My Stepmom’s Daughter Is My Ex – 01 (First Impressions) – Old Habits Die Hard

Irido Yume and Irido Mizuto dated in junior high, and apparently had a pretty rough breakup. Now, due to their mom and dad marrying one another, they are now stepsiblings. Naturally, their folks don’t know about their history, so Yume and Mizuto have to hide how much they loathe each other, and settle for trading barbs outside of said folks’ earshot. Already, I love it. It’s so awkward, and somewhat tawdry. I wouldn’t wish this fate on anyone!

But here’s what really makes Tsurekano interesting: as they spend more and more time together—and they can’t not, as they not only live under the same roof, but are in the same class at the same school—they both learn in just this first episode that those old feelings they once had for one another don’t take much to resurface. Yume claims the class rep mantle and gains a lot of friends fast (never her forte in the past), but it backfires when guys try to befriend Mizuto to use him as a stepping stone to ask her out.

Back home, Mizuto doesn’t let Yume express any pity for him, or even say what’s on her mind, but it’s clear it bothers her that what she did might’ve ended up hurting him. Just because you’re exes doesn’t mean you automatically stop having feelings for each other, even a sense of wanting to protect the other. She overcompensates the next day by clinging to Mizuto and saying she has a brother complex, and after Mizuto makes them supper when their folks are out, she remembers the feel of his shoulder and tries to deflect by demanding he forget.

Frustrated by how passive he’s being (and has always been), Yume finally decides to get a literal rise out of him by striding into the living room in a tiny, tightly-wrapped towel and nothing else. While he is indeed initially flustered, her victory is brief, as the towel starts to loosen. Rather than do anything brazen, he covers her up with his hoodie, knowing she didn’t think this plan through. He just knows her too well. They both know each other too well.

And because both Yume and Mizuto are in a rom-com anime, it was inevitable that one of them would slip and fall towards the other, leading to a compromising—but also familiar—position. Mizuto even calls Yume by her old name, Ayai, as he brushes her bangs back in preparation for a kiss that is really only interrupted by the sudden arrival of their parents. Yume’s lucky there’s storage in the couch they were on.

But let’s assume these two are done and done for good because they are now stepsiblings. The show has many places to go with this, from exploring how they’ll no doubt stumble and fall again into old patterns from when they dated, to how they’ll try to counter that by entering hostility-regret-truce spirals, to the underlying mystery of why they broke up.

I also loved the detail that they were both shy “nerds” who still have rooms packed with books, and are both at the top of their class. Oh, and most important: while there are times that I’m on Team No One, at the end of the day both Yume and Mizuto want to make sure their parents are happy. They’re good kids, and I look forward to watching them navigate this strange new normal.

Made in Abyss – 10

Riko and Reg’s first impressions of the Fourth Layer are that it’s very damp, humid, and majestic. the “Goblets” that give the Layer its name are filled with something that smells “vinegary”, which leads me to think it’s another kind of digestive juice you don’t want to be wading around in too long.

While looking for a place to camp (the first place they found had an odd presence shadowing them), they encounter an orbed-piercer – a predator that can kill them a heck of a lot quicker than gut juice. It’s a fearsome thing to behold – a growling yet unreadable red face with five holes, surrounded by shaggy white fur and poisonous barbs that can cut through steel.

Scary looks and pointy bits aren’t the only things in its arsenal – the piercer is also a lot smarter than the beasts they’ve encountered thus far, as Ozen warned them they would get. It’s quick, crafty, and thinks a step ahead.

Reg can’t get away from it, and in a matter of moments, three absolute disasters occur: they lose the Blaze Reap, their best weapon against tougher beasts (Reg dare not use his Incinerator); their umbrella shield is easily shattered, and one of the barbs pierces Riko’s left hand.

Reg has to deal with that quickly before the poison spreads and kills Riko, so he does something else that threatens her life: he escapes by ascending. In the fourth layer, humans start bleeding profusely out of every orifice, and that’s what happens to poor Riko.

As if that wasn’t grim enough, Riko’s hand swells to three times its size, and before passing out, she tells him the only thing for it is to cut her hand off. Reg breaks the bone first and then fights back tears as he works away at the arm with his knife, but the blood attracts a cloud of bugs that interrupt his work.

Both Riko and Reg are saved when “presence” they felt before makes its appearance – a rabbit-like creature offering help.

After following the creature’s instructions and giving a very purple Riko the kiss of life (without a moment’s hesitation, or bashfulness), she starts breathing again, thank the gods. Their new friend then leads them to her very cool and comfy-looking home in a place where the Curse of the Abyss has no effect, and introduces herself as Nanachi, what the upworlders would call a “Hollow.”

Made in Abyss continues to plumb new depths of acute peril and danger, not treating Riko or Reg—who are only little kids after all—with any more mercy than their surroundings.

I knew things would never be the same the moment Riko’s hand was pierced, and the entire ordeal to stabilize her was simply gutting, as we weren’t spared the most grisly details (haring Reg breaking and cutting Riko’s wrist was bad, but so was watching more blood bubble out of her eye after he wiped it dry).

Here’s hoping this Hollow person Nanachi can work some kind of magic to save Riko’s hand, even if, as she said, it will never be the same. That seems to be the enduring theme of Abyss – the further down they go, the quicker it is to be slaughtered, and the more things will never be the same.

Little Witch Academia – 19

In a move that initially feels like she’s been underutilized in the show thus far, Diana makes the decision to drop out of Luna Nova Academy, effective immediately. The Cavendish family is in dire straits, she is the only one who can right the ship, and the window to assume the mantle of family leadership is closing, and won’t open again until the stars literally align years from now.

In true form, Akko either rejects whatever reasons Diana has or doesn’t bother to ask what they are: she’s only concerned with whether this is really what Diana wants. It’s clear Diana isn’t happy about leaving. But pride in her once-great family, and love and obligation to fulfill her now-deceased mother’s wishes outweighs her desire to stay in school.

Akko doesn’t make Diana’s departure any easier, so she throws Akko’s own main goal—the Words, and her inability to find them as quickly as she claimed she would—back in her face. There’s a nice meta nature to this: Akko has futzed around with Amanda and Cons but has yet to find the fifth, “history and tradition”-related Word.

There’s also the fact that Diana always thought she would be the one entrusted to the task of unsealing the words and opening the gate. But she ruefully accepts that Akko is the “chosen one”, and not her.

When Diana arrives at a huge but increasingly deteriorating Cavendish estate, we’re officially in Magic Falling Aristocrat Land, complete with Diana’s drunk aunt, Daryl. She and Diana exchange hollow pleasantries, barely bothering to hide their mutual disdain.

The sense is immediate that not only would Diana not have to deal with the collapse of her family before she finishes school, but that Daryl, the proxy head, has no desire whatsoever for Diana to come in and start mucking about the lifestyle she and her daughters cling to: sucking up what’s left of the Cavendish fortune and grinding its name into dust.

Naturally, Akko isn’t taking Diana’s goodbye lying down, and she’s clearly unconsciously drawn by the possibility the fifth word will lie in her interactions with Diana and her family. But whether it’s too slow, out of magical range, or the writers simply forgot, she doesn’t take the broom Cons made for her last week.

When she’s had her fill of travelling by foot, she thumbs a lift, and is reluctantly picked up by none other than Andrew and his father, who happen to be on their way to the Cavendish Manor. An initially tense, awkward backseat scene is lightened when Andrew refutes his father’s claim Akko “ruined” his party, while Akko tells Andrew the reason for their “fated” encounter: she’s going to bring Diana back.

Akko’s arrival with Andrew and his father certainly surprises Diana (Andrew’s line about finding her by the side of the road is at once cruel, hilarious, and true), but in this nest of vipers, it’s Diana who does what she can to keep Akko safe, claiming her as a guest (and as much a witch as she is), and getting her dolled up for dinner, after which she’ll go straight to bed and leave first thing in the morning. (Diana also hides her pried Shiny Chariot card from Akko…we know she was a big fan too!)

Akko holds her own in deflecting barbs from one of the few Cavendish maids left (her communist tendencies were well-documented from the faerie strike episode), but Akko also learns from the maid that Diana’s parents died when she was little, and she immediately feels guilty for all the awful things she’s said to her. Diana is also known within her family as being “kind” like her mother, in keeping with the Cavendish motto: “Affection.”

Akko also proves again that she cleans up nice, but her questionable dining etiquette earns her a simple wordless glare from Diana, one of my favorite moments of the episode.

The classiness and elegance of the evening starts to erode when Aunt Daryl reveals her reason for inviting the Hanbridges: she would like to sell them some prized, priceless Cavendish heirlooms, including the tapestry of Beatrix, one of the Nine Olde Witches who founded the family and was involved in the Grand Triskelion business.

It’s a very distasteful business, especially when Daryl all but begs a departing Hanbridge for money, offering a discount. This is what has become of the Cavendish family, other than Diana: a collection of people who have abandoned pride for greed. Daryl is only interested in maintaining her fancy quality of life, even though it’s unsustainable, considering there’s only a finite amount of Cavendish treasures she can monetize.

For her part, Daryl blames the sorry state of the family to her all-too-kind sister, Diana’s mother, and her insistence on helping others for free, as befits the Cavendish motto. But even if Daryl isn’t responsible for getting the family in this mess, she certainly has done nothing to get out of it.

That’s why Diana believes she must perform the ritual and become family head as soon as possible. Akko almost gets lost int he midst of this family drama, but there’s no way she won’t play a role in resolving it, no doubt unsealing a word and maybe even bringing Diana back to school in the process.