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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impression – Extreme Hearts

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Episode Summary: Hiyori’s idol career has stalled-out before it even truly began. Though she has musical talent and a desire for her songs to be heard, she just hasn’t gained the fandom that her managers would have wanted. Her one true fan, Saki, listens to Hiyori sing after school every day, but one fan does not a career make, no matter how passionate that person may be. Eventually Hiyori’s management terminates her contract, but they leave her with a piece of advice – she may be able to give her budding career the jump-start it needs by entering into one of the many Hyper Sports competitions that are all the rage.

Hyper sports players employ a wide selection of enhancement gear during their matches, which adds an additional element of excitement to the games. The best teams also tend to become famous, which is something Hiyori wants. When she starts training, however, this causes Saki to remember some painful moments from her own soccer-playing past. It isn’t until Hiyori is actually out on the field attempting to make her dream a reality that Saki truly comes to terms with her own failures, and she and her friend Sumika rush onto the field to support Hiyori.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Black Summoner

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Summoner Kelvin doesn’t remember anything about his former life. In exchange for better starting stats, he offered up his memories to Melfina, the goddess of reincarnation. Now he’s one of very few summoners in his new world, although his former self seems to have been a bit of a romantic – having fallen in love with Melfina, he somehow convinced her to tag along with him in his new life in the form of a talking stat menu. At least that’s helped him get up to speed with the customs and peculiarities of his new world.

When he registers at the local adventurers’ guild, he disguises his true skills to avoid attracting too much attention. However, he chooses his first task – defeating three blue slimes – with the extra goal of forming a summoning contract with one of the monsters. After some initial issues with underestimating the strength of blue slimes, Kelvin manages to contract with one and then complete his task. It seems that his new adventure is now underway, although the city seems to have a bit of a dark underbelly that Kelvin has only just started to uncover.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Yuuhi Amamiya is a busy college student with a lot on his mind, so when he’s initially approached by a talking lizard he feels as though it must be a product of his stress and overwork. Eventually, after many attempts at getting rid of the vocalizing reptile (who’s literally attached to him at all times) and then learning he now has access to a type of forcefield power via a magic ring, he begins to accept the fact that he may truly, for some reason, have been designated the “Lizard Knight.” Being chosen and being willing are two different things entirely, however.

After facing off against a frightening golem and also being forced to recall the harsh words of his grandfather, Yuuhi is done with this whole “saving the world” thing. But the power is really not his to give up. After learning that his neighbor, Samidare, is the princess that his lizard friend keeps referring to, and that the world is under threat from a giant looming object called the “Biscuit Hammer,” Yuuhi starts to feel trapped in his role. Samidare is also not entirely benevolent herself; she hopes to defeat the Biscuit Hammer so that she can then destroy the world via her own two hands.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – When Will Ayumu Make His Move?

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Urushi is the leader of her school’s shogi club, but unfortunately it’s not quite a club since there are only two members – herself and Ayumu. Both of them love playing shogi together, but it’s obvious that their matches contain a significant amount of emotional subtext. Love may be in the air, although neither of them is confident enough to come right out and acknowledge it.

Ayumu is a master troll, constantly complimenting Urushi in ways that can only be construed as distinctly romantic. Urushi is more than happy to call him out, although when she does he never acknowledges his motivations as anything other than pure respect for his senpai. The two even find themselves sharing an umbrella on the way home from school one afternoon – are they really being truthful with one-another and themselves?

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Prima Doll

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 12

Source: Mixed Media Project

Episode Summary: Automata or “dolls” are human-shaped tools used by the military to help command large platoons of mechanical soldiers. Unfortunately doing this can be such a strain on the dolls that they can sometimes end up broken. When a pink-haired doll awakens in a basement, she doesn’t remember her name or her purpose. This place happens to be the workshop of Nagi Tooma, a mechanic who repairs dolls and puts them to work in his café. He gives her the name Haizakura and informs her that her memory has been reset, which is why she awakened so disoriented.

Haizakura doesn’t seem to have a talent for being a server or a cook, but she does happen to have a strange knack for singing. This comes in handy when she has to defend her new friend Chiyo from an errant military robot, and also seems to be the key to waking Yugiri, a doll whose circuits were so overloaded that it didn’t seem possible to repair her. It so happens that Chiyo and Yugiri were once like sisters, so being able to spend time with Yugiri again is like a miracle for Chiyo. Yet, though Yugiri seems to be repaired, looks can be deceiving.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Call of the Night

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 13

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Ko Yamori can’t sleep, so rather than stay home and keep trying to catch some elusive Zs, he decides to leave his apartment and walk the streets at night. The city at night is a completely different world – quiet, glowing in the colors of the street lights – and traveling those roads is like discovering an entirely new world. As Ko tries to buy a beer from a vending machine, he’s suddenly approached by a mysterious woman dressed in black who teases him for being underage. She takes him along on her nightly stroll and shows him what her world is like after the sun goes down.

As the hours tick on, she invites Ko back to her apartment to “go to sleep,” which Ko interprets as some kind of overture. He’s not interested in dating but decides to pretend to sleep until he can find a way to leave. But it’s not sexual gratification the woman is after – it’s her next meal. Ko learns that she’s a vampire, and that despite serving as her blood drinking fountain he’s not destined for that same fate. For to become a vampire, he must fall in love with a vampire. Considering his disinterest in love (and the vampires disinterest in creating other vampires) this seems impossible. But with Ko’s “day” life becoming more and more distant and his night life becoming his reality, he decides to take on the challenge of falling in love, and getting his new vampire friend to love him back.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Chimimo

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Episode Summary: Mutsumi, Hazuki, and Mei are three sisters that share a charming suburban home. One day while Mei is reading, she notices a strange white blob-like creature dive into a cabinet. The sisters extract the creature from its hiding place, only to find that they have no idea what it is (other than cute). They assume they have an abandoned animal on their hands, so they wait for the owner to come knocking on their door.

In the meantime, the creature seems to be multiplying, or at the very least inviting its friends to come hang out. Soon the sisters are dealing with more than a dozen little horned marshmallows, each with its own personality. Eventually Jabberwock the 8th, a messenger from Hell, comes calling after his minions, though as the oldest sister Mutsumi is more than capable of getting him to hit the road. But as a demon sent to Earth to scope out new territory on behalf of Hell, Jabberwock has it kind of hard and the sisters take pity on him, inviting him to live with them until he can get on his feet.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Kirishima is a Yakuza who’s generally known as a pretty bad dude – his way of solving most problems for his organization typically involves beating the living daylights out of people. Dealing with children seems like an unnatural fit for such a demonic man, so when his boss initially assigns Kirishima to act as a guardian for his young daughter Yaeka, he initially believes that assignment to be a joke. Unfortunately for Kirishima, it’s a serious as a heart attack.

Babysitting doesn’t suit Kirishima, but to his credit he tries his best. When Yaeka starts to withdraw, Yaeka’s aunt Kanami helps him figure out what’s bothering her. When he shows up to her elementary school’s open house, Yaeka is surprised and bashful, but it seems to do the trick – it allows her to work up the bravery to give her dad the art project she made just for him.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – My Stepmom’s Daughter is My Ex

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Mizuto and Yume are new to living under the same roof. After the marriage of their parents, they’re stuck navigating the awkwardness of gaining each-other as new stepsiblings. Unfortunately, their situation is made even more awkward by the fact that the two dated while they were in middle school and then broke up at the end of the school year. While they put on a decent front of getting along with one-another for the sake of their parents, behind the scenes it’s all bickering over who’s the actual older sibling and how annoying they find one-another.

After the two start the new school year and enter high school, it isn’t long before their classmates infer their situation. Some boys think that getting close with Mizuto will somehow get them easy access to Yume, but Yume finds that thought so distasteful that she feigns a brother complex to get them out of her hair. Though the two ended their romantic relationship on poor terms, it seems as though there might still be a faint spark left behind. But how much do the two feel like disrupting their new home life to figure things out for sure?

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Michio Kaga was on the lookout for a new VR game to try, and when he logs into his most recent finds he discovers that the experience is especially immersive. When he battles a group of bandits, the conflict feels real. And when Michio tries to log out of the game, he discovers that this may very well now be his real life.

When a villager attempts to steal one of the spoils from the battle, Michio learns firsthand that the culture of this place handles thieves swiftly and harshly – by selling them into slavery. Because it was Michio who suffered the loss, he gains half of the price of the sale of the man into slavery. It’s at the slave-trader’s hall that he also learns of another much more interesting nuance to this world – that of sanctioned sex slavery. Michio falls hard for Roxanne, a buxom slave working as a maid. Her price is well above what Michio can pay, but the trader gives him five days to come up with the funds. Feeling alone in this strange new world, Michio has found at least one way for someone to owe him attention.

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