The Spring 2025 Anime Preview Guide

Your Forma

In an alternate near future, the Your Forma, a miraculous "smart thread" technology initially developed to treat a massive outbreak of viral encephalitis, has become an integral part of daily life. But these convenient devices also record every sight, sound, and emotion their users experience. For Electronic Investigator Echika Hieda, diving into peoples' memories via the Your Forma and hunting for evidence is all part of a day's work. The problem is, she's so adept at what she does that her assistants literally fry their brains trying to keep up with her. After putting one too many aides in the hospital, the top brass finally furnish Echika with a partner on her level, a brilliant yet cheeky android named Harold Lucraft.

Your Forma is based on the light novel series by author Mareho Kikuishi and illustrator Tsubata Nozaki. The anime series is streaming on Samsung TV+ in the U.S., YouTube in the U.K., and other services worldwide.

Your Forma was one of my most anticipated new anime of the season, but if its premiere episode is any indication, this show is going to end up as much more of a mixed bag than anything. It's a damned shame, too, because there's a lot of potential in this story. Sure, the “human protagonist who hates robots but gets partnered with one anyway to solve crimes” is far from a novel premise at this point, but I love gumshoe stories and science-fiction aesthetics, so I'm still a sucker for it. Plus, in any buddy-cop adjacent story, the chemistry between the buddies in question can go a long, long way. It's a popular trope for a reason, after all.

Unfortunately, this first episode of Your Forma doesn't go out of its way to highlight any of those genre qualities that will get audiences invested in the story it is trying to tell. When I eventually found out that this adaptation is apparently skipping the opening volumes of the novel series it is based on, I wasn't at all surprised, because the biggest problem with this premiere is that you feel like you're getting dropped into the middle of a story already in progress. I'm not trying to say that it is hard to understand for viewers that haven't read the books, mind you. There's lots of jargon to parse, yes, but the fundamental components of Your Forma's setting are familiar enough that it's still easy enough to pick up. The Amicus androids deal with all of the usual mistrust that robot folk in these kinds of stories are saddled with, and the Brain Dives that Harold and Echika engage in are no different than the virtual reality adventures that cyberpunk detectives have been getting up to for decades, now (though they still look pretty cool in this anime).

Rather, the show struggles to establish any emotional stakes because it is structured and written like the middle chapter of a serialized procedural. The whole deal here is that Harold the Amicus and Echika the Super Genius have already gotten over their differences and learned to work together, but now a mysterious Amicus serial killer is putting Harold and other Amicus of his model-type under a dangerous spotlight. The issues should be obvious, right? For one, half the fun of the mismatched-partners trope is getting to watch the two protagonists overcome their misgivings and learn to trust each other, but Your Forma apparently thinks that we're good to just skip over that foundational part of the relationship. Granted, I've not read the parts of the story that the anime is skipping, but even if the original books don't actually do all that much with Echika and Harold's partnership that is worth setting up, I have to imagine that this storyline about the killer Amicus would have been more compelling if we had gotten to know the characters better and understand what is at stake when Harold gets pulled in for interrogation. It probably sounds like I'm really down on Your Forma, which isn't truly the case. The episode picks up a good deal in the second half, especially when we get to the Brain Dive, and I still think there's a lot of cool directions in which this story could go to differentiate itself from its forebears. I'm just not sure why the anime decided to start things off with such a sluggish and uncertain opening chapter.

I think it's obvious to pretty much anyone watching that we're not starting at the beginning of Your Forma's story in this anime. Nor, does this episode seem to be in medias res—so it's unlikely that we'll flashback to the chronological start of Echika and Harold's adventures at some later date.

This leaves me with a bit of a conundrum. You see, I've read the first arc and much of the second arc of Your Forma's manga. I know who these characters are, why they act the way they do, and all the references they make to past adventures. With all this knowledge in mind, this is a quite enjoyable episode.

For example, I was pleasantly surprised to see Bigga, a character from the first arc, return for a cameo in the opening scene—and enjoyed watching her continue to be flustered by Harold as she has no experience with andriods due to her living on a special reservation free from cyberpunk technology. Likewise, seeing Harold and Echika reflect on their previously antagonistic (at least from Echika's side) relationship felt truly heartwarming. However, all this context will be lost on someone who hasn't read the first few volumes of Your Forma—be that the manga or the original novels.

Setting aside my foreknowledge and trying to imagine what it must be like for viewers going in blind makes me worry for the show. It's written like you're supposed to know everything a reader would. Both the main and supporting cast get a single line of introduction if that. The setting and world are treated as if they are common knowledge—i.e., you should already be familiar with things like company names and government organizations as well as how they relate to each other. Events from the previous two arcs—including their conclusions—are not only mentioned offhand with no explanation but are directly connected to the current case.

This even extends to the personal drama of the story. You get hints at the fact that there has been some major character development between Harold and Echika but have no idea what happened to make them the loyal partners we see on screen. There is also a mention of some kind of drama between Echika and her family (namely her sister) which also seems to have been resolved—though how and why is not elaborated upon.

Because of all this, I have a legitimate question to those who know nothing of Your Forma. Is this episode even remotely understandable beyond the idea that an android that looks a lot like Harold has been assaulting people in London? Because in my eyes, it looks like a giant “you had to be there” conversation—and you weren't there.

All that said, it's great to see Your Forma in all its animated glory. The surreal visuals of the dive are a real treat. Having to wade through the subconscious—through coma dreams and more—to find memories without being swept away by them seems both confusing and difficult. It's a clever bit of “show, don't tell” that explains why Echika and Harold are so valued within their department.

In the end, I guess my suggestion is to read the first few books/manga and then switch over to this anime when you get to that point in the story. That way, you'll actually be able to understand all this anime is offering.