The Beginning After the End ep1: It's yet another rebirth isekai where an overpowered king from some kind of dystopian warzone is reincarnated as the beloved newborn son of a young couple living in a generic fantasy idyll. I will give it some credit for not falling back on stupid RPG mechanics right away, but there's absolutely nothing new here - there are dwarves from the land of 'Darv', elves from the land of 'Elenoir' and humans from the land of 'Sapin', which is the kind of half-baked world building I expect from a weak mobile game, and the lead masters magic at age two even though he hasn't yet mastered his bowels. It's fine if you just wanted to watch Mushoku Tensei all over again with the horniness replaced by a bored-sounding lead who is trying to process a lifetime's worth of trauma in a dispassionate, superficial way, but if that doesn't sound appealing then I think there will be better shows this season. My partner and I entertained ourselves by trying to guess exactly which fantasy LN trope each event in the first episode would lead to (we managed 100% success).
The Brilliant Healer's New Life in the Shadows ep1: According to the blurb this is meant to be a 'banishment' fantasy but the first episode doesn't go into that plot point, which presumably happened before the sitcom setup of the present. Instead, a Kirito lookalike with incredible healing skills is an unlicensed, underworld healer who honourably helps hot and vulnerable women, because despite living in the capital of healing it's hard for ordinary people to find anyone to treat them. Nothing really makes much sense but if you want to see an edgelord doctor with a massive harem of helpless, dizzy girls (one of each fantasy species, of course) gushing dementedly over his greatness then this is the perfect show. He picks up a female slave in the first episode too and forces her to strip, ostensibly to diagnose her, but it's ok because he then releases her which proves that he's a good person. Bleh. The only fun character is the ghost whose design is way more detailed than anyone else's (it would be better if she was the lead).
Can a Boy-Girl Friendship Survive? ep1: Mixed feelings. In many respects, this is a lot like My Dress-Up Darling except less glossy and with stilted narration where the script keeps trying to casually explain things the characters know with unnatural dialogue instead of simply showing the viewer as expected in a sensible adaptation to a visual medium. Where this show differentiates itself, however, is that there's an love triangle setup right from the outset, with the friend having to confront her (blatantly obvious) feelings for the jewellery-making lead amidst the arrival of a threat to the status quo: a cute girl who actually likes the lead for who he is. I liked that the new girl has a functioning brain, and that the lead has an actual hobby instead of being aggressively bland like most of his type. On the other hand, the story lurched around chaotically and the friend's behaviour (apparently, she knows that she's cute and milks it - not the most nuanced writing) is often annoying. Her obvious possessiveness is also a turn-off, with her demanding that the lead doesn't show others his passion for his hobby with lines straight out of a bad romance story yet the plot demanding that she's innocent when it comes to having feelings for him. There's potential but I don't think I'm going to bother watching more.
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