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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2020 First Impressions – Keep Your Hands off Eizouken!, Pet, and Sorcerous Stabber Orphen.

Life’s been busy lately. In addition to the new anime season, I’ve been attempting to keep up with the Awesome Games Done Quick stream, which has become a wonderful Winter tradition that I look forward to every year. I’ve been a fan of video game speed runs for a long time, ever since discovering TAS (tool-assisted speed run) videos way back in the day. It’s difficult to strike a balance between watching the new anime I’m excited about and experiencing the video game speed run culture I’ve grown to enjoy; in the end, both things are fleeting. Yet, the thing about new anime is that people talk about it on the internet, and there are a lot of spoilers, so sometimes it’s better to spoiler-proof oneself than to worry too much about whether the blindfolded Punch-Out run will be successful.

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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2020 First Impressions – Magia Record, ID: Invaded, and Seton Academy: Welcome to the Pack!

Now that Winter season premieres have kicked-off, it feels good to be back in the swing of things again. There was quite a bit of real-life stuff that kept me away from my writing over the past couple of months, so the fact that the timing worked out with my availability is a big relief for me. I’m hoping to stay as “on top” of things as possible this season. It’s always been my goal to watch and write about each premier before their second episodes come out. Thus far I haven’t been successful, but I’ve been close a couple of times in the past so I’m hopeful that I’ll achieve the goal someday.

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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2020 First Impressions – Somali and the Forest Spirit, Asteroid in Love, and Darwin’s Game

Oh yes, it’s that time again – time for new anime to debut and impress all of us anime fans! Despite forgetting to write about my most anticipated series until the last minute as usual, believe me when I say I’m usually pretty on top of what’s being released; my excitement exists even if that’s not always evident from what’s written here. Now that a couple of series have popped onto their various streaming services, it’s time to dive in and get excited.

Of course, there are just a few book keeping items to get out of the way, especially if you’re a new reader. These impressions are just that – impressions of first episodes, and not meant to be reviews of entire series. That said, I believe anime generally try to put their best foot forward early on, so if there are troubling things present in episode 1 (for me, that generally means overt sexism, racism, gratuitous violence, or other various content markers that tend to indicate stories that I’d find insulting in some way) I certainly want to mention that, and will be less likely to want to watch more of the series. And before anyone says anything about it – yes, I always end up with more than enough series to fill up my time, and don’t consider myself overly picky in any respect.

In any case, on to the new anime!

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Previews Reviews

Winter 2020 Anime – What I’m Looking Forward To

As usual, the new anime season kind of crept up on me. In my defense, the holidays late in the year take up a lot of my mental energy, and my job lately has been a real test of my patience (transitioning to a new position, yet still performing many aspects of my old one in addition while trying to learn the new processes). So maybe you readers will forgive me for being kind of absent for the last few weeks. Now that I have a day off and fewer weekend plans for a while, maybe anime can take the top spot on my priority list for a while (at least until Anime Detour prep ramps into high gear in a couple months… sheesh).

As with all my other seasonal previews, some of the things that sound interesting to me on paper may not pan-out at all come broadcast time, while series that don’t sound that compelling might turn out to be instant classics. That’s really the fun of discovering anime series as they appear on the many streaming services to which I subscribe – finding the good stuff where you don’t expect it feels like uncovering buried treasure. Anyway, below are some things that I’m interested in.

Note: As usual I’m using the confirmed/probable English titles of the anime in order to make it easier for readers to locate legal streams of the anime in which they’re interested.

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Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – KONOSUBA: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World – Legend of Crimson

The Crimson Demon village that Megumin and Yunyun are from is facing a threat that could mean it’s ending. Kazuma and his gang follow Yunyun, who returns to the Crimson Demon village intent on saving it when they are faced with their greatest threat yet. – ANN

Availability: Theatrical Release

Episodes: 1 Film

Source: Light Novel

Review: Note: This review contains some plot spoilers for the film.

Sometimes it’s good to go outside your comfort zone; in other cases, it’s good to be reminded why your comfort zone exists in the first place. I had the opportunity to attend a screening of the Konosuba movie recently. To be honest, the extent of what I know about the series comes mostly from memes, gags, and general fandom osmosis, because the original anime adaptation was released when I was at a low point and I never found the time to go back and catch up with it. I assumed it wouldn’t be too difficult to get my bearings, especially since it’s difficult not to have some passing familiarity with the main characters and their foibles at this point in the anime fandom game. That, and when the cold hits in Minneapolis there’s really not that much else to do than join your local fandom friends in a fun indoors activity, so why not?

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Reviews

What I’m Watching – Carole & Tuesday (Eps. 1-12)

Note: This post contains some spoilers for the series through episode 12.

This past weekend I got the opportunity to speak at GalaxyCon, a multi-media fandom convention in my hometown. We capped off our weekend presenting “Shiny New Anime,” a panel where my husband and I share thoughts about and clips of some of our favorite anime from the past year (on a roughly 12-month rolling scale… sometimes stuff a little bit older sneaks in there if it has a second season or we missed it the first time around). In the lead-up to a convention, I generally try to catch up and finish at least some of the series on my plate; my general viewing habits aren’t that great, and while I’m sure I’d get more done if I kept up with anime on a weekly basis, the reality is that aside from a few shows where being caught-up is pretty necessary (Attack on Titan comes to mind), I tend to watch anime in multi-episode chunks after-the-fact.

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First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2019 First Impressions – Shorts

The most horrifying fried rice.

I usually like saving short-form anime impressions for later, since that leaves enough time for a couple of episodes to arrive, offsetting the lack of content. There seem to be far fewer anime shorts this season than in previous ones, so I wonder if the form is falling out of favor with creators or broadcasters. In any case, below are impressions of this season’s selections.

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Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Promare

30 years ago, a cataclysmic event destroyed half the world in a fire and caused a mutation that created a new race of people called Burnish. Burnish are able to create and control fire.The “Burning Rescue” fire squad put out fires caused by Burnish. The new rookie of Burning Rescue is Galo, a hotheaded man who wields “Matoi-Tech,” named after the “matoi” banners that Edo-period firefighting units used. Galo’s encounter with Lio, the leader of a Burnish terrorist group called Mad Burnish, sets the story in motion. – ANN

Availability: Theatrical Release

Episodes: 1 film + 2 ONA episodes

Source: Original

Review: Note: This review may contain mild plot spoilers for the film.

Theatrical showings of anime films aren’t exactly the “events” that they once were. In the past they were so uncommon that I’d expect to see many of the people I knew from anime fandom in the theater. Nowadays, while anime films still don’t typically get a wide release, there are enough of them shown during limited theatrical runs that I can afford to be choosy and support the ones I’m truly interested in. Still, on occasion, there’ll be an anime film that seems to appeal to a wide enough audience that they manage to capture the electricity inherent in a theater full to the brim with enthusiastic fans. The showing of Promare I attended was nearly sold-out, and the bustle of the otaku fan base definitely added another dimension to the experience of viewing this film, which is definitely what I’d call an “experience” to begin with.

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Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Given

Ritsuka played guitar but has lost interest in the instrument. One day, he meets Mafuyu, who is holding a broken guitar. Ritsuka unwillingly starts teaching Mafuyu the guitar, but when he hears Mafuyu’s voice, things suddenly begin to change for Ritsuka. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 11

Source: Manga

Review: Note: this review may contain mild spoilers for the anime series.

When I was in high school I played flute in the concert band. I enjoyed it so much that I even took outside lessons and participated in the annual solo competitions put on by the area schools. I didn’t have a great time in school overall, but being able to express myself through music is one of the better memories I have of that time in my life. I came to the realization at some point that when your emotions operate outside what other people are willing to tolerate on a regular basis, it’s life’s other more artistic avenues that serve as an alternative outlet for those complicated, powerful feelings.

Given is the story of a budding relationship between two high school students, a tale it heartily accomplishes through sensitive, slow-burn character development. But it’s also a peek into the life of someone dealing with trauma and the shame that seemed to crop up in its aftermath. Unsurprisingly, it’s music that seems to tie everything together.

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First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2019 First Impressions – Part 6

Well folks, it looks like we made it to the end of this season’s new anime (well, excluding shorts and sequels… of which there are a ton this time!). While I’d say it hasn’t really been a mind-blowing season so far, it’s at least been kind of interesting. But I’m getting ahead of myself – there are still a few more new series to take a peek at before passing any major judgments.

And this is probably something that I should have said at the outset, and definitely bears repeating – these are just impressions based on 1 episode, so by definition can’t necessarily speak for the entire series. However, one thing I always look for is potential, whether that’s the potential to entertain or the potential to offend, and that’s something that can often be gleaned just by determining how a series puts its best (or I suppose first) foot forward.

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