Zenshu
Entry updated 16 February 2026. Tagged: TV.
Japanese animated tv series (2025). MAPPA. Directed by Mitsue Yamazaki. Written by Kimiko Ueno. Voice cast includes Manaka Iwami, Rie Kugimiya, Anna Nagase, Yoshiko Sakakibara, Akio Suyama, Minori Suzuki and Kazuki Ura. Twelve 24 minute episodes. Colour.
The directorial debut of 22-year-old animator Natsuko Hirose's (Nagase) a massive success; her studio have high hopes for her follow-up anime, which they tell her will be titled "First Love" and provide a plot outline. If this is not a hit the studio will likely go bust; unfortunately she can find no inspiration and her storyboarding attempts end up in the bin. Hirose then learns that the director of A Tale of Perishing, Kametaro Tsuruyama, has died of food poisoning; though commercially a flop, it is Natsuko's favourite anime and inspiration. She then drops dead from food poisoning too.
A Tale of Perishing was a Fantasy where the heroes – The Nine Soldiers – fight to stop insect-like Void creatures from acquiring all the objects known as Soul Futures, as this will create the Great Void and bring about the End of the World: they fail, their leader becomes the Great Void and the world indeed ends. Natsuko now finds herself in this world, at the point where only one Soul Future remains in a last redoubt (called the Last Town), with the nine Heroes down to four – their leader, Luke Braveheart (Ura); unicorn Unio (Kugimiya); female elf warrior Memmeln (Suzuki) and the Robot QJ (Suyama). Initially Natsuko's hairstyle has her mistaken for a gremlin, but her familiarity with the plot means she can predict the future (from the inhabitants' perspective, Precognition); her pegboard is now Magic, enabling her to draw images such as giant robots and Superheroes which temporarily come to life and defeat the Void attacks; she even has a magical girl transformation scene, but instead of her appearance changing, a writing desk appears. There are catches – she loses consciousness for three days after performing this trick and cannot draw the same thing twice. She joins the Soldiers, despite Luke's protestations ("Women are quick to cry, they're weak and they gossip when they're in groups").
Episode 7 covers Natsuko's life to date, from a child bowled over by A Tale of Perishing who decides to become an artist; people crushing on her, but she seeing them only as models to draw; finally, seeking inspiration for "First Love" (Natsuko's quizzing of others on the subject is sometimes a little gremlin-like). However, a friendship builds up with Luke – that he can cook is a plus – until she falls for him; seeing him battle semi-naked seems to help. She also finds herself harangued by Kametaro Tsuruyama (Sakakibara), reincarnated as a bird, who is very unhappy with the changes Natsuko's actions have made to her story, but insists the ending cannot be altered.
Indeed, as her influence changes events, the story increasingly diverges from the one she can predict; whilst the Void starts to use her designs in its attacks, allowing the original ending's plotline to reassert itself. Depressed, she talks to QJ, mentioning that in A Tale of Perishing he was the only hero to survive; in the next attack, when all seems lost, QJ sacrifices himself to prove the ending is not set in stone (see Suicide). However matters get worse: Natsuko and Unio are swallowed by a Void, with Luke despairing and becoming The Great Void, a vast demonic figure that dissolves all the living. Then Memmeln tears open the swallowing Void, freeing Natsuko and Unio (both having spent the time confronting their issues) and Natsuko draws Luke after Luke to attack The Great Void: it is the one she first fell for that delivers the killing blow – whereupon all the Soul Futures return and the land and its inhabitants are restored. The Kametaro Tsuruyama bird flies overhead, commenting "Easygoing simpletons. Don't go thinking happy endings are all there is to entertainment." Natsuko, after admitting Luke is her first love, is restored to our world and, now inspired, can create First Love, which is a great success; the series ends with her glimpsing what might be Luke walking down the street.
Zenshu is a fond look at the Anime industry and the Clichés of the fantasy anime of past decades, with Natsuko's inability to work with people in the former resolved by her experiences in the latter: at one point she quibbles over whether her situation is technically an Isekai (where someone is transported to another Dimension) or not, as she is not a shut-in (the typical protagonist) because she has a job (ignoring how she isolates herself from colleagues and refuses their offers of help). There is also Satire of the genre, such as Destiny Heartwarming (Iwami), the scantily clad bimbo who is supposed to be Luke's doomed love interest, instead deciding to work out and become musclebound (see Feminism). Starting out in fairly light and Humorous vein – though the Immortal Memmeln, despairing at how those she befriends die, joins a cult which welcomes The Void – Zenshu becomes darker in its later episodes, before the turnaround that upsets Kametaro Tsuruyama. There is some nice animation, such as the Void mothership; and though the ending is tied up a little too quickly, Zenshu was a good series. [SP]
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