Quick First Impressions – Golden Kamuy

Oh, man, does this one deserve better.

It’s not the worst thing, and by it, I mean the production, but seriously, the C.G. used in this is the most out of place I think I’ve ever seen. This story is shaping up to be something really interesting already, with its status as a War-era period piece, and it’s already got me hooked, but the snowy setting sort of makes me wish that White Fox had gotten this on their slate after Girls Last Tour.

It’s also just a little disturbing, somewhere in the realm of Made in Abyss with the level of gore involved, and I’m sure it’ll be much more so when it’s eventually released uncensored. But otherwise, yet another fine entry for this already-excellent spring.

My Hero Academia – Episode 40

A definite improvement, but there’s still a ways to go.

I’m aware that Mother’s Basement is about to drop a video about it, but I’m totally unimpressed by the new opening theme. In addition to the song being pretty unmemorable, the direction of it is just a lot more generic than past seasons, so I’m not looking forward to sitting through it for the next ten episodes or so.

We start our new training camp arc with a race through the woods while fighting Monster Hunter beasts, nicely showing off the cast’s ability to work in teams, though I’m a little annoyed by the constant presence of name cards for the class since it just takes away from what’s happening on screen. This is followed by a pretty ridiculous dialogue scene featuring two lines you’ve already seen pictures of, one of which inexplicably makes a Gamergate reference.

This is followed by a bathing scene that really just comes across as redundant, given that a) we literally just had an entire pool episode to ogle at the boys, and b) anyone who has ever seen anime before knows that peeping at the girls literally never ends well (unless you’re watching hentai, though I suppose that’s how Mineta might see the world).

It’s honestly kind of jarring how quickly we go from half-naked high schoolers to a serious conversation about the sad backstory of one of the new characters (a conversation which Izuki spends wearing only a towel, had between him and two mentor figures twice his age who never tell him to put pants on) and look, I’m not a prude, I can appreciate eye candy as much as the next guy, but there’s not really room for fanservice in this scene.

So yeah, ever since the end of the Sports Festival, I continue to find MHA bafflingly inconsistent. Bones is still doing a fine job in the animation department and I really want to love this show as much as everyone else seems to but some of the elements of this episode really needed to be either changed or trimmed.

It’s trending upwards, though, since at least the plot is moving again and we’ve got some good potential in the next episode. 6/10

Quick Final Thoughts – Yotsuiro Biyori

There’s nothing wrong with it, per se, but there’s too much else to watch.

I get why I might like this show. I’m a fan of slice of life, any show gets points for not starring teenagers, and the cast is mostly handsome men. It’s certainly a pandering show for a specific type of person.

Unfortunately, the first episode just didn’t do much to hold my attention. It’s not really boring, but cafe settings are just not interesting to me anymore, and the guys themselves are not particularly interesting. I recognize that I’m basing that on one episode, but there should have been more to grab me in that premiere, and spending a whole season watching these guys impress women just doesn’t sound like a good time for me.

It’s not bad, but it’s not my thing.

Quick First Impressions – Major 2nd

A sports show about an underdog? That’s played out. How about a sports show about a kid who sucks at sports?

No, seriously, I like this idea. The execution is a little shaky, but the production is really clean and the focus is on elementary-aged kids in Little League. That’s something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in anime. The issue will come when they have to introduce narrative stakes, though, since most of this premiere is a prologue to the rest of the story, so we see how protagonist Daigo gets to the rather hopeless place in which the story actually begins. The setup reminds me a little of Knight in the Area, but the less said about that mess, the better.

From the opening, we can see that he’s going to wind up playing catcher, forming a battery with the transfer student who shows up at the end of the episode, which reminds me of another show (Battery the Animation) best left forgotten. Hopefully Major can take the pieces of these wastes of time and make something work.

Quick First Impressions – Real Girl

The stealth prequel to I Can’t Understand What My Husband is Saying that I never knew I wanted.

That’s basically the setup here. Just pair up a 2D-loving otaku with a perfectly normal (albeit gorgeous) girl. The most interesting part is the fact that we’ve gotten them to start dating by the end of the first episode, leaving us all kinds of really interesting ground to cover. While I don’t see this being quite as lofty as Tsukigakirei or Toradora!, I do see it being interesting.

My only complaint is that the production is not anything to write home about, and I think it can genuinely be attributed to the budget. Rarely are there ever more than two characters on-screen at a time, we see our main character go to the emptiest restaurant in the universe (and not eat his food), and the shopping district scene is nearly barren. This is really noticable and arguably worse than CG crowd shots because it imposes a weird sense of isolation that I really don’t think was intentional.

Still, I’m willing to go for the ride.

Quick First Impressions – Devils Line

Vampires are cool again, I guess!

This is actually a pretty impressive production, with lighting and processing clearly inspired by KyoAni, and even though it starts with a violent gorefest, for the most part this is a pretty mature, Persona 5-esque urban take. We get some pretty well-done line blurring and admissions that vampires aren’t necessarily explicitly evil just for wanting not to die.

That being said, the twists in this premiere are fairly easy to see coming, and it ends with a scene that could potentially spell trouble for the tone, but I want to see where it’s gonna go next.

Quick First Impressions – Lostorage conflated WIXOSS

An immediate improvement.

Lostorage incited was, honestly, just a let-down after the first two seasons. It was really slow to go anywhere and the stakes were extra-low for the most part. But the first episode of this new season not only goes out of its way to check up on people and answer some hanging questions, but sets up a much more interesting plot right out of the gate by involving characters from Selector infected/spread and confirming that despite their differences, the stories take place in the same universe. And the surprise at the end of the episode (followed by the new opening which implies a whole hell of a lot going forward) instantly reignited my interest in a show I thought I would end up skipping before I started to watch.

Don’t give up on this franchise, people.

Quick First Impressions – Tada-kun Never Falls in Love

From the team that brought you Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, comes a chance to redeem themselves…

With a (very) slightly less contrived setup and a tone that’s less “comedic” than “charming”, I have some pretty high hopes for this one. I actually really liked Nozaki-kun, but it is at this point famous for its complete cop-out of an ending, inexplicably teasing us right up to the end and leaving the audience completely unsatisfied. Basically, this already has all the building blocks – great production with detailed artwork and a moe-lite aesthetic, a likeable and fairly easy-to-understand cast, and a premise that certainly isn’t unique but at least tries to be. This is definitely going to at least be watchable, but I want to see our romance blossom before the final credits roll.

Quick First Impressions – Steins;Gate 0

Welcome to the Darkest Timeline! How did we get here?

Well, as per usual for the Science Adventure series, that’s really difficult to explain, but I’ll try and do so without spoilers. Basically, the original Steins;Gate had a plot that relied on characters creating contrivances on purpose, jumping back and forth between alternate realities and timelines. The game this adaptation is based on came out in 2015, and prior to the release, the original show was re-aired, but ended an episode early as a major element of Episode 23 was removed and the ending of the story changed dramatically, with this new version being referred to as “Episode 23 Beta”. Unfortunately, the new version was never licensed (meaning Crunchyroll at the very least has dropped a major ball here) but basically it created this new scenario wherein our hero has renounced his chuuni ways and given up to become an ordinary person.

His life isn’t quite as boring as it sounds, however, as he’s still surrounded by strange people, there’s a time traveller involved, and WWIII might be looming on the horizon.

The only thing I can really fault this premiere for is that it is just nowhere near as cool as the first episode of the original, though considering that rather than three directors this project has been left with only one (and it’s the guy that made Qualidea Code) it’s not hard to guess what happened. Still, with White Fox handling production again, once things really get trucking here they’ll be just fine, I just can’t see this project achieving the same level of artistic ambition.

Basically, if you like Science Adventure, this looks like it’s gonna be a major upswing after the letdown of Occultic;Nine, but if you haven’t seen the original Steins;Gate yet, that is a must-watch before you even read the description of this one on Crunchyroll.

Quick First Impressions – Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory

It’s like going back in time.

This is probably the most graceful return for a sequel that I’ve seen this season, as even though context is totally missing if you aren’t already familiar with the previous seasons, we pick up at a very natural new chapter in Kaname and Sousuke’s lives. They’re getting ready to graduate high school, they’re more mature and level headed thanks to all their previous growth, and they’re even comfortable enough with their feelings for each other to hold hands, and for these two, that feels earned.

The production is also impressive, given the studio change from Gonzo to Xebec, neither of whom hold a very good reputation nowadays. The more down-to-earth look of the show works a lot better than the total redesign of Digimon Adventure Tri, but the CG machinery leaves something to be desired (Aldnoah Zero has been frustratingly influential in the mech genre, though I’ll concede that this studio also made Zoids way back in the day).

I have every reason to believe this will be good, even without the nostalgia googles on, so if you haven’t seen FMP or Second Raid yet, now’s a great time to catch up, and the full series is available sub or dub on VRV. Personally, I’ll be waiting on the dub for this one, assuming Funimation can round up their returning cast.