Author: Jessi Silver

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Lycoris Recoil

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 13

Source: Original

Episode Summary: Japan has been considered the worldwide #1 safest country for several years running, but while the general populace may understand this to be simply due to inherent aspects of Japanese culture, the truth is that the Lycoris, trained assassins, are tasked with addressing crimes before the public becomes aware of them. Takina is one such Lycoris, who goes rogue during a high-risk operation involving a huge weapons sale. Because of this, she’s reassigned to a different area in order to learn from Chisato, one of the Lycoris stationed in her new region.

Chisato is Takina’s total opposite – bubbly, outgoing, and personable in contrast to Takina’s subdued nature. As Takina job-shadows Chisato, she realizes the type of work she engages in is quite different as well. Rather than assassinations and arrests, Chisato’s daily workload involves helping various people around the neighborhood doing odd jobs, making deliveries, and generally making their lives better. This goes against everything Takina knows and because of this she wants more than anything to get back to the familiarity her old job, especially once an escort mission they’re engaging in is resolved in a very non-traditional way. Is there really anything Takina can learn from this unusual Lycoris?

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Engage Kiss

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 13

Source: Original

Episode Summary: Baylon City is ground zero for the mining of the mineral orgonium. Of course, as with the extraction of most natural resources this one comes along with some unintended consequences, one of which is the release of demonic entities who cause destruction around the city. Shu Ogata is a former employee of a private military/security company experienced in dealing with these demons, but after setting out on his own his costs quickly got out of control and it’s become a struggle for him to simply keep the lights on. The only thing keeping him afloat at this point is his relationship with a girl named Kisara, who seems to be attracted to Shu in spite of his many flaws and helps to pay off his debts.

When Shu manages to snag a contract (by severely undercutting his competition), he has to call in some favors simply to prevent himself from getting immediately killed. But the biggest favor is one given to him willingly, because Kisara happens to have incredible power at her disposal. The only issue is that, in order to release that power, she and Shu have to “reinvigorate” their contract on a regular basis via the power of a passionate kiss.

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Personal

Brief Update… Part 2

Hi everyone, I hope the last couple of weeks have been pleasant for you. I feel as though I blinked once and a bunch of time had passed since I last posted. I figured another update was in order.

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Conventions Special Features

Convention Report – Anime Central 2022

Hi, all. I’m back from my break feeling refreshed and re-invigorated (at least as much as is possible considering my generally poor sleep habits and what-not). This past weekend I had the chance to head to Chicago, Illinois for Anime Central, one of the first anime conventions I ever attended and definitely one that’s worth popping back into every few years if you have a tolerance for big conventions.

The past couple of years the convention has been on a hiatus due to the pandemic, but like many other similar in-person events that had smaller online components in the interim, this year marked a (possibly financially obligatory) return to a more typical setting and format. Like my local convention, Anime Detour, Anime Central was forced to cancel its in-person aspect two years in a row simply due to the timing of when the event is scheduled (mid-late May), so I was curious to see how things were going to shake out – especially since ACen is something like 5 or 6 times as large as Anime Detour (in a normal year).

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Personal

Brief Update

Good morning, all (or good afternoon or evening, depending on where and when you’re catching up with anime blogs). I just wanted to provide a brief update on reviews and articles related to this current (Spring 2022) season.

It’s always my goal to (eventually) get around to every non-sequel series airing in a season, and that hasn’t changed. I realize I’m not the quickest (and in fact am probably the slowest) at posting these impressions, and my process and writing isn’t especially unique, but I find it valuable to give everything a fair shot as I’m able to no matter how long the journey happens to take. That said, there are some extra obstacles to timeliness that have been causing me a lot of problems over the past month or so in particular, and especially the past couple of weeks, so I thought I should post something just to air it all out.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2022 First Impressions – Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: In his former life, Leon was a typical Japanese adult who happened to have been blackmailed by his younger sister into completing an otome game for her. He does it grudgingly, complaining the entire time. Unfortunately once he completes it he gets little time to celebrate his freedom from the task before taking a fatal spill down a staircase. Having been reincarnated, it takes Leon several years to realize that his new life exists within the boundaries of the otome game that he so despised.

In the world of this game, men are second-class citizens. Rather than go to the academy to try to woo a young woman as his suitor, Leon is tossed into an arranged marriage with a woman 50 years his senior. Rather than sit idly by for this scenario, Leo goes on an adventure using his prior knowledge of the game to uncover a futuristic space ship that he makes his own. Returning to his his father with treasures unimaginable, Leon buys his way into the academy to try his luck there. But searching for love among the elite might be a challenge in and of itself.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2022 First Impressions – Healer Girl

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Episode Summary: Kana, Reimi, and Hibiki are three apprentice healers at the Karasuma Voice Treatment Center, which trains individuals in the art and science of treating patients using the power of singing. This form of medicine developed as a compliment to already-existing Eastern and Western medicine. Kana is the newest recruit of the bunch, and though she was inspired to become a healer due to an encounter when she was a child, she often finds that her ability to adhere to her training regimen (as well as the rules) to be a little lacking. When she uses her abilities to heal a boy’s skinned knee, Karasuma, the main healer at the clinic, puts Kana on notice.

The girls live out their days doing administrative work and building up their endurance through exercise and eating healthy foods. As people who love to sing, their down time is often filled with music as well. When the granddaughter of one of the clinic’s patients rushes over after-hours to get help for her grandmother’s condition, however, the apprentices switch into overdrive to retrieve their senpais from a conference. Though Kana knows she can’t use her singing to heal her patient, she realizes that she can use her skills to ease the patient’s mind, which she does. As the others arrive, they witness Kana’s immense skill, which ultimately calms the elderly woman well enough that she can be taken to the hospital.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2022 First Impressions – I’m Quitting Heroing

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Leo Demonheart was once hired to be humanity’s savior. Using his immense physical and magical ability, he and his comrades handily defeated Echidna, the Demon Queen. But rather than a hero’s welcome, upon his return Leo was met with apprehensiveness or, in some cases, downright hostility. The people were afraid of his seemingly demonic abilities and shunned him, leaving him without a place to call home.

With little to lose, Leo makes an unexpected pivot and approaches Echidna with a request for employment. She’s immediately hostile to the proposition, but her four generals are somewhat more open-minded. They agree to hire Leo on a trial basis, but he’ll have his work cut out for him; the demon forces are in shambles after having been both mismanaged and defeated by a hero. Can Leo whip them into shape and gain Echidna’s trust?

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2022 First Impressions – Tomodachi Game

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Yuuichi and his four friends are inseparable in spite of their varying circumstances. Yuuichi doesn’t have much money to his name, but he works extra hard to come up with the fee so that he can join his friends on the upcoming class trip. Soon after the funds are turned in, however, the class learns that the full amount was stolen out of a locker. Following that, the class reps (who happen to be two of Yuuichi’s close friends) suddenly go missing. Some days later, Yuuichi receives a letter from one of them, beckoning him to a late-night meeting outside the school gate.

As it turns out, this is a ruse to get all five of friend group members in one place. They’re kidnapped and taken to a mysterious location where they’re told that they can participate in the “Tomodachi Game” to wipe out their collective debt. This immediately throws suspicion on the group members – could one of them perhaps be the thief? Eventually Yuuichi decides that friendship is more important than the potential for monetary loss in this situation, and the group is brought to the first game room. All they have to do is agree on a “yes” or “no” answer to pass and have their debt erased, but it seems that there’s some kind of sabotage taking place after the group fails multiple questions in a row. As they reach their last chance the group seems poised to figuratively eat one-other alive through suspicion. Can a burst of inspiration from Yuuichi save them all from failure?

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Personal Reviews

S1E1 Week-in-Review – April 17th, 2022

Hi everyone, welcome to another long-overdue week(+)-in-review. It’s been a while since I’ve had anything to include in one of these round-up. Last weekend when I’d normally be doing more writing, I ended up spending large chunks of the day out-and-about at the Minnesota Yarn Shop Hop – an annual event where several Twin Cities local yarn stores participate and provide free patterns, special hand-dyed yarns, and door prizes, among other things. Those of you who follow me elsewhere probably know that I indulge in the fiber arts from time-to-time, so this was something fun to do in relation to that other major hobby.

The event ended up being incredibly popular; I think after cancellations the last couple of years due to the pandemic, people were really hungry to get out of the house and participate in this in-person gathering of hobbyists (if Anime Detour was any indication, this trend is likely to continue on for quite a while). More than half of the stores we visited were already sold out of their special yarns. As a completionist who was hoping to buy all of the yarns/kits for the event patterns, this was a little bit disappointing. On the other hand, I’m hoping that this means the event was a success for all the participating brick-and-mortar stores. While I’m perfectly happy to order my craft supplies online (even from these very stores), there’s just no replacing the experience of visiting them in person and touching/squeezing all the yarn hanks (and also hanging out with friends and traveling to various metro area cities, of course).

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