Problem Children Are Coming From Another World, Aren’t They? (Hereafter referred to as Problem Children) kind of flew under my radar at the beginning of the season; it looked generic, the plot seemed kind of clichéd, and it seemed like it would be boring. So imagine my surprise when it turned out to be one of the most fun shows of the season! Problem Children centers around (guess who) three kids with special “gifts” who receive letters inviting them to Little Garden, a magical place where all sorts of different races compete in gift battles, where they play games in order to win prizes. These games can range picking the right card out of a deck to killing a demon lion with a certain sword. The kids are met by a bunny girl after they enter Little Garden, and soon become the saviors of a community that had been completely wiped out and is trying to regain its status.

The three kids are the main reason that this show is so fun. The three kids are Kudou Asuka, a rich girl with the power to command people to do her bidding, Kasukabe You, a quiet girl who has a talisman that allows her to use the abilities of animals, and Izayoi Sakamaki, whose gift is unknown but includes super strength, agility, perception, and even the power to destroy other gifts. So we’ve got three kids with special powers that have to help the underdogs, what else is new? This is anime, those are a dime a dozen. The kids in Problem Children, however, have one big difference: they are complete badasses. They kick ass, take names, are proactive, and regularly take on people bigger than they are. The second episode cemented my opinion of them; in it, the leader of a community sits down and tries to convince them to join his side. Within five minutes, they’ve already figured out he’s evil, learned his plan, thought up a way to defeat him, and, when he attacks, them, piledrives him into the ground. Of all the kids though, Izayoi is the most fun to watch. It’s rather cliché to say this, but he does not give a F**K. He stops swords with his feet, insults living gods, and never breaks a sweat.

The rest of the characters are a little bland, but they work well. The bunny that brought them there, known as Black Rabbit, is a little annoying, as she is constantly fretting, but she can be cool when she wants to. The villains in this series are just complete slimeballs with no depth whatsoever, but that makes it so much more enjoyable when they get beaten up by the heroes.

The rest of the show is OK. The world is kind of cool, if kind of boring and not well-explained. The animation is great, used well when needed. The comedy is kind of bad, with most of it using super deformed characters and consisting of Black Rabbit yelling “What!?” to everything that seems weird. The thing is, though, that the kids make all of those things irrelevant. Who cares about improper character depth when Izayoi is kicking a laser beam in half?

I wasn’t kidding