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Let This Grieving Soul Retire! Season 2, May I Ask for One Final Thing? Kick Off Premieres at Anime Expo

The Platinum Ballroom in the JW Marriott hotel, located here at Anime Expo 2025 in Los Angeles, is fully dedicated to anime premieres throughout the entire convention. Crunchyroll hosts it, so the stage is adorned with its signature orange. It's a guaranteed way for attendees to get an exclusive early glimpse of the very latest anime hitting screens in the coming months.

The first such session of the convention started at 10:00 AM (and on a Thursday, no less!), so it's well before the convention has had a chance to reach capacity. Even so, the ballroom already had over 100 people eagerly awaiting the first premiere to start.

After Cameron from Crunchyroll got the crowd revved up to build anticipation for the first showing, the lights dimmed, and the show began. First up was the second season of Let This Grieving Soul Retire!, currently slated to premiere on TV in Japan in October.

The episode begins with some goofy thugs threatening a young girl, Tino Shade, who is out running errands in the village. After chasing her around and generally harassing her, we're reintroduced to the group of characters we came to know from the first season: the Grieving Souls, led by Krai Andrey. They drive away the assailants and save Tino with ease.

The thugs try to get the group to meet their boss, who asks if they'll work for him and help run his humble enterprise of HUMAN TRAFFICKING. Our heroes refuse (naturally) and brandish their skills to take down the ne'er-do-wells, doing another good deed for the community.

The episode flashes back and forth in time between the present day and the day they saved Tino, and she became enamored with Krai and his group. The episode ends on a moment where Tino shares with Krai her ambition to work hard to earn the right to join the Grieving Souls.

Ultimately it's a typical episode to bring the audience back into the fold and start setting up our heroes' journey. As the lights come back on in the ballroom, there's some enthusiastic applause, but there's a sense that the energy is more from the excitement of seeing content before the rest of the world gets to it than from any significant traction with the show itself. It's clear it needs some more time to pick up steam.

Being the very first showing of the day, it's no surprise that Crunchyroll decided to kick it off with some light fare and save the more exciting stuff for later. Let This Grieving Soul Retire! doesn't take itself too seriously, so it's a decent appetizer! Cameron from Crunchyroll took the stage again, this time buzzing to debut the next feature: the world premiere of May I Ask For One Final Thing?, another series slated for October. Who doesn't love to be there for the very first public showing of a new anime? Even without seeing a single frame of the show, everyone in the room was excited.

And the show did not disappoint!

May I Ask For One Final Thing? opens immediately with its basic pitch: a woman named Scarlet ,who's betrothed to a prince, is ignominiously dumped in front of the full crowd of a fancy ball attended by aristocrats; the classic villainess origin story. The prince is sick of her, he says, and announces he's now engaged to a woman in pink. Rather than bow her head in shame and flee the scene in tears, Scarlet accepts Prince Kyle's decision, but has one final request – to punch his new fiancée in the face.

Already the crowd in the room is on board. I'm on board. This is awesome. The show evokes Bridgerton vibes with its Victorian-era setting and character designs. But now this cool gal is going to clock this annoying-looking pink girl who seems to have swindled her way into marrying Prince Kyle? Sign me up!

Everyone in the anime ballroom starts to freak out, as everyone in the real-life ballroom here at Anime Expo shifts to the edge of their seats. Scarlet lunges forward, and just her punch is about to find its mark, time halts and we get the record scratch “you may be wondering how we got here” moment.

Flashing back to when Scarlet was much younger, she says, “Ever since I was a kid, I liked to hit people.” Amazing. She's scolded for being a rowdy kid but insists it's for good reason. "I do it for the world and for the people,” Scarlet professes.

Within the first five minutes, this show has the crowd in the Platinum Ballroom at the JW Marriott on its side.

The flashback scene lasts a good while, giving us a glimpse at Scarlet's upbringing as part of this aristocratic society. She was always betrothed to Kyle, an absolute jerk of a prince. He treats her like garbage, like a slave, but there's nothing she can do about it, so she keeps her frustration bottled up and channels that energy into being excellent at everything instead.

So we watch Scarlet excel in school and training. Kyle is unrelentingly crappy to her, and all the while, Scarlet keeps her cool, never letting her anger boil over. Until now! Everyone in this ballroom at AX, me included, is so excited for Scarlet's fist to finally land.

Oh, and it LANDS. The pink girl goes tumbling. The aristocrats and Prince Kyle are shocked. The crowd at the JW Marriott cheers.

But Scarlet's not done. There's more punching to do.

The rich gentry in the ballroom, who before this were happy to cast her aside when Prince Kyle broke off the engagement and claimed she was a bully guilty of “crimes,” are next on her hit list.

Scarlet's now putting on those fingerless gloves with the spiky metal knuckles like she's about to hop on a Harley and start zipping around the ballroom punching mean rich people. What fun! It's a great time.

It's bloody, but somehow tame. You don't get the sense she's actually murdering people, but the blood splatter on her refined jewelry and hands makes for a stark image. This hyper-competent woman is finally letting loose, and we're all sold.

Her final target is Prince Kyle himself. He's really the one who deserved it in the first place. Just before her punch lands, someone comes in yelling, "WAIT, NO, DON'T!" but it's too late. It seems like Scarlet's crossing a red line, but she doesn't care. She's finally letting it rock.

Let's not grapple with the messiness of her being part and parcel of this obviously awful, rich society, where some of the aristocrats have literal slaves? Did I hear that correctly? Hmm.

The animation, the character designs, the music, and the sound – all feel high-grade. It'll be interesting to see how they keep it fresh for a full show! Will it get boring watching this smart, skilled, beautiful female protagonist punching people? Or is this formula too fun to fail? Even as I ask the question, I think I might be convinced it's a winner.

With that, the first premieres of Anime Expo 2025 helped set the show in motion!