Fall 2020 First Impressions: Majo no Tabitabi, 100-man no Inochi, Tonikaku Kawaii

Majo no Tabitabi

Short Synopsis: An apprentice witch trains under a weird witch to become a full-fledged witch.

Amun’s review:

Welcome to Kino’s Delivery Service! (I got a bit of Ancient Magus Bride/Somali and the Forest Spirit vibes too). In all seriousness, we have no idea where this show is going – episode 1 was just a backstory after all. What we can tell is that we have pretty standard character designs, some nice texture details (I liked the Stardust witch’s cloak/hat), and an open ended, dynamic world. The fight animation was nice, the writing with her parents’ instructions clever – this was as good of a prologue as you could ask for. Now the question becomes – where does Majo no Tabitabi go from here? Like Elaina, the sky – and the ground – are the limits.

Potential: 65%

Lenlo’s review:

Sadly I have a much more… mixed reception to Majo no Tabitabi than Amun. For one, I do think it was visually nice, mostly. The water effects were good, the fight was stilted but fine. The only thing that really stood out to me as looking bad were the fire effects. Oh boy the fire effects. They looked like they were applied in MS Paint, to be honest. Outside that though Majo looked fine. Story wise is where I have my big bugbear though, because I cannot stand how the parents’ story this episode was written. Not only did Elaina have absolutely no need to be taught that lesson with how Majo no Tabitabi portrayed her, but the lesson itself was incredibly stupid. I saw what they were going for with it, the idea is solid. But the way Elaina’s character was presented and with how it was led into makes it make no sense. She wasn’t shown to be arrogant or anything like that, and the Stardust Witch didn’t make any real effort to teach her anything before deciding to throw thunderbolts at her. Hopefully the rest of the season is better written, because I think there is potential here. But if this is the quality of writing we can expect it might be better to just skip Majo no Tabitabi entirely.

Potential: 45%

100-man no Inochi no Ue ni Ore wa Tatteiru

Short Synopsis: Reclusive guy gets isekai-ed to another world and starts a new life as a… powerless farmer?

Armitage’s review:

Well well well. What do we have here? An Isekai story with no gimmicks in which the player starts off at the bottom level and is forced to grind his way up instead of being ridiculously overpowered? An authentic RPG game world, complete with organic interactions with NPCs and actual care put into the game mechanics? Huh, 2 out of 3, show. Not bad. But I know where you’ll falter. Surely your MC is a Kirito clone who needs to appoint himself as the savior of every female character in the story? Wait, what!? He can actually be cruelly selfish and choose the best course of action even if it means abandoning his weaker party members? He has a… p-p-… personality?? Now that’s not very fair. You are not giving me any reasons to make fun of you, show! That’s not how it works. Sheh. Don’t ya know? You’re an ‘isekai’. Just turn back into a clichéd regurgitation of overdone tropes come next episode so I can call you trash and then feel guilty about watching you anyway. Sounds cool?

Potential: 90%

Amun’s review:

100-man writers had a brilliant idea: let’s take components from all the past Isekai that did well and put them together. Goblins (Goblin Slayer – I actually had PTSD on that first shot, to be honest), Resurrection (Re:Zero), and the Main character is a farmer (Hamefura) – Armi pointed out the similarities with Kirito above. I guess slimes are getting their own show later this season, so those weren’t available. 100-man is a bit of an isekai amalgamation…but it worked pretty well. Really, it’s the characters having some depth and some glaring weaknesses that makes this an interesting show – the visuals and designs are passable at best and this episode, at least, felt really rushed. How does this show succeed? By being more than the sum of its parts. How does it fail? By regurgitating worn-out tropes with subpar animation (and overdone CG). So far though, it looks pretty promising.

Potential: 65%

Tonikaku Kawaii

Short Synopsis: Mysterious girl saves an idiot’s life then shows up 3 years later with marriage papers.

Amun’s review:

I got some serious Kaiki in the snow flashbacks at the start of this episode (I forget which Monogatari that was – if you know, you know). I was confused why what I thought was a romcom started with a shot of a dying kid. But nope, this is the right show after all – definitely a strange premiere, looks like a modern Princess Kaguya (as Mario mentions). The MC is a bit nuts, the girl is 1000% sketchy (and superpowered?)…but for some reason, it’s a bit endearing. Like you know it should be a trainwreck, but you’re hoping it will somehow work out. This seems like a slim cast version of the Quintessential Quintuplets – if that’s not your cup of tea, this should be a pass. Also, this OP is actually hilarious – you have to listen all the way through.

Potential: 50%

Mario’s review:

Structuring itself as a modern spin on Princess Kaguya’s tale, this slapstick romance has a bit too much anime logic that makes it enjoyable (for us), but I don’t see it breaking any ground here. Structure-wise, it’s a typical setup of a romance: boy meets girl and falls for her at first sight, with a little twist that they are married and now we see how this relationship develops. The humor is a bit of a hit-or-miss for me, it works when our MC meta-acknowledged how easily a boy falls for a girl. But at the same time we have to endure lots of MC screaming out of shyness and it just gets more annoying by the minute. That girl is a perfect manic pixie dream girl from the moment that she enters and hijacks his poor lonely life, so we need to see more sides of her. For now, I am okay with the premise but I will decide if I am going to follow it through after 3 episodes.

Potential: 30%