Action music. A deep blue sea with emerald green coasts. Pursued by their enemies, a boy and a girl are entering the fantasy world where she was born. In parallel, or sometimes in the same scene, w…
Jan 8, 2022 • Subscribe
More like this
First Look: CUE!
A group of 15 wannabe voice actors join a brand new talent agency called AiRBLUE. They learn and do voice acting, and maybe some singing too. That’s it,…
Winter 2022 First Impressions – Cue!
Streaming: Crunchyroll Episodes: 24 Source: Game Episode Summary: AiRBLUE is a newly-established voice acting agency whose primary claim to fame is that it’s starting from the ground up…
CUE! Episode 2: First Audition
When we last left our heroines they got a surprise instant acting class and met the CEO of AiRBLUE who hit them with another surprise. Their first audition…
CUE! Episode 3: First Roles
Looks like the process of splitting the gang into units had begun. Honoka, Maika and Shiho.
Cue Episode 1 – The First Step
We start an episode review series of Cue, an anime about a bunch of girls working to become voice actresses.
Cue! – Episode 2 – The First Audition
Episode impressions of Cue! Episode 2 as after the surprise first lesson, Misaki throws the girls into their first audition. Yes, even on the first day. You might…
CUE! Episode 5: First Gig Panic
Time to join Team Bloomball as they prepared for their first acting role.
First Impression: Pet
The physical world is immense and full of possibilities—good and bad. But the world inside our minds is even more vast, full of imagination, potential, and horror. There…
First Impression: ODDTAXI
Odokawa is an odd duck (or rather, walrus) by most any measure. He’ll take an inappropriately long amount of time to think of an answer to a question…
First Impression – ID:INVADED
Have you ever wanted to enter the mind of a murderer? There have been several shows that have attempted to explore this in detail, to see why criminals…
86 (First Impression)
“The Republic of San Magnolia has been attacked by its neighbor, the Empire. Outside the 85 districts of the Republic there is the ‘non-existent 86th district,’ where young…
First Impression: Noblesse
Okay, before I get into my first take on this one, I need to clear the air about something. Yes, I am aware that Noblesse has an OVA…
First Impression: Horimiya
Kyoko Hori: Smart, beautiful, popular, but for unknown reasons, she rushes out of school instead of spending time with the rest of her clique. Izumiya Miyamura: Quiet, introverted,…
SK∞ (First Impression)
“Reki, a high school sophomore and skater, is addicted to “S,” a highly secret and dangerous downhill skateboarding race that takes place in an abandoned mine. The skaters…
Horimiya (First Impression)
“Although admired at school for her amiability and academic prowess, high school student Kyouko Hori has been hiding another side of her. With her parents often away from…
Gekidol (First Impression)
“Set five years after the mysterious disaster of a city’s sudden disappearance, a group of girls fascinated by the “Theatrical Material System” using 3D holograms aims to brighten…
Sakugan (First Impression)
“Far in the future, the human beings were pushed into the deep underground world called Labyrinth and they are living shoulder-to-shoulder. The Labyrinth has several colonies with severe…
First Impression: Kaginado
A familiar little girl wearing a sailor fuku with stuffed dango in hand walks into a planetarium, where she’s greeted by another familiar face, an android with blue…
First Impression: Tamayomi
As children, Yomi would toss a “magic ball” to Tamaki, a curving pitch that the latter wasn’t able to catch. The two agreed that when Yomi mastered it…
First Impression: Kakushigoto
Kakushigoto looks to be a lighthearted comedy. The title itself is a pun: It’s a story about the “kakushigoto” (i.e., secret) of Kakushi Goto. Kakushi is a mangaka…who…
First Impression: Orient
Musashi and Kojiro grew up thick as thieves, brothers in all but name, tussling with each other and bandying with swords under the tutelage and stories of Kojiro’s…
First Impression: AOASHI
Aoi Ashito has enough natural talent to carry his backwater middle school soccer team to victory single-handed. He also has enough confidence for an entire 11-man team, and…
First Impression: Onipan!
Three typical slice-of-life girls arrive in the big city. There’s Himawari, the confident blond sporty one, Tsuyukusa, the sleepy-eyed, dessert-loving blue-haired one, and Tsutsuji, with the reddis…
First Impression: Koikimo
Another day, another conquest—though truth be told, misogynistic businessman Ryo Amakusa doesn’t seem to take much delight in taking so many women to bed. But his mindset is…
First Impression: Arte
Set in Florence, Italy, early in the sixteenth century, this is the tale of a young noblewoman named Arte trying to become a proper artist and make a…
First Impression: Listeners
Well. Umm. Huh. The first episode of Listeners was…trippy? Yeah, let’s go with that. I mean, it’s a music-themed, post-apocalyptic, giant robot adventure, so what do you expect?…
First Impression: Gleipnir
Shuichi is about to graduate high school, and those his grades are good enough for college, he’s hesitating. Something doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t want to stand out—but…
First Impression: Wargroove
It is no secret that I was looking forward to Wargroove for quite some time. It was clear from the start of the project where the developers inspirations…
First Impression: Maesetsu!
After years of failed auditions, comedy duo Tokonatsu, consisting of Mafuyu Kogarashi and Fubuki Kitakaze, finally get their first break—a slot at Shoka-Yono High’s cultural festival! There&#…
First Impression: Noblesse
Okay, before I get into my first take on this one, I need to clear the air about something. Yes, I am aware that Noblesse has an OVA…
SSSS.Dynazenon (First Impression)
“One day, Yomogi Asanaka, a first-year student at Fujiyokidai High School, runs into a mysterious man named Gauma who claims to be a “kaiju user.” The sudden appearance…
First Impression: SSSS.Dynazenon
The episode opens with a rapid montage of ambiguous scenes: teenagers hanging out along a riverbank; a muted argument in a school corridor; a hand releasing pearl-like beads…
First Impression: Sakugan
A little girl is running from a man with a gun through a sci-fi city. The tension grows. He is near. He looms over the square, then jumps.…
First Impression: Gibiate
In the year 2030, Kathleen Funada is seeking a cure for a horrible disease that has ravaged the planet, one which turns humans into monstrous creatures. Gibiate, as…
D4DJ: First Mix (First Impression)
“Having moved back to Japan from abroad, Rinku Aimoto transfers to Yoba Academy where DJing is popular. She is deeply moved by a DJ concert she sees there,…
Cue! – Episode 5 – First Recording Session Suspense
Episode impressions of Cue! Episode 5 as the big day has finally come as Haruna, Maika, Honoka and Shino have their first recording session. How well does it…
First Impression – Visual Prison
For anyone not in the loop; I’ve talked about Visual Prison before here, and here. Long story short, as a fan of VKei and anime I’ve been keeping…
First Impression: VISUAL PRISON
What do you get when vampires sing to a blood red moon, but with lyrics, a beat, and a microphone that comes from their swords? VISUAL PRISON, of…
First Impression: Futsal Boys!!!!!
On their way to the opening ceremony of their freshman year, Sakaki and Yamato independently fall (the latter literally) into a group of bullies preventing kids from using…
First Impression: Rail Romanesque
Rail Romanesque is a short form period piece that is supposedly set in the 1980s. Supposedly. But this is in an alternate version of Japan where rail is…
Taiso Zamurai (First Impression)
“Year 2002. Japan’s gymnastics world was once strong. Former Japanese representative Shoutarou Aragaki (29), who devoted his time to gymnastics, was unable to perform as expected. Even …
First Impression: ID INVADED
I am in general always ready for a good detective show. And when I saw that ID INVADED promised me a detective who somehow entered the “personalities” of murderers…
Akudama Drive (First Impression)
“Long ago, there was a war between Kanto and Kansai and the world was split apart. Kansai became a vassal state of Kantou, and as developed in its…
First Impression: Talentless Nana
An elite academy exists on a remote island, where children with superpowers are trained to fight “the enemies of humanity,” unspecified monsters which could have Lovecraftian and alien-…
First Impression: DECA-DENCE
For hundreds of years, humans have waged a battle against the Gadoll, vicious bug-like creatures that vary in size from very small to monstrous. After the initial contact,…
Mob Psycho 100, DECA-DENCE, Fullmetal Alchemist, Gurren Lagann
First Impression: Shakunetsu Kabaddi
After an opening full of flames, darkness and jumps, we meet Tatsuya Yoigoshi, a white-haired, red-eyed, muscular student with a dangerous vibe who happens to hate sports. Once…
First Impression: Darwin’s Game
A new year brings us a new season in anime, which hopefully means something to help us bide our time while waiting for Dr. Stone to continue. (I’m sorry,…
First Impression: In/Spectre
At the age of eleven, Kotoko Iwanaga was kidnapped by youkai so that they could ask her to become their Goddess of Wisdom. She happily accepts the request,…
First Impression: SHADOWS HOUSE
In a giant mansion up in the mountains, a girl and four other children meet up with the residents of the building. These enigmatic, shadow-like nobles offer them…
First Impression: Bakuten!! (Backflip!!)
“I’ve always gone where people have invited me, just going with the flow…” Shoutarou Futaba is okay with sitting in the baseball’s team bench and watching the birds…