Tomm Guycot
(he/him)
I assume Richard Grieco pilots the Rick Dees.
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Iaboo, Youaboo, Weallaboo for Anime!
- Thread starter Johnny Unusual
- Start date
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Finished Takopi's Original Sin. It is a very strong series that is hard to recommend without content warnings (every episode opens telling you if you need help, call a crisis hotline), which also hints at how dark this series gets. I think that it would be easy to think of the ending as having maybe too many easy answers but the more I think of it, the better it is. Vague spoilers I think it does imply by the end not only are all the problems solved but it's implied some bad stuff has still happened but now there are people helping people through it.
I also love that my take on the deeper meaning of the opening changes 3 times across 6 episodes. If you need a pitch; a Doraemon-type cute babyish mascot creature sent to Earth to make people happy finds itself WAY over it's head trying to help others. It's interesting to see this little creature trying to make people happy but not yet understanding the depths of darkness in the human soul. The show can be a hard watch but it remains powerful and engaging and even has a pitch black sense of humour from time to time. If you think you can deal, I think it's a show worth watching.
I also love that my take on the deeper meaning of the opening changes 3 times across 6 episodes. If you need a pitch; a Doraemon-type cute babyish mascot creature sent to Earth to make people happy finds itself WAY over it's head trying to help others. It's interesting to see this little creature trying to make people happy but not yet understanding the depths of darkness in the human soul. The show can be a hard watch but it remains powerful and engaging and even has a pitch black sense of humour from time to time. If you think you can deal, I think it's a show worth watching.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Episode 5 of City is probably one of the most wildly ambitious animated things I've seen in a while, a weird mix of non-stop hilarious but also exhausting with it's increasing split screens.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I was just OK with the most recent Dr. Stone arc but the climax was really satisfying, great stuff. Still, after this season ends they have 13 more episodes to wrap everything up and that feels like a big ask.
well, we watched lazarus. it was alright overall
good:
- doug wearing that jacket is incredible character design hahaha
- theme song and pretty much all the other music ruled, especially in the last few episodes
- the future cars are SO ugly i love it
- leland's sister looking like rellena from wing
- the sort of conceit where the goal/antagonist of the show is a guy who has almost no screen time as a person in the entire series so what you hear is other characters talking about how great and nice he was, wondering if he's actually right...it's got an interesting vibe, especially with the rest of the show featuring that kind of tragic love for the world. the reminders that even if they succed in solving this made up problem invented for the show it doesn't really solve anything about the world at all.
not my preference but largely within expectations:
- the action was fine but i've watched enough hong kong movies now that i have pretty high standards. though for the same reason i'm not going to complain that it's cool just for the sake of being cool
- it feels weird to blame this on 12-13 episode series that have become so common but i feel like it keeps happening that the early parts set up way more things than there's actually time to do so what always falls off is the kind of thematic aspect. but i mean in this case at least the whole thing is about like the meaning of life and death and stuff that you're not really expecting a television show to really resolve anyway. honestly it's kinda funny how the ending does even more of that than i expected, it's almost as much of a shaggy dog as champloo
bad:
- i assume this probably mostly bothers me because of the dub but this show is SO saturday morning cartoon when it needs to introduce the premise of the current episode. but even aside from the specifics of that, it really does rely a lot on Hacker And Bureaucrat Incantations. there's a political layer to the show which mostly seems like an effort to make the show more realistic but kinda does the opposite because it doesn't really have much of a dynamic.
pointedly depicting the US as the first ones to walk out of the UN is fine though. that's just true.
are you serious though:
- one episode or less after they talk about how much they love the "big m" at "m burger" a character's name is revealed to be "donald mcdonald" and characters rightly indicating their disgust that they have to see him again under any circumstance whatsoever is just played off as some l'il joke. awful
good:
- doug wearing that jacket is incredible character design hahaha
- theme song and pretty much all the other music ruled, especially in the last few episodes
- the future cars are SO ugly i love it
- leland's sister looking like rellena from wing
- the sort of conceit where the goal/antagonist of the show is a guy who has almost no screen time as a person in the entire series so what you hear is other characters talking about how great and nice he was, wondering if he's actually right...it's got an interesting vibe, especially with the rest of the show featuring that kind of tragic love for the world. the reminders that even if they succed in solving this made up problem invented for the show it doesn't really solve anything about the world at all.
not my preference but largely within expectations:
- the action was fine but i've watched enough hong kong movies now that i have pretty high standards. though for the same reason i'm not going to complain that it's cool just for the sake of being cool
- it feels weird to blame this on 12-13 episode series that have become so common but i feel like it keeps happening that the early parts set up way more things than there's actually time to do so what always falls off is the kind of thematic aspect. but i mean in this case at least the whole thing is about like the meaning of life and death and stuff that you're not really expecting a television show to really resolve anyway. honestly it's kinda funny how the ending does even more of that than i expected, it's almost as much of a shaggy dog as champloo
bad:
- i assume this probably mostly bothers me because of the dub but this show is SO saturday morning cartoon when it needs to introduce the premise of the current episode. but even aside from the specifics of that, it really does rely a lot on Hacker And Bureaucrat Incantations. there's a political layer to the show which mostly seems like an effort to make the show more realistic but kinda does the opposite because it doesn't really have much of a dynamic.
pointedly depicting the US as the first ones to walk out of the UN is fine though. that's just true.
are you serious though:
- one episode or less after they talk about how much they love the "big m" at "m burger" a character's name is revealed to be "donald mcdonald" and characters rightly indicating their disgust that they have to see him again under any circumstance whatsoever is just played off as some l'il joke. awful
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Lazarus was decent enough as a whole, if flawed, but that ending was pretty disappointing. I like the part where it says Life Goes On and Maybe We Learned Nothing but I don't like what was a nothingburger of a climax (I knew it was aiming for some anti-climax, which I would be OK with as a subversion or commentary but feels like... just empty and dull) and HEY, MAYBE WE SHOULD STICK TOGETHER AND FIGHT CRIME (in a way that also doesn't feel like subversion or deeper commentary on the life goes on element) feels like the writers didn't have much deeper to say about it's characters and where they go after this.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Watching previews for anime last night to see what to watch (outside of a couple hype shows, this looks like a rough one) and three previews on youtube had "auto dubbing". Yyyyyikes!
Watch at your own risk. Though maybe you managed to get the feature turned off.
Watch at your own risk. Though maybe you managed to get the feature turned off.
I decided to make English subtitles to the Swedish opening song to Sailor Moon. The YouTube video apparently can't be viewed in the US, but I uploaded it to Internet Archive as well, so hopefully you can watch it there.
Sailor Moon Swedish opening with English subtitles : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
The title song to the Swedish dub of Sailor Moon, with subtitles in English and Swedish. The Swedish lyrics were written by Olav F. Andersen, and sung by...
archive.org
The new season of Ranma has begun, first two episodes are on Netflix.
The first episode didn't land, but only because the whole 'Cat Fist' gag always felt flat to me, it's not a critique of the episode itself. Neat to see Gosunkugi being the catalyst for this in animation though and not Sasuke. I nearly forgot he was anime-only! Does anyone care? Even among anime-only fans I don't think there are any die-hard Sasuke stans, I sure know I'm not!
Anyway the second episode brings Shampoo back, and also introduces both Cologne and Mousse. And hey, Mousse is voiced in the dub by SungWon Cho! That's a smart bit of casting, Mousse's voice has a lot of range and Mr. ProZD can certainly match it. Looking forward to more of him.
The first episode didn't land, but only because the whole 'Cat Fist' gag always felt flat to me, it's not a critique of the episode itself. Neat to see Gosunkugi being the catalyst for this in animation though and not Sasuke. I nearly forgot he was anime-only! Does anyone care? Even among anime-only fans I don't think there are any die-hard Sasuke stans, I sure know I'm not!
Anyway the second episode brings Shampoo back, and also introduces both Cologne and Mousse. And hey, Mousse is voiced in the dub by SungWon Cho! That's a smart bit of casting, Mousse's voice has a lot of range and Mr. ProZD can certainly match it. Looking forward to more of him.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Woo, To Your Eternity is back. And now Fushi has the power of INFINITE BOBA!
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Here are my reviews for show's first episodes this season. Note most of these I wrote only seeing episode one and since I've seen more and would readjust my takes... but I don't feel like going back to rewrite them.
Sanda
The Premise
CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED! Some time ago, people stopped celebrating Christmas. It’s just another day now. At a middle school, one child has gone missing and her best friend is convinced there’s only one person who can find her. The last in a long lineage, a being of power and humanity. The last of his kind. The last… Santa Claus.
It Gud?
We really started on the right foot here. We have a wild premise to begin with and as it starts, made no short work of being fun, even before the action starts. The main character tries to rationalize his classmate attempting to knife-murder him as “she’s shy about asking for a date”. Then when the action kicks in, which doesn’t take long, it is gorgeously animated and wonderfully ridiculous, complete with Sanda doing a Santa Claus laugh as part of his transformation sequence (though it’s different than the English Ho Ho Ho but that could be a cultural thing).
The show knows how to have fun with its premise. Without transforming, the main character needs to stop a bomb from exploding a classroom of kids, which concludes in a funny moment from the teacher, then we learn that Santa is fireproof… because he’s gotta be with all the chimneys he descends. It really gets how to utilize the premise and give Sanda powers and qualities based on the Santa mythos without going obvious routes like many other Santa stories have had.
I also loved the wacked out character designs and the animation is really pretty, with the transformation sequence reminding me of some of the great One Piece sequences in recent years. And this is all the track-laying episode, so I’m excited to get into the main story, especially considering this is from the author of BeaSTARs, the show that mixes Zootopia with horny teen soap opera. I have high hopes for this one and boy did it get off on the right foot.
Chitose in the Ramune Bottle
The Premise
A popular high school kid is called in to try to convince a shut in to come to school.
It Gud?
The first episode ends with the main character breaking the main character’s window with a baseball bat, promising to free him of his anxiety and love school life. This might have made for a memorable opening shot, but unfortunately, I watched everything preceding it. That was my mistake. Instead, the episode starts with this weird poetic bit giving it a “mood”, then being the most generic anime ever. Except the main character is less likable than most.
But also, every girl wants to get with him. And he describes himself as a “love-him-or-hate-him-kind-of-guy”, which is really something a “hate-him-kind-of-guy” does. And he introduces every character like they are an entry in a Wikipedia page. And in the most writerly way possible (and a bad writer by the way) the narrator seems to just say “I can only write broad anime archetypes”. And he’s so fucking smug. Why are we following this guy? Shouldn’t we be following the sad kid who needs a wild character to shake up his life?
Chitose in the Ramune Bottle lays so much track with his characters, I was wondering “are we heading into a big genre twist?” The previews didn’t imply this. But weirder things have happened. It would make sense to draw out introducing these characters who seems ridiculously happy with life and are broad characters then reveal they are going to be a death game or maybe all the characters were created by the shut in as a piece of metafiction. Maybe it’s going to turn out to be a murder mystery. Anything. But instead it’s about helping a kid with a taste for awful sounding light novels. Maybe there IS a twist but instead, what it chooses to open with is incredibly irritating.
WanDance
The Premise
A high schooler who struggles with his stutter and wanting to follow the crowd finds a new calling when wanting to truly express himself through dance. But he knows very little so he’s going to join the dance club and learn for himself.
It Gud?
I think this series has a strong starting point; a character who struggles to express himself verbally finds the art of dance. It’s a great way to get ourselves into the art/sport (I assume the series is going to do competitions, but I could be wrong) by connecting it to the character’s need. It tells us the virtue of dance efficiently and it gives it an importance to the character. It also deals with the idea that he has friends who do thinks he doesn’t approve of and struggles to express himself until the climax.
But overall, while I think the roadmap is strong, I didn’t really connect to the characters. The main is a bit too muted, which makes sense and I feel like the female co-lead is kind of a cipher. And not in an engaging way. They weren’t doing a *bad* job but it’s just missing that element that gets me really hyped, like Medalist had.
Also, two other things; 1. The dancing is CG. It’s not awful except for the fact that the FACES are so stiff it looks like the dancers are wearing creepy doll masks. It’s unfortunate because I think the movements are captured well, which is key but the weakness is very clear when you look in their dead eyes. The other issue? The main character is just Mash from Mashle.
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Gnosia
The Premise
WEREWOLF! IN! SPACE! (the game, not the mythical beast)
It Gud?
Gnosia is apparently based on a video game I’ve never heard of, a sort of Danganronpa version of Among Us. As a show, the premise is a group of people must vote on which one they think is an evil alien in disguise and which they think isn’t Some of the characters are space aliens, like a non-binary plant lady and though they don’t show up in the first episode, this series has some wild character designs. There’s a dolphin in a suit, a classic grey alien, some kinda pirate man or something.
But as a show… maybe it corrects as it goes on, but mostly it’s the worst of werewolf, people just pointing fingers and going “it’s you!”. There’s some manipulation in the last act, one that isn’t a bad idea but the characters should be trying to use both logic, charisma and manipulation to try to get the results that they want and there isn’t enough of it. There is a lot of laying track but it isn’t hard to figure out.
Overall, it’s a show that’s decidedly unclever. There’s a conceit involving time looping that allows the show to keep doing different rounds. So in theory the main character will get better at the game. That’s not the problem. I feel like it would be more interesting to see characters really getting tricked and manipulated. Having a character that starts as naïve make sense but I wish there was more to the other characters, who are ridiculously cool with the whole process.
Let’s Play
The Premise
A young woman working for her family company dreams of returning to video games after noting increased interest in a game she made for a school project. However, she’s heartbroken when her favourite YouTuber’s negative review gives the game in a bad reputation. Adding to the strangeness, she also discovers said youtuber has also just moved into the apartment next to hers.
It Gud?
Let’s Play is an odd beast. There was a period where CrunchyRoll was bankrolling anime based on WebToons, the financially successful but lesser known format for comics. In particular, it was Korean WebToons. And then that seemed to mostly go away (though I think Solo Leveling is probably the most recent and successful version of this). But it’s one of the rare WebToons created by a North American creator to get an anime. And it really feels like it.
It does bring to mind a lot of the earlier WebComics and regular comics where the Western creator is heavily influenced by Japanese tropes. Many of the hokey gags feel like old anime gags and story turns. Also, the personification for the characters fear of confrontation looks like it repurposed some Venom slash-fiction. I know that seems like I’m dunking on it for playing into older cliches and formula. But there are times when it is genuinely quite funny. Also, the animation is really pretty. Is it pandering in style to gaming and anime nerds? Yes, very much so. It feels like it’s 20 years late to aping Bryan Lee O’Malley (and much of Scott Pilgrim has not aged well to the point they made a Scott Pilgrim anime dealing with that), it does look good.
So I’m kind of on the fence. I suspect I’ll be rolling my eyes quite a bit at some of the choices, but at the same time, I had a good time for large portions of this as well. And I think the set up for romcom makes it clear the romantic co-lead isn’t negging or bullying like some shoujo leads, he’s someone who seems ignorant of the strength of his words and actions and is probably on an arc to learn, which is potentially interesting.
Mechanical Marie
The Premise
A wealthy young man who has inherited the family fortune is the subject of frequent assassination attempts. No longer trusting people, he demands to get a robot maid to protect him. He’s impressed with the maid brought to him but little does he know she isn’t a robot but a super strong wrestler known for her emotionless face. Can she keep up the ruse and protect him from hired killers?
It Gud?
If Let’s Play feels very “of a web comic era”, Mechanical Marie feels very old-fashioned in conceit. Not so much the lie of the lead but the general wacky comedy vibe and “dude and maid” dynamic feels something from 20 years prior. Again, this isn’t a bad thing. The problem I have, and it’s a small one, is in the details. The animation is competent but it makes the weird decision to suddenly switch to a colourful painted piece for a moment. It was a move that was also done in The Fire Hunter, a show that suffered from confounding animation that it tried to present as Science Saru-esque. I’m not sure why Mechanical Marie is making this decision. It’s odd but it’s neither a positive nor negative.
I also feel like they make the mistake of when to reveal that Marie isn’t a robot. You could have slow rolled it so we see how Marie gets into this literal farce or we (my preference) got DEEP into the episode, having Marie do robot stuff and then towards the end after she did a bunch of wild stuff make that reveal. The actual doing of it feels too casual, unfortunately.
I won’t be sticking with this series but it’s not bad. It just lacks sharper gags to make me want to enjoy it. But it’s a fun premise and the wackiness feels old school in a way that… it doesn’t make it better per se but somewhat comfortable, at least. If you are in the mood for an old fashioned maid show that feels less problematic than the one from 20 years prior, Marie isn’t a bad one. I just wish it was better.
Plus-Sized Misadventures in Love
The Premise
A large woman wakes up in a hospital bed with no memory of who she is. Full of joie de vivre and unbridled confidence in herself, she learns that prior to falling off a four story building, she was depressed and plagued by body image issues. But that won’t stop her from finding love, improving her life and also maybe finding out if her fall was a suicide attempt or… a murder attempt.
It Gud?
It’s not common for the world of romance focused on female leads has anything other than slim. There are some who are tall but usually it is a thin, petite woman. Watching the preview, I wanted to try it because… it actually seemed like it could either be making fun of the lead or be a show that features good body size representation. And finally having seen it… it kind of breaks both ways.
Mostly, it is a sweet, positive show. I think it shows that the beauty of the character shows through her confidence and kindness as she supports others and is unabashedly proud of who she is, as well as dealing with the knowledge that she didn’t always think that way (I like how she finds an old idea book where she is putting herself down and fills it with affirmations, which definitely it going to come back when the character regains her memory. But on the other side, yeah, it does make jokes of her being a bit of a glutton and also her size (one scene where she has to sidle sideways out of a bathroom stall). It’s frustrating because I think with the right touch, you COULD make humourous bits about these things but this show doesn’t succeed and it undercuts a lot of what I do like about it. Thankfully these scenes are outnumbered by the better stuff but it makes it a bit harder to recommend.
But, I’m gonna stick with it, at least for a little while. Why? Because they also put a MURDER MYSTERY SUBPLOT IN THIS! Well, attempted murder but still. Early on, a character is like “oh… you survived” and I was like “is this implying attempted murder”. And then it becomes “yep” when the police call and suggest as much. And I love this and the choice that the main character is not nearly as concerned about this as she should be and instead is more focused on finding love and supporting her friends. Plus-Sized could get worse, it could get better but I’m going to give it a shot purely because of this.
Shabake
The Premise
In feudal Japan, a frail young noble learns he is the son of divinity and can see and is protected by yokai. He uses this to solve mysteries in his community.
It Gud?
I had hopes for Shabake. The animation wasn’t impressive and there wasn’t some big amazing premise. A boy who sees ghosts solves mysteries. But there are two things I liked; how almost pleasantly simple the idea is and just having a mystery show. So my hope was it would be a simple, pleasant and clever crime solving show where he needs help from the supernatural to uncover natural clues. And maybe going forward the show about a weak boy helping people will be that.
Part of the problem, though, is I really can’t describe these characters. A lot of time is dedicated to laying out the premise (which really could have been pieced out as needed) of the character and spending time with them. But they are kind of dull. The main character is a good boy and his attendants are… both kinds the same. A bit protective. But nothing pops out as interesting. We barely even get to the mystery and that’s a shame. I think a number of shows have had the challenge of not getting to the whole mystery to prove how clever it is. But the one threat is at best mildly engaging. We hardly get to what the crime is and I feel like not enough clues are given.
It's a disappointingly inert show. We get to see a couple of ways the spirits are useful but I was hoping for, if not great characters, a well-constructed and compelling mystery. But nothing comes together to hook me in. I don’t need twist after twist, I like a chill or cozy mystery, too. But nothing here tells me I want to keep trying. The character begins as sickly but also he’s double privileged and we just spend a lot of time hanging around his mansion. It’s not like the character sucks but it feels frictionless, the personalities who are meeting have no chemistry. It’s a “just there” show, as it is. And I will leave it there.
Tojima Wants to Be Kamen Rider
The Premise
Tojima grew up watching the superhero TV series Kamen Rider and decided that’s what he wanted to be when he grew up. He never gave up on it, even when confronting the reality it made him uncool and that it can never be achieved. Now at 40, Tojima is possible he strongest fighter in the world but this means nothing because his dream is literally unattainable… until the day that criminal thieves started dressing like Kamen Rider’s arch-foes Shocker.
It Gud?
I go into this with only a mild knowledge of Kamen Rider. I know it’s a very long-running franchise with a monster of the week and probably have a multitude of timelines or something. The first one was a cyborg on a motorcycle with a cool scarf. Let me assure you from that perspective, that’s all you really need. Just know that this is a series about someone in love with a franchise and a character and while the show doesn’t spell stuff out, it mostly just focuses on the characters at hand.
In that respect, it works. It’s someone who never grows out of that feeling as a child of wanting to be a fictional character. I work in preschool and when we ask what kids when they want to be when they grow up, they say Spider-Man or Minecraft Steve or, most worrying, a ghost. It’s understandable and the character KNOWS how deeply cringey his dreams and desires are that he can’t let go. And it’s not enough for him to be strong. He’s not delusional. But to him, this only matters if he was able to do something that can’t happen because it is fiction. And then we let the dream come true.
It’s interesting because it’s a power fantasy show but for the lead, he isn’t after the power. He has that. He wants the fantasy. The idea of getting to be someone who protects in a very specific way. I think it helps that Tojima is a likable guy with self-awareness. He knows the problems with his desires. He even gives up all his merch because he’s afraid how pathetic he’d look if someone found his lonely corpse surrounded by remnants of a 54-year-old kids show. He’s sweet and he helps others and he’s funny. The character is what makes it work and I hope it can keep up the charm and humour of the first episode.
Touring After the Apocalypse
The Premise
In post-apocalypse-Japan, two girls tour the country, stopping off at tourist spots as they dodge danger.
It Gud?
Touring is a bit of an odd series because it is both just a chill hang out show in a mostly empty landscape but also balances it with actual action. Though it doesn’t appear in the first episode, the second reveals “THIS SERIES HAS MONSTERS!” in the intro and I did not know we were going there (the first episode’s threat is an out-of-control AI tank) so it’s not exactly Train to the End of the World-level weirdness but it is clearly trying to do a balancing act that mostly works.
I would have been fine with the series if it was just puttering around the end of the world. I really didn’t need the action stuff. But I also don’t dislike it and think it was well done. I think while I am more into the quiet element, which is pleasant and slightly melancholy, I think it balances its sense of fun pretty well. Overall, I don’t actually have a lot to say beyond that. There’s a mystery element but it neither felt weak nor engaging. It’s not quite the “vibe” I was hoping but it’s a post-apocalypse that it is I think I will enjoy visiting on a weekly basis.
A Star Brighter Than The Sun
The Premise
A tall girl grapples with her love for her childhood friend… just as her new friend finds attraction to the same guy.
It Gud?
There’s nothing wrong with A Star Brighter Than the Sun. It reminds me of shows I quite liked, such as Skip and Loafer. Though THAT show does hint at sadness in the romantic male lead, what makes it is no big high concept but simply characters who are charming who you want to spend time with. Skip and Loafer, even if it doesn’t head anywhere, is a series that lives on the charm of the characters. Similarly Blue Box has both sports and romance but mostly it succeeds on wit and mostly well-written stuff (though it kinda got too wheel-spinny by the latter half).
A Star Brighter Than the Sun has characters who are likable but… they just don’t “pop”. It’s not for a lack of trying. I don’t think it’s a boring show but it doesn’t stand out and I really don’t feel a lot of investment in their friendship with some romance on the fringes. It throws in a complication on the last minute. And it isn’t a bad one, a decent one to allow for teen drama. But even by the end of laying down emotional track, I feel like I just want to say “OK, cute”, then move on.
Everything I like about it I like much more in other series I’ve mentioned. The big-hearted heartthrob just feels like a less interesting version of Skip and Loafer’s male lead. The tall girl who is insecure about her height? I’ve read it way back in Lovely Complex and similar shoujo (if anything, still making the male lead even taller doesn’t quite land). A Star Brighter Than the Sun is not a bad choice if you want good old fashioned teen romance but if you are trying to limit what you are watching, you are probably good to skip this one.
Ganglion
The Premise
What happens when a tokusatsu henchman knocks off for the day.
It Gud?
This is a cute short feature. It’s mostly a slice of life about an upper ranking henchman and what he does when he goes home for the day. It’s interesting this came out the same time as Kojima-san but this is much more slice of life with really perfect little ending points on our family man dressed as a bug man.
Sanda
The Premise
CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED! Some time ago, people stopped celebrating Christmas. It’s just another day now. At a middle school, one child has gone missing and her best friend is convinced there’s only one person who can find her. The last in a long lineage, a being of power and humanity. The last of his kind. The last… Santa Claus.
It Gud?
We really started on the right foot here. We have a wild premise to begin with and as it starts, made no short work of being fun, even before the action starts. The main character tries to rationalize his classmate attempting to knife-murder him as “she’s shy about asking for a date”. Then when the action kicks in, which doesn’t take long, it is gorgeously animated and wonderfully ridiculous, complete with Sanda doing a Santa Claus laugh as part of his transformation sequence (though it’s different than the English Ho Ho Ho but that could be a cultural thing).
The show knows how to have fun with its premise. Without transforming, the main character needs to stop a bomb from exploding a classroom of kids, which concludes in a funny moment from the teacher, then we learn that Santa is fireproof… because he’s gotta be with all the chimneys he descends. It really gets how to utilize the premise and give Sanda powers and qualities based on the Santa mythos without going obvious routes like many other Santa stories have had.
I also loved the wacked out character designs and the animation is really pretty, with the transformation sequence reminding me of some of the great One Piece sequences in recent years. And this is all the track-laying episode, so I’m excited to get into the main story, especially considering this is from the author of BeaSTARs, the show that mixes Zootopia with horny teen soap opera. I have high hopes for this one and boy did it get off on the right foot.
Chitose in the Ramune Bottle
The Premise
A popular high school kid is called in to try to convince a shut in to come to school.
It Gud?
The first episode ends with the main character breaking the main character’s window with a baseball bat, promising to free him of his anxiety and love school life. This might have made for a memorable opening shot, but unfortunately, I watched everything preceding it. That was my mistake. Instead, the episode starts with this weird poetic bit giving it a “mood”, then being the most generic anime ever. Except the main character is less likable than most.
But also, every girl wants to get with him. And he describes himself as a “love-him-or-hate-him-kind-of-guy”, which is really something a “hate-him-kind-of-guy” does. And he introduces every character like they are an entry in a Wikipedia page. And in the most writerly way possible (and a bad writer by the way) the narrator seems to just say “I can only write broad anime archetypes”. And he’s so fucking smug. Why are we following this guy? Shouldn’t we be following the sad kid who needs a wild character to shake up his life?
Chitose in the Ramune Bottle lays so much track with his characters, I was wondering “are we heading into a big genre twist?” The previews didn’t imply this. But weirder things have happened. It would make sense to draw out introducing these characters who seems ridiculously happy with life and are broad characters then reveal they are going to be a death game or maybe all the characters were created by the shut in as a piece of metafiction. Maybe it’s going to turn out to be a murder mystery. Anything. But instead it’s about helping a kid with a taste for awful sounding light novels. Maybe there IS a twist but instead, what it chooses to open with is incredibly irritating.
WanDance
The Premise
A high schooler who struggles with his stutter and wanting to follow the crowd finds a new calling when wanting to truly express himself through dance. But he knows very little so he’s going to join the dance club and learn for himself.
It Gud?
I think this series has a strong starting point; a character who struggles to express himself verbally finds the art of dance. It’s a great way to get ourselves into the art/sport (I assume the series is going to do competitions, but I could be wrong) by connecting it to the character’s need. It tells us the virtue of dance efficiently and it gives it an importance to the character. It also deals with the idea that he has friends who do thinks he doesn’t approve of and struggles to express himself until the climax.
But overall, while I think the roadmap is strong, I didn’t really connect to the characters. The main is a bit too muted, which makes sense and I feel like the female co-lead is kind of a cipher. And not in an engaging way. They weren’t doing a *bad* job but it’s just missing that element that gets me really hyped, like Medalist had.
Also, two other things; 1. The dancing is CG. It’s not awful except for the fact that the FACES are so stiff it looks like the dancers are wearing creepy doll masks. It’s unfortunate because I think the movements are captured well, which is key but the weakness is very clear when you look in their dead eyes. The other issue? The main character is just Mash from Mashle.
Gnosia
The Premise
WEREWOLF! IN! SPACE! (the game, not the mythical beast)
It Gud?
Gnosia is apparently based on a video game I’ve never heard of, a sort of Danganronpa version of Among Us. As a show, the premise is a group of people must vote on which one they think is an evil alien in disguise and which they think isn’t Some of the characters are space aliens, like a non-binary plant lady and though they don’t show up in the first episode, this series has some wild character designs. There’s a dolphin in a suit, a classic grey alien, some kinda pirate man or something.
But as a show… maybe it corrects as it goes on, but mostly it’s the worst of werewolf, people just pointing fingers and going “it’s you!”. There’s some manipulation in the last act, one that isn’t a bad idea but the characters should be trying to use both logic, charisma and manipulation to try to get the results that they want and there isn’t enough of it. There is a lot of laying track but it isn’t hard to figure out.
Overall, it’s a show that’s decidedly unclever. There’s a conceit involving time looping that allows the show to keep doing different rounds. So in theory the main character will get better at the game. That’s not the problem. I feel like it would be more interesting to see characters really getting tricked and manipulated. Having a character that starts as naïve make sense but I wish there was more to the other characters, who are ridiculously cool with the whole process.
Let’s Play
The Premise
A young woman working for her family company dreams of returning to video games after noting increased interest in a game she made for a school project. However, she’s heartbroken when her favourite YouTuber’s negative review gives the game in a bad reputation. Adding to the strangeness, she also discovers said youtuber has also just moved into the apartment next to hers.
It Gud?
Let’s Play is an odd beast. There was a period where CrunchyRoll was bankrolling anime based on WebToons, the financially successful but lesser known format for comics. In particular, it was Korean WebToons. And then that seemed to mostly go away (though I think Solo Leveling is probably the most recent and successful version of this). But it’s one of the rare WebToons created by a North American creator to get an anime. And it really feels like it.
It does bring to mind a lot of the earlier WebComics and regular comics where the Western creator is heavily influenced by Japanese tropes. Many of the hokey gags feel like old anime gags and story turns. Also, the personification for the characters fear of confrontation looks like it repurposed some Venom slash-fiction. I know that seems like I’m dunking on it for playing into older cliches and formula. But there are times when it is genuinely quite funny. Also, the animation is really pretty. Is it pandering in style to gaming and anime nerds? Yes, very much so. It feels like it’s 20 years late to aping Bryan Lee O’Malley (and much of Scott Pilgrim has not aged well to the point they made a Scott Pilgrim anime dealing with that), it does look good.
So I’m kind of on the fence. I suspect I’ll be rolling my eyes quite a bit at some of the choices, but at the same time, I had a good time for large portions of this as well. And I think the set up for romcom makes it clear the romantic co-lead isn’t negging or bullying like some shoujo leads, he’s someone who seems ignorant of the strength of his words and actions and is probably on an arc to learn, which is potentially interesting.
Mechanical Marie
The Premise
A wealthy young man who has inherited the family fortune is the subject of frequent assassination attempts. No longer trusting people, he demands to get a robot maid to protect him. He’s impressed with the maid brought to him but little does he know she isn’t a robot but a super strong wrestler known for her emotionless face. Can she keep up the ruse and protect him from hired killers?
It Gud?
If Let’s Play feels very “of a web comic era”, Mechanical Marie feels very old-fashioned in conceit. Not so much the lie of the lead but the general wacky comedy vibe and “dude and maid” dynamic feels something from 20 years prior. Again, this isn’t a bad thing. The problem I have, and it’s a small one, is in the details. The animation is competent but it makes the weird decision to suddenly switch to a colourful painted piece for a moment. It was a move that was also done in The Fire Hunter, a show that suffered from confounding animation that it tried to present as Science Saru-esque. I’m not sure why Mechanical Marie is making this decision. It’s odd but it’s neither a positive nor negative.
I also feel like they make the mistake of when to reveal that Marie isn’t a robot. You could have slow rolled it so we see how Marie gets into this literal farce or we (my preference) got DEEP into the episode, having Marie do robot stuff and then towards the end after she did a bunch of wild stuff make that reveal. The actual doing of it feels too casual, unfortunately.
I won’t be sticking with this series but it’s not bad. It just lacks sharper gags to make me want to enjoy it. But it’s a fun premise and the wackiness feels old school in a way that… it doesn’t make it better per se but somewhat comfortable, at least. If you are in the mood for an old fashioned maid show that feels less problematic than the one from 20 years prior, Marie isn’t a bad one. I just wish it was better.
Plus-Sized Misadventures in Love
The Premise
A large woman wakes up in a hospital bed with no memory of who she is. Full of joie de vivre and unbridled confidence in herself, she learns that prior to falling off a four story building, she was depressed and plagued by body image issues. But that won’t stop her from finding love, improving her life and also maybe finding out if her fall was a suicide attempt or… a murder attempt.
It Gud?
It’s not common for the world of romance focused on female leads has anything other than slim. There are some who are tall but usually it is a thin, petite woman. Watching the preview, I wanted to try it because… it actually seemed like it could either be making fun of the lead or be a show that features good body size representation. And finally having seen it… it kind of breaks both ways.
Mostly, it is a sweet, positive show. I think it shows that the beauty of the character shows through her confidence and kindness as she supports others and is unabashedly proud of who she is, as well as dealing with the knowledge that she didn’t always think that way (I like how she finds an old idea book where she is putting herself down and fills it with affirmations, which definitely it going to come back when the character regains her memory. But on the other side, yeah, it does make jokes of her being a bit of a glutton and also her size (one scene where she has to sidle sideways out of a bathroom stall). It’s frustrating because I think with the right touch, you COULD make humourous bits about these things but this show doesn’t succeed and it undercuts a lot of what I do like about it. Thankfully these scenes are outnumbered by the better stuff but it makes it a bit harder to recommend.
But, I’m gonna stick with it, at least for a little while. Why? Because they also put a MURDER MYSTERY SUBPLOT IN THIS! Well, attempted murder but still. Early on, a character is like “oh… you survived” and I was like “is this implying attempted murder”. And then it becomes “yep” when the police call and suggest as much. And I love this and the choice that the main character is not nearly as concerned about this as she should be and instead is more focused on finding love and supporting her friends. Plus-Sized could get worse, it could get better but I’m going to give it a shot purely because of this.
Shabake
The Premise
In feudal Japan, a frail young noble learns he is the son of divinity and can see and is protected by yokai. He uses this to solve mysteries in his community.
It Gud?
I had hopes for Shabake. The animation wasn’t impressive and there wasn’t some big amazing premise. A boy who sees ghosts solves mysteries. But there are two things I liked; how almost pleasantly simple the idea is and just having a mystery show. So my hope was it would be a simple, pleasant and clever crime solving show where he needs help from the supernatural to uncover natural clues. And maybe going forward the show about a weak boy helping people will be that.
Part of the problem, though, is I really can’t describe these characters. A lot of time is dedicated to laying out the premise (which really could have been pieced out as needed) of the character and spending time with them. But they are kind of dull. The main character is a good boy and his attendants are… both kinds the same. A bit protective. But nothing pops out as interesting. We barely even get to the mystery and that’s a shame. I think a number of shows have had the challenge of not getting to the whole mystery to prove how clever it is. But the one threat is at best mildly engaging. We hardly get to what the crime is and I feel like not enough clues are given.
It's a disappointingly inert show. We get to see a couple of ways the spirits are useful but I was hoping for, if not great characters, a well-constructed and compelling mystery. But nothing comes together to hook me in. I don’t need twist after twist, I like a chill or cozy mystery, too. But nothing here tells me I want to keep trying. The character begins as sickly but also he’s double privileged and we just spend a lot of time hanging around his mansion. It’s not like the character sucks but it feels frictionless, the personalities who are meeting have no chemistry. It’s a “just there” show, as it is. And I will leave it there.
Tojima Wants to Be Kamen Rider
The Premise
Tojima grew up watching the superhero TV series Kamen Rider and decided that’s what he wanted to be when he grew up. He never gave up on it, even when confronting the reality it made him uncool and that it can never be achieved. Now at 40, Tojima is possible he strongest fighter in the world but this means nothing because his dream is literally unattainable… until the day that criminal thieves started dressing like Kamen Rider’s arch-foes Shocker.
It Gud?
I go into this with only a mild knowledge of Kamen Rider. I know it’s a very long-running franchise with a monster of the week and probably have a multitude of timelines or something. The first one was a cyborg on a motorcycle with a cool scarf. Let me assure you from that perspective, that’s all you really need. Just know that this is a series about someone in love with a franchise and a character and while the show doesn’t spell stuff out, it mostly just focuses on the characters at hand.
In that respect, it works. It’s someone who never grows out of that feeling as a child of wanting to be a fictional character. I work in preschool and when we ask what kids when they want to be when they grow up, they say Spider-Man or Minecraft Steve or, most worrying, a ghost. It’s understandable and the character KNOWS how deeply cringey his dreams and desires are that he can’t let go. And it’s not enough for him to be strong. He’s not delusional. But to him, this only matters if he was able to do something that can’t happen because it is fiction. And then we let the dream come true.
It’s interesting because it’s a power fantasy show but for the lead, he isn’t after the power. He has that. He wants the fantasy. The idea of getting to be someone who protects in a very specific way. I think it helps that Tojima is a likable guy with self-awareness. He knows the problems with his desires. He even gives up all his merch because he’s afraid how pathetic he’d look if someone found his lonely corpse surrounded by remnants of a 54-year-old kids show. He’s sweet and he helps others and he’s funny. The character is what makes it work and I hope it can keep up the charm and humour of the first episode.
Touring After the Apocalypse
The Premise
In post-apocalypse-Japan, two girls tour the country, stopping off at tourist spots as they dodge danger.
It Gud?
Touring is a bit of an odd series because it is both just a chill hang out show in a mostly empty landscape but also balances it with actual action. Though it doesn’t appear in the first episode, the second reveals “THIS SERIES HAS MONSTERS!” in the intro and I did not know we were going there (the first episode’s threat is an out-of-control AI tank) so it’s not exactly Train to the End of the World-level weirdness but it is clearly trying to do a balancing act that mostly works.
I would have been fine with the series if it was just puttering around the end of the world. I really didn’t need the action stuff. But I also don’t dislike it and think it was well done. I think while I am more into the quiet element, which is pleasant and slightly melancholy, I think it balances its sense of fun pretty well. Overall, I don’t actually have a lot to say beyond that. There’s a mystery element but it neither felt weak nor engaging. It’s not quite the “vibe” I was hoping but it’s a post-apocalypse that it is I think I will enjoy visiting on a weekly basis.
A Star Brighter Than The Sun
The Premise
A tall girl grapples with her love for her childhood friend… just as her new friend finds attraction to the same guy.
It Gud?
There’s nothing wrong with A Star Brighter Than the Sun. It reminds me of shows I quite liked, such as Skip and Loafer. Though THAT show does hint at sadness in the romantic male lead, what makes it is no big high concept but simply characters who are charming who you want to spend time with. Skip and Loafer, even if it doesn’t head anywhere, is a series that lives on the charm of the characters. Similarly Blue Box has both sports and romance but mostly it succeeds on wit and mostly well-written stuff (though it kinda got too wheel-spinny by the latter half).
A Star Brighter Than the Sun has characters who are likable but… they just don’t “pop”. It’s not for a lack of trying. I don’t think it’s a boring show but it doesn’t stand out and I really don’t feel a lot of investment in their friendship with some romance on the fringes. It throws in a complication on the last minute. And it isn’t a bad one, a decent one to allow for teen drama. But even by the end of laying down emotional track, I feel like I just want to say “OK, cute”, then move on.
Everything I like about it I like much more in other series I’ve mentioned. The big-hearted heartthrob just feels like a less interesting version of Skip and Loafer’s male lead. The tall girl who is insecure about her height? I’ve read it way back in Lovely Complex and similar shoujo (if anything, still making the male lead even taller doesn’t quite land). A Star Brighter Than the Sun is not a bad choice if you want good old fashioned teen romance but if you are trying to limit what you are watching, you are probably good to skip this one.
Ganglion
The Premise
What happens when a tokusatsu henchman knocks off for the day.
It Gud?
This is a cute short feature. It’s mostly a slice of life about an upper ranking henchman and what he does when he goes home for the day. It’s interesting this came out the same time as Kojima-san but this is much more slice of life with really perfect little ending points on our family man dressed as a bug man.
Purple
(She/Her)
At this point it's something like 50 (a brand new series every year since 1970, aside from that horrible period where this, Doctor Who, and Godzilla all took an extended break around the same time) unconnected* continuities where Some Guy** in cool bug*** lookin' armor, with a motorcycle.**** Also, for a good long stretch it was a monster-of-the-fortnight, with every episode being a two-parter with some nice time to breathe.Tojima Wants to Be Kamen Rider
I go into this with only a mild knowledge of Kamen Rider. I know it’s a very long-running franchise with a monster of the week and probably have a multitude of timelines or something. The first one was a cyborg on a motorcycle with a cool scarf.
* The original show ran 2 years and flows into at least V3, and the shows on each side of the 90s gap each had kind of a sequel series).
** Sometimes more of a loose team, sometimes two guys, and at least once it was actually Some Nonbinary Person.
*** Bugness levels vary. One guy was a space shuttle.
**** This was a huge deal early on and gotten increasingly less relevant and then Drive went and had a car instead.
But anyway, the real important thing to know here is that this anime and the manga its based on have that thing going on where the creator remembers watching this franchise as a kid, and just kinda ignores that it's still been going in the intervening decades, so the various characters obsessed with Kamen Rider are specifically all super into the 70s and 80s shows and ignore the ones from this century. So we're in the same camp as those people who go around chanting "trukk not munkey!" and insisting Power Rangers only ran for a year or two.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I will also say this was my take on the first episode and the subsequent two episodes have been somewhat less pleasant in introducing a female character who gets ogled at by her teenage student and the audience. Most of the rest of this is fun but it really hurt it. (also, @JBear pointed out correctly several unnamed Shocker goons like "chill guy who attacks convenient store" and "stoic guy who grows veggies" are possibly the best characters and are meant not to return)
Also, one of the characters origin story was that she was the daughter of a Kamen Rider fan (and seems designed after his civilian form) who gets her really into the female side character from one of the series and the whole section reminded me of this.
theonion.com
Also, one of the characters origin story was that she was the daughter of a Kamen Rider fan (and seems designed after his civilian form) who gets her really into the female side character from one of the series and the whole section reminded me of this.
Cool Dad Raising Daughter On Media That Will Put Her Entirely Out Of Touch With Her Generation
RENTON, WA—Local man Paul Campbell confirmed Saturday he was raising his daughter Emma on a variety of media carefully selected to help her cultivate an appreciation for artistic quality, a move that will reportedly put the 12-year-old girl hopelessly out of touch with her generation.
theonion.com
I'm very much enjoying this show. Three episodes in, it's a lot of fun. It's striking the right balance of completely bonkers ideas, but also treating those ideas with a certain level of self-seriousness. It's also another big win for its animation studio, Science Saru.Sanda
The Premise
CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED! Some time ago, people stopped celebrating Christmas. It’s just another day now. At a middle school, one child has gone missing and her best friend is convinced there’s only one person who can find her. The last in a long lineage, a being of power and humanity. The last of his kind. The last… Santa Claus.
It Gud?
We really started on the right foot here. We have a wild premise to begin with and as it starts, made no short work of being fun, even before the action starts. The main character tries to rationalize his classmate attempting to knife-murder him as “she’s shy about asking for a date”. Then when the action kicks in, which doesn’t take long, it is gorgeously animated and wonderfully ridiculous, complete with Sanda doing a Santa Claus laugh as part of his transformation sequence (though it’s different than the English Ho Ho Ho but that could be a cultural thing).
The show knows how to have fun with its premise. Without transforming, the main character needs to stop a bomb from exploding a classroom of kids, which concludes in a funny moment from the teacher, then we learn that Santa is fireproof… because he’s gotta be with all the chimneys he descends. It really gets how to utilize the premise and give Sanda powers and qualities based on the Santa mythos without going obvious routes like many other Santa stories have had.
I also loved the wacked out character designs and the animation is really pretty, with the transformation sequence reminding me of some of the great One Piece sequences in recent years. And this is all the track-laying episode, so I’m excited to get into the main story, especially considering this is from the author of BeaSTARs, the show that mixes Zootopia with horny teen soap opera. I have high hopes for this one and boy did it get off on the right foot.
On a side note, it's kinda crazy how Science Saru blew up and is doing their best works ever, after Masaaki Yuasa left and now it's exclusively the Eunyoung Choi show.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I'm surprised Saru is finally in a place where they are doing shounen battle shows with multiple seasons.
I'm less surprised about that, as that's usually a fairly pragmatic decision to stabilize revenue/work. But more surprised that they're picking weird, outlier, niche shounen battle shows and not just doing them well but elevating the source material.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
MY top 10 anime of the 2025
10. My Dress-Up Darling
My Dress-Up Darling certainly has a male gaze problem. Thankfully, while certainly present in this season, it is less pronounced and thankfully had more of what I like; two sweet-hearted oddballs (an introvert and an extrovert) both navigating romance and their passion for play. Yeah, I really love this sweet little show and often very funny. Gojo and Marin are a great couple but they are also a great comedic duo who you like hanging out with.
As always, the animation is great and this season feels like it was leaning in even harder on taking on the styles of other animated series when presenting the comics, shows and games Marin loves. I think that the show really captures the giddiness talking about your favourite things and the blood, sweat and tears of bringing them to life. Like a good sports anime, it is good at finding ways so outsiders can “get” the world of making costumes while also having some delightful farce. Can’t wait for season 3.
9. Kowloon Generic Romance
Kowloon Generic Romance is a show that is full of mystery and mythos but at the heart of it is a love story. Maybe a tragic one? The comic itself is known to be a slow burn but the series tends to cover one volume per episode. And yet for the most part it still manages to keep the tone as a “vibes” show. It might be speed running the series but it somehow does not feel painfully rushed like, say, the heartbreakingly bad-brained second season of Promised Neverland.
Now this show does have an ending that felt a little “let’s wrap this up” to me but despite that, it’s a series with an engaging cast where even a lot of the characters who initially seem like the “villains” are interesting, rich characters (except the Snake Guy’s creep of an adoptive dad. That guy just sucks). It’s a show that also asks questions about nostalgia and reality, set in a city that was destroyed in the 90s but somehow everyone still has smart phones. In many ways, this series itself feels like a throwback to bubble economy sci-fi drama OAVs, with great animation and, ironically trying to bulldoze through a LOT of content, it mostly makes it work.
8. Dan Da Dan
It always feels hard to talk about returning shows because often I’ve said a lot about them already. Sure one seasons quality doesn’t always translate into the next (*shudder* why, To Your Eternity, why?!) but sometimes staying the course is a good thing. But what Dan Da Dan does this season is adding a top tier character in terms of comedy. Granted, I think this season, due to moving at your classic Shounen Jump speed, ends up spending a little too much time with Evil Eye as a story but in terms of a character, he quickly becomes a delightfully weird maniac.
I was also worried that the story with the “weird otaku character” was going to be a drag and to be fair, that character often just sucks with some real “reddit incel” energy but that overall story is a delight and even that character gets a bunch of fun moments. It’s a series that is a great mix of rom com and shounen battler that knows how to do it all right, down to the big shounen fight with a kaiju turn into yet another romcom complication.
7. Orb: On the Movements of the Earth
Orb’s second half aired in the first half of 2025 and continued being a story with genuine surprises. A fantastic historical fiction that deals with the different people who are willing to advance science, some for noble (or at least principled) reasons and others for selfish ones. And one of the interesting parts with when these people intersect. They don’t oppose each other directly but they need to negotiate their own needs. Meanwhile, it’s a series about carrying the torch in the relay race of history and even if the smallest glimmer of it survives, maybe that’s enough to keep it going.
Orb also has an ending that… didn’t quite do it for me but I really respect how it approaches it as we mix historical fiction with something a little closer to reality. And for a show with such a high turnover in cast, it does a fantastic job immediately getting you on board with each new character, whether you love them or simply fascinated in their motives and actions. Orb is a series I feel like some people might have slept on but I insist you try this if you are loving series like Vinland Saga.
6. Takopi’s Original Sin
This is definitely the hardest watch on the list, as it features some pretty harrowing depictions of child abuse in many forms. But this isn’t a shock show, this is a series with a point. It’s a deconstruction of Japanese kids cartoons where a wacky little mascot character allows a child to be happy with magic spells and devices. Here, though, the mascot is in way over his head, an adorable Pollyanna completely oblivious to what abuse is until it happens to them. It doesn’t have the emotional intelligence or wisdom to handle what happens in the series. And yet, Takopi heroically tries to make people happy and has to learn the hard way that the path isn’t through cool devices or platitudes but really talking and listening.
It could be easy to make this series a bleak slog but there are things that help. One is it is actually really funny. Darkly funny to be sure. There’s both dramatic and comedic contrasting to what is clearly something horrific and Takopi failing to recognize it as such much of the time. But I feel like it earns it’s “real”-ness, even though it goes to a ridiculous level of darkness at times. The events and choices are sometimes boilerplate thriller/horror stuff but at the same time I think that unlike some anime heroes, the title characters obliviousness and unrelenting optimism isn’t a defense or a cure-all and Takopi needs to evolve and do more and in learning to listen and talk and getting others to do the same is the real hope for them. By the end, not everyone is “fixed” but it manages to find an ending that is ultimately hopeful.
5. The Summer Hikaru Died
I had heard good thing of the manga but the only thing I knew about this is that this is a horror series. I wasn’t prepared for this to be a romance. Certainly, this isn’t the only genre this falls into but it is probably the most important to the core of the series. The characters might be hesitant to say it’s romance but they do know it is love… albeit a kind of strange and tragic love. It’s not just that it’s a boy and his monster bf (which stands for best friend, of course) but one that looks like his old bf, who is dead. The series never forgets that Hikaru is a monster, even if he is a likable one. His views on life and death are far different than ours.
It isn’t just a romance with a horror window dressing, it’s a romance about the horror and sadness of death, grieving and identity as Yoshiki tries to accept that while he might love the new Hikaru, he is not the same as the old one. That though he is in many ways similar, it isn’t just the monster that makes him different. Are we just made up of our memories or is it about our experiences. The Summer Hikaru Died is full of yearning, humour and dread with a solid cast, gorgeous animation and a chill summer time vibe with some darker stuff underneath.
4. Apocalypse Hotel
You are not your job. You can feel passionate about it, love it, work really hard on it but even if you are very connected to it, that’s not who you are. Not easy for the cast of Apocalypse Hotel, a centuries-spanning series about a group of robots who run a hotel even after humanity has abandoned the Earth. Every day, they make beds, dust, repair and cook for people who will never arrive. That first episode is strong enough looking at this, but after that, the series deals with the new clientele, visiting aliens, while holding out hope for humanity to return.
Despite the existential nightmare set in the premise and the sense of melancholy through the series, this is primarily a silly series, often changing genres from superhero parody to Columbo (with the main character as the villain) to meditative, nearly silent slice of life. Apocalypse Hotel effortlessly changes it’s style and while it is funny, it never forgets it is the journey of growth for an entity who expected herself to be unchanging, a character trying to find a way to exist within the ever-changing rules and that while her hotel is important, she isn’t merely an extension of it (or vice versa).
3. The Apothecary Diaries
Hey, one of the best detective shows is back. The mystery genre has had a resurgence in recent years (I feel like Knives Out played a big role in that) but there are sadly not enough great mystery anime. There are certainly attempts but a lot of them feel like warmed over Sherlock Holmes-likes. But while the core is similar to that, The Apothecary Diaries remains unique, a mix of palace intrigue, rom com and epic adventure. I think it helps that toxic (literally, not figuratively) gremlin Maomao is one of the great detective characters, someone who is brilliant at figuring out stuff in her wheelhouse but is ignorant (at least in part willfully) about other people.
This season isn’t the last but it resolves a lot of the series long-standing mysteries from back in the first season and is actually quite successful and providing a fulfilling finale, even if Maomao discovers that the “antagonist” she’s been working to find this whole time is not what she expected. I also appreciate the most telegraphed “mystery” is pretty much treated as “yes, we all know what this is, only Maomao doesn’t because that’s who she is”. Though I was able to figure out the big reveal in the finale regarding some murder “victims”, it’s still clever and the series managed to succeed in having really well-crafted mysteries (both big and small stakes) and the characters we love to anchor it all together. I’m not sure what is left to say in the series but I am eagerly awaiting season 3!
2. Medalist
This is weird. I like Medalist a lot but I don’t feel like I should be having it up this high. Don’t ask me why. It is good and this was a good year for anime but it feels like there should be other series I put up more. Medalist is in many ways an old-fashioned sports story. And like the best sports story it stars a lovable underdog whom we want to see go all the way and an equally lovable mentor. Maybe that’s it. I just love these characters so much and want them to succeed.
It's a series I feel like, due to being on Disney+, a lot of people missed out on. If you like a sports story, this one ranks highly for being so darn charming. Season 2 is coming out soon so I’m jazzed but I do worry because part of what I liked in the initial season is the mountain this character had to climb and when we leave her, she’s more accomplished and respected. It’s going to be a challenge to keep up the tension that made me root for the weird little worm girl but this season definitely won over my heart. It’s also not the only series that surprised me with it’s placement on my list…
1. City
A someone who loved this show, I was still surprised this made it to my #1. Not every bit hits as hard as another. Weirdly, when the manga-ka character and his editor show up, I kept thinking “ah, I’ll just wait until the next bit” despite the fact that a lot of the time the characters were successful in making me laugh (they were a bit much, though). It is undeniably one of the most amazing looking and ambitious shows of the year, including a brain breaking episode where we are provided with an increasing number of split screens telling interconnected stories. It’s wild that a gag comedy looks so amazing, especially a slice of life series (granted, a bizarre and wacky and over the top slice of life series). But it also feels exactly right for this series.
But even with all these good things in place, it isn’t necessarily my favourite. I’m more likely to be jazzed for a serialized series with cliffhangers. This is a series where I could probably happily wait between months for episode. But Kyoto Animation made a series where the stylistic flourishes work perfect for a quasi-fantastical series where cryptids exist and a rich girl will go to bizarrely insane lengths to show her appreciation for people. Because I’m equally engaged with the two high school girls just hanging out and being goofballs while one is struggling to tell her friend she’s moving away. City is a warm hug and a jolly laugh. It’s busting your friends and loved ones chops but in a way that never feels mean. It’s a series about the joy of community and it leaves me with a smile on my face every week. It also shelled out money for Mambo No. 5! What other anime will do that?
10. My Dress-Up Darling
My Dress-Up Darling certainly has a male gaze problem. Thankfully, while certainly present in this season, it is less pronounced and thankfully had more of what I like; two sweet-hearted oddballs (an introvert and an extrovert) both navigating romance and their passion for play. Yeah, I really love this sweet little show and often very funny. Gojo and Marin are a great couple but they are also a great comedic duo who you like hanging out with.
As always, the animation is great and this season feels like it was leaning in even harder on taking on the styles of other animated series when presenting the comics, shows and games Marin loves. I think that the show really captures the giddiness talking about your favourite things and the blood, sweat and tears of bringing them to life. Like a good sports anime, it is good at finding ways so outsiders can “get” the world of making costumes while also having some delightful farce. Can’t wait for season 3.
9. Kowloon Generic Romance
Kowloon Generic Romance is a show that is full of mystery and mythos but at the heart of it is a love story. Maybe a tragic one? The comic itself is known to be a slow burn but the series tends to cover one volume per episode. And yet for the most part it still manages to keep the tone as a “vibes” show. It might be speed running the series but it somehow does not feel painfully rushed like, say, the heartbreakingly bad-brained second season of Promised Neverland.
Now this show does have an ending that felt a little “let’s wrap this up” to me but despite that, it’s a series with an engaging cast where even a lot of the characters who initially seem like the “villains” are interesting, rich characters (except the Snake Guy’s creep of an adoptive dad. That guy just sucks). It’s a show that also asks questions about nostalgia and reality, set in a city that was destroyed in the 90s but somehow everyone still has smart phones. In many ways, this series itself feels like a throwback to bubble economy sci-fi drama OAVs, with great animation and, ironically trying to bulldoze through a LOT of content, it mostly makes it work.
8. Dan Da Dan
It always feels hard to talk about returning shows because often I’ve said a lot about them already. Sure one seasons quality doesn’t always translate into the next (*shudder* why, To Your Eternity, why?!) but sometimes staying the course is a good thing. But what Dan Da Dan does this season is adding a top tier character in terms of comedy. Granted, I think this season, due to moving at your classic Shounen Jump speed, ends up spending a little too much time with Evil Eye as a story but in terms of a character, he quickly becomes a delightfully weird maniac.
I was also worried that the story with the “weird otaku character” was going to be a drag and to be fair, that character often just sucks with some real “reddit incel” energy but that overall story is a delight and even that character gets a bunch of fun moments. It’s a series that is a great mix of rom com and shounen battler that knows how to do it all right, down to the big shounen fight with a kaiju turn into yet another romcom complication.
7. Orb: On the Movements of the Earth
Orb’s second half aired in the first half of 2025 and continued being a story with genuine surprises. A fantastic historical fiction that deals with the different people who are willing to advance science, some for noble (or at least principled) reasons and others for selfish ones. And one of the interesting parts with when these people intersect. They don’t oppose each other directly but they need to negotiate their own needs. Meanwhile, it’s a series about carrying the torch in the relay race of history and even if the smallest glimmer of it survives, maybe that’s enough to keep it going.
Orb also has an ending that… didn’t quite do it for me but I really respect how it approaches it as we mix historical fiction with something a little closer to reality. And for a show with such a high turnover in cast, it does a fantastic job immediately getting you on board with each new character, whether you love them or simply fascinated in their motives and actions. Orb is a series I feel like some people might have slept on but I insist you try this if you are loving series like Vinland Saga.
6. Takopi’s Original Sin
This is definitely the hardest watch on the list, as it features some pretty harrowing depictions of child abuse in many forms. But this isn’t a shock show, this is a series with a point. It’s a deconstruction of Japanese kids cartoons where a wacky little mascot character allows a child to be happy with magic spells and devices. Here, though, the mascot is in way over his head, an adorable Pollyanna completely oblivious to what abuse is until it happens to them. It doesn’t have the emotional intelligence or wisdom to handle what happens in the series. And yet, Takopi heroically tries to make people happy and has to learn the hard way that the path isn’t through cool devices or platitudes but really talking and listening.
It could be easy to make this series a bleak slog but there are things that help. One is it is actually really funny. Darkly funny to be sure. There’s both dramatic and comedic contrasting to what is clearly something horrific and Takopi failing to recognize it as such much of the time. But I feel like it earns it’s “real”-ness, even though it goes to a ridiculous level of darkness at times. The events and choices are sometimes boilerplate thriller/horror stuff but at the same time I think that unlike some anime heroes, the title characters obliviousness and unrelenting optimism isn’t a defense or a cure-all and Takopi needs to evolve and do more and in learning to listen and talk and getting others to do the same is the real hope for them. By the end, not everyone is “fixed” but it manages to find an ending that is ultimately hopeful.
5. The Summer Hikaru Died
I had heard good thing of the manga but the only thing I knew about this is that this is a horror series. I wasn’t prepared for this to be a romance. Certainly, this isn’t the only genre this falls into but it is probably the most important to the core of the series. The characters might be hesitant to say it’s romance but they do know it is love… albeit a kind of strange and tragic love. It’s not just that it’s a boy and his monster bf (which stands for best friend, of course) but one that looks like his old bf, who is dead. The series never forgets that Hikaru is a monster, even if he is a likable one. His views on life and death are far different than ours.
It isn’t just a romance with a horror window dressing, it’s a romance about the horror and sadness of death, grieving and identity as Yoshiki tries to accept that while he might love the new Hikaru, he is not the same as the old one. That though he is in many ways similar, it isn’t just the monster that makes him different. Are we just made up of our memories or is it about our experiences. The Summer Hikaru Died is full of yearning, humour and dread with a solid cast, gorgeous animation and a chill summer time vibe with some darker stuff underneath.
4. Apocalypse Hotel
You are not your job. You can feel passionate about it, love it, work really hard on it but even if you are very connected to it, that’s not who you are. Not easy for the cast of Apocalypse Hotel, a centuries-spanning series about a group of robots who run a hotel even after humanity has abandoned the Earth. Every day, they make beds, dust, repair and cook for people who will never arrive. That first episode is strong enough looking at this, but after that, the series deals with the new clientele, visiting aliens, while holding out hope for humanity to return.
Despite the existential nightmare set in the premise and the sense of melancholy through the series, this is primarily a silly series, often changing genres from superhero parody to Columbo (with the main character as the villain) to meditative, nearly silent slice of life. Apocalypse Hotel effortlessly changes it’s style and while it is funny, it never forgets it is the journey of growth for an entity who expected herself to be unchanging, a character trying to find a way to exist within the ever-changing rules and that while her hotel is important, she isn’t merely an extension of it (or vice versa).
3. The Apothecary Diaries
Hey, one of the best detective shows is back. The mystery genre has had a resurgence in recent years (I feel like Knives Out played a big role in that) but there are sadly not enough great mystery anime. There are certainly attempts but a lot of them feel like warmed over Sherlock Holmes-likes. But while the core is similar to that, The Apothecary Diaries remains unique, a mix of palace intrigue, rom com and epic adventure. I think it helps that toxic (literally, not figuratively) gremlin Maomao is one of the great detective characters, someone who is brilliant at figuring out stuff in her wheelhouse but is ignorant (at least in part willfully) about other people.
This season isn’t the last but it resolves a lot of the series long-standing mysteries from back in the first season and is actually quite successful and providing a fulfilling finale, even if Maomao discovers that the “antagonist” she’s been working to find this whole time is not what she expected. I also appreciate the most telegraphed “mystery” is pretty much treated as “yes, we all know what this is, only Maomao doesn’t because that’s who she is”. Though I was able to figure out the big reveal in the finale regarding some murder “victims”, it’s still clever and the series managed to succeed in having really well-crafted mysteries (both big and small stakes) and the characters we love to anchor it all together. I’m not sure what is left to say in the series but I am eagerly awaiting season 3!
2. Medalist
This is weird. I like Medalist a lot but I don’t feel like I should be having it up this high. Don’t ask me why. It is good and this was a good year for anime but it feels like there should be other series I put up more. Medalist is in many ways an old-fashioned sports story. And like the best sports story it stars a lovable underdog whom we want to see go all the way and an equally lovable mentor. Maybe that’s it. I just love these characters so much and want them to succeed.
It's a series I feel like, due to being on Disney+, a lot of people missed out on. If you like a sports story, this one ranks highly for being so darn charming. Season 2 is coming out soon so I’m jazzed but I do worry because part of what I liked in the initial season is the mountain this character had to climb and when we leave her, she’s more accomplished and respected. It’s going to be a challenge to keep up the tension that made me root for the weird little worm girl but this season definitely won over my heart. It’s also not the only series that surprised me with it’s placement on my list…
1. City
A someone who loved this show, I was still surprised this made it to my #1. Not every bit hits as hard as another. Weirdly, when the manga-ka character and his editor show up, I kept thinking “ah, I’ll just wait until the next bit” despite the fact that a lot of the time the characters were successful in making me laugh (they were a bit much, though). It is undeniably one of the most amazing looking and ambitious shows of the year, including a brain breaking episode where we are provided with an increasing number of split screens telling interconnected stories. It’s wild that a gag comedy looks so amazing, especially a slice of life series (granted, a bizarre and wacky and over the top slice of life series). But it also feels exactly right for this series.
But even with all these good things in place, it isn’t necessarily my favourite. I’m more likely to be jazzed for a serialized series with cliffhangers. This is a series where I could probably happily wait between months for episode. But Kyoto Animation made a series where the stylistic flourishes work perfect for a quasi-fantastical series where cryptids exist and a rich girl will go to bizarrely insane lengths to show her appreciation for people. Because I’m equally engaged with the two high school girls just hanging out and being goofballs while one is struggling to tell her friend she’s moving away. City is a warm hug and a jolly laugh. It’s busting your friends and loved ones chops but in a way that never feels mean. It’s a series about the joy of community and it leaves me with a smile on my face every week. It also shelled out money for Mambo No. 5! What other anime will do that?
The first four volumes of the CITY manga are incredible. After that it flounders a bit, maybe because of a series extension. I've only read six of the 13 or so volumes, so maybe it makes a comeback.
I'd love to see the anime. Maybe it'll be available on disc before too long.
I'd love to see the anime. Maybe it'll be available on disc before too long.
........I feel like they didn't actually shell out money for Mambo No. 5, I think it's just a soundalike? Even if they namecheck it. Regardless, CITY is great!
Haven't watched it yet, but I heard tell that Tomoko Yamashita's masterpiece Ikoku Nikki just started airing its anime adaptation. Very happy for the larger exposure through an audience who likely didn't know the series existed or wouldn't touch it in comic form. In all honesty, I thought it would never be picked up for its tonality and stylistic qualities.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Finally starting to review the new season!
Sentenced to be a Hero
The Premise
In a fantasy world, “heroes” are executed criminals who were resurrected as soldiers to help battle the spreading “demon blight”. Xylo Forbarts is a former Holy Knight, now a cynical “hero” who hates the military and the church for betraying him and covering up massive secrets. Soon he meets a “goddess”, a sort of biological superweapon capable to granting great blessings and she has chosen Xylo because despite his cold attitude, he is ultimately heroic in saving people with no expectation of gratitude (heroes are looked at as the lowest of the low). To save an army sent on a suicide mission, the two team up but Xylo would rather not be teamed with a goddess, considering me killed the last one…
It Gud?
Sentenced to Be a Hero is a title that made me cringe a little when I saw it. When your title looks like a sentence or long sentence fragment and has the word “hero”, it feels like a warning sign from the light novel dark gods (“sentenced” indeed). But I gave it a chance because there was an interesting premise in here, as far as dark fantasy goes. Though the hero is certainly very powerful, the vibes here are less “edgelord power fantasy” and more “Dragon Age shonen jump first chapter”. Which, yes, does imply edgelord but on the sliding scale, this is better edgelord than usual.
That’s not to say it doesn’t have elements from the Shonen Jump and Light Novel factors. The former is in terms of structure, where it lays out the character, their point of view, their goals (or lack thereof), giving them a power and ending the first chapter on unleashing it and doing cool shit. But also it’s got a character who is a bad ass who is known by a lot of people who is framed for a crime they… kinda committed with many extenuating factors (at least this isn’t a false rape allegation this time).
I think the hour-long is good and though I feel like this is a bunch of elements from other dark fantasy series put together (Claymore is brought to mind). The animation is very pretty, sometimes there’s even some funny bits (mostly between the lead and a punk-ass thief hero). But the pilot is almost largely action and world-building and I’m curious what it will feel like when it’s time to slow down a bit. It’s possible it won’t but I feel like it needs to in order to build the relationships between the cast. So while I liked the story, I’m still feeling not 100% decided how much I’m enjoying it. Still, solid first outing with really good animation.
Journal with Witch
The Premise
After her mother dies, a teenage girl is taken in by her taciturn writer Aunt who takes her in on general humanistic principle rather than love. Her Aunt is a bit of a hot mess at home but also begins giving the girl valuable and frank advice as she beings to write her journal.
It Gud?
Boy is this a great counterpoint to the actiony series this season. The series has a sedate vibe but the characters and light humour allow me to lean in a bit. But unlike some of the other quiet series, while this has the vibes down, this isn’t about the vibes. Instead, it is about writing as a journey, with the blank page as visualized as an imposing desert. But it’s also a series that exists in the small and intimate. This isn’t about a character aiming to become the best writer. Or a great writer. Or a published writer. It’s a character who simply decides “I think I’ll write a journal” at the suggestion of her Aunt.
And I think what this show is really about is something that’s become a bit of a cliché but is true; fiction an art is often how we express ourselves but it is also how we work to make sense of the word we live in. The lead is told to write her journal but she’s also told it doesn’t have to be true. It’s about the act and what you bring to the writing. And it’s clear the two characters have a lot to work. Will writing be a cure? Probably not. But it might some direction and inspiration.
The show gives some details but it’s actually relatively exposition light. We are given some key important details but there’s also some things that are not fully explained. I think that’s on purpose not only to give mystery but also because she might be writing about it. My hope it doesn’t explain too much of what is true or fiction. I don’t need it to be cryptic but I think the fact of it might be beside the point next to the nature of the journey for a show this quiet, I’m excited to see where the journey goes for these characters.
Wash It All Away
The Premise
A laundromat!
It Gud?
You can really make an anime about anything. And that’s great. There doesn’t have to be a high concept to work and it can even take something mundane and make it fascinating. And I love series about a process. Every career involves developing skills that you might not even think about if you aren’t a part of it so it can be fascinating to see those worlds. Wash It All Away is a series where the focus is on a laundromat. I don’t know much about it but this could be a surprisingly fascinating and engaging world to see the techniques we never see used first hand to literally take care of our dirty laundry.
But Wash It All Away is… really dull. There’s a throwaway line implying amnesia that I completely spaced on when it happened so I guess that’s something but what the whole series is seems to be is slice of life of the lone attendant of a laundromat. And it’s dull. Dull as fuck. It’s only slightly interesting in that I can mock it for being what it is. And I’d actually forgive a lot of this story if it was visually interesting or if the lead was just fun to be around but everything about it seems so lifeless. It looks like the bottom of the barrel anime based on light novels where the character designs are generic and there is no love in the animation, just a mission to get it complete.
The only thing fascinating is that this cartoon about laundry is largely completely sexless except for one scene where the lead ASMR whispers the secrets of the trade to a friend, an out-of-nowhere cleavage shot of the main character that never matters (I thought her guy friend having a reaction might tell us something about him but we don’t even get a non-reaction) and most bizarrely of all, a weird shot of her guy friend’s butt. It’s not a sexy butt. It’s, like… just this boring pancake ass. It’s not even comedically unimpressive.
And it LINGERS on it. Not a long time but enough that it feels like a linger. And the shot doesn’t tell us anything. I guess it’s supposed to be about how he’s not carrying an umbrella in his bag, except… you don’t need this shot for that. Wash It All Away is kind of like Marge Simpson, a character so mundane that she comes back around to hilarious. Similarly this show could make these little tips and tricks neat but almost refuses to, while the potential BF seems genuinely amazed that you can colour a shoe.
Sentenced to be a Hero
The Premise
In a fantasy world, “heroes” are executed criminals who were resurrected as soldiers to help battle the spreading “demon blight”. Xylo Forbarts is a former Holy Knight, now a cynical “hero” who hates the military and the church for betraying him and covering up massive secrets. Soon he meets a “goddess”, a sort of biological superweapon capable to granting great blessings and she has chosen Xylo because despite his cold attitude, he is ultimately heroic in saving people with no expectation of gratitude (heroes are looked at as the lowest of the low). To save an army sent on a suicide mission, the two team up but Xylo would rather not be teamed with a goddess, considering me killed the last one…
It Gud?
Sentenced to Be a Hero is a title that made me cringe a little when I saw it. When your title looks like a sentence or long sentence fragment and has the word “hero”, it feels like a warning sign from the light novel dark gods (“sentenced” indeed). But I gave it a chance because there was an interesting premise in here, as far as dark fantasy goes. Though the hero is certainly very powerful, the vibes here are less “edgelord power fantasy” and more “Dragon Age shonen jump first chapter”. Which, yes, does imply edgelord but on the sliding scale, this is better edgelord than usual.
That’s not to say it doesn’t have elements from the Shonen Jump and Light Novel factors. The former is in terms of structure, where it lays out the character, their point of view, their goals (or lack thereof), giving them a power and ending the first chapter on unleashing it and doing cool shit. But also it’s got a character who is a bad ass who is known by a lot of people who is framed for a crime they… kinda committed with many extenuating factors (at least this isn’t a false rape allegation this time).
I think the hour-long is good and though I feel like this is a bunch of elements from other dark fantasy series put together (Claymore is brought to mind). The animation is very pretty, sometimes there’s even some funny bits (mostly between the lead and a punk-ass thief hero). But the pilot is almost largely action and world-building and I’m curious what it will feel like when it’s time to slow down a bit. It’s possible it won’t but I feel like it needs to in order to build the relationships between the cast. So while I liked the story, I’m still feeling not 100% decided how much I’m enjoying it. Still, solid first outing with really good animation.
Journal with Witch
The Premise
After her mother dies, a teenage girl is taken in by her taciturn writer Aunt who takes her in on general humanistic principle rather than love. Her Aunt is a bit of a hot mess at home but also begins giving the girl valuable and frank advice as she beings to write her journal.
It Gud?
Boy is this a great counterpoint to the actiony series this season. The series has a sedate vibe but the characters and light humour allow me to lean in a bit. But unlike some of the other quiet series, while this has the vibes down, this isn’t about the vibes. Instead, it is about writing as a journey, with the blank page as visualized as an imposing desert. But it’s also a series that exists in the small and intimate. This isn’t about a character aiming to become the best writer. Or a great writer. Or a published writer. It’s a character who simply decides “I think I’ll write a journal” at the suggestion of her Aunt.
And I think what this show is really about is something that’s become a bit of a cliché but is true; fiction an art is often how we express ourselves but it is also how we work to make sense of the word we live in. The lead is told to write her journal but she’s also told it doesn’t have to be true. It’s about the act and what you bring to the writing. And it’s clear the two characters have a lot to work. Will writing be a cure? Probably not. But it might some direction and inspiration.
The show gives some details but it’s actually relatively exposition light. We are given some key important details but there’s also some things that are not fully explained. I think that’s on purpose not only to give mystery but also because she might be writing about it. My hope it doesn’t explain too much of what is true or fiction. I don’t need it to be cryptic but I think the fact of it might be beside the point next to the nature of the journey for a show this quiet, I’m excited to see where the journey goes for these characters.
Wash It All Away
The Premise
A laundromat!
It Gud?
You can really make an anime about anything. And that’s great. There doesn’t have to be a high concept to work and it can even take something mundane and make it fascinating. And I love series about a process. Every career involves developing skills that you might not even think about if you aren’t a part of it so it can be fascinating to see those worlds. Wash It All Away is a series where the focus is on a laundromat. I don’t know much about it but this could be a surprisingly fascinating and engaging world to see the techniques we never see used first hand to literally take care of our dirty laundry.
But Wash It All Away is… really dull. There’s a throwaway line implying amnesia that I completely spaced on when it happened so I guess that’s something but what the whole series is seems to be is slice of life of the lone attendant of a laundromat. And it’s dull. Dull as fuck. It’s only slightly interesting in that I can mock it for being what it is. And I’d actually forgive a lot of this story if it was visually interesting or if the lead was just fun to be around but everything about it seems so lifeless. It looks like the bottom of the barrel anime based on light novels where the character designs are generic and there is no love in the animation, just a mission to get it complete.
The only thing fascinating is that this cartoon about laundry is largely completely sexless except for one scene where the lead ASMR whispers the secrets of the trade to a friend, an out-of-nowhere cleavage shot of the main character that never matters (I thought her guy friend having a reaction might tell us something about him but we don’t even get a non-reaction) and most bizarrely of all, a weird shot of her guy friend’s butt. It’s not a sexy butt. It’s, like… just this boring pancake ass. It’s not even comedically unimpressive.
And it LINGERS on it. Not a long time but enough that it feels like a linger. And the shot doesn’t tell us anything. I guess it’s supposed to be about how he’s not carrying an umbrella in his bag, except… you don’t need this shot for that. Wash It All Away is kind of like Marge Simpson, a character so mundane that she comes back around to hilarious. Similarly this show could make these little tips and tricks neat but almost refuses to, while the potential BF seems genuinely amazed that you can colour a shoe.
It could have been a contender, butt...The only thing fascinating is that this cartoon about laundry is largely completely sexless except for one scene where the lead ASMR whispers the secrets of the trade to a friend, an out-of-nowhere cleavage shot of the main character that never matters (I thought her guy friend having a reaction might tell us something about him but we don’t even get a non-reaction) and most bizarrely of all, a weird shot of her guy friend’s butt. It’s not a sexy butt. It’s, like… just this boring pancake ass. It’s not even comedically unimpressive.
And it LINGERS on it. Not a long time but enough that it feels like a linger. And the shot doesn’t tell us anything. I guess it’s supposed to be about how he’s not carrying an umbrella in his bag, except… you don’t need this shot for that.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Scum of the Brave
The Premise
In an alternative timeline, magic has been brought to the world and unfortunately the primary users are yakuza, now calling themselves Dark Lords. The only ones who can stop them are Braves, humans who can give themselves super powers with proper injections. Most of them are lowlives who are willing to kill but a new academy is focused on raising up heroic and optimistic teen girls to combat the enemy. One such lowlife helps saves a girl’s life but now she insists he act as her mentor while he is trying to warn her away.
It Gud?
There’s promise in the premise, teaming a world weary jerk is a golden-hearted Pollyanna. And also making yakuza magical. This could be a lot of fun. And there is fun… around the margins. The main character sucks but his new protégé seemingly has a supernatural power to see through his lies, which makes for a potentially fun dynamic. He and his friends don’t play poker or mah jong, they play Magic the Gathering for cash.
The problem is the actual story… it’s not *bad* but it seems to lack the proper spark to make it interesting. I don’t think the character designs are bad but at the same time the background is full of wanted posters featuring what looks to be art from the source material (a light novel series) and… it looks like it has a lot more juice than what we have. The look as it is reminds me a bit of Kemono Jihen, which isn’t bad per se but somehow it feels like all the interesting ideas don’t connect.
The idea is interesting but the world building seems a bit flat, the characters aren’t that charming and the gags simply aren’t funny enough. The dynamics bring to mind some 90s anime I like (I think it feels like anime went heavy on “fantasy cads” but the lead here doesn’t seem to have what made a lot of those series fun. Scum of the Brave has some interesting ideas put into place but it just looks and feels a little dull. After years of anime having big spectacle, it’s telling when the sword fights in the opening credits seem soft and sluggish.
The Holy Grail of Eris
The Premise
In a world similar to 17th Europe, a young woman, Grail, from a wealthy and respected bloodline learn her family is suffering from debt. To save the family Grail agrees to marry another royal but later sees him kissing another woman. The night of a fancy ball, Grail notices a woman standing on the threshold outside the party and tells her to go in, which she does. While at the party, Grail is framed for a crime by a rival. Backed into a corner, she begs for help from anyone, only to be possessed by the woman he invited in, actually a ghost. The ghost resolves her issues and humiliates her rival, who receives a shocking, brutal punishment from her peers. The next morning, the ghost tells Grail she wants help in avenging those who wronged her in life and sentenced her to death.
It Gud?
The Holy Grail of Eris has a tone issue. When I say that, it’s not that it is a terrible or somehow inappropriate show. It’s a show that I think is trying to be a subversive take on old tropes but lacks an edge and just feels like the very thing it’s trying to have a new take on. Much of the episode is dedicated to an old standard; nice lady in den of mean rich royal girls and one tries to frame her. I feel like every otome isekai has this scene and either subverts it or uses it as an impetus to turn the main character’s journey on their head. But here, it just feels like… that scene.
When it takes a turn, after a VERY long time, it’s supposed to be her being possessed gives her gumption to fight back and cleverness and empathy to turn people against her persecutor. But… it never feels clever. The gotchas largely rely on the villain of the story to be very dumb and her using logic and speaking to the humanity of the actual witnesses of the crime falls flat. It’s the episodes big moment and finally turning those tables is kind of a chore.
The episode climaxes with a shocking turn of events where the episode villainess isn’t just humiliated, she’s brutally punished, forced to dance with red hot metal shoes on while the wealthy watch their cruelty with joy, That actually feels like it could be a really interesting last minute reveal but it doesn’t feel like an earned shock. I feel like this should be the moment where the reveal is the main character has been waltzing through a den of wolves waiting for the moment for someone to fall to torture them. I think that would have been more interesting if the animation and direction was better and they played things as being overly arch to the point where you feel like something is wrong but you aren’t sure what. Tonally, I think the feel it needed to go for was something like the Elusive Samurai where suddenly the world seems brutal and unhinged. But it just looks and feels way to plain for what, on paper, seems like it could be a fun twist in the tale.
The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be Wife
The Premise
In a world where monsters and humans live side by side, a young blind woman working at a detective agency is developing feelings of one of their top detectives, an invisible man.
It Gud?
Another series where… c’mon, can we just have titles that aren’t the premise? Anyway, despite that… it’s fine. I don’t strongly like it and the animation is kind of bland but it has its charm. Despite taking place in a detective agency, that is basically secondary to the slice of life romance tone. Which is perfectly OK. Didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it. I really didn’t have strong feelings on this one, at least in terms of the main story. But…
I really liked a lot of the small things. The lead characters designs aren’t that interesting but one of the detectives is a buff wolf-woman who pumps iron and I like her. There’s a grumbling dude with a pot belly I liked. And there was this one jankily animated dog in a sports coat insisting that there’s a meowing frog who I fell in love with despite immediately disappearing as quickly as he entered. I am not into the main story but there’s a lot of stuff around the fringes of the series that I find charming.
The Case Book of Arne
The Premise
A vampire detective fights other monsters. That’s not really what the first episode is about except at the end but I think that’s the general idea. It’s kind of a detective show, I guess.
It Gud?
Not really. The first episode is about a side character who… due to the supernatural nature and the fact that they are in the intro but I think only for one shot, I don’t think they will matter much. It’s not an uncommon approach to a shounen show to compare the main character of the first chapter (who is actually often the sidekick character for much of the series) to the real main character. Anyway, that story… is pretty uninspired.
It did have that classic anime shot of the character realizing too late that they’ve received a horrific wound, which despite being a cliché is still effective when done right (and they do it well here with minimal sound). But this first story is a detective tale and it’s not hard to figure out the culprit, not because of the clues but more the tropes of these kinds of shows (and the very limited number of suspects).
When the heroes finally do hero stuff and use their powers, it’s not exceptionally exciting. Interestingly, the preview implied the real premise was about a vampire stan who finally gets to work with her fav vampire, who spends most of their time in a child form. Though these characters are in the story, this never enters into episode 1. Really, this feels like a story that could have appeared 25 years ago in terms of storytelling and animation quality. It’s another show that falls into the category of “not bad I guess, but I don’t think I can bring myself to care.”
Champignon Witch
The Premise
A mushroom witch living near a village tries to live her life but the fact that he has a poisoned body means she feels very lonely. One day she draws a picture of a boy in town and the picture comes to life, only for her to learn that the boy’s soul is being transferred into town.
It Gud?
This is a series that in some ways shouldn’t have worked for me. Outside of a few clever flourishes, this is a very weakly animated series. It mostly just doesn’t look good in terms of motion and everything looks sort of blandified. It does help being slightly familiar with the artist (who I mostly knew for the series Gakuen Alice, a cute little fantasy series which was like goofy shojo X-Men.
In the comic there’s a flat look that works well but I think it can be hard to translate well. TYPHOON GRAPHICS is the production company and they don’t have a great resume. Yes, I remember the preview for The Water Magician looking well-animated for a generic fantasy series but they also did One Room *shudder*. And they don’t do a great job here. The backgrounds look OK and I like how the character looks when he becomes living art but overall it lacks life.
However, I love the weirdness of the designs. I love whenever the main character’s hat grows a weird derpy face, or when she just disappears into a hat or mushroom or when big phallic mushrooms with adorable faces show up. And the main story is actually interesting. It has some inherent sadness and though it’s mostly bucolic fantasy, it hints at some high stakes down the line for the character. I’m hopeful that this is one of those series where the strength of the source material can do some heavy lifting.
In the Clear Moonlit Dusk
The Premise
A girl with beautiful but masculine features tires of her role as the school “Prince” but reluctantly accepts it… until she meets a sweet-hearted bad boy who is called the Other Prince.
It Gud?
In the Clear Moonlit Dusk feels like a series from the 90s. Maybe it is. The premise of a woman protagonist who looks masculine feels like I’ve seen it done dozens of times. So… why does this work? It’s not doing anything particularly unique. There’s no subversion of an old formula. It also doesn’t feel dull because of that. And despite the premise, it isn’t trying to be too wacky about it.
There’s a comfort to it. It has two likable leads and the animation is pretty solid. I think it also helps that I feel like I’ve been bombarded with high concept romance series whose title is a sentence that it’s nice to get to something that competently goes down an old road with absolute earnestness and a desire to do a very strong version of this series.
I don’t actually know where it is going but I can confidently guess. The male love interest ends up having a bit of a past. They work through it together. She gets more confidence in herself and not getting too hung up about meeting other people’s expectations. And I don’t mind. I think I’m going to have a pleasant time with this one.
You and I Are Polar Opposites
The Premise
An extroverted talkative girl has a crush on the introverted reserved boy in class. Despite her seemingly outgoing attitude, she deals with insecurities and a desire to make all her friends happy and is too shy to confess her love. When she accidentally says something to make him feel rejected, she confesses her love and learns despite his stoic demeanor, he also loves her.
It Gud?
I really wanted to like this one. The problem I could feel is that as it went on, as it went to jokes, I really wasn’t laughing. Not because they were terrible but it just wasn’t clicking. So really, I think it mostly depended on how attached I would get to these characters despite that. And the answer is… I did like them. Not head over heels but I like spending time with them even though I’m not getting big guffaws (there is one solid joke where the character off-handly admits she doesn’t give a shit about popcorn) and the emotional beats aren’t particularly effective.
But while I don’t think it’s really funny and its sweetness is just OK, I do think it is a good-looking show. Well-animated, creative and considering I’ve found a lot of series I’ve tried this season having unimpressive animation, I’m kind of surprised this romcom succeeds in looking darn nice. That and the general pleasentness does make me want to see where we go from here (I have been told already it’s about a LOT of “opposites attract” couples).
mofusand
The Premise
Shark Cat Gains Weight
It Gud?
Why are you not watching this now?
The Premise
In an alternative timeline, magic has been brought to the world and unfortunately the primary users are yakuza, now calling themselves Dark Lords. The only ones who can stop them are Braves, humans who can give themselves super powers with proper injections. Most of them are lowlives who are willing to kill but a new academy is focused on raising up heroic and optimistic teen girls to combat the enemy. One such lowlife helps saves a girl’s life but now she insists he act as her mentor while he is trying to warn her away.
It Gud?
There’s promise in the premise, teaming a world weary jerk is a golden-hearted Pollyanna. And also making yakuza magical. This could be a lot of fun. And there is fun… around the margins. The main character sucks but his new protégé seemingly has a supernatural power to see through his lies, which makes for a potentially fun dynamic. He and his friends don’t play poker or mah jong, they play Magic the Gathering for cash.
The problem is the actual story… it’s not *bad* but it seems to lack the proper spark to make it interesting. I don’t think the character designs are bad but at the same time the background is full of wanted posters featuring what looks to be art from the source material (a light novel series) and… it looks like it has a lot more juice than what we have. The look as it is reminds me a bit of Kemono Jihen, which isn’t bad per se but somehow it feels like all the interesting ideas don’t connect.
The idea is interesting but the world building seems a bit flat, the characters aren’t that charming and the gags simply aren’t funny enough. The dynamics bring to mind some 90s anime I like (I think it feels like anime went heavy on “fantasy cads” but the lead here doesn’t seem to have what made a lot of those series fun. Scum of the Brave has some interesting ideas put into place but it just looks and feels a little dull. After years of anime having big spectacle, it’s telling when the sword fights in the opening credits seem soft and sluggish.
The Holy Grail of Eris
The Premise
In a world similar to 17th Europe, a young woman, Grail, from a wealthy and respected bloodline learn her family is suffering from debt. To save the family Grail agrees to marry another royal but later sees him kissing another woman. The night of a fancy ball, Grail notices a woman standing on the threshold outside the party and tells her to go in, which she does. While at the party, Grail is framed for a crime by a rival. Backed into a corner, she begs for help from anyone, only to be possessed by the woman he invited in, actually a ghost. The ghost resolves her issues and humiliates her rival, who receives a shocking, brutal punishment from her peers. The next morning, the ghost tells Grail she wants help in avenging those who wronged her in life and sentenced her to death.
It Gud?
The Holy Grail of Eris has a tone issue. When I say that, it’s not that it is a terrible or somehow inappropriate show. It’s a show that I think is trying to be a subversive take on old tropes but lacks an edge and just feels like the very thing it’s trying to have a new take on. Much of the episode is dedicated to an old standard; nice lady in den of mean rich royal girls and one tries to frame her. I feel like every otome isekai has this scene and either subverts it or uses it as an impetus to turn the main character’s journey on their head. But here, it just feels like… that scene.
When it takes a turn, after a VERY long time, it’s supposed to be her being possessed gives her gumption to fight back and cleverness and empathy to turn people against her persecutor. But… it never feels clever. The gotchas largely rely on the villain of the story to be very dumb and her using logic and speaking to the humanity of the actual witnesses of the crime falls flat. It’s the episodes big moment and finally turning those tables is kind of a chore.
The episode climaxes with a shocking turn of events where the episode villainess isn’t just humiliated, she’s brutally punished, forced to dance with red hot metal shoes on while the wealthy watch their cruelty with joy, That actually feels like it could be a really interesting last minute reveal but it doesn’t feel like an earned shock. I feel like this should be the moment where the reveal is the main character has been waltzing through a den of wolves waiting for the moment for someone to fall to torture them. I think that would have been more interesting if the animation and direction was better and they played things as being overly arch to the point where you feel like something is wrong but you aren’t sure what. Tonally, I think the feel it needed to go for was something like the Elusive Samurai where suddenly the world seems brutal and unhinged. But it just looks and feels way to plain for what, on paper, seems like it could be a fun twist in the tale.
The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be Wife
The Premise
In a world where monsters and humans live side by side, a young blind woman working at a detective agency is developing feelings of one of their top detectives, an invisible man.
It Gud?
Another series where… c’mon, can we just have titles that aren’t the premise? Anyway, despite that… it’s fine. I don’t strongly like it and the animation is kind of bland but it has its charm. Despite taking place in a detective agency, that is basically secondary to the slice of life romance tone. Which is perfectly OK. Didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it. I really didn’t have strong feelings on this one, at least in terms of the main story. But…
I really liked a lot of the small things. The lead characters designs aren’t that interesting but one of the detectives is a buff wolf-woman who pumps iron and I like her. There’s a grumbling dude with a pot belly I liked. And there was this one jankily animated dog in a sports coat insisting that there’s a meowing frog who I fell in love with despite immediately disappearing as quickly as he entered. I am not into the main story but there’s a lot of stuff around the fringes of the series that I find charming.
The Case Book of Arne
The Premise
A vampire detective fights other monsters. That’s not really what the first episode is about except at the end but I think that’s the general idea. It’s kind of a detective show, I guess.
It Gud?
Not really. The first episode is about a side character who… due to the supernatural nature and the fact that they are in the intro but I think only for one shot, I don’t think they will matter much. It’s not an uncommon approach to a shounen show to compare the main character of the first chapter (who is actually often the sidekick character for much of the series) to the real main character. Anyway, that story… is pretty uninspired.
It did have that classic anime shot of the character realizing too late that they’ve received a horrific wound, which despite being a cliché is still effective when done right (and they do it well here with minimal sound). But this first story is a detective tale and it’s not hard to figure out the culprit, not because of the clues but more the tropes of these kinds of shows (and the very limited number of suspects).
When the heroes finally do hero stuff and use their powers, it’s not exceptionally exciting. Interestingly, the preview implied the real premise was about a vampire stan who finally gets to work with her fav vampire, who spends most of their time in a child form. Though these characters are in the story, this never enters into episode 1. Really, this feels like a story that could have appeared 25 years ago in terms of storytelling and animation quality. It’s another show that falls into the category of “not bad I guess, but I don’t think I can bring myself to care.”
Champignon Witch
The Premise
A mushroom witch living near a village tries to live her life but the fact that he has a poisoned body means she feels very lonely. One day she draws a picture of a boy in town and the picture comes to life, only for her to learn that the boy’s soul is being transferred into town.
It Gud?
This is a series that in some ways shouldn’t have worked for me. Outside of a few clever flourishes, this is a very weakly animated series. It mostly just doesn’t look good in terms of motion and everything looks sort of blandified. It does help being slightly familiar with the artist (who I mostly knew for the series Gakuen Alice, a cute little fantasy series which was like goofy shojo X-Men.
In the comic there’s a flat look that works well but I think it can be hard to translate well. TYPHOON GRAPHICS is the production company and they don’t have a great resume. Yes, I remember the preview for The Water Magician looking well-animated for a generic fantasy series but they also did One Room *shudder*. And they don’t do a great job here. The backgrounds look OK and I like how the character looks when he becomes living art but overall it lacks life.
However, I love the weirdness of the designs. I love whenever the main character’s hat grows a weird derpy face, or when she just disappears into a hat or mushroom or when big phallic mushrooms with adorable faces show up. And the main story is actually interesting. It has some inherent sadness and though it’s mostly bucolic fantasy, it hints at some high stakes down the line for the character. I’m hopeful that this is one of those series where the strength of the source material can do some heavy lifting.
In the Clear Moonlit Dusk
The Premise
A girl with beautiful but masculine features tires of her role as the school “Prince” but reluctantly accepts it… until she meets a sweet-hearted bad boy who is called the Other Prince.
It Gud?
In the Clear Moonlit Dusk feels like a series from the 90s. Maybe it is. The premise of a woman protagonist who looks masculine feels like I’ve seen it done dozens of times. So… why does this work? It’s not doing anything particularly unique. There’s no subversion of an old formula. It also doesn’t feel dull because of that. And despite the premise, it isn’t trying to be too wacky about it.
There’s a comfort to it. It has two likable leads and the animation is pretty solid. I think it also helps that I feel like I’ve been bombarded with high concept romance series whose title is a sentence that it’s nice to get to something that competently goes down an old road with absolute earnestness and a desire to do a very strong version of this series.
I don’t actually know where it is going but I can confidently guess. The male love interest ends up having a bit of a past. They work through it together. She gets more confidence in herself and not getting too hung up about meeting other people’s expectations. And I don’t mind. I think I’m going to have a pleasant time with this one.
You and I Are Polar Opposites
The Premise
An extroverted talkative girl has a crush on the introverted reserved boy in class. Despite her seemingly outgoing attitude, she deals with insecurities and a desire to make all her friends happy and is too shy to confess her love. When she accidentally says something to make him feel rejected, she confesses her love and learns despite his stoic demeanor, he also loves her.
It Gud?
I really wanted to like this one. The problem I could feel is that as it went on, as it went to jokes, I really wasn’t laughing. Not because they were terrible but it just wasn’t clicking. So really, I think it mostly depended on how attached I would get to these characters despite that. And the answer is… I did like them. Not head over heels but I like spending time with them even though I’m not getting big guffaws (there is one solid joke where the character off-handly admits she doesn’t give a shit about popcorn) and the emotional beats aren’t particularly effective.
But while I don’t think it’s really funny and its sweetness is just OK, I do think it is a good-looking show. Well-animated, creative and considering I’ve found a lot of series I’ve tried this season having unimpressive animation, I’m kind of surprised this romcom succeeds in looking darn nice. That and the general pleasentness does make me want to see where we go from here (I have been told already it’s about a LOT of “opposites attract” couples).
mofusand
The Premise
Shark Cat Gains Weight
It Gud?
Why are you not watching this now?
R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
Frieren is back. I’m happy to see more of Frieren make funny faces, and for Fern and Stark to make sure she doesn’t die.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
One more new anime... until March! (BeaSTARS and Jojo, March is gonna be so great)
The Darwin Incident
The Premise
After a militant animal rights attacks a lab, they discover a chimpanzee that is near death and giving birth. When the chimp’s baby is born, everyone is shocked to discover it is a human-chimp hybrid, a humanzee. 15 years later, the humanzee, now called Charlie, is a celebrity but is also widely feared due to his connections to the militant group, now an even more strident and deadly terrorist organization. Meanwhile, said group is dead set on getting Charlie on their side and aren’t afraid of using some truly evil tactics to isolate him from the rest of humanity.
It Gud?
I was almost hoping not to watch this because I’m a bit behind on my viewing. But mostly, I did. It’s a bit of a slow burn thriller and I was genuinely surprised by the nature of the main character. I assumed we were heading to see an innocent naïf trapped in a situation beyond his control. The latter part is true but the main character is a bit of a cold, detached philosopher, who really does think about bigger questions. A telling scene is he saves a butterfly from a spider’s web and laments that his actions cost a spider it’s much needed sustenance.
But the show also makes some weird moves. To prove that the main character doesn’t quite think the way we expect a protagonist, particularly one vulnerable to prejudice, it throws some weird flimsy and weird moral dilemma arguments against him from other characters. Beyond that, the show posits a world where people seem to assume because there is a terrorist group where the members are vegan (but the group is not primarily about veganism), people think vegans are shady. I’m not saying there aren’t people out there with weird hatred towards vegans, it feels like it’s trying to make pro-vegan arguments to people as if they haven’t heard of veganism as a concept before. Part of me wonders if veganism in Japan is not terribly popular. I remember being warned when travelling to China it is very difficult to find vegan dining options. But seeing a show that seems mostly fun and thoughtful having to deal with weird flimsy arguments makes me side eye it a little bit, like I’m expecting an odd turn.
So far, though, it’s a promising show. Despite the fact that there are poor arguments, there are also more interesting ones, like realizing that you are sharing a class with a student who could break your arms with a grasp. The villain is also unhinged in a way I feel like I’ve seen before but also seems fun and interesting (I could easily see this character remain the main villain or sort of become an uneasy ally down the line). It’s got a promising cast and I genuinely am unsure where it is going in the long term.
The Darwin Incident
The Premise
After a militant animal rights attacks a lab, they discover a chimpanzee that is near death and giving birth. When the chimp’s baby is born, everyone is shocked to discover it is a human-chimp hybrid, a humanzee. 15 years later, the humanzee, now called Charlie, is a celebrity but is also widely feared due to his connections to the militant group, now an even more strident and deadly terrorist organization. Meanwhile, said group is dead set on getting Charlie on their side and aren’t afraid of using some truly evil tactics to isolate him from the rest of humanity.
It Gud?
I was almost hoping not to watch this because I’m a bit behind on my viewing. But mostly, I did. It’s a bit of a slow burn thriller and I was genuinely surprised by the nature of the main character. I assumed we were heading to see an innocent naïf trapped in a situation beyond his control. The latter part is true but the main character is a bit of a cold, detached philosopher, who really does think about bigger questions. A telling scene is he saves a butterfly from a spider’s web and laments that his actions cost a spider it’s much needed sustenance.
But the show also makes some weird moves. To prove that the main character doesn’t quite think the way we expect a protagonist, particularly one vulnerable to prejudice, it throws some weird flimsy and weird moral dilemma arguments against him from other characters. Beyond that, the show posits a world where people seem to assume because there is a terrorist group where the members are vegan (but the group is not primarily about veganism), people think vegans are shady. I’m not saying there aren’t people out there with weird hatred towards vegans, it feels like it’s trying to make pro-vegan arguments to people as if they haven’t heard of veganism as a concept before. Part of me wonders if veganism in Japan is not terribly popular. I remember being warned when travelling to China it is very difficult to find vegan dining options. But seeing a show that seems mostly fun and thoughtful having to deal with weird flimsy arguments makes me side eye it a little bit, like I’m expecting an odd turn.
So far, though, it’s a promising show. Despite the fact that there are poor arguments, there are also more interesting ones, like realizing that you are sharing a class with a student who could break your arms with a grasp. The villain is also unhinged in a way I feel like I’ve seen before but also seems fun and interesting (I could easily see this character remain the main villain or sort of become an uneasy ally down the line). It’s got a promising cast and I genuinely am unsure where it is going in the long term.
I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MY WHOLE LIFE
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Oh, I forgot I had one left of these to publish!
Love Through a Prism
The Premise
In the late 19th/early 20th century (I don’t know which, really), a young woman travels from Japan to England to learn how to paint. However, her mother in Japan has given her an ultimatum; if she isn’t recognized as the best artist in her school in at least 6 months, she must return home to look for a husband. There she meets a rough looking artistic genius who is immediately her main rival.
It Gud?
Man, I almost forgot I watched this. This isn’t a slight against it but… we are watching a lot. No, this show feels very much like a traditional “character trying to fight her way into a competitive field meets a character who is naturally talented, resulting in a rivalry that gives way to deeper understanding.” Always a classic. And as is, it is a solid little period drama with some fun characters and likely the promise of romance.
I am frustrated with all the episodes being dropped at once. If anything, that approach tends to make me backburner a good show to keep up with the good ones. It’s why I slept on The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity despite looking forward to it (that and Netflix held it until late into the summer season. I’m going to watch this but this turned out to be a weirdly packed season I wasn’t entirely looking forward to despite some returning hits (still haven’t watched new Freiren yet!).
And that’s a shame because even though there isn’t a big high concept or unusual tone, it feels like a solid character piece that also manages to add a ticking clock into a drama about art that doesn’t feel forced and fits in with the themes of the show. It also has some pleasant humour. I promise I’ll get back to you, show! Someday!
Love Through a Prism
The Premise
In the late 19th/early 20th century (I don’t know which, really), a young woman travels from Japan to England to learn how to paint. However, her mother in Japan has given her an ultimatum; if she isn’t recognized as the best artist in her school in at least 6 months, she must return home to look for a husband. There she meets a rough looking artistic genius who is immediately her main rival.
It Gud?
Man, I almost forgot I watched this. This isn’t a slight against it but… we are watching a lot. No, this show feels very much like a traditional “character trying to fight her way into a competitive field meets a character who is naturally talented, resulting in a rivalry that gives way to deeper understanding.” Always a classic. And as is, it is a solid little period drama with some fun characters and likely the promise of romance.
I am frustrated with all the episodes being dropped at once. If anything, that approach tends to make me backburner a good show to keep up with the good ones. It’s why I slept on The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity despite looking forward to it (that and Netflix held it until late into the summer season. I’m going to watch this but this turned out to be a weirdly packed season I wasn’t entirely looking forward to despite some returning hits (still haven’t watched new Freiren yet!).
And that’s a shame because even though there isn’t a big high concept or unusual tone, it feels like a solid character piece that also manages to add a ticking clock into a drama about art that doesn’t feel forced and fits in with the themes of the show. It also has some pleasant humour. I promise I’ll get back to you, show! Someday!
No real details unveiled besides:
Director: Tsurumaki Kazuya (Anno's protege; Directed FLCL, Diebuster, The Dragon Dentist, Gundam GQuuuuuuX)
Series Composition (basically head writer): Yoko Taro (Yes, that Yoko Taro)
Composer: Keiichi Okabe (Yes, that Keiichi Okabe)