Score: A-

This show is going to be pretty fun. The first impression was a good one. You have a demon that’s all offence and no defence and boy is that taken advantage of constantly! Just seeing Kanan falter out of embarrassment is going to be a treat for the whole season. I was worried slightly going in if I’d be able to separate Aoi Kaga’s Kaguya from Kanan. The trailers definitely sounded very Kaguya in those quick bursts and that’s certainly still the voice she’s going with here. But there was no problem once the episode got going to appreciate Kanan for her own merits.

Very impressive until it all fell apart on her!

And Kanan has many merits. Honestly this pair are made for each other. She’s so easily rattled while he’s forward enough to keep the pressure on. There’s barely any time for internal monologues about feeding on people before Youji shows up and completely throws Kanan off! Which is a good thing since it would throw off the pace of the show if Kanan ever got around to devouring souls! Thankfully even by the end of this episode Youji already showed her that simply eating a meal with someone you care about is enough to spice things up. She doesn’t need to start eating souls to get some satisfaction. Something her father clearly already understood which was why he asked if she was eating meals with others.

In the end Kanan is just a girl that doesn’t quite understand herself. She has basically no romantic experience. And it’s likely that she confused just being tired of the food with being lonely and needing someone to share time with. Youji should fill a lot of the empty gaps she had in her life. Everything about Youji throws her off, but that’s not a bad thing. And honestly if he keeps her going down this road that should help avoid any divine wars that could break out over her trying to turn a school into a soul farm!

The power of voice acting

Absolute props to Aoi Kaga once again though. She absolutely nails the over the top and goofy reactions from Kanan. Need her to hilariously think that holding hands will get her pregnant? She’s got it covered. Need Kanan to writhe and stagger over having Youji call her by her first name? Not a problem! Honestly I could probably just watch Kanan stumbling around while Youji calls her name for a whole episode and not get bored of it. I’m sure the main cast is going to expand soon so it’s not just these two going back and forth, but it made for a fun first episode to stay focused on Kanan and her internal panic. If I went over each reaction from her that made me laugh it would take forever to write about this episode!

Nice visualization!

There is clearly care being put into the show’s presentation too. You have the scene of Kanan racing “away” from Youji and the lower part is obscured by the hedges. Lines up perfectly with swinging the view down to show that she’s been dragging him for a good while now! They made sure to keep the backgrounds active, to focus in on Kanan’s expressions, and it made for a fun experience. I don’t think the budget is through the roof on this show. But it’s good enough for what they want to do here.

Good start to the season

Some shows are just made to be fun and give that away right from the start. This is certainly going to be one of those! Kanan is a treasure and Youji is an enjoyable love interest. He’s 100% ready for anything. Even when his hands are tied or he’s dragged around he turns it into a positive. Probably helps that Kanan doesn’t say anything particularly hurtful and rather just looks embarrassed a lot of the time. He’s just loving having a girlfriend and fell for her at first sight. It’ll be interesting to see how his feelings develop once he gets to know her more. But presumably he’ll just be head over heels for her the entire time and that’s ok!