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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – Full Dive

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Story Summary: 10 years ago VRMMO games reached the peak of realism. However, since people play games to escape reality, it was decided that games should go back to being more game-like. In the ensuing years those games lost much of their popularity. However, that doesn’t stop Hiro, a former member of his high school track team who now spends most of his time gaming, from seeking after the most recent installment of his favorite VRMMO series. After coming up short on funds, he ends up at a shady game store where a bubbly-yet-cunning shopkeeper named Reona dupes him into buying a completely different, older game with his hard-earned funds. Hiro loads it up anyway and is initially pleased with how realistic it is – until he finds he can experience pain and then accidentally kills an NPC. When he finally encounters Reona inside the game, she’s upset to discover that Hiro’s in-game title has already become “Best Friend Killer.”

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – Dragon Goes House-Hunting

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Story Summary: No matter how great or small, all creatures need a place to call home. Letty, a red dragon, is left having to find a new one after he manages to let his family’s egg get stolen by monster hunters. After wandering the land and getting into trouble one too many times, Letty finally gets a tip about an elf named Dearia who lives at the foot of Yggdrasil, and seems to have a knack for housing the many fantasy creatures who inhabit their world. Letty wanders for days to find Dearia, only for Dearia to find him; after some so-called heroes hassle Letty, the powerful elf lets loose on them and… neutralizes the threat. Perhaps now that Letty has met the person he seeks, he can finally find a place to call his own.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – Seven Knights Revolution: Hero Successor

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Smartphone Game

Story Summary: The world was once saved from darkness by heroes chosen by the Goddess. Now that the land is once again haunted by terrible, demonic beasts, individuals called the Seven Knights wield the souls of those heroes. Nemo is a student about to enter Granseed Academy, when his village is attacked by man-eating demons. Luckily he’s rescued by Faria, one of the Seven Knights. As they ride toward Granseed Academy, their train is attacked by a demon and Nemo is summoned by the Goddess to receive the power of an ancient hero. Using the power of succession, Nemo helps rescue Faria.

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Reviews Short Takes Simulcast Reviews

Winter Simulcast Check-In, Week of 1/17/2021

Hi, all. This post should be significantly shorter than the previous check-in, mostly because I’m just cleaning up a few episodes of shows that hadn’t had second episodes at the time I wrote the first post (or which I cut for time and my own sanity). If you’re a new reader, it might surprise you to know that I do actually like to write things other than episode reviews! Yet, I find it helpful to go through the process even if writing about it isn’t as interesting as it could be (though maybe some folks out there find it interesting to read).

I’ll mention this again – these recaps won’t be a weekly feature of the blog, but if there’s an interesting episode of anything in particular in the coming weeks I might take time to write in more detail about that episode specifically.

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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2021 New Anime – Premieres for Sunday, January 10th, 2021

By the time this is posted, it’ll be Friday. This week has been a long one, mostly because I’ve been kind of sick, working from home with no change in scenery, and hoping that I don’t end up feeling worse before I get better. On the plus side, I’ve been sleeping a lot better than I have in a long time. I have a cat, whom I love very much, but she has a bad habit of waking up around 4:30am and deciding that’s when my husband and I should also wake up. She’s also one of the loudest cats I’ve ever had the pleasure to know so there’s no ignoring her when she starts her morning routine. Luckily she’s dialed it back a little bit lately and instead of pawing at my face with her foot to get me up, has been a lot more willing to curl up and go back to sleep on the bed with me.

The better sleep quality has the added benefit of allowing my thoughts to remain more coherent (at least I think they are; the jury’s still out on whether other folks agree). While I still have a bad tendency to get distracted while I’m writing (I’m blaming the internet for being so interesting all the time!), at least I’ve been able to write.

Just as a note: after this batch the premieres start trickling off a little bit so premiere dates might be combined into fewer posts.

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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2021 New Anime – Premieres for Friday, January 8th 2021

It’s amazing how much things can change in a short amount of time. Yesterday during the day I was all geared-up to come home and watch anime, but then before I went to bed I started to feel suspiciously cruddy. Now I’m working from home and hoping that all I have is a case of the creeping crud. Luckily I don’t feel too poorly, but I’m a little irritated that the only places I’ve been for quite a while (aside from work, which is fairly isolated) are “the grocery store” and “the other grocery store” and I still managed to catch something.

On the upside, it does mean I get to use my lunch time to watch a little anime to maybe catch up a little bit (not that I’m stressing). This group of premieres is the largest so far, but if this post gets too long I might split it in two so that I don’t overwhelm folks.

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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2021 New Anime – Premieres for Wednesday, January 6th 2021

Well, as I’m writing this it’s definitely been an interesting couple of days in the United States. To be honest, it took a day or two to get enough sleep to feel like I could pay attention to an entire anime episode and write coherently about it. I think there are some folks who can use media to escape from whatever happens to be going on; my anxiety is just too terrible to let up for 25 minutes so I can take in an anime episode. But I’ve been wanting to watch anime, so I’m going to give it a try and see how far I get.

Most folks will notice that the look of the blog has changed; while I wasn’t really planning to switch things up at this very moment, a friend let me know of some image compatibility issues that were showing up on the mobile site so I figured it would be a good opportunity to make a change to my very out-of-date theme. I may be tweaking things in the coming days, but this is pretty close to what I wanted.

Note: There is a small spoiler for Hortensia Saga in its review. It’s one of the main conceits of the series and if you’re looking closely enough you can identify it on your own (even though the show itself is not keen to call it out directly), but I know more than one person who missed it until participating in discussions afterward, so if you’d rather go in completely blind you can skip the second review in this post.

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Anime Reviews Reviews

Encountering Turbulence Atop a Witch’s Broom

This post contains spoilers for the anime series Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina. This series is available to Watch on Funimation’s streaming service in the US.

Last December, back when going to the movie theater was still a choice one could make on a whim, my husband and I decided to tag along with some members of the anime club who had planned a group viewing of the film Cats. We pretty much already knew what we were getting into; I’d read several reviews lamenting the truly weird design choices, mis-used A-list actors, and pressure that the animation team was put under to adhere to some unrealistic directorial choices. But I wanted to hang out with my friends, and going out to movies was at that time a pretty reliable way to see a bunch of them at once outside of anime club. The movie was definitely an experience, though I’d say the defining moment for me was near the end of the film where Judy Dench as Old Deuteronomy breaks the fourth wall, turning directly to the audience; I audibly gasped and hid my face (a friend of mine still teases me for this). For the most part, though, the adaptation was just a cavalcade of bad decisions and poor attempts at both humor and drama.

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First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2020 First Impressions – King’s Raid: Successors of the Will

The demons return after a century long slumber…

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 26

Source: Game

Summary: A century ago, the Kingdom of Orvelia quelled a demon invasion. Since then, the country has been peaceful, and that’s the only world that apprentice Knight Kasel knows. His biggest concerns are whether he’ll complete his apprenticeship with his mentor, the Knight Clause, and whether his dinner (usually something like cooked spider that would make most folks turn up their noses) will upset his stomach. His friend, a local priestess named Frey, is one of the few people with whom he shares these feelings.

But the nobles of Orvelia are beginning to hear rumblings of a new demon invasion at the borders of their country. There’s some disagreement about how to deal with this, but one rogue noble offers a suggestion – hire the mercenary group Black Edge, comprised of Dark Elves willing to fight for a price. Unfortunately, racism against Dark Elves runs deep in Orvelia, and the other nobles aren’t convinced about letting them fight on behalf of the nation. The Dark Elves also have their own goals; as a reaction to the suffering inflicted upon their people by the humans of Orvelia, they’re out to seek revenge. With demons now responsible for taking out an entire Orvelian scout party, what choice will the country ultimately make?

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First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2020 First Impressions – Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Summary: As a young girl, Elaina reads stories of a traveling witch’s adventures. She asks her parents if she can become a witch too. If she studies hard and tries her best, her mother says, then she might become a witch someday. Elaina works hard and practices her skills, then becomes the youngest student ever to pass the magic exam. She just needs to find a witch who will take her as an apprentice so that she can be acknowledged as a full witch within society. Unfortunately, the local witches aren’t interested in dealing with a young prodigy, and Elaina worries that she’ll never complete her training.

She’s tipped off to the existence of a mysterious new witch who’s taken up residence in the local forest – Fran, the Stardust Witch. Elaina assumes she’ll have the same trouble with this newcomer, but surprisingly Fran offers to take her on as an apprentice. Elaina looks forward to honing her skills even further, but as the weeks go by her only tasks seem to be running errands and dealing with Fran’s immediate needs. Just as Elaina is about to flip her lid, Fran challenges her to a duel. Elaina is handed a quick defeat, and it’s then that she learns the truth; Fran was hired by Elaina’s parents to teach her a lesson about humility and learning to deal with and accept failure. Now that Elaina has felt failure firsthand for the first time in her life, the Stardust Witch can begin to pass on her teachings in earnest. After a year, Elaina has nothing more to learn and is acknowledged as Elaina, the Ashen Witch. Some time later, she sets off on a journey, much like the witch who inspired her as a child.