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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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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Smile of the Arsnotoria

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Game

Episode Summary: At Ashram Magic Academy, the “Pentragrams” are a group of five girls who, in addition to their magical studies, also cultivate manners and a sense of grace. After school they spend time having tea in their club room until they’re forced to go off and tend to their other student duties.

Arsnotoria is the quietest of the bunch – easily startled, but with a keen sense of smell that seems perfectly tuned to sniff out the delicious fresh-baked scones just outside the school store. Her magical talents are useful for things like warming up milk; unfortunately she doesn’t have the physical prowess to open the jam jar to top the scone she’s having with her tea. These are all very lighthearted troubles, but somewhere outside the school a truly dramatic conflict is taking place.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Tokyo Mew Mew New

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Now that Ichigo Momomiya has entered high school, she’s become completely boy-crazy. With the help of her friends, she hopes to attract the attention of Masaya Aoyama, the most popular boy at school. As luck would have it, a random classmate gives Ichigo tickets to an exhibit on endangered species, which happens to be a topic Aoyama-kun is deeply invested in. When they “randomly” run into one-another in the courtyard, he’s excited to have the chance to go with Ichigo.

Though the exhibit itself is interesting, Ichigo’s idyllic date doesn’t last long before an alarm causes an evacuation of the premises. After being dragged outside, Ichigo and three other girls are hit by beams of light that cause them to see strange visions. When Ichigo returns to consciousness and meets back up with Aoyama-kun, they’re immediately attacked by a giant rat monster. As it turns out, the beam of light was more than just a daydream – it provided Ichigo the means to transform and fight with very cat-themed powers. Saving the world is great and all, but what about her budding relationship with Aoyama-kun?

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Vermeil in Gold

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Alto Goldfield has a problem – if he can’t form a contract with a familiar before class the next day, he’ll be held back a year in magic school. He’s already tried almost everything, but as he’s pondering his situation in the library, a book of summoning magic falls from the shelf and hits him square in the head. Luckily for him some of it is still legible, so he draws the magic circle and chants the words written in the book. What bursts forth from the magic ring isn’t any ordinary spirit, however; instead, Alto seems to have summoned himself a very powerful, buxom demon.

The demon’s name is Vermeil and she informs Alto that the reason that no other creature would allow itself to be summoned to his side is because his mana is simply too potent for them to tolerate. Luckily demons are so powerful that they’re the one exception, and Vermeil knows many… creative ways to extract the mana she desires as payment for her services. Despite some headaches in class the next day, Vermeil is deemed acceptable as a familiar. However, Alto’s childhood friend Lilia isn’t quite so accepting. She challenges them to a duel, which despite her efforts Lilia loses spectacularly. Her penance is to become friendly with Vermeil, which she accepts, albeit not without some misgivings.

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