Quick First Impressions – Last Period: the journey to the end of the despair

Oh hey, Konosuba’s back, maybe it’ll be enjoyable-

Wait, is this not Konosuba? It’s certainly nicer, I suppose, and much more aware of itself, which is different…I like it. I really didn’t enjoy the second season of Konosuba because it had very little to offer that we hadn’t already seen in season one, but this looks promising, if a little more childish. Glad to see we can do parody without making everyone an idiot.

Basically, it’s a Kono-style parody for the F:GO and Unison League set, so familiarity with at least one mobile game is required to get the humor, and it would be nice if the deadpan character’s job could not just be explaining the jokes, but overall this is a solid start for a comedy. Let’s see where it goes from here.

Quick First Impressions – Cute High Earth Defense Club HAPPY KISS!

If you weren’t a fan before, it won’t win you over, but it’s still pretty fun.

We continue the concept of “Magical girls, except gay” but with a reboot and an all-new (yet fairly familiar) cast. It makes for a pretty good place to start if you’re not familiar with the franchise, but there are plenty of references to the previous seasons for returning fans, even though we’re essentially starting today fresh.

The problem is just how same-y things are. Our new leader is pretty interesting and unique as far as these shows go (he’s a lazy thousand-year-stare sort of guy) but the rest of our main cast are basically expies of the originals. If you weren’t into it before, you won’t be into it now, but if you enjoyed the previous seasons like I did, you’ll still have fun.

Quick First Impressions – Megalobox

Everything about this show is cool as shit.

From the throwback-with-modern-flair aesthetic to the classic underdog protagonist, it’s like the best parts of 90’s anime brought into 2018, and the intense animation and action shots make it a pretty instant must-watch for fans of old-school action shows.

I do wonder though if they can keep up the production values the entire way through, because this seems like it would have worked really well as a Rocky-meets-Kill la Kill style movie. Either way though, I’m pretty much down for this.

Quick First Impressions – Persona 5 the Animation

If you’ve already played the game, you probably don’t need to watch this.

Based on this first episode, it looks like what we’re gonna get here is pretty much what we got from P4tA, a utilitarian, condensed version of a story meant to be told over a lot more than 9 hours, made more boring by the change from Production I.G. (who made the cutscenes from the game) to A-1 Pictures, where the most complimentary thing I have to say is that they didn’t homogenize the game’s art style.

The characters are still great, the story will probably still work, but if you’ve played the game already, you pretty much have no need for this adaptation.

Quick First Impressions – Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online

One of my most anticipated shows of the season, and boy was this a great way to start things off.

The episode actually skips over the prologue (which I assume we’ll see next week) and jumps right into the PUBG-style Squad Jam, introducing us to LLENN, who immediately demonstrates more personality than Kirito did in two full seasons, and demonstrating how much more interesting this setting is without the involvement of its creator. The rules of the game make more sense now, the characters actually use guns in an FPS, and as an added bonus if you made the mistake of sitting through Phantom Bullet, you already know where LLENN gets her insane speed from (she’s an Agility-build character).

The prologue was a lot more character-focused, which is great because that’s the thing this episode was lacking, so we should get more of that next week.

I’ll be covering this series week-to-week, and this premiere has me really excited for what’s to come.

Score so far: 7/10

Quick First Impressions – My Hero Academia Season 3

I’m not the first person to say that this is a really weak season premiere, but it’s definitely true.

Honestly, with the episode split between 40% plot cul-de-sac filler and 60% recap, this is really not a good way to start your season, nearly as bad as Food Wars: The Second Plate trying to pretend that there was no seasonal break at all. It’s cringey and forced and nothing much happens aside from a poolside power demonstration and what almost seems like an inside joke about how much Class B doesn’t matter.

Considering that this is one of the shows I’ll be covering weekly… We’re not off to a great start.

Score so far: 5/10

Quick First Impressions – Lupin the 3rd Part 5

It’s just as much fun as it always was.

We move into the near-future as the Lupin universe adopts AR technology and Bitcoin, but the cast is as crazy and fun as they ever were, and like in Part 4, we get some setup for continuity with the twist at the end of the episode, but basically, whether you’ve seen Lupin’s adventures before or not, you owe it to yourself to give him a shot if you consider yourself a fan of anime.

The aesthetic continues to be great as well, keeping the Layton-esque vibe we’ve been getting from the franchise and applying it to gorgeous French settings, and it’s really unique and charming as modern anime goes.

I don’t know what else to say besides just telling you to watch it and have a blast with the gang!

Quick First Impressions – Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These

I’m aware that most of this episode was just talking heads, flying CG models, and particle effects, but if Production I.G. can make it look and sound this amazing on a weekly basis, this could be a landmark series just like the original, even if it will just be one cour compared to its massive original run.

We don’t get much in the way of substance here, unfortunately, but we do get a lot of setup and jaw dropping music, proudly featuring an opening song by Hiroyuki Sawano, and despite my unfamiliarity with the source material, I can only see this going uphill. It’s got a lot of competition though.

Quick First Impressions – Magical Girl Ore

I can’t say this looks like it’s gonna be spectacular, but I’ll settle for funny.

I like the interesting parody aspect where magical girl concepts aren’t the only target of derision – we have a main character trying to become an idol but who can’t sing to save her life, and a pretty funny send-up of UtaPri while we’re at it, but whether the humor goes stale or not will largely depend on how they handle the gender-swapping going on, because there’s a lot of margin for error, particularly given the intentionally bara art style the show is clearly going for, and the mid-transformation crotch shot made me a little nervous.

We’ll see where this goes by episode 3.

Quick First Impressions – Gundam Build Divers

It would be really nice if they could decide what they want this spinoff franchise to be, since they keep opting to reboot rather than finishing stories, but even though each successive iteration (barring Battlogue) has gotten a little less ambitious, it remains fun to watch.

This time, the formula is shaken up again by swapping the Minovsky Particle field battles for ones set in VRMMO-space, a la Sword Art Online. In fact, this pilot also borrows a little from .hack//Sign, with the primary conflict coming from a newbie hunter who tricks the protagonist into a battle space, although being an idealistic kids show, our hero still comes out on top, as well as Legend of the Twilight, with a mysterious virtual girl with white hair in distress.

So the gist is that if you’ve seen other shows with similar settings, this first episode is pretty predictable, but I encourage fans to give it a shot anyway. I’m eager to see if we’ll get something cool out of this.