Tag: Spring 2021

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – Higehiro

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 13

Source: Light Novel

Story Summary: Yoshida’s love-life is on the rocks after he’s rejected by a coworker. Drunk and unhappy, he stumbles home only to find a high school girl napping beneath a street lamp near his apartment. He tries to shoo her home, but it turns out that “home” is a place far in the North and her reasons for not wanting to return are likely complicated. Her name is Sayu, and in exchange for a place to stay she offers herself as payment. Yoshida wants nothing to do with that sort of thing and realizes that even though housing a teenage runaway without any ulterior motive makes him look bad, he can’t seem to find it in his heart to force her back out on the street. Instead, he offers her a place to stay until she gets back on her feet, and as long as Sayu helps with the chores and promises not to try to seduce him again, she can take her time there. After having dealt with a string of opportunist men, Sayu doesn’t know quite what to do with this fortunate bout of kindness other than try her best to fulfill her side of the bargain.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – Vivy – Fluorite Eye’s Song

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 13

Source: Original

Story Summary: Each AI is imbued with a mission, and Diva’s (nicknamed Vivy by a fan) is to make people happy through her singing. After a year of existence, she seems no nearer to achieving that than when she started. Though she attempts to mimic human behavior, she lacks emotion, and the audiences at the amusement park where she works seem to be able to sense that. One day prior to a performance, Vivy’s mind is overwhelmed by some electronic interloper calling itself Matsumoto. Matsumoto is an AI claiming to have come from the future in order to advise Vivy on preventing a major disaster. 100 years from the current day, the world’s AI servants revolt and begin to murder humans; Matsumoto’s mission is to ensure that doesn’t occur. It takes more concrete evidence for Vivy to believe Matsumoto at his word, but time is already ticking; her first assignment is to prevent the assassination of a politician working toward further rights for AI individuals.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – SSSS.Dynazenon

Just another quiet day…

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Story Summary: The world is peaceful on the whole, but in the lives of its inhabitants, there is discord. Minami is a girl with the reputation of being a tease. She asks boys out and then drops them like yesterday’s garbage, leaving in her wake a trail of hurt feelings. Her friend warns her to stop making promises she can’t keep, but Minami’s noncommittal answer tells the whole story. Meanwhile, Yomogi, an earnest kid, meets a strange man underneath a bridge. This oddball, who calls himself Gauma and claims to be a “kaiju user,” is starving, and it’s Yomogi’s leftovers from lunch that rescue him from that fate. Gauma vows to repay the favor. The opportunity comes a few days later when Minami hones in on Yomogi as her next target. Gauma can’t stand to see his new “friend” get toyed with, but whatever words he has for Minami get put on the back-burner when a kaiju starts attacking the city. Gauma’s rantings about kaiju and such turn out to be more real than anyone may have suspected, when he draws forth an entity called “Dynazenon” to fight back against the kaiju. Minami, Yomogi, and a bystander are suddenly embroiled in the fight of their lives.

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Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – Review

Good morning! There won’t be a new first episode review today (and likely not tomorrow either) because I’m helping to run and monitor an online event taking place all day today. But if you haven’t had a chance to read my First Impressions for this season yet, here’s a short review of where we’re at so far.

Mars Red – A theatrical (literally) tale of vampires slowly infiltrating the world of Taisho-era Japan. Atmospheric and artful, but can the series maintain that atmosphere?

Koikimo – A misguided attempt at comedy which pits a high school student against an adult stalker. Not for sensitive viewers.

Joran the Princess of Snow and Blood – A pulpy alternate-history urban-fantasy type series about a young woman with supernatural powers helping to defend a corrupt shogunate. Intriguing set up and nice visuals, but hard to tell if there’s depth to back that up.

Those Snow White Notes – A music-focused drama that plays it fast and loose with emotions and convenient story contrivances, but which features some enthralling musical performances.

Burning Kabaddi – A sports series featuring Kabaddi. Does a good job of introducing the sport, but the atmosphere is undermined by annoying characters.

Stay tuned for further reviews as they come! The pace ought to pick up from here since I’ll be finished with two events that have taken up a lot of my time as of late.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – Burning Kabaddi

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Story Summary: Tatsuya thought he’d left sports behind after middle school. Irritated by the cliquish-ness he encountered as a soccer player, as well as by the undue pressure forced on him by adults, he decided to drop sports all together and reinvent himself as a live streamer. His fan count has yet to reach the double-digits, but Tatsuya remains optimistic. His dreams are interrupted, though, by a first-year named Azemichi, who knocks on his door and begs him to join the school kabaddi club. Tatsuya’s “no sports” policy is challenged once there’s a little blackmail involved, so he’s convinced to check out the club, if only once. One thing leads to another, and the combination of strategy and physicality that kabaddi demands is more interesting than he would have thought. After losing a bet, Tatsuya is forced to become a member of the team.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – Those Snow White Notes

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Story Summary: When Setsu’s grandfather and shamisen teacher passes away, Setsu loses his will to play the instrument. His feeling of emptiness prompts him to leave home for Tokyo, where he has no plan and no place to stay, but where hopes to rediscover what his own true sound is and to play the shamisen again. He ends up living as a guest in the studio apartment of a hostess named Yuna, whose quest for show business fame has encountered yet another dead-end after a failed audition. She feels like nothing more than a wallet in support of her boyfriend Takuto’s musical aspirations, and her boyfriend is ungrateful about it. When Yuna and Takuto break up, this causes disarray that threatens one of Takuto’s live shows. It’s Setsu, who’s only just begun to try playing shamisen again, to smooth over the performance. As Yuna leaves town in pursuit of her own goals, Setsu is suddenly approached by a rather terrifying woman.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – Joran The Princess of Snow and Blood

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Original

Story Summary: In this alternate history, it is the 64th year of the Meiji era. The Tokugawa Shogunate controls resources and technology, exerting authoritarian rule over the country. There are, of course, groups working in the background to bring about the fall of the regime – as well as those tasked with ensuring its survival. Sawa Yukimura works for an organization called Nue, a group of executioners working on behalf of the government to put down any possible rebellions. Yukimura’s goals are more personal, however; after her brother was murdered by one of the dissident groups, she uses her considerable power in hopes of obtaining her revenge.

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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.”

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2021 First Impressions – Mars Red

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 13

Source: Stage Production

Story Summary: Major Maeda returns to Tokyo after several months and is assigned to the task of interpreting whether a captured vampire might somehow be recruited as an ally in tackling the country’s quickly-emerging vampire crisis. Misaki was an actress, killed in a freak accident during a rehearsal, then mysteriously revived as proven by the stigmata on her tongue. Her mind appears to be frozen in place at her time of death, as she portrayed the titular character in “Salome;” her communication is mostly limited to recitations of lines from the play, though she seems to take an occasional direct interest in Maeda. Maeda encounters a mysterious, youthful actor named Deffrot before learning that Misaki has escaped her confinement. He encounters her just as she speaks her final soliloquy and allows herself to be burned to ash in the morning sunlight.

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Personal

Seasonal Previews and Why I’m Terrible at Them

Me, about a week ago: “Wait, crap, the new anime season is about to start!”

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few months trying to get into a rhythm with my anime writing, and I think, compared to some, eh, historical periods of time around the blog, I’ve been doing okay. I achieved my goal of writing first impressions of all the new (non-sequel) series from Winter 2021, kept up with several of them for a least a few weeks, and naturally let ones drop off as I lost interest. It was pretty much an ideal situation for me, as I see it. I also had time to write a few longer-form, more philosophical posts, and that made me happy even though I suspect they tend to be a little uncomfortable to read and thus of less interest to people just looking for information on new anime (which is fine).

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