A Nobody's Way Up to an Exploration Hero ep1: Well, the show itself was as uninspired as its title. The scenario is largely cribbed from Solo Levelling; the hero is an ordinary, modern day boy who delves into a real-world dungeon with limited success, killing the same weak slimes over and over for a small income while staff monitor his progress via security cameras. His friends wisely gave up on the dungeon part of the 'dungeon theme park' in the middle of town two years ago but the hero persisted, apparently for honourable reasons which have only been hinted at so far. Anyway, eventually he finds a magic card which lets him summon a female Servant, who is a cute super-powered dungeon pet girl who calls him her master and relies on him to order her around so that he can level up faster. He'll get a second pet girl in the next episode, it seems, but the show hasn't given me any real reason to want to continue; it's not offensively terrible, just lacking in imagination in pretty much every aspect of its setup.
VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral after Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream ep1: As advertised, the cute-as-a-button heroine is a streamer with an agency contract and a virtual avatar, but she isn't really popular until she accidentally broadcasts a night of drunken, horny ranting to her audience without realising. I found it disorientating that all of the VTubers apparently look (and dress) exactly like their avatars; presumably it's just to make the show easier to follow but it also made it weird when the anonymity is part of the appeal. On the plus side, there's a lot of bouncy energy and attention to detail in the show and I can see fans of the idol streamer industry getting a lot out of the ridiculousness on display. There's a lot of referential humour here covering online culture, drinking, anime and gaming, but I found the in-world streams just as tedious as watching real VTubers (sorry) so I won't be continuing to watch.
Wistoria: Wand and Sword ep1: A Harry Potter 'inspired' tale of a talented swordsman at a magic school where non-mages are considered to be subhuman. There's no trace of originality anywhere in sight - every single character feels as though they've been imported from another show - but it's so well-produced and handsome that I can forgive Wistoria a lot of its creative sins, including an over-reliance on characters awkwardly reminding one another how their own world works and people picking on the lead for absolutely no reason. It's unoriginal but it's capably made unoriginality, and for that reason I'd say that the fantasy/school crowd will probably enjoy this good-looking romp. Coming so soon after Failure Frame it almost felt like high art.
SHOSHIMIN: How to Become Ordinary ep1: The incoherent description on Crunchyroll didn't set my hopes high but this everyday school mystery-solving show - which is very reminiscent of Hyouka - was a good watch. I still find the leads' aspiration to be thoroughly normal quite dull but I'm sure there's a backstory there which will come out later, and the animation direction, while massively overblown for the amount of story on show, is very impressive. I think I felt more emotional resonance from the extremely simple destruction of food at the end of the episode than I have from all of the melodramatic magic-hurling nonsense this season so far; sometimes, simple things done well can be effective enough on their own.
R
VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral after Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream ep1: As advertised, the cute-as-a-button heroine is a streamer with an agency contract and a virtual avatar, but she isn't really popular until she accidentally broadcasts a night of drunken, horny ranting to her audience without realising. I found it disorientating that all of the VTubers apparently look (and dress) exactly like their avatars; presumably it's just to make the show easier to follow but it also made it weird when the anonymity is part of the appeal. On the plus side, there's a lot of bouncy energy and attention to detail in the show and I can see fans of the idol streamer industry getting a lot out of the ridiculousness on display. There's a lot of referential humour here covering online culture, drinking, anime and gaming, but I found the in-world streams just as tedious as watching real VTubers (sorry) so I won't be continuing to watch.
Wistoria: Wand and Sword ep1: A Harry Potter 'inspired' tale of a talented swordsman at a magic school where non-mages are considered to be subhuman. There's no trace of originality anywhere in sight - every single character feels as though they've been imported from another show - but it's so well-produced and handsome that I can forgive Wistoria a lot of its creative sins, including an over-reliance on characters awkwardly reminding one another how their own world works and people picking on the lead for absolutely no reason. It's unoriginal but it's capably made unoriginality, and for that reason I'd say that the fantasy/school crowd will probably enjoy this good-looking romp. Coming so soon after Failure Frame it almost felt like high art.
SHOSHIMIN: How to Become Ordinary ep1: The incoherent description on Crunchyroll didn't set my hopes high but this everyday school mystery-solving show - which is very reminiscent of Hyouka - was a good watch. I still find the leads' aspiration to be thoroughly normal quite dull but I'm sure there's a backstory there which will come out later, and the animation direction, while massively overblown for the amount of story on show, is very impressive. I think I felt more emotional resonance from the extremely simple destruction of food at the end of the episode than I have from all of the melodramatic magic-hurling nonsense this season so far; sometimes, simple things done well can be effective enough on their own.
R
