First Impression: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (Season 3)

Rimuru, freshly recognized as a demon lord, dines with his new colleagues before returning home. There he is greeted by various people, including the demon going by the name Diablo. The bulk of the episode is a flashback to all Diablo’s machinations in the kingdom of Falmuth on behalf of Rimuru. There’s a bit of torture and a lot of talking. The upshot is the king will soon be deposed (and probably replaced by someone more favorable to Rimuru and his nation of monsters), and Falmuth will pay a huge amount of reparations for the war they waged last season. And that’s it. That’s the episode. Thrilling, right?

(Read More)

First Impression: I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability

In a flashback, some nobles gang up on a commoner and, after mocking his puny magic, murder him. Even as he burns to death, he can’t stop admiring how cool the nobles’ magic is. He wakes as Lloyd, the infant seventh prince of the kingdom. The OP plays, and then we’ve flashed forward a few years (a later line of dialogue seems to indicate he’s ten). With the intellect of an adult, he seems a prodigy to those around him. He’s obsessed with studying magic, but just when he reaches the library, Sylpha the combat maid catches him and makes practice the sword with her. Lloyd uses magic as they spar. Oh, look, a random bathing scene with Lloyd (remember, ten-year-old boy) and a bunch of naked maids. Because reasons? Moving on from the pedophilia, the maids gab about how there’s a demon named Grimoire sealed in a book in the secret forbidden underground library (which they somehow know about). Lloyd sneaks in, because that’s how these stories go, and he meets the demon. When Grimoire offers to teach him long-lost ancient magic, Lloyd frees the demon. It promptly attacks him, but of course Lloyd’s magic is stronger, so NBD. Grinning like a psychopath, Lloyd wrecks Grimoire. The demon concedes the fight and swears to become Lloyd’s familiar, taking on chibi form.

(Read More)

First Impression: The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash

A little girl in ragged clothing collects a variety of objects from hidey-holes in the woods. She also engages in dumpster diving (hence the bit in the title about picking up trash). She’s on the run, fleeing a village that wants to kill her. She casts aside her old name, Femicia, in favor of calling herself Ivy. She finds a tiny, rare slime clinging to a leaf, and proceeds to give an infodump monologue…to the slime…about how humans in this world receive skills from the gods at age five, and those skills have a number of stars to indicate how strong they are. Ivy received a monster-taming skill, but only one skill, rather than multiple as is the norm, and with a shocking zero stars, making it practically useless. Her family and village decided this means she was cursed by the gods, making her an outcast, and eventually they decided to kill her. The town’s fortune teller still showed her kindness, but she was the only one, and now that she’s dead, Ivy is alone. But it turns out this slime is so weak that even Ivy, with her 0-star taming skill, can tame it; she does so, and names it Sora. Ivy plans to journey to the capital.

(Read More)

First Impression: Doctor Elise: The Royal Lady with the Lamp

We open with a catastrophic airplane crash. Cut to Aoi Takamoto, a highly skilled surgeon who has saved countless lives. Her friend and colleague Shouko calls her the “Surgeon Queen.” Aoi and Shouko grab dinner with a younger colleague who is starstruck to meet the great Surgeon Queen, and later she runs into the daughter of one of her past patients, who tearfully thanks her. But Aoi has a secret: she remembers her past life in another world, where she was Elise de Clorence, an evil empress who was burned at the stake by a mob led by the man she loved. To atone for unspecified misdeeds committed in her first life, Aoi became a doctor, with the aim of saving as many lives as she could. This brings us back the opening, where Aoi was on a flight to Germany to perform an exceptionally difficult surgery. She survives the crash and promptly begins administering first aid to the other passengers. But then it turns out she suffered a fatal wound, and she dies…only to wake up as Elise once again. She’s overwhelmed to see her parents and brothers again, and tells them she loves them.

(Read More)

First Impression: Classroom of the Elite (Season 3)

Everyone’s favorite cutthroat high schoolers are back, and they’re going to camp in the mountains for a week. The plan is for everyone to be split into groups with members of other classes, and then they have to work together with those teammates throughout the week. Groups that fail to pass a series of tests at the end of the week will see two members expelled from school. Of particular note, there’s conflict brewing between the current and former student body presidents, and the inscrutable sociopathic genius protagonist Ayanokoji finds himself getting dragged into the kerfuffle. Who will wind up tricked, betrayed, beaten up, humiliated, and/or expelled this season? Tune in to find out!

(Read More)

First Impression: I Shall Survive Using Potions!

Kaoru accidentally dies when a god tries to fix a space-time anomaly. The god offers her a chance to reincarnate in a fantasy world, and she bids farewell to her family and friends in a dream. She meets another god, Celes, who grants Kaoru language comprehension, an Item Box skill, and the ability to conjure up potions with any effect she wants in any sort of container she wishes. Kaoru makes it to a town where she tries to sell her potions, but no one is interested, at least not until some injured hunters show up and Kaoru can demonstrate the efficacy of her wares. See, while this world technically does have “magic” just like Kaoru was told, it’s piddly and weak and not remotely on the level of a standard isekai fantasy setting like she expected. She’s quickly hailed as a miracle worker and angel. The corrupt local lord promptly attempts to take advantage of her abilities, but Kaoru dupes everyone, steals the furniture and a maid’s clothes, and escapes.

(Read More)

First Impression: Shangri-La Frontier

An…oddly…dressed figure (a face mask and underwear) defeats the dark lord, then attacks the NPC who was cheering him on. It’s Faeria Chronicle Online, also nicknamed Failia for how bad it is. High schooler Rakuro’s hobby is beating bad VR games—”trash games.” Assorted other things happen. His mom collects butterflies and beetles. At school, a girl named Rei tries to talk to him but gets cut off. Shop owner Mana suggests Rakuro try playing an actually good game for once. He launches Shangri-La Frontier and designs a new character: a man with a bird head mask, short shorts, and no other clothes; apparently, he sells all his clothes to buy the best weapons he can, and wears a mask because it would be embarrassing for people to see his face while he goes around mostly naked? #logic He fights some monsters and levels up.

(Read More)

First Impression: Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence

Cecilia is a saint, and Lawrence is a pastor. I mean, what else were you expecting? It’s right there in the title. They work together at a small country church. She has a big crush on him, though he’s oblivious to it. While she can act very saintly around others, when it’s just her and “Lawren,” she behaves in a silly/lazy fashion (though it doesn’t help that Lawrence is a bit overprotective toward her). They interact with folks at the church and walk around town together, getting into the occasional romcom situation like needing to share an umbrella.

(Read More)

First Impression: The Great Cleric

Luciel was a salaryman in Japan who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got shot. He reincarnates in a fantasy world and decides to become a healer, believing the vocation will provide him with a stable living. At the city gate, he meets a lady knight named Lumina who provides some guidance, and soon he embarks on an intensive magic training regimen. With that completed, and having learned that healers don’t have the best of reputations, he sets out to look for work, and soon finds a chance to volunteer his services.

(Read More)

First Impression: The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior

At eight years old, Princess Pride awakens to memories of her past life, recalling how when she was eighteen and lived in Japan, Truck-kun isekai’d her. Now she realizes she’s living in an otome game…and she’s the utterly despicable villainess. Others see her as acquiring a hereditary power of precognition, but from Pride’s POV, she’s just remembering things from the game. Of particular note, she remembers/foresees that she has a younger sister, Tiara–the game’s protagonist. For some reason, Pride’s mother the queen has largely ignored her and focused her attention on the other daughter she’s kept secret from Pride. Well, once Pride’s gift becomes known, her place in the line of succession is secured, and the government conscripts a young boy named Stale to be Pride’s aide, ripping him away from his mother. This is apparently a custom of her kingdom, but it’s a pretty disturbing practice that suggests all is not well in this world. In the future, Stale will be one of the game’s love interests. Throughout these events, Pride has disturbing flashbacks/premonitions of things Game Pride did, like forcing Stale to kill his mother.

(Read More)

First Impression: Technoroid Overmind

A family (?) of androids watches fireworks on a beach. Cut to elsewhere with the androids on beds and one making some cryptic comments about destiny and reuniting. Cut to a “commercial” segment that explains how, in the wake of global warming and a massive decrease in human population, androids are picking up the slack. We meet Neon, Kei, Chrom, and Cobalt, the wonky androids, and a responsible AI named Eliza. The androids need money to pay the electric bill, so they head to Babel, an entertainment resort the shape of a huge tower (because towers named “Babel” have such a great track record), which draws in the four with the promise of easy money working as performers. Predictably, they have no clue what they’re doing and are unceremoniously booted from the hall. The group witness a top-performing idol group, STAND-ALONE. On the way home, the droid quartet meets a human boy named Esora just as he passes out from heatstroke; he had just attended a cremation for his adoptive father, rendering him an orphan twice over. They team up to search for the location shown in a mysterious home video, and quickly find it; Esora recalls visiting the park. The androids start singing for no apparent reason. They return to Babel and are suddenly competent performers. The stinger: while trying to return a lost hat, the four androids witness a robot throwing a drunk guy into a lava pit. No, really.

A story with singing androids and brewing human-AI conflict, huh? Totally doesn’t ring a bell. I found this episode a bit disjointed, with the parts not flowing together smoothly and kind of dragging at times. I also struggled to tell which characters are human and which are androids. It’s not at all clear from the first episode just where the story is going (I’m especially leery of assuming Esora will have a long-term role after Vivy kept killing off its human characters). Is Babel at the heart of an evil robot conspiracy led by Skynet that the androids will need to pose as idols in order to infiltrate? I’m just not sure how the parts of this story are supposed to come together. Is this a comedy? A found family story? Terminator? Even with all my complaints, though, the mysterious and ominous ending was enough to pique my curiosity about this show. I’ll come back for another episode, at least, before I make a final judgment about it.

=====

Technoroid Overmind is streaming on Crunchyroll.

First Impression: A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics

A castle burns with the flames of war, and a young princess flees through a portal to another world. An energetic OP plays, seemingly combining real-world photos/video with animation for a super trippy result. In Gifu, a “rather simple, bland detective” named Sosoke tails a mark when a portal opens in the sky and a girl—the princess from the intro—falls on him. She introduces herself as Sara. They discuss the isekai phenomenon, and Sara demonstrates her magic. Meanwhile, Sara’s silver-haired bodyguard Livia escapes and follows her through the portal. She is slathered in the blood of her enemies, which naturally requires a bathing scene for her to clean up, which then smoothly transitions into a “stabbing fish with a sword while standing in the middle of the Nagara River naked” scene. Later she meets a homeless chap named Suzuki. Meanwhile, Sara and Sosuke chat more, and we get a montage of Sara learning about our world. Then Sosuke is once again investigating a salaryman on suspicions of infidelity, but it turns out the guy was paying hush money to some thugs who are blackmailing him. They seem to be about to beat the poor chap to death, so Sosuke starts to intervene…only to be backed up by Sara and her magic. They stomp the thugs, and back home, Sara finally convinces Sosuke to let her help with his detective work.

(Read More)

First Impression: The Banished Former Hero Lives as He Pleases

Allen is the son of a duke, but only for about thirty seconds, before he’s promptly disinherited by his blatantly villainous father for being level 1 and receiving no blessing from the gods. Secretly, though, Allen is the reincarnation of a long-dead hero and he’s super OP. He chances upon Princess Lise as she’s in danger and saves her. They seem oddly familiar, and later it’s revealed that they used to be betrothed. We also meet Beatrice, Lise’s guardian knight. They journey on, finding a hero named Akira and helping her defeat a dragon. Allen breaks his sword, so they go visit a top-tier elven blacksmith Lise knows named Noelle. She agrees to make a sword. While waiting, the party meets some mysterious strangers (one of whom is also a cute girl—that makes five so far), but the strangers are secretly nefarious and are plotting with Allen’s nefarious family to do nefarious things. Once the sword is finished, they go out to test it, and run into a fearsome monster that Noelle has some sort of traumatic history with. This is supposed to be a cliffhanger, but we already know how crazy-strong Allen is, so it’s hard to get worried.

(Read More)

First Impression: 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!

Emperor Arnold Hein storms a castle, killing the knights who defend it, including Rishe…who reverts back to five years earlier, on the night when her fiancé Prince Dietrich dumped her. But this isn’t the first time she’s died—it’s the sixth! Each loop begins when Prince Dietrich annuls their engagement and her parents disown her. She lives for about five years, then inevitably dies in one way or another. In brief flashbacks, we learn she became a merchant in her first life, an herbalist in her second, a scholar in her third, a maid in her fourth, and of course she disguised herself as a man and became a knight in her sixth. Faced once again with that classic scene of the villainess genre, where a noble young lady is denounced by her princely fiancé, Rishe wastes no time making a hasty exit. But this time she takes a different route to depart the palace—and consequently bumps into Arnold (currently only a prince), before jumping off a second-story balcony. But Arnold, that warmongering emperor who personally killed her in her last life, follows her home and…proposes to her?!

(Read More)

First Impression: The Dreaming Boy is A Realist

Boy (Wataru) likes Girl (Aika). Girl rejects Boy—repeatedly and emphatically. Boy decides to take Girl at her word, accept that she’s out of his league, and stop pursuing her. Literally everyone else freaks out over Boy’s shocking (?) change in behavior. Second Girl (Rena) starts talking to Boy. Third Girl (Kei) berates Boy for being a womanizer (despite him not actually being in a relationship with First Girl and barely even knowing Second Girl). Third Girl reveals that Second Girl already has a boyfriend. Turns out Second Girl recently broke up with Boyfriend, and wants revenge, but then quickly makes up with said boyfriend instead? Boy’s older sister shows up and seems likely to be somehow significant.

(Read More)

First Impression: Level 1 Demon Lord & One Room Hero

Max the hero leads a party of adventurers in defeating the demon lord, who swears to return one day in vengeance. Flash forward ten years, and the demon lord is reborn in an obnoxious chibi form. The demon lord’s secretary Zenia plays dress-up with her diminutive boss because…reasons? Then the demon lord blasts off to go see what Max is up to these days, and finds he’s become a cynical, bitter, shut-in, womanizing, drunken, porn-using slob. Cue reactions of shock and outrage from the demon lord that his hated rival has fallen so low. The demon lord demands a rematch in the future, then makes hotpot, because he’s appointed himself Max’s caretaker.

(Read More)