My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer – Episode 1
Fall 2023 is starting capably and comfortably enough: gifting us some over-competent girls with swords and some Nice Anime Dads with gardening skills.
Posts by Alex Henderson
-
-
Queer time and the quarter-life crisis in contemporary yuri
Series that focus on queer adult characters open the door to a storytelling niche that’s still relatively underrepresented despite the rich narrative potential it offers: the post-adolescence queer coming-of-age story. Or, in other words, the gay quarter-life crisis.
-
The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior – Episode 1
If the male-targeted market is saturated with extremely similar reincarnation isekai, maybe it’s fair enough that the female-targeted market is getting its own version of the trend. It’s equity, ya know?
-
Sweet Reincarnation – Episode 1
For a show about sweets, the whole thing is awfully flavorless.
-
Level 1 Demon Lord & One Room Hero – Episode 1
A potentially interesting thread is buried in a premiere that’s otherwise crass, silly, and dumb as bricks.
-
AYAKA – Episode 1
What? You’re telling me this generic orphan who was always a bit of an outcast secretly has a supernatural family legacy and gets to go live on a cool island? Neat! I wonder if he has a grand destiny he’ll reluctantly have to fulfil, too!
-
Working Out the Kinks: Deconstructing gendered expectations of sex in Ladies On Top
NEJIGANAMETA’s manga Ladies On Top is a cute, sexy josei romcom about the crushing pressures of heteronormative gender roles. I know, the emotional trauma inflicted by society’s narrow expectations about acceptable masculinity, femininity, and sexual desire doesn’t sound very cute or sexy, but trust me when I say Ladies On Top weaves these themes together effectively with its fluffy romance.
-
Insomniacs After School – Episode 1
How it fares will depend on a couple of key things: how it handles its love interest, Isaki, and how it handles the theme of mental health and isolation that underpins the whole premise.
-
MASHLE: Magic and Muscle – Episode 1
Fantasy allows us to ask exciting, imaginative “what if?” questions, like “what if this guy punched a wizard in the face? Would that be funny or what?”
-
Otaku Elf – Episode 1
It’s a supernatural comedy first and foremost, but that silliness is grounded in characters that feel like characters rather than one-off jokes.
-
Yuri Is My Job! – Episode 1
Oh, there’s some fun to be had with this premise.
-
Skip and Loafer – Episode 1
Mitsumi is immediately an endearing female lead: a nervous overachiever who’s not defined by her anxiety, and who balances “competent and smart” with “hot mess” in a believable and funny way.
-
Alice Gear Aegis Expansion – Episodes 0 – 1
Alice Gear is very silly, and because its tone and lore are so at odds it’s silly in a way that’s baffling rather than fun.
-
Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill – Episode 1
While it has its share of familiar isekai plot beats, this premiere manages to exude a certain charm that kept me interested. Maybe even hungry for more!
-
Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World For My Retirement – Episode 1
Intentional or otherwise, the colonial spirit of the heroine’s endeavor—in which an enlightened traveller improves the sorry lives of the locals by bringing them “proper” technology—screams off the screen.
-
Sugar Apple Fairy Tale – Episode 1
Sugar Apple Fairy Tale is a promising premiere that’s complicated as hell from a feminist analysis perspective.
-
Girls Doing Stuff: Agency and motivation in girls’ hobby shows
By their very nature, these series’ protagonists are driven and motivated young women—motivated by something other than romance and men—who experience visible development across the narrative. As a bonus, the relaxed vibe and personal stakes of this genre means that realistic dangers are removed and these characters are left in idyllic spaces where they have autonomy over their time and their surroundings.
-
Arknights: PRELUDE TO DAWN – Episode 1
While not the most gripping premiere in the world, it’s honestly not bad.
-
Love Flops – Episode 1
As well as being a bad, dumb comedy, however, it’s a bad, dumb comedy with a disgusting concept at the heart of its “humor”.
-
More Than a Married Couple, but Not Lovers – Episode 1
More Than a Married couple seems intent on being as dumb as its premise, refusing to use its school-mandated-fake-dating scenario for any interesting commentary or even any interesting character scenes.
