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Spring 2025 First Impressions Digest

GREAT:

A Ninja and an Assassin Under One Roof:

rest your cheek on her tiddy

Anne Shirley: excellent adaption of well-loved classic novel i've never read

Apocalypse Hotel: it's like if the good part of wall-e was a slice of life anime

Can A Boy-Girl Friendship Survive?: yeah, but this show doesn't think so

KOWLOON GENERIC ROMANCE: sci-fi mystery about nostalgia set in a place that used to exist but doesn't anymore

Lazarus: it's directed by shinichiro watanabe

Witch Watch: excellent adaptation of a really good manga

GOOD:

Food for the Soul: cute women doing cute things club anime but it occurred to me after i finished up my first impressions that the whole episode the main character goes on and on about how she's afraid of trying new things but the episode opens with her trying a new thing

mono:

FLUFFY FLUFFY

Once Upon A Witch's Death: fun main character with clear motivation that might be a bit too shmaltzy for some people

Summer Pockets: it's an adaptation of a key visual novel that gives you everything you'd expect from an adaptation of a key visual novel

Yaiba: Samurai Legend: very old school shonen in both the good and bad ways

ZatsuTabi: wish i could go to japan

OKAY:

Catch Me At the Ballpark:

if youre going to translate a loan word you could at least not do it wrong

The Brilliant Healer's New Life in the Shadows: at least Our Hero doesn't condone slavery

Teogonia: would be good if the production was better

GOOD BAD:

I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire!: absolute garbage and hates women but at least the shithead main character gets reincarnated to gundam instead of dragon quest for once

Please Put Them On, Takamine-san:

yes bra

Yandere Dark Elf: it's about a dark elf who is yandere

BAD BAD:

#COMPASS2.0: fuck off with your hashtag in the title

The Beginning After the End:

if your 2 year old has only just learned to walk and can only vocalize without babbling or talking you should consult your pediatrician

The Dinner Table Detective: not even mamoru miyano can make me care about a rote mystery with a detective who commits the mortal sin of being an actual cop

The Gorilla God's Go-To Girl: just watch witch watch

The Shiunji Family Children: it could be good bad if it was less well made

The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside By My Fiancé and Sold to Another Kingdom: boring collection of oversaturated webcomic tropes

The Unaware Atelier Meister: boring collection of oversaturated anime tropes

I STARTED TO WATCH THIS ONE BUT DROPPED IT AFTER 2 MINUTES BECAUSE THE SHOTABAIT ONE'S PUBESCENT SCREECHING WAS MORE THAN I COULD TOLERATE

Classic★Stars: ugh

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Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 8/8

Teogonia: when the op ended and the first thing i was greeted with was one stiffly animated dude talking to another stiffly animated dude, i started to have a bad feeling about this premier. 'at best,' thought i, 'this will turn out to be a decent episode hampered by poor production quality.' it's not the worst production in history (the characters managed to stay on model, at least), but the premier is one of those times where the anime is supposed to show off it's best quality animation, and if the best they can manage is 'halfway through the 4th season of a toei anime' quality, things are not going well. ultimately, however, the story and characters are the most important element and this one isn't bad. i'm not sure why it needed to be an isekai if Our Hero doesn't really remember being isekai'd, since theyre not a convenient fish out of water who can have things explained at them for the benefit of the audience, and it loses the escapist element of some average (or below average) dude getting to abandon this world for a more magical one where they can get all the money and bitches cruelly denied them by their lack of personality or talent or willingness to develop personality or talent. there are elements that could be really shitty if theyre intended to be played straight, but since this is just the first episode there's plenty of room for them not to be. anyway, this was a decent premier hampered by poor production quality. it manages to clear the admittedly low bar of establishing a setting and a conflict and a cast of characters with clear motivations. check it out if you have some extra time to kill, but it might be better to wait to see how things shake out on the production front, or just check out the source material.

mono:

lepsan 🫵

i was fully ready to write this off as a cute girls doing cute things anime with slightly-higher-than-usual production values, idiot gay children, and multiple characters with chunky eyebrows. something that is fun and worth checking out, but maybe not when i already have 3 other anime to watch on saturdays. but then we got some cat cam action so i guess i'm gonna have one more

Food for the Soul: this is also a cute girls doing cute things anime, but it bears the unique distinction of being about college girls instead of high schoolers, which is nice. no cat cam, though, so while i recommend checking it out, i probably won't be sticking with it

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Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 7/?

The Shiunji Family Children: something that made osomatsu-san so good was how it nailed the experience of having a lot of siblings. this anime does not do that. i never once believed these characters were related to each other, which makes the mid-episode 'twist' that they aren't the least shocking twist in the history of twists. the anime almost could have been more interesting without it if, again, they actually bothered to write them as actual siblings. it's just a generic harem anime where sometimes the characters are like 'by the way we're totally siblings 100% for sure' right up until they find out they aren't and it immediately becomes a question of who gets to jump on the main character's dick first. the decent production values and attempts at some interesting directorial choices kinda just make the thing worse by trying to make it better, so instead of being so bad it's good it's just so lame it's boring

Apocalypse Hotel: there's a manga that just started a few weeks ago on jump plus called maison and the man-eating apartment that is set in an apartment building displaced from time, because outside it's one second until the end of the universe. it's a really cool and creepy concept, and has almost nothing to do with this anime. a better point of comparison would probably be the good parts of wall-e, what with the focus on the futility of robots continuing to carry out their programmed routines in the absence of anyone to benefit from them. anyway, this was a good episode. so good that i don't really have much else to say about it except check it out.

A Ninja and an Assassin Under One Roof: i really hope the retro-style opening sequence isn't this anime's only foray into playing with animation styles. it's always fun when anime do stuff like that.

it's fun when it does stuff like this too

speaking of jump plus manga that have almost nothing to do with these anime but i keep being reminded of, machi and oboro. that one actually has a bit more similarities since theyre both comedies that co-star idiot ninja. it's a lot of fun, and so is this. check it out if you like your lighthearted comedies a bit grisly

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Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 6/?

ZatsuTabi: this is the kind of iyashikei anime that usually airs during the winter, which i hope is not indicative of any kind of production problems, especially because i quite enjoyed this. if you ever wanted a version of yurucamp that was either solely focused on shimarin or featured characters who were old enough and had the resources to travel further than the area around mt. fuji, you'll likely love the hell out of this. even if you don't and just want something cozy to chill with for half an hour each week, this'll do it

Summer Pockets:

kitty!

i like how Our Hero keeps trying to act like a tortured poet only for everyone around him to be like '......................k.' it's very funny, and goes a long way toward endearing me to a show i probably otherwise wouldve found to be just kinda fine. it is, at it's core, a harem show about a sad boy who gets turned into a happy boy by 3-5 archetypal girlthings wanting to jump on his dick, but it's willingness to poke some non-meanspirited fun at it's main character for being kind of a pretentious dork (which he is) keeps things fairly light. if you're not into visual novel adaptations this won't change your mind, but it's worth checking out if it seems like the kind of thing you might be into

#COMPASS2.0: not a good sign when a profound feeling of intense boredom hits you less than two minutes into an episode. there's nothing about the characters, setting, or premise that's interesting enough to make up for the fact that i simply do not find anything engaging about battle royale video games. if your hobbies include watching fortnite streams you might get something out of this, but then again maybe not. it really is just watching cartoon characters play a video game for 30 minutes. you might be better served just going to twitch

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Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 5/?

Witch Watch: ive been reading this manga since it premiered and while it's never been one of my favorites, it's a consistently enjoyable little romcom with a fun cast (including the most autistic character in jump), good gags, and occasional moments where the manga-ka loses his damn mind over his workload. as such, ive been looking forward to this anime since it was announced. i am incredibly pleased with it. it nails the tone of the manga perfectly, the comedic timing is impeccable, and the cast is pretty good. the wrong voice actors could easily make morihito come off as too dull or nico come off as too grating, but ryouta suzuki and rina kawaguchi do a good job. definitely check this out if you like things that are fun

The Gorilla God's Go-To Girl:

why would that be the power of the mole god. moles can't see that well even when they have eyes. wouldn't a cat god be more likely to give you the ability to see in the dark and a mole god like. give you the power to dig really fast or something. i don't think the person who came up with this concept thought it through very well. C-

just watch witch watch

Yandere Dark Elf: it's called 'yandere dark elf'. if you'd be interested in watching an anime called 'yandere dark elf', you'd be interested in watching this anime, which is called 'yandere dark elf'. i'm only covering this one to fill out more space between witch watch and lazarus. though it occurs to me that it's kinda funny how we keep getting anime about isekai protagonists after their adventure ends, as if actual isekai ever fucking end

Lazarus: it is unlikely the be the biggest surprise of the season that the shinichiro watanabe anime is good in all the ways shinichiro watanabe anime are always good. i ended up watching this one dubbed because it was mislabeled on the totally legitimate website i watched it on, but it barely struggled to hold my attention, which is miraculous. definitely check this one out

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Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 4/?

Anne Shirley: not only have i never read anne of green gables, ive somehow managed to completely avoid all knowledge of it aside from the name, despite it being one of those classics that i think you're supposed to read in school. i have a vague impression of it being kinda overly twee/pwecious/inspiration porny, but that impression could well be a mistaken one. i have also never watched the anime this is a remake of. so basically, i watched this episode about as blindly as anyone could. i enjoyed it immensely. i can see how being forced to read it could make one dislike the thing, and hyperverbal protagonists like anne aren't for everyone, but i found her charming. the art style and animation are also very nice. i can't compare it to the original anime since, again, i never saw it, but this one is shaping up to be a delight

KOWLOON GENERIC ROMANCE:

ive seen this before, but do people not typically take the time to dig the seeds out of the watermelon slice before biting into it, or is it just anime characters

two excellent premiers in a row is just. it's so nice, y'all. i wanna just bask in it for a few minutes. this was a good episode. the backgrounds are nice, the characters are nice (i mean, kudo isn't nice; he's an asshole, but he's comes off as someone who's being an asshole on purpose for Reasons so i'll allow it), it sets up a lot of interesting mysteries that i'm sure i'll have fun trying to figure out each week (provided i don't decide to read ahead in the manga, which i very well might). watch this anime.

Yaiba: Samurai Legend:

w....why?

this was a fun premier with a very nostalgic old-school shonen vibe, which should not be surprising considering it's based on a manga that predates detective conan. i really like that they didn't try to 'update' the character designs like a lot of these throwback anime have been doing. i may or may not continue it but i do recommend checking it out if you either have netflix or aren't opposed to a bit of piracy

The Dinner Table Detective: i'm not sure why this premier felt the need to start with a montage that felt like a recap of a previous episode that doesn't exist, nor am i a fan of the boy band-ass opening song. i did watch this while eating dinner, which is fun. i had nachos. anyway, nothing ruins a detective faster than making them an actual cop (columbo and harry dubois being notable exceptions). having a sidekick voiced by mamoru miyano helps, but not enough. ultimately, however, the most important thing for a mystery series is the quality of the mystery and this one is not the best. the murderer and their motive are easy to guess even without the extremely obvious clues (and, most damning of all, i don't actually care if my guess is correct enough to watch the second episode), and while the sneaky butler dropping hints was fun, ron kamonohashi already did the gimmick of the actual detective giving his deduction to the cop to pretend they solved the case, and did it a lot better. on top of that, the tone and pacing are all over the place. in short, this anime is

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Spring 2025 First Impressions Part 3/?

The Unaware Atelier Meister:

'.........like at least once per anime season'

i somehow missed this premier bc there was nothing about the key vis or title that registered to me as it being an actual premier. it brings absolutely nothing new to the 'kicked out of the hero's party even though im secretly way stronger than any of those losers so now im gonna show em all while i get all the money and bitches' subgenre, so of course there's a simuldub (which i didn't listen to. i need subtitles to actually focus on these things). free writing tip: constantly lampshading how tired your premise is doesn't make your premise any less tired

The Brilliant Healer's New Life in the Shadows: i have to give this one some slight props for putting in the modicum of effort required to introduce its cast somewhat organically and establish their personalities and relationships to each other by showing how they interact instead of having the narrator go 'this is lynga. she's a wolf(?) girl who acts like a dog'. the brief action scene was also pretty decently animated. i almost could have liked this, but i found the central duo (at least to this episode) of zenos and lily dull and grating respectively, and i only really like iyashikei fantasy when it's in video game form anyway. i don't feel like my time with it was a complete waste and if you're into no-stakes fantasy you might enjoy this, but i won't be watching any more

Can A Boy-Girl Friendship Survive?:

i fuckin wish this was an anime about friendship between a gay guy and an aromantic girl but we all know that it is not

ive never seen when harry met sally but ive absorbed enough through cultural osmosis to know it asks pretty much the same question as this anime and comes up with what will almost certainly be the same answer ('nope!'). so, i guess if you ever wanted a version of when harry met sally that's 3 times as long and about cartoon teenagers instead of adults, this is the anime for you. for my part, i found the characters and humor charming enough that i might give it at least a few more episodes, barring an influx of better shit next friday

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Spring 2025 First Impressions Digest Part 2 of ?

The Beginning After the End: the beginning of this premier was boring as fuck and so was the middle and ending as well. the one highlight was the 'we have linkin park at home' opening song, and that's all very, very sad for an anime that has bomber jets in it

BRING BACK THE AEROPLANES

Please Put Them On, Takamine-san: for like the first half of this anime i was convinced i would end up not liking it. i dont find drawings of teenage t&a either titillating or offensive so the most stimulating aspect of it was trying to think of how many other characters ive seen with the exact same bad haircut as our boring viewpoint character who by his own admission is less interesting than a table. then takamine actually got to start being a character and it turned the whole thing around. she's very much an archetypal character, but the archetype she is is so different from the archetype i thought she was going to be that it served as a bit of a mid-episode twist that was a lot of fun. i probably won't watch anymore of this, but i do recommend checking it out if you're curious

The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside By My Fiancé and Sold to Another Kingdom: i had a moment of 'wait, did i read the webtoon this is based on before?' before i pushed play or even confirmed that it's based on a webtoon because this is one of the only 3 webtoon plots. either way, i did not read this one. i'm not about to run out and track it down, either, because this premier was boring. it may be of interest if you want to see a combination of every single webtoon trope (except reincarnation and dungeon portals) rolled into one incredibly dull package, but otherwise just skip it.

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Spring 2025 First Impressions Digest Part 1 of ?

I'm the Evil Lord of An Intergalactic Empire!: good news for people who love bad anime! not since the various works of the light novel author miku has there been an isekai that is such a shameless cope. at least this one is gundam instead of dragon quest, which i guess is a nice change

Catch Me At the Ballpark!: this the epitome of the sort of premier i tend to describe as 'profoundly fine'--it does exactly what it sets out to do and not a single thing more. check it out if you want a 'cute girl teases loser dude' show that sometimes shows a second or two of baseball

unauthorized beast

Once Upon A Witch's Death: i love a premier that wastes zero time establishing its central conflict and main character and then jumps right into the thick of things. doing that is pretty much the entire purpose of a first episode, but sometimes they instead decide to waste everyone's time recounting how the main character's bitch wife cheated on him with his asshole boss and that's why he's decided to ruin a completely different world with his army of sex toys. anyway, this is the first really good premier of the season. check it out

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Best OP and ED Songs of 2024

I didn't do a seasonal one for Summer because nothing stood out, and I was going to do one for this season but then I never got around to it and now the season is almost over oops so we'll just skip ahead to the end of year. For the record, if I had done one for this season it would have included this, this, this, and the one on this list. Also, there is one here from Summer but it's mostly just to fill out the list and because I'm already an Eve fan. It's fine. Most of his other stuff is better.

BUMP OF CHICKEN "Sleep Walking Orchestra" from Dungeon Meshi

Tatsuya Kitani "Preview of Me" from Go! Go! Loser Ranger!

Eve "Sweet Memory" from SHOSHIMIN

Creepy Nuts "Otonoke" from Dandadan

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Fall 2024 First Impressions Digest Part 2

Part 1 here.

Ranma 1/2: Hey, Mappa, cut out Happosai.

Puniru Is A Kawaii Slime: This show is going to be formative in nurturing the slime kinks of a bunch of young kids. Also, Puniru is the colors of the trans flag, uses a masculine pronoun (boku), and Kotaru keeps loudly insisting that she's "not a girl", but I'm sure none of that means anything. Anyway, it's a cute show but not my thing.

TsumaSho: I read a chapter or two of the manga this is adapted from a while back and completely forgot about it until checking the description of this anime to see if it could be interesting. It's not. I have very little patience for mothers being portrayed as perfect saintly beings at the best of times, and her being turned into a grade schooler gives it a layer of weird I really don't want to deal with. Ultimately, though, it's biggest problem is that it's boring. This premier dropped with two episodes and I didn't even make it through the first one.

Nina the Starry Bride: This one is also boring.

*thousand yard stare*

Magilumiere Magical Girls INC.: It's a good show. Wish the uniforms looked different.

Orb: On the Movements of the Earth: If the universe expands infinitely in all directions, then wouldn't everywhere and nowhere be the center of the universe? Either way, this is one of those shows that's so good that I have nothing to say about it. I'm not much of a medievalist but I do like a well-made, talky cartoon that portrays Catholics like horror movie villains.

Haigakura: Holy inelegant exposition, Batman! A premier opening with a history lesson immediately followed by some character explaining the protagonist's motivation to him is generally a bad sign. And it certainly doesn't bode well for this premier, which is roughly 50% characters explaining things to each other that they already know for the benefit of the audience and 50% lame slapstick. Anyway, it's bad.

Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga ii: I do not like this art style and never have. That's the only negative thing I have to say about this premier, however. This is trash, but it's fun trash. We love a man voiced by Akira Ishida who can beat a man into a crate of beer bottles and then make this face:

he's like hakkai without the sister fucking

I might not stick with it all season (there are already a dozen other anime on my watchlist for this season and we're only halfway done with the premiers), but the way it delivers it's last-two-minutes-of-the-episode twist was chef's kiss.

You Are Ms. Servant: Do.... Do the people who decided on the English title not know that 'maid' is a common English word? They have to know, don't they? Maids are popular in anime and among anime fans why would they take the word 'maid' out of the title? That's so weird. I haven't even watched the episode yet and I can't concentrate on anything except how weird that is.

That aside (for now), this premier is worth checking out just for the OP & ED and their really extremely cool mix of really extremely cool visual styles. The actual episode is pretty good, too. Still, it is very weird that they translated 'meido' as 'servant' instead of, y'know, 'maid'.

A Terrified Teacher At Ghoul School!: This is another one I read a couple chapters of the manga of a little bit ago. It was cute. I mostly stopped reading it because it was on one of the official manga reading apps that's really bad (I think the Square Enix one that split one chapter into like 4 chapters and then limited you to only one 1/4 of a chapter per day).

way to be motivational, sensei

Regardless, the anime is also cute. The pacing is a bit hectic, but it's a fun time. It also makes for an interesting double feature with Kimi wa Maid-sama since Maid-sama kept making me think of Mahoromatic and this one makes me think of GTO, which are both classic anime that are better than these (though they're both fine).

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Fall 2024 First Impressions Digest Part 1

I've been streaming a lot more often on my YouTube channel (which you should go subscribe to and watch and like all my vods and leave comments I won't read) so I don't have the time or energy to watch everything this season, so here's my one-to-two sentence impressions of the stuff I did watch.

Tying the Knot With An Amagami Sister: I dropped this one about 10 minutes in. It was boring.

Acro Trip: it's like if Gushing Over Magical Girls was a bit more genteel in its horniness. It's very cute and funny. Definitely recommend checking it out, especially if you like magical girl stuff.

'i learned all about it playing critically acclaimed mmorpg final fantasy xiv'

Uzumaki: It's about as good a Junji Ito adaptation as we're ever likely to get, which sounds like damning with faint praise but I did enjoy it.

How I Attended An All-Guys Mixer: Fellas, is it gay to think a drag king is hot? In any case, the title is a lie: it wasn't an all guys mixer; it was 3 guys and 3 women in drag whom we are meant to presume are cis but I'm pretty sure Suoh at least is a trans guy, since he presumably arranged the thing so his 'oh we didn't have time to change after work' excuse doesn't fly. Either way, it's a pretty cute show but doesn't seem to be licensed for streaming by any Official Sources it's on Hulu.

KINOKOINU: Why is the anime about the fucking pink mushroom that turns into a goddamn bipedal dog that sets shit on fire so fucking dour? If you want to watch an anime about a depressed, orphaned author in his 20's who lives in a Japanese-style house and has a nosy blond editor, whose life and mental health start to improve after meeting a cute critter, just watch My Roommate Is A Cat instead.

they played this moment 100% seriously. how the fuck do you play a moment like this 100% seriously

NegiPosi Angler: This anime starts with an suicide attempt and ends with the protagonist's home being destroyed and it's still a hell of a lot more fun and lighthearted than goddamn KINOKOINU.

DANDADAN: I'm already familiar with this one since I've been getting caught up on the manga. You probably don't need me to tell you it's good, though, since it's the most hyped anime this season.

365 Days to the Wedding: I read this manga while it was running because it's by the same guy as The World God Only Knows, which is one of my favorite manga of all time. It's a cute little romance between two very autistic people, both of whom are working adults and not teenagers. I like Dandadan but this was my most hyped anime this season. Check it out.

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when they were making fun of Ben Shapiro's shitty novel on behind the bastards Robert pointed out how he had a tendency to put sentences that should be part of another paragraph on their own line for emphasis or some shit and I know where he got that from he got it from animorphs they do that a lot

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Makeine is also really good if you've not yet grown weary of overly meta light novel adaptations and Atri is pretty and tries to depict its disabled main character both realistically and sympathetically but it could also very easily turn into abelism/inspiration porn so be wary.

Also Oshi no Ko is back but you probably didn't need me to tell you that.

There's a new FFXIV expansion this month so I've barely watched any of the new premiers and there are only like 3 good new shows this season total anyway so instead of a list of recommendations this season, just watch The Elusive Samurai.

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If for whatever reason you want to watch more than one anime this season, here's a shortlist of the other stuff that's kinda decent:

Shikanoko nokonoko koshitantan would be an easy rec if its subs weren't MTL, VTuber Legend will be a lot of fun if you're into the vtuber scene and utter dogshit if you're not, Mayonaka Punch is the other, better show this season about lesbian youtubers that will inevitably get snubbed later on for being yuri, Sakuna of Rice and Ruin is a decent adaptation if you didn't want to play the game (go play the game), No Longer Allowed in Another World is available if you like jokes about an actual real world author trying to kill himself in Dragon Quest, and apparently Shoshimin is alright if you're the kind of weird pervert who likes het romance.

Also Shy is back for season two (you WILL watch Shy) and Precure, as always, continues into current season.

There's a new FFXIV expansion this month so I've barely watched any of the new premiers and there are only like 3 good new shows this season total anyway so instead of a list of recommendations this season, just watch The Elusive Samurai.

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There's a new FFXIV expansion this month so I've barely watched any of the new premiers and there are only like 3 good new shows this season total anyway so instead of a list of recommendations this season, just watch The Elusive Samurai.

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the official first impressions review of the dead dead demons dededede destruction anime is to pirate it and hope it got picked up by a fansub circle that actually knows what real human beings talk like. and also translates the on screen text