by The summer 2025 anime lineup will be over 80 titles. There is a wide variety of titles, including “Hell Teacher Nube,” the first new anime in a long time and a hot topic, “My Dress-Up Doll wa Koi wo Suru,” the first sequel in three years and much anticipated, as well as streaming-only and short anime, so there is such a wealth of titles that it’s hard to know what to watch. Among them, the most important thing is the first episode, which serves as a “hook.”
This time, we will look back on the “first episodes” of summer anime that featured surprising developments and twists, becoming a hot topic on social media. Even if you missed the first episode, why not use this article as a reference when choosing an anime to watch this season?
“Isn’t this supposed to be a coming-of-age anime?” Turkey is a hot topic due to its outrageous plot.
First up is the bowling anime “Turkey!” set in Chikuma City, Nagano Prefecture. This is an original anime created by Tatsunoko Productions’ anime production label, BAKKEN RECORD, and Pony Canyon. The initial key visual featured five girls flying through the sky. From the title “Turkey,” which means three consecutive strikes, the key visual, and the first PV, everyone was expecting a refreshing story about a youth club activity.
In fact, in the first episode, Mai and Rina, who are aiming to win the tournament, and five other girls, including their friends, appear, depicting the conflict between Mai and her friends, who are satisfied as long as they have fun even if they lose, and Rina, who wants to take bowling seriously. Then, to keep her friend Rina, Mai challenges her to a bowling match. Expectations are building for how the girls’ conflicts and growth will be depicted in the future, or so they thought.
However, just a few tens of seconds before the end of the anime, the conveyor belt at the bowling alley suddenly starts to light up, and the five girls are sucked in. When he wakes up, he finds himself in Japan during the Warring States period. He suddenly finds himself lost on a battlefield where severed heads are rolling around. At first, he thinks it’s a bowling anime, but the setting suddenly changes.
The sudden turn of events caused comments on X such as, “What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen?”, “I made a strange noise at the end of episode 1,” and “Are they going to continue this route until the end?”.
Furthermore, immediately after the first episode aired, the official X released a new key visual with the image of girls standing in the middle of the war and the catchphrase “Let’s all go home together,” and many replies were made saying, “The development of episode 1 is different from the previous information.” In fact, in the first PV, there was a line at a key point that didn’t seem to be related to bowling, “Let’s all go home together,” but no one could have predicted the sudden transition to a time leap work. It’s rare to have such an impactful episode.
The opening video for the second episode onwards appears to be a girl band style for some reason, and the attacking samurai are defeated with a bowling ball, suggesting that there will be some crazy developments in “Turkey!” What will be the fate of these girls who have become lost in the Sengoku period? I want to watch their heroic performance until the end.
