Spring 2024 Impressions: Seiyuu Radio no Uraomote, Viral Hit, Kaiju No.8

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%