Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai
Short Synopsis: A high-score boy is asked to be a tutor of other talented girls.
Mario’s review:
Just fresh off from the Quintuplets show last season, we have another harem anime where main guy is a tutor for “hot, talented but somehow still needs tutoring” girls, and it’s pale in comparison in almost every department. The main lead isn’t particularly interesting for one thing, since he does very little to stand out from a normie harem protagonist. The show delivers some decent chemistry between him and the girls, but the girls themselves, despite spend majority of time together, share zero interaction whatsoever. Secondly, all the narrative beats this premiere goes through is predictable and uninspiring. We see some lame fan-service, we have the normal shtick of him saying misleading comments, we have girls already falling head over heel over him by the episode’s end. Lastly, the production is plain. The art-style is unremarkable and there’s nothing worth recommending on the visual side. Watch (or re-watch) Quintuplets show instead. They share the same DNA but the other show makes full use of its harem roots.
Potential: 10%
Kono Oto Tomare!
Short Synopsis: An annoying nerd prevents, then accepts a troubled delinquent’s application to the traditional koto club.
Wooper’s review:
The ubiquity of high school clubs in anime can lead some viewers to find them tedious, but I wouldn’t have considered myself one of them until recently. Series like Chihayafuru and K-On! are among my favorites, with the formula of finding new club members providing a way to explore both themes of friendship and their clubs’ focus. But we’ve seen an outpouring of half-hearted club shows in recent years, and even promising candidates like Kabukibu have fallen into template mode after a few episodes. My theory is that anime’s new 12-episode standard is to blame – a thought was strengthened by Kono Oto Tomare, which sprinted haphazardly through its opening chapters to enter the recruitment phase. Club president Kurata’s pitiful backstory (he failed an entrance exam because he was sick that day) is only fed to us after he stresses about the koto club for eight minutes. The blonde delinquent who wants to become its second member teleports around the school so they can share as many scenes together as possible, most of them being overly dramatic or laughably violent. A dark incident from the delinquent’s past is only revealed so the school’s current gang of thugs can recreate it thirty seconds later. As far as atmosphere goes, the voice acting is too shouty for the material, and there’s zero koto playing in the premiere (which would have been a welcome respite from its relentless drama). Of all the episode’s components, only the art was passable in my eyes, but it wasn’t good enough to bring me back for round two.
Potential: 25%
Mario’s review:
UNBEARABLE PROTAGONIST, ACT III
It’s another show about high school students and their club activities. On that angle Kono Oto Tomare is a solid entry. The subject of Koto club isn’t something we see that often, and what this episode does well is to provide the leads’ own connection to this Koto club. Although I can’t say I am fond of the wimpy male lead (his shtick: I HAVE TO PROTECT THE CLUB is especially annoying), the show does spend time to provide backstories from our leads and inform us their points of view. Unfortunately, apart from that part this first episode suffers from many more glaring issues. First, the pacing is way too quickly that it feels as it they try to rush the material to a certain point. Things happen, things resolve in a flick of fingers, and worst offender is everything that related to the unnamed bullying kids. It’s so obvious that they are there to be the most hateable bunch of kids and I don’t really appreciate any of that. And while the subject matter is koto, there isn’t much of what makes koto club appealing, though I believe we will get to that in later episodes. So in short, Koto has some good characters development, and if you enjoy their chemistry of this premiere, there will be a lot to like here. Beware though, the plot can become contrived in service of these characters’ development.
Potential: 30%
Shoumetsu Toshi
Short Synopsis: A girl, with a help of a vespa-riding boy, decides to visit her vanished home town to see how it has changed.
Lenlo’s review:
Jesus christ, Madhouse is doing this? Are you serious? Am I being punked right now? Because this is legitimately terrible, at least on the production side. Everything from the art to the animation looks like it wasn’t finished when it aired. As for the story itself, for the life of me all I can remember are a bunch of tropes. I have absolutely no desire to see more this.
Potential: 0%
Mario’s review:
Just like Yu-no at the start of this season, Toshi suffers from introducing way too many characters before the main event even kicks in. Toshi seems to be interested in its own mystery that it forgets to tell a proper story, or flesh out any character for us to invest in. Take the main lead who acts like a complete bonker, first established him as the man who honor his job, then at the end try to convince us that he’s good nature enough look after that girl? The visual looks stiff but worse, it looks implausible. Take several chase scenes where he doves his scooter up and down (and at one point, block the attack) like he’s playing Wii and when the torrent of knives come toward him and somehow he gets away from it with only scratches? The central mystery is solid, however. It’s clear that the girl is the main cause of this disaster and it’s interesting in the fact that it could go in many different directions. Character-wise the show remains duh (remember a guy who keeps saying “could be a worthy test subject”?), and I don’t think that aspect can get any better. Watch it if you like the central mystery because otherwise, it offers very little else.
Potential: 20%
