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First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2019 First Impressions – Mix: Meisei Story

26 years after Meisei High conquered the Kōshien, a promising pitcher-catcher battery was formed in its middle school by the Tachibana step-brothers, Touma and Souichirou. – ANN

Streaming: Funimation and Hulu

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: 26 years ago, Meisei High School did the near-impossible – they managed to win the nation-wide high school baseball tournament held at Koshien Stadium. In the ensuing years the school never made another play at the title, and the school’s fame and ambitions cooled. The Tachibana brothers, born 10 minutes apart on the same day (but who aren’t twins), seem to have an obvious synergy with one-another, along with a keen interest in baseball. Even as young kids they had a goal in mind to one day reach Koshien.

As students of Meisei Middle School, they find that baseball team ambitions are somewhat lacking. Still, there are a few talented students chomping at the bit, and Touma and Souichiro Tachibana make an obviously talented pitcher-catcher pair. Could this be the latent beginning of a new era for Meisei?

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First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2019 First Impressions – Kono Oto Tomare! Sounds of Life

Takezō is the last remaining member of the Koto club, a club dedicated to the traditional Japanese string instrument. If he doesn’t find new members, the Koto Club will be terminated. One day, Takezō is alone in the club room when a student barges in and demands to join. The student is delinquent Chika Kudō, a boy who even scares delinquent upperclassmen at other schools. – ANN

Streaming: Funimation and Hulu

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: As the last remaining member of the koto club, Takezo is in a tough position. If he doesn’t find some new recruits, the long-running club will be disbanded. However, the koto club room has been infested with ruffians and bullies and Takezo’s insistence that they leave has turned him into their target. When Chika Kudo, a delinquent whose history precedes him, tries to join the club, Takezo won’t accept it. This leaves Chika to use his threatening aura in order to get his point across.

Takezo soon learns that Chika’s reputation is unwarranted and the result of a grave misunderstanding by both the police and other adults. When history repeats itself and Chika is blamed for an attack on Takezo and the koto club room, Takezo insists on speaking the truth. This provides Chika a pathway to koto club membership, though his shaky relationship with Takezo may need as much nurturing as any musical ability.

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Anime Reviews Film Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – I Want to Eat Your Pancreas

An unnamed protagonist happens to find a diary in a hospital one day. The diary belongs to his classmate, a girl named Sakura Yamauchi, who is revealed to be suffering from a terminal illness in her pancreas, and who only has a few months left to live. Sakura explains that the protagonist is the only person apart from her family that knows about her condition. The protagonist promises to keep Sakura’s secret. Despite their completely opposite personalities, the protagonist decides to be together with Sakura during her last few months. – ANN

Release: Limited Theatrical Release (English Dubbed Version)

Episodes: 1 (Film)

Review: Please be aware that this review contains spoilers for the film.

As anime titles go, I Want to Eat Your Pancreas is certainly one of the more eccentric ones I’ve come across. While the wording may conjure up images of cannibalistic zombie-like entertainment, the film (which explains its odd moniker fairly early on) has no relation to the undead. Instead, it wears the clothing of a bittersweet, ephemeral teenage romance, telling the story of a young man’s coming-of-age after meeting a girl who will never have that luxury.

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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2019 First Impressions – The Magnificent Kotobuki

In a barren frontier where people trade goods with each other in order to help each other survive, the Kotobuki Squadron are bodyguards for hire, led by a strict but beautiful squadron leader, an unreliable commanding officer, and a true artisan of a crew chief. Alongside pilots who don’t lack for personality, they take to the air in dogfights, letting the engine noise of their Hayabusa fighters ring out in the skies. – ANN

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Episode Summary: Being a pilot-for-hire is a rough job, and because of that there’s some amount of trash-talking and bragging involved in a pilot’s down time. When a young man from the Nazarene Squadron gets full of himself and starts to hit on the young women from the Kotobuki Squadron, he doesn’t realize what he’s getting into. These ladies have seen it all and then some, and don’t have time to play with little boys whose 11 stars don’t stack up to their combined 200.

During a nighttime transport of goods, a transport airship is predictably targeted by air pirates. While the Nazarene Squadron is taken out fairly early in the fight, the Kotobuki Squadron, piloting their Hayabusa fighter planes, manages to fend off the attackers with little collateral damage. Kirie, the group’s hot-headed fighter, notices a familiar insignia on the wing of one of the enemies and decides to engage with it one-on-one, which turns out to be a poor decision. For some reason, though, the enemy leaves her alone after connecting a few warning shots.

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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2019 First Impressions – Domestic Girlfriend

High schooler Natsuo is hopelessly in love with his cheerful and popular teacher, Hina. However, one day at a mixer, he meets a moody girl by the name of Rui and ends up sleeping with her. Soon after, his father announces that he’s getting remarried to a woman with two daughters of her own. And who shows up in tow, other than both Hina and Rui. – ANN

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Natsuo has been nursing a crush on his teacher Hina-Sensei for quite a while. In his mind he knows it’ll never work out – he’s a student, she’s a teacher, and there are social rules about this sort of thing. But he can’t help but read into each and every one of their interactions. In his fragile state, Natsuo agrees to have sex with a girl named Rui who he meets at a mixer, no strings attached; she’s just interested in knowing what the big deal about sex is. After it’s all said and done, she demands that they treat each-other as strangers going forward.

That turns out to be a promise that Natsuo can’t keep, because his single father has chosen to remarry, and not only does his new wife happen to be Rui’s mother, but Rui’s older sister is none other than Hina-Sensei herself. Their living situation becomes tense for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that Rui happens to catch Natsuo going in for a kiss while Hina-nee is drunk and incapacitated.

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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2019 First Impressions – Dororo

During the 1470s after the Wars of Onin and Bunmei in the Noto Peninsula of the Hokuriku District, Hyakkimaru, who lacks as much as 48 body parts, obtains a fake body and eliminates 48 monsters that were made from his body to retrieve his missing body parts. – ANN

Streaming: Amazon Prime

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Sixteen years ago, a local lord made a pack with Hell’s demons to obtain power and prevent more famine from befalling his lands. In exchange, upon the birth of his firstborn son, the baby’s body parts were stolen, leaving only a skinless, barely-living husk. The midwife tasked with disposing of the infant takes pity on it, setting it on the river in a boat before being attacked and devoured by a demon, who seems to have a keen interest in the child.

As the years pass the world continues to be filled with conflict and war. A young “entrepreneur” named Dororo makes a meager living selling fraudulent wares while trying to stay ahead of the local authorities. One day Dororo bothers the wrong guys and they’re nearly murdered for it. Dororo is saved by the appearance of a terrifying demon who eats their attackers, and then saved from the demon by a silent, somewhat unusual-looking man with katana blades hidden within his prosthetic arms. Stranger still, after the man dispatches the demon, the mask covering his face falls away to reveal new skin growing over his exposed flesh.

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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2019 First Impressions – The Price of Smiles

On a planet far from Earth, there is a kingdom full of smiling faces. Princess Yūki is 12 years old, and about to enter a sensitive age in a person’s life. Everyday, she cries, laughs, and sometimes, her heart throbs with excitement. All the while, she lives merrily in the royal palace. Filling her days with color are her loyal vassals: her tutor Reira, Izana who assists in political affairs, the leader of the chivalry Harold and then, there is her childhood friend and aide Joshua. Stella is 17 years old and a capable, reserved soldier. However, she is always smiling for smiling is essential to living. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Episode Summary: Princess Yuki, at the age of 12, has come of age and can now take a more active role in running her country in the place of her late parents. She’s a kind-hearted person and the new, expanded workload is taxing, but she seems to have a knack for decision-making that relies on her kindness and fondness for the people around her. One day she’s challenged by a member of the military order named Yuni. Though the questioning turns out to be a set-up and Princess Yuki impresses with her answer, her aide and childhood friend Joshua steps in and asks Yuni for a duel.

The duel takes place within a VR simulation, so nothing tangible is at stake; still, Joshua and Yuki prove that their close relationship is worth more than the number of soldiers on their side. After this, Joshua and company leave on a diplomatic mission to the border with Yuki’s message of friendship. But what Yuki doesn’t realize (and what the delegation hopes to keep from her) is that there’s a violent conflict raging. Can the delegation protect the Princess’s precious smile?

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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2019 First Impressions – Boogiepop and Others

There is an urban legend that children tell one another about a shinigami that can release people from the pain they may be suffering. This “Angel of Death” has a name: Boogiepop. And the legends are true. Boogiepop is real. When a rash of disappearances involving female students breaks out at Shinyo Academy, the police and faculty assume they just have a bunch of runaways on their hands. But Nagi Kirima knows better. Something mysterious and foul is afoot. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Keiji Takeda is in the city, waiting for his date, Touka Miyashita to arrive. She does, in fact, drop in, though dressed in black robes, ignoring Takeda completely, and aiding a disheveled, crying man while scolding the rest of the crowd for their insensitivity toward him. The next day, Takeda can’t get a hold of Miyashita at all, and with word of several runaways from their school, Takeda’s mind starts traveling to dark places. As the sun begins to set, he notices a figure up on the roof.

This rooftop presence has Miyashita’s face, but speaks with an awareness that feels otherworldly. They call themselves “Boogiepop,” an entity that only appears when needed and when the world is in danger. They warn Takeda of a monster, a “man-eater,” that poses a threat to humanity; it’s coincidental that Miyashita is the conduit through which Boogiepop was able to manifest. As Takeda wrestles with his ability to accept Boogiepop’s presence and Miyashita’s absence, he also becomes concerned that another student at the school may be the embodiment of the horror that Boogiepop has arrived to oppose.

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First Impressions Reviews

Netflix First Impressions – Forest of Piano

Kai was born as the son of a prostitute and he’s been playing the abandoned piano in the forest near his home ever since he was young. Shūhei, on the other hand, was practically breast-fed by the piano as the son of a family of prestigious pianists. Yet it is their common bond with the piano that eventually intertwines their paths in life. – ANN

Streaming: Netflix

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Shuhei transfers into his new elementary school class. Almost immediately the class bullies begin to pick on him because he plays the piano – something seen as effeminate. Kai, one of Shuhei’s classmates, is also a frequent target of the bullies, due to his family situation; his mother works in the sex industry and Kai’s father is not in the picture. He does have an interest in the piano, and offers to show Shuhei his piano; a piano sitting in the forest that’s rumored to be both broken and haunted.

Only Kai seems to have the ability to produce sound from the mysterious piano, which puzzles Shuhei, who’s been taking piano lessons since he was a small child. The bullies don’t believe Shuhei’s far-fetched story about Kai’s talent and continue to pick on him. Ajino-Sensei, the school music teacher, catches wind of the tale and wonders if it might have some truth to it. He used to be a famous pianist until he injured himself in a car accident, and got rid of his special piano when he realized he’d no longer be able to play it. But perhaps now the piano has chosen a new master.

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Anime Reviews Film Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Mirai

A family is living in a small house in an obscure corner of a certain city—in that house lives the family’s spoiled four-year-old boy Kun-chan. When Kun-chan gets a little sister named Mirai, he feels that his new sister stole his parents’ love from him, and is overwhelmed by many experiences he undergoes for the first time in his life. In the midst of it all, he meets an older version of Mirai, who has come from the future. – ANN

Release: Limited Theatrical Release. Available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD.

Source: Original

Review: Please be aware that this review contains some plot and thematic spoilers for the film.

Change is difficult for us all, but as adults its inevitability is already mostly a known quantity even if its specific form almost never is. For young children, though, each change, no matter how small, can seem like a drastic upheaval. Just when they’re starting to learn their world’s rules, that world might change and transform into some new state of existence. As we grow older we begin to forget how unfamiliar and drastic these feelings are, and this is something that I think about quite a bit. Though we might grumble at the toddler throwing a tantrum in Target, we ought to consider the tools we’ve developed to handle the negative emotional waves that crash over our psyche, and understand that we didn’t always have access to those when we were their age.

Mirai is a film that demonstrates deep compassion and empathy towards children who are beginning to embark on the exhilarating and terrifying “firsts” that many of us encounter early in our lives. Kun-chan, the little boy at the center of the movie’s story, undergoes a very strenuous emotional journey during which he comes to realize the importance of the role he plays in his family, as well as the connections he has with its various other members, some of whom he never had the chance to meet.

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