Winter 2021 New Anime – The Early Bird Catches the Worm

You know, over the past year I’ve come to truly dislike the word “unprecedented,” because it’s been used time and time again to describe the utterly batshit state of affairs in the world today. And yet, here I’m about to use it to describe the roll-out of this most current anime season.

This season is an odd one for various reasons, perhaps the biggest of which is that it’s turned into kind of a catch-up situation for some series that were meant to have been broadcast sooner, but which were delayed due to the Covid-19 situation. Now we’re being delivered more anime than may have been anticipated, some of them extremely high-profile released. Another thing I’ve noticed is that there have been a few early broadcasts. This in itself isn’t that odd; the odd part is that the early broadcasts are available to us in the US, rather than on, say, Japanese Netflix or some other platform unavailable to us in the West.

It’s the second scenario that’s lead me to make this particular post because I’ve already had the opportunity to watch a couple of the early additions to this new season. In order to get a head start on planning my personal viewing schedule (and to help make sure that I’ll have time to watch all of the other new premieres) I thought I’d go ahead and post a few thoughts on these episodes.

As a reminder to those who might be more accustomed to my more extensive first-impressions posts, I’m making more of an effort to be concise in order to avoid burn-out. If I continue to watch any of these series, expect more extensive, focused posts on them down the line (perhaps halfway through, or episode-by-episode if I can muster that).

Use the links below to navigate to the review you’re interested in:

VladLove
Skate-Leading Stars
Cute Executive Officer

VladLove

Episodes: 12

Streaming: YouTube (Episode 1)

Source: Original

Story Summary: Mitsugu Bamba is a high school student with a blood donation fetish so extreme that the local clinic recognizes her on sight so they can deny her service. One day she meets another young woman there who’s on the hunt for some fresh blood. Her name is Mai Vlad Transylvania, and she’s a real, honest-to-goodness blood-sucking vampire. It’s love at first sight for Mitsugu, as well as a, well, uniquely reciprocal relationship for both girls once they start living together.

Impressions: This is the type of anime series I may not have paid much mind, except that its pedigree makes it noteworthy (even if its execution hasn’t quite achieved much yet). Mamoru Oshii is a huge name in anime, to the point that even most Western fans are likely to be familiar with some of his directorial work. I’d wager that he’s most known for directing the two Ghost in the Shell animated film adaptations, as well as being involved with the Patlabor franchise, especially the two film adaptations. You know, Serious Art™. But he’s also had a hand in bringing forth some iconic comedy moments to the screen, including most familiarly Urusei Yatsura, as well as one of my personal favorite weird old OVA series, Gosenzosama Banbanzai!. So an anime series like VladLove is definitely within his wheelhouse as a creator and director, despite whatever current, popular impressions we may have of his body of work.

That said, if this episode is representative of the whole it seems the director’s sense of comedic rhythm hasn’t evolved much over the years. My feeling on this is really difficult to describe in concrete terms, but as an example I’ll mention this – partway through the first episode, Dr. Chimatsuri, a mature and quite voluptuous school nurse, reacts to a gag situation by falling over with her legs up in the air in the classic manner. Sure, it’s not entirely out-of-the-ordinary for this stuff to happen in modern anime, but it’s also a gag that’s been around for decades. It’s also not a knock on the series as a whole, but more an observation on its apparent philosophy. I don’t have a handle on why Oshii had a desire to tell this particular story at this particular time, but that may be more apparent as the story unfolds.

Never mind, he outlined his entire philosophy here.

Pros: One thing that interests me about this series is its production. Ichigo Production (which provided the funding for the show) is a real-estate subsidiary; it sounds as though the series is partly meant to be an advertisement for some of its real-estate holdings in the Akiba area, and partly a continuation of the “Cool Japan” cultural export initiative that’s been a component of Japan’s export philosophy for some time. In short, it’s a business decision on their part. To be honest, I’m not necessarily sure that this qualifies as a positive, but my understanding was that they kept a hands-off approach with the actual creation of the series, so thanks to our benevolent capitalist overlords in this case, I suppose.

While the animation itself is fairly workmanlike, I did enjoy some of the storyboarding. There are several character conversations during which the dialog is conveyed through sort of a manga panel format. This isn’t anything new; check out Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun for another recent anime series that makes good use of this technique. But it provides some visual interest when there isn’t much other movement, so it’s appealing in that sense at least.

The series (at least the first episode) is available on the VladLove official YouTube Channel, so it’s accessible to a lot of folks.

Cons: I’m all for more yuri relationships in the world of anime, but this one seems weirdly… transactional in a way that feels a little uncomfortable to me. That’s mostly a personal preference, however.

The slapstick humor also doesn’t land most of the time for me. For me, that’s a type of physical humor that has to be earned through the development of character relationships (to ensure it doesn’t read as abusive) or be extremely over-the-top; if it occurs just as a matter of course, it feels either annoying or harmful.

Content Warnings: Blood-donation fetish. Blood consumption. Slapstick violence. Mild fanservice.

Would I Watch More? I might pick it back up again when it premieres in earnest mid-February. At this point it’s still more of a curiosity rather than a must-watch in my book, though.

Skate-Leading Stars

Episodes: TBA

Streaming: Funimation (2 weeks earlier than its Japanese broadcast)

Source: Original

Story Summary: All Kensei wanted was for Reo to acknowledge him as his figure skating rival. Unfortunately, Reo’s superior skill and cold demeanor meant that this supposed rivalry never came to pass. Several years later, Kensei has dropped out of competition, and after the junior championship, Reo has moved onto skate-leading, a type of group figure skating competition. It’s then that Kensei is approached by a mysterious person and persuaded to perform a guerilla routine during the junior exhibitions. Kensei’s interest in skating is reignited and he decides to join his school’s skate-leading team. But will the other team members allow him on the team?

Impressions: I’ve heard a lot of chatter about this series, namely how “Funimation just wants to capitalize on the popularity of Yuri!! On Ice.” The fact of the matter is that just because both use the same sport as a storytelling vehicle doesn’t mean that they’re the same series or attempting to tell the same kind of story.

While it’s difficult to say for certain just yet, this series feels to me more like a male idol anime in the way that the featured sport, a completely made-up form of team-based synchronized skating, incorporates costuming and routines (and also a bunch of different cute-guy characters). It also feels much more straightforward as far as sports-adjacent anime goes, more focused on sportsmanlike team rivalries rather than romantic relationships.

This opening episode is very straightforward, decently-produced, and seems like a decent starting point for our protagonist.

Pros: The quality of the animation in this episode is very solid. There are a couple of skating routines that are shown in bits-and-pieces, and those are animated very smoothly. If we’re going to be comparing to Yuri!! On Ice anyway, though, it should be noted that the approach to animating the routines is very different. YoI attempted to capture life in a way that was intimate to the characters and the personality of their routines. It wasn’t always 100 percent successful in that constantly changing camera angles in 3D space don’t tend to be friendly to anime’s particular production constraints. That said, it always did a good job of conveying the emotionality of what the characters were experiencing, as well as subtle changed in their routines over time in a way that reflects real life. Skate-Leading Stars takes a more consistent but thus far emotionally-sterile approach to the animation. It looks cool but it lacks feeling, to put it succinctly. Neither way is right or wrong, but I’m betting it will stand out to other viewers, too.

The series is going to be available to Funimation subscribers two weeks early, I’m assuming for its entire run (as I look on their website, the second episode is available right now). Some friends and I speculated just how this might have come to pass, since usually the delay happens on the US side. My assumption (based on no actual, factual knowledge of the situation) is that Funi may be on the production committee for the series, and its delay due to Covid-19 from mid-2020 might indicate that it’s mostly or all done at this point (as I assume the delay didn’t actually put the production entirely half a year behind). So this is one of those rare times where we can gloat around our Japanese friends (actually, don’t do that).

Cons: The first episode wasn’t bad but it did feel really formulaic to me. That’s not a detriment in and of itself, but this is also not the only sports anime airing this season and I’m not sure it’s distinguished itself from the pack just yet.

The protagonist is also kind of an ass at this point. I suspect the events of the second episode and beyond might put him in his place a bit, since the decision to join the school’s skate-leading squad is not his alone to make.

Content Warnings: Overall mild. There is one point at which one character is forcibly sidelined (bound and gagged) in order to provide the protagonist the opportunity to skate.

Would I Watch More? I think I’ll give it a second episode (since it’s out already), if only to get a better sense of what the show might be like on the whole.

Cute Executive Officer

Streaming: Hidive

Episodes: 1 (or 13, depending on how you’re watching it)

Source: Manga

Story Summary: Najimu Mujina is the 5-year-old CEO of the Mujina company. Though she can be a handful for the adults she works with, she always approaches her job with the innocent eyes of a child.

That’s it, that’s the whole thing!

Impressions: I really didn’t think I was going to enjoy this, and if it had been released in 2 minute segments on a weekly basis I may not have given it a second look. But for whatever reason all of the episodes were released at one time as a half-hour chunk and I think the material fares much better that way.

I tend to think the business environment is fairly bizarre on its own, but those traits are amplified when seen through the eyes of this series’ smallest of CEOs. It’s a cute, absurd premise that’s executed well.

Pros: The quality of the humor ramps up over the length of the episode. Much of the early moments are spent picking low-hanging fruit, watching as Najimu has to hold a phone conversation, or scribbles all over an important business contract. As things move forward the story gets a bit more over-the-top, ending in a kidnapping plot and action-packed climax which is extremely goofy.

The characters also all seem pretty well-meaning, though there’s not a lot of time to go very deep into their individual circumstances.

Cons: One of the characters, Garcia, is depicted with a racially-stereotyped backstory (she hails from a tribe somewhere which was decimated due to war).

The pacing of the episode is odd since it’s really 13 very short episodes crammed together. While there’s some basic continuity there’s not a real through-line to follow, so there are parts that feel like just quick-draw disjointed gags.

Content Warnings: Slapstick violence (including cartoony explosions and half-consumption by an alligator). Racial/cultural stereotyping of a brown-skinned character.

Would I Watch More? Yes, but that’s all there is 🙂

***

There’s not much time until the season starts in earnest, so if any of these sound interesting to you you’d better go check them out while you still have time!