Before I get started, let me say that for a minute, I thought about not picking up ANY shows this season. Again, there’s just a complete lack of yuri-ish shows (except probably YuYuYu), and I’ve never been into Demon Slayer or any of these other shows that have new seasons. And none of these other shows seem like they’re “must-see” material, so I was really tempted to just sit this season out. But we’re already not doing a News Update this month (more on that later), so we can’t not do a First Impressions post either. Enough of my rambling. Here are our thoughts on the fall anime season that just began~
Category Archives: Anime
2021 Summer Anime Season: Final Thoughts
It’s that time of the year again, so here are some of our Final Thoughts of the summer anime season that just came to an end~
I actually dropped Blue Reflection at about the halfway mark, but I wrote about what I thought up until that point. 😛
Prior to this being announced, I had never heard of the Blue Reflection game, so I don’t know how the anime mirrors to the game (if it mirrors it at all). What I do know is that Blue Reflection Ray was another dark magical girl anime where despair is king, and while I thought it started out in a pretty interesting fashion, over time, my interest fell pretty hard. A lot of that has to do with how the story felt stretched out, no doubt because of this being two cours.
Compared to some other non-Madoka dark magical girl anime, I thought the story had some interesting aspects to it, but I was disappointed when it was apparent that the villains were comically evil. I hated Shino, Uta, and Nina, though a part of me liked Mio. It’s pretty much the opposite when it comes to the main cast. Ruka, Momo, and Miyako were winners in my book, though I was less impressed with Hiori.
Thanks to the bad girls, this anime seemed to have a decent amount of yuri, so there’s a very good chance that I’ll finish watching this and review it in the near future. Based on the other dark magical girl anime that I’ve seen, the bar for these types of shows isn’t too high (if we’re not talking about Madoka), and the first cour of Blue Reflection is probably not the least enjoyable one I’ve seen. I’ve stretched this out long enough, so stay tuned for a proper review in the coming weeks… hopefully. 😀
Anime Review: Battle Skipper
Synopsis: Despite the title, this is not a feature but the three-part OVA Battle Skipper (1995), which Takashi Watanabe directed before going on to Slayers.
When the members of the Etiquette Club at St. Ignacio’s School for Girls go down the tubes–literally–they acquire the skimpy outfits they wear to pilot the unfortunately named BSs or Battle Skippers, state-of-the-art military mecha. As “Extars,” the Etiquette Club members fight to eliminate evil from the world, which means the bizarre schemes of Sayaka, the nasty, super-rich president of the rival Debutante Club, and her flunky, Todo.
The series was created to promote a line of robot toys from Tomy, and viewers who are willing to accept high school girls’ quarrels escalating into battles involving satellite weaponry may enjoy these silly adventures.
Anime Review – Princess Principal: Crown Handler 1
Synopsis: The film is set in London at the end of the 19th century and after the attempted assassination of the Imperial princess in the television anime. The Empire is increasing counter-spy actions in the wake of the incident, and finds Control, the Commonwealth group in charge of covert operations against the Empire, at unease and suspecting its spy within the royal family as a double agent. Control assigns their spy ring Dove with a new mission to extract a secondhand bookstore owner and deliver him to Commonwealth hands. Ange, Dorothy, and Chise successfully spring the bookstore owner from an Imperial prison. Control also assigns Dove to make contact with Bishop, their spy within the royal family, to ascertain their loyalties.
2021 Summer Anime Season: First Impressions
It’s that time of the year again, so enjoy our First Impressions of the 2021 summer anime season that just started~
We’ll also be watching the second season of Magia Record, but since that doesn’t begin until the end of the month, we’re going on ahead and writing about the other anime we’ve begun watching.
2021 Spring Anime Season: Final Thoughts
It’s that time of the year again, so enjoy our Final Thoughts of the spring anime season that just came to an end~
After watching the first episode a few months ago, it was pretty clear that this revival of Battle Athletess wasn’t going to be good, but this was a classic case of a franchise that should’ve stayed dormant. In every regard, this seemed like a regression from the previous Battle Athletess anime, which I didn’t even think were that great to begin with. There are so many bad things to point out here, but maybe the thing that stuck out the most to me was just how boring this was. The straightforward plot made the competition to become the next Cosmo Beauty almost irrelevant, since the events often took a backseat to the meddling from an incredibly generic set of villains, and it was clear that none of the other girls were a real challenge to Kanata or Eva. Even the finale was amazingly anti-climactic, so I was bored for almost the entire twelve episode run.
Anime Review: Vlad Love
Synopsis: Mitsugu Banba is a high school girl who finds meaning in donating blood. She frequently visits a blood bank to donate blood, despite being harshly treated by the nurse. One day, she encounters a beautiful girl who looks like she’s from overseas at the blood bank. The pale girl looks like she’s about to faint any minute, but then, she starts destroying the blood bank. The girl loses consciousness and Mitsugu takes her home…
I don’t know about you, but there are times when I’m not all that enthused to watch anime. A major reason is simply because it feels like most of these shows are super similar and lack any sort of originality. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen almost all of them. But then an anime like Vlad Love comes along and turns out to be so weird and all over the place that your faith in anime humanity is restored for a minute.