Originally I intended for this blog to be focused on programming, generally geared around Unreal Engine. Best laid plans, and whatnot. Ultimately I discovered that I didn’t have all that much to say, or at least less than I thought I did. There’s still plenty of oddities to unearth in UE (especially since UE5’s release) and bad advice to correct. But that requires substantially more effort than watching cartoons, and then posting opinions about said cartoons. And I am nothing if not lazy!

Given that the Fall 2023 season is well underway, this inaugural post will include thoughts on most of the first couple episodes of current shows. Additionally, the weekly anime night I inflict run often includes seasonal shows, despite being extremely out of sync with the cadence of the seasons (we’re about 2/3rds of the way through Summer at present). After premier screenings, I usually don’t watch those shows ahead of time, and thus writeups of anime I watch with my group will naturally be equally delayed.

For the sake of timely publication, the following episodes will be reviewed in future posts:

  • Our Dating Story – Ep. 1
  • Firefighter Daigo: Rescuer in Orange – Ep. 2
  • Frieren – Ep. 1-4

Each review is prefaced with an emoji that roughly summarizes my feelings, keyed as such:

  • ⭐ – Excited for more
  • ✔️ – Good enough to keep watching
  • ❌ – Dropped
  • 💤 – Deferred for group watch purposes

⭐ 16bit Sensation: ANOTHER LAYER – Ep. 1

As a huge fan of New Game!, 16bit Sensation immediately caught my eye; despite the swelling number of shows adapted each season, relatively few anime focus on adults doing jobs. I don’t see that trend changing any time soon, unfortunately, so I try to make the best of what I’m given. Fortunately, I didn’t have to try too hard with 16bit Sensation. From start to finish, the premier was charming and lively, and I enjoyed every second of it. I will say that it’s a little off-putting that the time travel aspect was added for the anime adaptation, especially since the lead-up to Konoha getting sent back in time (jisekai’d?) takes up the bulk of the first episode. It’s not a huge problem though. Konoha’s passion for the games that inspired her to become an artist, and her frustration when that passion clashes with the reality of modern budget game development, would make for a plenty engaging show on its own, even without a supernatural twist.

Unrelated to the narrative, I’m extremely curious how exactly so much promo art from contemporary shows ended up in 16bit Sensation. There’s an entire page of the end credits dedicated to copyright notices, and I imagine the bulk of those are related to the various bishoujo games they name-drop. But the inclusion of FGO, Madoka, and Lycoris Recoil art as background detail really threw me for a loop. It’s elevated to transcendental when combined with the requisite knockoff McDonald’s and Starbucks stores, as well as the shelf of parody PS2 games. How did this happen? Not that I mind it, especially the Lycoreco & Madoka art in Konoha’s room.

There’s a decent chance this end’s up in the anime night rotation, which kinda kills me since I don’t wanna wait multiple weeks for the next episode. Maybe I’ll break my own rules for this one.

✔️ S-Rank Daughter – Ep. 1

The past few years have been somewhat dire for fantasy anime. There are of course a few standouts, like Ranking of Kings, but those are few and far between. The genre has, on the whole, been overrun with terrible isekai wish fulfillment power fantasies, usually with copious amounts of generic video game mechanics stapled on to appeal to the most boring consumers possible. It’s hard to give something as modest and unassuming as S-Rank Daughter a fair shake in such a suffocating environment; absence makes the heart grow fonder, and every time I drop some drivel with “isekai” in its name I grow yet fonder for a good fantasy anime, perhaps unreasonably so. I’m not sure even the most ideal incarnation of S-Rank Daughter could carry the weight I want to place on its shoulders, and unfortunately this is not an especially ideal adaptation

S-Rank Daughter is serviceable. That’s about as much as I can muster both to its credit and in its defense. The art is fine, even nice at times. The character designs are pretty good. The opening theme’s a banger. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen an episode chase its own tail as enthusiastically as this premier. Most of the episode is spent on Angeline’s stymied attempts to return home, and there’s very little to characterize her outside of that. She has, in fact, exactly two character traits: she’s extremely strong, and she wants to go home to see her dad. That’s… about it. While there’s not a single stat screen in sight, S-Rank Daughter unintentionally copies the worst aspect of its contemporaries by making its lead character extremely boring.

Technically, Ange is not the lead character; she shares deuteragonist duty with her adopted father Belgrieve. Bel himself makes for a much more likeable character despite his lesser screen time. Unfortunately, some of S-Rank Daughter’s screen time is dedicated to poorly-executed action sequences. I find this somewhat worrying for a show about a fantasy adventuring party; if later episodes spend more time fighting monsters than tilling fields, we’re in for a rough ride.

Despite my misgivings, there is absolutely one unabashedly good thing about S-Rank Daughter: more anime openings need bagpipes. In general, the world needs more bagpipes. I will not be taking questions at this time.

✔️ S-Rank Daughter – Ep. 2

Whereas S-Rank Daughter’s premier episode struggled with a sort of meandering repetitiveness, episode 2 feels distinctly more comfortable and relaxed. Somewhat worryingly, though, I would pin this discrepancy on the fact that the episode was more focused on Belgrieve than his daughter; Angeline still spends most of her screentime bemoaning the fact that she hasn’t had a chance to go back home. Bel, on the other hand, is plenty fine just kinda wandering around and letting the day’s events happen to him. The action scenes haven’t improved at all from the first episode (though mercifully there was only one brief one). So far, S-Rank Daughter feels unsteady but promising… at least if Ange can develop a personality.

Unless episode 3 changes things dramatically, I’ll be keeping up with this one solely on my own, if at all.

✔️ Berserk of Gluttony – Ep. 1

I did not expect to find myself pining for last Fall’s Reincarnated as a Sword. While it was enjoyable enough, lackluster production value and a few eyebrow-raising creative decisions were enough to relegate it to being decent at best. Berserk of Gluttony fares no better in the production value department, and the script is pretty underwhelming. Moreover, instead of a catgirl protagonist, Berserk of Gluttony features Generic Man. Generic Man spends the entire first episode being useless until he accidentally kills someone, which activates his stupid video game skill despite this not being a video game isekai. When Reincarnated as a Sword’s Fran was bestowed with a magical sword, she killed her slavers and escaped to freedom in the first episode. Berserk of Gluttony’s Generic Man, on the other hand, couldn’t quite manage to stop a child abduction before the episode ended.

I want Fran back.

There’s a scythe and a couple cute girls in the opening, and it wasn’t the worst thing I watched this week. I’ll probably watch the next episode, but I’m not excited about it.

✔️ Bullbuster – Ep. 1

This one wasn’t on my radar for Fall 2023, and I’m pretty sure that’s because it was originally slated for a Winter 2024 release. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anime release early. My Japanese skills are practically nonexistent, which makes it quite difficult to scour the news in search of why Bullbuster changed seasons (if that’s indeed what happened).

Assuming Bullbuster did indeed air earlier than anticipated, one (read: I) can’t help but speculate why exactly that happened. I see two potential reasons: (1) it was ready for release ahead of schedule, implying that Bullbuster was given more production time than the average anime (which bodes well); or (2) the production committee decided they’d spent long enough on production and it needed to air prematurely (which bodes poorly). Last season’s Zom 100 unfortunately illustrated that production value and good management aren’t necessarily correlated, but it’s still hard not to be (cautiously) optimistic after watching Bullbuster’s premier.

I’ve spent a lot of time waffling about the opaque production of Bullbuster, but that’s because I really only have positive things to say about it. If I had to name one negative aspect, it’d be that the CG elements aren’t especially easy on the eyes. The robots/mech suits, owing to their charmingly grounded designs, fare substantially better than the giant monster of the premier episode, which looks only marginally better than the appropriately-named Strange Beasts of this past Spring’s KamiKatsu. By contrast, the 2D characters look fantastic, both in motion and at rest. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen character designs that are simultaneously this distinct, detailed, and expressive. And the narrative itself is no slouch either, albeit harder to talk about without spoiling its charm.

If you can stomach some 3D ugliness, Bullbuster is an easy recommendation owing to its promising start. Here’s hoping the production will hold up better than the Bullrover.

❌ The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch – Ep. 1

It should be criminal to screw up a story about witches this badly. Hell, it should be impossible! The Venn diagram of “people cultured enough to think witches are cool and good” and “people with bad taste” should have no overlap. But unfortunately they intersect at one point, and that point is this show. In fairness, The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch (what a terrible title) is only mostly bad. The few decent gags are unfortunately choked out by sophomoric boob humor and saccharine family moments. The last show I watched that tried to balance its juvenile sense of humor with its family drama was Kakushigoto. Not a great point of comparison!

The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch is a waste of good character designs. I will not be watching more.

❌ Kingdoms of Ruin – Ep. 1

I’m gonna cut to the chase on this one: Kingdoms of Ruin was pretty unpleasant. Maybe in another timeline there’s a version of this show that’s watchable, maybe even enjoyable, but this timeline was not so fortunate. I would much rather have watched the continuing adventures of Chloe the witch and her apprentice. Instead I got to watch Kingdoms of Ruin be needlessly cruel to its female cast (plus exactly one male character who’s still treated better than most of the women on-screen).

At least the OP song was pretty good. Hope I can remember to track it down later, since I will absolutely not be following Kingdoms of Ruin any further.

✔️ The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess – Ep. 1

Please forgive the following idiom abuse: Shut-In Vampire Princess went in one eye and out the other. The experience overall was fairly pleasant, but it’s not one that I find easy to expound on. The art’s good, the characters are bouncy – the queen in particular ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) – there’s a piss joke in the first 5 minutes and a guy dancing next to a body bag. I did think the “war of entertainment” reveal was a good bit, although it does firmly plant the show into “endless gag vehicle” territory. It also makes me wonder about the body bag…

If Shut-In Vampire Princess can keep up the pace it’ll probably be an enjoyable ride, though maybe a little unmemorable.

✔️ KamiErabi GOD.app – Ep. 1

Leave it to the venerable Yoko Taro to have me thinking “what the fuck?” fairly frequently throughout this premier. Granted, his involvement apparently began and ended with penning the original idea for the anime, although it certainly felt to me like he may have written the opening narration as well. Drunken indiscretion or not, Yoko Taro’s CG Future Diaries is a hell of a premise for a show. How well it executes on that premise ultimately depends on how you feel about getting slapped in the face repeatedly.

There’s something utterly hypnotic yet assuredly revolting about KamiErabi; it’s extremely hard to summarize without recounting the episode beat-by-beat. I could string any number of pithy but accurate statements together and still not properly convey the experience of watching it.

  • It’s a bit like if an entire fireworks show went off in a broom closet.
  • What if Kemono Friends was a death game?
  • Can’t say I’ve ever watched a CG boy dispassionately jerk off in an arcade because of fairy magic before.
  • How does one accidentally upload a suicide prank video?
  • STONKS!

I suspect that wasn’t very helpful.

God(.app) only knows if I’ll stick around for KamiErabi’s entire 24-episode run, but I’ll definitely give the next episode a go at least.

✔️ Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions – Ep. 1

This premier led me to christen the term “gay pareidolia”. There’s nothing overtly gay about Ron Kamonohashi’s premier, and yet all the same there was something vaguely homoerotic about it. Maybe it was the titular Ron’s disheveled appearance, maybe it was his cagey interactions with his counterpart Isshiki, or maybe I’m seeing patterns in clouds. Hence, gay pareidolia. If someone told me that this was based on a BL short story which was then straightwashed for broader appeal, I think I’d be inclined to believe them. Although in that case “homeopathically gay” would be more appropriate. Homo-pathic maybe? I digress.

As the average number of seasonal anime creeps ever upwards, it becomes ever harder to cut through the noise. Everyone has their own heuristics they can use to try and hone in on what’s worth watching. One of my personal favorites is to find shows with batshit crazy ideas and see if they actually pull them off. Case in point: Ron and Isshiki’s corpse-centric manzai routine. Once Ron breaks out of his funk, it doesn’t take too long before he flops out next to a fresh corpse and starts talking to it, leaving Isshiki and a nearby cop flummoxed to say the least. If that’s not enough for you, dear reader, then perhaps consider that the episode’s denouement involves Ron getting possessed by the ghost of Lelouche Lamperouge and all but geass-ing the episode’s villain into jumping off a building.

All that is to say, Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions’s first episode was a pretty good time.

✔️ Firefighter Daigo: Rescuer in Orange – Ep. 1

There wasn’t too much in Firefighter Daigo: Rescuer in Orange’s trailer that caught my eye. While real-life firefighter rescues are plenty harrowing, the nature of narrative media in general and anime in specific generally requires breaking from the constraints of reality. Golden Kamuy, for instance, is a fantastical historical drama full of characters who should be dead ten times over from all of their myriad wounds. Choosing how far to push things is key for any narrative, especially ones more grounded in reality. Firefighter Daigo: Rescuer in Orange’s trailer, though, seemed pretty straightforward, and indeed so is the show itself. To be clear, “straightforward” is not synonymous with “bad”, but it does mean that I find myself with relatively little to talk about. Firefighter Daigo: Rescuer in Orange has a certain gormless charm to it. It’s based on a 2020 manga which itself is the sequel to Firefighter Daigo from the late 90s, and that provenance may help to explain its candor.

And… that’s about as much as I can say. It was fine, I’ll probably watch more, but it definitely left a fairly weak first impression.

✔️ MF Ghost – Ep. 1

Generally I don’t consider watching sequels to things I haven’t seen before. I’m only superficially familiar with Initial D thanks to its presence in pop culture. Wisely, MF Ghost doesn’t require you to know much more than that, at least not at present. The last time I watched a sequel without prior knowledge of its established franchise, I ended up watching all of the Monogatari series over the course of a week; if MF Ghost ends up requiring something similar, at least it’ll be in good company.

Evaluated on its own, MF Ghost’s premier was a bit odd. I can’t help but feel scammed that the episode ended right as the first race was beginning. If there’s one thing I know about Initial D, it’s that it’s about car races. Making me wait an extra week for a car race is lame! Don’t do that! At the very least, MF Ghost had the good sense to get me invested in its characters before leaving me hanging. Having an underage girl (17) work part time as a race queen got a raised eyebrow from me though, which was raised even further when Jotaro Kujo (24) started stalking her (admittedly he doesn’t know she’s 17, but still). Apparently underage race queens aren’t uncommon in Japan, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel a bit squicky about it.

I’ll stick around for at least another episode to see if the driving’s as good as the characters.

⭐ Migi and Dali – Ep. 1

What a wild ride. The trailer for Migi and Dali, while appropriate in hindsight, didn’t really indicate what kind of show this would be. The weirdness came through, for sure, but not the batshit insanity nor the humor. Migi and Dali is riotously funny, packed with strange and inventive gags and dialogue and line delivery. Within minutes of its airing, there were clips and GIFs galore of the best moments; the impulse to share the wild experience is understandable, but it also robs Migi and Dali of the element of surprise that it otherwise uses quite effectively.

This one has a good shot of ending up in the anime night rotation, although I won’t make the final decision for a couple weeks still. It’s worth watching regardless.

❌ Ragna Crimson – Ep. 1

Good fucking god this shit was boring. Partway through I got so bored that I paused to see how much was left, and to my horror I realized I was only a third of the way through the 48 minute dual-length premier. I cannot fathom why anyone would choose to stretch out such a paper-thin plot well beyond its breaking point, though Ragna Crimson would be unsalvageable even if it was condensed into 24 minutes. I didn’t even think it was possible to make a show about a child killing dragons boring, especially when one of the dragons is voiced by Takehito Koyasu of DIO fame.

Ragna Crimson’s premier should be autopsied to see all that went wrong. Unfortunately, it’s not worth the effort. Watch literally anything else instead.

✔️ Shangri-La Frontier – Ep. 1

Going straight from Ragna Crimson to Shangri-La Frontier felt like a breath of fresh air. The art’s good, the animation’s slick, and I did’t immediately hate the characters. Granted there’s also not a whole lot to really cling to; you can envision 95% of the show off of just the phrase “comedy VRMMO anime with good production value”. The game store full of smudgy facsimiles of real games was fun, though. My personal high-water mark for VRMMO anime is Bofuri, which unfortunately outclasses Shangri-La Frontier on all levels except production value. But I love me some production value.

I’ll probably stick with this one unless it starts annoying me.

✔️ SHY – Ep. 1

SHY felt like a bolt out of the blue when I first came across it. I’ve never really engaged too much with superhero media in general; I kept up with the My Hero Academia anime for three seasons or so before getting burnt out, and I’ve watched (I think) 3 Marvel movies total. SHY made me realize what they were lacking all along: a girl with social anxiety. It worked for Bocchi the Rock too!

Compared to its trailer, SHY’s premier is a little underwhelming. The presentation is fine, and I like Shy/Momijiyama, but the first episode felt like it played things too safe for my taste. Despite this, it’s still a plenty fine episode, it’s just a bit perfunctory. Momijiyama struggling to do her best in the face of her worries is good groundwork for future character growth. It was also a good choice to have the injured girl join Momijiyama’s class at the end of the episode. Hopefully future episodes focus on what makes SHY unique instead of devolving into run-of-the-mill capeshit.

Is SHY anime night material? Probably! At least if it develops into something unique.

💤 SPY×FAMILY Season 2

There’s no chance in hell that this doesn’t end up in the anime night rotation. You’ll just have to wait until mid-November for my thoughts on this most perfectly cromulent of anime.

✔️ Undead Unluck – Ep. 1

Always weirds me out when I see David Production behind things that aren’t JoJo. I know it shouldn’t; JoJo doesn’t even comprise a majority of titles they’ve worked on. Yet the two are inextricably linked in my mind all the same. And hey, subliminally reminding me of Diamond is Unbreakable before I watch something new is a great way to get me onboard quickly.

Undead Unluck was pretty neat! I’m not entirely sure why they chose to go with such an artsy introduction, as it mostly just makes the opening minutes kinda confusing before jumping into a relatively straightforward story. To its credit, bouncing back and forth between what Fuuko wants (romance) and what’s keeping her away from that (kissing-activated space lasers) makes thematic sense. But on the whole it divorces the first couple minutes of the premier from everything that follows. And what follows is pretty sick… provided you can overlook a bit of nonconsensual groping. A ringing endorsement if ever there was one!

Much like the introduction, the groping is narratively motivated, and it could’ve been a lot worse. Fuuko’s powers are activated by physical contact, and Undead Andy wants to make the most of that power. What is that power? Dying of course! Usually comedically. While Andy could stand to learn a thing or two about things like “boundaries” and “consent”, he’s also head and shoulders above the average slave-owning isekai protagonist. A ringing endorsement if ever there was one!

I’ve spent three paragraphs without once mentioning that the action is fucking awesome. If you’ve ever wanted to see a buff naked man fly around by ejecting and regenerating his feet over and over, Undead Unluck’s got you covered. If you’ve ever wanted to see a buff naked man go sicko mode on a bunch of masked goons (while inexplicably flying around), Undead Unluck’s got you covered. If you’ve ever wanted to see a buff naked man cut his own head off while still holding a conversation and then survive getting hit with a meteor, Undead Unluck’s got you covered. In fact, the only thing Undead Unluck doesn’t have covered is Undead’s dong, unless you’re willing to count the censor box as cover. A ringing endorsement if ever there was one!

This could potentially be anime night material, it certainly has the energy for it anyway. I’ll be watching more regardless.

✔️ Under Ninja – Ep. 1

The phrase “so bad it’s good” gets a fair amount of use, but is it possible for something to be so stupid it’s smart? Under Ninja might just be so stupid that it wraps back around into being smart. Maybe.

It doesn’t start out very promising, though. Under Ninja starts with only the 2nd worst 3D CG opening sequence this season (you’ll have to wait to read about the 1st worst 🙂). The sequence’s uncanny visuals are accompanied with uncanny dialogue recited by a native English speaker and a non-native English speaker reading English lines that were very obviously written by a non-native English speaker. And then it abruptly cuts away to four adults masquerading as high schoolers standing on top of a school building mumbling bad Japanese lines to each other. Have I mentioned the weird piss-yellow filter that’s present to some degree in every shot?

And yet, Under Ninja is surprisingly funny? It’s neither clever nor gutbustingly hilarious, but somehow the stupid jokes landed way more often than not. Repeatedly cutting back and forth between present day and the events leading up to it sucked some of the life out of the show, though.

I’m down for more, although I don’t know how long I’ll stay interested in it.

⭐ I’m in Love with the Villainess – Ep. 1

Summer 2023 was a pretty bad time for yuri fans. Most seasons in recent memory at least had something kinda ship-tease-y at worst, hell we even got Gay Gundam! Apparently The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today was at least a little yuri, but I’ve never managed to make it through more than 4 episodes of any GoHands’s migraines. Granted, even the “proper” yuri titles are sometimes plagued with dullness, but I’d take MagiRevo over most seasonal shows without question.

I’d been looking forward to I’m in Love with the Villainess’s inevitable anime adaptation since I first heard about it (I’m not much of a manga reader). After the “it’s up to interpretation” nonsense BANDAI NAMCO tried to pull following G-Witch’s finale, I’ve been craving a show that doesn’t try to handwave away its gayness. So when Rae declares her love for Claire in the first 30 seconds of I’m in Love with the Villainess, I felt like a weight was lifted from my soul.

Honestly though it’d be extremely funny Inori-sensei pulled a fake-out “it’s up to interpretation” post on social media after the anime finishes airing.