Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Oshi no Ko S2

Short Synopsis: Aqua attends the first several rehearsals for “Tokyo Blade,” the stage play in which he was recently cast.

Wooper: I watched all of Oshi no Ko’s first season and came away viewing it as junk food – a purported deep dive into Japan’s entertainment industry that was really just a pulpy teen drama. As an anime-only viewer, I’ve got no way of knowing whether this season might change that opinion, but it’s off to a pretty good start after this episode. Most of it takes place in a single room – a rehearsal space for the cast of the stage play around which this season will revolve – qualifying it for the “bottle episode” label. Assistant director Kuniyasu Nishina got the most out of this limited setting, however, dimming the backgrounds with different brightness levels to bring out the characters’ line readings, and even representing a particular clash of wills with metaphorical paint being splattered on the walls (which put me in mind of the Araragi vs Suruga fight from Bakemonogatari). The laser focus on acting, and on several of the performers’ different approaches to the trade, actually gave the series a bit of an ‘inside baseball’ feel – more so than in 2023, anyway – and the last-minute request from the in-universe source material’s author poses a complication that ought to help the show stay on track. All in all, having seen this season premiere, I’m more interested in continuing with Oshi no Ko this year than I thought I’d be.
Potential: 70%

Mario: Oshi no Ko picks up right where it left last season (as if “episode 12” wasn’t a clear indication), meaning that if you are new to this parade, you’re most likely lost amongst its big cast. For the rest of us, this new season will be focusing on the “2.5D play,” which is apparently an adaptation of a popular manga, and is very much within its DNA. We get the “inside knowledge” of the production of a stage play where the cast rehearses for their parts, the staff members who rationalize their artistic choices… but what I find unusual is that Aqua is not necessarily the main focus here. We hear his monologues, but so far he’s removed from the stage production itself. Instead we learn more about it through the people around him, especially his “girlfriend” Akane. This is pretty much a setup episode, but it does provide a good cliffhanger at the end, so I’m sure to tune in for the next episode (my guess is that the author wants to kill the main love interest and bring Akane’s character to the forefront).
Potential: 40%

Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian

Short Synopsis: A beautiful student council member and her otaku seatmate flirt with each other.

Wooper: Alya-san is such blatant nerd bait that the “too old for this shit” part of me wants to dismiss it out of hand, but honestly, it isn’t that bad. In fact, before we got to the part where the Russian hottie asked her classmate to slide her thigh high sock up her leg, I was ready to label it ‘kind of good.’ The premise of her smugly flirting with him in a language that he can’t admit he understands is a good one, since it gives incomplete power to both characters, and though the protagonist is a Literally Me redditor-type, he’s also normal enough to refer to an attractive classmate as a friend without stuttering about it. There are a couple good gags in here (e.g. an ikemen’s phone slipping from his hand due to shock, then pausing in midair before falling to the ground), and the character animation is more polished than I expected. Eventually, though, you reach the scene where the main dude’s hand brushes against the cute girl’s crotch while he puts on her sock, and though the show carried on from there without missing a beat, that was the point where I pulled the cord to get off at the next stop. Still, if you’re looking for a light ecchi romcom this season, you should probably be watching this.
Potential: 40%

Lenlo: Wooper basically has the right of it, as far as ecchi romcoms go you could do a lot worse than Alya. While I can’t speak to the quality of the Russian, it is an interesting hook and leads to some pretty cute interactions. That plus the MC being a generally well adjusted human, capable of holding a conversation without melting into himself, does a lot to make Alya watchable. Does that make Alya good? Not really, not for me at least, as it’s still pretty trashy and fetishy with stuff like the leggings and the crotch touch. The blatant love-triangle being setup with the other girl, Suou, doesn’t do much for me either as I’d much prefer this be a wholesome and straightforward romance. If romcoms are what you’re looking for, you should probably give Alya a shot, as it definitely stands out against the normal romcom fare. If that isn’t your genre though, nothing about Alya is going to change your mind.
Potential: 30%

Shinmai Ossan Bouken-sha…

Short Synopsis: Apparently 30 years old is middle age, and also too old to be an adventurer. Unless you were trained by super adventurers and are basically Saitama from One Punch Man.

Amun: I get it if this show isn’t for you. In fact, you’ll probably need to have experienced a very specific set of circumstances to appreciate this show: being a part of a group who is significantly more skilled than you at something. I’ve had the (dis)pleasure of this experience: you really do end up with a confused sense of normal. Shinmai Ossan does a surprisingly good job of conveying that confusion when you encounter someone who is “normal” to the rest of the world. The frustration and anxiety that comes from not being able to measure up against your peers, who are beyond exceptional, comes across quite well here. Also, what’s with calling 30 old…first Kaiju No. 8, now this show. I must admit, I do enjoy having an old man in a young man’s game – it makes for a nice gimmick. Now, the animation isn’t top shelf, and the character designs look a little dated, but I quite enjoy the premise, so I’ll be sticking around for a while.
Potential: If you like the shtick, 70%. If not, 10%.

Mario: I reckon that this episode can resonate to most late-bloomers out there (myself included) – whether it’s is your career or hobby, the show suggests that it is never too late to turn over a new leaf for what you really care about. I just wish that they handle all the other parts surrounding that message a bit better. The whole premise boils down to a one-liner joke – that he’s OP despite his age and his stats – and it gets stale even before the episode ends. The writing is clumsy – remember the duel where they have to give one “condition”? Well, they kinda forget it here partway. Our main guy is as bland as white paper and as thick as the slime bag he punches… I suppose that the show will get more straightforward as it goes, i.e. this elite group will save the world with him as the main contributor, but that would also kind of defeat this show’s very premise.
Potential: 10% (can confirm I do not like the shtick)

The Strongest Magician in the Demon Lord’s Army Was a Human

Short Synopsis: Literally the show’s title.

Amun: First premiere of the new season, hooray! Usually the first show premiering is a steaming pile of poor animation or fanservice, but is this season any different? The answer is….kinda. Maogun was about as standard a premiere as you could ask for. Truthfully though, that puts it head and shoulders above any other season first premieres that I can remember. Hey, at least it’s not an isekai, right? We have a standard overpowered OP with a dark secret that only the big boobed boss knows….well and this random maid who just found out. Okay, whatever. There’s a pig henchman and then a demon queen who is on about something. I don’t really love the character designs though – there have been more shows that do this, with the heavier outlines. This more comes down to execution and that’s something I am absolutely not convinced Studio A-CAT can continue for a full season. Think of this as an old, used Honda Civic – it’ll be sorta fun to drive until the wheels fall off.
Potential: 25%

Lenlo: While Maogun isn’t quite as bad as I was expecting, I think Amun is overstating its quality a bit. It’s still a rather dull and by the books OP MC fantasy story. I suppose the whole “Hiding his identity” thing would be interesting, if it wasn’t immediately revealed that others are aware of who he is, taking a lot of wind from Maogun’s sails so to speak. Meanwhile visually Maogun is primarily mediocre CGI with poor lighting and a heavy reliance on after effects for the spells. There’s just… very little of interest here, and while that places it above most Isekai slop we get, it’s still not worth my time.
Potential: 10%

Suicide Squad Isekai

Short Synopsis: DC Suicide Squad villains are sent to a new world!

Amun: (Note, I’m only going to discuss the first episode, although I know 3 premiered immediately). Let’s keep this simple: “Suicide Squad Isekai” didn’t have a great start. My complaints: first, Harley’s fight with whoever that ninja was felt really weird – the finishing blow just felt odd in perspective. Secondly, the entire episode felt rushed and confused – tons of time was spent on showing the Joker, only for him to be seemingly absent from the rest of the show (although I love the inclusion of his car). Third, the animation wasn’t as crisp as it needs to be for an action heavy show like this. I KNOW Wit can do better. Finally, and this is probably the most concerning point, I didn’t feel that the tone of the DC Suicide Squad was well integrated with the isekai setting. Suicide Squad is about the irreverent “bad guys killing other bad guys for good reasons” with humor and style. “Suicide Squad Isekai” more felt like super powered prisoners were set free in a fantasy land. And I mean, that would be a fine premise, but we know these characters already – it just felt like hearing a song you love, trying to like it, but they’re hitting the wrong notes just slightly. Maybe the show will improve, but I’m honestly really disappointed.

(Episode 2 update: while the first episode is cheeks, episode 2 was way more fun. Maybe this could turn out okay?)
Potential: 30% (after 2, 50%)

Lenlo: After watching Suicide Squad I feel that it’s safe to say, as a comic book fan, that it’s best to go into this expecting a regular Isekai with a DC aesthetic rather than an actual exploration of these characters in any interesting fashion. If you wanted to see Harley Quinn in a fantasy world in any way other than visually, SSI simply is not for you. It has no idea who they are beyond the surface level and some catch phrases like “Puddin”. However if you just want to watch a hot blonde psychopath and her “friends” make media references and murder their way through a fantasy world, this will probably be right up your alley. And honestly, visually? I don’t think it looks that bad. It doesn’t move that well, like Amun says the animation isn’t very crisp and I’ve seen Wit do better, but I kind of like the designs and how colorful it all is, sometimes at least. If I rate this on a scale of Harley Quinn stories, it’s not shaping up to be very good. If I rate it on the scale of Isekai in general however… Well that’s a much more favorable comparison if you ask me. Suffice to say, I’m going to finish watching the other 2 episodes and probably a bit more before/if I drop it.
Potential: 40%

My Wife Has No Emotion

Short Synopsis: An exhausted salaryman gets a robot maid and swiftly falls in love with her.

Mario: Boy this is tough to sit through. For me, the problematic part of this premise is not about him falling in love with a robot (which of course is a can full of worms), but the very idea that the “perfect wife” image is the one who cooks for you and does the household chores… and refers to you with the honorific “-sama”. It’s just a blatant wish fulfillment cranked up to 11. Adding to that is a very generic male lead whose name I immediately forget as soon as I hear it. He doesn’t have much of a personality, really. Just look at his apartment and you don’t see anything that reflects his hobby or characteristics. But I guess he’s human enough to… have a boner when a humanoid girl sleeps next to him. The fact that the titular robot is emotionless but somehow 10 times more interesting than him speaks to that. Sorry but I don’t buy this relationship at all.
Potential: Nope. Does this show deserve three reviews written for it? Nope nope.

Amun: This premiere was lowkey disturbing. Not on the level of Goblin Slayer or anything, but yeah, this was not enjoyable. I looked into it and the source comes from 2019, somewhat at the beginning of the current AI boom. Given today’s advancements with humanoid robots (props to showing the extensive charging sequences) and LLMs like ChatGPT, My Wife Has No Emotion isn’t a cute comedy, but more of a dystopian nightmare. There was just way too much discomfort and awkwardness this episode, ignoring that this could very well become reality within the next decade. Of course, we have the obligatory ghosts in the machine, where the AI exhibits functionality beyond programmed behaviour – could it be, gasp, alive?! I do have to give props for that clock animation (that’s on point). Plus, there is also no way on earth that having a robot sleep in your bed doesn’t smell like oil. Yeah – this is disturbing. No more of this for me, thanks.
Potential: Absolutely not. Why do they keep making tradwife anime weirder and weirder?

Lenlo: I don’t know what I find more depressing, the idea of live-in tradwife sex robots, or the idea that this guy works what looks to be 12-hour days just to get home, crash, and do it all over again. Anyways, Amun has the right of it in that this show isn’t wholesome or cute at all and instead rather creepy. Weebs and Neets are already too afraid to go outside and talk to the opposite sex, do we really need to encourage it with things like demure robot wives who do anything you say? Maybe the show goes somewhere with it and gives her a personality, does the thing where it chastises him for falling in love with an appliance and that a true and fulfilling romance can only come from another sentient being reciprocating those emotions with their own free will. The emotions bit at least definitely seems to be what My Wife is gunning for judging by this first episode. That’s enough for me to not write it off completely like Amun, as there’s clear potential there. But I can’t say I’m particularly hopeful for it, just going by Japan’s track record.
Potential: 1%

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%