Tag: Slice-of-Life

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 11

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: After Yuuri’s parents pass away tragically in an accident, he decides to let the servants at his small mansion go to help preserve some of his inheritance. Unfortunately, for a kid with very little experience cooking and cleaning, living life entirely on his own has a steep learning curve. It’s at his moment of greatest need that Lilith, a maid, shows up on Yuuri’s doorstep and offers to work for him in exchange for nothing more than room and board. Though Yuuri finds this suspicious, the alternative isn’t appealing.

Almost immediately, Yuuri finds Lilith’s behavior questionable. She teases him with a familiarity that seems counter to the fact that they barely know one-another. Yuuri often finds her up late at night reading books or cooking up concoctions in the kitchen. He’s sure that she must be some kind of sorceress out to get him. It’s true that her motives run deeper than they may seem to at first, but despite her seemingly playful nature, Lilith wants to wait for the right time to let the young master know more about herself.

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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

Spring 2022 First Impressions – Healer Girl

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Episode Summary: Kana, Reimi, and Hibiki are three apprentice healers at the Karasuma Voice Treatment Center, which trains individuals in the art and science of treating patients using the power of singing. This form of medicine developed as a compliment to already-existing Eastern and Western medicine. Kana is the newest recruit of the bunch, and though she was inspired to become a healer due to an encounter when she was a child, she often finds that her ability to adhere to her training regimen (as well as the rules) to be a little lacking. When she uses her abilities to heal a boy’s skinned knee, Karasuma, the main healer at the clinic, puts Kana on notice.

The girls live out their days doing administrative work and building up their endurance through exercise and eating healthy foods. As people who love to sing, their down time is often filled with music as well. When the granddaughter of one of the clinic’s patients rushes over after-hours to get help for her grandmother’s condition, however, the apprentices switch into overdrive to retrieve their senpais from a conference. Though Kana knows she can’t use her singing to heal her patient, she realizes that she can use her skills to ease the patient’s mind, which she does. As the others arrive, they witness Kana’s immense skill, which ultimately calms the elderly woman well enough that she can be taken to the hospital.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2022 First Impressions – Love All Play

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Novel

Episode Summary: Ryo is a middle school badminton player who idolizes one of Yokohama Minato high school’s aces, Kento Yusa. While he’d love to play badminton on the same stage as Yusa, his own skills aren’t quite up to the Yokohama Minato level of play. At least, Ryo believes so until the badminton coach from Yokohama Minato reaches out to him directly and offers to get him entrance into the school on a sports recommendation. As it turns out, Ryo definitely seems to have some untapped potential that might end up giving him a leg-up, so-to-speak.

Ryo’s father is unimpressed and very nearly forbids Ryo from pursuing this opportunity. As a college sports player who encountered trouble after physical injury, he knows first-hand what an inconvenience it can be to lose the ability to access the skills required of the program. However, undeterred, Ryo offers to take a more traditional path toward his dream, by entering the school based on academic achievement. Though this is an uphill battle based on Ryo’s mediocre grades, his sister helps him study and it seems as though he might make the cut. After being asked to join a weekly practice session at Yokohama Minato High School, Ryo is excited to meet Yusa, his idol. But sometimes heroes seen from afar turn out to be very different in person.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2022 First Impressions – Aharen-san wa Hakarenai

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Raido starts his high school career with one goal in mind – to make friends in spite of his somewhat intimidating visage. He starts with Aharen-san, the petite girl who sits next to him in class, but no matter what Raido does he can’t seem to get her attention. After school, however, it’s a different story – Aharen-san suddenly seems stuck to him like glue. This hot-cold treatment continues until he learns that Aharen-san has issues with coming on too strong with people and making things awkward. Raido vows to be a good friend to her, no matter what it takes.

The first challenge to overcome is the fact that Aharen-san speaks so softly that her voice is barely audible. Raido tries all sorts of communication methods, including passing notes, learning lip-reading, and even attempting to use a carrier pigeon, before he realizes that, after a while, his hearing has just adjusted enough that he can understand what she’s saying. As their friendship grows stronger and the two get closer, it seems there may be someone on the outside who isn’t so happy about their developing relationship.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2022 First Impressions – Kotaro Lives Alone

Streaming: Netflix

Episodes: 10

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Kotaro is a precocious four-year-old boy who moves into an apartment by himself. The landlords only seem concerned with whether or not he can pay his way, not with whether he can actually manage on his own, so he manages to clear that initial hurdle. Kotaro’s neighbor Karino is perplexed by this well-spoken kid, and wonders what may have happened to his family leaving him to survive on his own.

As Karino follows Kotaro around on his daily errands, he also starts meeting the other tenants in the building, who all seem to be people with somewhat complicated circumstances. The one constant between them seems to be Kotaro, who treats them all as neighbors, though also has very little tolerance for falseness in relationships. Karino, who also lives alone and has felt directionless in his manga career, starts to warm up to Kotaro, sensing some unresolved emotions and trauma in the kid.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2022 First Impressions – Police in a Pod

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 13

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Kawai is on the verge of quitting her job as a police officer. It was the only civil service position that she could qualify for, and that in itself is no way to choose a career. Just before she submits her resignation, however, she’s partnered with Detective Fuji – a beautiful, if somewhat unorthodox, officer who’s been demoted into the position. Kawai struggles to see how Fuji’s attitude toward their work has somehow managed to survive the near constant verbal abuse they both receive from people who get caught in their traffic raids and other arrests.

After a very unusual (and enlightening) interrogation session with a local thief, and a safety presentation at at nearby elementary school, Kawai begins to see the facets of her job that she didn’t previously appreciate. While it’s true that issuing citations on a regular basis sometimes cultivates an adversarial relationship with members of the public, there are always those who take those citations to heart and try to change their behavior for the better. Maybe Kawai can hold off a bit on submitting that resignation.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2022 First Impressions – My Dress-Up Darling

Streaming: Funimation and Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Wakana Gojo lives with his grandfather, a craftsman who creates the Hina dolls used to celebrate the Hinamatsuri holiday. Ever since he was a child, Gojo harbored a deep love for the craft and the beauty of the dolls, a passion that resulted in the loss of a childhood friendship. Since then he’s spent all of his energy focused on honing his craft rather than trying to make friends, because he’s become sensitive about revealing his love for creating Hina dolls.

One day, after his grandfather’s antique sewing machine breaks, Gojo brings some of his doll costumes to school to work on them in the home economics classroom. As he’s enjoying the luxury of a modern sewing machine, the door swings open and in walks Marin, Gojo’s very beautiful and popular classmate. When she sees him using the sewing machine, she’s nearly ecstatic and asks to show him something. What she reveals is an in-progress cosplay she’s been working on that could definitely use some… finesse. Gojo critiques its shortcomings, but also admires Marin’s commitment to her goals. When she asks him to help her realize her dreams of embodying a favorite character, Gojo feels inspired to help her, and happy that he may have found someone to share his skills with who won’t make fun of them.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2022 First Impressions – Akebi’s Sailor Uniform

Streaming: Funimation and Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Komichi Akebi is looking forward to starting junior high school at her mother’s alma mater, in part because it means she’ll finally get to wear a sailor uniform like she’s seen in her mother’s old photographs. Komichi and her mother pick out fabric at the fabric store so that her mother can sew together a uniform just for her, with each detail just perfect. When it’s finally finished and Komichi gets to try it on, it brings tears to her eyes – her dream is finally coming true.

Her world comes crashing down during the entrance ceremony, when Komichi learns that the uniform for the school changed to a blazer some years ago, making her the odd one out. Though she gets permission from the school principal to wear her uniform (since it was the school standard at one time and the principal seems to have some nostalgia for it), she struggles with how much attention her decision might potentially dump into her lap. But some unexpectedly wise words from her little sister convince her to keep wearing the uniform, and when the first day of school rolls around, it turns out that it might be the perfect icebreaker, as well as an opportunity to display Komichi’s strong will and integrity.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2022 First Impressions – Sasaki and Miyano

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Miyano is a male fan of BL manga – a “fudanshi” in the parlance. This is something he generally keeps under wraps until he meets the rough-and-tumble Sasaki, who intervenes to stop a fight Miyano witnesses. Miyano is happy for the intervention, and even happier that Sasaki seems interested enough to appreciate the BL stories that Miyano loves (even if Sasaki is a bit freer with his attention that Miyano tends to like).

Sasaki, for his part, not only finds that he enjoys spending time with Miyano, but also seems to appreciate Miyano’s soft features and earnest nature. The longer that the two maintain their friendship, the closer that Sasaki is to coming to terms with the fact that his admiration is steadily becoming closer to affection. He eventually realizes that he has feelings for Miyano, but does Miyano reciprocate those feelings?

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