FX Senshi Kurumi-chan Ep.01 - Wait, I was here for cute girls doing cute stuff. What?!

FX Senshi Kurumi-chan is the first anime series I'm watching in this Fall 2026 anime season, and honestly, it was quite a surprise compared to what I was expecting. As usual, I tried to stay away from too many spoilers, so my expectation was "cute girls doing cute things while trying to win at FX," but boy, was I wrong.

The series is adapted from a manga of the same name written by Demunyan and illustrated by Tansan Daisuki. The manga's art style is very similar to what we get in the anime, with overwhelmingly cute designs and beautiful girls throughout. Kurumi herself doesn't look like a university student at all, given how cute she is.

Kurumi-chan, I was lured by the cute scenes, what is this face right at the very beginning of the series?! You're scarying me...

This honestly hit quite different, especiallyu watching the huge difference between her cheerful mother from before and the thing she became...

The first episode, though, was anything but cute. It begins by showing WHY Kurumi got into FX trading, and the reason is honestly harrowing. Her mother started trading and ended up losing more and more money, desperately trying to recover her losses until she couldn't take it anymore and died by suicide.

This, combined with the final conversation she had with Kurumi (where Kurumi lashed out at her), left Kurumi heavily traumatized, feeling responsible for her mother's death. At the same time, she developed a desire to "avenge" her mother's loss and win back the money that was lost back then. It's a pointless goal and she says so herself, but at this point, she feels that she simply has to do it.

This series is heavily inspired by real events that occurred in Japan back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The media referred to the archetypal retail investor as "Mrs. Watanabe" to depict housewives managing household finances and investing heavily in FX, which often led to suicide due to the massive losses they incurred.

Just like Kurumi in the latter part of the episode, it was common for these traders to use 100x or even 400x leverage with virtually no margin requirements, causing them to lose absurd amounts of money: far more than they could ever afford. This eventually led to stricter regulations being enacted between 2006 and 2010, but not before countless tragedies occurred.

She was such a gentle and beautiful mother, ruined by the gamble. Honestly such a shame and now Kurumi is going to...

One thing we can say for sure, Kurumi grew up well after high school and now in university. Like girl i know you're 20, but damn...

I don't know where the show wants to go with this, but it's clear where its inspiration lies, and I'm curious to see how Kurumi and the other girls will handle it. They were all shown briefly at the end of the episode and look utterly adorable, but what kind of disasters will they inflict on their own finances?!