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First impression: KonoSuba 2

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Four idiots continue to adventure together.

KonoSuba: everything is alright

They’re back: Aqua, Kazuma, Megamin and Darkness and just as horrible. Everything is alright in the world. At the end of the last series they had finally hit the big time: saved the town from its greatest menace, scored themselves a nice mansion, finally gotten money and recognition. More importantly, over the course of the series the challenges and dangers they had to struggle through had brought the four together, the occasional succubus incident notwithstanding, deepening their friendship.

KonoSuba: everything is alright -- not

And of course it all goes to shit. Kazuma is accused of subverting state power and it takes his friends no more than seconds to denounce them. He’s imprisoned, the other three try to rescue him, he almost is set free but ultimately has to undergo a big, Ace Attorney show trial and the outcome is that they have to set out on a new quest to prove his innocence, as well as pay off the lord whose mansion he destroyed in the climax of the last series.

KonoSuba: everything is alright -- in the end

KonoSuba hasn’t quite reached the comedic heights of the first series in this opening episode, seeing as this is mostly a setup for the rest of the series, but it’s looking good. Not so much for the animation however. It was always deliberately crude and ugly and it seems this season is bumping that ugliness up a notch. All in all slightly disappointing, but still worth following. I missed those idiots.

KonoSuba: what does Aqua wear underneath that skirt

And hey, at least one of the burning mysteries of the first season has been resolved.

First impression: Urara Meirochou

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A belly button exhibitionist girl raised in the wild by animals goes to the big city to become a fortune teller and meets other eccentric girls wanting to do the same.

Urara Meirochou: this is a fetish for someone

Gee, I wonder what the appeal of this series could be. Now obviously, this being a Manga Time Kirara adaptation this was always going to be a slice of moe/cute girls doing cute things with a bit of implied lesbianism/yuri thrown in, but still this gimmick got tired quickly. Oh, she’s raised by animals so she strips to show her belly as a sign of submission/apology. As Anime Feminist points out, it’s a bit dodgy especially since she’s supposed to be fifteen and especially when she does that to her friends.

Urara Meirochou: cute girls doing cute things

Apart from that, this is a standard slice of moe series, with each girl having her own character type: Chiya is the wild one, then there’s the shy one, the somewhat tsundere-esque one and the quietly component big sister type one. There’s a bit of sexual tension between that last one and Chiya, which may or may not go anywhere. The setting looks interesting if anything is done with it and I don’t mind this sort of series at all, if the blatant fanservice could be reigned in a bit.

First impression: Youjo Senki

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Blonde ten year old flying loli-wizard kills for the Reich.

Youjo Senki: niping for the Reich

Last season we had Izetta the Last Witch her home country from invasion by not-nazi Germany, this season we have ten year old second lieutenant Tanya Degurechaff defending not-quite Wilhelmine fantasy Germany from invasion from not-really France. Not quite World War I — there’s a Scandinavian front frex — but not quite World War II either. There are wizards flying around, but no planes so far, nor tanks either. Most of the fighting depicted fits the trenc warfare of the Great War better and the episode isn’t shy in showing the bloody consequences.

Youjo Senki: angel

We see Tanya mainly through the eyes of her subordinate, corporal Serebryakov who hero worships her. She sees Tanya as a symbol of strength, gruff and no nonsense, but who comes through for her soldiers when the chips are down. Early in the episode two of them disobey her orders and she punishes them by relieving them from duty and sending them somewhere safe. Or so she thinks.

Youjo Senki: devil

In reality Tanya sent them to their deaths, as on of the first targets of the not-French bombardment was the very bunker she had sent them to… There’s more to Tanya Degurechaff than meets the eye, but we only see her through other people’s eyes. Some, like corporal Serebryakov at first, see her as an Angel, the perfect hero to defend the fatherland, but it’s not just the Reich’s enemies that fear and loathe her.

Youjo Senki: height difference

it’s not surprising. Tanya doesn’t behave like a ten year old girl, is composed and serious way beyond her years, speaks with little emotional affection and only when it’s needed or to affirm her faith in God und Vaterland. Not to mention she’s more than a head shorter even than her corporal, who herself is at leat a head shorter than the other soldiers. It makes Tanya stand out and alien even if she wears the same uniform. (And how rare and great is it, to have the women in the same uniform as the men?)

First impressions: Masamune-kun no Revenge

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A boy sets out to prove that old margaret Atwood quote:

Masume-kun no Revenge: cruel rejection

Men are afraid that women will laugh at them.

Masume-kun no Revenge: physical attack

Women are afraid that men will kill them.

Masume-kun no Revenge: revenge is a dish served hottie

Also, men are such fragile creatures that one rejection as a child drives them to a decade long quest to become the perfect man in order for the girl who rejected them to fall in love with them, so they can reject her in turn and have their revenge.