Tamon’s B-Side
Short Synopsis: A high school girl discovers that the frontman of her favorite idol group is a nervous wreck in private.
Wooper: Tamon-kun Ima Docchi didn’t have a bad first episode. It was fairly well-drawn, used tons of amusing cutaways that showcased the characters’ wild imaginations, and featured a great transition from its final shot into the music video ED. If you’ve enjoyed male idol anime in the past, you’ll probably dig this one, too. Personally, though, I was mentally weighing it against Oshi ga Budokan for nearly its entire run time, and Tamon’s B-Side got the short end of that stick. Both series center on the experience of being a fan, rather than making main characters of the idols themselves, but where Budoukan both celebrated and skewered that lifestyle (at least initially), B-Side is only interested in the former. It presents relationships with idols as attainable through the female lead’s housekeeping job, which coincidentally sends her to the apartment of her favorite performer, and makes him so pathetic that he becomes dependent on her to function in private. Of course, this is only a cartoon, but preying on our ability to form one-way relationships through screens is what the idol industry is built on, and B-Side is nakedly tapping into a similar fantasy. Not only does it suggest that the viewer may one day meet one of these manufactured personalities, it also implies that they need our help “to take a selfie without throwing up” (a real line from this premiere). That’s just about my least favorite flavor of Japanese snake oil, so I’ll have to pass on this show.
Potential: 25%
Fate/strange Fake
Short Synopsis: Masters, Servants, and Observers gather in Snowfield, Nevada to play their parts in a prearranged Holy Grail War.
Wooper: This is exactly what I was talking about in the season preview with regards to Fate adaptations – they look great, but they’re more enamored with explaining themselves than with storytelling. Take the second and third scenes from this episode as an example: Faldeus and Aldora’s conversation about the Grail War at their headquarters, and El-Melloi II and Rohngall’s conversation about the Grail War at the Clock Tower. They weren’t identical, of course, but these two dialogues served too similar a purpose. The former went over the War’s participating Masters, both confirmed and not, making it a good refresher; the latter mostly speculated about the motives of the conflict’s unseen benefactors, and felt fruitless as a result. Better to show us the War in progress and let us learn about it firsthand than to jump across the pond for a convo that offers no new information. Even with such redundancies built into Fate’s presentation style, though, this episode was super stylish – one thing I appreciate about modern anime is Japan’s willingness to let rookie directors play around with established franchises, which has me more interested in this show than I might be otherwise. The premiere also featured two fun late-game moments in Francesca’s amusement at Saber’s arrest, plus Flat’s videobombing of the accompanying newscast, so it wasn’t all dialogue and effects animation. I’m on board with Strange Fake, but only for now – we’ll see how far into its War I manage to wade.
Potential: 50%
Hana-Kimi
Short Synopsis: A teenage girl moves to Japan and crossdresses as a boy in order to attend the same high school as her track and field idol.
Wooper: I’m amazed that it took so long for Hanazakari no Kimitachi e, or Hana-Kimi for short, to receive an animated adaptation. The manga ended in 2004, and though it’s been spun into two separate J-dramas in the years since then (the first of which was a massive hit), its secret crossdressing premise makes it a natural fit for the frivolous world of anime. I don’t mean to imply that all crossdressing plots are trivial, but Hana-Kimi’s certainly is – based on this episode, its main purpose is to set up situations where the female lead (Ashiya)’s classmates can call her “cute” or sarcastically caution her against “getting pregnant” while assuming that she’s a boy like the rest of them. Ashiya’s motivation for attending an all-boys school is that she wanted to be peers with a particular track and field athlete, but the show is clearly more interested in the dimensions of his face than the height of his jump. Visually, the old school character designs were expected, but the subpar animation and plain compositing weren’t – I didn’t think a beloved property like this would fall so far down the industry totem pole. No doubt many fans will continue watching out of loyalty to their favorite Osaka High bishounen, but I can’t help but feel that they deserved a bit better than this adaptation.
Potential: 20%
The post Winter 2026 Impressions: Tamon’s B-Side, Fate/strange Fake, Hana-Kimi appeared first on Star Crossed Anime.
