Karen's Anime Blog
Because there's always time for more anime
recent posts
- About Downtime, Part 2
- About Downtime
- This Week in Anime: August 10, 2025
- Clevatess Episode Six
- Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon S2 Episode Six
- The Fragile Flower Blooms With Dignity Episode Five
- My Dress-Up Darling Episode 17
- Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus Episode Five
- This Week in Anime: August 3, 2025
- Takopi’s Original Sin Episode Six (END)
Tag: First Look
Reviews of the first episodes of anime series
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Sometimes it’s an asset to have watched anime on and off for a good three decades: I’ve seen a lot of shows, meaning I have a lot of context to put things in when new shows come out. Unfortunately, I just don’t remember everything I’ve seen. I remember watching Nichijou in 2011 and enjoying it,…
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Sometimes you can tell a show is really good when practically nothing happens and it’s still engaging. In this premiere, novelist Fuji finds an abandoned “dog” (actually a tanuki), takes it home, gets it the shots it needs, and both tanuki and woman take a bath; that’s pretty much it. It’s tremendously soothing, one of…
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It’s easy to write about something that’s either really good or really bad. Stories that are wonderful or terrible bring out passion, and passion makes for good writing- hopefully, anyway! So I’m sitting here with The Water Magician, which is fine but doesn’t wow me, and I’m having trouble figuring out how to talk about…
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I loved Restaurant to Another World from a while back, so I’m excited for another fantasy restaurant show. So far, Welcome to the Outcast’s Restaurant doesn’t seem very food-focused, but I’ll take what I can get; the other food show this season, Fermat no Ryouri, isn’t licensed yet. This show uses a couple of tropes…
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I’m a sucker for anything about a baby. Call it nature doing it’s thing, but whenever I see a little baby on film, animated or not, I turn into a pile of goo. However, I’m not so keen on violence and gore. What then do I do about Clevatess, an anime featuring a baby that…
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This episode has a long sequence of blocky 3D animation. My husband walked in during this sequence and said “This looks like a Mary* show.” I replied, “Actually, I don’t think it’s an anybody show.” I don’t like being negative about anime, really. Just the nature of the medium means that so much care and…
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I’ve accepted the fact that anime is largely about high-school aged characters; media is youth-focused in general. Still, it’s nice when we get a show starring a middle-aged character. Ex-ace Detective Nagumo is a forty-something dude with an aching back and no concept of how to deal with modern technology, and as someone in early…
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Today, I decided I was tired of mediocrity. I wanted passion, I wanted real feeling! “What is all this repetitive isekai and harem trash? Don’t they make REAL anime anymore?! Oh, they say that this Takopi show is good, what kind of weird title is ‘Tacopi’ anyway? Whatever, I’ll try it LOL” *watches first episode*…
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Sometimes, I enjoy trashy shows that don’t appear to have much redeeming value; In fact, I may be the only person who enjoyed Astralotte’s Toy who is not on some kind of government watchlist. Because of this, I decided to give Duke’s Daughter a try, even though from all appearances it’s…well…entertainment for men who like…
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