To Your Eternity – Episode 1
To Your Eternity manages to capture that slow, sad and gentle storytelling that I’m used to seeing in shows like Natsume’s Book of Friends and Mushishi
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Pretty Boy Detective Club – Episode 1
I might not be a boy and I might not be a detective, but I’m pretty and I’m on the case, and I’m here to say that Pretty Boy Detective Club is a stunning show, if this kind of Nishioishin story is your thing.
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BACKFLIP!! – Episode 1
Like a siren song, BACKFLIP!! called out to me from the veritable ocean of anime, begging me to watch what might be my favorite new sports anime for 2021.
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Blue Reflection Ray – Episode 1
Blue Reflection Ray is a middle of the road magical girl show that’s boring… until it isn’t. Yet I’m not sure that’s enough to make it worth watching week to week, especially not this season.
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Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro! – Episode 1
Do I like Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro? No. Do I hate Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro? No.
Do I secretly probably like Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro? Well… I don’t like to be called out like this.
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Chatty AF 137: 2021 Winter Wrap-up (WITH TRANSCRIPT)
Vrai, Peter, and Caitlin look back at the 2021 Winter season, from egg time to horse girls!
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Super Cub – Episode 1
Super Cub captures all the feelings of loneliness and yearning in a beautiful executed premier about a girl and her brand new motorbike.
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Tokyo Revengers – Episode 1
This premiere had a rough start for me. While I understand the point is to show that Takemichi is going through rough times during his adulthood, it’s difficult to get invested in him because beyond that he isn’t that interesting.
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SHADOWS HOUSE – Episode 1
Here we have a series that hits pretty much every one of my buttons: an anime steeped in gothic aesthetics, themes about identity and perception, visual design that makes heavy use of dark silhouettes against vivid colors, and homoerotic mirror imagery.
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I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level – Episode 1
After literally working herself to death in an office, Azusa takes her new slow existence in stride, and is understandably distraught when challengers start appearing at her door threatening to turn her life into an action-adventure game when she’s content playing a farming simulator.
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86 EIGHTY-SIX – Episode 1
Oh neat, a complex and melancholy anti-war spec-fic series with a messy approach to social commentary and diversity metaphors. And here I was worried that all my reviews were going to be easy this season!
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Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART! – Episode 1
ReSTART is a mostly newbie-friendly reboot of a 1990s series with good energy and strong yuri subtext… but my God, this show is obsessed with ass shots.
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Full Dive: This Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG Is Even Shittier than Real Life! – Episode 1
It’s not that the whole episode is a waste of time, although in some ways that’s more frustrating than if it was a complete ball of incompetence. It’s just that some pretty novel ideas are buried in a sea of titties and tonal inconsistency.
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The World Ends with You: The Animation – Episode 1
This is a stylish adaptation of an equally stylish game, but the narrative will need to slow down its breakneck pacing if it wants to garner an audience outside of the existing TWEWY fanbase.
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Fairy Ranmaru – Episode 1
While there are some bumpy spots that keep this from being an inclusively horny ray of personified sunshine, I did spend most of the episode with a slightly baffled grin.
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The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent – Episode 1
Saint’s Magic Power, with a listless twenty-something as its heroine, represents a different kind of power fantasy, but it’s a fantasy nonetheless: the power fantasy of getting a job without qualifications or a complicated interview process, of having a “knack” for a new skill and picking it up quickly, and not having to tie your hair back when you do lab work.
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Let’s Make a Mug Too – Episode 1
Do I want to explore tree-lined old streets looking at antiques now? Maybe. Mostly, though, I want to talk about the unexpected emotional undercurrents that I think will really elevate this cute little hobby show.
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ODDTAXI – Episode 1
There are so many sociopolitical themes that can be explored through anthropomorphic animals, which can make it easier to have conversations about difficult topics that occurred either in the past or present day. As of now, ODDTAXI is sort of interested in talking about that, but it feels more like a low-key mystery that is gradually going to reveal itself in future episodes.
