Second-year high schooler Makoto Hanaoka is waiting in the classroom at the end of the day for the author of a mysterious note to show up. Who will it be? The note almost sounds like it could be the lead-up to a confession, but that’s impossible, right? Sigh. Just as Makoto decides to give up… Read More First Impression: Senpai Is an Otokonoko
An off-kilter lullaby and grainy image make for an ominous opening scene as a young girl prepares for the day in what seems to be the dormitory of an abandoned underground bunker. She bids adieu to an older boy, hunched over a desk. Cut to a close-up of a blue jean-clad butt. Then to an… Read More First Impression: Mysterious Disappearances
We join the story thirteen years in, after a giant floating fortress appeared in the sky and a horde of formidable monsters…challenged humanity to a stadium battle? Earth’s heroes, the colorful Power Rangers Dragon Keepers and their Rangers Force, have been defeating the wannabe invaders on a weekly basis ever since, and now it’s time… Read More First Impression: Go! Go! Loser Ranger!
Thugs are dropping like flies in the dark, dank hallways of a sketchy apartment block. The cause? The Fable—a legendary professional hitman who has taken out 71 big fish over the past six years. Every profession has its geniuses, and he’s the genius of underworld assassination. In fact, he may be just a little too… Read More First Impression: The Fable
Being President of the Kitauji Concert Band is hard work, especially if you have a tendency toward the kind of inarticulate splutters and awkward gestures that get you mixed up in all sorts of highly melodramatic situations, like Kumiko Oumae. Flanked by her best friend, the cooly confident Reina Kousaka, as Drum Major and the… Read More First Impression: Sound! Euphonium 3
Shibuya is at its best at night, when the neon signs and fashionable clubbers sparkle like costume jewelry and the traffic thins out enough to pulsate like a beating heart. Two girls wander around, soaking up the ambiance, unaware that their paths are crisscrossing like the threads of paint in a Jackson Pollock work. Which… Read More First Impression: Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night
Blue Giant has been the toast of the animation festival circuit this past year and it’s easy to see why. It takes what can at times feel like an intimidating subject—jazz performance—and explores it in a dynamic, yet accessible way that will have both diehard aficionados and complete newcomers to the music genre tapping their… Read More Blue Giant and Yuzuru Tachikawa’s Jazz
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