We first meet Lara when she’s born from her clamshell:

If you know Hans Christian Anders’ The Little Mermaid you know roughly how this first episode goes. Lara grows up, gets curious about humans and the human world, rescues a prince falling overboard from a burning ship, gets seduced by her witch aunt to become human herself, it all ends in tragedy and she dies. Centuries later she returns to life to find her old home abandoned, her family dead or on the brink of death. Now her aunt challenges her to rescue them, by giving Lara a trial and Lara finds herself falling out of the sky over modern day Japan, on her way to the meet cute with the series other protagonist…

And that’s where the episode ends. Not quite a Disney ending.

This is Kinema Citrus’ big fifteenth anniversary project and you can see the care and attention lavished on it. The animation and character design are both gorgous. The characters have actual noses, a rarity in modern anime, with less rounded faces than we’ve gotten used to as well. It’s an older sort of character styling without being retro, unlike e.g. Iron Wok Jan this season, which wears its nineties aesthetic on its sleeves. What I also liked was the care and invention shown in depicting mermaid society and the use of colour therein.

With this first episode being the ‘origin story’ so to speak, it’s hard to say what the rest of the series will be like, but it looks like its central message will be a refutation of The Little Mermaid, that a mermaid could love a human and not suffer for it. In a season already packed with excellent anime, this still stands out.

Mum, can we get Hayate the Combat Butler? No, we got Hayate the Combat Butler at home. Hayate the Combat Butler at home:

Yes, Saijo no Osewa (full title: Saijo no Osewa: Takane no Hanadarake na Meimonkou de, Gakuin Ichi no Ojousama (Seikatsu Nouryoku Kaimu) wo Kagenagara Osewa suru Koto ni Narimashita) is very much cribbing from Hayate. It got a hapless, unlucky poor protagonist having to work half a dozen part time jobs to cover his school tuition because his parents are useless, with said parents immediately running off with his money at the start of this first episode. Luckily for Itsuki, unlike Hayate, they didn’t sell him to a bunch of nice guys, but he’s still left with only 200 yen to his name and the rent due. And then he gets involved in the kidnap of the rich girl seen above, she takes a liking to him and he’s hired as her caretaker.

Konohana Hinako is one of those hyper competent ojo-samas anime is so fond of. Good lucking, excellent student, great at sports, heir to a huge conglomerate. But in private she’s a lazy, selfish slob that has driven all her previous caretakers to madness. And now it’s Itsuki’s job to take care of her, as she has taken a real like to him. Which means enrolling into her rich people school. Unlike Hayate Itsuki doesn’t have a millions of yen debt hanging over his head and even gets paid for his new job. In typical idiotic too nice for his own good protagonist fashion he at first refuses the offering pay of 20,000 yen a day (or roughly $200) thinking it far too much when in reality this seems on the low side for such a demanding job…

Having read the manga version of this, I roughly knew what to expect going in. the appeal of this series is of course the wishfulfilment fantasy of being the competent hero who is the only one the heroine can show her useless, vulnerable side to. There will of course be other girls later on to complicate things for Itsuki. Whether or not I’ll keep watching depends on the execution: this first episode was okay, but not great. Character designs are a bit meh, the animation itself is average but it does have some bright touches, mostly with Hinako’s transformations into her useless moeblob form. A series to turn your brain of for.

This first episode could’ve been a five minute prologue.

Youngest daughter of a duke you say? Mother died in childbirth, elder sister is a genius and rumoured to be the kingdom’s next saint? The elder sister bullies the protagonist because she blames her for their mother’s dead? All of which has left the protagonist with no self confidence? And now there’s a crisis involving the much more powerful neighbouring empire and they need a bride for one of their princes? The one everybody thinks is a mad, blood thirsty killer with no heart? And our hero is the one chosen for this honor?

You really needed an entire episode to tell us all that?

Mujikaku Seijo wa Kyou mo Muishiki ni Chikara wo Tare Nagasu / The Oblivious Saint Can’t Contain Her Power is another entry in the fast growing saintess subgenre of narou slop, a slight revision of the villainess formula. That it took an entire episode to set up the situation in which the protagonist will inevitably discover she’s the real saint is not a good sign. That the opening and ending show a bevvy of bland looking handsome men also isn’t. Nothing of interest happened this episode, most of which was our poor Cinderella saintess-to-be thinking to herself. This could’ve been redeemed by interesting animation or character design but everything was done as straightforward as possible, so nothing sparked.

An easy drop.

The rest of this first episode is done in that stolid, Serious Gritty Anime style also seen on e.g. Nippon Sangoku meaning the climx hits you as hard as it hit the protagonist:

What I expected from World is Dancing was something like Wandance, but instead I got a historical anime set during Japan’s Nanboku-cho period, when the country was in a civil war between the Northern and Southern Courts on who was backing the true emperor. Even in such grim times people still need entertainment and the Kanza troupe delivers. Kanami is the head of this group of sarugaku theatre performers. Oniyasha is his son, a bit of an airhead and dreamer and far from convinced dancing has the importance that his father ascribes to it.

Oniyasha has those thick, triangular eyebrows you usually see on cheerful, good hearted but slightly dim supporting characters. It fits him considering when we first meet him he’s so caught up in his own head he not only misses his cue to perform, he doesn’t even notice the horse about to trample him. Unlike his father, he seemingly has little talent for dance or theatre and often sneeks out of his lessons to go to a nearby river to play with his friend as they both complain about their respective families.

All very peaceful but the reminders of the recent wars are still everywhere. Most of this first episode is establishing first his world and how brutal it is, then Oniyasha himself, before his absent-mindedness makes him lost and a kindly farmer sends him in the direction of the faithful encounter he has in that clip above. There’s more to Oniyasha’s reluctance to take dancing seriously than how he’s treated by his father, who only has eyes for his art, or his own lack of talent in other words. At a time when even village festivals are cancelled because harvests are bad, why do people still dance? Nobody needs to dance, so why do people still do it every time they get the chance? This is an anime about art and I’m always a sucker for these. Making it a historical drama at the same time is the cherry on top.

This is a very good looking anime. As the clip above shows it’s not afraid to get all expressionistic when it needs to and even in its more staid moments, Oniyasha gets to make silly, comedic faces as he reacts to things. What I liked during that entire, climactic dance scene is how Oniyasha at times gets sucked in to the point of deforming into almost nothingness himself, then when he pulls back he’s depicted in that more realistic style again. The studio behind this, Cypic, is so new this is their first series and the director himself, Toshimasa Kuroyanagi doesn’t have many directorial roles to his credit, despite being in the industry for over twenty years. He did however direct one of my favourite anime of 2016, Fune wo Amu, which gives me some confidence in this production. If it can keep up the high production values it had this episode and the story remains interesting this will be a great series.

Average mahou shoujo fan during a transformation scene:

More seriously, All Works Maid (full title: Heroine? Seijo? Iie, All Works Maid desu (Hokori)!) is another in a long line of isekai series that didn’t need to be isekai.

Our protagonist is a girl with huge magical talent who’s obsessed with becoming a maid. When her mother dies, she set out to fulfil her dreams and ends up inservice to the young daughter of impoverished rural nobles, who have sent her on her own to the capital to study at the obligatory magic school. Our heroine is overjoyed to hear there’s no other staff and she has to be an “all works maid”, ie a maid who has to to all the jobs usually handled by different types of maid. She immediately transforms her clothes to her new maid uniform leading to the above remark by her new employer…

And then we get a lengthy flashback to her “real past” as a genius child in Tokyo who had lost all interest in things because everything was so easy for her. Until she first encountered a maid that is, which finally brought some colour in her monochrome world. Then reincarnated in this world she once again encountered a maid as a young child and recovered her old memories. Was this really necessary to make her a maid maniac when that encounter by itself would’ve sufficed? Or is this just an excuse to have her invent mayonnaise in a future episode?

For narouslop this was decent. A little bit of humour, a little bit of effort on the animation goes a long way to make a cliched setup like this more palatable. I suspect our heroine will join the magic school as well and of course she’s the illegitamite daughter of some important noble, so this will never be an original series, but could be a decent time waster if the rest of the season doesn’t pan out.