Honey Lemon Soda
Short Synopsis: A high school wallflower becomes enamored with a blond-haired boy who later stands up to a trio of bullies on her behalf.
Wooper: My days of calling myself a shoujo fan may be coming to an end, since I rarely jive with the genre’s modern offerings. Case in point: I wasn’t expecting much from HLS, and it still disappointed me. Its female protagonist, Uka Ishimori, is so unbelievably timid – and her high school bullies are such unbelievable dicks – that it’s hard to feel bad for her, despite the soundtrack’s habit of drenching scenes with reverberating piano tracks. The writing just isn’t there, as her crush’s connection to her is virtually nonexistent, being predicated on a 30 second encounter on the street that somehow convinced her to change her high school of choice. His insistence that she rely on him to repel her tormentors is vaguely manipulative – if he really wanted to protect her, why not just do it instead of making her ask for help one syllable at a time? Some of the language Uka uses when thinking about him is pretty embarrassing, as well, whether she’s rejoicing over his ordinary morning greeting or “tingling” at his presence (I sincerely hope the latter was merely a poor translation). If I had to locate a positive here, it’d be that a few of Uka’s reaction faces were endearingly nonplussed – apart from those shots, though, I didn’t enjoy this premiere in the least.
Potential: 0%
Lenlo: As overdone as highschool romances are, this one felt especially bad. What kind of romance starts with a guy throwing soda in a girl’s face and being an asshole about it? The show kind of tries to walk this back with him changing and covering for her in class and such, it’s very clearly going for the “Asshole with a heart of gold” approach, but I never really bought into him being anything other than a dick. I get wanting a confident or standoffish lead, Yubisaki to Renren had a good one last year which we might or might not talk about in our Anime of the Year post coming soon, but this one just comes off as a quiet girl being unnaturally forced into a relationship with a domineering asshole.
Potential: 0%
The Red Ranger Becomes an
Adventurer in Another World
Short Synopsis: It says right there in the title. Trigger warning: terrible CG fires everywhere.
Mario: “Red Ranger Isekai” has one neat central idea. That being his Red Ranger ability, which is totally overpowered and messes up this world’s logic, with costume transformations in the blink of an eye, random musical cues and gadgets talking whenever he transforms, and explosions!! I do wish that either the writing or production values would step up to bring the craziness to the next level, though. For instance, the previous-life sequence (this is an isekai, after all) would have worked much better if it was a parody, but instead they play it straight. It would have been hilarious if he got smashed immediately before killing the demon king, for example. In addition, the characters so far are thinly written, with one significant trait and not much else. The CG is… actually, the less I say about it the better. I suppose our writer Amun might enjoy it, but I reckon it’s strictly for isekai junkies.
Potential: 10%
Baban Baban Ban Vampire
Short Synopsis: A vampire employed at a public bathhouse embarks on a mission to preserve the virginity of his underage human fixation.
Wooper: I imagine that most reactions to Baban Baban Ban Vampire will range from disinterest to disgust, but I actually thought this episode was alright. The premise of a vampire who fell in love with a grade school kid and has been biding his time before he turns 18 is nasty, of course, but this show is quite upfront about its comedic intentions, and about the lechery of its vampiric protagonist Ranmaru. He gets not one, but two Hisoka-style erections when considering the pure-heartedness of Rihito, the now-teenage heir to the bathhouse where he works nights, but the show doesn’t settle for pointing and laughing at how perverse this is. Rather, it uses Ranmaru’s obsession with purity as a springboard to joke about his ancient expectations for human behavior, or to flash back to his love affair with Oba Nobunaga in the late 16th century. It’s clear that his schemes to ruin Rihito’s chances of having sex will be incompetently executed, and I’m kind of interested to see how he’ll make a mess of things despite his fantastical abilities. There was also a nicely animated Michael Jackson dance homage near the start of the episode, and I enjoyed the dimwitted voice performance from the actor playing Rihito’s father. I wouldn’t recommend that just anyone run out and download this show, but personally, I’ll give it another couple episodes before (most likely) dropping it.
Potential: 25%
The post Winter 2025 Impressions: Honey Lemon Soda, Red Ranger Isekai, Baban Baban Ban Vampire appeared first on Star Crossed Anime.
