Mysterious Disappearances – Episode 1
Sumireko is fantastic, but the show is being strangled by obtrusive fanservice.
Posts by Toni Sun Prickett
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Tadaima, Okaeri – Episode 1
I would love to be able to recommend this show as a fantasy of domestic life for queer people, but it doesn’t even really function as that. Its portrait of queer domestic life has all of the depth of a Hallmark greeting card.
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Becoming Monstrous: Yurikuma Arashi and transmisogyny in the school system
Everything in Yurikuma Arashi is more symbol than literal representation, and I have often mulled over its meaning as I’ve navigated entering the teaching profession as a nonbinary Chinese person. Like the bears, I’ve often asked myself: what do I sacrifice to be allowed to exist within the school?
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Sengoku Youko – Episode 1
It’s somewhat hard to judge the show right now, the author’s previous works suggest that the binary morality of this premiere is likely a facade.
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The Demon Prince of Momochi House – Episode 1
The Demon Prince of Momochi House is largely playing the beats of a fairly familiar genre of shoujo: an orphan teenage girl stumbles into a supernatural world of bishonen hotties and becomes enmeshed in their drama. I just wish that these hotties had a bit more going on.
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SHY, Stardust, disability, and the double empathy problem
Shy’s embrace of a Double Empathy Problem framing reveals larger tensions in the struggle for autistic self-determination, both allowing a deeper understanding of the process of Stardust’s self-conception and also revealing the limits of the mainstream culture’s understanding of “empathy.”
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My New Boss is Goofy – Episode 1
If you want shows where characters openly confess their feelings for each other in explicitly romantic ways, you will almost certainly leave frustrated. If you are looking for fodder for your next fic, this might be the show for you.
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Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions – Episode 1
I was yearning for schlock, but the show utterly fails to live up to the camp it seems to promise.
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Synduality Noir – Episode 1
Good news: it has great animation and mecha designs, and intriguing worldbuilding.
Bad news: All of this is in service of a plot that can only be described as Toxic Masculinity: The Anime. -
Dark Gathering – Episode 1
Dark Gathering is a fun horror comedy show with a lot of potential for creepy shenanigans and a somewhat alienated view of girls
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Reign of the Seven Spellblades – Episode 1
This was a treat–a show with thoughtful worldbuilding, a dose of self-awareness without dipping into edgelord irony, and compelling characters that were a source of great comedy.
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Undead Murder Farce – Episode 1
Undead Murder Farce is the highlight of the season: a bleakly humorous, action packed period romp with a lot to say about westernization in Meiji Japan featuring two unholy messes in witty repartee.
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Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout The Animation – Episode 1
There were about five times in this extended premiere that I said, out loud, “I can’t believe it’s still going!” It doesn’t help that the characters move and act like cardboard cutouts. What went wrong?
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Forcing Yourself for Love: Hotaru, Sailor Moon, and “Overcoming Disability” Narratives
Hotaru’s story represents the tension between our desire for comforting narratives of disabled people healing and the reality of disabled life as shaped by capitalism and the limits of our bodies.
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Oshi No Ko – Episode 1
My feelings veered wildly between “Love this!” and “oh NO!”, settling on loving it. Oshi no Ko powerfully explores women’s emotional labour in the idol industry and more broadly.
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Stella of the Theater: World Dai Star – Episode 1
World Dai Star is interested in the actual process of acting, of how actors inhabit the minds of their characters and use all the tools of physicality and stagecraft to create the artifice of inner life. And it is a joy to watch in this way.
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The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses – Episode 1
This show is bad in an interesting way, in that it reveals the interfaces between sexism and capitalism. Just go with it.
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My Home Hero – Episode 1
Whoever is responsible for this, I salute you. I deplore you.
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Tengoku Daimakyou (Heavenly Delusion) – Episode 1
It’s hard to write about Heavenly Delusion right now, because what we got doesn’t feel like a full episode. It ends on an enormous cliffhanger, where we are just starting to peek into the menace of the world. It’s even more challenging because what we did get was largely a beautifully atmospheric mood piece, punctuated by only minor intrusions of gender nonsense.
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Ugly Things Cannot Be Loved: Penguindrum and the dilemma of Yuri
Yuri’s assault on Ringo is emblematic of how the tensions and arguable flaws in Penguindrum point to larger tensions and unresolved questions in our movements for transformative justice, abolition, and queer liberation.
