The Winter 2026 Anime Preview Guide

Roll Over and Die

Everyone is born with a magical affinity, but Flum Apricot's unprecedented one seems to have a purely deleterious effect, leaving her weaker than the average village girl. Despite that, she is chosen by the god Origin for the critical task of assisting the Hero in a quest to vanquish the Demon King. Regarded as useless and a detriment (even by herself), Flum is eventually sold into black market slavery by one of the Hero's party members just to get rid of her. However, when she is in her most dire state, she finally discovers how her affinity works: it reverses the effect of curses on her. The stronger the curse, the stronger she becomes. Using an Epic-level cursed sword, she fights her way to freedom for both herself and the bandaged slave girl, Milkit, and struggles to establish a life for them as adventurers. Meanwhile, the Hero's party flounders even worse in her absence.

Roll Over and Die is based on writer kiki and illustrator Kinta's ROLL OVER AND DIE: I Will Fight for an Ordinary Life with My Love and Cursed Sword! (“Omae Gotoki ga Maō ni Kateru to Omou na” to Yūsha Party o Tsuihō Sareta node, Ōto de Kimama ni Kurashitai) light novel series. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyhroll on Thursdays.

A girl getting kicked out of the hero's party and left for dead? How progressive!

Well, not really. Roll Over and Die may be a yuri version of one of the most indulgently grimdark and edgy takes on the fantasy genre this side of Warhammer 400000, but that does not, in fact, make it good. As far as I can currently tell, the biggest difference is that Flum has to deal with threats of sexual violence in addition to all the nastiness of being told she's worthless, a burden, a drain of resources, and so on.

Once the unfortunately-named Flum Apricot escapes the dungeon where her enslaver is pitting his unsold merchandise against a bunch of ghouls with the even more unfortunately-named Milkit, things don't get better. With a slave brand on her face and no one to turn to, she's stuck begging for any adventuring work that she can scrape up. But, gasp! The man who promises that she'll be able to move up a rank once she completes the quest he gives her turns out to be a scoundrel!

Not that the story tries to find an organic way to let us know; at the end of the episode, the narrator informs of this straight out. I reviewed Champignon Witch earlier today and praised its use of narration in a context that makes sense, but I feel the opposite about that device in Roll Over and Die. “She chose to go down fighting,” a woman's voice intones as Flum runs toward the cursed sword. I can see that, thank you very much. If you really want to put some extra mustard on the sentiment, zoom in on the change in her facial expression. Put some extra weight into her sword swing. Write her screaming into the script, either a wordless howl or some kind of statement about how she wants to live. You had the easiest assignment in the world, and you failed it.

It's a decently competent production, outside of all the unnecessary narration; no one element of it stood out as better or worse than the others (other than the awful names). Though, come to think of it, I did like the music. Even Flum's ability, which I had initially rolled my eyes at, was unintuitive enough that I could buy that nobody would figure it out since it applies to items. I find these grimdark settings distasteful, with their determination to always show the worst sides of people. Most people in the world are a mix of good and bad, and I prefer my narratives to reflect that.

Full disclosure, I stopped reading the light novels for this series after volume two because they were just too brutal for me. This episode is no different – unfortunately named Flum Apricot has one of the worst “kicked out of the hero's party” ejections in recent memory: the party's sage, Jean, sells her as a slave because he claims she's “useless.” She's then deemed the same by the slave trader who bought her and slated for gruesome execution by ghouls. Things do turn around for her at this point, but only for a given value thereof: she escapes with fellow slave (and equally unfortunate name bearer) Milkit, but the danger is clearly far from over. The world wants to break Flum Apricot, and in the worst way possible.

Over the course of this episode, Flum is branded with a red-hot iron by a man she used to trust, had chunks of her body eaten by ghouls, told to “shut her mouth and open her legs,” and sent to her death by an unscrupulous adventurer. It may as well be titled Edgy McGrimdark, because that really is how it feels, especially once we find out that Jean was (gasp) lying about the rest of the party being on board with his actions and that he was motivated mainly by his desire for Cyrill, a nubile young party member who was too close to Flum for his peace of dick. And while there are small moments of triumph, such as Flum discovering the true nature of her inherent power, it mostly just feels like a laundry list of horrible things happening to a young teen girl.

There are reasons to keep watching if none of this sends you screaming in the opposite direction. The big one is to see if Flum gets revenge on Jean, who richly deserves it, but she's had so many horrors thrown at her that it's hard not to want to see her come out on top, even if “on top” is followed by “of a pile of corpses.” It also could be entertaining in an over-the-top grimdark way, and assuming you aren't put off by Milkit insisting that she has to be Flum's slave, there's the possibility of a relationship developing between them. But with most of the episode being so dark in the “lack of light” sense that it's hard to see, and an inexplicable narrator who pops in and out at random, this already has some issues that aren't related to it trying to be edgier than thou. I think this is a case where I'd suggest reading the books instead.

Man, I just don't know what to make of this show. It basically feels like the grimdark version of Banished From The Heroes' Party. Exactly like in that show, the Sage conspires to kick the weakest member out of the party—the one handling all the logistics and mental care—so that he can get with the female hero.

Of course, rather than just guilting the main character into leaving, the Sage in this anime straight up sells the protagonist (in this case, a girl named Flum) into slavery, where she's promptly expected to die fighting a horde of ghouls. As is par for the course in such stories, the result of this is that she discovers the true nature of her overpowered ability—i.e., that status effects have the opposite effect on her. Thus, put a cursed weapon in her hands, and she is unstoppable.

What I'm left wondering about this series is if it'll continue to play into the grimdark so heavily or not. Now, don't get me wrong, this first episode—especially the opening credits—dial right into the ultraviolence with people being eaten alive and having their faces ripped off. The episode also ends with Flum and Milkit (yes, a female character named “milk it”) heading unaware into another dangerous situation meant to get them killed.

So, is this one of those series with a horrific first episode but that dials back in subsequent episodes? Or is this a show where Flum's healing ability is just a way to watch her be brutally disfigured episode after episode, with no lasting consequences? Cuz, let me tell you, while I am interested in one, the other… not so much. I'm okay with ultraviolence when it's in service to the themes and plot, but gore just for the sake of gore is not my thing.

At this point, I really have no idea whether this is a show I'll enjoy in the long run. I'll probably peek at the manga a bit to figure out which kind of show it's going to become and then decide if it's worth my time.

Whoever said that edge-lord “betrayed fantasy hero hero seeks violent revenge” had to be a boys club? To be honest, I would find the concept of Roll Over and Die interesting for nothing else than to examine the effect that a simple swap in gender has on the expectations for, and reactions to, and otherwise fairly standard premise. How much of the “power fantasy” aspect of the story is explicitly rooted in traditional stereotypes of what nerdy, young men would find appealing? Does a show's ability to successfully exploit these stereotypes change just because Flum Apricot is a pathetic and socially ostracized girl who gets mistreated and rejected by the cool kids in the hero's party? Does Roll Over and Die become more lurid and trashy in the way that it revels in poor Flum's suffering? Does being a woman make her inevitable reclamation of her power and subsequent quest for revenge more interesting than if she were a generic Potato-kun named Guy McStabsman?

To answer that very last question at least, I honestly think that the answer is “yes,” if only because the inherently altered power dynamics (and how they relate to the presumed societal expectations of a cliche fantasy-RPG setting) give Flum's heroic arc more oomph. It doesn't hurt that the show takes Flum and her story just seriously enough without veering into eye-rolling territory. She's not some oblivious little twerp that has just been ambling along in life without a care despite harboring silly godlike cheat-code powers, and her connection to characters like Milkit feels more genuine and earned. You care about these girls because they feel like two partners in a desperate quest to reclaim their own dignity, and that hits a hell of a lot differently than watching a flock of glorified daikamura illustrations fawning over a mannequin with a big sword.

That said, Roll Over and Die is still a generic revenge anime at heart, at least so far as this first episode is concerned, so I can only go so far in the praise department. The dark and muddy visuals don't do any favors for this bland, forgettable setting, and there's nothing about the lore we get concerning the heroes' guild or the “Dark Lord” that gives me hope in the story going down a path we haven't already trodden a thousand times by now. It's possible that this is one of those series that will reveal even more unique facets of its setting and story in the coming weeks, and that my assessment is totally off base, but a premiere's job is to wow its audience into eagerly coming back for more in Episode 2. Where I'm at right now isn't so much eager as it is, “Eh, I guess it wouldn't be the worst thing if I got stuck in front of my screen and forced to watch more.”