Star Crossed Anime

Karasu wa Aruji wo Erabanai

Short Synopsis: As four women from four different provinces vie for a prince’s hand in marriage, a male representative from the northern province is sent to serve as the prince’s attendant.

Wooper: From its double length premiere to its massive cast list to its elaborate fantasy setting, Karasu wa Aruji wo Erabanai is one of this season’s most ambitious shows. Not every facet of that ambition makes for great TV, but I’ll be following it for the foreseeable future, since I like historical anime. Karasu isn’t grounded in history, of course, but its costume design and court politics are strongly reminiscent of medieval Japan, and the mythos surrounding the yatagarasu (the three-legged crow whose name appears in the show’s localized title) reads like historical fantasy lore. I say “reads” because that’s exactly what this show requires of you – there’s a ton of table setting in these episodes, so you’ll be chugging through not only the plentiful subtitles, but also the on-screen names and ranks of around 20 characters. That’s going to feel too much like homework for a lot of viewers, and at this point I wouldn’t disagree, but Karasu’s wordy beginning works in service of an Apothecary Diaries-esque palace intrigue plot, with four female representatives competing to wed a reclusive prince, and a POV character serving as our window into said prince’s life. The yatagarasu stuff is what’s most interesting to me, as several characters can shapeshift into crows; we don’t get a good look at those transformations, but the production is otherwise solid, with just a single dip during a kendo scene across these first 50 minutes. I wouldn’t recommend this one to a wide audience, but for those who don’t mind dedicating their time and their full attention to a new fantasy series, there may be something here.
Potential: 50%

Whisper Me a Love Song

Short Synopsis (Anilist): After performing a song at her school’s opening ceremony, musician Yori Asanagi receives an apparent love confession from freshman Himari Kino. But just as Yori decides she wants to return Himari’s feelings, Himari reveals that she did not “love” her, but “admires” her! But you can’t unring a bell once struck, and Yori is determined to make Himari fall for her, not just her music. Will their hearts ever beat as one, or will their love fall out of tune?

Lenlo: Look it’s the last post so I’m just going to lay this out there, you have at least 3 better music based shows airing this season. From Hibike to Girls Band Cry to Jellyfish, each and every one of them brings more to the table than this. I’m not saying it’s bad, it isn’t. It’s definitely better than most of the usual seasonal stuff. But that isn’t an achievement and it’s competing in a very contested genre at the moment. The characters aren’t as compelling as Jellyfish, the visuals aren’t as polished as Hibike, and it doesn’t move anywhere near as well as Girls Band Cry. If none of those were up your alley, but you’re still itching for a music show, maybe give this a shot and see if this somehow does it for you. Personally though? I’m music’ed out and this lost the race.
Potential: 25%

THE NEW GATE

Short Synopsis: Kirito from SAO stays in the game a tad too long after beating it and is sucked into an Isekai world exactly like the game, but now with all the standard isekai tropes on top of it.

Lenlo: Imagine if you took Sword Art Online, created a carbon copy in every way, made every aspect worse by about 50%, nuked its production from orbit, and then turned it into a fantasy Isekai by teleporting Not-Kirito into the game world for real after he beat the game and everyone else logged off. That’s how you get New Gate. It is, in every way, an inferior Sword Art Online, Log Horizon and Shangri-La Frontier. Watch literally any of those instead, they have better narratives, better production, better characters, better music, better voice acting, just better… everything.
Potential: Can’t believe I’m saying this, but just go watch SAO.

Seiyuu Radio no Uraomote

Short Synopsis: Two voice actors just so happen to go to the same highschool. When a director catches wind of this, he puts them on a podcast together!

Lenlo: Seiyuu Radio pleasantly surprised me. Early on it felt like an excuse to get Miku Itou and Moe Toyota, the lead VAs, to effectively do an animated podcast. But as the episode went on, I found myself enjoying it more and more. It’s all about public personas vs real personal selves. How someone on screen, or on a podcast, or in a book, or any form of media really, is putting on a character because they know that’s what sells. Some of it is about knowing the real you won’t be accepted, won’t get you work, like with Yumiko. Meanwhile Chika, she just doesn’t understand why people like her public idol self, and sees that more as a criticism of who she really is since she acts nothing like her alter ego. Throw these two in a room, get them talking after a terrible first impression and see them slowly become friends, and you have a pretty wholesome show that peels back the curtains a bit on the VA/Idol industry. Not in an expose “This is how terrible it is” sort of way like a lot of shows, more in a “VAs are people too” way, and I like that. Plus the way the show gets them together isn’t even all that contrived, a Director got his show cancled, knew they went to school together, and said “Fuck it, puttem on a radio show, should be funny”. So yeah, I’m going to watch it for a bit. No idea if it will hold, it’s on the lower end of my list, but I enjoyed it. It felt very personal at times.
Potential: 50%

Viral Hit

Short Synopsis: Local kid decides to become a YouTuber to make money for his sick mother. The idea? Fight people on the internet to go viral! The catch? He’s a wimp.

Lenlo: I… Enjoyed Viral Hit, as weird as that is to say. Youtubers, bullying, pathetic leads, mediocre comedy, Viral Hit has a number of things against it. Yet despite all of that, despite attempts at a more “realistic” artstyle similar to the failing Fable, it worked. Viral Hit doesn’t try to hide how shitty YouTubers are, how all of them are in it for the money, how predatory the system is and the kind of actions/personalities it encourages. Instead it dives head first into the system, focusing on how it’s a way poor people can make money by debasing themselves in front of the world. In that sense, it’s really not all that dissimilar to combat sports like boxing and MMA, which is funny considering Viral Hit is all about a kid fighting on the internet to make money. What I’m getting at is that Viral Hit goes in on a lot of the worst aspects of YouTubers, and it does so in a way I find engaging. I have no idea if this will last in the long term, but for now at least I’m in.
Potential: 50%

Kaiju No.8

Short Synopsis: Kafka Hibino once made a promise to his childhood friend to join the Kaiju Defense Corps and rid the world of Kaiju! Now he works cleaning up the aftermath of their battles.

Lenlo: For the first 20 or so minutes, Kaiju 8 was great, almost everything I could have wanted. An older MC working a dead-end job who has given up on their dream, their passion reignited by a younger employee and a traumatic experience that pushes them to try once more. The detail that went into the Kaiju itself, not just in the design but its biology and just how large a cleanup operation would be post-Kaiju, as well as the knowledge you could gain from being around/cleaning up so many. Even the relationship between our lead, Kafka, and his new kouhai, Ichikawa, was pretty good as Ichikawa becomes both Kafka’s inspiration as well as the first person he’s ever saved. Visually it was a bit rockier, sometimes looking great, other times getting a tad too ambitious with the wild camera movements and such, but overall still solid I feel. My issue with Kaiju 8 comes in the last 2 or so minutes where it takes the novel idea of an older protagonist working an actual job that deals with the aftermath of the big fights trying to find his niche in a young man’s profession, and turns him into a standard shounen protagonist with a unique super power. Kafka didn’t need that to be interesting, to succeed in the Kaiju Corps. He had knowledge few others did due to working with them so often. But now that’s going to get sidelined in favor of him being able to turn into a badass monster. Will it still be fun? Will it still have decent fights and shit? Probably. But it lost what made it unique in my book, and is now only worth watching for the cool fights.
Potential: 40%

Unnamed Memory

Short Synopsis: A king’s line is cursed to never be able to bear children. Their solution? Go find a witch, conquer her trials, and use their one wish to ask her to be the prince’s wife. What could go wrong?

Lenlo: You know, for a fantasy series about a guy tricking/forcing a girl to live with him for a year in his castle so he can try to woo her into being his wife, all because she’s the only woman capable of handling the raw unadulterated magical power of his penis I mean curse, Unnamed Memory wasn’t actually that bad. The premise is still stupid as shit, but if you can ignore it the production isn’t bad, the cast seems decent, and it isn’t nearly as ecchi or perverted as the premise would make you think. I don’t think it has much staying power, the whole thing is about an unflappable hero trying to woo a beautiful witch into being his wife. That sort of premise tends to be a flash in the pan in my experience, very wholesome and cute early on but unable to sustain/change itself up in the long run. Still, I’ll check it out for a few more, just to find out.
Potential: 30%

Boukyaku Battery

Short Synopsis: A talented pitcher-catcher duo join their no-name high school’s baseball club after the catcher loses his memory.

Wooper: I’ve got a soft spot for sports anime, so I was looking forward to this one, especially since it has some promising staff members attached. Action animation director Junpei Tatenaka, for example, is a baseball anime veteran, with credits on both the Major and Diamond no Ace franchises, and art director Yuuki Funagakure previously handled the backgrounds for Wonder Egg Priority. Unfortunately, while this talented group did turn in a good-looking premiere, Boukyaku Battery has a problem outside the realm of visual presentation; it desperately wants to be funny, and it simply isn’t. One of its two lead characters is Kei, a former baseball prodigy who lost his taste for the game upon losing his memory, and he’s got a new, extremely goofy personality to go with his amnesia. We’re talking weird faces and hand gestures, quirky vocal inflections, an array of nipple-themed jokes, and (sadly) much more. His batterymate Haruka provides a strong, silent counter to his endless clowning, and the show demonstrates some self-awareness about its use of sports anime tropes, but Kei is going to be too much to handle for some viewers, especially those with an aversion to shouty shounen stooges. I might go back and try a couple more episodes in the future due to my enthusiasm for the genre (and for the Pillows-esque ending theme by newish band Macaroni Enpitsu), but I can’t recommend Boukyaku Battery based solely on its first outing.
Potential: 30%

Lenlo: The more I look at Battery, the more I weep for what could have been. The first 3 minutes were great, the tension at-bat, the heavy shading, the shot composition, it all looked great. And a lot of that is still there for the rest of the episode as well! Like Wooper says, Battery looks pretty good for the whole episode. But then the rest of the episode starts and it just… It goes from a dramatic baseball drama to a character driven comedy with bad jokes and a worse plot. Why amnesia? Why all of the shitty jokes? Why can’t we just have a good baseball anime? Anyways, suffice to say I was very disappointed by Battery. Maybe it will walk things back as it continues, cutting down on the bad comedy and going back to actual baseball, but I don’t have much hope for that. If you can stand Kei’s shitty (literally) jokes you might get something out of it though. Personally I wanted to turn it off after about 10 minutes.
Potential: 15%

Mysteries, Maidens, and Mysterious Disappearances

Short Synopsis (Anilist): Sumireko Ogawa’s dream of becoming a novelist is reinvigorated with new rumors of mystical incidents. Now a clerk at a bookstore, she enlists her young coworker, Ren Adashino, to investigate urban legends, black magic, and ghost stories across the city. Sumireko has a knack for triggering magical events, and Ren has a dark secret of his own. Will they survive their investigation unscathed?

Lenlo: I’m very conflicted on Mysterious Disappearances. When not hyper fixating on the absurdly large breasts of its female lead, Ogawa, it was actually pretty good. The whole thing about losing her imagination, her ability to write, as she got older, her accidental run in with the supernatural and subsequent desperate bid to hold onto her youth despite the dangers because of the creativity it gave her. It was very “Hand of Midas”, or “Monkey’s Paw Curls”, I liked it a whole lot. And while Adashino wasn’t particularly interesting, I did still enjoy his dry wit, how supportive he was of Ogawa, and the underlying darkness to his knowledge of the supernatural. The only issue is that Mysterious Disappearances has decided to weave a bunch of pointless, degrading, and occasionally concerning sexualization into a story that doesn’t need it. Why are Ogawa’s tits larger than her head? Why do we need PoV cleavage shots into her valley? Why is there so much focus on her body while she’s turned into a child? If those weren’t there, this would probably be the strongest premier of the season for me. As it is, I’m very interested but the ecchi bullshit feels like it’s going to ruin a lot of otherwise really promising episodes. Maybe that falls off as we go, Horikoshi slowly wrote Mineta and his weird sexualized tendencies out of My Hero Academia, early decisions made to sell copies don’t have to stick around. If that’s the case then awesome, this should be good. But I can see it turning a lot of people off and I wouldn’t blame them. Anyways, for now, I’m going to keep up with it.
Potential: 50%

Yozakura-san Chi no Daisakusen

Short Synopsis: A traumatized orphan marries into a family of spies in order to stop his new bride’s brother from killing him.

Wooper: I don’t have an encyclopedic memory for Shonen Jump adaptations, but Yozakura-san might be the least promising one I’ve ever seen. A lot of that is down to Taiyou Asano, the protagonist – at least, based on the minimal amount of thought I’m willing to spend on this show. He seems to have been designed by someone desperate for him to stand out, but not willing to put in any effort to ensure it, with a thin scar over one eye and one huge, impossibly curly strand of hair sticking out from his classic spiky mop. Even when you get past his appearance, there’s nothing remarkable about him, and he spends most of this episode either explaining his tragic past or saying, “Huh?” so other people can feed information to him (by which I mean the audience). To be fair, he has a lot to catch up on, since his teacher wants to kill him for getting too close to his childhood friend, who is also the teacher’s sister, and both of them are part of a secret spy organization along with the rest of their siblings, and ALSO Taiyou has to marry her in order to keep from being murdered. Did you get all that? The show doesn’t overcomplicate things, but it does present both its background info and its action scenes in pretty dry fashion. A couple of flashy cuts make their way across the screen as the siblings display their borderline supernatural combat techniques (I thought this was supposed to be a spy series?), but on the whole the storyboarding displays very little ambition. There just doesn’t seem to be a hook here, at least from my perspective – Yozakura-san isn’t terrible, but neither is it worth picking up.
Potential: 15%

Lenlo: Wooper basically has the right of it, Yozakura is almost comically tropey. Orphan? Check. Tragic backstory involving his entire dead family? Check. Unique hair color no one else has and a scar as his defining features? Check. A female lead blatantly in love with him for absolutely no reason? About the only novel thing about it is the spy setting, but even that gets ruined as the “spies” basically end up with otherworldly super powers anyways. It’s clearly trying to set itself apart with a unique setting, but it isn’t able to do that without falling back on the common Shounen bullshit. What I’m getting at is this: Unless you really, really need a battle shounen and neither Wind Breaker nor the upcoming seasons of My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer do it for you, don’t bother with this.
Potential: 5%

Rinkai!

Short Synopsis: Cute Girls Do Biking

Lenlo: Within seconds Rinkai has already introduced its entire cast of color-coded waifu’s for viewers to pick from. And you know what? They don’t look too bad. Then, mere moments later, we are treated to some of the worst CGI models I’ve seen in a while. They just look so… flat, both in their colors and how they all move the same way, like robots. The closeups are nice enough, we get 2D animation for those and the bikes/movements look decent there. As for what’s actually going on, it’s a classic Cute Girls Doing Cute Things show as the cast jointly figures out what bike racing is and collectively decide to take part for reasons about as simplistic as you’d expect. Still, despite the CGI, basic premise, and samey characters… It was alright? Maybe it’s because CGDCT about sports is just inherently more interesting to me, like Moi Ippon was a few seasons ago, but I find myself enjoying this more than most of the seasonal fare. Not enough to sit through an entire season of it, but I think someone could find some value here.
Potential: 15%

Tadaima, Okaeri

Short Synopsis: A salaryman and a househusband move into a house in the suburbs to raise their biological son together.

Wooper: I thought about pretending to write this impression as though I had no clue what the Omegaverse was, but I actually learned about it a couple days ago, after seeing people mock this episode upon its release. Personally, I find anime’s obsessions with reincarnation and RPG mechanics to be worthier targets for mockery, but I’ll admit to finding the idea of male pregnancy to be pretty fucking weird. It does seem to be a widespread fantasy, though (so much so that it has its own “-verse”), so who am I to kinkshame? Anyway, this premiere wasn’t terrible. Sure, it was cloying (the main couple’s toddler is unreasonably sweet and well-behaved) and uneventful (the biggest source of conflict here is an ornament falling from a Christmas tree), but it wasn’t unwatchable or anything. Ironically, the clear-cut alpha and omega hierarchy here allows for tenderness between the central male couple, as opposed to the implied alpha/beta dynamic of many other BL shows, which are typically dominance-based. Maybe that gentleness isn’t what the majority of Omegaverse enthusiasts are seeking, but for an unadventurous cishet guy like myself, this episode was a good-enough introduction to this strange fictional world.
Potential: Ω%

Lenlo: Dear Lord in heaven help me they did it, they made an actual Omegaverse anime. Why? Why would you do this to me God? Wooper may have been able to look past that and find something underneath, but personally? I’ve always found it disgusting. Not the gay stuff, that’s fine, hell I’m down for more shows being upfront about it. No, I’m talking about the Alpha/Beta/Omega power dynamic bullshit. From the looks of things Japan hasn’t gone full “Sexual Assault/Rape story” like most western Omegaverse media, which is good. But the whole male pregnancy thing is still weird and I generally detest the alpha/beta/omega crap from the debunked wolf study because of the kind of attitudes it promotes. To make a long story short, I wish this anime didn’t exist, but at least its not the weirdest Omegaverse story I’ve ever seen.
Potential: Better than Western Omegaverse shit, but still Omegaverse shit in a lot of ways.

Tonari no Youkai-san

Short Synopsis: In the small town of Engamori, Yokai and humans live together as they have for generations, working together to protect their easy going way of life.

Lenlo: Tonari is… fine? Wholesome? Dull? It’s a really basic “Rural town Slice of Life” style story where we watch these Yokai and Humans live regular lives side by side. The issue though is that these Yokai really don’t change anything about the setting or story. There’s nothing all that unique about them beyond them not looking human. You could replace their looks with those of normal people and the episode doesn’t feel like it would change at all, it’s meaningless flavor for those who think looking at a cat or a Tengu is more interesting than actual people. And you know what? I get it, it is more interesting watching a cat sit like a person and drink from a tea cup. But that novelty wears off fast and what you’re left with is a run-of-the-mill country slice-of-life. I’m sure for some people that will be enough, something relaxing to watch after a long day. For me though? It’s way too slow and uninteresting. Still, I wouldn’t call it bad. Definitely has more going for it than most of the season.
Potential: 10%

Blue Archive the Animation

Short Synopsis: A quintet of firearms experts protect their abandoned high school from invaders.

Wooper: Blue Archive was a last minute addition to our seasonal docket, but I’m glad it got added, as it provides a timely reminder that not all gacha game adaptations are utterly soulless. I’m never going to download the app, and there’s almost no chance that I’ll watch another episode (though I’ll probably rewatch the OP at some point to admire its abundance of beautiful animation), but this one wasn’t bad at all. The main reason for my favorable impression here is the series’ sense of restraint – though it prioritizes the cuteness of its five female characters, it’s not distasteful about it, nor is the script in a rush to over-explain itself. That left me with plenty of questions, of course, such as, “Why is it important that the girls protect an abandoned school building?” and, “Why do they all have differently shaped halos?” and, “Why are all the background characters animals?” But for fans of Blue Archive, those questions don’t need answering, and for the rest of us, they can either provide a reason to keep watching or serve as simple aesthetic quirks. Speaking of aesthetics, the compositing here is really nice, with thin lines and a bit of blur providing a soft bed for the show’s blood-free gunplay – gunplay which is mostly well-drawn, especially as it relates to the characters positioning themselves on the battlefield. A lot of the dialogue is trivial, and the lone male character transparently exists for player self-insertion, but apart from those issues, this is a well-made premiere that’s sure to please existing Blue Archive devotees, and maybe earn a few converts, too.
Potential: 35%

Lenlo: I’ll admit, when I read Wooper’s bit above about how Blue Archive actually wasn’t that bad, I didn’t believe him. It’s a gacha game adaptation from a series that, as far as I’m aware, is notorious for how many loli’s it has. But having watched it… Well I still wouldn’t call it good, it’s definitely a gacha game with its focus on color-coded cute girls and the story doesn’t actually make a lot of sense yet, but I think I can understand why fans of the game would actually enjoy this. There’s some effort here, both in its visuals and the cast. Had I more time this season I may have been willing to see where it went. As it is, I’m going to chalk it up to a pleasant surprise and a win for Blue Archive fans, but little else as I doubt it’s going to convert anyone who isn’t already a fan.
Potential: 25%

The Fable

Short Synopsis: Infamous prodigy hitman known as “Fable” must go undercover as a normal person, doing his best to not kill anyone.

Lenlo: The biggest issue with Fable isn’t its emotionless protagonist, uninteresting setting, or bland direction. No, the biggest problem I have with Fable is that it simply looks terrible. The lighting, the character designs, the background art, the animation. It’s all bad! It’s clearly trying to be “realistic”, with real world proportions and such. But I feel like it’s gone too far in the direction without the detail necessary to back it up. As for the narrative itself, it’s… Fine? I guess? It was very dry. The opening was a little exciting, but the weak production made it fall flat, and the rest of the episode was a bunch of talking between uninteresting and uncharismatic characters. There’s a chance Fable can do something, a solid criminal underworld story could work well. But I won’t be bothering to stick with it.
Potential: 1%