Fluffy Paradise: A kind of mindless generic isekai reincarnation story where a girl gets to live as a 3-year old duchess with adult mental capacities and the power to tame all manner of non-humans, all the way up to holy dragons and the like. A nice life if you can get it. Fail.
Ishura: Another full cg series trying to pretend it's an anime. The cg is high quality, though, so I could have forgiven it, except that the main characters are a deranged girl and a cocky asshole boy who doesn't care that millions of people died and just enjoys the chance at the resulting 'cool fight' he gets to enjoy for all of five minutes. Amoral brutes aren't interesting and I don't care what they do with their lives from here. Fail.
Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete: Magical girl porn is a great idea for a single episode, but has already played all its cards -- I've already seen all the girls nude in the first episode, what else is left? A repetitive plot that can't go anywhere because if either side wins the story ends? A sadist protagonist? No thanks. Fail.
Mato Seihei no Slave: I had high hopes for this show because it's by Takahiro, but the needless dominatrix ecchi subplot ruins it. At best this show will be as good as Seiken Gakuen, it certainly has good enough art for that, but a huge letdown. Pass.
Sokushi Cheat: I knew this would be a good series but I didn't think it would be great. Somehow the high quality art, voice acting and music elevates the story from good to great. Now everything is funnier and cooler and prettier than before. Since I've been seeking a replacement for 16bit Sensation anyway, this will do as my 200th great anime. This is the best anime that will come out this winter, perhaps the only great anime of 2024. The English title is 'None can withstand the power of instant death,' which is funny but unwieldy, so I prefer this short Japanese abbreviation. Pass.
Dungeon Meshi: This story relies on shock value to create humor. I was laughing all ep because I was shocked all ep, but how long can that really last? The joke will eventually get old, but until then it looks to be a nice enjoyable ride. Pass.
Unwanted Undead: An aptly named unwanted series. Basically a reprise of 'So I'm a spider, so what?' except without the cute girl protagonist. Now we get a boring middle aged loser man instead, and instead of a cute spider he's an ugly skeleton/ghoul. Who was the brilliant person who decided this was a good idea? Fail.
Sasaki to Pi-chan: Another loser middle aged ugly man protagonist. Is this a thing now? This is a reprise of 'Saving 80,000 Coins in Another World' except minus the cute girl protagonist and plus an annoying pushover loser male. And for some reason it dragged on for an hour, ugh. Fail.
The wrong way to use healing magic: A generic and slow-paced beginning to yet another isekai adventure. Nothing stands out about this show from a thousand others, except an annoying attempt at humor where the king is afraid of his own underling. Fail.
Pon no Michi: A group of girls playing Mahjong, but not Saki. Why don't they make a new season of Saki instead? That's a better group of girls playing better Mahjong. . .Fail.
Momochi-san Chi: A typical shoujo series where a girl is surrounded by gorgeous but slightly dangerous men. And through no fault of her own she's already held hands, kissed, and seen one of the guys naked. It's all so exciting if only I were female. Fail.
Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari: A loser guy who is too afraid to say how he feels to his childhood girl friend magically teleports to another world, gains a special light weapon, and marries a princess. Then he somehow gets four other girls according to the opening and ending themes, all while being this complete loser of a personality and having bad looks. There's a limit to suspension of disbelief. Fail.
Yubisaki to Renren: I almost like this show, but I have a lot of hangups about it. First, why does she wear hearing aids when she still can't hear with them? Is it to signal to unknowing people that she's deaf? But if I saw someone with hearing aids I would assume they weren't deaf because the hearing aids would be fixing their problems. It seems like it would only confuse people. Also, why do girls instantly fall for guys with tattoos when they're so ugly? And guys who start instantly touching them when that's called 'rape' whenever a non-cool guy does it? Also, why would you want to mate with a deaf girl when she's clearly genetically defective? Also, where can this series possibly go from here since their romance was already sealed in episode 1? It makes for a good first ep, but what about all the other eps? Fail.
Solo Leveling: They say this is the second coming of SAO, even better than SAO, but what I saw so far in this first episode wasn't inspiring. A young lad who's the 'weakest hunter of all time' is trying to dungeon crawl but completely ineffectual and just tying up the healer's resources keeping him alive. Any sensible person would get a different job as he's not cut out for this one. Then of all things he gets caught in a high level dungeon trap which there's no way he should be able to escape, but obviously for the plot to work he must somehow escape it, which is just contradictory. On account of the good animation and the good reputation this series has I'll go on watching but this is no SAO. Pass.
Saikyou Tank: This story is good in a cheating way -- it relies on good art and lots of little girls in need of saving -- sick little sisters, runaway slaves, etc. With a plot like that what can possibly go wrong? Who needs high art when you can have wish fulfilment? Pass.
That will do for the first half of winter debuts. I'll cover the remaining half in a second post. Winter 2024 is already better than expected thanks to a new great anime debuting. Let's hope there's a pleasant surprise in the second half as well.
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