2025 Summer Anime Three-Episode Check-In

This is a summer of horror and romance–sometimes at the same time!

The team split up the three-episode reviews between staff volunteers, with one person putting together a short(ish) review on each series. Like we do with our check-in podcasts, we started from the bottom of our Premiere Digest list and worked our way up.

If we didn’t watch a show for at least three episodes, we skipped it, and we’ve used nice bold headers to help you quickly jump to the shows you’re interested in. We’ve also excluded shows that are continuing on in basically the same vein as our premiere review to conserve space. Unless specifically noted, we will not be mentioning overt spoilers for anything beyond episode three.

We’ve skipped coverage of Takopi’s Original Sin, as it has released four episodes out of six; as well as Gachiakuta, which is only on its second episode due to airing delays.

We don’t have the time to keep up with everything, so please let us know about any gems we might be missing in the comments!

Wondering, “hey, where’s the show I’m into?!” As we mentioned, we’re not able to cover everything every season—but we’d like to. In fact, we made it a funding goal. So you can make your dream a reality!

“Staying the Course” Digest

We’re still enjoying and watching these shows. However, they’re not doing anything dramatically different in terms of themes, characters, etc., so there isn’t anything new to write about them. Please check out the premiere review for details:

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Content Warning: sexual assault, gore, enslavement

Chiaki: While the show earns caution flags for grim dark gore and violence, it’s honestly thematically consistent. Tonally, it’s exactly what you expect and thus I respect and enjoy this show so far. That said, its gore is extreme in a lot of ways and squeamish audiences should take ample care before engaging with the show. Alicia, being undead, has adopted a devil-may-care fighting style that frequently results in her getting mutilated in order to get through a fight. It’s really just worth stressing that the show details what happens to a body when it falls off a cliff, and then also details the magical bone snapping resurrection. 

More so, Nell, a slave Alicia and Clevatess meets after being captured by bandits, goes through her own ringer as she is sexually assaulted in the second episode and mutilated in the third. Her treatment is almost as visceral as the undead hero Alicia, earning this show its red flag to stress to any potential viewer, the violence is really that gory.

Meanwhile, the story remains engaging otherwise. It constantly builds upon its lore, and the villains, as despicable as they are, are interesting. There’s so much going on at the same time, and each character reveals a little more about the world. It leaves me invested and excited to keep going, despite the red flags I assigned, mostly because they’re not deal breakers for me.  However, I will really stress that anyone interested in the show should be prepared for the viscera in the show.

Content Warning: hanging, sanism

Vrai: It sincerely warms my heart to say that the loud and instant backlash to Necronomico’s AI slop subtitles resulted in a human team being assigned to the show. It’s a little victory, but a reminder that we aren’t yet powerless even with the current landscape of streaming monopolies. So, now that it’s intelligible, what does the show have to offer? Ehh…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m having a grand time. I like the garish color palette; and “cosmic” is my favorite type of horror after “body,” so I’m primed to be charmed by the many Cthulhu references (and it’s certainly a damn sight better than the time I wasted on Demonbane). But a lot of my starry-eyed hopes haven’t exactly come true. The stylistic experiments of the first episode were discarded for a uniform visual style inside the game world, and episode two was quick to slip in that Miko and Mayu grew up together “like sisters.” Miko still has plenty of chemistry with fellow contestant Kanna, but fool me once and all that.

The visual energy is also definitely carrying a script that rarely rises above competent—what can one say when a character unironically utters the line, “if you die in the game, you die in real life?” The use of “madness” as a looming consequence of losing the game is inherently fraught but expected territory for a story drawing so heavily from Lovecraft in specific. There’s also the plain weird details, like a joke about how the kindly teacher who got pulled into this eldritch death game wants to creep on his students but sublimates it through being seriously overly invested. At least it’s continued to sidestep most of the misogyny that tends to go hand-in-hand with death game stories, though there’s a persistent sprinkling of patented Boob Nonsense courtesy of Cthulhu. It’s the kind of show you can look at for five minutes and figure out if it’s your vibe. I do stand by what I said, though–if this turns out gay after all, I officially forgive Uezo Makoto for writing one of the worst game adaptations I’ve ever sat through.

Content Warning: More prominent fan service of teenagers 

Cy: Bad Girl is, in its own way, staying the course as a seasonal yuri anime about a girl very literally trying to get her senpai to notice her in a way that’s borderline toxic infatuation. I say that because said senpai, Atori, still remains more of a caricature than a fully fleshed out human: she’s much more a collection of fantasies than what she truly is—an everyday student who happens to be the object of Yuu’s continued affection. In its relatability, there’s a bit of humor, and overall, I wouldn’t say the show is wholly unfunny.

That said, I also find this show really fascinating as a study in the ignorance of infatuation and how that mingles with the growing foppish desperation Yu has in her attempts to shape herself into someone her senior classmate will like, rather than just being herself. At times, this is just Yuu seeming at odds with just being a very normal, and by proxy, average, teenager. Then at other times…it gets sexual and dips into fetish territory that reminds you that the manga runs in a seinen magazine. 

Now, I don’t think sexuality and the topic of sex in high school settings is necessarily wrong: teenagers experience sex and develop sexual thoughts. I don’t think denying that serves any purpose either: teenagers will learn about sex, potentially engage in sexual acts, and discover sexual preferences with or without supportive education and a community to help them engage with their bodies safely. I’m just not sure this is a series capable of making anything feel like it’s in service of anything more than a comedic stinger, at least right now. If anything, I just feel even more at odds with whatever Bad Girl is trying to be.

And unfortunately, as of episode three, we’ve fallen into some…more discomforting camera angles. There’s a lot more fan service of these teenagers than I’d like, which is something I’ve struggled with more and more this season. I hate it because that pesky camera diminishes what is a perfectly fine, and at times, giggle-worthy story about the foibles of a young lesbian trying to figure it all out in proximity to getting a crush. Hopefully this sapphic ship will right itself. Otherwise, it’ll just be another “could have been really great” Yuri that I’m glad ultimately exists, but wish could be so much more fulfilling in the end.

Content Warning: sexual assault 

Chiaki: While it’s clear Renako’s feelings for Mai are apparent and that this show could be a deeper exploration on the teenage drama of figuring out the deeper question of what love versus friendship actually is, Mai’s pushy character instead earns the show sound criticism.

While the show might be moving fast due to the curse of having to stick to a single cour schedule, the back-to-back episodes features Mai sexually assaulting Renako for dramatic effect. What I particularly take issue with, however, is the fact that as Mai continues to kiss and undress Rena despite her protests, her sexual ministrations appear to be working to wear Renako down.

It begs the question if Mai’s sex pest attitude is going to be a weekly occurrence for the rest of the show, or if Renako will one day finally magically realizes she’s really into it after being worn down. Maybe the mid-season check in can reveal which way this will go. Either way, this kind of writing reminds me more of fanfiction I’d expect to read from the Greyarchive rather than even the most horndog-addled harem anime. After all, even Keitaro earned the love of his harem by doing things that didn’t directly involve attempts at explicit cunnilingus. 

The show otherwise has polish and the supporting characters are fun, which makes it all the more frustrating to have to deal with the fact Mai is a letch who seems to be unable to control herself when it comes to her love for Renako. There’s so much emotional chemistry in this show, it really could stand on its own without the sexual elements, which really only serves to frustrate me on knowing this could be so much better—either as a romance drama or a straight up sesbian lex porn doujinshi—but lacks the commitment to go either way.

Personally speaking, I’m fine with the show and I can keep watching it, but a critical eye analyzing what’s going on raises concerns for me because, narratively, this show will likely never interrogate Mai’s boundary violations in a meaningful way.

Tony: CITY is fantastic, probably my favorite anime comedy since Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle. To me, it far surpasses Nichijou in stature, creating an interwoven world of whimsical happenings and distinctive and quirky characters who are intensely likable. Since the first episode, it has settled into a wholesomeness built on specificity–the searing brightness has been turned down slightly, with less of the kinds of screaming overreaction you often found in Nichijou, and the focus has been increased, helping one get a much deeper sense of who these characters actually are.

CITY has become far more than just a gag show, and much of that is because of how it depicts the relationship between women. Matsuri and Eri’s scenes are often just a series of aimless, playful banter–I love them, though, because they capture something specific about the way we remember middle school at its best, with all of its flights of fancy and intensity of relationship. In Niikura’s backstory, on the other hand, she is inspired by Nagumo’s fearlessness in trying different sports normally dominated by men, and then falls in love with photography as a result of wanting to capture what makes Nagumo so cool. It’s hard not to read queer undertones in this kind of desire to capture Nagumo’s badassery, particularly given the parallels to Tomoyo in Cardcaptor Sakura, which significantly alleviates my concerns about the show’s engagement with queerness in the first episode.

CITY is, of course, elevated by some of the most delightful animation and gorgeous backgrounds I’ve ever seen. Matsuri and Eri’s walking cycle bounces. The buildings dance when the teacher has mercy on the student falling asleep in class. Every frame is carefully composed. It’s hard to recommend this show highly enough.

Content Warning: depictions of racism, suicide 

Alex: The second episode gives us Kyros’ perspective and some insight into his fraught childhood, and how he finds himself simultaneously in and out of the power structures of this setting. He had to navigate the tension that came with being the son of a foreign concubine, his status as a male heir in a patriarchal nobility conflicting with his status as a racial minority. It’s not a particularly deep exploration of racism, but I think it’s neat that it’s there, and that this series is prepared to at least touch on the intersections of class and race in its worldbuilding (and maybe even class, race, and gender if we get to hear more about Kyros’ mother’s experiences). While it wouldn’t be fair to say Kyros and Marie share experiences as marginalised people, the show’s doing the work to set up that they’ve both suffered at the hands of this world’s aristocracy, on a systemic level and/or a “your rich parents are horrible, entitled people” level. It’s a form of common ground that helps to show why they vibe with each other so well, and gives Kyros some empathy and non-romantic motivations in helping her out. 

 Much like Marie’s backstory, Kyros’ runs the gauntlet of some heavy themes—including the suicide of his father’s other, “official” wife—while ultimately pointing the show overall towards a light, escapist tone. It’s the eternal dilemma of so-called cozy or feel-good fantasy, I suppose: you want the catharsis that comes with the characters healing from trauma, but don’t want to depict anything too realistic or detailed that it would upset the warm atmosphere. 

And Betrothed is definitely going for that sweet, healing atmosphere. Kyros and Marie continue to have cute chemistry, and it seems like the main thing keeping them apart is Marie’s own crumpled self-esteem and inability to believe that he’s been in love with her all along. Whether you find this endearing or frustrating will probably vary from viewer to viewer, in the same way that you may have different levels of patience for the less nuanced, tropey elements (e.g. Marie’s miserable Cinderella existence, or the way her poor sister has been relegated to a fond memory and a plot device). I agree with Vrai that there are definitely more mature and complex takes on this set-up, but honestly Betrothed is an alright time so far and seems to have its heart in the right place. 

Content Warning: body horror, gore, flashing lights, coded sexual assault

Vrai: If you are 100% unable to stomach horror stories, or if you have extreme photosensitivity, The Summer Hikaru Died is probably not for you. Other than those folks though, I am prepared to take each and every one of you by the shoulders and shake until I figure out why you aren’t watching this show yet. It’s every bit as visually breathtaking as Tony covered in their premiere review, every inch as gut-churning in the best possible way. I deliberately put off reading the manga in order to take in the anime fresh, and I haven’t seen a story do uncanny discomfort this well since Paranoia Agent.

The story continues to use its body horror narrative as a useful metaphor for queerness—in fact, one of the things that’s unexpectedly touched me about the story is how well the particular tensions of being a small-town queer resonate across cultures. Yoshiki reaching out to a sympathetic adult who seems to understand him, only to be told with truly well-meant kindness that his association with Hikaru will only make him miserable, struck me hard. Yes, it’s about hanging out with an eldritch nightmare that’s already killed once and will kill again…but it’s also the adults who really loved me and still felt compelled to talk about how coming out meant a sad and struggling existence. The famed “raw chicken” scene, which would make David Cronenberg proud, captures the simultaneous enthrallment and terror of physical intimacy. It’s about the vibes. 

It’s also actively ripping my heart out on a weekly basis. The writing does an incredible job of investing the viewer in Hikaru and Yoshiki’s relationship, walking a fine line on a very muddy dynamic. Episode 3 includes a scene of coded assault, but treated as horror and well foreshadowed by the hug in the premiere. Momokuren has also talked about striving to balance making Hikaru somewhat childish without him reading as a child, which the most recent episode lays out a lot of space to explore going forward. And like any good horror romance, I really want these two to be happy together even as I foresee an inevitably rising body count in their future. If it keeps up as strong as it’s been, this isn’t just my show of the summer—it’s the anime of the year.