New season. New shows. But this season is actually looking a little… anemic? At least for my tastes. I will say, so far, I’ve watched five shows and how many of them did I want to stick with? Two. And how many was I PSYCHED to see more of?... None. One come close but its more I’m happy to see more of it. Anyway, let’s get to that.
The Case Study of Vanitas
Premise (from memory)
Vampires fought humans and the humans won. YAY… maybe. Set in an alternate reality Paris with weird tech (not steampunk, I don’t think but retro-futuristic), vampires still live on the down low, with humanity thinking of them as mere urban legends. One man on his way to Paris where he hope to find a legendary grimoire. While there he makes the acquaintance of a young woman… who turns out to be a vampire. The vampire is targeted by a mysterious and skilled oddball and the young man, who also turns out to be a vampire defends her. But then the young vampire girl turns dangerously out-of-control. Turns out the man hunting her, Vanitas, wasn’t planning to kill her. He’s actually a doctor who specializes in vampires. Vampires can be corrupted if magic weirdness corrupts their names. And he uses his own magic grimoire to kill her. Vanitas asks for his brave vampire’s help who would be willing to help a woman he doesn’t know… but his would-be assistant says “Nah.”
It Gud?
Its quite promising. The animation is pretty darn good. The pacing and world building shows potential. And its got a very good cat.
I guess I can give it full marks technically. It does nothing *wrong*. But the characters aren’t clicking with me. At least not yet. I guess I’m finding the title character’s energy a little much, a performative self-aggrandizing loudmouth who has skills. I’m more into his counterpoint, a friendly low-key dude who seems sweet but a little dull-witted. I don’t know enough about either of their motivations (or at least not their DEEPER emotional motivations beyond “do good”) to get invested and they aren’t completely clicking comedically. But I hold out promise because while I’m not seeing an exciting character dynamic in the show itself… the one in the intro is VERY promising to me.
It’s a very good intro but more than that it establishes character more instantly strongly to me, making the tall vampire “assistant” a take the bull by the horns carpe diem type while his friend joins him and is desperately trying to get him to do something else. I could also see this relationship as being romantic, which would be fun. But over all, this intro’s presentation of character is more compelling to me. Still, even without it, there is a lot of promise here and I’m interested to see if it lives up to it. JBear pointed out to me that the grimoire might work as more of a deus ex machina, just fixing a problem/villain of the week but I am hoping it is something a bit more.
Remake Our Lives
Premise
A 28 year old guy feels like he’s wasted his life. He wanted to be in the nerd industry but never committed himself. However, things looks up when he starts working for a game company, only to find his project and job scuttled in favor of a mobile game the company is working on. He ends up moping at home and remember when he had the options between studying something practical or taking a visual arts degree and giving up his dreams. When he wakes up the next day, he realizes he’s travelled in time to the day where he made his decision. This time going to arts university, he finds himself studying towards the goal of working in the visual arts with his dormmates.
It Gud?
The more I think about the modern day isekai genre, the more I get concerned. A lot of these shows are about people who feel they are at the end of their ropes. And for many, the solution is magical intervention rather than something they could actually do in the here and now. As if there’s no escape. Even worse, some people’s lives can only be improved by violent death. That… might not be a good message for real people who might literally be in a hard place in their lives.
Remake Our Lives isn’t “isekai” but it follows the same rules. Someone is sent somewhere else when they are in a hard time in their lives and won’t have to worry about missing their own life. It allows them to re-invigorate their sense of taking charge of their life that had once alluded them. Also, sexy girls. But I will say, it does things a lot don’t. We spend a SHOCKING amount of time with the main character before the time travel kicks in. And I was pretty OK with that. It presents the situation not as a “bottom” but being stuck in a cycle. I still don’t think the show ever really justifies time travel when it could have been “kid goes to college” but I appreciate it being something a little more patient in that respect.
And for the most part, the show isn’t BAD. For the most part. Then about 20 minutes into its 50 minute running time, it gets, like, grossly fanservice horny for a segment where the guy wakes up next to a girl who is just there, then she drinks some yogurt, which drips onto her boobs. It is… a turn. Like, visually, it was a show that looked like it could go there but the tone of the rest of the show, before and after, doesn’t really jives with these horny levels. Its pretty wild and a bit of a flag.
The rest, though, is a bit of a watchable but kind of superficial slice of life series as the character will his roommates are his gaming idols. I will say, one isekai trope intentionally taken out was knowledge of the future does not prepare him for an entirely new area in his learning. I mean, if I were him, I’d be duty bound to try to prevent the Trump administration at all costs but that’s just me. So while I won’t be watching this one, as long as it stops spilling its yogurt over everything, it’s not awful.
Peach Boy Riverside
Premise
A girl travels from village to village in a fantasy world of humans, demihumans and oni. The girl befriends a demihuman, an anthropomorphic rabbit named Frau, who is able to easily defeat an oni. However, the girl releases there is a prejudice against demihumans, which she does not care for. The duo end up arrested for dumb reasons so one of the knights responsible lets them go with an “our bad” and befriends the two. When the city is attacks by oni, including a big-ass walrus, but the rabbit girl is incapable of defeating. That’s when the girl suddenly finds herself compelled to fight, slipping into another personality.
It Gud?
Peach Boy Riverside isn’t awful but its very run of the mill. I tend to be pretty forgiving of shounen junk if I feel it can get somewhere good down the line but there’s a bit that is allowing me to give this one less of a chance than let’s say… Shaman King, which I’m sticking with even though it is neither rising above or below par (save for one character’s hair having a GREAT arc). One is that Shaman King is a known quantity. There’s some low key nostalgia here, even though I remember finding it one of the lesser longer running shounen (though certainly not as big as a mess as Bleach). But also, this first episode feels busy in its world building. I feel like the first episode should have been stop one at the village. Instead it starts in another story and introduces more characters so it feels more like a story and a half. That’s not inherently a bad thing but the world building isn’t intriguing enough to get me on the show’s side. Then its also holding back on the main characters “awesome” super power even though it is constantly and overtly hinting at it. We never even get to it by the episode’s end.
The deciding factor for me was two overt and unpleasant moments of horniness. One is the lead, apropos of nothing, having a waking nightmare of being tentacle molested after seeing an octopus in a shop (god, I hope that isn’t a flashback). Then some kids walk by and feel compelled to comment on her big boobs. And, like, I noticed those were some big boobs and sometimes the camera reminded us, but it wasn’t until this point when it specifically said “BTW, I’m real horny, OK, back to this nonsense.”
I will say, it got surprisingly gory in the last act. And I’ve definitely seen shonen shows as gory. But this looks less like famously gory ones like Fist of the North Star or Jojo or even Jujutsu Kaisen and more light something fluffy light like Fairy Tail, where there is blood but no one is bisected. So it was a weird moment when the goofy looking walrus started laying waste. I mean, its not much different than the relatively friendly looking Hunter X Hunter having some violence but I felt when it happened it was never an abrupt turn. Anyway, I like the rabbit Frau, a carrot loving schoolgirl bunny who doesn’t really get objectified (yet) and I kind of wish was the lead.
The current one is a non-entity and even though she seems to have a second personality, that looks to be a generic one, too. More rabbit please.
Re-Main
Premise
A young man awakens from a coma after almost two thirds of a year. It seems he was in a car accident and after awakening, he lost three years of memory, including his entire junior high days. Which included him becoming the greatest player in a nationals winning water polo team. The kid studies hard and does rehab until he finally gets into high school. When there, he suddenly finds people wanting to vet him for water polo. He no longer has any attachment to the sport and is refusing so that he can focus on something else but soon finds himself meeting a romance from his youth… whom he also has little memory of.
It Gud?
Yes. Its so far the best show of the season. Going in, I was expecting a maybe OK show with a cute boyz cast who don’t need to wear that much clothes *wink*. Instead, I got a show that puts the sports on the backburner, for all the right reasons. The first episode is dealing with the fact that memory loss did more than simply derail a sports career. It put a powerful and harsh impact on the life of a family and even as they are happy to be together again, the hurt is still there. When the main character says he has chosen not to return to water polo, there’s a feeling of tension in the room. His parents accept, understanding. I feel like even if he said he wanted to do the sport, the reaction might be the same, that something of emotional import is being dredged up and it needs to be handled. I love that it chose to spend a lot of time giving weight to this.
On the other hand, I love the humour. There are only a couple laugh out loud moments but they are well earned, including a fantastic insta-bros moment that occurs during a chase scene that makes me smile just to think about (I can’t wait to see these characters bounce off of each other. Both of them clicked for me the moment this happened and I hope they retain this energy). I love that the show makes the amnesia not just a high concept but something that will have a real emotional pull through the show, presumably as he goes against old teammates who will likely have weird feelings facing off against their closest friend. And hey, maybe a girlfriend you forgot existed. I’m hoping they handle this part well. Could be easy to screw up. But if the rest of the first episode is any indication, I have faith in the show to do it. I don’t even think this is an AMAZING show (yet) but it is a very confident first episode that I feel will balance its tones well. Plus, animated by MAPPA so this is lookin’ good.
Scarlet Nexus
Premise
In an alternate present or future or some shit, psychics are recruited to fight monsters that look like fashion mannequins covered in flowers. They are the Other Suppression Force. Not a good look, show.
It Gud?
OK, so “Other Suppression Force” sounds bad, doesn’t it? America has that and it’s called any policing body. COMMENTARY! I have no idea if THIS show is planning commentary but I don’t trust it to be good. Best case scenario its non-existence or vague and facile. Worse, this is about immigrants or something. But based on the first episode, I’ll just assume the former. The show is based on a game, which is usually not a good sign. As these things go… its not bad, by any stretch. But its also not that interesting. The OP’s animation looks pretty but under the hood, its merely serviceable (though still stronger than Peach Boy Riverside). And so is everything else. It exists to never be bad enough to offend but with little to actually offer.
It only hints at maybe a conspiracy angle at the end and its mostly one of the upper tier good guys staring into the sunset saying “I shall burn this corrupt society to the ground.” That’s not terrible compelling. I also think the monsters have kind of neat designs but I also feel like whatever meaning it has in their weird shape is either a forced cheesy metaphor or just some stuff the artist thought would be cool stuck together. I’m hoping the latter. I kind of respect that more. Otherwise it will feel like the way to full of itself for its ability “Caligula”. But as it is, this is easy to skip. If you are desperate for content this season (and this season, you might be), it is at least non-offensive.