there are lots of things about Mayoiga that are obviously intentional, but I feel like they couldn't possibly have known what they were cooking with Wank

ask not what your sport can do for you...

for anyone keeping track at home, yes, this spring's seasonal first impressions thread covered a personal record 48 shows.

and there were some serious hits! a lot of stinkers too, but it happens.

overview pictured, full details for each premiere linked in the quoted post
bsky.app/profile/yata...

And finally, Dandelion batch-dropped during the Great April Bluesky Outage yesterday and I was in no particular rush to greet it. Hideaki Sorachi (of Gintama acclaim)'s sense of humor never clicked with me, and this middling adaptation of a 24-year-old one-shot didn't strike a chord, either. ❌

Almost last and handily least, Marika's Love Meter Malfunction and Ingoku Danchi are both accursed ecchi shorts held together by popsicle sticks and whatever residue originates at the bottom of the world's most neglected barrel of deviancy. The less said about either of these, the better. ❌❌

I bring a sort of Forbidden Vibe to InternalServerError that Rate Limit Exceeded don't really like

trying to post through it rn

Quick-fire Roundup - March 2026 Short reviews for some of our favorite releases of the past month.

the gatekeep crew's got a behemoth roundup for last month's releases. I should be back into writer mode by next month's edition - finally peeping some 2026 shit myself
www.gatekeepmusic.com/p/quick-fire...

I Want To End This Love Game is far too vanilla an "and they were both tsunderes!" rom-com to actively impress on the tail end of this first impressions cycle, but anyone sticking with it could certainly do worse. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I want to end this quarterly grind! ❌

all-timer car reviews

The Classroom of a Black Cat and a Witch appears intent on introducing many more witches, not just bumbling protagonist Spica, but it's too little, too late to save the whole show. Its crass, slapstick "up by your bootstraps" magic school antics are nothing to write home about in a season so rich. ❌

Ichijyoma Mankitsu Gurashi is simultaneously too horny to be cute and too cute to be horny. Like basically any show ensnared by that particular fucked up identity crisis, it feels kinda gross to watch and doesn't offer anything deeper. No love lost for this late-to-debut afterthought. ❌

unreal how many great OPs we're getting this season alone. eventual top 25 of the year list is gonna be made pretty easy this time

afaik it hadn't been picked up or licensed by anyone until Crunchy unexpectedly (as a matter of timing, not of prestige. source material is by the Kuroko's Basketball guy) grabbed it on release day today

Kill Blue not only manages to find an untapped angle for re-lifed assassin hijinks, it navigates the humor inherent to an old geezer having to go to *gasp* middle school again with savvy, neither stooping to easy punches nor over-exaggerating the obvious. This season's cracked. What the fuck, man. ✅

40~ premieres deep, Yowayowa Sensei wants to remind us all that shameless ecchi starring infantilized crybabies are still on tap for...someone out there. Who? I don't know, and I don't intend to find out. ❌

Combine the tone and premise of the last two entries and you'll get something like The Drops of God, which unites the cloying pretense of your average wine sommelier to the dead weight of an under-baked thriller, sealing its fate as inadvertent laughs. Self-fulfilling title if I've ever seen one. ❌

There's also a time and place for Botan Kamiina Fully Blossoms When Drunk, whose cute maybe-lesbians act as an inroad to romanticizing poor medical decisions. I don't drink or smoke or have a career in STEM, but the show's time and place might be now anyway! Its pilot quenched some sort of thirst. ⏸️

オープニングムービー完全版｜TVアニメ『上伊那ぼたん、酔へる姿は百合の花』 YouTube video by アニプレックス チャンネル

YONIGE OP!? oh we are truly eating well this season y'all
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUU_...

Unnecessary reboots for beloved titles appear to be a thing we just do these days, and Fist of the North Star's might be the most dead on arrival of them all. The art is gaudy, doesn't move well, and the show's brutality is comically overwrought. There was a time and place for this. It's not now. ❌

A Hundred Scenes of Awajima flashes all the quiet polish you'd expect from Takako Shimura drama kid drama adapted by Morio Asaka. Its vision is clear, but (if prior Revue-esques are any indication) potentially not my bag. I hope its ensemble cast angle allows for greater than the sum of its parts. ⏸️

I can get on board with understated, gentle comedies as much as the next guy, but Kujima: Why Sing, When You Can Warble? lies in that pernicious place where the surreal humor seldom hits hard and the slice-of-life elements are so plain that they invite drowsiness instead of engagement. ❌

The Warrior Princess and the Barbaric King's characters need flair, but I like how this premiere introduced not only Sera's capture but commentary on gender roles, xenophobia, and the sheltered nature of nobility. This'll probably fall victim to ass production, but the heart's in the right place. ⏸️

pardon mon squinting the soleil is trop bright

@ItsBCJim The bad part of getting older is that you become an NPC, the good part is that being an NPC rocks. Nothing like walking down the street with a thought bubble that's just a sandwich you're looking forward to. Protagonism is best left to teens and the insane

2nd was the first sign of real trouble, 3rd was a worthy turnaround with some series highs, and it’s all been downhill since then

up to this point I had mostly groupwatched this shit as a form of mutual punishment and semi-ironic enjoyment and s4 pretty much permanently killed any notion that continuing to do so would be a good use of any of our time lol

Rent-A-Girlfriend Season 5

🙂

🫠

It's about time, huh?

❌

Gals Can't Be Kind to Otaku?! tries downplaying the self-loathing so often emphasized in shows of its ilk, and it's elevated by passionate designs at points, too—the insecure teenage otaku among us could sure do worse! As for me, the dialogue is still trite and skews adolescent. Have at it, kids. ❌

Give Motonobu Hori some ace material and that man will cook. Overdue case in point, MARRIAGETOXIN's nutty worldbuilding hands him free rein to flex mastery over abundant tonal leaps, bundling battle sequences, tense dialogue, and clever punchlines and visual gags together for one hell of a pilot. ✅

Even a Replica Can Fall in Love proves that there is indeed such a thing as "too understated." The hook's not really the culprit—if it wants to get metaphysical, that's a point in its favor—but the direction is devoid of any oomph or imminence, the whole episode floating by in a dull, sterile fog. ❌