Hey guys! Tonight we have a brand new anime to follow. If you’re familiar with card game-based anime, then this is a series for you. With a twist of girlish childhood friendships and one’s personal identity at stake, Homura Suzuko is in for quite the wild ride.

全国の皆さん、まもなくBS11にてオリジナルTVアニメ「Lostorage incited WIXOSS」第1話が放送です！
幼女の笑顔溢れるLostorageをぜひご覧ください！https://t.co/0PqK7vJVtl　 #Lostorage #WIXOSS めがね pic.twitter.com/YCdOHLBUfC

— WIXOSSアニメ公式 (@wixoss_anime) October 7, 2016

Plot

Our story begins with Suzuko and her childhood friend Chinatsu at the playground. They exchange key rings which Suzuko names Riru and Meru. The rings will bond them together forever. Shortly after, Suzuko’s family moves away, and Suzuko doesn’t move back until many years later when she is an adult and no longer knows where Chinatsu lives. Though Suzuko doesn’t know where to find her long lost childhood friend, she is constantly on the look out.

While reintegrating into her hometown school, Suzu has trouble making friends at first. She notices a lot of the kids are into a card game called WIXOSS. Soon, Suzu finds herself at a card store after school one day, looking to fit in. She picks up a starter deck and begins to teach herself the rules at home alone. As soon as she opens up her starter deck, she feels overtaken by a strange feeling. Her deck begins to speak to her and tells her that she is one of the ‘selected’, and that in order to save her memories, she must battle other card holders, but specifically the ‘selected’, or else she will disappear. Her memories have been transformed into coins that Suzu must protect and she absolutely cannot lose or her coins disappear along with pieces of her identity. Suzu’s LRIG (or avatar) is her main fighting card which is a red-headed alternate identity of herself that she has named Riru, after her key chain from her childhood.

At first, Suzu is reluctant to battle as she does not want to risk any of her memories, but she soon discovers that there is a time limit on her coins and that no matter what, she must battle if she is challenged. The very next day she is challenged by a boy crossing the same bridge as her who also claims to be a newbie at WIXOSS. Suzu engages into battle because she quickly realizes that if she wishes to preserve the memories of her dear friend Chinatsu, then she must battle. Suzu is at first pummeled by her opponent, as he has hustled her and fooled her into thinking he was also new when in reality he preys on newcomers to keep his own memories.

In the heat of battle, Suzu connects with her LRIG Riru and they retake control of the battle when Suzu bets her only remaining memory against the boy. This in turn, unlocks Riru’s special ability, ‘Honesty’, which makes the boy reveal his offensive tactics lack any defense. With this new information, Suzu takes Riru and attacks the boy with all her might, swiftly defeating him and thus saving her memories.

The episode leaves off with us getting to know what the series will be about: a soul-binding card game and a search for a missing childhood friend, which I predict will end up being a rival. I look forward to seeing how this one turns out with the upcoming episode next week.

Themes

Innocence: Suzu is very innocent from what it appears. She avoids confrontation from other Selectors and even runs away from some because she dislikes fighting.

Loneliness: Suzu is not only on her own in a new school, but she is alone at home too. Her parents are never home, always leaving her money to fend for herself. Furthermore, she cannot find her friend that she swore she would be together with forever.

Comments

Overall, this anime has a lot of potential. The main character, Suzu does not stand out to me very much just yet. But in many series, the main character does not become a bad ass until later, like in Tokyo Ghoul or even Yu-Gi-Oh for instance. My prediction for this anime is that Suzuko’s childhood friend is actually going to end up being her big time competition and that Suzu turns out to be a strategic card game genius. Since her LRIG is essentially created offer of her memories, perhaps there may even be some kind of peculiar traits that Riru possesses based off of some deeply repressed memories. I believe that would be an interesting twist of direction. For the most part this anime seems to be going in a slice of life type innocent direction. It’s hard to tell if there will be a lot of action or seriousness in the future more than an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh may have. Only time will tell with episodes to come for this Fall series.

Looking forward to next week!

Official Web : http://lostorage-wixoss.com/
Official Twitter : https://twitter.com/wixoss_anime