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I didn't go into this show with the highest of hopes. I was bored, and looking for something to watch, and one of my friends recommended this show to me. He said that he was enjoying it, and that it was kind of like Konosuba, so I figured that I'd give it a shot. I'm a pretty big Konosuba fan, and generally trust this friend's judgment, so I decided to give it a shot.

After watching the seven episodes that were available at the time of writing, I have come to the following conclusion:

This show was made for someone; but I am *very much* not that ... person.

On the technical front, the show is outstanding. The world is beautiful, everything is bright and colorful, all of the characters look amazing and unique (more on this later), the voice acting is spot-on, and aside from the occasional decision to crank the bloom dial to 11 (which is one of the strangest visual decisions I've ever seen, BTW), everything feels right for this world.

Now on to the story; which unfortunately will take up the majority of my review, because I have the most to say about it:

tl;dr: It's a confusing mess.

Basically, Protag-kun falls out of the sky after having some vague, lofty conversation with some God(?) about something or other (uncover the truth... I can't join you yet... you have great power..., please rember..., etc.) only for him to fall out of the sky and be a literal infant. Like, he can't talk in complete sentences, he doesn't know how to fight, he tries to eat money, and so on. He literally only exists to create problems for the other main characters, and to occasionally activate his AOE buff when he remembers that it exists.

The other main characters are better, but it isn't hard to be more competent than a toddler.

The first one is a white-haired elf named Kokkoro who was sent(?) by the god(?) to help the protag not die (to literally everything). She calls him "My Lord", and is overall a pretty cute and charming character. Honestly, not much to say about this character. Good enough, as far as I'm concerned.

Next we meet Pecorine, who is totally not someone important, despite having a crown, a holy sword, and *a literal assassin* after her, definitely isn't important (so don't question it, okay?). She's OP as hell, is a savant at everything, and likes to eat food. Also, she's possibly stupider that baby-kun, somehow.

Finally, we get Kyaru. The would-be magical assassin who is conveniently given a chance to join the party without turn-coating her original... Faction? Affiliation? God/religion? (I don't really know what word to use here). She's the token tsundere, plays the straight-man to Pecorine (kinda), and is also a catgirl. So that's cool, I guess.

These four form a party/guild with the goal of... enjoying... food... together? Huh? Antics ensue... but not really? Kinda? What? Calling anything that happens a "story" or a "plot" may be a stretch, but progression is (theoretically) made, so...

After about 3 episodes, it became evidently clear to me that I was missing something. Too much in this show either didn't make sense, or was otherwise brushed off, almost as if it were prior knowledge. Furthermore, almost every side character that we meet, even in passing, seemed to have incredibly detailed, main-character levels of design put into them.

Then, as I picked up my phone to refresh the logistics timers for Girls Frontline - a waifu-collector gatcha game that I play - it all clicked. Perhaps with my newfound knowledge, I should restart my review.

PRINCESS CONNECT! RE:DIVE is an anime made for a Japanese-only waifu-collector gatcha game of the same name developed by Cygames. All of the characters from the show are (I assume) are collectible characters in the game, which is why there are so many incredibly detailed characters. The game world and the anime world are (I assume) the same, which is why there are so many assumptions made about the viewer's knowledge that aren't explained. The protag in the show is (I assume) supposed to be the protag from the game, which is why he is such a personality-less harem-bait brainlet, and probably why Kokkoro calls him "My Lord" (read: Commander/Summoner/Doctor/Admiral).

When you view the show through this lens, I can easily imagine myself giving this show an 8, 9, or even a perfect 10/10... had I been a fan of the game. Again: from a technical standpoint, it's really great, and the characters could be pretty interesting if I knew their actual backgrounds or personalities.

I have not, however, played the game - and consequently - I don't *really* have a complete idea of what is going on, I don't *really* understand these characters, I don't *really* understand this world, and I have a feeling that none of that is going change as this show goes on.

Maybe I'll keep watching, maybe I won't; and if things change, I'll be the first one to be here singing this show's praises. Somehow, however, I don't think that that will be the case.

edit: In retrospect, It seems that I was TOLD about the fact that it was based on a gatcha game, and that I was just too drunk to process this fact. Oops. My criticism still stands.

Watching this show was, if nothing else, an interesting experience.

Throughout this review, I am going to be constantly comparing it to Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, an excellent show of similar plot, but with some key differences that I think are particularly interesting to think about, however, you needn't have watched Kobayashi to understand my comparisons, I hope.

To start off with, I will make this slightly strange statement:

Depending HEAVILY on what you are looking for in a SoL anime, you will either find this anime WAY better, or WAY worse than Kobayashi.

Why this is we will get into a bit as the review goes ... on, but this will sort of be the thesis of my whole review so please do keep it in mind as we go forward.

The plot of this show incredibly one-beat. The first episode introduces us to our main character, whose name doesn't at all matter, since he may very well be the most self-insertable character of all time. A late 20s to early 30s plank of wood with a fairly ambiguous "white collar" job that he is discontent with. He is afflicted with "anime-darkness disease", which is - as far as I can tell - just a black cloud manifestation of his discontent that may or may not also cause discontent in those around him. This isn't made all that clear.

In order to help him, the titular 800 year-old-fox-lolita-demigod Senko-san begins to live with him and "pamper" him in order to mitigate the aforementioned darkness. Basically, she is a house maid, but also a demigod, so she's good at everything.

For those of you who have seen Kobayashi... this is probably sounding a little bit familiar.

Senko-san is super cute, and her character design is cute - albeit a bit one-dimensional. Other than her desire to pamper Wood-kun and to make him happy after he comes home from work, there is basically nothing to her character. She is carefree, is a great cook, is 800 years old, and has a fluffy tail. That's it.

If you were looking for any of the characters to develop or change at any point, you are looking at the wrong anime my friend. Whereas Kobayashi forms a sort of family with Tooru and Kanna, and her behavior changes as a result of this, there is no discernible difference between Wood-kun at the beginning and end of the anime. He started out as a basically flawless character, and ended the same way, just now he had a fox-maid and is slightly happier.

He is a sad, overworked, white-collar worker in the beginning, and he becomes a slightly less sad, but still overworked white-collar worker in the end.

The anime ends by paying some lip-service to some sort of contrived conflict that doesn't really exist, but had to so that we can cry at the end.

All of the other characters are good (with a special shoutout to the next-door neighbor character, whom I found adorable), but none of them honestly matter that much to the plot. Honestly, I think that they were kind of just there so that there could be any variation in character interaction at all.

I've been told that this anime is part of a niche sub-genre of anime called "healing" anime, where you are supposed to project yourself onto the protagonist to such an extent that you yourself feel pampered by Senko-san (aided by first-person post credit scenes where Senko-san pampers the viewer directly), and thus you feel better in real life... or something like that.

Basically, the only reason why this anime exists is to be the ultimate form of self insert bait, and if that's what you're looking for, this is the anime for you.

The sound design in this anime is delicious, and the voice actors did an incredible job bringing characters to life that would otherwise be completely lifeless. They deserve my highest praise, especially the voice actors for Senko-san and the neighbor characters. Senko-san in particular uses a sort of antiquated diction in a cutesy, child-like tone, which is pulled off brilliantly by Ms. Azumi. Well done for sure.

Now, we are going to do a quick contrast of this anime with Kobayashi, and we are going to scout out some key differences between these two anime, which I hope can help to better characterize them.

Kobayashi is an inherently flawed character. She's dreary, pretty cynical, and is a borderline alcoholic. When she gets drunk (which she does often), she ranges from hyper-passionate, to outright abusive - at one point even going to far as to force Tooru to strip nude in a public place as she reprimands her about how she doesn't dress as a proper maid should. She is also a highly aloof genius, who rarely does anything of outside of work, drink with her friend from work, and shirk social interaction beyond the bare minimum.

The plot is kick-started by two of her key flaws: she drinks too much, and ends up talking to a dragon in the woods, with whom she continues to drink and complain about her day-to-day, before inviting the dragon back to her place to live as a maid. Then, when she wakes up and has to confront her mistake, she realizes that her aloofness has made her late to work, and thus is forced to reluctantly accept the dragon - named Tooru's help, marking the beginning of their relationship.

Wood-kun has exactly one character flaw to start: he doesn't get enough sleep.

Then, Senko-san shows up, and we remedy this problem almost immediately, and replace it with the problem that Wood-kun likes Senko's fluffy tail to an almost fetishistic degree. Now they live together.

As the story progresses for Kobayashi, she becomes evidently more cheerful, becoming more accepting of Tooru's affection and bumbling assistance, becoming a parental figure for Kanna, and becoming friends with a number of other dragons. She also drinks markedly less as the show goes on, and it's clear that the character that we end the series with is vastly improved from the one we start with.

Wood-kun gets pampered by the virtually perfect Senko-san. He eats various delicious-looking meals, gets massages, bathes, and cuddles with Senko-san's tail. She gets upset once or twice, which seems to have no real consequence.

In the end, Kobayashi completes her character arc by confronting powers far beyond her control in order to keep her new familial unit together, showing how strong she has become as a person through association with her new friends.

To avoid spoilers, I will simply assure you that there is no such confrontation for Wood-kun, and if there was, it would be contrived and terrible.

To make a long review short, if you simply want to feel good, and you want to be able to project yourself onto the main character, Senko-san is definitely the anime for you. If you want characters that grow and change, or if you want a story: just watch Kobayashi.

Score: 6/10

I appreciate what the anime was trying to do, and the anime is technically sound. If I were to describe it to one of my friends, however, I would probably shrug, and say: "Eh, it was fine".