Bogus Skill “Fruitmaster”

Short Synopsis: A supernaturally skilled gardener discovers he can eat more than one Devil Fruit without perishing.

Wooper: 2025 kicks off with a benignly terrible fantasy premiere that cribs from One Piece, of all things. In the world of Fruitmaster, everyone is granted a free JRPG skill upon reaching the indeterminate age of an average anime protagonist. You acquire the skill by eating what is essentially a Devil Fruit, so you can’t eat a second one or else you die – unless you’re the main character, in which case you can have as many as you want. Since he has this ability, the role of “Appraisal Skill User” (for there must always be an appraisal skill user) is foisted onto his companion, who mutters that she must “make herself useful to him” by scouting everyone else’s solitary powers. Thus the stage is set for our hero to become the most powerful adventurer in the universe, prove his strength to his childhood friend, and participate in all manner of barely-animated battle scenes. Fruitmaster is dull on nearly every level, but its most baffling failure lies in the design of the protagonist’s sword; the second skill he acquires is titled “Sword God,” but it might as well have been “MS Paint God” based on the unadorned look of the thing. I hope the next fruit he eats will grant him the blacksmith skill, for the audience’s sake.
Potential: 0%

Lenlo: Why are we even bothering with this whole “Fruitmaster” thing? It didn’t take 5 minutes for the show to toss its entire premise out the window and gift the MC an OP skill like “Sword God”. Why? Just give him the ability from the start if you’re not even going to try and turn his “bad” ability into a great one. Fruitmaster feels lazy on basically every level, with even the designs and animation feeling phoned in while the studio pockets anything left over. Suffice to say, this is one of the easiest skips I’ve seen in a long time.
Potential: 0%

Ameku M.D: Doctor Detective

Short Synopsis: A doctor/detective and her henchman investigate a strange murder involving blue blood and dinosaurs.

Lenlo: Have you ever seen House? No? Well neither have I, but this is what I would imagine an anime version of it would look like. An eccentric loli doctor capable of diagnosing patients in an instant while simultaneously lambasting the patients for getting themselves in this state to begin with. As such, your enjoyment of this show is really going to come down to how much you like watching Sherlock Holmes-style hyper-intelligent characters solve convoluted problems from the most basic of observations. There’s some relationship drama as the doctors are split between their work and private lives, which has the potential to be interesting, as well as this “Blue blood” murder case thing. For the most part though, you’re looking at a pretty normal medical drama show that wouldn’t be out of place on regular live action television. Sadly for Ameku though, I’m not really into that. Maybe you’ll have better luck than me.
Potential: 20%

Mario: There are a few aspects of the first episode that I really enjoyed. First, I appreciate that the show doesn’t shy away from the medical technobabble, even though the focus shifts toward case-solving as the episode progresses. It helps ground the story in a sense of realism. The case itself is intriguing—strange, yet I get the feeling it leans more toward the logical than the supernatural, which remains interesting to see how it unfolds. However, this comes with a trade-off: the main characters, particularly the “genius” girl, display a strong curiosity but a limited emotional range. For instance, after a patient is declared deceased, her first reaction is to grin and remark, “How curious.” I suspect that, like many shows of this nature, the appeal will lie less in character development and more in the ongoing mystery—though whether that will be enough to sustain interest in the long run remains to be seen.
Potential: 20%

Possibly the Greatest Alchemist
of All Time

Short Synopsis: A former salaryman is granted an amazing alchemical skill by a goddess after being accidentally summoned to another world.

Lenlo: Maybe I’m being too generous with this score, but literally anything would look good after Fruitmaster. It’s not that Alchemist is terrible, while it doesn’t do anything particularly noteworthy I would call it competent in most things. The focus on crafting and day to day living in a fantasy world is done better in shows like Log Horizon, while the fantasy community is handled better in Reincarnated as a Slime, sure. I also wish it would go into more detail on the fantasy aspect of the crafting and such, as the combat is pretty weak. Still, Alchemist does all of those well enough that they don’t drag it down. The MC isn’t annoying, being a mild-mannered salaryman, and while it doesn’t look great, the designs aren’t terrible and it moves well enough. All in all, Alchemist feels like a standard run of the mill Isekai that is inoffensive and does everything just well enough that you might be able to get some fun from it. Saying that though, maybe that is enough to stand out in the modern isekai landscape.
Potential: 10%