The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch
Short Synopsis (Anilist): When witch Alyssa found a baby on her doorstep, she didn’t expect her life to take a topsy-turvy turn. Despite her bewilderment, she names the child Viola and decides to raise her. Fast-forward 16 years, and her “daughter” Viola isn’t just taller—she’s towering! Join this bewitching duo in a hilariously chaotic journey of mistaken identities and supernatural shenanigans!
So I’ll admit, when I first heard of this show I got the roles completely mixed up. I thought the buxom tall bombshell was the witch while the short blonde was the daughter, a fair assumption I think. So watching these 2 episodes and being corrected on that, as well as learning that the girl with tits the size of her head was 16. Sadly I can’t say this is a welcome change, because it sets the show up to be a lot… weirder down the line. It also doesn’t help that, and I will freely admit this, a fluffy slice of life fantasy isn’t really my wheelhouse. Still if it can keep away from the ecchi and focus on the more “found family” aspect and hijinks as it seems to be doing, I think some of you SoL enjoyers will be able to have a decent time with it. I know one friend who’s already drooling over Viola too, the weirdo.
Potential: 20%
SHY
Short Synopsis (Anilist): On the brink of a third World War, superheroes appeared on Earth. Gifted with powers, their appearance brings peace to the world. The heroes each selected a country in which they would reside, serve, and protect its citizens. Shy is Japan’s hero, endowed with super strength. Her most daunting enemy yet? Crippling shyness. Join Shy and her super friends as she defends Earth and gains confidence!
So SHY is basically super heroes, complete with a Justice League style space station, with a bit of Magical Girl and Madoka Magica thrown in. Ok maybe I’m reaching with that last one, but nothing you say or do will convince me to trust the flying mascot pokemon named ABO. Anyways, my initial impressions of SHY are… disinterest? Unlike other hero stories, like My Hero Academia, this is a much more traditional hero setting where only a select few have powers. Our main heroine, Shy, also isn’t particularly interesting on her own, the most compelling part of her story/the episode coming more from her treatment on social media and the age-old comic book question of “Why are heroes heroes”. If that was the subject of the show, if we were going to stick to more street-level conflict ala Spider-Man I could get into it. But already SHY is setting us up for a globe spanning conflict that it hasn’t yet earned. Maybe that will change as we go, I know some friends absolutely adore SHY, and so for them I’m going to give it a few more episodes. But my initial impression is that there are better action shows this season and better super hero media out there in general.
Potential: 25%
Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions
Short Synopsis (Anilist): Ron Kamonohashi was once regarded as a genius at the top detective training academy. But after a fatal mistake, he was expelled and forbidden to become a detective. Years later, police officer Totomaru Isshiki knocks on Ron’s door seeking help on a serial murder case. He finds Ron, now a messy-haired recluse, who agrees. Together, this mismatched detective team begins solving their first mystery!
Ron suffers from the fate of many detective shows in that it’s an ultimately dull plot that tries to sail entirely off of the leads dynamic. Except the leads are always the same “Regular person” and “Eccentric genius”. The guy even has his own “I figured it out” pose. Yet unlike shows like last seasons Undead Murder Farce, this one doesn’t have any sort of supernatural element to sort of make it… pop. It ends up as a rather dull series of random deductions and cold reading that don’t actually make a lot of sense when you put them all together. And that’s a shame! To me detective/mystery shows are at their best when the clues are laid out in such a way that the audience is able to solve the mystery too. Where audience participation and investment is rewarded. But Ron doesn’t feel like that kind of mystery. Instead it’s a “I connected the dots you didn’t even know about because I never gave them to you” kind. And to me that’s disappointing. Still, if you just want some hot guys solving mysteries together it has that, plus it might improve once it really gets going. I don’t expect it to ending, but maybe!
Potential: 10%
