Tag: Comedy

Categories
Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – Koikimo

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Story Summary: Ryo Amakusa is an attractive businessman (and a known womanizer), but he finds most of the women around him to be tiresome and annoying. One morning he nearly falls down a staircase on his way to work, but is snagged by his collar at the last moment by a high school girl. Later that day Ryo discovers that this girl, Ichika, is his younger sister Rio’s friend when he meets her again at their apartment. That’s when the “fun” begins. Ryo becomes infatuated with Ichika, because she doesn’t fawn over him like the adult women he encounters at work and on the street. “By chance” the two keep encountering one-another and Ryo’s persistence doesn’t seem as though it will wane, much to Ichika’s distress. In Ryo’s case, “no” means “keep bothering her until she changes her mind.”

Continue reading “Spring 2021 First Impressions – Koikimo”
Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2021 New Anime – Premieres for Saturday, January 9th, 2021

The first couple weeks of a new anime season sometimes feel like running a marathon – it’s a long haul task of watching new episodes, constructing coherent thoughts about them, and then moving on to the next one in a relatively short amount of time. From the outside it might seem like a pretty easy job to sit at a desk and watch anime, but as a lone blogger it can get pretty intense especially since I’m editing my own posts without the benefit of an outside force reminding me not to use certain pet phrases too much (for some reason, this season has been all about the word “albeit” for me, even though I haven’t used it that much in the past). The urge to self-edit in the midst of the writing process is tempting, because then the second pass takes less time. Unfortunately, it’s so easy to get hung-up on finding the perfect phrasing that I find that methodology to be more limiting. It takes training to let oneself word vomit to the benefit of the final product.

I hope folks are enjoying these little asides at the beginning of my posts; I have a difficult time getting started sometimes, and providing a window into my thought process seems to help me a get into a writing frame of mind. If you’re not keen to read vaguely-related personal things, it’s easy to just click the “continue reading” button and skip to the good stuff.

Continue reading “Winter 2021 New Anime – Premieres for Saturday, January 9th, 2021”
Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2021 New Anime – Premieres for Thursday, January 7th, 2021

So far I’m really enjoying the more chill pacing of writing reviews this season. It’s not that there are fewer premieres, it’s more that I’m holding myself to more realistic standards and not getting so stressed about being one person attempting to complete the work of several. Knowing that I’m trying to write a reasonable amount rather than word-vomiting the huge essays I had been writing about each new show has kept me from dreading the process. I can’t guarantee that there will never be word vomit, but I’m trying to keep it as a “sometimes” issue.

These premieres mark the end of the first week of the new year. It’s already been a wild ride, that’s for sure. There have been quite a few jokes about people deciding not to renew after their free 7-day trial… I for one am deeply hoping that the year will be looking up a little bit from here. At least I will try to enjoy some great anime!

Continue reading “Winter 2021 New Anime – Premieres for Thursday, January 7th, 2021”
Categories
First Impressions Reviews

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.

Continue reading “Winter 2021 New Anime – The Early Bird Catches the Worm”
Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2020 First Impressions – Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You

Fly me to the moon…

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Summary: When Nasa Yuzaki was born, his parents named him something that reflected their aspirations and ideals for him, and since then it’s followed him like a curse. Other people chuckle because it reminds them of the space agency “NASA.” In order to live with this burden, Nasa throws his heart into studying and training his body, his goal being to distinguish himself and overshadow his own name. Things are looking good for him until he sees a beautiful girl walking down the street one snowy evening. As he crosses the street to meet her, he gets hit by a truck. His body is a wreck, but he absolutely must know they mysterious girl. Delirious with pain, he asks her to date him. She agrees – but only on the condition that they get married. This is the last thing Nasa remembers before falling unconscious.

After his recovery, his school aspirations don’t seem quite as important. Nasa decides to go to work instead, and lives modestly on his own. One day he hears a knock on the door – it’s the girl he was so smitten with, and she’s come to collect on their promise. She introduces herself as Tsukasa, provides a marriage registration certificate, and leads Nasa to the prefectural office in order to legally formalize their union. While this is all moving incredibly quickly, Nasa seems powerless to resist (nor does he seem interested in doing much resisting). Tsukasa entered his life like the mysterious Princess Kaguya, and unlike the Emperor and Woodcutter, he’s not going to let this woman go.

Continue reading “Autumn 2020 First Impressions – Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You”
Categories
Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – KONOSUBA: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World – Legend of Crimson

The Crimson Demon village that Megumin and Yunyun are from is facing a threat that could mean it’s ending. Kazuma and his gang follow Yunyun, who returns to the Crimson Demon village intent on saving it when they are faced with their greatest threat yet. – ANN

Availability: Theatrical Release

Episodes: 1 Film

Source: Light Novel

Review: Note: This review contains some plot spoilers for the film.

Sometimes it’s good to go outside your comfort zone; in other cases, it’s good to be reminded why your comfort zone exists in the first place. I had the opportunity to attend a screening of the Konosuba movie recently. To be honest, the extent of what I know about the series comes mostly from memes, gags, and general fandom osmosis, because the original anime adaptation was released when I was at a low point and I never found the time to go back and catch up with it. I assumed it wouldn’t be too difficult to get my bearings, especially since it’s difficult not to have some passing familiarity with the main characters and their foibles at this point in the anime fandom game. That, and when the cold hits in Minneapolis there’s really not that much else to do than join your local fandom friends in a fun indoors activity, so why not?

Continue reading “Anime Review – KONOSUBA: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World – Legend of Crimson”
Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2019 First Impressions – Wasteful Days of High School Girls

There are three high school girls: Tanaka, nicknamed “Idiot” for her low test scores; Kikuchi, nicknamed “Ota” for her obsession with boys-love stories; and Saginomiya, nicknamed “Robot” for being a genius but emotionless. Together with a colorful cast of characters, the hopeless girls live wasteful days of youth. – ANN

Streaming: Hidive

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Nozomu and her friends are about to start their first day of high school, but even with all the big changes that are likely in store for them she really only has one goal – to become popular with boys. That might be an issue, since she’s only now realized that her high school is girls-only, she doesn’t have any childhood friends to hit up, and her two closest friends are a girl with a robotic personality, and an otaku – not exactly experienced in the romantic arts. Even their homeroom teacher immediately quashes any latent fantasies about teacher-student relations – he drastically prefers college women, especially those in business attire interviewing for jobs, and has no interest in getting fired for the sake of a forbidden romance.

Nozomu tries her best to troll for male prospects, approaching strangers in the hallway between classes and asking them to introduce her to their male friends. Of course, she doesn’t endear herself to anyone since she’s given most of them unflattering nicknames already. Still, she has vivid (unrealistic) fantasies about meeting boys and leaving an impression as an “interesting woman.” The difference between her idealized life and her reality earn her the nickname “Baka.”

Continue reading “Summer 2019 First Impressions – Wasteful Days of High School Girls”
Categories
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.

Continue reading “Summer 2019 First Impressions – O Maidens in Your Savage Season”
Categories
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.

Continue reading “Summer 2019 First Impressions – How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?”
Categories
First Impressions Reviews

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.

Continue reading “Summer 2019 First Impressions – Magical Sempai”