe if you really like the series, or just want to shake things up with a bunch of color coded pretty boys instead of color coded cute girls, it could be for you. But me? Well lets just say that I’m glad I’m the only full-time blogger left cause it means I have the pick of the litter and can write about anything other than this.
Potential: 1%

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night

Short Synopsis: A young woman has her passion for art reignited when she meets a former idol trying to restart her career.

Lenlo: Aside from 2 or 3 really suspicious shots of a teenager’s cleavage/ass/bathtub, Jellyfish was actually pretty good. We get a lot of these kinds of “I’m going to join a band in highschool to make friends/discover a new passion”, feels like there’s at least one every season. But this is one of the few to be less about music specifically and more about passions in general, which I appreciate. Watching the lead, Yoru, slowly grow to dislike drawing because of the reactions and attitudes of those around her, how they took it for granted and unknowingly belittled her art, felt… Real. Like something people go through every day. Yeah it was heighted and exaggerated by virtue of being in an anime, but the core dissatisfaction, that feeling of not being good enough and giving up on a passion, clicked with me. Same with Kano striking out and retaking her music, both from her old idol career and those who ruined it for her. It also helps that Jellyfish looked rather pretty, the night is just dark enough to make the neon-lit streets and bright colors pop, but is still illuminated enough that I don’t have to squint to make out what’s on screen. I’m not sure where Jellyfish will end up going since we have 2 more cast members to introduce, but for now I’m invested.
Potential: 75%

Hibike! Euphonium 3

Short Synopsis: Kumiko assumes the role of concert band president and oversees the club’s recruitment process as her final year of high school begins.

Wooper: Last year saw the release of “Ensemble Contest Arc,” an hour-long special meant to bridge the gap between the “Chikai no Finale” movie and this third season of Hibike Euphonium. I thoroughly enjoyed the special, which saw Kumiko step into her new role as president toward the end of her second year at Kitauji High. From what I understand, this early transition of power is common in Japan’s extracurricular clubs, since third year students prematurely tender their resignations to begin studying for their entrance exams. Of course, the opening minute of this premiere places the same expectation on Kumiko, with her father wondering aloud when she’ll finally quit her club – and her third year has only just begun! This scene clearly foreshadows the pressure she’ll face as both an impending high school graduate and the leader of a very green concert band, with new applicants flooding the screen all across this episode. Unless you’re an existing superfan, you’ll have to resign yourself to that flood to enjoy the series’ comeback, but it is indeed enjoyable, with the determination of even the most inexperienced members to win gold at Nationals serving as a rousing conclusion. The new girls in the bass section seem like fun, too, and the last-second rooftop appearance of a prodigious euphonium player may complicate the equation for Kumiko in the episodes to come. The series still has no idea how to handle romance (Reina’s impossible crush on their conductor is a non-starter), but if this new season can dodge that issue, it should be an enjoyable revival.
Potential: 50%

Lenlo: And so returns Hibike Euphonium. If I’m being honest, I’ve forgotten a lot of the series prior to this. I didn’t even remember that Kumiko was club president now, that’s how far gone I was. Still… It was nice, seeing most of this cast again. Personally most of my favorites were the upperclassmen, so a season without them is going to be hard. I’m also not sure if I’ll enjoy all of these new cast members coming in to fill their spots. That aside though? I think Hibike is back in pretty strong form. Show still looks great, well shot/lit/animated, the music is still nice, I like the focus on winning Nationals. I think that if you like Hibike enough to get through 2 seasons and like 3 movies, you’ll like season 3 as well. And if you never got into the series when it first aired? This probably won’t change anything for you.
Potential: 50%

Girls Band Cry

Short Synopsis: Small town girl moves to Tokyo. Overwhelmed, she runs into a guitar player on the verge of quitting. Together they form a band, seeking a place they belong!

Lenlo: You know how I mentioned the “Seasonal Cute Girls Doing Cute Things Band show” up in Jellyfish? Well that’s what this is. Girls Band Cry is our obligatory seasonal CGDCT band show. And while it’s not terrible, it’s nowhere near as good as Jellyfish. This is mostly due to the fact that it’s kind of just… there? We’ve seen this multiple times now, across multiple different shows. About the only thing I liked about it, that stood out to me, were the visuals. Reminiscent of D4DJ, GBC (#Letters) is doing the 2.5D thing where the models and environment are all 3D but the faces and emotions are 2D, animated on. And it works pretty well, GBC looks solid. It isn’t the most high fidelity show, sure, but it moves a lot and is rather expressive. That’s better than most seasonals! In fact it’s almost enough to make me want to watch it. Almost being the key word there, as it loses out to Jellyfish for me in almost every way.
Potential: 35%

Sentai Daishikkaku

Short Synopsis: Super Sentai rangers defeat the big bad only to enslave the remaining minions, forcing them to launch attacks every Sunday to forever propagate their franchise, allowing them to make money forever. That is until one lone grunt gets fed up and decides to try and destroy the rangers from the inside!

Lenlo: I enjoyed Reject Ranger a lot. I mean a lot, a lot. From the very beginning you can tell that it not only understands the Super Sentai genre, but that it knows exactly what parts it wants to take the piss out of. Ads plastered everywhere, each Ranger with their own specific mouth shape to sell their personality while still making it clear they are the bad guys, how clearly manufactured the whole situation/fight/show is. And when we get a look at the other side, with the monsters? How they have to come up with these fights every week like showrunners run ragged, how tiring and creatively bankrupt that must be? All while still being a fun deconstruction? It was a great time. I bought it, not only with the lead and the world, but the entire premise. So long as Reject Ranger can avoid becoming stale, can stay a “Monster of the Week” while still slowly evolving the background story with the Dusters and Rangers, I think it should be a lot of fun. At the very least I’m going to be blogging it this season, so that should be nice. Sidenote, I want this blond girl to step on me I mean what
Potential: 80%

A Story About a Grandpa and Grandma Who Returned Back to Their Youth

Short Synopsis: Grandma and Grandpa find a magic golden fruit that returns their youth to them. Proceed to seduce everyone in town, including their own grandkids.

Lenlo: Somehow a show meant to be about the wholesome relationship between an older couple reliving their glory days with regained youth has instead turned into a weird age-play family incest thing. Why is the granddaughter immediately hitting on the grandfather, despite KNOWING he’s her grandfather? Why is the daughter-in-law doing the same thing? Why is this show so obsessed with everyone wanting to fuck the old people? I don’t know. What I do know though is that it isn’t worth watching, which is a damn shame considering what I went into it hoping for.
Potential: 0%

Vampire Dormitory

Short Synopsis: After being rescued by a sexy male vampire, a suicidal “boy” vows to become his thrall so “he” can be of some use to him.

Wooper: Yes, I revealed the main character’s actual gender in the synopsis above. That our boyish hero Mito is secretly a girl serves as the episode’s closing twist, but believe me, Vampire Dormitory isn’t worth getting worked up over, even if you’re a major spoilerphobe. Mito is the sort of protagonist who sparkles like Edward from Twilight, even before she comes into contact with any of the series’ vampires, leading an entire ramen shop full of female patrons to squeal at her boyish good looks. People stare at her and whisper in awe as she walks down the street, but alas, not all is well in poor Mito’s world; her parents died in a fire, none of her relatives wanted to take her in, and she just was fired from the only job she could find. This combination of incredible attractiveness and tragic circumstances is pitifully written, but things don’t get any better after the vampires enter the picture, with Mito’s previously hopeless outlook transforming into a fervent desire to “be of some use” to the first one to suck her blood. What’s worse, her blood apparently disgusts him because she has never experienced love, so the plan going forward is for the vampire to love her so that she’ll taste less nasty. I don’t want to think any harder than I have to about what the author is implying with that setup, so I think I’ll bail out of this paragraph without another word.
Potential: 0%

Lenlo: I know that Vampires are supposed to be a polite metaphor for rape, abuse and pedophilia, but it stops being a polite metaphor when you take an already emotionally stunted and abused victim and turn them into a vampires thrall while trying to play it off as a “Good” thing for them. What I’m saying is, Wooper hit the nail on the head up above and I don’t see any reason for anyone to want to watch this.
Potential: 0%

Henjin no Salad Bowl

Short Synopsis: The 7th Princess of a royal line is hunted down, only to flee to our world where she ends up living and working with a detective named Sousuke.

Lenlo: It’s true, the Reverse Isekai is, on average, substantially better than the classic Isekai, if only because it’s easier to write someone being new and amazed by our modern world, making it seem interesting again, than it is to write a rich and engaging fantasy world. And so far, Salad Bowl continues to prove that true by being better than any Isekai I’ve seen so far this season. Not by a lot, it still has a lot of the same tropes and pointless ecchi scenes, and Salad Bowl feels like more of a weekly “feel good” show rather than something with a more long-term plot. Its “Princess from another world facing persecution” quickly devolves into “Young girl playing games and doing cute things”. Still, it is watchable! The girls have a bit of personality, and Livia ending up with/as a homeless person was actually kind of funny. I could see Salad Bowl being a solid pick for folks looking for a more wholesome, relaxed weekly anime. It’s not for me, but I think it’s good enough to be for someone.
Potential: 30%

Astro Note

Short Synopsis: A down-on-his-luck chef accepts a part time job at a boarding house full of quirky residents.

Wooper: First things first: if you plan to watch Astro Note, you should grab the [Okay-Subs] release, which fixes an aliasing issue present in the official stream. I downloaded and compared both versions, and the former is indeed much easier on the eyes. With that out of the way, let me just say that I really enjoyed this premiere. Astro Note won’t be a hit with wide audiences – both the speed of its presentation and its florid color design are too in-your-face for that – but as an homage to past anime romcoms, it’s tons of fun. The “beautiful widowed landlord” trope from Maison Ikkoku is the most obvious touchpoint here, as protagonist Takumi falls for the aproned Mira-san just as quickly as Godai fell for the similarly-costumed Kyoko-san in that classic series. Takumi and Godai even share a room number across the two works, but Takumi is thankfully less pathetic than the character who likely inspired him. He’s a great cook, immediately winning over the boarding house’s breakfast-obsessed lodgers, whose physical appearances and personalities are so far outside the box that I already want to know more about each of them. There’s a sci-fi twist here that I won’t spoil, though the intergalactic cold open (which not-so-successfully mimics the look of analog production) serves as a massive hint, so it’s not as though it’s some big secret. Still, the scene where it falls into place is fun for other reasons – and speaking of fun, the 80s-inspired ED (which I assume will become the OP going forward) is a total delight, with sugary female vocals and bouncy percussion playing over a plethora of playful character animation. I can’t wait to rewatch it at the start of each new episode this season.
Potential: 70%

Lenlo: I’m so confused, how did we go from space epic cold open to small quirky breakfast cooking show? And then back to a space epic? What even is Astro Note? Wooper does his best to answer up above, he’s pretty on the money. The cast is quirky and fun without being annoying, the designs are surprisingly expressive, the visuals call back to an older era of anime, and even with the aliasing problem Wooper talked about I found myself enjoying my time with it. The only issue I can see is that Astro Note strikes me as being in a similar vein as last seasons Torture Princess. Something that’s fun weekly, well produced, has a lot of good ideas, but eventually gets stuck in a rut and isn’t able to evolve or keep my interest for the entire season. I’d like to be wrong, maybe it commits to having an actual plot enough to slowly evolve the premise, like maybe Takumi figures out what’s going on eventually and helps out, or the cast each get their individual unique stories, I don’t know. Astro Note has a lot of potential there. But it needs to act on the potential or else it will grow stale, just like Torture Princess. Anyways, for now at least I’m going to keep on watching it each week and see where it goes.
Potential: 65%

WIND BREAKER

Short Synopsis: A highschool full of delinquents search for purpose in a society that rejects them, using their strength to defend those who cannot defend themselves.

Lenlo: I was pleasantly surprised by Wind Breaker. I went into this expecting nothing, surely after Bucchigiri wouldn’t get two decent delinquent shows in a row. Yet right away it comes in with this strong opening scene on the pressures of Japanese society, of the struggle to fit in and suppress your true self. This sets the tone for the entire episode, which is only furthered by our lead’s sort of crisis of identity where he sees himself as a delinquent unworthy of trust or friends because that’s how society sees/treats him. Of a guy trying to find value and purpose in his life through fighting, proving he’s better through force, the only thing he’s any good at. It worked surprisingly well by the end, showing how these delinquents carved a place for themselves while staying true to who they are. I appreciated how the MC didn’t try to hide anything, Wind Breaker made it clear what he wanted and, when presented for a chance at it, he leapt for it immediately, no “Will he join?” bullshit.. And you know what? The fights were actually pretty good too, I liked the full-body continuous shots where we actually got to enjoy some choreography. If Wind Breaker can keep this up, if it can avoid falling into the basic Shounen bullshit trap, I think it could become pretty good. I’m not guaranteeing it, maybe this was just a one-off and it falls into the gutter later. But as far as premiers go, I’ve enjoyed it a lot.
Potential: 75%

Bartender: Glass of God

Short Synopsis: A hotel seeks out a Bartender capable of making the perfect drink. Can they find such a man?

Lenlo: Bartender is in a weird place. I was really expecting a more episodic, “People come in and talk about their problems and the bartender basically gives them therapy via conversation and alcohol” kind of story. However instead it seems to have an actual… plot? With goals? And challenges? The thing opens on a bloody exam arc as employees at a hotel seek out a suitable bartender for the bar, failing every applicant because they can’t make the “Glass of God”, only to stumble upon our lead who is useless at everything other than bartending. And you know what? It kind of works. I don’t drink, so a lot of it flew over my head, but I enjoyed the detail that went into selecting and putting together the drinks. Making something light for someone who hasn’t eaten yet? A low alcohol Highball using hard ice so it isn’t watered down despite having less whiskey? The care that goes into every action? It feels like whoever wrote this is passionate about their drinks, because they put a lot of care into this stuff. Now sure, the animation and everything isn’t great. It has a few shots here and there that look decent, nothing amazing. But I would say Bartender is good enough to be worth checking out if you’re interested in passionate niche hobbies like bartending. Maybe it will go somewhere unexpected!
Potential: 60%

A Condition Called Love

Short Synopsis: The hottest guy in school falls for a plain-looking girl after she uses an umbrella to keep the snow out of his hair.

Wooper: There’s been a miniature wave of good romance anime released in the past last year – Skip and Loafer, Yamada-kun to Lv999, last season’s A Sign of Affection – and I thought A Condition Called Love (Hananoi-kun to Koi no Yamai) might continue that trend. Despite my optimism, however, it seems Lenlo did the right thing in excluding it from the season preview, because this was a poor start to what feels like an ultra plain high school romance. “Plain” applies to nearly every aspect of the show: the character designs (especially the female lead), the animation (the brief lap-running scene was pitiful), and especially the premise (pretty boy falls for girl he’s never spoken to because she was nice to him one time). That ‘romance ex machina’ criticism is one that got lobbed at a lot of shoujo romcoms back in the day, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a series that deserves it more than Condition. After the protagonist shields Bishounen-san from the snow one afternoon, we cut straight to him asking her out the very next day, and it only ramps up from there. He continues inserting himself into her life at every opportunity, cuts his hair and stops wearing earrings to please her, and even goes back to school at night to sift through the snow in search of her missing hairpin. The second he said he could “die happy” if he got to see her smile, we passed the point of no return. Even hardcore shoujo fanatics should skip this one – leave it for the kids just getting into the genre.
Potential: 1%

Lenlo: Let this be a lesson Wooper, I’m always right. Maybe not immediately, but eventually time proves me right. And that’s exactly what happened here. I could tell by looking at the studio and staff behind Hananoi-kun that it was going to be mediocre. And here we are. Being serious for a moment, Wooper sums it up well. Everything about the lead is kind of just creepy. Dude completely changes his life, everything about himself, and forces his way into a girl’s life, all because she held an umbrella over him once while it snowed. That a healthy relationship does not make! On top of that, it also just doesn’t look good. As said above, it’s plain in every sense of the word, never doing anything to try and stand out nor catch the eye. As someone who was surprised by Yubisaki last season, pleasantly so, this does not measure up at all to what we just got done watching.
Potential: 0%

Yuru Camp S3

Short Synopsis: Rin goes on yet another solo camping trip, while back at school, the other club members plan a minor outing of their own.

Wooper: I did a little bit of Yuru Camp blogging in early 2021, and since this sequel has an all-new staff behind it, I figured I’d pop in either to encourage or warn off fellow fans from watching the new season. Happily, the transition was a seamless one, as this premiere felt like coming home – or more appropriately, returning to a favorite campsite. We’ve got the same well-lit backgrounds, the same talking pine cones, and the same rustic soundtrack as before (musician Akiyuki Tateyama is one of the few key staff members to have made the jump between seasons). New director Shin Tosaka has no prior experience with the franchise, but he made a great first impression, smoothly linking one of Rin’s present day Mt. Fuji viewings with her memories of her first camping trip with her grandpa. The DIY alcohol stove experiment in the second half provided the opportunity to show off the series’ new character designs – if I had to make a comparison, I’d say they make the girls look a smidge younger and more naive than before, but they’re so similar in motion that I can hardly count it as a negative. There’s also a post-credits scene where Nadeshiko’s childhood friend Ayano can be seen texting Rin from within her own tent, promising a future meet-up between the two sightseeing fiends. Oh, and the OP has some truly excellent shot transitions, making use of a borderless art style that’s quite refreshing – I’d recommend checking it out, even if (for some reason) you’re not a fan of this soothing series.
Potential: 60%