I have mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, I like our leads and they have great chemistry, and that can make up for a lot of flaws. On the other hand, the action scenes felt a bit overly ambitious (the spinning shots especially felt poorly done), there never seemed to be any sense of urgency in them, and the tech elements seemed sort of overpowering and distracting when they have to shout their magic settings out loud in battle. On top of that, I’m also a little concerned that The Boss’s role in the story is going to largely be the butt of some very transphobic jokes (like, why would Kana be so fearful in that stinger if not “man in dress?? scary!!”). This one is another for the “maybe” pile. I’ll give it another episode to see how it settles in. 3/5.
I’m always a little wary about these shows with queer themes but het couples, since they can often fall into homophobic & transphobic tropes, and I still am a bit hesitant to fully invest in this one, but I am hopeful. The first episode was a lot of fun and I really like our three couples so far. I also think it works in the anime’s favor that the (cis) guys are fully incapable of reading the kings as anything but male when they’re in boymode - it gives the sense that even if the drag bar is truly just a job and none of the three kings are Doing A Gender, the (cis) boys are still probably going to come out of this experience realizing they’re at least a little bisexual.
Overall, I give it 4/5