Alternative title(s): Alma-chan wa Kazoku ni Naritai
Manga Adaptation by Studio Flad
Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise

Two rival scientists put their differences aside to create the world’s first artificial human. To their surprise, she wakes up and expects them to be her parents. In order to avoid suspicion and protect her identity, they decide to present themselves as a family.

Jel’s verdict: Scientist x Family

“Pretend Family” stories where the characters end up being real family are nothing new, but they can still be good if done correctly – just look at Spy x Family season 3 also airing this season. In fact, the mom and her red sweater look suspiciously like a bargin bin Yor Forger. Unfortunately, this episode does not capture the same magic. It’s not bad, it’s just bland in both its writing and visual presentation.

Part of this might be by design. The two leads are socially inept geniuses who are 100% focused on this project. Their “daughter” Alma is a robot that talks like ChatGPT. It’s hard to charm the audience with all that, aside from the “nerd trying their best” angle they attempt from time to time. Sometimes it works and I don’t think it’s bad, it’s just not enough to really endear me to this family.

Then we get to the visuals, which are… rough. There’s nothing that offensively bad and thank god no AI images, but the art direction is generic and the bare bones animation isn’t doing it any favors. You could grab a screenshot and unless it’s Alma herself, I would not be able to tell this apart from a million other anime. Actually, even Alma is the stereotypical emotionless silver haired little girl robot, which has now come up in two of the three First Looks I’ve done this season.

So I won’t be mad if you decide to check this out, it’s fine, but I’m pretty sure I will forget this exists by this time tomorrow. I guess you can just watch Spy x Family instead.