Spring 2025 Anime First Impressions: Part 1

I'm the evil lord of a galactic empire:  The first episode was a great recounting of the duplicitous and entitled attitude of modern women.  It's precisely because of women like her that men no longer wish to marry or pursue any romance at all.  As for the sci fi setting he moves to, it isn't nearly as compelling a narrative as his pathetic life on Earth, but it's good enough to hold my attention.  Pass.

Kijin Gentoushou:  I can't help but feel like this is a Kimetsu no Yaiba ripoff, only this time Tanjiro makes all the wrong decisions.  Fail.

Catch me at the Ballpark:  A cute story about a beer vendor girl at a baseball park and a regular baseball viewer who becomes her regular customer.  Basically she trades being attentive to him for money, a perfect example of complimentary strengths between the sexes.  Pass.

Once Upon a Witch's Death:  This is basically a remake of Kobato with a less innocent heroine who has more magical power.  Obviously I prefer Kobato, but Kobato is so good even a worse version is still good.  Pass.

Saikyou no Ousama:  They spent the entire ep wasting our time explaining obvious things like how there are dwarves and elves and how magic works while he was a baby unable to walk or talk.  What a complete waste of time.  This writer failed all the most basic aspects of storytelling, which is to concentrate on what's different from normal, not what's normal, and to start a story when something interesting happens, not when you're born.  Fail.

Your Forma:  A Ghost in the Shell ripoff that's strictly inferior to the original.  Fail.

Kanpeki Seijou:  A series that's self-contradictory.  There's no way Saints, if they really do prevent monsters from overrunning your kingdom and killing everyone, would ever be treated badly.  Natural selection would weed out any culture that did so.  Fail.

Yami Healer:  Lily is a cute elf, but the male protagonist is abominable, and there are way too many extra girls who serve no narrative purpose.  Fail.

Elegant Ladies play Rock music or whatever:  This is no Girls Band Cry.  Fail.

Danjou no Yuujou:  The main heroine in this story is annoying, a cocktease, the worst of all women.  The guy isn't much better, never being honest and direct about what he means or what he wants.  I gave up midway through the ep.  Fail.

Guilty Gear Strive:  I love Guilty Gear, but this low-budget monstrosity version of it is worse than useless.  Fail.

Lazarus:  Lazarus, on the other hand, has an infinitely high budget.  It also has an interesting central idea to the story -- a pharmaceutical turns out to be toxic and everyone who took it is now going to die (remind you of something?).  I don't think it's executing on that idea well, as most of the ep was spent pointlessly doing parkour instead of addressing the intellectual experiment of what would happen in this world scenario.  But maybe it will do actual thoughtful content in the coming eps.  Pass.

Old Country Bumpkin:  A boring story about a boring old man suddenly getting a high status job and lots of young female admirers.  Pointless wish fulfilment.  Fail.

Witch Watch:  The gags aren't funny and they're annoyingly nonstop.  The main characters are annoying.  Fail.

Yaiba:  The art is unforgivable.  Fail.

Anne Shirley:  I tried to read the source work long ago and failed, and the anime is no better.  Fail.

Gorilla God:  This is a typical reverse harem where a girl is surrounded by handsome and high status suitors for weird reasons.  I'm not a girl so this doesn't appeal to me.  Fail.

Ai ga omoi Dark Elf:  If you're gonna do porn, at least make the girl pretty.  Fail.

Maebashi Witches:  For a full cg show, the art is really good.  If cg is going to look this good I withdraw all my complaints with the format.  As for the story, it's basically Ojamajo Doremi meets Nanare Hananare -- magical cheerleading/idol concerts for sad people in need of support.  But oh well, forget the plot.  The important thing is cute girls dress up in cute outfits and sing and dance.  Pass.

Princession Orchestra:  This seems to be a show for little girls.  It's too straightforward and dull.  Fail.

Summer Pockets:  Meets expectations.  Pass.

Boku no Hero Academia Vigilantes:  I can't tell if this series isn't great from the first episode, but I suspect like most spinoffs it will stay at the 'good' level.  Pass.

Zatsu Tabi:  The beautiful scenery and the compelling heroine (a female aspiring manga-ka), alongside the non-traditional plot which is pure stream of consciousness and zero dialogue, makes for an interesting show.  At least the first ep is fine.  Pass.

There's still lots of shows left to debut so they'll be handled in a Part 2~

Summer Pockets debuts:

My long-awaited Summer Pockets anime has arrived.  After watching the first episode and confirming that the production quality was up to par and the plot was following the original source I instantly upgraded it into my top anime rankings.  I kicked out Kitakubu to make room, another thing I'd been planning to do for a long time.

Now all 200 of my top anime are represented in '100 Waifus,' which had always been the plan.

Summer Pockets was so beautiful.  Shiroha, Umi, even Hairi look great.  The backgrounds look great.  The music is perfect, as expected of Jun Maeda.  The voice acting was great -- I wouldn't be surprised if all the voices are the same as the voices in the visual novel.  There's just nothing to criticize in this amazing production.  This will probably be the best anime of 2025, and the only debuting great anime of 2025.  It's impossible to overstress how momentous today was.  This could well be the last great anime to ever make my rankings.

The next anime slated for the chopping block in my rankings is Sora no Otoshimono -- but that series made me cry, is 25 eps long, and even has some good philosophical questions and answers embedded within it.  It will be very difficult to surpass it -- and that's my last place ranked anime.  Every other series is better than that.  Given that Japan never takes my advice and never animates the new works that could surpass Sora no Otoshimono, it's just hard to see how anything ever will.

Once Summer Pockets finishes airing I'll give it its true ranking, not #200 like it currently sits at.  But I don't know when that will happen.  Will Summer Pockets run all the way to its conclusion in one go?  Or will it have sequel seasons?  Or will it be canceled halfway through?  There's no telling from the limited info we've been given so far.

Speaking of Jun Maeda's music, I also promoted 'Back from the Brink' and 'Judgement Day' to 3-star, and 'Zetaku Na Kanjou,' 'Sayonara no Sokoudou,' 'Overkill' and 'Autumn Howl' to 2-star, demoting classical music to keep the tiers even.  Now every vocal piece from Heaven Burns Red is rated at least 2-star, which is well deserved, because Jun Maeda is not to be mocked.  I'd rather listen to the worst Jun Maeda compositions than Mozart, Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.  Now my ratings reflect that.

Houston choked at the end of the game against Florida, making three mental errors in their last three possessions and turning the ball over.  Bleh.  And they led almost the whole game too. . .

Which Wonderful character got which song?:

Now that I've finalized my Wonderful Fictional Character music playlist, it would be fun to share the results with the broader public, the same way I did when I finished the '100 Waifus' playlist, giving the most appropriate unique song to each and every fictional character I've ever valued in life.

There are currently 66 Wonderful characters that didn't reach the '100 Waifus' list, which means 66 new songs had to be distributed to them.  Since 20 of those Wonderful characters are from Heaven Burns Red, 20 of the new songs are also from Heaven Burns Red.  But this is by no means a weakness, more like a strength, because the composer of Heaven Burns Red is the greatest of all time, Jun Maeda.  Dedicating more songs to him is never the wrong move.

In summation:

20 Heaven Burns Red:  Chiroru got Particle Effect.  Kozue got Arch of Light.  Mari got Goodbye Innocence.  Saki got Hero of the End.  Nanami got Hypersomnia.  Hisame got Muramasa Blade!.  Yingxia got Pain in Rain.  Isuzu got War Alive~Sometimes Desperate~.  Tama got Before I Rise.   Megumi got Burn my Universe.  Karen got Everlasting Night.  Tsukasa got Indigo in Blue.  Sumomo got Sad Creature.  Rumi got Shiva.  Adelheid got Arifureta Battle Song - Itsumo Sentou wa Mendou da.  Misato got ciga choco.  Ichiko got Dance! Dance! Dance!.  Charlotta got Heartbreak Syndrome.  Yuina got Houkago no Melody.  Erika got Soul Universe.

12 Dead Enders/Changeling:  Chiharu got Tension 1 (FF Tactics).  Masanori got Anxiety (FF Tactics).  Eri got Justice [Leo's Theme].  Rei got Lucia Vs. Zophar.  Yume got Kuusou Mesorogiwi.  Kip got Ode to Power.  Autumn got le grand retour.  Shiori got Neo-Overture (Ogre Battle).  Kotone got Try Unite!.  Saki got bloom and harvest.  Aiko got Sound Life.  Isao got Fonsa Myma (Night).

5 Pretty Cure: Hana got Watashi no koi wa hotch kiss.  Setsuna got yuuki wa doko ni kimi no mune ni.  Minori got The future is like the wind.  Uta got Welcome To My FanClub's Night! (Sheryl On Stage).  Kokoro got portamento.

2 Love Live!:  Shizuku got Rise up High!.  Keke got Absolute LOVER.

2 Oshi no Ko:  Akane got Urayan Tunnels.  Ai got Great Sword's Base.  

2 One Piece:  Law got legendary future.  Tama got Sunny Day Song.

2 Mortal Kombat:  Sub-Zero got Walking on the Path of Hatred.  Scorpion got Broken Bonds.

2 Vividred Operation:  Aoi got Stage of Death.  Momo got Thames, Spirit of the Men of the Sea.

2 Joukamachi no Dandelion:  Misaki got Go! Go! Go!.  Hikari got Entrance Parade (Ogre Battle).

2 Goblin Slayer:  Elf Archer got Eternal Blue [Rondo-Light And Shadows].  Priestess got Tumultuous Seas.

2 Sellsword:  Jin got Battle Theme (Lunar).  Harukaze got Mysterious Party.

1 Rurouni Kenshin:  Makoto got Colosseum (Noir).

1 Indiana Jones: Indiana got Indiana Jones Theme Song.

1 Naruto:  Orochimaru got Orochimaru ~Fight~.

1 Saki:  Yuuki got I hope the weather will be sunny tomorrow.

1 Xenoblade:  Mashiro got Elaice Highway.

1 Idolm@ster:  Miku got HIGH POWERED.

1 The Greatest Vision:  Lucinda got Jaws of Ice.

1 Ao no Hako:  Hina got Tears of the Stars, Thoughts of the People.

1 Shikkakumon:  Lurie got Fuse (Xenogears).

1 Dead or Alive:  Kasumi got Sore wa Bokutachi no Kiseki.

1 Dragon Quest XI:  Gemma got next sparkling.

1 Hayate no Gotoku:  Izumi got Dance Party of Valis Castle.

1 Full Metal Panic!:  Nami (the dead one) got Moonlight (Record of Lodoss War).

Autumn Howl:

It turns out Kaminsho was the same song as Hypersomnia, so I had to cut it from my music hall of fame.  As a replacement I downloaded a new and different Heaven Burns Red song, 'Autumn Howl.'  Now every She is Legend theme in gig mode has made my music hall of fame.  What a frenetic and twisting journey it's been.

Autumn Howl is a 1-star song, but a lot of other Heaven songs I've reassessed and upgraded -- 'Hypersomnia,' 'Shiva,' 'War Alive,' 'Houkago no Melody,' 'Pain in Rain,' and 'Hero of the End' all reached 3-star status.  I cut a bunch of classical composers to 1-star to maintain symmetry.  My music hall of fame, somehow or other, is still 5,500 songs, with 5 tiers of 1,100 songs each graded relative to each other from 1-star to 5-star.  It's been a dizzying amount of effort keeping that true, but I've done it.

Once a Heaven song reaches 3-star status, it becomes available as a representative in my Wonderful Fictional Characters music playlist.  So I switched all my Heaven fictional characters to Heaven songs, which makes a lot more thematic sense.  I had to eliminate some Chrono Trigger/Cross and Soul Calibur songs to fit in the new Heaven songs, but this is another case of vocal themes replacing instrumentals, which is never a bad idea.  Especially Jun Maeda themes replacing non-Jun Maeda themes, that's a no-brainer.

Houston upset Duke in a comeback win in the Final Four, which means I still have a Texas basketball team to cheer for at the National Championship game.  Not bad, not bad.

Jun Maeda +5:

Today I finished my replay of the main storyline of Heaven Burns Red.  It was almost as emotional as the first time -- and almost as difficult to beat the last boss as last time!  I had my plot squad assembled for the head of the boss, but that left it up to my dark squad to handle the tail, and they really struggled to do their part.  But with the help of Seika's 'Absolute Phenomena' ability I eventually got things to work.  It's crazy how I've done so little to support Seika but she's still one of my strongest characters.

Meanwhile, I added five more songs from the game to my music hall of fame -- 'Houkago no Melody,' 'Sayonara no Soukado,' 'Kaminsho,' 'Back from the Brink,' and 'Shiva.'  I kicked out five more Valkyrie Profile songs to make room.

This should cover all the Heaven music that's currently out, at least in America.  One more Heaven related task complete.

I also got Byakko's Thunder Cat SS Memoria through a stroke of good luck.  I'm out of upgrade materials I've been getting so many memorias lately, but I'll enhance Byakko soon enough.  Maybe I'll be able to build a thunder squad after all.

Meanwhile, Spice & Wolf Remake came out in bluray with English subtitles.  I downloaded eps 20-25 because they're actually new content, completing my bluray collection, at least until the next season comes out.  As usual the archive-ready copy can be found at nyaa.si.  Oshi no Ko S2 also came out in bluray at about the same time.

I don't want to stop dwelling in Heaven, so I guess I'll move on to the event stories and recollections next~

Uta and Kokoro:

Cure Idol and Cure Kyun-Kyun from Kimi to Idol Precure are great characters worthy of my hall of fame, but both of them share names with other girls already in '100 Waifus.'  This makes them prime candidates for my Wonderful Fictional Characters permapost.

I already have plenty of reasons to like Uta and Kokoro from what's currently aired, but the vast majority of the series hasn't aired yet, so I'll find reasons to love them in the future.  Right now I'm basing my decision on their obvious potential.

Together with Cure Yell, who I'd forgotten to assign a song despite already being in my Wonderful hall of fame, this let me add three new songs to my Wonderful playlist.  I went with Particle Effect (given to Chiroru), Muramasa Blade (given to Hisame), and Heartbreak Syndrome (given to Charlotta), since Heaven characters should be represented by Heaven songs whenever possible.

In order to qualify to the Wonderful playlist, a song needs to be 3-star or above, so I gave those 3 songs 4-star ratings, downrating some unfortunate Mozart tunes to 1-star to keep symmetry, even though they did nothing wrong.  Sorry Mozart, but I care about the best composer ever composing music to the best game ever more.

Heaven Burns Red is currently featuring a popularity contest.  It only allows you to pick your six favorite characters in the game, so I chose Ruka, Megumi, Tama, Tsukasa and Karen from Squad 31-A (the main characters of the story), as well as Charlotta the Russian loli.  (judging by how much I spent to get her she's clearly among my favorites).  If the popularity contest had let me choose a top 10, or top 20, I could have given them a lot more useful information.  Everyone is going to pick the main characters first, because they're given ten times as much content as everybody else.  But I'm happy to contribute what little input I can.

By completing the latest event and score challenge, I got enough protean shards to perform another limit break.  My original target was Misato, but circumstances changed.  One of the step-up paid quartz guaranteed SS Memoria I got was the fireworks Yuki one.  I already had this Memoria, so I was given 10 limit break shards instead.  But going from level 2 limit break to level 3 requires 20 shards, not ten, and fireworks Yuki was already at level 2, so 10 shards were sitting in my bank rotting away uselessly.  But by combining those 10 shards with my 10 protean shards, I was able to reach a level 3 limit break, worth much more than a level 1 limit break, so Yuki took priority this time around.

This was the last benefit of my spending spree.  From here on I'll have to grind things the old fashioned way again.  But boy has it been fun.

The score challenge also gave me some dungeon passes, so I entered the Cave of Dark and farmed Dark Rings (which enhance Dark element attack skill damage), so that my dark squad can someday match my fire squad (which already has a great collection of Fire Rings).  I got some decent rings, with my strongest being +4 and my weakest +2.  (My weakest Fire Ring is +3, so dark still lags a bit, but that's to be expected since Fire is my main strategy).

For some reason there are a lot of Fire and Dark users in the game, but very few Light, Ice or Thunder users.  I wish they'd balance things out a bit so that I could form a squad for all five elements instead of just these two.  To be fair, though, I haven't even leveled my dark users to full, so I couldn't actually support all five elemental squads even if they did exist.  Well, everything in due course.

Jun Maeda +8:

Another day, another plethora of Heaven Burns Red good news.  The most important of which is the eight new songs from the game I added to my music hall of fame -- 'Heartbreak Syndrome,' 'Hero of the end,' 'Hypersomnia,' 'Judgement Day,' 'Muramasa Blade!,' 'Overkill,' 'Particle Effect,' and 'War Alive~Sometimes Desperate~.'  For now they're all rated 1-star to preserve symmetry, but they're probably worth more than that.

I kicked out 8 more Valkyrie Profile songs to make room.  My 1-star tier is going to be amazing by the end of all this.

'Heartbreak Syndrome' comes from the latest event update, which was also amazing.  It focused on Squad 31-D, which hasn't had much screentime until now, and surprisingly made them a lot more relatable than before.  I ended up liking Risa a lot by the end, and was miraculously awarded her SS Memoria through hardly any effort that was also only released today.  I also used my leftover paid quartz to take advantage of their 'step-up recruitment' campaign and bagged myself three more SS Memorias, but they were all repeats and thus only contributed to various limit breaks.

Luckily one of the limit breaks went to Isuzu, so now I'll get to use her more often in more serious fights.  Right after I promoted her to my fictional character hall of fame the game rewards me for it.  I've been getting SS Memorias like candy recently because of my willingness to pay the game money, but today truly marked the end of those easy times.  Unless they release another Megumi SS Memoria recruitment chance there's nobody else I feel strongly enough about I'd pay money for.  I've already assembled quite the vast cast of SS Memorias to work with, and it's going to take me months just leveling the girls I have.  I'm content.

I also completed all the songs available on Gig Mode at normal difficulty.  I'm not even going to touch the Hard difficulty much less the Expert difficulty.  Normal is ridiculously difficult for me as is.  I'm proud enough hurdling just that.

The Spring anime season has begun, and the Final Four is tomorrow.  There's no pause in this entertainment schedule.