Spring 2024 Impressions: One Room, Hi Atari Futsuu, Tenshi Tsuki, Gods’ Games We Play, Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku?

Welcome all, to the start of the Spring Season! And would you look at that, we have Wooper back to suffer with me help me report on all of these shows! Such a great guy. Gonna get these out as fast as we can for you. We are skipping some, whether they be sequels to shows neither of us have watched or so creatively bankrupt we don’t even need to watch them to know. For the most part though, we’re going to hit all the big ones, so look forward to it. Now lets dive in!

One Room, Hi Atari Futsuu, Tenshi Tsuki.

Short Synopsis: A highschooler living alone wakes up one day to find a hot angel girl on his balcony. What else is he to do but have her move in and get plenty of panty shots?

Lenlo: I dunno, One Room seems cute enough? It’s a pretty standard ecchi-romance built off of an absurd premise that takes every chance it has to either sexualize the lead girl or drop some ecchi jokes like with the magazines. There’s nothing particularly interesting or unique about the series. Could you find some value in it? Sure, probably. Maybe. It’s not terribly produced, and the girl is cute enough, so if all you want is an ecchi rom-com for the season this will probably do you fine. For me though? An easy pass. There’s no substance to One Room. If I wanted ecchi, I’d just go watch porn. Or better yet, use AI and make whatever I wanted that day. Suffice to say, I won’t be watching this.
Potential: 1%

Gods’ Games We Play

Short Synopsis: A goddess recruits a promising rookie gamer to aid her in returning to the immortal realm by clearing 10 straight challenges from the gods.

Wooper: It’s been a while since I’ve participated in a round of Star Crossed first impressions, and shows like Gods’ Games We Play are a big reason why; there are simply too many premieres each season that suck major ass. But I made my bed by offering to pop in for a couple weeks, and now I have to lie in it, starting with this game-themed light novel adaptation that’s heavy on exposition and light on everything else. Gods’ Games is set in an alternate universe where virtually all of humanity is fixated on clearing challenges issued by the gods in the hopes that their wishes will be granted. We’re given glimpses of contestants fleeing alien creatures down tiled runways and being whipped by giant salamanders’ flaming tails, but they merely burst into holographic triangles when they “die.” There’s no risk of such a mild fate befalling our protagonist, of course, because he’s such a famous God Gamer that he has to wear glasses in public to prevent people from recognizing him. He’s swiftly tasked with watching over a goddess (who bears a striking resemblance to his childhood gaming mentor), and they play the world’s most needlessly complicated memory game as an icebreaker. Meanwhile, the show drops something like eight poorly phrased rules about the godly challenges they’ll soon take on, killing any excitement about the competition before it can even begin. After slogging through this premiere, the only game I want to play is one that carries the risk of blindness, so that if I lose, I never have to watch a turd like this again.
Potential: 0%

Lenlo: As always, I greatly appreciate Wooper stepping in and returning so I don’t have to watch shit like this alone. At least with him on board I have someone else to bitch too about it. Plus, he actually writes justifications and long-winded reasonings for why something sucks, freeing me up to be an asshole and make vapid jokes about how lifeless, uninspired and poorly produced the series is. Seriously, does this show even have an AD? I swear to god the characters look different in every scene, and the colors look washed out and dull. Anyways, suffice to say that Gods’ Games is the first completely unoriginal washout of the Spring season. Thanks Wooper, you chose a fun one to return on.
Potential: 0%

Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku?

Short Synopsis: The invention of 7G cellular service shatters reality as we know it and plunges the world into a dystopian future. Will 4 girls be able to traverse this weird and possibly dangerous land inside an old train to find their friend?

Lenlo: Train Girls is… weird? I don’t actually know, or understand, what is happening in this show? And if I’m being honest, I’m not sure Train Girls knows either. On its surface Train Girls seems like a basic Cute Girls Doing Cute Things kind of show, though definitely on the weirder end of them. It’s rather light hearted, colorful, the girls are color coded for your convenience, and the whole premise is built to remove adults from the equation by turning everyone over the age of 21 into animals. At the same time though… There are moments where it gets creepy. Where a bear tries to seriously eat a little girl, played straight, or shots of bloody handprints peppering a dented and beaten armored truck, or the sight of all the different planets in the sky against a blood red backdrop. I could easily see Train Girls turning into another Gakkougurashi. Or, barring that, an advertisement for trains. If nothing else though, it’s clear it isn’t just your bog standard CGDCT anime, though that will definitely have its place. I’m not convinced it’s worth watching in full yet, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on it and may pick it up depending on what people say after it gets a few episodes in. Oh, and it also happens to be the best looking thing I’ve seen this season so far. Not that that’s saying much.
Potential: 40%