Tag: Winter 2022

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January 23-29, 2022 Week-in-Review

Another week, another little bit of anime writing. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get around to more episodes this week; I was hoping to get finished with them before the end of the month, but now I’m not sure that’s likely to happen. All the same, the delay is for kind of a positive reason – we’ve finally gotten in the majority of the furniture we were looking for to put in our upstairs living room, allowing us to move our other furniture downstairs to create a basement entertainment area. And for people who aren’t experienced in moving a lot of furniture around, well… it can be very exhausting.

Somewhat related to recent experiences, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind folks of how I handle comments at this blog. You can read the details in the site’s FAQ, but the major points are that there are several terms I’ve designated (which I’m not going to share) that immediately send comments into moderation. I also don’t publicize comments that are hostile toward myself or other commenters, or which argue in bad-faith or try to mischaracterize points that I or other commenters are attempting to make. Take that as you will.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2022 First Impressions – Miss Kuroitsu from the Monster Development Department

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: The Secret Society Agastia is one of several evil organizations operating throughout Japan. Many of the other groups have recently met their demise when pit against local heroes, and Agastia needs to come up with some winning monster design to help quell their own heroic interloper, Divine Swordsman Blader. Enter Miss Kuroitsu, a researcher in Agastia’s Monster Development Department, with her group’s latest extremely well-thought-out and absolutely not last-minute monster design.

In reality, Miss Kuroitsu and the Doctor she works alongside are constantly operating at a budgetary and energy deficit, crunching to put together monster proposals that are subsequently picked apart by the other members of Agastia. Their most recent project, a lupine creature called Wolf Bete, seems to have been created within the relative luxury of plenty of development time until Agastia’s leader, Akashic, demands a much cuter design at the eleventh hour. This causes some… conflicts between Wolf Bete’s mind and body, but this new design may turn out to be an advantage against the sexually-inexperienced Divine Swordsman Blader.

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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 – She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: In the world of Ark Earth Online, a group of mages, deemed the “9 Wise Men” distinguished themselves from the pack by gaining power and fame – in spite of many players who preferred a simpler, more straightforward playing style. Danblf was one such mage, named the “One Man Army” due to his incredible summoning abilities. When the mage kingdom he and his IRL friend established becomes a fresh target, he travels to the battlefield and dispatches the attackers on his own.

After the battle, however, Danblf disappears completely from the face of the game. In the meantime, a beautiful young woman awakens wearing Danblf’s robes and with the ability to wield a small amount of his power. Who is this mysterious woman, and might she have anything to do with Danblf’s disappearance?

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January 16-22, 2022 Week-in-Review

This past week was a very busy and productive week for me, here at the blog. I had a couple of days off, so I managed to plow through quite a few first impressions in a relatively short amount of time. However, I realized quickly that that sort of productivity comes with a price – burnout. I spent so much time in my chair writing that I didn’t use my time away from work to actually… not work. Rookie error! So now I’m planning to try to come in for a softer landing by spacing the remaining reviews out a little bit more. My goal is to be done with these prior to the end of January, which, with not very many left to write up, should be do-able.

I got around to a wide variety of episodes last week, which was definitely helpful. I used some of the very basic research I typically do before watching something to try to space out series with similar genres or stories (rather than just doing them all in general order of release like I typically tend to do). I think that made the process much more pleasant.

Check out the links below to see if there’s anything you’ve missed, and thanks as always for reading!

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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 – The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Gaius is a powerful sorcerer, but his power has reached the limits of what the crest on his hand is able to accommodate. In order to hopefully gain the benefits of an additional fourth mark, he chooses to roll the dice and reincarnate into a new body. He’s reborn as Matthias, son of Castor, and he now bears his desired crest. The only issue is that, between his death and his current life, the world has changed quite a bit. His treasured crest is thought of as weak, and spellcasting is almost exclusively performed with incantations rather than quickly and without speaking (as Gaius/Matthias had been taught).

Matthias meets two friends, Alma and Lurie, who are preparing to take the entrance exam for a magic academy. Curiosity inspires Matthias to join them, and his incantation-less spellcasting draws the attention of the school headmaster. While their main campus has long since abandoned this type of magic, the headmaster at the secondary campus is interested in bringing it back as a skill – the only problem being that there’s no one around to teach it anymore. Enter Matthias, who’s recruited to do the job. A month later, when the two campuses are set to compete in a magic tournament, Matthias uncovers the fact that demons have infiltrated the main campus and poisoned the curriculum against teaching the type of magic that might allow human beings to defeat 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 – The Genius Prince’s Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Prince Wein has been handling the affairs of his small country in his sick Father’s absence. His ultimate goal is to build the value of the kingdom to the point that he can sell it off and fade away into obscurity, but he suffers from a peculiar issue – his decisions made throughout the course of his tenure as de facto leader have only proven his innate gift for leadership, meaning that those around him are unlikely to leave him alone long enough to make his plans into a reality.

When a neighboring nation starts making moves to invade, Wein would much rather put up a minimal fight in order to keep from depleting the country’s modest war funds than to launch a large-scale counterattack, but decisions he made months earlier, including one providing top-notch training to the army, means that the soldiers are raring to defend their nation to the death. One major victory later (and a secondary one to secure a valuable gold mine near the border of the two nations) and Wein finds himself even more entrenched in the country’s affairs than before.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2022 First Impressions – Life With an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated Into a Total Fantasy Knockout

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Tachibana and Jinguuji have been friends since childhood, but couldn’t be more different. Jinguuji is tall, handsome, and good at everything, making him a target of affection from many women. Tachibana, on the other hand, is kind of a scrub. Now in their thirties, the two fear that they’ve become old men and might never find love. Of course, a complicating factor in this is that Jinguuji has never shown an interest in any woman whatsoever and only really seems to have feelings for Tachibana, though he won’t acknowledge those feelings as romantic. And Tachibana’s deepest secret is that, in an ideal fantasy world, he’d rather be a cute blonde woman.

As Tachibana is laying drunk on the sidewalk, a goddess of love and beauty appears to whisk the two men away to another land to become heroes. She also blesses Tachibana with his ideal feminine transformation, something which startles and dismays Jinguuji. The goddess also left them with a curse, forcing them to save the world if they want it broken. As the two navigate these strange, new circumstances, one thing is certain; their feelings toward one-another are anything but straightforward… or straight.

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