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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Uncle From Another World

Streaming: Netflix

Episodes: 13

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Seventeen years ago, Takafumi’s uncle was hit by truck-kun, and while his earthly body seemed to be in a coma in the hospital, his mind was far, far away having adventures in another world. When his uncle finally wakes up, Takafumi assumes that the weird language he’s speaking is just the ramblings of a crazy person, but once his uncle demonstrates some honest-to-goodness magical ability, Takafumi begins to understand the potential for profit he may have just stumbled into.

While their YouTube career starts as a bit of a slow burn, Takafumi learns more about his uncle’s experiences while his uncle wrestles with catching up with seventeen years’ worth of technological advances and changes in the video game console landscape. While his uncle has always seemingly had issues dealing with real human relationships (his fondest memories are of video games), Takafumi learns that his uncle may have inadvertently become closer to a young woman in the other world than he may have realized at the time. As Takafumi and his uncle try to work out a way of sustaining themselves and their meager lifestyle, could his uncle’s “interesting” past come back to haunt him?

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Parallel World Pharmacy

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: A pharmacology researcher works obsessive hours as a response to the loss of his sister from cancer in their childhood. Unfortunately the endless work and little rest catch up to him one night and he collapses in his office. When he awakens, he finds himself not only in another world, but in the body of young Farma – a noble whose family is well-renowned for their talent in the medical arts. Farma was recently struck by lightning, and his maid Charlotte notices some strange marks on his arms which she believes indicate that he was saved from certain death by the god of pharmacology.

Farma soon begins to understand the implications of the situation he’s been dropped into, and starts attempting to re-learn the skills that he knew prior to being struck by lightning. As he becomes reacquainted with his abilities, it becomes apparent that he has the potential to wield a great deal of power. When his tutor Elen begins to sense something different in Farma, including the fact that he has access to powers that, as a human, he probably shouldn’t, she becomes terrified of him. Could Farma possibly be a god incarnate – or might he be a demon?

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Black Summoner

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Summoner Kelvin doesn’t remember anything about his former life. In exchange for better starting stats, he offered up his memories to Melfina, the goddess of reincarnation. Now he’s one of very few summoners in his new world, although his former self seems to have been a bit of a romantic – having fallen in love with Melfina, he somehow convinced her to tag along with him in his new life in the form of a talking stat menu. At least that’s helped him get up to speed with the customs and peculiarities of his new world.

When he registers at the local adventurers’ guild, he disguises his true skills to avoid attracting too much attention. However, he chooses his first task – defeating three blue slimes – with the extra goal of forming a summoning contract with one of the monsters. After some initial issues with underestimating the strength of blue slimes, Kelvin manages to contract with one and then complete his task. It seems that his new adventure is now underway, although the city seems to have a bit of a dark underbelly that Kelvin has only just started to uncover.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Spring 2022 First Impressions – Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: In his former life, Leon was a typical Japanese adult who happened to have been blackmailed by his younger sister into completing an otome game for her. He does it grudgingly, complaining the entire time. Unfortunately once he completes it he gets little time to celebrate his freedom from the task before taking a fatal spill down a staircase. Having been reincarnated, it takes Leon several years to realize that his new life exists within the boundaries of the otome game that he so despised.

In the world of this game, men are second-class citizens. Rather than go to the academy to try to woo a young woman as his suitor, Leon is tossed into an arranged marriage with a woman 50 years his senior. Rather than sit idly by for this scenario, Leo goes on an adventure using his prior knowledge of the game to uncover a futuristic space ship that he makes his own. Returning to his his father with treasures unimaginable, Leon buys his way into the academy to try his luck there. But searching for love among the elite might be a challenge in and of itself.

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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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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2022 First Impressions – In the Land of Leadale

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: A certain woman on life support loses her life when a blackout causes the power to fail. Yet she awakens again one morning to sun pouring through an open window. Certain things feel very familiar, and she soon realizes that this world is the inside of a VR game called “Leadale” she enjoyed playing while in the hospital, and that she’s embodied the character she created, a high elf named Cayna. When she speaks with the innkeeper, Cayna learns about a few inconsistencies from her time as a player. The seven kingdoms have now become three, following the intervention of the world’s deities. Oh, and two hundred years have also passed since Cayna’s time as an active player.

As Cayna continues to get her bearings, she decides to travel to her avatar’s Silver Tower, a home base where she once kept her items (and also, apparently wreaked much havoc against other players in the past as the notorious “Silver Ring Witch,” a moniker that seems to have survived among the populace). There, the tower’s guardian scolds her for her absenteeism, and notifies her that her “son” came looking for her about sixty years ago, an interesting fact that she files away for later. On the way back from this outing, Cayna saves a man from a horned bear attack and brings the meat back to the village for a grand feast. Cayna still isn’t sure what incarnation of Leadale this might be, but it may grant her a second chance at life in a world that she once enjoyed.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2021 First Impressions – The Faraway Paladin

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Will only has vague memories of his former life; the bits and pieces that he can recall speak to an aimlessness that he once believed would doom him to hell. When he awakens in a temple as a baby, surrounded by three undead figures, he believes that this has come to pass. However, Mary, Blood, and Gus are actually kind and mostly harmless, choosing to raise Will together.

As Will grows, he learns fighting and hunting from Blood, magic (for which he seems to have a particular aptitude) from Gus, and many of life’s smallest (but often most important) lessons from Mary. But each of these individuals seems to carry a hidden sadness that Will is only able to perceive on the most basic level, and they’re reticent to share any details of what is likely a very painful secret with Will, beyond that they made a deal with the god of the undead to remain on earth after death. As he gets older his curiosity starts to get the best of him; when he follows Mary to one of her daily prayers, Will comes away with dire injuries. But through the experience he learns of Mary’s persistence and piety and he grows closer to her.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2021 First Impressions – The World’s Finest Assassin

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: The world’s finest assassin completes his final mission with efficiency and the utmost effectiveness, providing a model for the protégé he’s been forced to drag along by his governing agency. But the mission doesn’t quite go off without a hitch – the duo is spotted by a military drone on their way from the job site and are forced to make other escape plans. It’s during the night that the assassin proves why he’s the best – he’s quieted his emotions and never trusts anyone.

As the day dawns, the two arrive back at base and are provided tickets to Japan; here the assassin will begin a new life training others like him within the organization. But betrayal is in the cards and the plane flight ends almost as quickly as it began, with all aboard being killed as part of the organization’s plot to silence their finest. But the assassin’s frustrated soul is grabbed by the goddess, who offers him a tantalizing deal in exchange for his help in a certain matter. He’ll be reborn in another world, one of fantasy and magic, with his memories and skills intact if he promises to use those skills to murder the world’s Hero.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2021 First Impressions – The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew it, My Life Had it Made

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Seiichi Hiiragi is the target of his class’s bullying, and when a literal god decides on a whim to transport the entire class to another world, this doesn’t change. While his classmates buddy-up into parties and arrive in a local castle town, Seiichi ends up in the middle of the wilderness. Despite his luck stat starting at “0,” though, he seems to have at least a bit of it on his side; he happens to find a “fruit of evolution” on the ground which he eats to fend off starvation. Though it tastes terrible, it seems to set the stage for his future success.

The mechanics of this new world are awfully game-like, and somehow Seiichi finds himself defeating monsters, gaining more skills, and “evolving” – a painful process where his body actually physically changes. Gone is the heavy-set kid he once was, replaced by a more average physique. After several months, word of his power gets out, and Seiichi is suddenly confronted by Saria, Kaiser of the clever apes. She immediately seems smitten by Seiichi’s show of power, and though she fights to kill, Seiichi’s survival skills win out – and win Saria’s heart in the process.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2021 First Impressions – Drug Store In Another World: The Slow Life of a Cheat Pharmacist

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Reiji Kirio was formerly a salaryman, but now he lives a quiet life as a pharmacist in a fantasy world alongside a friendly ghost and a werewolf. His claim to fame is his ability to create potions and medicines that actually taste good in addition to being effective. Once a local shop starts selling his energy potion, his fame spreads far and wide and things aren’t quite so quiet any longer.

This fame sometimes leads to Reiji getting involved in situations for which he might not be entirely qualified, as assumptions about his expertise mean that, to many folks, he’s the man with all the (medicinal) answers. He accepts a request from a young man whose girlfriend has been reacting in an extreme way every time he interacts with other women. Though relationship counseling is outside his purview, Reiji identifies that her paranoia is likely due to a lack of sleep, so brews a special tea that allows those who imbibe it to feel calm and sleep better. There’s never a truly dull day at this pharmacy, though it’s leaps and bounds more chill than the rat race ever was.

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