Star Crossed Anime

My Home Hero

Short Synopsis: A father kills his daughter’s abusive boyfriend and now tries to get rid of the body.

Lenlo: The most lacking thing about My Home Hero is its production. In trying to stay grounded in its portrayal of crime, murder and domestic violence, it ends up looking restrained and bland. I don’t hate it, it doesn’t look bad. Just uninteresting and not particularly memorable. Luckily the story seems at least a bit interesting. At its core it’s vigilante justice against organized crime. But I like how it’s also set up as father vs father protecting/avenging their mutual families. None of the characters are particularly noteworthy just yet, but for a 1st episode I’d say I’m satisfied enough to keep going and see where it can go with this little personal war. Part of what will make it interesting for me though will be seeing how our soft salaryman lead evolves over the course of the story, rather than starting as a hardened ex-killer or something. If My Home Hero can nail that evolution, akin to say Breaking Bad, then it should be at least decent.
Potential: 40%

Mario: With My Home Hero, the main hook is definitely there, but I am concerned whether or not this production can make full use of the premise. For example, the visual is pretty bland with a muted and unattractive color palette and lacking in characters’ facial expression. But for me, my main gripe lies within its story, where the tonal shift is awkward and Reika’s boyfriend is too much of an asshole to be taken seriously. Take the scene where, upon seeing Reika’s bruised face, Tetsuo immediately senses that something was wrong (a great moment), but it then proceeds into him begging her to stay, which kills all the buildup from beforehand. In addition, to paint the yakuza’s boyfriend bad deeds, not only does he proudly confirm them in public, but the show has him repeat his intention every single goddamn time. A more subtle approach would benefit this better. My Home Hero is not without its strengths, however. We’re clearly rooting for the killers here, and the episode aptly gives more moral shading to the central murder – Tetsuo’s wife appears to be more convinced that Tetsuo did the right thing than the man himself. The episode so far achieves what it sets out to do – what Tetsuo and his family will do next – but they also need to give us more reasons to care about them.
Potential: 30%

Yamada-kun to Lv999 no Koi wo Suru

Short Synopsis: A college girl attempts to strike up a friendship with a handsome gamer after her boyfriend breaks up with her.

Wooper: Sasuga Morio Asaka, Madhouse’s shoujo ace. Yamada-kun felt limited by its silly premise in manga form, but under Asaka’s guidance, this first episode successfully exploited that premise for comedy. Timing is one major factor here – take protagonist Akane’s tranquil pauses in between messages from an inattentive online guildmate, for example. The buoyant synth music and quiet sips of tea during her downtime make you wonder when this peaceful mood will be broken, so when she eventually snaps and tells the guildmate to get the hell out of her hunting ground, it ends up being exactly what you had hoped for. That guildmate ends up being the Yamada from the title, whose frosty vibe attracts Akane’s interest once they meet in real life. Her scheme to have him pose as her boyfriend, plus her strategy to get dolled up before attending an event where her ex is likely to appear, create a strong impression; Akane is somewhat shallow, yes, but she also puts a lot of effort into whatever she does, which should contrast nicely with Yamada’s laid back energy as the series goes on. The frequent shift between simpler and more detailed versions of the character designs works well, allowing the show to bounce between bemusement, sadness, annoyance, and any of the other emotions it needs to access. Its only major weakness is art direction, as Yamada-kun’s real and virtual worlds both look a bit flat – but seeing as it’s capable of keeping your attention on the characters from start to finish, that won’t stop it from being a watchable romcom.
Potential: 50%

Lenlo: I will admit, I was really surprised by how charming Yamada-kun was. It’s another one of those wish-fulfillment “Otaku meets hot girl randomly” stories, but there are small details about it I enjoy. Akane’s facial expressions are especially on point. Whether it be the sarcasm and vindictive attitude of “:3” or her complete and utter ignorance of “O.O”. I feel like Yamada-kun actually managed to translate some of those text expressions, and their meanings, well into the show. Yamada also being completely uninterested and actually pretty comfortable on his own was nice too, he isn’t some desperate incel looking for a sex object. Am I sold on Yamada-kun? Not yet, most anime romances are vapid and short-lived whirlwinds. But this one at least has enough potential and charm that I’m going to check it out for a few more episodes. Plus the characters might have gotten laid in the first episode, and I’m curious if Yamada-kun will actually commit to this being an adult relationship.
Potential: 40%

Alice Gear Aegis Expansion

Short Synopsis: A girl enrolls in a group to fight mechanical aliens, and with the help of all the other girls, she passes the test of becoming an Actress.

Mario: Here, at the bottom of the seasonal offerings, we have Alice Gear. It’s an adaptation of an action game where the girls – branded as “Actresses” – fight evil mechanical aliens to protect the Earth, but you get none of that in this first episode. Indeed, this episode is more akin to an idol show, where a girl decides to join the girls group to be near her crush. It serves as a perfect opportunity for the staff to draw her lewd reactions, nosebleed and all that jazz. If it sounds awful on paper, it’s even worse watching it happen on screen. The only novelty to this episode is that it came up with a method to test their “Actress ability” by blowing into a metal horn, just like the way you test your blood alcohol level.
Potential: it gave me a bad nosebleed.

Lenlo: I liked this show better in the few minutes I thought it was just Symphogear in space. And I hate Symphogear. I thought that at least then we could get some fun action and maybe some stupid space drama. Instead Alice Gear whatever the hell exists purely as a lewd reaction gif generation. Is this a bit unfair to the series? Yes. Alice Gear is nowhere near as bad as stuff like Onimai from last season, which made me feel like I should go to jail for just having watched it. The fact remains though, while it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen, it’s also not worth watching.
Potential: Ow

The Dangers in My Heart

Short Synopsis: A high school loner with violent fantasies becomes obsessed with the hottest girl in his class.

Lenlo: What is it with anime and weirdly fetishized middle/high school settings? Like whose idea was it to create a shitty rom-com about an edgy school shooter and a quirky idol? Because whoever it was, I want them fired. Is this the worst rom-com I’ve seen? No, of course not. I’m just getting so tired of these kinds of Incel & Idol shows is all. There’s never any real chemistry between the characters, nothing to actually make them feel like they belong together. It’s just fantasy wish fulfillment for Otakus physically incapable of talking to women without insulting them, trying to convince them that their perfect demure sex-object exists out there. Suffice to say, I’m not a fan, but I’m sure if you liked Nagatoro then this might be for you.
Potential: 5%

Wooper: Male lead characters in anime romcoms keep getting downgraded, huh? From the hapless teasing victims in series like Takagi-san and Uzaki-chan to the epic gamers who require crash courses in hygiene like the guy from Tomozaki-kun, we’ve gotten a lot of bottom tier dudes in recent times. Not wanting to rock the boat, The Dangers in My Heart has crafted what’s sure to be one of the most pitiful romcom protagonists of the year – a vertically-challenged wannabe high school slasher with massive bangs swooped over one eye. Just listening to this guy introduce himself as a “bloodthirsty beast” who wanted to gain possession of his crush’s body by killing her was enough to make me question my temporary return to anime blogging. But I kept watching, and the show settled into a pattern of him stalking the girl in question and narrating the experience with nonviolent language, which I suppose was an improvement(?). Spying on her through the gaps in a library bookshelf, hiding in a store where her photos are on sale in a fashion magazine, trailing behind her as another guy unsuccessfully tries to get her LINE info – these are the scenes that made up the remainder of Dangers’ first episode. Unfortunately, the bar for romcom leads is still a little higher than “stalks girl instead of brutally murdering her,” even in 2023, so there’s no room for this show in my heart.
Potential: 0%

Amun: I want to chime in from having previewed it – the anime adaptation did not solve any of the problems it needed to. While it gets less murdery, it’s unlikely to get less bad. I liked Nagatoro (well, the first season, I quit during the second), but this is a 0% from me.

My Clueless First Friend

Short Synopsis: Excitable transfer student misunderstands classroom bullying and tries to attain Shinigami powers from a very confused shy girl.

Lenlo: What are these designs? And that weird fade in the hair, as if every character had a bag of flour dumped on their head? And this eternal fade into a bright light on most of the backgrounds? Clueless Friend might be the ugliest thing I’ve had to watch so far. Just on those issues alone I have no desire to watch it. But add on to that a wholesome, but ultimately toothless, main plot where an introvert meets an extrovert that we’ve seen a thousand times before, and you just have a boring waste of space in the season.
Potential: 0%

Amun: Okay, let’s keep it real here – the art is really bad (I hate this new trend of weird gradients in the hair and clothes). However! I strongly disagree that we’ve seen this exact formula before: anyone who has been a part of an introvert-extrovert relationship of any kind will appreciate the dynamics going on here. Instead of the borderline bullying that occurs in other shows of comparable genres (Nagato-san, Kubo-san, etc), My Clueless First Friend is about an energetic outsider who doesn’t understand the history of the classroom and looks at things from his fresh perspective. It’s completely anti-bullying – not toe-ing the line for humor but turning what everyone else views as a negative into a positive. That’s what makes this show so refreshing and wholesome. I didn’t realize this was Studio Signpost, but I have great confidence in their making of wholesome stories (Letter Bee, Beelzebub, and Morose Mononokean). Now…it looks atrocious. But I’m onboard with the characters, so this will probably get at least half a season out of me!
Potential: 60%

The Aristocrat’s Otherworldly Adventure: Serving Gods Who Go Too Far

Short Synopsis: Neet gets stabbed protecting a cute girl, Isekai’s into a fantasy world with magic as a Noble with multiple divine blessings. Isekai ensues.

Lenlo: Yes hello, I’d like one order of stereotypical trash Isekai with a side of shitty art-style please? Yes, I’m feeling fat today. Jokes aside, it took me 2 minutes to know exactly what this was and exactly how generic and forgettable it would be. Of course I still finished it, can’t be intellectually dishonest here. But there are probably better Isekai, definitely better adventures, and without question better productions this season. Don’t bother with this.
Potential: 0%

Amun: Oh look, the first isekai of the season! It’s so cute and full of potential…until you finish watching the first episode. Jokes aside, I’m still hunting for my isekai diamond in the rough for the season (last season’s was Handyman Saitou, which was wildly better than expected). At first glance…Aristocrat’s Otherworldly Adventure isn’t it. But that doesn’t make it unpalatable – in fact, this was a nice power-fantasy, low-stakes, harem romp (looks like he’s accidentally snagged a king or something?). If you need some feel-good filler for the season, you could do worse than this. I’ll keep it on my watchlist till something else comes along.
Potential: 40%

Hell’s Paradise

Short Synopsis: Death row convict ninja is offered a chance at a full pardon if he finds the elixir of life with his hot would-be executioner.

Lenlo: For most of this first episode, Hell’s Paradise kind of disappointed me. Not narratively, that fits with what I expected. I liked how it spent an entire episode setting up Gabimaru’s personality, history, stakes in this conflict, as well as his relationship with Sagiri. All of that was fine, good time. No, what disappointed me was the production. For most of the episode it felt… lacking. There wasn’t that spark to it, something to set it apart, it felt passionless in a lot of ways and this was reflected in the rather drab color palette. But in the last maybe…1/3rd of the episode, Hell’s Paradise managed to bring it back. Its depiction of the island, of Gabimaru’s flames once he had his will to live back, of the flowers on the boat, all looked gorgeous. Maybe, just maybe, Hell’s Paradise is saving its production chops for the island, so that it truly feels set apart and otherworldly from the “real” mainland. At least that’s the hope I have as we head further into the season. If it can bring that production up a few steps, then I imagine I’ll have a good time with this.
Potential: 60%

Amun: Ah, this is actually really bad. I think with MAPPA’s recent success, we gloss over the less than stellar outings. Specifically, Hell’s Paradise feels a TON like the opening of Dororo, which…looked pretty good, but was a mess. I feel like the hype surrounding this show is an echo from Chainsaw Man’s success; I just have a bad feeling this show is the old MAPPA, not the new. Like Lenlo, I am very whelmed by the premiere – I think the characters are surprisingly uninteresting. Who knew, professional killers are kind of boring people – maybe it isn’t Gabimaru who is hollow, it’s Hell’s Paradise as a whole. Judging from previews and posters, this is an ensemble outing, so maybe some side characters help things along, but I don’t think I’ll last a season with these leads. It’s weird too, since I’m very partial to white haired heroes (Gabimaru is like an evil Bell), and Asaemon, on paper, is right in my strike zone. I guess maybe I’m not excited about the period piece that so far it looks to be – hopefully the island itself gets the series into the groove. As of right now, I’m very worried (plus there’s the infamous MAPPA back-half animation-quality crater).
Potential: Scared because I want this to be good (50%)

MIX SEASON 2

Short Synopsis: The key members of Meisei High consider new applicants and graduating middle school talents for a place on the school’s baseball team.

Wooper: Before booting up this premiere, I wondered whether Mix’s second season would feel significantly different from its 2019 incarnation, especially given the director change to first-timer Tomohiro Kamitani. Having seen the episode, the answer I’ve settled on is “only slightly,” which is a good thing, since I was fond of the series when it first aired. The presentation is largely the same, introducing characters with freeze frames and narration by Noriko Hidaka, who voiced Minami in Touch (Mix’s 40 year old prequel series). Poor background art and middling character animation are still the show’s greatest weaknesses, but it’s got the same strengths, as well: leisurely pacing that prioritizes fun dialogue between a wide range of established characters. The only new face in this whole episode was that of baseball team hopeful Nishiki, whose zombie-like appearance may be the result of mangaka Mitsuru Adachi trying to draw a new face for once in his career. Despite all the talk surrounding Nishiki’s violent past and shady friend group, I’m not too interested in him, or in any single character. Rather, it’s Mix’s overall blend of high school and graduating middle school students that appeals to me, laying the foundation for what ought to be a serious Koshien run in a couple years.
Potential: 60%

Mario: This first episode does a great job to remind us where the first season stopped (it has been a few years), and reintroduce the main cast with proper introduction cards to boost. But as usual with any of Adachi’s works, it’s less about baseball and more about the characters’ interaction, and so far its gentle atmosphere is a total delight. It looks like we will have a new addition to the team: the violent Nishiki. However, if you are familiar with Adachi’s brand, the “delinquent hit his senpais and got suspended” is a familiar trope, one I really hope Adachi doesn’t tread that same path this time. It’s great to have you back, Mix.
Potential: 40%

Tengoku Daimakyou

Short Synopsis: Fifteen years after an apocalyptic event, a pair of travelers search for an orphanage they know only by the name “Heaven.”

Lenlo: Tengoku is in a really weird place for me. The world is interesting, this Promised Neverland style setup where we get to see both sides of the wall/conflict is kinda cool, and the lead girl is pretty damn hot with those scars. But something about the pacing is just… I felt like this 20 minute episode took a god damn hour. I was constantly checking the time because it felt like it should be over. I don’t know why that is. By the end I was intrigued, there’s lots of cool stuff going on. It’s just that the presentation of it all feels… dull? I’m really not sure how to word it, but something about the show is failing to engage me. I’ve been told it is a blazing fast adaptation, that it isn’t a pacing issue. But I just can’t shake the feeling of something being off. Maybe it will change as I watch more, which I definitely want to do.
Potential: 50%

Wooper: Tengoku Daimakyou, or “Heavenly Delusion,” has met the majority of my high expectations after one episode. The art direction is uncommonly good, with climbing vines, rusted fences, and crumbling walls among the piles of evidence that Japan has been through a massive calamity in recent times. The script supports this idea by treating batteries as currency and focusing on resource conservation, along with supplying a loose timeframe of “the Collapse,” which seemingly predates the birth of the series’ two protagonists. Their exploration of this desolate Japan features a lot of proficient animation, as well – from major showcases like Maru’s martial arts expertise to small stuff like Kiru craning her neck to call for her partner, the level of motion on display in Tengoku Daimakyou is a cut above what you’d expect from an average TV anime. But all of these examples come from the show’s primary plot, which is set in the ruinous outside world; everything that happens within its idyllic orphanage (where Kiru and Maru are headed) has neither the intrigue nor visual appeal of what lies beyond its walls. Perhaps its role in the story will heat up if and when the kids start looking for an escape route, rather than just harboring suspicions or hearing directly from adults about the hellish conditions outside the orphanage. Until then, there are enough mysteries surrounding Tengoku’s primary duo to keep me coming back for more.
Potential: 70%