I Shall Survive Using Potions! ep1: An isekai with an overpowered protagonist who gets killed by mistake and manages to negotiate for a disgustingly broken superpower, which effectively amounts to asking a genie for infinite wishes and actually getting them. The only limitation on the lead's power is that she's an idiot (my opinion, not that of the narrative), so she doesn't seem capable of using her new power for anything especially worthwhile. And for some reason she's de-aged so that she looks creepily youthful in the isekai world. It's the third series this season with an alchemy theme and even though I'm not watching The Saint's Magic Power Is Omnipotent, if you can only have one potion-making snooze fest that one would be my recommendation. I don't understand why great series get cancelled and weak series like this keep getting animated. The world is so unfair.
Let Me Check the Walkthrough First ep1: A Chinese show brought to us via its Japanese adaptation for some reason best known to Crunchyroll. The ok-looking intro to explain why the protagonist is in an isekai (spoilers: it doesn't matter) is quickly replaced by cheap-looking CG, which looks ok when non-human characters are on screen and crummy when the characters appear. A few of the character designs look like bootleg Genshin characters which greatly amused my partner. Anyway, it's yet another lazy game world isekai plot rendered slightly more watchable by the unhinged, chipper main character, which tends to be common in anime from China. It was consequently a little better than the potion one despite looking awful.
Butareba: The Story of a Man Who Turned into a Pig ep1: Yet another isekai, this time featuring an irritating self-professed otaku with an obsession with high school girls, who is reincarnated as a pig and keeps using the same unfunny gags over and over and over again for the entire full length episode. He is rescued by an improbably-perfect young lady who is like a bingo card for recent otaku fetishes: she's a slave, she looks younger than him, she seems to have infinite free time and resources to tend to his every whim, she can read his mind, she actually enjoys listening to his endless self-serving monologues, she has no self-esteem, she blushes innocently while addressing the lead like a pig, and when she goes to tend to the pigs on the farm she does her hair nicely and dresses up in petticoats, white stockings, a corset and ribbons. This is one which would have been way better in five minute doses because a full length episode of some unlikeable idiot's wish-fulfilment fantasy at an innocent (or is she?) girl's expense is just tedious. It's one crummy gag concept stretched out over a full series. Again.
You Were Experienced, I Was Not: Our Dating Story ep1: Finally, another non-isekai. Unfortunately, it's mediocre at best. This is a poor man's version of My Dress Up Darling or perhaps a spiritual remake of My First Girlfriend Is a Gal, except that it's trying to pass itself off as a heartfelt romantic drama without any emotional intelligence in the writing. At first I looked down on the whiny lead because he was moaning that he wasn't popular and only had a few friends - how rude to his friends! - but then we met the friends and they were pretty awful to one another. He ends up going home with the hottest girl in school and acts like a creepy weirdo the entire time, with her having to do everything (and forgive all of his awkwardness) until he white knights his way into doing something 'heroic' and earning her trust. The overblown way that the narrative treats the concept of actually befriending and understanding a love interest felt uncomfortable and I wasn't feeling any real connection between any of the characters; there was none of the vulnerable sincerity which made My Dress Up Darling (the gold standard for this kind of male-focused romance) so appealing. I think it would be a better show if the girl just ditched the lead and hung out with her girlfriends talking about nail polish for the rest of the season. They all seemed less toxic than the guys.
R
interesting. Despite me saying I feel it will be quite forgettable I'd still like to see more as well regardless, especially as we didn't get to see much of what Melissa's character is all about.
