First Look: Summer 2026 Anime Reviews (Patreon)

Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia

Synopsis: Sitara loses her family and home in Persia to the Mongol empire, and is taken as a slave. However, Sitara has a whip-sharp intellect on her side. Taking on the same Fatima, she begins plotting her revenge against the Empire.

Jaadugar is a gorgeous, lush and endlessly impressive show. It's a visual treat, and a sprawling story that pays attention to some of-overlooked fascinating women from history. and the cultures they come from. Iranian culture is basically never spotlighted in broader media, but this anime emphasizes the boundless knowledge and advancements Muslims achieved in this era.

Just look at it. It's breathtaking.

I didn't even know about the historical figure Sitara's based on, Fatima Khatun, or her partner Torogrene Khatun, so I'm super pleased this show has bought these historical figures to my attention, and presented them as compelling figures worth rooting for. I am not at all equipped to discuss the cultural nuances of this show, but I love that hese women who were historically either ignored or demonized are now at the center of the narrative, and I find them both to be excellent characters.

The show treats every character as a person with their own complex ties and emotions, and this includes the conquering Mongols. For some, they might find the Mongols are too humanized, and that maybe the atrocities they're committing aren't receiving the attention they should. But considering the entire opening focuses on the horrors they visited on Sitara, and how Sitara's anger is consistently spotlighted and given weight, for me personally right now it comes off more as nuance than apologia, but your mileage may vary.

Another potential stumbling block on the show is the fact Sitara/Fatima was sold as a slave to a family, yet they eventually treat her as a family member herself, and she misses them dearly when they're gone and remains loyal to them. It feels like it may lean on the myth of a "good" slaveowner, On the other hand, I do think the theme of Sitara routinely having her agency robbed from her has some weight and could lead to something really meaningful. Recognizing the wrongness of what the Mongols did to her, but not quite being able to reconcile it with the way her own people treated her-- it could lead somewhere really interesting. It does mirror the historical fact that Fatima was given to Torogrene as a slave, yet Torogrene did make her part of her cabinet and promote her to minister, and did have a close relationship with her...so there's a lot going on there.

That's the thing- the show doesn't blatantly spell out its own opinions on who's right and who's wrong, but sort of presents it and expects you to figure out the rest. It's hard to comment on it when the narrative is unfinished, especially because it is a narrative with such a vast scope, dealing with so many complex historical topics. But the story is confidently told, so well done, full of such interesting characters and with so much attention to detail, that I'm fully seated to see where it goes if we ever get a season 2 (or as the manga continues). And that's really all I can say. It's a beautiful show I think everyone should try out, but I'm also really interested to hear the opinions of others more learned than me on how it handles its topics and cultural nuance. It's definitely opened up a great avenue for conversation.

Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games

Synopsis: Aya enters an elegant all girls school with the goal of becoming a refined lady, however, her past as a fighting game fanatic comes back in full when she discovers the school idol Mio is a fellow fighting game fan. The girls get locked in a rivalry, and before they know it, other girls are along for the ride.

Young Ladies is a fun hobby anime with a hint of yuri, though as of now (and from what i hear about the manga) it's subtextual. As someone who isn't versed in Street Fighter, I do feel lost about what they're talking about on occasion, but the over the top rivalry and chemistry between the characters is what carries the show. The underlying sexual tension between Aya and Mio as they try to kill each other in gaming, blood spurting out of their mouths and all, is very fun, as is the bombastic way the more everyday conflicts are presented.

Speaking of that, Mio's mom challenges her to a real life 1v1 fight where she breaks her arm in a flashback. It's presented as ludicrous, like they're facing off in a real life fighting game, complete with horrified commentary, but it's worth nothing,and it'll give you a good idea how this show rolls.

I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day

Synopsis: In a school where children are trained to be soldiers who are then deployed in an ongoing magical war, a girl named Sheena meets Mimi, a young looking girl who is rumored to be an immortal and is almost unstoppable in battle. The two girls start to get more entangled...

I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day is a nice enough bittersweet yuri, but it's thin on the narrative front. We're not told why the war is happening, why children have to be deployed in it, or given much in the way of world building at all, so that makes it hard to engage with the story at times. And while the main couple is sweet, Sheena is so motherly toward the childlike Mimi that it's hard to feel the romance between them (toward the end of the show, we're TOLD that the feelings are becoming more romantic than motherly now, but it's hard to buy it). Mimi is supposed to only look ten, but she genuinely does feel like she has the mind of a young child while Sheena is a regular teenager, so that personally threw up a barrier for me with the couple.

However, I do think the show excels when it's portraying and exploring grief. Whenever the show focuses on the secondary couple-- Seiran and Ali-- things become much more interesting. The last episode of the show in particular was very lovely. The teacher and the nurse are also intriguing characters, and I kind of shipped them and wished they had more to do. Along with lovely animation, the show has enough strengths that I'd be tuned in for a season 2, but it could also have been so much more than it was.

Daemons of the Shadow Realm and Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. Season 2

Daemons was about the same as it was for its first half- a solid good time!

Magilumiere was the same as the first season in a lot of ways, except that unfortunately the animation and pacing worsened (with a lot of talking heads) and dragged it down. The manga's an overall better experience for this season.

Goodbye, Lara

Synopsis: In this loose retelling of The Little Mermaid, Lara is given a second chance after her prince rejects her and she turns to sea foam. Reborn in modern-day Tokyo, Lara ascends to land again, and this time she has to find true love or her people are doomed.

There was a time I was really anticipating writing this review, all amped to compare and contrast it to Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid and the queer themes there, to really going ham....but then the last five minutes of the show happened, and the wind just went right out my sails.

Goodbye Lara is visually beautiful, reminiscent of 90's shoujo in its style, with an endearing main character in Lara and equally endearing supporting character in Mari. The show plays with the narrative beats of The Little Mermaid in a fun way,and combines animation aplomb with fairy tale-esque symbolism. And there's a real diva of a sea witch to enjoy.

The story seemed like it was going in a direction that might be really meaningful to me. I thought, for example, that it included a heartwrenching exploration of the main character struggling with compulsory heterosexuality in a way that reminded me of Utena.

Then the last five minutes happened, and now I'm not so sure. One aspect bothers me the most, and that's the way the last scene with Luca was done (spoilers in the link, obviously) the way the ambiguity of it seemed to give an 'out' to those who would want to read Lara as not in love with Mari, which seemed to spit in the face of the comphet narrative I thought the show was exploring. Maybe we were just seeing what we wanted. Maybe the show never cared to tell that story at all.

I don't need queer characters to kiss for it to be valid, I don't need a perfectly normative romantic ending. It would have taken very little to make me happy. But I felt the ending of this show was poorly built up to, rushed, and it felt off and forced. I wish I could read the lovely things into it many others saw, but it just felt off to me. Again, if that scene with Luca hadn't gone the way it did, my feelings about it might be different. But alas.

Mostly though, the discourse that burst forth from it both exhausted me and tainted the show There was some nuanced discussion, but there was also a lot of mocking at gay people for even believing something more concrete would happen, and a lot of both sides being extremely rude and unsympathetic to each other. I don't often let that impact how I feel about a narrative, but I couldn't help it this time.

And thinking about that ending also exposed other things for me-- like how the supporting cast was barely developed, like how the show was shallow in some areas and probably could have used more runtime, so on, so forth. I was so swept up in the excitement watching it, but I think the narrative holes would stick out to me more on rewatch.

Though I personally find it difficult to engage with now, it's a story that's worth checking out for yourself. It might be very meaningful to you, I've seen some cool trans readings of it, for example. i manage your expectations about how the central relationship will be addressed, and be aware there's a narrative shift in the last five minutes. And don't read the online discourse.