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What even is this anime? I won't lie, the title made me do a double-take when I first saw it. And I did put it on the backburner for a year after the first 3 episodes, because no matter how well intentioned the premise or the story, the subject matter is going to be cringey. Having picked it back up and making it through the entire thing, I'll say that it is a wonderful story if you can get through the cringiness of the first 3-5 episodes. To make it clear, there was nothing in a perverse nature between the adult ... male husband and the child's body housing his dead wife's soul. There was also nothing romantic either. That didn't make it any less cringe because the implication always hangs there, with every emotional reaction. Later episodes do address that awkwardness, which feeds into why t his was a good story overall.

My only criticism is that the ending felt rushed and contrived. I'm planning on reviewing the source material to see if there is a more satisfying ending there, or if this was really a faithful adaptation.

Overall 7/10

I'll watch anything isekai for a few episodes at least. This anime had a mildly interesting premise that might have been better if they didn't spend so much time focusing on the creepy brother sister relationship. The Japanese seem to have the ability to take anything and make it seem perverted. This was enough to make me shelve the series for a few months. I picked it back up and watched a couple more episodes to give it another chance. However, once the MC (brother) learns he's "not related by blood" to his sister at the end of the first episode I watched after ... returning, half the next episode is about him thinking about that versus any actual developments, plus some unnecessary bath time with his sister and mom to round it off. This is the point I noped out of the series. There had been some questionable dialog already in previous episodes and I wasn't interested in an incest-fest. We've all seen where the overused "not actually related by blood" trope leads. At least Oremio had interesting characters. The same cannot be said here. Shion is pretty bland, Marie is creepy and one dimensionally written to be all about her brother, and Rose is just there.

From what I did watch, it wasn't a horrible anime. I just wasn't that good either.

On the surface this looks like an enjoyable anime. And it is, if you don't think about it too much and treat it like a typical brain rot series. If you do happen to think about it, some problems begin to emerge. This is why I chose "Mixed Feelings", because depending on how you approach this one its likely to look very different.

To start I'll describe it if you don't think about it too much.

The theme is sweet. There's a lot of bright colors and crisp animation. Its cute and bubbly and fun. You want to like the characters and ... you root for Lily because she's a cute foreign girl struggling to fit in in Japan's notoriously homogenous society. She forms a bond and bridging those differences with someone through playing games at a game center. Its also cute how she mixes her broken Japanese with "English". KA-WA-IIII.

Though, its best to not think too much about the fact the foreign girl and her foreign mother speak Japanese at home, or that most of the inner monologue is in Japanese with a few token English phrases here and there to remind you she's supposed to be foreign. We'll suspend the believe a bit since we know this is a show targeting primarily Japanese viewers who may not want to read subtitles like those of us who are not native speakers tend to be accustomed to anyway.

Personally, I found the English to be off-putting. I am an native speaker with a background in the UK dialect and accent, and it sounds fake. And not in an American trying to sound British fake, but in a computer generated or setting Siri to British English approximation of human speech fake. It kept triggering an uncanny valley reaction each time I heard it which was jarring. It also played as if it were someone playing a recording of themselves in response instead of saying the words themselves during the course of a normal conversation. It didn't fit smoothly in tone or tempo. So every time Lily used English, it immediately made me focus on that "unnaturalness" instead of the story.

Now what happens if you happen to think about the anime and its plot in anything more than surface level detail?

Look, I love anime and defend it often to people who categorize it as either only for children, or for adults who are either childish or "love" children. This is one of those series that leave you thinking "come on guys, really??" when you stop to think about it. When people accuse anime of normalizing certain questionable behaviors, this would be one of the series that would be used to defend that position and is hard to argue against.

Remember, the theme is sweet. Its bright. It's cute, bubbly and its fun. Given a few plot changes. this would be a very good anime. And all of that might do a good job at distracting you from the fact that this is an anime about the forming of a relationship between a college student (an adult) and a middle school girl(a child) who has a crush on him. There's nothing wrong with a younger person having a crush on an older person. As a young teen, I had crushes on adults. That's relatable and normal. The adult participating, stoking, encouraging, or at the very least not establishing some boundaries on that crush though is not. Nor should it be.
It's not quite as explicit as something like Kodomo no Jikan, but its that subtlety that makes it so problematic. Frankly, there's absolutely nothing about the given plot that would change if Lily were a high school student who was 17/18 instead of 13. But 13 is a magic number (or at least, was at the time of the source materials creation), and likely was intentionally picked for a very specific purpose in mind.

Another review started with "ignoring the 5 year age gap", and others point out in the forums that "its only 5 years" or that Lily (just barely) meets the "age of consent". Honestly, those stances do not do much to help anime shed the image of its veiled glorification of child exploitation. We already have to deal with ones that objectify child like characters or put them in compromising situations, but hey its ok because they are actually 40 or 10,000 years old and only look like children. Well, this one is actually a child. And in 2025 the age of 13 no longer means what it once did. Not to mention, the 5 years between 13 and 18 are much more significant than the 5 years between 35 and 40, or even 20 and 25. Would you feel as good about 17 and 12, or 16 and 11? I really hope not.

With the issue with the voicing and the questionable relationship, its made it hard to continue with this anime as its become impossible to relate to or become invested in despite the inviting theme and fun presentation. The fact this is in the "Romance" category means its quite unlikely that things are going to shift focus to the quirky "cultural exchange" aspect that was appealing. After 4 episodes, the tone has been set and its made it fairly easy for it to be added to the discard pile in a season of top tier anime.

The title indicates that the MC hates a girl in his class. It quickly becomes easy to understand why. Akane's constant shrill yelling made any attempt at watching this near impossible. I placed it on hold for nearly half a year before trying again and failing to finish another full episode before remembering why I walked away in the first place. Even for a tsundere she's insufferable, which makes getting invested a non-possibility. Another proto-typical male MC who is flustered by anything remotely feminine. The younger sister is cute with a much easier to listen to voice, but that bro-con angle was a ... bit much. So overall, there really isn't any redeeming qualities.

If you like a nonsensical anime full of cliché tropes and a female lead with a grating voice, you might enjoy this.
I did not.
Score: 5/10
Watched: 5.5 episodes / 12 and dropped.

If you're into anime where the powerful impose their will on those below them with impunity, and having it framed like it is for everyone's best interest and perfectly natural if not caring, then this is the anime for you.

Lovely character designs. Beautiful animation. But all of that is lost on the darkness inside of these characters. Beneath the cute settings and mellow music lies a sinister reality. The male lead toys with the female leads emotions, hoping to elicit a response for his own enjoyment. When that backfires and she seems genuinely relived and happy she no longer is subject to ... a forced marriage instead of his goal of making her upset and jealous. he instead pursues her and kidnaps her to bring her back saying "just kidding". He literally puts her over his shoulder and carries her away from her happiness, smiling the whole time. He does offer her "concessions" of more freedom, but they are for show. Its like when you give a toddler two choices to make them feel in control when both choices are what you as the parent want in the first place. Its the illusion of freedom. What makes it worse, is that every other character in the anime also look at every action as perfectly understandable and reasonable.

The groundwork is laid within the story for her to "come to her senses" and fall for the prince. The OP sequence lends further weight to that conclusion. However, this is much like 50 Shades of Grey in that it dresses up an extremely toxic situation as being caring. Except this seems more nefarious. At lease 50 Shades are dark and gritty. This show packages the poison with fun cartoon characters and fruity flavors.

Full disclosure. This review was written after watching 3/12 episodes. As of this writing, that's all that have been released. I will not be watching Episode 4, or any after, so this review will not be updated.

There are a lot of medieval fantasy genre anime. They all tend to take heavy artistic licenses with the time period and fantasy settings. One theme that they rarely omit is that age gap relationships are common place and often prominently placed. So you have to ask yourself, is the age gap relationship there because its medieval fantasy, or is it medieval fantasy because they want to justify an age gap relationship.

The story hinges on the "consort" needing to be under 14 years old, for reasons. The main female lead is 10 years old. The nearly 20 year old ... male lead says she's just his type, but wishes she was a little younger. Again, remember these statements are justified under that story point of needing to be under 14 as to make it seem not creepy. It fails at that. Some may point to this being a "reincarnation", so her mind is older than her 10 year old body, but come on, people try and use the "old soul" defense all the time.

I made it to episode 9 before dropping it. The relationship is creepy, but what finally did it in was the way both of them started sulking and using guilt trips on one another about "cheating" by merely being around others. The overall story itself isn't interesting enough to put up with that annoyance. And despite her being reincarnated, they don't really do much with that aspect other than to bring the incestuous royalty of her home land into the story and recognizing a few people.

While there is nothing overtly lewd, I can guarantee if your 10 year old daughter was interacting with a 19 year old man the way they do in this anime, you'd likely take issue and inform the authorities if not take it into your own hands. Episode 9 ends with them talking about the jealous feelings while the 10 year old sits in his lap alone in the bedroom in the dark. Some might think its cute, but I call it grooming and unhealthy co-dependence.

Oh but it does have good art and character designs.

4/10

Cute story
Cute characters
Interesting world building
Just the right amount of conflict to go along with the cuteness

But….

This anime is kind of awkward. The dynamic between Dale and Latina is sweet but with serious undertones of creepiness that get more and more obvious as the series goes on. This continues to the point of thinking ‘he’s going to bang this little girl isn’t he?’ No matter what storyline there was, this fact was always simmering right under the surface. They knew what they were doing with the dialogue choices. And of course I made the mistake of looking up what happens after the anime ends. Well, ... Japan is gonna Japan.

Imagine a world where the entire history of anime and manga were trained into an AI model, and then someone wrote a prompt like "setting: high school, topic: cosplay, includethemes: (harem, childhood friend, ), malepatheticnessfactor: 0.65, fanserviceweight:0.86, tropeweight:1.0". It feels like the output could be this show. Its not that its a bad anime. It has some enjoyable parts. But it feels soulless. The premise is generic. The execution is generic. The only thing it has going for it is its "plot". That may be enough for some. For a long time it was enough for me. ... But lately it feels like many anime (and manga) are just cookie cutter products relying completely on tired tropes and fanservice to carry a mediocre core. This one is no exception. Story is an after thought. What story there is doesn't seem that emotionally engaging so leaves little impact or investment. True, the girls are attractive. 10/10 I would bang. But after that I would leave and wouldn't call again. As opposed to a best girl from something like Oshi No Ko, who I'd call back every night begging for more.

Based on the "3 episode rule" this one has failed to engage me to the point of feeling I need to continue watching. At no point was this an anime I looked forward to seeing each week. From the buzz I've seen in the comments so far, its mostly been around how toned down the fan service aspect has been as compared to the manga. That seems to track. But I doubt adding it would make up for its lack of substance. In short, if you're looking for a brain rot tier fanservice heavy trope fest, this one will fit the bill nicely. If you're looking for something story rich with depth and emotion, ignore a MAL score as inflated as the female characters chests and look elsewhere.

6/10 - Not bad / Nothing special. Dropped (for now) after 3.5 episodes. Too much other quality anime this season. May pick it up again later after its full run if I am in the mood for an anime like I described above. These tend to be easier to stomach binging all at once instead of letting its mediocrity stew over the course of 6 months.

There really isn't much to say about this anime. Its an ecchi series, so the entire draw is the "plot". Past that, there is no real plot. Something about some dude needing to bang a bunch of chicks to gain magic power to defeat the evil demon king. Pretty basic middle school stuff involving illusions of grandeur and main character syndrome with sex as the magical catalyst. That said, just like many anime protagonists for years now, the male lead is completely and utterly pathetic. So despite needing the power of these girls, he cant really get it because ... he turns into a babbling fool any time they show the slightest interest in him. And in true anime fashion, that makes these extremely attractive women want him even more. "Plot" armor aside, he would be slaughtered immediately in this world (but then we wouldn't see anymore anime titties if he dies, right?). Every other character is more interesting that the protagonist, and even then they are pretty one dimensional. There has essentially been 0 character growth for anyone in 8.5 episodes. I truly hate dropping series this late, but my time is limited and I don't see this getting any better than it already is, which is south of mid at best and seems to be getting worse the more they dig in on his pathetic nature. I made it through the first 5 minutes of the 9th episode today before deciding to drop it. Boobies cant save this dumpster fire. Not in 2024 where they are a dime a dozen, even in Japan. Its rating in the 6s on MAL is completely buoyed by those who will give 10s to anything that shows nipples. If you want some uncensored ecchi fun this season, check out Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete instead. It has interesting characters, actual character growth, great humor and plenty of titties and ertoic antics.

If your kink is severe social anxiety than this anime is for you. It's like Bocchi the Rock, if Bocchi was completely without talent or character growth. If you're someone who doesn't get into the fetishization of mental illness, then you probably wont like this. Literally all this anime is would be "protecc the cute helpless animal" with some yuri baiting.

Yes the character designs and animation are good. The base story plot is somewhat interesting. But I watched weekly the first 7 weeks and it was tough to get through the last few weeks. Each week the protags voice and way of ... talking got more and more grating. I have social anxiety, and know many who do. None of us talk like this and stutter -every-single-syllable. Let alone in a whiny baby voice. Its a cheap stereotype played to appeal her cuteness to the target demographic of those who want to protect her. That's all. The loose semi-interesting plot (cute girls building model rockets) was not enough to offset the annoyingness of other aspects of the anime. I stopped quarter of the way through episode 8 the day it came out, and decided today to try and finish it off since it had finished airing. I made it through another quarter of the episode before punting it to the dropped list. No way I could handle another 4.5 episodes of this. The constant stuttering of the protag and the "tsundere" just ripping on the protag was too much, and I remembered why I stopped watching in the first place. I say "tsundere" since that word lately seems more and more exaggerated and an excuse to be a total b*tch to everyone rather than a genuine story device.

In all, this was a show that had potential but failed on execution, in a strong Fall 2023 Lineup where it was overshadowed at every turn. Still, I'm sure many will enjoy based solely on the cute girls, but that just isn't enough for me.