Not a lot's really happened, but it seems nice. Some high school students are about to graduate. The narrative drifts between different groups and indeed ages.

1. A second-year is angry because her photography club is being shut down. "I'll win an award!" This is the kind of girl who photographs you without your permission, then thanks you for letting you photograph her while you're trying to tell her not to photograph you without permission. She seems nice, but someone needs to teach her about social interaction.

2. Two grumpy boys recognise each other. Four years ago, the smaller one moved to the other end of Japan and they promised to contact each other every day. (It lasted a month.) Now he's back, they practise baseball together. (I hope this doesn't become a sports anime, but these scenes are likeable and watchable even if you're not into baseball.)

3. Girls play in a brass band.

4. There's some career guidance going on.

That's it, really, but in a good way. It didn't feel empty to me, but instead like a fairly mature show that's taking its time and gently watching its characters. (I'll probably be proved wrong, but what the hell.) I liked it. It's nice. I'll continue.

It's based on a light novel by Nisio Isin, who's best known for... whoops, the Monogatari series. Kizumonogatari, Bakemonogatari, Nisemonogatari, etc. He has his fans and that's become a very successful anime franchise, but personally I'd sooner watch a blank screen.

As for this show, it's a killing game. Twelve assassins meet up in a depopulated city in order to fight a deathmatch. The winner gets their wish granted! (Is this a parody of Fate/stay night?) The losers end up dead. Only an idiot or someone truly desperate would choose these odds, but these people appear to have voluntarily chosen to take part. Most of them seem downright eager to get started, although one of them's an optimist who's trying to arrange a way of keeping everyone alive by making a deal that the winner uses their wish to resurrect all the losers. Uh, wouldn't the simplest route be to NOT PARTICIPATE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Conclusion: I don't care about these people and want them to hurry up and die.

Good news: they all swallow a gem which is slow-release poison. They have twelve hours and the winner will (unfortunately) be given the antidote.

That's the plot. What actually happens in the episode, though, is mostly that a bitch queen has flashbacks to her little sister who seemed to like killing people a lot until the bitch queen pushed her into committing suicide. Murder's the family business and they'd always been encouraged in that by mummy and daddy.

If I hadn't known this show was by Nisio Isin, I might have watched it. Probably not, but maybe. Killing game shows can be fun and this one has quite a colourful cast of whack jobs and loons. However the premise is so annoying and the killers involved so stupid and unlikeable (partly by definition) that I think I'd have dropped the show even if it hadn't been written by Mr Endless Conversations That Vanish Up Their Own Arses. (In fairness, though, this isn't Monogatari and this episode isn't built of conversations.) However that's just my extremely biased viewpoint. If you like Nisio Isin and/or the Monogatari series, though, by all means watch this.