Zenshu: A New Mappa Masterpiece On The Horizon

Zenshu is Mappa’s, known for adapting Vinland Saga, Jujutsu Kaisen, Hell’s Paradise, and many more amazing shows, next hit.

This time an anime original production called Zenshu. The airing began in the winter 2025 season on Crunchyroll and Prime Video and is still ongoing.  A brief overview of the first episode will be all you need to give this story a watch. We start the story following our protagonist, Natsuko Hirose, a 22-year-old genius anime director and animator fresh on the coattails of her first hit anime. She’s working diligently on her next project called “Hatsukoi: First Love”. Our hard-working director is behind her desk, focusing on the manuscripts while managing the team of artists who seem to be making many mistakes she must fix.

A coworker takes offense to her short and cold comments, telling her not to let the success get to her head. At a lunch break, she catches up on social media, as many of us do, keeping up with news of her project and the lives of others in her field. We briefly see that another famous director has passed away from food poisoning. With her lunch delivered she watches the anime A Tale Of Perishing, which was received poorly locally for its grim and dark tale and even mocked globally for the nonsense story. This moment of rest doesn’t last long, as our protagonist chokes on something mysterious in her food. The next time we see her, she is in another world—not just any world, but the world of A Tale of Perishing, where she meets the protagonist, Luke Braveheart, a chosen warrior who is meant to save the world. She is treated as a creature, as her long hair covers her face for most of this episode. A brief encounter later with Luke and his Cohorts, we are taken to the main and last town to celebrate their victory. As Natsuko’s brain catches up to her situation, she settles into her new reality and tries to warn the heroes of an incoming threat. Of course, she’s dismissed and treated as a wild beast until her prediction becomes real. The town is attacked by a huge group of Voids, a bug-like monster enemy, and the heroes set out to defeat it. Natsuko knows that this is where the story takes a much darker turn as one of Luke’s best friends perishes in a heroic gesture, causing Luke a massive depressive episode. She runs out into the field in a desperate attempt to help.

The animation so far has been good, standard MAPPA, with a bit of decent CGI here and there and great 2D character animations all around. The next scene where Natsuko discovers her powers to draw and influence the world is pure animation magic. An explosion of color, fluid 2D animations, and scene transitions, as her animation desk is brought into the world where Natsuko, in record time, completes a scene to help sway the battle in her favor. In this scene, we see why MAPPA is lauded as one of the best animation studios. The hard work of animators in love with their craft is fully displayed as Natsuko’s magic creature decimates the enemy Voids. Exhausted from saving Luke’s friend, she collapses in his arms, and he sees her face for the first time, setting up a potential for romance.

An excellent first episode that significantly sets up the show, from first-class animation to voice acting to the story, this will be one show you don’t want to miss. If you need more stuff to watch, check out all the anime we’ve reviewed!