Dark, mysterious, and appropriately vengeful, Gen Urobuchi’s Revenger stands as one of the 2023 winter season’s early highlights.
Jan 6, 2023 • Subscribe
More like this
REVENGER — FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Hello friends, how are you today? I personally have some adulting to do today so I’m not exactly enthusiastic, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?…
First Impressions – Revenger
As Baloo said to Kit Cloudkicker, "Take-offs are easy - it's the landings that are hard". Read more
First Impression: Revenger
It’s nighttime in the dregs of the Tokugawa era, Japan, and assassins abound. This particular one kills his mark, but not before the victim is able to plant…
SEASONAL FIRST IMPRESSIONS MASTERPOST
Hi friends. This season, I decided to write short first impressions. Why? I’m as lost as you, kind of just felt like it. Well, one reason I can…
Seasonal First Impressions: Check in to TASOKARE HOTEL
Tasokare Hotel is an understated, surprising standout, a fine-tuned clockwork of a show based on momentum and subtle detail.
Seasonal First Impressions: SABIKUI BISCO
An atmospheric, engrossing, and surprising offering from a new studio, Sabikui Bisco is one to watch.
Seasonal First Impressions: SELECTION PROJECT
Selection Project is Doga Kobo’s swing at the idol anime genre, but does it sing or is this a flunked audition?
Seasonal First Impressions: Going Way, Way Down in SAKUGAN
This post-apocalyptic underground sci-fi adventure might be more than it initially seems.
Seasonal First Impressions: Mysteries on Mars in METALLIC ROUGE
The hotly anticipated action-yuri opens with a decidedly esoteric first episode, but will its obscure storytelling reel in viewers, or push them away?
Seasonal First Impressions: Spring 2023 Stragglers
So many anime airing in a given season means I can’t possibly devote full columns to them all. Nonetheless, here are some short thoughts on a midnight slice-of-life,…
Mobile Suit Gundam, Otaku Elf, THE MARGINAL SERVICE, Tokyo Mew Mew, TOO CUTE CRISIS
Seasonal First Impressions: Summer 2024 Stragglers
Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so. I’ve done one of these once…
Dungeon People, Senpai is an Otokonoko, Tasuketsu -Fate of the Majority-
Seasonal First Impressions: Munch Squad for Monsters in DELICIOUS IN DUNGEON
In its first episode, Delicious in Dungeon whips up a hot dish of fantasy, comedy, adventure, and of course, cooking.
Seasonal First Impressions: Logged in and Losing it in YUREI DECO
Science SARU’s new original is a colorful, cyberpunk dystopia. A worryingly plausible extension of our current cultural moment.
IT’S JUST A DREAM… RIGHT? FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Remember the IRL fujoshi friend I mentioned? It’s Just a Dream… Right? was a title recommended by her and I just found the time to sit down and read it…
Seasonal First Impressions: Dragons, Tigers, and Isekai in FLUFFY PARADISE
The year starts off in decidedly so-so fashion with this cotton-light “cozy” isekai.
Seasonal First Impressions: POLICE IN A POD is Comedic Homicide
The season’s first true washout is a soul-sucking piece of cop apologia that wouldn’t know funny if it were beat over the head with it.
Seasonal First Impressions: Springtime Comes Again in SKIP AND LOAFER
A tale as old as time and early seasonal highlight; country girl moves to the big city, is a fish out of water, vomits on her teacher, etc.…
Seasonal First Impressions: Something is Wrong in AKEBI’S SCHOOL UNIFORM
There is no polite way to say that a series “has weird vibes.”
Seasonal First Impressions: Less Money, More Problems in TOMODACHI GAME
“Tomodachi Game” has money on its mind, but is it actually interesting?
Seasonal First Impressions: Something is Wrong in AKEBI’S SAILOR UNIFORM
There is no polite way to say that a series “has weird vibes.”
Seasonal First Impressions: THE GENE OF AI
Part medical procedural, part one man’s quest to clear his mother’s name.
Seasonal First Impressions: BIRDIE WING Tees Off
Birdie Wing manages to somehow make 22 minutes of golf-related video watchable. I can pay it no higher compliment.
Revenger
Revenger is currently streaming on Crunchyroll....
Seasonal First Impressions: What in the World is AKIBA MAID WAR?
Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so. Friends, rejoice. It’s finally happened, a…
Seasonal First Impressions: A Short Stay IN THE LAND OF LEADALE
Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so. I’m not going to sit here…
Seasonal First Impressions: Gay Girl Gaffes in ALICE GEAR AEGIS EXPANSION
Alice Gear Aegis Expansion is brave enough to ask the question that’s been on all of our minds since 2011; what if a total lesbian girlfailure tried to…
Seasonal First Impressions: Flipping The Haters Off in GIRLS BAND CRY
The season’s second big girls-make-music swing is as much of a hit as its first. Full of an earnest, rebellious spirit. The future of rocker girl anime starts…
Seasonal First Impressions: Otaku Hot Girl Summer in 2.5 DIMENSIONAL SEDUCTION
I stayed up until 6am to write 12 paragraphs about a romcom anime again, and YOU all have to live with it.
It’s Ya Boy – First Impressions: Ya Boy Kongming!
I didn’t know I needed this anime in my life until I did…Hello everyone and welcome back to Otaku Thursday. So, at the beginning of the season, you…
Summer 2024: Seasonal Anime First Impressions Part 1
First impressions include the middling Isekai Suicide Squad, the unsettling wish fulfillment of My Wife Has No Emotion, and the genre shortcomings of Twilight Out of Focus.
Suicide Squad ISEKAI, My Wife Has No Emotion, Twilight Out of Focus
Seasonal First Impressions: Everything is Right on CUE!
One of the season’s early standouts, CUE! opens with an improbably sincere navigation of what it means to be a performer.
Seasonal First Impressions: Pining For Those SAKAMOTO DAYS
Sakamoto Days is a non-stop pain train of cool action sequences, with some occasional, slightly-questionable comedy and sweet domestic moments to grease the tracks.
Summer 2024: Seasonal Anime First Impressions Part 2
Second part of the Summer 2024 Seasonal First Impressions, including premieres of the life-affirming Elusive Samurai, the quietly storming Shoushimin Series, the sleeper hit Sakuna of Rice and…
Seasonal First Impressions: What is THE MISSING 8?
Stylish and atmospheric, but with notably limited animation, The Missing 8 is the year’s last–and probably most mysterious–anime to premiere.
Seasonal First Impressions: Summer 2024 Stragglers, Part II
Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so. The Magical Girl and the Evil…
Seasonal Anime First Impressions: BIRDIE WING Swings Again
The Symphogear of Golf returns like it never left, with a swaggering reintroduction that reminds us why it’s so great in the first place. Golf If It Ruled…
Seasonal First Impressions: WONDERFUL PRECURE is Doggone Great
With a largely character-driven and astonishingly charming first episode, the 21st Precure season gets off to a wonderful start.
Seasonal First Impressions: Mysteries, Medicine, and Malpractice in AMEKU M.D.: DOCTOR DETECTIVE
Despite being marketed in the Anglosphere largely on a surface-level similarity to House, this series is much more worthwhile when taken for what it actually is: a classical…
Seasonal First Impressions: The Revolution Wears Red and Pink in MAGICAL DESTROYERS
Magical Destroyers is Pretty Cure meets Rumble Garandoll. What else can you say? —-
Seasonal First Impressions: Searching for the Real Monsters in UNDEAD MURDER FARCE
Undead Murder Farce’s first episode gives few clues as to what the show might become, but for now, it’s gothic and wonderfully theatrical. Maybe that’s all it needs…
Seasonal First Impressions: Fierce Invaders From Beyond Your Stars in GRENDIZER U
Grendizer U reboots the 70s suber robot show for the modern day. Should you tune in? Well, that depends on how you feel about an anime with all…
Seasonal First Impressions: The Cat Comes Back in TOKYO MEW MEW NEW
In this reboot of the classic magical girl anime, Ichigo Momomiya, ordinary high school girl, has the strangest day of her life.
Summer 2020 First Impressions: It’s All a Bit Muddled
Between all these virtual cons at unreasonable hours (but reasonable US hours), a few new shows which exist on the periphery coming into the fray and delayed simulcasts…
Healin' Good Pretty Cure, Pretty Cure, The Misfit of Demon King Academy: History’s Strongest Demon King Reincarnates and Goes to School with His Descendants
Winter 2020 First Impressions: It’s Not Even Spring Yet…
…and I’m already lining up anime for spring 2020. This order is subject to change since a lot of the anime was “wait and see what reviews are…
Revenger – 01
「Once Upon a Time in Nagasaki」 The Urobutcher getting up to what he does best.
Revenger – 11
I'm just sayin', but Revenger deserves way more attention - and respect - than it's getting. Read more
Revenger – 10
Urobuchi seems to have a fundamental disdain for any authority figures, institutions especially. Read more
Revenger – 03
「Fortune is Fickle and Blind」 Fortune always favours the bold.
Revenger – 03
Committing (even emotionally) to an Urabuchi Gen series is always a queasy feeling. Read more