2022 Spring Anime Review

[heavenly_pearl]

This was a REALLY strong season for anime. In fact, even though I ended up following nine series this season, I still didn't get to check out everything I wanted to see. I'll have to catch up with a few series later on, but for now, here are my thoughts on the ones I did watch.

SPY x FAMILY - LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! I thought it would be tough to top the amazing "My Dress-up Darling" from last season, but "SPY x FAMILY" is my new favorite of this year's anime so far, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up as one of my all-time favorites. (I already rated the first season a perfect 10/Masterpiece.) It's THAT good, so I'm definitely glad we're getting more in October!

 

Dance Dance Danseur - This was another amazing series! The way the characters' eyes look like they're always on the verge of tears is a weird style quirk, admittedly, but the dancing scenes are incredible, which makes up a bit for the strange character designs. Though I'm a bit conflicted on how I feel about the ending to this cour -- it seems very deus ex machina that Junpei gets chosen for the scholarship over a more technically skilled dancer despite being the opposite of the kind of dancer Ayako wants in her school -- I'd still love to see this get more seasons.

 

Kaguya-sama: Love is War Ultra Romantic - They finally confessed! Well, kinda. But they basically did everything else except directly say, "I love you, please go out with me," so it's really more a formality than anything else. The important thing is that Kaguya and Miyuki know for certain that they like each other and even kissed! I have to say that this season wasn't quite as funny as the first two seasons, but I'm more than okay with that, since it was building up to the big romantic moment. It really was about time to move things along, anyway. Looking forward to what the next season/movie/OAV/whatever the announced project is will bring!

 

Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 3 - Compared to the first two seasons, this cour definitely felt a bit lacking, especially considering that it only got ten episodes instead of the typical 12-13 (a couple of more episodes probably would have helped with some of the pacing issues), but even a weaker season of "Bookworm" is still pretty darn good, and assuming we get more seasons, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with Main now that she's finally been adopted.

 

Requiem of the Rose King - I'm always a sucker for a great Shakespeare adaptation, and "Requiem of the Rose King" is a pretty good one! (Keeping in mind that I only have a passing familiarity with the source material, mind you.) I had to catch up with the first cour which was originally on Funimation, so I watched the entire series this season. Making Richard intersex instead of giving him a hunchback like in the original plays was an intriguing twist. There were some parts that were confusing, like the ending, and I don't really get what the heck was going on with Henry/James Tyrell, but overall, I found the series rather engrossing despite the limited animation.

 

Deaimon: Recipe for Happiness - This series was just plain sweet! And I'm not just talking about the literal sweets that are created by the characters at the center of the show, although they did look delicious... The one thing that bothered me was Itsuka's parents, namely the fact that her father abandons her with strangers (at least to her) when her mother is still alive, albeit living in France, and doesn't even bother to tell her mother where he left her. I mean...what? And why are they planning to stay legally married until Itsuka is an adult when they're not even living in the same country? Staying together for the kids is definitely a thing, but then they should, you know, actually stay together. Otherwise, what is the point? I don't know... It would have made a whole lot more sense just to kill the mother off.

 

Healer Girl - One of these days, I'd love to see another anime musical on the level of the amazing "Nerima Daikon Brothers". A few series since then have flirted with the idea -- "Dance With Devils" is the most recent to come to mind -- but they never really committed to the genre, making the musical numbers seem out of place. "Healer Girl" has come closest to feeling like a true anime musical, yet again, I just want a series to really go for it! I almost wish that they kept the singing bits confined to healing, because the moments they suddenly burst into song stick out when it just seems so random. Either fully commit to being a musical or just stick to more conventional musical numbers that actually make sense within the story. Don't just have them singing for no reason if you're not doing a full-on musical! Okay, rant over! Setting aside my disappointment that this wasn't the anime musical I wanted, it is a cute series, and some of the healing numbers are really beautiful. One healing session during a surgery even brought tears to my eyes! It just that it could have been amazing if they had made it a true musical...

Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It r=1-sin0 - More mathematical and statistical fun...at least until the very end of the cour, in which things took a very dark turn that felt rather out of place in what is generally a very cute romance. I definitely wasn't a fan of that part, but the rest of the season was just as good as the first!

 

Delicious Party Pretty Cure - As suspected, a Tuxedo Kamen type character has been added to the formula, and it's strongly hinted that he has a crush on Yui! It's cool that they're shaking up the usual formula, but I have to admit that there's something about the characters that feels "off" to me. I can't really even describe it... It's weird. There's nothing objectively wrong with them; I'm just not enjoying them as much as the Cures in the other seasons I've watched. (And Yui's fairy that turns into a hybrid fox/human baby is just...off-putting and unnecessary.) Still a fun watch, though!

 

Fanfare of Adolescence - This is the only series from this season I didn't really care for. It's not terrible...it's just kinda bland. (Heck, they couldn't even bother to name the school anything other than "Horse Racing School". Yes, that it literally the name of the school.) A lot of it has to do with the main character Yu, who made for a fairly boring protagonist. Even the writers seemed to realize his story wasn't all that interesting, suddenly switching to a multi-episode arc focused on Shun about halfway through the cour that lasted until the last couple of episodes. Shun's story was definitely the strongest part of the series, and you could honestly start the series when his arc begins without missing too much. I will say, though, that the opening, ending, and insert songs were fantastic! In fact, considering how good the music is, it's rather baffling that they decided to make an anime about a former idol giving up his career to become a jockey when the music should have been used for the opposite: a former jockey giving up his career to become an idol! Even just exploring Yu's past as part of a successful boy band would have made his story a lot more interesting. (I mean, what was even the point of revealing that Yu's parents were dead in the very last episode? That information would have been a lot more pertinent earlier in the series when Yu had his accident and his manager was seemingly making all his medical decisions. Then we would have realized that he only became an idol to make his guardian/manager happy and the whole story line about him quitting his idol career to follow his true dream as a jockey could have been much more effective.)

As for next season, it's looking pretty light at the moment. I'll continue with Pretty Cure, of course, but the main new series I wanted to see, Phantom of the Idol, has already been announced as going to HiDive. There are some sequel series that I'll probably check out: Classroom of the Elite II and Rent-A-Girlfriend 2. I wasn't a big fan of either of their first seasons, to be honest, but my completionist personality needs to see them anyway. There's also a new season of Made In Abyss, but I'm not sure how necessary it is to have seen the sequel film to the first season; I haven't yet, so I'll be checking the reviews to decide if it goes on the list. I'm a big RWBY fan, so I plan to check out the new anime version, RWBY: Ice Queendom, even though it sounds like just a retelling of the original series so far. My Stepmom's Daughter Is My Ex sounds like it could be trashy fun, and The Yakuza's Guide to Babysitting is hitting my love of stories about men taking care of little kids, but I'm just not terribly excited about anything. Ah, well, I guess I can just check out a few of the series from this season that I missed out on!