Now Streaming: RED RIVER, Stranger in a Strange Land

A kiss is just a kiss. Until it's your last.

Red River S1
The first episode is now streaming on Crunchyroll. Subsequent episodes will debut every Tuesday.

Usually, when the first moment of the first scene of a new series features two young people kissing, I assume it's not for me. (The show, I mean; nothing wrong with two willing people kissing.)

Very soon thereafter, however, the show manifests its true colors in the bathtub. It's where Yuri, a modern-day Japanese teenager, is reflecting upon her day, which includes her first kiss with her boyfriend. The bathwater puckers up, and a hand reaches up, grabbing her.

Managing to escape the situation, Yuri is left startled, and doesn't tell anyone about it. The next evening, when she is on a date with her boyfriend, she is unexpectedly sucked into a puddle (?!) and transported through space and time to a very different place, where she soon falls victim to the schemes of the queen consort, who plans to sacrifice Yuri as an offering to one of the nation's gods.

Poor Yuri cannot believe anything that is happening to her. Is it all a bad dream? Some kind of elaborate joke? Or is she really about to lose her head for reasons she cannot comprehend?

Tune in to find out!

I responded very well to the show's propulsive energy. I wish that Yuri had more agency than what she's given in the first episode, but I'm hoping that, as the narrative develops, she will be able to take action to defend herself and somehow escape the situation that she finds herself in, through no fault -- or any actions -- of her own. The official synopsis gives some hope of that:

"After a mysterious hand drags her beneath a puddle, modern Japanese teenager Yuri awakens in the Hittite Empire of the 14th century BCE. Thrust into a deadly struggle for the throne, she joins Prince Kail to battle assassins, outwit royal conspiracies, and survive a world at war. As her exploits earn her renown as the goddess Ishtar, Yuri must choose between her old life and an uncertain future."

Remember: treasure every kiss. It could be your last.

Now Streaming celebrates independent and international genre films and television shows that are newly available on legal streaming services.