2020 Spring Three-Episode Check-In
Spring has sprung and brought a bounty of titles! Even with a few shows losing their luster, there’s a wealth of weird, wild, and downright adorable options at our fingertips.
Reviews Category
Results-
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Anime Feminist Recommendations of Winter 2020
As if to balance out the light lists of 2019, the new year roared in with so many quality shows we almost didn’t have space to recommend them all. Here are the team’s top picks for Winter 2020.
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2020 Spring Premiere Digest
Our hearts are overwhelmed with all the great lady protagonists this season.
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Woodpecker Detective’s Office – Episode 1
Undeniably pretty, Woodpecker Detective’s Office otherwise only begins to scratch the surface of what makes a good mystery series.
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APPARE-RANMAN! – Episode 1
Appare-Ranman’s gleeful steampunk weirdness, with its Wacky Races car designs and the “well, that escalated quickly” action scenes, feels similar to the lighter episodes of Trigun. More than just about any premiere this season, this show is goofy, bouncy fun.
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The Millionaire Detective – Balance: Unlimited – Episode 1
Millionaire Detective seems to be banking on its audience wanting to screw Kambe more than they want to strangle him. Well, joke’s on them: I’m ace as hell.
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Princess Connect! Re:Dive – Episode 1
What’s happening here is that Princess Connect! Re:Dive has a sense of humor about itself. One that goes beyond boob jokes and clumsy moe girls. One that includes the protagonist’s amnesia wiping his memories so thoroughly that he tries to eat a coin instead of pay for things with it. One that’s actually funny.
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Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater – Episode 1
There’s potential the show could develop in the future, but right now it earns a resounding grade of “fine.”
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Shironeko Project ZERO Chronicle – Episode 1
Wow, two mediocre mobile game adaptations in as many days.
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Sing “Yesterday” for Me – Episode 1
“This whole thing smacks of manic pixie dream girl,” I holler as I overturn the coffee table in my living room and turn spring premiere season into shit premiere season.
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Digimon Adventure: – Episode 1
Whether or not we needed a reboot with the original cast, it’s here now. And the good news is that this is an exceptionally promising start.
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Gleipnir – Episode 1
I have a certain soft spot for ridiculous gorefests with over-inflated estimations of their philosophies. Gleipnir, unfortunately, also comes right out of the gate smelling of the genre’s most sour opinions on women.
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Shachibato! President, It’s Time for Battle! – Episode 1
The biggest problem with Shachibato is that, while it doesn’t do anything egregiously wrong, it doesn’t do anything especially right, either.
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My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! – Episode 1
My Next Life as a Villainess has a lot of points in its favor, but I’ll start with this one: Catarina is an absolute A-plus delight of a protagonist.
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Arte – Episode 1
I went into Arte with cynicism in my heart, and Arte proceeded to prove me completely and totally wrong. Under all that brightly colored shoujo artwork lies a heart of steely determination.
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Wave, Listen to Me! – Episode 1
Minare is perfectly imperfect, and the exact kind of heroine I’ve been asking, nay, begging for for years. I think I would die for her.
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Gal & Dino – Episode 1
Did you like Pop Team Epic? I hope so. Otherwise you’re gonna have a bad time with Aoki Jun’s latest multimedia mashup.
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Listeners – Episode 1
Listeners is the best kind of pastiche. It takes a number of familiar elements—a young man stumbling on a mysterious young woman, a post-apocalyptic setting, and the sense of being shaken out of a sense of complacency—and mashes them up in such a way that, even though you know you’ve seen and heard it all before, feels fresh and energetic.
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Kakushigoto – Episode 1
Kakushigoto is sweeter, softer, and gentler than the mangaka’s previous work Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and the first episode was a delight to watch.
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Bungo and Alchemist -Gears of Judgement – Episode 1
Okay, time to spend several hundred words talking to myself.
