Pass the Monster Meat, Milady
Short Synopsis: Royal girl who loves eating monsters + awkward knight who loves killing monsters = great success! Easy!
Amun: Disclaimer: I love wild meat. I would trade all the domestic beef and chicken in the world if I could eat wild meat every day. In short, I agree strongly with our heroine – and while I haven’t been shunned by royal society, I have gotten a few funny looks. And, like our heroine, I’m not a great hunter – so if someone came along who could decapitate a future meal, yeah I’d swoon too. Take away my obvious bias, and this is a show about two people who are a bit outside the norm finding love and acceptance with each other – plus a bit of a wild game gourmet gimmick. Some of the character designs are quite triangular (makes me feel like I’m watching a 20 year old anime sometimes), but I’m generally onboard with the chemistry of the leads and the different avenues the story can take us. I do think the animation could fall apart in the back half, but that’s a problem for future me. Sign me up for another course!
Potential: 85%
Mario: I’ll be frank, the title turned me off at first. It sounds more like a bad pun of an ecchi anime, but instead, this is a show about a girl who loves meat and a boy who loves hunting. The trend in anime about eating monsters sure is fascinating, but unlike Delicious in Dungeon which is interested in the art of cooking, here it’s more about the enjoyment of eating. Doesn’t matter, as the episode instead focuses on two misfits who find something in common, and it is adorable. Their exchanges are actually very natural (except occasionally when they get shy) and you can easily see how they are drawn into each other. Just this alone makes this a worthy show for anyone looking for a neat romance, but we also have the wild meat as the seasoning on top. I can also see that the production might be a big issue later on, given that during the scene where our girl runs away from the monster, the animation looks really awkward.
Potential: 40%
Shabake
Short Synopsis: A sick boy who can talk to yokai tries to solve a mysterious murder incident during the Edo period.
Mario: My main takeaway after the first episode is that Shabake is much more interested in how our main character Ichitaro interacts with yokai, rather than his fellow humans. And I guess I missed the fine details that it already explained, but why do Ichitaro’s guardians, who are yokai, age when we flash forward? That aside, the episode itself is a little slow paced at the moment. Rather than establishing the main conflict, for now it follows Ichitaro going on with his day. It makes it hard to have a better idea of what Shabake will be about further down the line, but the theme here is very clear, and mildly interesting: it’s about Ichitaro’s relationships with the yokai characters and how they support him with their own abilities. It certainly looks and feels different than the mainstream here.
Potential: 30%
Lenlo: I’ll admit, I was disappointed in how light a tone Shabake chose to take. Even with a child growing up in poor health, yokai, and a murder in the street, it still felt rather relaxed about it all. I was hoping for something a bit… stronger, I guess. Not full on Seinen murder mystery, but more than “Saturday morning cartoon”. Because of that, I was never able to really get into the episode, since as Mario says it spends more time on Ichitaro and the Pokemon Yokai he hangs around with than anything else. All in all, a tad boring.
Potential: 15%
Towa no Yuugure
Short Synopsis: A boy wakes up to find the world in ruins after a few hundred years have passed.
Mario: I think I have a thing for any show that has “the End of the World” in the title, as they’re often set in post-apocalyptic societies that have different sets of rules than our current world, and where technology has regressed instead of evolved. Towa no Yuugure scratches that itch with a young boy named Akira waking up in a society he is not familiar with. The concept of “ehlsea” (or marriage), for example, is interesting; it’s a group of people who vow to live together, instead of just two people. The backgrounds provide a perfect canvas to bring this new setting to life, as well as the noteworthy character designs. As much as I enjoy these parts of the episode, OWEL Commissioner General is the type of character written so poorly that he stands out in a really bad way. The gore doesn’t really fit this show either, and I’m not sure if I find our hero Akira or the android girl Towasa interesting enough to follow long term. It certainly has ambition, though, so I might give it a couple more episodes.
Potential: 30%
The post Fall 2025 Impressions: Pass the Monster Meat Milady, Shabake, Towa no Yuugure appeared first on Star Crossed Anime.
