Sweet Dreams

Wow, this was a good season! In fact, I think this was probably the best season I've seen so far since I started regularly keeping up with new shows a few years ago -- and I didn't even get the chance to see everything I was interested in.

Fruits Basket - Would it have been nice to have one more cour so that EVERYTHING in the manga could have been included in the anime? Sure, of course. Do I deep down care about anything they left out? Nah, not really. (And it's already been announced that we're getting some sort of prequel project focusing on the backstory of Tohru's parents, which was one of the more notable parts that was cut from the main series.) All the truly important stuff is still there. Is this still a wonderful adaptation of my favorite manga ever? HECK YEAH!

Zombie Land Saga Revenge - The first amazing season was a lot to live up to, but I think this sequel managed to do it right! It was great to finally get spotlight episodes on Tae and Yugiri and get some answers about why Kotaro was so desperate for Franchouchou to "save" Saga. The "stinger" at the end was, admittedly, weird and unexpected, but when you're dealing with zombie idols, that's kinda par for the course. And, hey, sequel hook! I definitely wouldn't mind another season of this.

To Your Eternity - A word of warning that this show is quite gory and features a lot of body horror, but if you can get past that, it's really rather fascinating to watch the alien(?) orb at the center of the story gradually gain sentience and intelligence through the various transformations they go through. It's also tough watching and knowing that the characters you get most attached to are probably going to die in the most heart-breaking ways, but, seriously, this is good stuff. Maybe keep some tissues handy, though!

Backflip - I have to admit when I first heard this anime was about a men's rhythmic gymnastics team, I thought it was a bit of a made-up sport like skate-leading in Skate Leading Stars. As far as I knew, rhythmic gymnastics was a women's only sport where they performed using different items like hoops, ribbons, and clubs, but it turns out that men's rhythmic gymnastics actually is a thing in Japan (and apparently Spain, of all places?), although it's more like a team floor routine with acrobatic lifts than the women's version I'm familiar with. Anyway, while the characters are paper-thin and the story is your generic sports anime plot, there was just something really...enjoyable about the whole show. Doesn't hurt that the routines are really well animated and gorgeous to watch! Happy to hear this is getting a movie!

Those Snow White Notes - Man, I just love music anime! The performances in this show are just fantastic. I wouldn't expect shamisen music to be so good, but it is! Ends on a bit of a downer, but hopefully we'll get more.

Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun - More wholesome demon fun! It was interesting to see Iruma go through his "evil cycle" and the new teacher is a fun addition to the cast.

Tropical-Rouge Pretty Cure - Laura's still the best thing about this season. She really is a blast. Wish the villains were as interesting as their designs, but when their whole schtick is that they don't want to work, that's hard to do. Still bright and fun, though!

My Hero Academia - Some of my favorites parts of MHA are when the show focuses on their training at school, so I should have loved this new season in theory, but... The training tournament just went on for soooooo many episodes! It didn't help matters that it came after a two-part training drill OAV and that the first episode of the season was also another training exercise. It's just a LOT of training. On the plus side, the second half to the season is already off to an intriguing start.

Next season... There's not a lot of new stuff that's piquing my interest available on Crunchyroll. I'll be continuing with To Your Eternity, My Hero Academia, Tropical-Rouge Pretty Cure, and Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun, of course, and there are new seasons of IDOLiSH7 and My Next Life as a Villainess, which I'm very excited to watch, but most of the interesting new shows are going to Funimation. (Kageki Shoujo!!, The Case Study of Vanitas, RE-MAIN, Life Lessons with Uramichi-Oniisan). Might just catch up with one of the series I wasn't able to watch last season.

Long time, no see! I'll hopefully get around to posting a new Merchandise Round-Up soon -- I've got some really cool stuff to show off! -- but for now, let's talk about the winter anime season. At the moment, I'm just going to focus on the shows I watched on Crunchyroll. I've just started a two week free trial at Funimation so I can marathon through the four shows that really interested me this season (Sk8 the Infinity, Skate-Leading Stars, Horimiya, and 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team), which means I haven't really watched enough to form an opinion on them yet. I'll probably edit this post later with my thoughts when I finish.

Sk8 the Infinity: This is what I meant about making a sport exciting when talking about the surfing anime below. I don't care about skateboarding at all, but, dang, those races were thrilling and cool! Also loved the friendship between Reki and Langa, but ADAM is a world-class creep. Best show of the season by far.

Skate-Leading Stars: Y'all already know how much I love figure skating, so, to be honest, this show wasn't a hard sell for me. *laughs* I did have to turn off my brain a little bit to watch it, though, because the jumps were just so ridiculous. Apparently everybody can do quads in this world, even a guy who quit the sport as a novice in singles and decided to come back years later to compete as part of a skate-leading team. He even tried a quint at one point and landed a quad axel/quad toe loop/quad loop, which is just...impossible. Buuuut, even though I was annoyed that the teams wore the same costumes for both their short and free programs and wished they had showed more of the programs, what skating they did show was well animated, and I just really enjoyed it. No, not as good as Yuri!!! on Ice, but still a fun watch.

Heaven's Design Team - This was probably my favorite of the season -- fun and educational! After almost every episode, I ended up hitting Wikipedia to learn more about the animals featured. I wish they had decided they were going to use the localized English names from the manga for the characters from the start instead of suddenly switching three episodes in when I was just getting used to the Japanese names, but that's my only real complaint.

Horimiya - The first half of this series was fantastic! But starting around the halfway mark, when the titular couple started dating, it seemed to lose its way a little. Apparently a lot was cut from the manga in order to make the whole series fit into a single season, and it showed. I still really enjoyed it for the most part, but Hori became kinda unlikeable with her unreasonable possessiveness and her pushing an obviously uncomfortable Miyamura to beabusive to her in public as part of her masochistic kink
I really think the show would have worked better with another season and more chances to show the good side of their relationship, along with exploring some of the side characters more. (I especially liked the love triangle between Yuki, Tooru, and Sakura.)

Tropical-Rouge! Precure - I don't think I've ever seen such a HYPER magical girl lead. Manatsu can be a bit much to take in at times, but it's fun and colorful, and Laura the mermaid is kind of a wicked delight. It's only been a few episodes so far since it started mid-season, but I'm enjoying it!

2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team - This show really wasn't what I was expecting, which seems strange to say when it's clear from the title that it's a volleyball anime. I just wasn't expecting it to focus so much on volleyball? Especially based on the first couple of episodes. I thought it would focus more on Hajima working to become a better person and team player when his bullying of one of his old teammate resulted in said teammate trying to commit suicide (not a spoiler, BTW), which he does, somewhat, but... It's hard to explain. It doesn't help matters that it turns out thesuicide attempt was actually faked, seemingly absolving Hajima of most of his guilt.Anyway, it was a good series, but I couldn't help feeling that it didn't know what it wanted to be, if that makes sense?

Quintessential Quintuplets - I really enjoyed the first season, so I was looking forward to watching this continuation. Unfortunately, the pacing just felt...off almost all season, and the girls (especially looking at you, Ichika) backstabbing each other to try to win Futaro's heart was disappointing when they mostly avoided that in the first season. There were still some good parts, but, eh, I was left underwhelmed.

WAVE - Let's go surfing!! - Though I tend to enjoy sports anime, even for sports I don't particularly care for, this show really did nothing to make surfing seem exciting. Don't get me wrong; it's not terrible. It's a nice enough show, and I give it props for genuinely surprising me bykilling off one of the main characters early in the series in a surfing accident, but we didn't even find out for certainhe was deaduntil the second-to-last episode. There was really no reason to make it a mystery for the audience, many of whom were hopinghe was alive after allaccording to the comments at Crunchyroll. EDIT: Wait! I wrote this review before actually watching the final episode, and it turns outhe actually is alive? Or maybe he was supposed to be a spirit or a ghost?I don't know! They never really explained why he decided to go surfing during a storm either, when he knew how dangerous it could be. Now I'm really curious and want a second season! Or at least to see the movie this series was apparently based on.

Bungo Stray Dogs Wan! - A series of amusing shorts based on Bungo Stray Dogs, it was good, but mostly forgettable aside from the episode that turned most of the cast into pre-schoolers with Dazai as their teacher. Hilarious!

The spring season is looking to be REALLY good, with lots of sequels to series I already enjoy. Of course I'm going to continue with Tropical-Rouge! Precure, as well as the new seasons of Fruits Basket, Zombie Land Saga, My Hero Academia, and Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun. That doesn't leave much room for new shows, but Those Snow White Notes, The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent, Bakuten!!, and Farewell, My Dear Cramer have all caught my eye. Guess I'll just have to see which ones land on Crunchyroll to help me decide!

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! It's been a tough year for everyone, but I hope you were able to find a little joy in the holiday at least.



My tree this year! I was able to do something I've been wanting to do for a few years -- decorate the tree with (mainly) skate ornaments. There are a few filler ornaments and sentimental favorites, but the vast majority of it is covered in skates.

As for gifts, my sister gave me an adorable pair of Luna slipper socks, a Sailor Moon umbrella, and a Fruits Basket Tohru Funko Pop that's on pre-order, so I'll have to wait for it to come out. I also got a couple more skate ornaments for my tree (except they're actually boots; Mom didn't notice they don't have blades on them), a really pretty skate pendant necklace, a couple of pieces of wall decor, a new bedding set, the live-action Mulan Blu-Ray, the animated Mulan/Mulan II DVD set (to make up for the one Mom got rid of years ago without my permission), new CDs from Josh Groban and Andrea Bocelli, new masks (of course!), a tumbler, and slippers, along with the usual clothes, candy, and money. 

Long time, no see!

This was a bit of a weird season with all the COVID-19 related production shutdowns. It ended up affecting two of the shows I was watching, the second seasons of IDOLiSH7 and Major 2nd. Though Major 2nd keeps stopping and resuming, I'm not sure when we'll get more IDOLiSH. Luckily, Funimation sent me an offer for a two month free trial, so I was able to replace those shows with the second season of Kaguya-sama (Yay!) and Wave! Listen To Me. (Also Arte and Kakushigoto, but I haven't finished those yet.)

Fruits Basket (Season 2) - Love, love, love, love, LOVE! What more is there to say?

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom - Cute and fun! I'm really glad it's already been announced that this is getting a second season, although I kind of wonder where they'll go from here considering thatCatarina has already "finished" the game, so to speak.

Kaguya-sama: Love is War (Season 2) - I was thrilled that my Funimation free trial meant that I could watch the second season after all! Maybe not quiiiiiite as funny as the first season, but Ishigami's backstory made him much more sympathetic, and Miko was a nice addition to the cast.

Sing "Yesterday" to Me - This was pretty good up to the ending, which I found pretty unsatisfying since the couple I was rooting for broke up for rather vague reasons to hook up the couple that didn't really have any chemistry or development at all.Honestly, I found Rou and Haru, the younger love interests, really unnecessary. I was much more interested in Shinako getting over her dead boyfriend and finding love again with Rikuo.

Wave, Listen to Me! - This show has some of the weirdest eyes I've ever seen in an anime. It was like the irises had shadows or something? It's hard to explain, but it was weird looking, and I never quite got used to it. Other than that, it was a fun series, although whether you like it or not will likely depend on how grating you find Minare and all her rants. She can be a bit...much. Her voice actress was fantastic, though!

Ahiru no Sora - The basketball game that made up the first half of the season seemed like it went on FOREVER, but the drama in the second half makes up for it.

Woodpecker Detective's Office - Eh, this series was pretty disappointing, honestly. With these kind of detective shows, the key to making them work is good characters, but the main character is really unlikeable, and you're left wondering why his friends (especially Kyousuke) continue to be friends with him when they're aware that he is a selfish mooch. The opening song bops, though! Seriously the best part of the show.

The summer season looks pretty threadbare, with the virus leading to some shows I was looking forward to being postponed. I'll continue with Fruits Basket, Ahiru no Sora, and Major 2nd (assuming production continues), but the only new shows that caught my eye are the new season of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU and Rent-a-Girlfriend.

I promised a review of the 2019 fall season, so here it is!

...and Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! I hope you had a wonderful day.

I don't think I ever got around to posting my tree this year, so here it is:



I mentioned my goal was to eventually have a tree of mostly skate ornaments and my family decided to run with it, gifting me not only with some new ornaments, but some other skating-related decor!



Other things I got this year: clothes, several pairs of slipper socks, a Christmas mug, the new Celine Dion CD, Stella Color wedding figurines of Usagi, Rei, and Ami (I'll post a pic during my next Merchandise Round-up), the limited edition Blu-Ray set of the first part of the Fruits Basket remake, and a bunch of other anime DVDs/Blu-Rays from Sentai Filmworks's awesome Black Friday sale. (Season 1 & 2 Haikyu! DVD sets, The World Is Still Beautiful DVD set, Clannad: The Motion Picture DVD, Love Stage Blu-Ray set, Hataraki Man Blu-Ray set, Hitorijime 'My Hero' Blu-Ray set, Land of the Lustrous Blu-Ray set, Dive!! Blu-Ray set, and Princess Principal Blu-Ray set -- mostly blind buys! But at the prices they were going for, not much of a risk.)

A little late, but as promised, a wrap-up of the spring anime season.

Unfortunately, only a few shows caught my interest, but they were all pretty good.

Fruits Basket – Love, love, love! I'm still over the moon that we're getting a manga-compliant reboot. It's not perfect, but it's pretty darn close. I can't wait until we finally get to the parts not covered in the first anime!

Ao-chan Can't Study – I'm kind of surprised I liked this so much, honestly. I didn't even start watching it until well into the season when I decided to see if there were any interesting shorts (episodes are only about twelve minutes long). Creepy father is creepy, but if you ignore that, it's actually a rather sweet romance. I especially liked Ao's love interest, Kijima, who is genuinely a nice guy who really respects her and her boundaries.

MIX – Mitsuru Adachi really is a master of baseball stories, even if his character designs are all Xerox copies. (Seriously, if you took a random screencap from "Mix" and "Cross Game", you probably wouldn't be able to tell the characters apart.) A little slow at first, but now that the brothers are in high school, I think things are starting to pick up.

Bungo Stray Dogs – Just as good as the previous seasons.

Midnight Occult Civil Servants – This was a bit of a random pick, but I tend to like supernatural anime, and this was a pretty good one. Nothing special, but enjoyable enough. I liked that it included a variety of international mythical beings instead of sticking with just Japanese mythology.

As for next season, there's not that really interests me this time either. Huh. I'm thinking of checking out Dr. Stone and Fire Force, and of course I'll be continuing Fruits Basket and Mix. I'm disappointed that O Maidens In Your Savage Season isn't on Crunchyroll, because that was the one I was most looking forward to, but the past couple of seasons, I've noticed that CR will sometimes start airing shows already picked up other companies a couple of weeks later, so I'm hoping that maybe it'll be one of those late pick-ups for them.

I was going to resurrect the "year in review" meme I used to do years ago, but I came across this one on Tumblr, which has more interesting questions.

1. List of fics completed this year:

Sailor Moon
High School Memory (Spirit of Fire side story)
The Longest Night (Spirit of Fire side story)

Fruits Basket
The Next Step

And though the question asks for completed fics, I’m going to add my WIPs: Friends With Benefits (Kaleido Star), Metamorphosis (Sailor Moon), Stolen Dreams (Sailor Moon).

2. Number of words written: Just counting the completed stories…about 9,700, but that’s kind of cheating because I wrote half of The Next Step years ago.

3. Your most popular fic: That I’ve written this year? None of them were popular. Or rather, they were equally unpopular with just one or two reviews.

4. Your personal fav: Can I pick from my WIPs? Because I really love what I’ve written of Metamorphosis so far. But from the completed fics, probably High School Memory?

5. Your fav scene: Again, my favorite scenes are from my WIPs, but if I had to choose from the completed stories, I would probably pick either the discussion between Saburo and Keitaro at the hospital in The Longest Night or Hiro freaking out over Hatsuharu’s “gift” in The Next Step.

6. A fic or scene that challenged you: The last scene of The Longest Night. I’m still not entirely happy with it, but writing argumentative scenes is not really my strong suit… Honestly, part of the reason I originally skipped this part in Spirit of Fire was because I didn’t want to write the scene where Saburo disowns Takara!

7. A line of writing you’re proud of: I wouldn’t necessarily say I'm proud of this line, but it just really amuses me because Keitaro rarely gets the chance to be snarky. I’m going to post a few lines to give it some context with the line in question bolded.

( Excerpt from "High School Memory" )

Now, this part from “The Longest Night” would probably be my choice for the writing I’m most proud of from this year’s completed stories. I just really like the image of the cup floating in front of Keitaro’s face because he can’t really see well without his glasses.

( Excerpt from "The Longest Night" )

And, as a bonus, here’s an excerpt from Metamorphosis that I really like:

( Excerpt from "Metamorphosis )

8. A comment that touched you: Like I mentioned before, I haven’t received many reviews for my new stories, but BlueLion and The Time Traveler have been long time fans of my stories, so I was really happy to see their reviews!

9. Something that inspired your writing: I can’t think of anything in particular that inspired the actual stories, but I credit @floraone’s stories for reminding me how good fanfiction can be and inspiring me to start writing again.

10. Your proudest accomplishment (that one scene; finally finishing that one fic; posting your first fic; etc): Honestly, the fact that I’m just writing again is my proudest accomplishment! I was really burned out when I decided to quit a couple of years ago and didn’t think I would ever write again, so I’m really happy I feel inspired again, even if sometimes it feels like I’ve lost all my talent…

And, what the heck, let's just do the other meme, too!

( Since this post is getting too long... )

Hana to Yume Magazine Lists New Anime for Natsuki Takaya's Fruits Basket Manga

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!

I kinda lost hope of this ever happening, but Fruits Basket is finally getting the Crystal/Brotherhood treatment, with a manga-faithful new anime series.

*dances*

I think I'm even more excited about this than I was about Sailor Moon Crystal. Fruits Basket is my favorite manga of all time, and the original anime is still one of my top ten favorites, so I'm thinking Kaleido Star is going to be pushed off the throne with this new anime if it is a good as I imagine it will be.

Yen Press Licenses Fruits Basket, 2 Other Manga by Natsuki Takaya

It's about time that somebody license-rescued Fruits Basket! It's way too good a series to be out-of-print. I already have the old Tokyopop volumes, so mainly I'm just happy on other people's behalf, but I'm also excited about the two other series that were licensed: Liselotte and Witch's Forest and Twinkle Stars. I'm a little concerned about Liselotte, since its been on hiatus for going on three years due to Ms. Takaya's health, but Twinkle Stars is complete, which is great. I wonder if that Fruits Basket sequel that was announced a couple of months ago will end up being licensed as well. I haven't really heard anything since it was announced. Still don't know what it is supposed to be about...