Category: First Impressions

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2019 First Impressions – O Maidens in Your Savage Season

The girls in a high school literature club do a little icebreaker to get to know each other: answering the question, “What’s one thing you want to do before you die,” One of the girls blurts out, “Sex.” Little do they know, the whirlwind unleashed by that word pushes each of these girls, with different backgrounds and personalities, onto their own clumsy, funny, painful, and emotional paths toward adulthood. – ANN

Streaming: Hidive

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Kazusa and the other members of the literature club start to realize that the world of novels is saturated with adult concepts of sex and sexual metaphors. When news drops of a new novel from one of the club’s favorite authors, focusing on a character who creates a “bucket list,” the girls discuss what sorts of things they want to do before they die. Bluntly, one of the girls says that she’d want to have sex, and this sends the others into a tizzy. While the other girls in their class seem comfortable enough talking about sex day in and day out, Kazusa and company aren’t comfortable with the concept at all.

Kazusa starts to feel like she can’t escape the subject of sex; she and her best friend start to mis-hear sexual words in everyday conversation, and the way some other girls talk about her childhood friend Izumi causes her to react in ways she never expected. When she goes over to deliver a hot meal to Izumi (since his parents are out of town), she walks into the last situation she would have wanted to – she catches him with his pants down, pornography playing on his laptop. Kazusa runs away and wishes that sex weren’t such an overwhelming topic. It’s confusing, a little scary, and completely foreign, and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be comfortable with it.

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Summer 2019 First Impressions – Demon Lord, Retry!

Akira Ōno is a regular guy who works at a company that manages an online game. He often plays the game as his character “Maō” (Dark Lord). But one day, when he logs on, he is whisked into the game’s fantasy world as his character. There, he meets a one-legged girl, and begins his adventures alongside her. But as he is a powerful “Dark Lord,” various nations and holy maidens journey to defeat him, and he stirs up trouble everywhere he goes. – ANN

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Akira is just about to shut down the server of the online game he manages. It’s been a good 15 years, but it’s time to move on. Just as the clock strikes midnight, Akira sees a flash of light. When he comes to he finds himself in another world, dressed suspiciously like his character Hakuto, the Demon Lord of legend.

He meets a little girl named Aku as she’s being chased by a demon. Hakuto’s skills are such that he makes short work of the beast. He sees Aku as a benefit to him – since she’s a local, she can help him navigate the landscape. He makes a try at finding a way back home; unfortunately the wishing shrine he finds is almost out of juice, and his wish to go home turns out to be invalid anyway. The shrine’s Idol does leave him with a frightening tool, however; a ring filled to the brim with evil power. After closing off some loose ends in Aku’s village, the two start making their way toward the capital.

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Summer 2019 First Impressions – Astra Lost in Space

In the year 2063, travelling through space has become commonplace. Eight students from Caird High School, along with one child, set out for a school camp on a nearby planet. However, the students are then mysteriously transported 5,000 light years away from home, with no way to call for help. Aboard an abandoned spaceship they call the Astra, these nine students slowly try to make their way back and figure out why they were transported in the first place. – ANN

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: The first episode is double-length, but I’ll endeavor to keep the summary succinct.

Aries is excited to be attending space camp, but that doesn’t mean her scatterbrained ways are in check at all. After almost forgetting her passport, she dumps her suitcase at the spaceport and ends up getting her bag stolen. Luckily a kind stranger, who she learns is a boy named Kanata from her high school, helps her out. After she and her classmates gather, they board the ship for camp. They’ll be spending a week on Planet McPa, a nature preserve where they’ll be relatively safe. No sooner does the group set down on the surface than they’re confronted with a strange spherical object. Their curiosity turns to horror when the entity begins to engulf the group one-by-one.

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2019 First Impressions – How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?

When a friend cruelly calls Hibiki fat it’s like a knife stabbed into her heart. The high school girl loves to eat but decides to go on a diet to be absolutely thin by summer vacation, but she doesn’t know how to exercise properly on her own. Hibiki finds herself in front of a training gym and joins. Once there, she meets her beautiful and charismatic student council president Akemi Sōryūin and steps into the intense yet enjoyable world of weight-training. – ANN

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Hibiki is a growing girl with a healthy appetite, but when a friend of hers comments on her expanding midsection and overall plumpness, she decides that it’s time to slim down. She joins the Silverman Gym, and discovers that a classmate of hers, Akemi, is planning to join as well. As it turns out, Akemi has a bit of a muscle fetish, and this gym is packed to the gills with bodybuilders and their bulging muscles. Hibiki feels out of place, but decides to try to get her money’s worth anyway.

Akemi is old hat at strength training, but Machio, their personal trainer, is encouraging and helps Hibiki push herself to complete more reps than she might on her own. She learns how to do bench presses and squats during her first week. When Akemi asks how many times a day Hibiki eats, Hibiki gets ready for another scolding, but Akemi is simply impressed; with such a strong appetite, Hibiki has almost infinite potential to bulk up her muscles.

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Summer 2019 First Impressions – Magical Sempai

Tejina is cute, weird, and loves stage magic. She also has crippling stage fright. The nameless male main character first meets her practicing parlor tricks in her club room alone. His high school requires that he join a club, and for some reason he can’t take his eyes off Tejina and her fruitless attempts at magic. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA (12 minutes apiece)

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Protagonist-kun (he’s literally unnamed) needs to find a school club to join, since his school requires it of all students. He plans to join the literature club so that he can slack off, but hears some enthusiastic dialog coming from an open door and decides to peek inside. The source of the speech is Tejina, a pretty upperclassman with a love for stage magic. Unfortunately, her skills at maintaining illusions leave something to be desired. Somehow protagonist-kun gets roped into becoming her assistant, though his main duties involve playing the straight man and cleaning up after Tejina’s mistakes.

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Summer 2019 First Impressions – Are You Lost?

Because of a plane crash a group of students are spending their lives on a desert island where there’s nothing available and they’ll have to make it themselves. The students will show to eat cicadas, how to build traps, a simple allergy test, how to eat hermit crabs, and more. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA (12 minutes apiece)

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: If things had gone the way they should have, Homare, Asuka, Shion, and Mutsu would be kicking back at a hotel with their classmates, enjoying the first evening of their class trip. Unfortunately, their plane crashed into the ocean, and after fighting through dehydration and shark-filled waters, they’re now stranded on a small island in the middle of the ocean. Luckily Homare knows a thing or two about survival skills due to her father’s teachings, but it might be an uphill climb to ensure that all four members of this unwilling adventure party survive to see their own rescue.

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Summer 2019 First Impressions – To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts

During a protracted civil war that pitted the North against the South, the outnumbered Northerners used dark magic to create monstrous super-soldiers called Incarnates. Now that the war has ended, those Sacred Beasts must learn to make their way in a peaceful society, or face death at the hands of a Beast Hunter. Nancy Schaal Bancroft, the daughter of an Incarnate, turns to hunting the hunter herself. But once she catches up with her quarry, she discovers hard truths about the lives of these Sacred Beasts – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: In the young country of Patria, a competition for resources pits the armies of the North and South against one-another. The North is vastly outnumbered, but they have a special tool at their disposal – the Incarnates, unholy fusions of man and beast that have unimaginable power. This helps tip the scales to the side of the North, and hopefully, eventually toward peace.

When one of the Incarnates goes rogue, the downside of this incredible power becomes apparent. Eventually, their human souls become unable to fight off the beast personas within, and only death can stop their rampage. Elaine, the doctor who created the Incarnates, plans to kill them one-by-one to prevent anything bad from happening. Unfortunately, after she fires a fatal shot at Hank, captain of the squad, she’s murdered by Cain, one of her creations. Hank miraculously awakens two months later and learns that the war has ended, but the leftover incarnates are causing trouble across the land. He becomes a hunter of these rogue incarnates, in order to stop them from murdering the populace.

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Summer 2019 Anime – What I’m Looking Forward To

Perpetually behind and painfully aware of it is how I tend to live my anime lifestyle. With tons of other events going on lately it’s been easy to forget about the fact that a new anime season is almost upon us. Yikes! I’m still catching up on Spring series (and there weren’t that many I planned to watch). But, as usual, here are the list of some upcoming series that have caught my interest. As usual, the proof is in the pudding; I could be way off the mark with any of these predictions and I know there’ll be a few surprises in the mix.

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First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2019 First Impressions – Shorts

We’re finally rounding the corner to home plate for the Spring 2019 anime season here at S1E1. Aside from some sequels to series I’m not far enough into to post an educated reaction (sorry, fans of Ace of Diamond, Bakumatsu Crisis, Strike Witches, and Isekai Quartet) and some Netflix-only series (I’m weeping for my lack of Carole and Tuesday right now), these are all we have. Normally with such short episodes I’ll watch at least a couple of episodes to get an impression of the series, rather than just one. Be aware that there may be more spoiler potential in these examples.

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Spring 2019 First Impressions – The Wise Man’s Grandchild

A powerful wizard and sage comes upon a baby whom he adopts and names Shin. The baby is actually a man from our world reincarnated into the sage’s world. The sage raises Shin, separated from the rest of society, and teaches him in the ways of magic. It is only when Shin turns 15 years old and sets out on his own journey that the sage remembers that he forgot to teach Shin the common sense and ways of this particular world. And so, Shin goes the capital of the Alsheid Kingdom to enroll in the capital’s magic academy. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll and Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: One day, an elderly wizard named Merlin finds a baby in the wreckage from a demon attack. That baby, who he takes in and names Shin, becomes a boy with a special aptitude for magic. Merlin teaches Shin everything he knows, bringing in acquaintances to teach him the ways of the sword and magical garb. Soon Shin becomes a young man with a hold over magic that’s terrifying in its scope.

One of Merlin’s acquaintances invites Shin to attend a magic school in his country. There he can learn how his skills actually compare to those of his peers, as well as figure out some basic skills like buying food and interacting with other people his age. Shin starts to fill in his social gaps once he arrives; he rescues a couple of girls from a group of thugs, and becomes instantly and hopelessly smitten with one of them.

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