Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so.
I’ve done one of these once before, so you know the drill, let’s get into things.
Tasuketsu -Fate of the Majority-: We start out with something that was just really quite bad! The manga is ongoing and began a solid 11 years ago, so I can only imagine the incredibly fast pacing (and thus lack of any impact) for everything here is the result of running through a ridiculous number of chapters to set up a contrived death game scenario in 1 episode. This was an obvious, huge mistake on the part of whoever was in charge of adapting this and I can’t recommend it at all except maybe to gawk at how poorly it works.
The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained To Death By the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible: We’ve got a nominal comedy here, and there’s some tiny charge in the premise of our protagonist, Rick, only beginning his fantasy adventuring story at the age of 32. Unfortunately, the humor reveals itself pretty quickly to boil down to a couple stock gags. Rick being ridiculously strong because of his secluded mountain training with the party mentioned in the show’s title, Rick staring at some girl or another’s boobs, or various isekai clichés “hilariously” turned on their head to illustrate that some character or another is a loser. (Sometimes that’s also Rick, sometimes it’s someone else.)
The one joke here that isn’t plagiarized from countless other works of this nature is that of Rick’s age. This too mostly boils down to comments about how He Shouldn’t Adventure Because He’s Like 30 Or Something, or people calling him 40ish and it making him mad. It’s basically the “I’m 30 or 40 years old and I don’t need this right now” meme stretched to a whole 23 minutes. Despite being less openly rancid than the worst of its genre, there’s really not a lot to like here. Although there’s a certain rubberneck value to the almost GoHandsian way the character designs have been translated to screen. Sadly, that’s not matched by the animation, which is unremarkable aside from a nice cut when a lady-knight goes tumbling head over heels over and over near the end of the episode.
There’s a certain tedious, self-impressed nature to the humor, too. Analogous to the tedious, self-impressed melodrama of more serious narou-kei fare. Both are pretty unlikable, and Ossan Hero here is not any more likeable than its genre-fellows for its lighthearted tone. Even its misogyny feels rote and obligatory; female characters are introduced chest- or skirt-first, but the designs are too unappealing to even have any charge from that, and in any case the show’s lunkheaded nature just makes it feel lame. “Lame” is a good descriptor for this, overall.
Senpai is an Otokonoko: Do you know that meme that’s like, “am I a boy? Am I a girl? Nobody knows, and that makes everyone gay!” That’s basically the general thrust of My Senpai is an Otokonoko.
Frequent wild swings in art style are accompanied by similar swings in tone and mood. I would say that this seems like a remnant of however the manga’s written, serious moments intercut with comedic interludes. Neither really wins out as the “dominant” tone of the show, though, which, combined with its cobbled-together visuals, can make it feel somewhat incoherent. I wanted to like this, and it’s definitely not bad, but I’m not sure if I’m going to keep up with it or not. Watch this space, I guess?
Giji Harem: This is unfortunately just a flatly bad adaptation of a pretty good manga. Giji Harem was never a series with a particularly strong sense of place, so grounding the interactions in a more fully-drawn classroom (or wherever) doesn’t usually improve things and actively detracts from the original manga’s sketchy appeal. I could imagine someone liking the backgrounds, regardless, though, because they kind of have an accidental vaporwave quality to them. The bigger issue is that the half hour format completely sabotages the pacing. This just gives everything a kind of breathless clip as we move from one situation to another with no sense of rhythm and no time to really sit with any of these little bits that the main girl likes to do. I wouldn’t even say the voice acting is particularly great, which is a real issue because the female lead should ideally have a ton of range for something like this.
All told this just kind of sucks. I’m not a fan and would advise anyone who thinks the general premise is interesting to check out the manga instead.
Failure Frame: So first of all, to get what is obviously the most important thing out of the way, this show opens on a scene taking place in a bus. And I swear this is the same fucking bus as the one from Instant Death Skill back in Winter. If it’s not, I must truly be losing my mind.
Anyway, my overall impression of this is extremely negative; artless, self-pitying, relentlessly unpleasant drivel. The entire episode’s convoluted, contrived, cookie-cutter setup is an excuse to pen what is essentially shameless trauma venting. Rendered in thin metaphor via the stock isekai plot, sure, but trauma venting nonetheless. The one bright spot is Koshimizu Ami, voice actress for the disdainful goddess who summons our hero (and his entire class) to this other world. She absolutely kills the performance and one gets the sense that she just enjoyed having an excuse to turn in something this hammy.
That’s obviously not enough to sabotage something with writing this rancid, though. My main takeaway was just a strong feeling that I shouldn’t be watching this. Since first viewing the episode I’ve talked to some people who did like it and understand that there’s a sort of camp-edge value that some find in this sort of thing, but I couldn’t see it, personally. Very strongly not for me, thank you.
Dungeon People: This was okay! I do not think I will watch more of it, but it was okay.
Most of this first episode is just setup for the show’s general premise: a typical fantasy rogue is exploring a Wizardry-style dungeon, and accidentally breaks into the “back side” of the dungeon, and meets its manager, a little girl with vast magic powers. All of this amounts to, basically, a workplace comedy taking place in a JRPG dungeon, because our main character gets drafted into helping to keep the place running. It’s a decently fun premise, and the comedy is solid. I particularly like the bits that call back to this genre’s origins as a series of riffs on Wizardry, such as the wireframe-like effect when the MC senses some monsters through a wall. Also, it’s nice to see something that’s minimalist on purpose in an era where many shows can kind of feel accidentally so because they just aren’t done at air time. (See Giji Harem above, for example.)
My main issue is just that the show is so languid that it feels a bit boring. I compare this to other fantasy anime from this year with comedy leanings, like Dungeon Meshi or ‘Tis Time For Torture, Princess, both shows with a much livelier cast and just more going on in general, and it just doesn’t really measure up. That’s reductive and unfair, but it’s a competitive season in a competitive year, and I only have so much time on my hands. So I think this goes, somewhat reluctantly, into the drop pile. It’s just not quite good enough.
Narenare -Cheer For You!-: We end on a high note, because wow is this thing weird. There is a strange, perpendicular disconnect between what Nanare Hananare seems to want to be and what it actually is.
What it wants to be: an inspirational / lightly funny girls-get-it-done story about the joy and female camaraderie found in cheerleading. The obvious point of comparison here is Anima Yell!, a fun but mostly-forgotten anime with exactly that premise from about five years back.
What it actually is: A series of Sonic the Hedgehog speedrunning videos. A completely ridiculous tossed salad of diced gay vibes, a unique, soft visual look which makes the series seem to take place in a perpetual sunset, bizarre comedy, incredible feats of parkour and general People Flipping Over sorts of stuff, and a main story buried in there somewhere about a girl who’s undergoing physical therapy because of an illness and feels inspired when the main character, her best friend, cheerleads. Jokes include the fact that every character is dumb as a brick, a nonspecifically blonde foreigner named Anna [Tago Takeda Larissa] who they attempt to pass off as Brazilian and who smooches everyone she meets, the antics of a powerfully stoic freerunner / parkour ninja girl Suzuha [Nakashima Yuki], a Catholic school called “Ojou Girls High”, and on, and on. It feels near-Birdiewingian, but quite unlike Birdie Wing, this somehow feels entirely unintentional.
What a bizarre thing! What an absolute delight! I’m glad I took the time to check this out and I heartily recommend it.
Premiere season is, impressively, not over. So I will quite possibly see you again very soon, anime fans.
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