Dororo is set in the Sengoku Jidai or Warring States Era. Kagemitsu is a man who prays to 12 gods for peace and prosperity. The gods do grant his wish, but as payment, he has a son that he does not want. Deformed and repulsive, Kagemitsu sets his son adrift on a river one day to abandon him. Years later, a young bandit named Dororo meets a man who doesn’t have normal arms. In lieu of them, he has swords embedded into his arms that he fights with. Blind, this named named Hyakkimaru, can sense others through smoke and hunts down monsters who dare try to attack him or others.

Dororo is a surprisingly dark story from the beloved Osamu Tezuka. Yeap, the guy who made Astro Boy; so it’s really surprising to see how dark this setup is. Now, where this anime could go either way, is that we could get a Beserk-type story, which is what we want, or this is going to be some action with very heavy expositions and a constant resolution each episode. For now, we watch, but with caution.

Kemurikusa follows the story of three sisters: Rin, Ritsu, and Rina as they explore this new world. Other than they live in this unique world, not much is known about them. No story has been revealed but there should be one coming soon. So what does this mean? Well… not a whole lot. This series comes to us from Tatsuki, the embattled director of Kemono Friends who was pushed out without even knowing that he had been removed. It created a massive scandal and Kadokawa still really has yet to do anything to even apologize, since otaku and fans of Tatsuki, are what made Kemono Friends popular.

The reason this show could go either way is based on a few factors. If you have seen his other works, then you should know what sort of animation Tatsuki makes. Nothing groundbreaking, but still, it’s decent. It’s also Tatsuki so we are looking at a blockbuster or something that will barely be a blip on the radar. There is still no story as well, so we could either have something that is Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou, or just a boring anime full of dialogue. The series was given a full cour with 30-minute episodes, so let’s see what Tatsuki brings to us.

Egao no Daika is the third on our list of entries. Tatsunoko Productions is trying to make a splash again and this time, with an original anime. This one is set in space and the queen of the people, Yuuki, works hard to protect the smiles of her citizens. She is surrounded by those close to her as she worries, laughs, smiles, and cries over everything in her young age.

The story sounds like fluff, doesn’t it? That’s because it’s all we have. We don’t know what is going to happen, but this show is bound to go one of two ways: either we get a dark fantasy where Stella keeps Yuuki happy as the kingdom crumbles around them or happy happy fun time with flowers. There could be a third, albeit harder-to-believe route where Yuuki sees what’s going on and interstellar war breaks out. We think that this would be the best route, but there is no way to know yet. The trailers for the series too, don’t really show much action. Let’s see a few episodes and see if this series is worth our investment. Fun side note: Egao no Daika means “The Price of Smiles.”