Tag: HIDIVE

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Halloween Seasonal Special Features

It’s Spooky Season! – Day 16: School-Live!

As a long time anime fan, something I rarely experience is feeling “fooled” by something that I watch. There are certainly many anime with plot twists and turns, some of which spring up out of nowhere, but often enough the writing is on the wall if you know where to look (and if a twist is a complete and utter surprise with no clues whatsoever… well, that’s just poor writing). I do, however, enjoy being surprised by the media I consume, and then I further enjoy realizing that I could have figured out the surprise all along if I had just been paying better attention to the clues being dropped in front of my face.

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Halloween Seasonal Special Features

It’s Spooky Season! – Day 14: Lupin the Third (Part 4, Episode 8)

The fun of long-running entertainment franchises is that they occasionally enter a stage where they become more like anthologies – playgrounds where many different stories are told using familiar characters. Lupin the Third is one such anime franchise. While the series has never really had a ton of continuity, the more recent series are a fun blend of ongoing storylines and one-off episodes that are more fun and occasionally fanservicey (of the type that’s more involved in signaling to folks who are “in the know” rather than the type that’s about nudity).

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Shine Post

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: TBA

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: It’s been nearly a year since the idol group TiNgS was formed. Despite the apparent enthusiasm of the group members, however, their ticket sales have always been dismal. The owner of their talent agency calls them in for a conference and it’s made clear that they need to sell out a 2,000 seat concert venue in three months, or it’s all over for the group. This is absolutely a tall order, but the group members are promised a new manager to help whip them into tip-top singing and dancing shape.

Unfortunately, Naoki Hinase, the new manager, has some past trauma related to representing idols – it was, in fact, the reason why he was pushed out of his last job. Hoping to take on simple office work instead, he initially resists the push to represent TiNgS directly. However, Haru, the center, manages to convince Hinase of her own sincerity, even if her group members may not be entirely truthful about their own motivations. Hinase sets a more modest immediate goal of selling 100 tickets to one of the group’s regular shows, but will this be enough to get TiNgS off of life support?

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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 – 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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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Phantom of the Idol

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 10

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Yuya Niyodo is one half of the male idol group ZINGS, though the effort he brings to the table is probably more around 5%. As an attractive man who got into the industry in order to make “easy money,” the fact that his manager, fans, and group member Yoshino expect him to put in some effort is making Yuya rethink his choices.

As he sits on the cusp of being fired, he notices a young woman sitting next to him on a bench. But this isn’t just any young woman – her name is Asahi Mogami, a famous idol who died a year ago in a tragic accident. As a ghost she can no longer perform for her adoring fans, but perhaps with the help of Yuya, who has a very alive body, Asahi can relive her performing days one last time. When Asahi’s influence causes Yuya and ZINGS to have their most successful performance to date, Yuya invites Asahi to keep their arrangement in place indefinitely.

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