Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Shuumatsu Touring

Short Synopsis: Cute girls doing cute things in a post-apocalyptic world.

Amun: Let’s start out with the disclaimer that Girls Last Tour (which will draw tons of comparisons to Shuumatsu Touring) is one of my top anime all time. Given that immense starting bias, Shuumatsu Touring’s been on my radar since the preseason. How did the first episode shape up? Like Mario says, it’s way greener and more vibrant. It isn’t as much finding joy in the dreary as it is finding joy in the uncluttered. Also, this episode was set in Hakone, which I absolutely love (I’ve been blessed to have hiked the mountains around the big lake in this episode…although there wasn’t the Loch Ness monster when I was there). All in all, I like the vibes, I like our leads, I don’t mind electric motor bikes, and I’m curious what happened to Mt. Fuji (I think I’ve gotten the right mountain there).
Potential: 70%

Mario: I’m sure the obvious point of comparison for this show is Girls’ Last Tour, considering how they are similar in both premise and tone, but so far Shuumatsu Touring does just about enough to differentiate itself from that show. First, instead of the gray industrial wasteland in Girls’ Last Tour, we have much more green in the palette this time. We have yet to see any humans aside from the main girls (one of whom is revealed to be an android), but wild animals are thriving in this world! In addition to that, I really appreciate how the episode slowly reveals many important details by showing instead of spoon-feeding the information. As mentioned earlier, the reveal that one of the girls is an android is nicely done, and the main girl’s constant flashbacks to Earth before the apocalypse marks a nice contrast to how it looks at the moment. I’m sure that we will learn more about this world and what caused its ruin further down the line, but for now the girls are the focal point, and so far I’m up for their own little adventure.
Potential: 60%

Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle

Short Synopsis: A popular teenage boy flirts with his classmates and attempts to lure a shut-in nerd back to school.

Wooper: When I wrote this show’s entry for our season preview a couple weeks ago, I guessed that the chances of its title character escaping Literally Me status were slim. Now that I’ve seen Chitose’s 30+ minute premiere, I can confirm that he fits the mold, but there’s something that sets him apart – he’s way better at talking to girls than the other LN dudes who typically get slapped with that label. Sure, “better” is a relative term (some of the women who watch this episode are bound to find him douchey), but if we’re talking about the ability to keep a conversation going with a member of the opposite sex, this guy is at the top of his class. For fans of LN harem adaptations with larger-than-harem pretensions, that may prove to be a selling point, but personally, I found the writing to be annoying. The snippets of flowery narration scattered throughout the episode, Chitose’s internal assessments of his classmates in the order they appear on screen, the aggressive flirting from half the female students… I’d say I were too old for this kind of show, but the truth is I never liked them, even as a teenager myself. The only whiff of promise here comes from the unspoken skeleton in the protagonist’s closet, which his teacher uses to subtly blackmail him midway through the episode, but I’m not sticking around to find out what it is.
Potential: 10%

A Mangaka’s Weirdly Wonderful Workplace

Short Synopsis: The everyday life of a rookie mangaka and her yuri affection for her editor.

Mario: It’s always a treat to see the inner workings of a mangaka’s life (and those of people in the anime industry, to an extent). It’s something that is totally unique to Japanese culture that I would love to know more about. This show uses that setting for a more cozy approach, and dives more into the mangaka-assistant and mangaka-editor relationships. So far though, I’m not sure if I can tolerate our main girl Futami for the rest of the season. She has a wild imagination (befitting her occupation), but tends to overthink and overact, which can be too much at times. Thankfully, the people around her serve as the voice of reason to bring her back to reality. I like the atmosphere but the show has to branch out more in order to grab the audience’s attention.
Potential: 40%

Spy x Family S3

Short Synopsis: A spy, an assassin, a telepathic kid, and a future seeing dog pretend to be a family…and try to save the world.

Lenlo: This, somehow, may be one of my favorite Spy x Family episodes yet. Not only do we get some sweet family time with Loid/Yor/Anya and a fun little arm wrestling match with construction equipment, we even get an entire mission dedicated purely to our side cast of Fiona/Franky, expanding who knows who and their relationships. It felt like we got a little bit of everything. The only thing I was looking for that wasn’t there was something connected to the larger plot, to bring that back in instead of a basic recap at the start. Suffice to say, it was a solid opening episode, showing us just how good Spy x Family can be when it’s firing on all cylinders. Now we just need to hope it can keep this up for the rest of the season. Sadly this is around when I stopped reading, so I’m as blind as you are now.
Potential: 70%

Amun: What a lovely start to the season. I agree with what Lenlo said about it being a bit odd that we have essentially a filler episode as the premiere, but it looks like next week will get into the more Anya centric arc I’m expecting this season to be. I’m a little surprised to see how much time has been spent developing Nightfall, since she’s a pretty flat character, but I’m assuming we’ll find out the reasons later. Other than that, I’m hyped for the season – everything seems to be in working order from the characters to the animation, so it looks like this season’s a go!
Potential: 90%

Mario: Okay, I’m just gonna be that guy who says that this episode does nothing for me. I demand more Anya time!!
Potential: 20%

Ninja vs. Gokudo

Short Synopsis: Two boys become friends, unaware that they are on two different sides of a hundred-year war between ninja and gangsters.

Mario: The feud between two staples of Japanese pop culture, ninja and gokudo (yakuza), is an interesting concept to explore, but so far this episode just takes too long to get to the point. From the very first moment they meet, we all have a good idea of how they will end up. I guess the point here is to establish the fleeting friendship between these two young faces who share a mutual love for anime, but once we know that they will inevitably face off in the future, this feels more like a calculated move. In addition, its violence is of the edgy variety, which is just as likely to turn audiences away as it is to attract them. Still, I enjoy the wordplay of their names (read as ninja and gokudo, respectively). Not that the show will shake the anime world, as you can see how things will fall way ahead of time, but it’s still enjoyable in its own way.
Potential: 30%

May I Ask for One Final Thing?

Short Synopsis: A highborn lady takes revenge on her fellow nobles for their mistreatment of her, as well as their general wickedness.

Wooper: I ignored this show on first release due to its place within the villainness subgenre, but circled back around to it when I needed a replacement for a much worse premiere. May I Ask (or Saihito, Japan’s abbreviation for its stereotypical light novel title) isn’t bad, just not my cup of tea, though I say that without having seen the second of the simultaneous episodes it dropped last week. Based on the OP, it looks like Scarlet (the show’s heroine) will eventually ditch the hypocrisy of the peerage for a life of combat and adventure, but all I saw in 20-something minutes was her backstory and her violent revenge on her cruel former fiance Kyle, plus his sycophantic flunkies. Saihito definitely has a sense of humor about Kyle’s spinelessness, but there’s more than one moment when that humor douses him in gasoline, metaphorically speaking, rather than just lighting his coat on fire. And all the groveling from his fellow nobles when Scarlet begins to go on her rampage, including offers to give their best slaves to anyone who can protect them, are so thickly written that the scene lost a lot of its appeal, at least for me. The concept of a villainness anime with a stoic badass for a protagonist is a good one, and the show does well with its limited visual resources, but this isn’t something I’m eager to follow from week to week.
Potential: 25%

Digimon Beatbreak

Short Synopsis: A drummer with mysterious AI-scrambling powers is introduced to Digimon the hard way when one of them kills his brother.

Wooper: This is my first time sitting down to watch a Digimon show, and truthfully I only gave it a spin to create a multiple of three for this post, but I came away impressed. The franchise has some odd quirks, like its creature naming scheme (the giant wasp is named Waspmon) and the concept of human involvement in Digimon combat (hopefully that’s not a constant across multiple series, because it seems very stupid). But as far as establishing episodes go, this one performed well. Its most impressive aspect had to be the death of the main character’s older brother – together with the dramatic music and Tomoro’s conflicted feelings toward the man, the character animation as his brother’s hand slipped from his grasp thoroughly sold the moment. As a matter of fact, the episode looked great most of the time, with the only exception being the cyber grid landscape used for the opening fight scene. Information about critical in-universe technology, like e-Pulse and Sapotamas (egg-shaped all-in-one AI assistants), was delivered both upfront and throughout the episode, which formed an effective (if not elegant) combination, and the show’s mascot, the rubber-tongued Gekkomon, was instantly memorable. I liked what I saw here – enough to give Beatbreak at least two more episodes for sure, though I doubt I’ll be along for the entire (rumored) four cour ride.
Potential: 55%

Tojima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider

Short Synopsis: A 40 year old man lives his dream of being Kamen Rider by dressing up as a Tokusatsu hero and beating up thugs while an equally Rider-obsessed gangster opposes him.

Lenlo: For something as culturally massive as Kamen Rider, I’ve never actually watched anything about the series. I’ve seen Power Rangers, and other western Tokusatsu shows, but this is the first one actually directly related to Kamen Rider. And you know what? Maybe I should go watch some, because this was legitimately fun. Very exaggerated and stupid, a grown adult making transformation noises and judo flipping a brown bear is crazy, but oh so fun. This show clearly loves Kamen Rider, and it makes me want to love it as well. Helps that it also doesn’t look half bad, as my guy had a transcendental experience putting on a plastic mask before beating up some thugs with some of the best fight choreo I’ve seen so far this season. Easily the most fun I’ve had with a premiere so far, I really really hope Tojima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider keeps it up.
Potential: 90%

Wooper: The damage that JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has done to action anime’s sound design is irreversible, I fear. We’re not getting bass hits and bullet sound effects just for punches and kicks anymore – now we even need six of them when a shot zooms out to dramatically reveal half a dozen cardboard boxes. If you want context for that description, you’ll have to watch this premiere yourself, and you may be glad you did, as Tojima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider’s obnoxious audio is its only real weakness. The show may have a ridiculous premise and an over-the-top energy, but it smartly walks the line between wearing its heart on its sleeve and keeping its tongue in its cheek. While the Kamen Rider love is real here, both the central character and the wave of burglars cosplaying as the franchise’s iconic henchmen recognize the outlandishness of their actions, providing a workable base from which the story can escalate. Its fight scenes and reaction shots rely heavily on effects for their impact, rather than elite animation, but the show makes it work with exaggerated expressions and fun humor. And speaking of humor, the takoyaki-themed ED is one of my favorites of the year so far – I couldn’t find it online just yet, but it’ll be worth looking up when it eventually hits the net.
Potential: 60%

SI-VIS: The Sound of Heroes

Short Synopsis: A country boy travels to Tokyo in the hopes of joining his cousin’s idol unit, but ends up witnessing his death instead.

Wooper: Bit of a spoiler in the synopsis there (if you want to watch this one blind, don’t look up), but I figure most folks will need a hook to check out what looks like an idol game adaptation. That’s the thing about Sound of Heroes – it’s actually an original series, but you’d never guess that from its premise, character designs, or general vibe. (My guess is that there’s a group of producers out there hoping the anime will be a hit so they can create a media mix franchise in reverse.) Despite being the first of its name, The Sound of Heroes has clear inspirations in battle idol shows, most notably Symphogear, so unless you’re into that micro-genre, it probably won’t appeal to you. It’s a competently made product, though, and some people may get a kick out of how seriously it (and a couple of its edgy characters in particular) takes its song and dance battles. During the scene where SI-VIS face off against their alien foes, the screen is awash with ice waves, sparkles, bubbles, and laser beams, which will either give you a headache or make you laugh out loud. If it’s the latter, this show may be for you, but personally, one episode is enough for me.
Potential: 20%

My Hero Academia: The Final Season

Short Synopsis: The final season of My Hero Academia, you know what this is at this point.

Lenlo: Ah My Hero Academia, so we finally come to your swan song. Let’s be real, you know by this point if you enjoy My Hero Academia or not, we’re like… 8 seasons in. No one is watching this that isn’t invested in seeing it through to the end. The real question is, what do I think of the ending and the content being adapted? Personally? It’s… Alright. Muddied, a clear vision executed sloppily that the anime has a chance to fix but probably won’t. Luckily it’s still good enough that I want to finish it, and I hope BONES gives it the animation it needs to shine, because it’s going to be non-stop battles from here until the end.
Potential: 60%

Inexpressive Kashiwada and Expressive Oota

Short Synopsis: An overly emotional middle school boy tries and fails to prank his stoic female classmate.

Wooper: I have to call it like I see it – this is just a retread of Komi-san Can’t Communicate. Sure, the male lead has more of a personality (“pissed off for no reason”), which changes his dynamic with the female lead, but in nearly every other way it’s a clone. It uses on-screen text and a female narrator to clue us into what the silent Kashiwada is thinking, its soundtrack is piano-heavy, the side characters’ lives revolve entirely around the main duo – the similarities are uncanny. That last point especially is taken to the extreme here, with multiple classroom scenes arranged so that Kashiwada and Oota are in the center of the room, and everybody else stands on the periphery, observing them as though they’re the only people that matter. The only moments of visual interest are exterior shots of birds in a nest outside their second-floor classroom, which are meant to symbolize the show’s central relationship but somehow end up overshadowing it, despite constituting less than one percent of this episode’s runtime. This won’t go down as fall’s worst premiere, but it’s the worst one I’ve seen at this early stage.
Potential: 5%

Sanda

Short Synopsis: Two middle schoolers, one descended from Santa Claus and the other willing to do anything to get his help, set out to discover what happened to one of their classmates. Did I mention she stabs him in the first 10 minutes?

Lenlo: What the fuck did I just watch. Paru Itagaki, author of Beastars, what the hell have you created? Why did our lead just stab a kid to turn him into Santa Claus? Why is Santa Claus buff as hell? Why are we blowing up a school?! I have absolutely no idea what is happening or where this is going to go. Will it become some kind of battle shounen between the various holidays? Or is Santa Claus going to become a domestic terrorist to find a lost little girl? I honestly don’t know. But it looks good, the character designs are sharp, the art style stands out, and there’s just enough sanity that I want to watch more and see what other crazy shit it does. Besides, Fuyumura is kinda cute.
Potential: 60%

Pass the Monster Meat, Milady

Short Synopsis: Royal girl who loves eating monsters + awkward knight who loves killing monsters = great success! Easy!

Amun: Disclaimer: I love wild meat. I would trade all the domestic beef and chicken in the world if I could eat wild meat every day. In short, I agree strongly with our heroine – and while I haven’t been shunned by royal society, I have gotten a few funny looks. And, like our heroine, I’m not a great hunter – so if someone came along who could decapitate a future meal, yeah I’d swoon too. Take away my obvious bias, and this is a show about two people who are a bit outside the norm finding love and acceptance with each other – plus a bit of a wild game gourmet gimmick. Some of the character designs are quite triangular (makes me feel like I’m watching a 20 year old anime sometimes), but I’m generally onboard with the chemistry of the leads and the different avenues the story can take us. I do think the animation could fall apart in the back half, but that’s a problem for future me. Sign me up for another course!
Potential: 85%

Mario: I’ll be frank, the title turned me off at first. It sounds more like a bad pun of an ecchi anime, but instead, this is a show about a girl who loves meat and a boy who loves hunting. The trend in anime about eating monsters sure is fascinating, but unlike Delicious in Dungeon which is interested in the art of cooking, here it’s more about the enjoyment of eating. Doesn’t matter, as the episode instead focuses on two misfits who find something in common, and it is adorable. Their exchanges are actually very natural (except occasionally when they get shy) and you can easily see how they are drawn into each other. Just this alone makes this a worthy show for anyone looking for a neat romance, but we also have the wild meat as the seasoning on top. I can also see that the production might be a big issue later on, given that during the scene where our girl runs away from the monster, the animation looks really awkward.
Potential: 40%

Shabake

Short Synopsis: A sick boy who can talk to yokai tries to solve a mysterious murder incident during the Edo period.

Mario: My main takeaway after the first episode is that Shabake is much more interested in how our main character Ichitaro interacts with yokai, rather than his fellow humans. And I guess I missed the fine details that it already explained, but why do Ichitaro’s guardians, who are yokai, age when we flash forward? That aside, the episode itself is a little slow paced at the moment. Rather than establishing the main conflict, for now it follows Ichitaro going on with his day. It makes it hard to have a better idea of what Shabake will be about further down the line, but the theme here is very clear, and mildly interesting: it’s about Ichitaro’s relationships with the yokai characters and how they support him with their own abilities. It certainly looks and feels different than the mainstream here.
Potential: 30%

Lenlo: I’ll admit, I was disappointed in how light a tone Shabake chose to take. Even with a child growing up in poor health, yokai, and a murder in the street, it still felt rather relaxed about it all. I was hoping for something a bit… stronger, I guess. Not full on Seinen murder mystery, but more than “Saturday morning cartoon”. Because of that, I was never able to really get into the episode, since as Mario says it spends more time on Ichitaro and the Pokemon Yokai he hangs around with than anything else. All in all, a tad boring.
Potential: 15%

Towa no Yuugure

Short Synopsis: A boy wakes up to find the world in ruins after a few hundred years have passed.

Mario: I think I have a thing for any show that has “the End of the World” in the title, as they’re often set in post-apocalyptic societies that have different sets of rules than our current world, and where technology has regressed instead of evolved. Towa no Yuugure scratches that itch with a young boy named Akira waking up in a society he is not familiar with. The concept of “ehlsea” (or marriage), for example, is interesting; it’s a group of people who vow to live together, instead of just two people. The backgrounds provide a perfect canvas to bring this new setting to life, as well as the noteworthy character designs. As much as I enjoy these parts of the episode, OWEL Commissioner General is the type of character written so poorly that he stands out in a really bad way. The gore doesn’t really fit this show either, and I’m not sure if I find our hero Akira or the android girl Towasa interesting enough to follow long term. It certainly has ambition, though, so I might give it a couple more episodes.
Potential: 30%

My Awkward Senpai

Short Synopsis: A clumsy office worker is assigned as a mentor for an enthusiastic new hire.

Wooper: Bukiyou na Senpai represents Japan’s quarterly attempt to convince anime fans that an ideal domestic partner awaits them so long as they join the corporate world like good boys and girls. As usual, we have a beautiful, busty office lady character in the cast, but this time the twist is that she’s… kind of awkward! Of course, that just makes her all the more endearing and approachable, which is a bonus for the earnest new recruit she’s been charged with training. Maybe I’m laying on the sarcasm a little too thick – this episode was too straightforward by half, but it wasn’t bad. The animation is far from first rate, but an effort was made to depict characters walking down stairs and along city blocks without taking shortcuts, which I appreciated. Kannawa-senpai’s monosyllabic utterances have a curt appeal to them, as contrasted with her self-critical inner thoughts, and her rosy memories of her own senpai’s helpfulness provide both a goal for Kannawa and built-in context for the latter character’s inevitable appearance. There are a few positives, then, but as far as the workplace aspect goes, I’m not expecting this series to distinguish itself in the slightest.
Potential: 20%

A Star Brighter Than the Sun

Short Synopsis: An awkward high school girl recalls her history with the guy she’s been crushing on for nearly a decade.

Wooper: Taiyou yori mo Mabushii Hoshi (TamaHoshi for short) is about as average a shoujo romance as you could imagine, with two childhood friends, an insecure girl and a popular boy, landing in the same class upon reaching high school. The on-screen text, the sparkly backgrounds, the lengthy inner monologues, the contrast between the Plain Jane female lead and her more glamorous peers – it’s all here. I don’t mind the familiarity, since the tried and true shoujo template appeals to me on a personal level, but I do have some criticisms here. This episode used way too much panning and fading, especially during its first half, which traveled all the way back to the main characters’ elementary school days. Engineering smooth transitions between the past and present is important, but those techniques were popping up even when the story was locked in flashback mode for multiple scenes in a row. Also, the fuzzy filter applied to the frame during said flashbacks wasn’t my favorite choice – hopefully it’ll be kept to a minimum now that we’ve gotten the main girl’s life story. TamaHoshi is cute, which is enough for me to give it another look in a slim anime season, but that won’t be sufficient for most fans.
Potential: 40%

Ranma ½ (2024) S2

Short Synopsis: Akane’s admirers search for Ranma’s secret weakness in an effort to break up their engagement.

Wooper: Its title may read 2024, but the Ranma reboot is still going strong in ‘25, and will likely continue to do so on an annual basis, given Rumiko Takahashi’s multigenerational reputation as the Queen of Romcoms. This episode served as a fine comeback, if not a particularly disruptive one for the show’s status quo, introducing a (very) minor romantic rival in Gosunkugi, voiced with a nice blend of harmless creepiness by Akira Ishida. The whole plot about his quest to discover Ranma’s Achilles heel, which turned out to be a debilitating fear of cats, was mildly amusing – the bits I liked the best were art and animation-related, as is often the case for me with this series. More than the content of this episode, I was fixated on the OP to see which new faces we might expect to make their debut this cour. Two of them jumped out at me, and one of them I knew by sight even without being a fan of the source material: Happosai, one of manga’s preeminent perverted sage characters, reviled by many a Ranma fan (English-speaking ones, at any rate). The other was Ukyo, apparently a crowd favorite, so perhaps the two will balance each other out; if not, I’ll finally get to experience the scene-ruining essence that Happosai apparently brings to the table.
Potential: ½

Cat’s Eye (2025)

Short Synopsis: Three moonlighting art thieves repeatedly steal priceless treasures out from under the nose of a clueless cop.

Wooper: I’ve seen the first few episodes of the original Cat’s Eye adaptation, and I have to say, this one suffers by comparison. The animation is better here (especially during the opening paraglider scene), but for character and color design, and even storyboarding, you’re going to want the 80s version. I was surprised by the remake’s poor performance in that last category, but perform poorly it did, botching an early “dodge the motion-detecting lasers” scene and occasionally placing the Cat’s Eye girls way too close to the cops for them to plausibly elude detection. Not that plausibility should be a major factor when deciding whether to watch this show, since it features the dumbest detective in animanga history, Toshio Utsumi. This poor schmuck somehow can’t make the connection between the three sisters running his favorite cafe (Cat’s Eye) and the identically named trio of art thieves responsible for his professional humiliation. On the plus side, modern touches like Toshio and Hitomi going on a rock climbing date or Ai’s use of her smartphone fit neatly within the context of the episode; if anything, the premise of Cat’s Eye makes more sense in our internet-enabled future than it ever did four decades ago.
Potential: 20%

Yano-kun’s Ordinary Days

Short Synopsis: A girl who loves to take care of people meets a boy who is accident-prone.

Mario: While this slice-of-life romcom overall offers a pleasant enough time, in the long run I am unsure if this show has enough legs to expand on this simple premise. In fact, this premiere feels longer than it actually is, as it pads out Yano’s situation and Yoshida’s feelings for him too thin. The animation is a bit of a mixed bag too given it can be expressive at one moment but totally lacking at others. I do enjoy how it mixes its usual art with a cartoonish style to signal how Yoshida is thinking of Yano. Other than that, the episode goes where you expect it would go, and the lack of slapstick moments makes it less snappy and much more conventional than other anime in the genre. If you have a thing for romance shows, this one fits the bill. Others will find it watchable but boring.
Potential: 20%

This Monster Wants to Eat Me

Short Synopsis: A depressed teenage orphan pins her hopes for death on her class’s mermaid transfer student.

Wooper: What’s an author to do when the market for vampire fiction is fully saturated, yet they can’t help but throw their hat into the ring anyway? Why, write a vampire and call it a mermaid, of course! This Monster Wants to Eat Me (Watashi wo Tabetai, Hitodenashi) traffics in many of the tropes you’d expect from such a swap, including a sad girl protagonist and her mermaid protector who vows to eat her only once she’s reached maximum ripeness. Unlike the absurd Baban Baban Ban Vampire from earlier this year, This Monster plays its supernatural grooming aspect totally straight, which doesn’t offend me so much as it makes me doubt its story could offer anything novel. That’s fine, though, because based on the direction of this premiere, it’s going for atmosphere over plot. There are a couple long stretches of silence near the start to help us acclimate to the main character’s despondent aura, and the episode has a habit of transforming school scenes into underwater ones without cutting, showing fish swimming past previously sunny windows to represent Hinako’s mood. Those are just two facets of a consistent approach that I think will please audiences looking for a moodier-than-average supernatural anime (even if I’m not among them).
Potential: 35%

City the Animation

Short Synopsis: Silly people do silly things in a silly town (while looking amazing).

Amun: I have never seen Nichijou, nor do I really know anything about it, so I came into City blind. As Lenlo says below, this looks absolutely fantastic. Like wow, that opening shot through the rain is some of the nicest animation I’ve seen this season (and we have some seasonal heavy hitters with Tensei and Dandadan). The short form sketches work pretty well, with some common characters and themes being developed. I must say some humor is lost on me, but occasionally the slapstick (especially the slow mo of getting hit in the face with a cork) did make me belly laugh, so mission accomplished! This is definitely a “vibes” show, so as long as it stays lighthearted with a joke landing here and there, I’ll probably stick with it.
Potential: 65%

Lenlo: The most visually impressive thing this season probably, it looks incredible, but I actively detest both its and Nichijou’s style of comedy. There’s nothing funny in here for me. But if you enjoyed Nichijou, this will probably be an Anime of the Season contender for you. It looks that good.

Tougen Anki

Short Synopsis: A boy with oni blood seeks revenge for the Agency that killed his father.

Mario: And at the final run, we have one of the most action-packed anime (alongside Gachiakuta) of this season. That fact, along with the fact that it airs on Netflix, means that it could reach a mass audience out there and become a modest hit. But what about the actual show’s quality? Well, based on the first episode, it’s a narrow road. Tougen Anki aims to be another shounen with violence and an “edgy” protagonist, but the big issue is that the MC himself isn’t just edgy – he’s unlikable from start to finish. He gets expelled from school the first time we meet him, where he’s in the process of insulting everyone around him, his (non-blood related) father included. What happens afterward is just a poor excuse for him having a “goal” for himself and knowing who he really is. We can see the fate of his father coming from miles away, and everything else the show has done so far has been done before more effectively in other shounen series. For example, it doesn’t surprise me one bit that in the end he gets knocked out by a fellow oni and will be put into a group of oni teenagers his age. I’d take the randomness of City the Animation anytime over this predictable plot.
Potential: 20%

Solo Camping for Two

Short Synopsis: An aspiring camper harasses a more experienced outdoorsman until he agrees to accompany her on her next camping trip.

Wooper: I’m afraid we’re ending First Impressions season on a bit of a fart with Solo Camping for Two (Futari Solo Camp), but at least the stench won’t linger, since it’s a show about the outdoors. You’ll have to forgive the dad joke – I figured it was somewhat appropriate, given that the protagonist here is an adult man (Gen), which was the main reason I wanted to check out this show to begin with. Turns out his relative maturity was wasted on this premiere, since all he did was get nagged repeatedly by its only other character, an accident-prone young woman (Shizuku) with a knack for shedding her skirt. I didn’t exactly enjoy the way the episode opened, with Gen internally monologuing about his love for camping alone, but soon after Shizuku showed up and started begging to join his party of one, I began to long for those halcyon opening minutes. The visuals aren’t anything to write home about, either, which isn’t a good look for an anime meant to celebrate the great outdoors. Instead, the only celebration happening here is mine, at never having to write about this sub-middling show ever again.
Potential: 10%

Dr. Stone: Science Future Part 2

Short Synopsis: Second cour of Dr. STONE Season 4, you know what this is about by now.

Lenlo: Look, we’re 4 seasons in at this point, I really don’t know what I can tell you that you haven’t already heard before. You know by now whether or not you like Dr.STONE, and this second cour is more of the same. Do you enjoy science based shounen shenanigans? Do you enjoy Humanity Fuck Yeah stories? Do you enjoy some of the stupid situations they find themselves in as the ridiculous science escalates further and further? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you will continue to enjoy Dr. STONE. And for those of you that have been waiting/wanting for it to get a bit more serious about addressing its many mysteries, well this season will be even better for you, because we’re in the endgame now. I legitimately only see one more cour after this one and then the whole thing is over. So if you want to be there for the end, jump on in.
Potential: 60%

The Fragrant Flower
Blooms with Dignity

Short Synopsis: A menacing-looking teenage boy forms a connection with a girl who frequents his family’s cake shop.

Wooper: Of all the anime genres out there, the one that makes me most conscious of the new fan experience is romance. How would a teenager – or even someone a little older, but without the burden of a hundred animated love stories under their belt – feel about a first episode like Fragrant Flower’s? I can’t presume to speak for that demographic, but my intuition tells me they’d like it a lot. It’s packed with tropes that even a newcomer would recognize as such: boy and girl from different social strata, boy looks scary but has a heart of gold, boy sustains injury while protecting girl from hooligans after dark, etc.. The visuals are top shelf, though, so the characters’ words and actions could easily spark the imagination of someone new to romance anime. Expressions of disgust, boredom, and fascination are expertly drawn, making the divide between Rintaro and Kaoruko’s worlds – as well as his internalization of his bad reputation – potent weapons in the show’s arsenal. Shots of their neighboring school buildings, their detailed classrooms, and especially Kaoruko’s covert position in her favorite cake shop create confidence in the show’s overall direction. Chubby-cheeked chibi versions of various characters lend a bit of humor to a setup that might otherwise feel too serious, and they’re spaced out enough that they might charm someone who hasn’t already had their fill of the technique. To put it simply, Fragrant Flower has a lot going for it, so even though I found its first outing disappointingly familiar, I have to respect its game.
Potential: 55%

Dekin no Mogura

Short Synopsis: A dead hermit was banned from the afterlife and now collects spirits in an attempt to buy his way in.

Lenlo: I can’t quite put my finger on it, but Dekin no Mogura reminds me of something… Is it Gintama, with its mediocre physical/screaming comedy and ugly designs? I’m really not sure, but suffice to say, Dekin was not good. None of the jokes landed, the whole thing was ugly to look at, and I felt like it took me 2 hours to get through a 20 minute episode. It was so uninteresting, I can’t even write a moderate length blurb telling you not to watch it. I just want to move on and find something better.
Potential: 0%

Panty & Stocking S2

Short Synopsis: Season 2 of Panty and Stocking. Just go watch the original, it’s hard to explain, you won’t regret it.

Lenlo: I was really nervous about the Panty & Stocking revival because it had been almost a decade and a half since the original aired and I wasn’t sure they would be able to capture the same magic. And in some ways, that fear came to pass. It isn’t the same show it was 15 years ago, or I’m not the same person, at the very least the English dub has a completely different voice cast, and that’s how I prefer to watch the show. But after watching it twice, both once subbed and once dubbed, I can say with certainty that if you enjoyed the original show, you’ll still love the revival. Yes, it has a bunch of sexual innuendos, yes it’s a very horny show, yes it’s irreverent in the extreme. But it‘s also like nothing else being made right now, looks fantastic, has an incredible OST, and is really just… As weird as it is to say, it’s still a love letter to American animation and comedy, and it’s so much fun. Like Mario says below though, it’s not going to be for everyone.
Potential: 90%

Mario: The original Panty & Stocking was a sensory overload, with irreverent jokes and innuendos thrown at you every 3 seconds, and the visuals brimmed with dynamic animation and too much color. It also ended with a WTF twist that didn’t really beg for a sequel. But here’s that sequel after 15 long years, and I would say that the show still has the energy and the essence of the original. Everything is turned up to 11 as before, and it even finds a whimsical way to explain the 15-year-old twist. I would go so far to say that I find this episode’s humor stronger than the first season’s, mainly because it doesn’t entirely revolve around sexual innuendos. This show is still not for everyone – I bet many would feel overwhelmed or exhausted after this episode – but for those who yearn for the old magic this works like a charm.
Potential: 60%

Leviathan

Short Synopsis: In this alternative WW1 universe, the Prince of Austria runs away after his parents get assassinated and he’s about to meet an English common girl.

Mario: Studio Orange is one rare CG anime studio that I keep an eye out for. They are responsible for many of my recent favorites such as Houseki no Kuni and Beastars. Now there’s an entire season of their new show available on Netflix and I feel that it’s one of the reasons why this first episode is kind of uneventful. It isn’t really meant to capture your attention right away to hook you in for the next episode like a weekly airing show; it instead splits its time between two protagonists in different settings who I’m sure will cross paths in the future. As such, I found the girl’s story much more interesting than the Prince’s portion. She has a more vibrant personality, and her encounter with one of Leviathan’s “beasts” opens up the sci-fi world-building, where somehow our version of sea serpents have taken to the skies (and it’s great to look at). For the boy’s part, we have a dryer (and duller) implication of politics, mecha and explosions. I’m sensing things will escalate quickly in the next few episodes and by then, we will know more about the show’s core quality. As far as this first episode goes, it isn’t something that blows me away, but I feel it has the potential to grow from here.
Potential: 45%

Lord of Mysteries

Short Synopsis: After waking up in another world in the body of a suicide victim, a man’s life is consumed by the supernatural.

Wooper: A couple of folks recommended this donghua in our comments section, so even though I’m no great fan of Chinese animation, I thought I’d try it out, sight unseen. Having now waded my way through its 30 minute premiere, I realize that I never stood a chance. Lord of Mysteries shifts between dreams and dimensions without the slightest care for the comprehension of the uninitiated, starting in a gothic city on the verge of the apocalypse before traveling two months back in time, where our protagonist awakens in another man’s body, having transmigrated from Earth. Things don’t get any clearer from there, as his attempt to return to our world transports him to an astral plane awash in gray fog, where he forms an alliance with two Beyonders (people who obtain superpowers by drinking potions) from other realms before his consciousness is yanked back to his new body. Then he’s taken into custody by a pair of cops, one of whom is also a Beyonder, and was apparently controlling the main character’s dream for the majority of the episode… I think? I could forgive all this ambiguity if there were an emotional core to the proceedings, but there isn’t. The protagonist never appears to lament what he left behind on Earth, and the scene where he speaks with his host body’s sister does nothing to make either of them feel human. All the intricate 3DCG art direction in the world couldn’t make me stick around for twelve more episodes of this show.
Potential: Not for me