I worry with adaptations of series with short chapters like this, that the constant cutting and transitioning will turn people off. Sometimes the transitions can be quite jarring and pull viewers out of it. This episode wasn’t too bad about it which gives me hope that people will stick with it. One of the worst at this I have seen was probably “The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch” where they would have transition scenes and then cut back right to the exact same scene.

I love how the VA delivered that line. She dropped her voice like two whole registers to say “zenbu.”

Are you me? I agree with basically all of this (though I do have some foresight as I am up to date on the manga). Last season, Aqua was edge-lordy for sure, but he was also quite extroverted when it suited him, like when he was on the dating show. The on-camera vs. off-camera personas of Aqua were quite different. In these rehearsals though, we only ever really see the off-camera version of him where he fashions himself as an avenger of sorts.

Himekawa is listed as 19 iirc in his intro text when he shows up at first, so it’s not too bad since I think Kana is 17 or so here. He is simply such a good actor you fell for his 30-something year old character!

Also agreed on the OP and ED. It is just the first episode though. I can’t say I was sold on the ED last season until they started to use it to great effect for dramatic outros. So, time to grow on me yet.

I am so on board for this. I adore the manga for this series, so I was a bit nervous about seeing it be adapted. However, the leads do a great job. Eiji is a remarkably goofy person and it comes across here well. The short manga chapters means that you get so many quick little scenes to inject that romance into your veins. I am guessing due to how quickly they knock out chapters that we are likely to get a complete adaptation this season. I am really looking forward to it.

Alright, so, this edge case popped up on a show last season too. Basically, AniList had the release date scheduled for Sunday (which is still the broadcast release date), then they later revised the release date to a point in the past. Because rikka is only looking forward in time for episodes, she missed the revision of the episode 1 release time, so she still is planning on making the thread on Sunday. I have worked a little on how to address this edge case, but decided to knock out the requestable and wiki modules of rikka first since keeping the wiki updated was taking much more of my time.

As for the show, I am unable to find it available yet (even on the high seas). I see on AniList that it is available on abema, a Japan-only streaming service a couple days prior to general release. They must have revised their release date from the broadcast date to the abema streaming date. So, I would prefer to keep the post scheduled for Sunday when it is generally available if that is when people are actually going to be actively watching it.

However, for episodes 2+, that means the post will get created a couple days early. So, either we live with early episode threads or I commit to making threads manually on the general release day (they should be requestable by anybody as well). I will think about the best way to handle this going forward.

I haven’t read this one before, but will probably give it a watch as it promises to have lively comment threads based on two other people I can think of. 😄

Her range is kinda crazy to me. She can be Hibiki or Delta on the one hand, then a kuudere like Yumiella on the other and nail both types of characters. She is already very successful, but she is going to have a long and productive career for sure.

Yeah, that checks out. By no means is it the first time that it has happened to a series. Like mentioned above, it isn’t so bad that I won’t be watching, but it just felt off.

This pretty much echoes my experience as well. I felt that the horniness around the stocking scene is a bit out of place given what we know about the characters so far. I think this show is going to live or die by the writing and chemistry between the main pair. I think this show has potential.

I had a little bit of time today, so I thought I would check this out before a lot of other shows get going for the season. Overall, it was fine. I think Alya is a kind of fresh take on a tsundere in that she verbalizes her tsun in Japanese and then verbalizes her dere in Russian.

I was kind of surprised that we learn so early in the story that the MC also knows Russian. I had figured that might make for a good reveal later. He has to basically act like he doesn’t understand in the same way that Miko has to pretend not to see ghosts in Mieruko-chan. Speaking of Mieruko-chan, this show reminded me of that in the fan service that felt a little out of place. Like, if Alya is too embarrassed to speak to the MC, why is she suddenly teasing him Nagatoro-style with stockings?

In any case, I think there is good potential here, so I am going to try to give it another episode or two. I think a lot of the success or failure of this show is going to depend on the banter and chemistry between the main pair.

@[email protected] I am in this screenshot and I don’t like it.

This episode had a lot of heavy lifting to do. It had to introduce the story of the play they are adapting, a whole lot of new characters, and fill us in on the motivations behind the characters that we already know. Overall, I think it handled all that quite well, though there were times where just too much was happening on screen at any given time with subtitles over subtitles, I had to rewatch certain portions to pick it up. We also didn’t get much Ruby and no Memcho this episode, but I am sure they will be coming soon.

My favorite sequence through all of this episode is how they depicted Kana’s acting limiter being removed. Her and Himekawa had such a fantastic sequence together in rehearsal. @[email protected]

These are homophones in Japanese. Same thing as words like their/there/they’re or seas/sees/seize, etc. Words that sound the same but are written differently. The Japanese language has tons of them. Often, the ambiguity around homophones is used as a source of humor, causing misunderstandings between characters in anime/manga or puns that add a layer of humor to an otherwise normal thing to say.

That is fantastic. I know some people don’t like when localization goes beyond just translation, but that is a work of art.

A quick search turned up a game for the Sega Saturn. I have heard of the series before, but didn’t know about the game until now.

Yeah, this only adapts the first chapter of the manga and Takuma kinda sucks here. I had kind of forgotten that this is how we are introduced to his character because it feels so different than how he acts in the rest of the story. Like, the obsessing over Mina is always there, but the drinking and overall patheticness are dialed back going forward and it is much more of just a romance.

What are your thoughts on Mina’s voice? Unlike Mina, I have mixed feelings about it. I am hoping that I get more used to it as time goes on.

Yeah…I was excited for this one since I really like the manga. However, my excitement has dropped a bit after the first episode. I am not sure if I am going to get used to the Mina voice or not. I hadn’t watched any of the PVs before diving in since I knew this was one I was going to check out already, but…yeah…will take some getting used to. This might be one of those things that is done better in the manga format, where the dialog boxes are shaped differently to denote that Mina is speaking:

Otherwise, this episode only adapts the first manga chapter, establishing the premise. Now that we got Takuma’s pathetic phase out of the way, we can focus on the actual fun part of the story. Reading into the OP and ED, it looks like we are going to get a pretty full cast of characters. However, some notable absences from the characters we see that I welcome:

Looking forward to see where this goes and I am hoping that the Mina voice won’t bother me as much going forward.

@[email protected]

Have you read the source for this one? I haven’t really looked at the Fall season too much yet to see what’s coming. The only show I know is airing this Fall I am definitely watching is Natsume. So, likely plenty of room to squeeze in a good otome story.

Their teaser visual is basically just a lightly edited version of the LN Vol. 1 cover. However, the date announcement I thought was worth posting. The series was originally announced back in 2023 with no updates since.

I am trying to think of demographics that wouldn’t really be represented here and I came up with a couple ideas, but the biggest is probably kids. So, I wonder if a show like Tonbo! did well enough with a young audience to get a second season, but it just isn’t showing up here.

It’s pretty safe to say that Astro Note bombed pretty hard based on the staff apologizing about the show.

Weekly ranking roundup:

1. Anime Corner - Full Results - Weekly Winner: Kaiju No. 8
2. Reddit Karma - Weekly Winner: Mushoku Tensei

Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma.

In the final week of the year, Kaiju and Demon Slayer made some gains on the charts. As the new shows pop up on the charts this coming week, it will be interesting to see how things shake out.