Monster Musume no Oisha-san
Short Synopsis: Human doctor gets wrapped up in his assistant and then makes a blonde gladiator scream by touching her feet. Okay, so his assistant is a snake and the gladiator is a centaur.
Amun’s review:
There was a pre-air of this a while ago. Maybe I’m the only one who thought this was a continuation of the other series named Monster Musume (“Monster, Monster, Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Monster”) – but it’s not. Instead we meet a young human doctor and snake assistant who have to help a centaur. I guess it’s better than the highschool setting? What’s weird to me is the character designs seem lower budget. Original Monster Musume (and for example, the more recent Dropkick Jashin-chan) are obviously labours of love by monster lovers. MM Oisha-san felt a bit…more bland. If you’re going to go the demi-human route, go all the way – the way it stands, neither normies nor monster furries are going to watch this.
Potential: 50%
Lenlo’s review:
Are you telling me this isn’t a sequel to Monster Monster? Coulda fooled me. Anyways let’s cut to the chase and be real here, the only reason anyone is watching this is for the monster girl titties. No one cares about the doctor or the plot or any actual story, they want “plot”. And the fact of the matter is Monster Musume is the inferior monster girl titty show this season. If you are going to be a degenerate, then go all the way and watch the Super Philosopher (Uncensored) version of Peter Grill and don’t waste your time with this thinly-veiled soft-core. Hardcore or bust I say! Let your inhibitions run wild, don’t let your dreams be dreams! Scream to the heavens that you want well animated Hentai and you want it now!
Potential: 0% – Your tits are in another castle.
Gibiate
Short Synopsis: Kathleen-chan, almost a high-school graduate, teams up with the time-travelling duo of a samurai and a ninja to develop the cure for COVID.
Armitage’s review:
Ah, anime. Many times when my friends who can’t seem to understand how I spend so much time watching anime ask me why I feel so passionately about these ‘cartoons’, I tell them it’s because anime offers something that almost no other visual storytelling medium does: the opportunity for creators to completely BONKERS with their ideas. I mean, just read that synopsis! Where else will you be able to find something like that? We have shapeshifting monsters, teleporting ninjas, a samurai who’s slain a 1000 men yet somehow the protagonist is still a high-schooler. Because, ANIME! Now, as expected, with the studio not being of a very high pedigree, the animation leaves a lot to be desired and the CGI is pretty bad, but in a season as bare as this one, I’d take any attempt at telling a story like this over the many run-of-the-mill Isekai trash we get every season. And even with the lacklustre animation, I have to say the show looks really great. The character designs are stylized and the post-apocalyptic backgrounds are arguably best of the entire season. To top it off, we have a stellar soundtrack. And unless it completely falls apart in later episodes, this will definitely be one to keep an eye on.
Potential: 75%
Mario’s review:
Well, I approached Gibiate with low low expectation – an anime that aims at an international audience where the creator is a character designer (not director or writer, goddamn character designer) with made-up sounding studio names surely don’t boast any confidence – and got out of it quite pleased with what I just saw. The concept is not terribly original but so far the presentation still holds everything together. The time-travel twist feels like a gimmick though, as so far it just feels so random that these Edo-era samurai would just appear to this post-apocalypse world and they get on with it a bit too well. I believe what grabs me the most in this premiere of Gibiate is the sense of dread of how the virus-infected spreads and causes massive impact to the world. Maybe in the time of Covid and lockdown, this is the closest anime that deals with the same issues we are currently experiencing right now. It might just be me, though.
Potential: 60%
Koi to Producer: EVOLxLOVE
Short Synopsis: Unnamed female character exists in close proximity to four male characters (each with their own names!).
Mario’s review:
Like many otome-game adaptation, Koi to Producer’s first episode concerns too much on this unnamed protagonist encountering these key (literally perfect specimen) characters than telling a coherent story. It has a lot going on at the same time, involving her company is on the verge of shutting down, supernatural incidents happen around her and she tries to bring these boys into her show. Each plot line has the potential but so far the pacing is messy, and the supernatural part is what I’m still unsure about. Are the “evolved” like superheroes and what “abilities” exactly do they have? For a show that has “supernatural power” as their backbone, this first episode doesn’t really do anything to elevate that.
Potential: 20%
Wooper’s review:
Y’all remember when MAPPA first spun off from Madhouse in the early 2010s? Their first few projects had people amped for the future of the studio – think “Trigger saved anime,” but unironically. Propping up two Shinichiro Watanabe projects was a good start, and their double shot of action/adventure series right afterwards (Garo and Bahamut) solidified them as heirs to the Madhouse throne. They even gave us Yuri on Ice and In This Corner of the World within a month of each other in 2016. Those were good years, weren’t they?
Fast forward to the present day, where MAPPA has delivered unto us this turd of an otome game adaptation, whose nameless heroine woos a conquerable bishounen with a bag of potato chips. This happens between the two nearly fatal traffic accidents from which she’s saved by a different, much moodier stud, who’s part of some secret plot to do… something? The story isn’t exactly clear, burdened as it is with senseless sci-fi lingo and levitating bishies. The soundtrack reminds me of Gen IV Pokemon music, which is to say it’s dated as hell (especially the digital organ). The characters move joylessly through sterile environments, which serve primarily as monuments to the suffocated dreams of the artists working on them. The only compliment I can find for Koi to Producer is that it’s not likely to stick around in my memory for long. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Potential: 0%
