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2024 Winter Anime Review

Happy Easter if you celebrate!

Here's my review of the winter anime season:

A Sign of Affection - This was by far my most anticipated show of the season. I've been reading the manga and loving it, so I was thrilled to find out that it was getting an anime. I'm happy to say, the anime adaptation did the manga justice! Beautifully animated, and the romance is just so sweet. Some might argue that it doesn't portray Yuki's deafness 100% accurately -- she is a little too good at lip-reading, for example, although she still has trouble sometimes -- but I think it did a decent enough job.

The Apothecary Diaries -- Still love Maomao, still love this series! So glad another season has already been announced. As for this cour, it was nice to get some backstory about Maomao's family. What I find interesting is how the show at first makes you think Lakan is likely a bad guy who did something awful to her mother and that's why she doesn't like him, but the actual truth is far more tragic and sympathetic as far as he's concerned.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - I was a bit concerned when the show got to the first-class mage licensing exam that took up the majority of the second cour's run-time. I love the show for its slice-of-life traveling vibes, not because of its action and battle scenes (even though they do tend to be quite good when they happen), but I shouldn't have worried. While I do think too many episodes were spent on the exam arc and I really missed Stark, who didn't have much to do, not having the ability to do magic like Frieren and Fern, it still was an enjoyable change of pace with some fun new characters. That being said, I really have my fingers crossed that we get more of this show in the future and that we return to focusing on the main trio again as they continue their travels. (And maybe bring Sein back to make them a quartet again. He left the party way too soon!)

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy - I always get a chuckle whenever I read the full title of this series because Rishe's seventh life has not been easy-going and carefree so far in the least. She can't help herself, though. Whenever she sees someone in trouble or a problem to be solved, she can't resist involving herself -- and that's part of the reason why Arnold is so charmed by her. (It should be noted that even though Arnold is the "Worst Enemy" referred to in the title, they never had a truly personal hatred toward each other. (I don't think they even met in most of her lives.) It's just that the war he started ended up killing her, either directly or indirectly, in her six previous lives, and she's hoping to avoid that fate this time by preventing the war from happening in the first place.) The two of them have a fun chemistry together, and Rishe is just all-around awesome, using the knowledge she has gained over her many lifetimes to not make only her life, but everybody else's life, better.

The Demon Prince of Momochi House - This was a nice little supernatural romance. Nothing really special, to be honest, and the story felt a bit rushed, but I enjoyed it. With a title that references a "demon prince", I have to admit that I went in expecting Himari's love interest to be one of those jerks with a heart a gold that are so popular, so I was pleasantly surprised by how genuinely gentle and kind Aoi turned out to be. More sweet boys like Aoi and Itsuomi (from Sign of Affection) as love interests, please!

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! - I feel the same about Cherry Magic; it's a nice BL romance, but nothing makes it really stand out as amazing, even with the wacky premise of 30-year-old virgins getting the ability to read people's minds. (Well, other than the fact that it ends with Adachi and Kurosawa actually ( Spoiler! ) That's rare for even het romances in anime!) I did find the romance between the two co-worker leads really sweet and one of the most healthy I've come across in BL, though I was far less interested in the beta couple, Adachi's romance novelist friend and a young deliveryman/aspiring dancer who delivers his packages. Their romance just always seemed kinda...random and forced? Like, I genuinely can't think of a single thing they have in common other than they like cats, and they don't really have any kind of chemistry at all. One other thing that bothered me is the characters' eyes. I'm not usually one to nitpick animation errors, but whenever a character was supposed to be making eye contact with someone else, sometimes it appeared they were looking somewhere off to the side instead. Not a huge deal if it only happened every once in a while, but it was pretty much a near constant thing in the middle episodes, and I found it rather distracting.

Wonderful Precure! - I've been known to be a fan of human characters who turn into animals (*cough* Helios and most of the characters in Fruits Basket), but I'm a bit more iffy about animals turning into humans, especially if they're supposed to be just ordinary Earth animals. Last series (which ended well, btw!), there was Tsubasa/Cure Wing, a Puni Bird from Skyland who could switch between bird form and human form. That worked for me, since Puni Birds don't actually exist and he possessed very human-like intelligence (in fact he was the "smart" one of the group), but this season of Pretty Cure has the gimmick of regular Earth animals turning into humans in order to transform into Precures, and... Well, I'm iffy about it. It doesn't help that Komugi/Cure Wonderful acts very much like the puppy she actually is even in human form, making her seem like a cute toddler in a teenager's body, just with a more advanced vocabulary. (Again, last season, we had actual toddler Princess Ellee temporarily aging up to a teen to become Cure Majesty, but she didn't still act like a toddler when in that form.) It's just...iffy. Also, it's strange that so far Wonderful and Friendy (Komugi's human owner and fellow Precure) haven't used any offensive attacks against the possessed animals, instead trying to calm them down by other means. I mean, I get that they might want to avoid accusations of animal cruelty and stuff like that, but at this point, I don't really get the point of why Precures are needed if they aren't actually going to fight? At least give them human foes who are controlling the animals to battle, or something like that. (Yes, I know magical girls don't have to fight and do battles, but that's what Precures do! They're fighter magical girls!) In general, I just think the whole premise of this season is a bit of a mess, but maybe it'll get better next cour when more Precures join the team.

Blue Exorcist - It's really kind of ridiculous how many years pass between seasons of this series. First season aired in 2011, second in 2017, and finally a third in 2024! Thankfully, it was pretty easy to get back into the story despite the long break, and I liked that we finally got to explore Izumo's backstory. She's not always the most easy character to like, but knowing what she went through, it's not hard to understand why she finds it so hard to trust people.

The Witch and the Beast - I've been trying to think of what other anime this show reminds me of, and it just hit me: Witch Hunter Robin. Which should have been obvious since both shows are basically about hunting witches, duh. I really liked the world-building and beautiful character designs of TWatB, but the actual story... It's good, I guess, but the (mainly) two-episode arcs devoted to each case don't really help you get into the overall plot. (Which, again, was a complaint many people had with WHR, which was even more episodic in the first half.) It doesn't help that one episode was delayed (production issues?) and that the leads Guideau and Ashaf essentially disappear for one early arc, focusing on a different pair from the Order of Magical Resonance who have not been seen or mentioned since. Maybe they'll have more importance in a later storyline, but at the moment with what has been adapted so far, their arc feels like something that should have been an OVA, not a part of the main series. In any case, I came to actually really love Witch Hunter Robin once the meat of the main plot got started, so maybe the same will happen with this show, if it ever gets a continuation. The potential is there.

Next season, I'll be continuing with Wonderful Precure! and a bunch of new seasons of shows I already like: Sound Euphonium, Laid-Back Camp, Black Butler, and My Hero Academia. There's also the Spice & Wolf remake, which I'm really curious about. As for new shows, Tadaima, Okaeri sounds like it would be right up my alley...if it wasn't omegaverse. Omegaverse is just not my thing at all, but if it mainly focuses on the dads taking care of their kid and not so much on any of the stuff related to how that kid was actually conceived, I might give it a try. I definitely am interested in watching A Condition Called Love, Unnamed Memory, and Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again, though.

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2023 Fall Anime Review

Happy New Year! If anybody's interested, here's my annual fic review questionnaire.

Now, my review of the 2023 fall season of anime. This was actually a packed season, with me watching probably the most simulcasts ever and not even getting to everything I wanted to watch. (I'll have to catch up with My New Boss is Goofy, Power of Hope ~Precure Full Bloom ~, 16bit Sensation: Another Layer, and Tearmoon Empire some other time.) Unfortunately, I picked a couple of clunkers, but most of what I watched was great, including some of my favorite shows of the year!

Spy x Family - Still loving this show, and I especially loved that this cour gave Yor the chance to shine! We've seen quite a bit of Loid's work as a spy, but Yor's job as an assassin has usually taken place off-screen, so it was great to see her mission working as a bodyguard to a slain mafioso's wife and son trying to escape the country take center stage in a fantastic multi-episode arc.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - This is just such a beautiful series. I'm not just talking about the animation -- although it is indeed gorgeous -- but just how it deals with Frieren, an elf who has lived for almost a thousand years, learning to really treasure her time with her human companions after realizing how short their lifetimes really are in comparison to hers. She may regret not spending enough time with (especially) Himmel and Heiter before their deaths, but she's still able to form new bonds with a new group of heroes who join her on her latest journey. I also loved the gentle humor and subtle relationship growth throughout the show, especially between Fern and Stark, who may be falling in love with each other? Really looking forward to more next season!

The Apothecary Diaries - Maomao has to be one of my all-time favorite anime protagonists! She just such a little weirdo with her love of poisons, making her the perfect choice to become a taste-tester for one of the emperor's courtesans after she saves the life of said courtesan's child. Her extensive knowledge of poisons and medicines as an apothecary are also helpful when it comes to solving the various mysteries surrounding the imperial court at the behest of Jinshi, a beautiful eunuch who developes a strong attachment to her, much to her annoyance. The mysteries vary in how interesting they are and Jinshi can be a bit much at times, but, really, the main attraction is Maomao herself and her very pragmatic way of looking at the world, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing more of her next season.

Shy: I'm a big fan of My Hero Academia, but it's no secret that the outnumbered female heroes in that show don't really get the development and attention that their male comrades do. So, it's nice that we get this fantastic new superhero show where there are almost an equal amount of male and female heroes (leaning female), and the women are the main focus. I also love how the series focuses more on the characters' emotions, rather than physical strength. In that way, it almost feels closer to a magical girl show in spirit, which is certainly fine by me. But most of all, I just love the sweet friendship between Teru (a.k.a. Shy) and Iko! Glad to hear this is getting a second season.

The Ancient Magus' Bride - I still don't think this College Arc is as quite as amazing as the first season, but things definitely picked up in this second half of the second season! Saving Philomela from her abusive grandmother gives Chise the opportunity to show just how much she has grown since the first season, when she was in a similar position as Philomela. My one major complaint is that it's just so dark! And I'm not talking about the subject matter (which obviously is fairly dark), but the actual animation. It was difficult to even see what was going on during the final battle because there just wasn't enough illumination to actually see. People have been complaining about recent TV shows and movies having bad lighting in the name of "realism", but it seems the trend has even moved on to anime. Ugh. Give us light!

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You -- First off, I'll say this anime will definitely not be for everyone. Only six of the eventual promised 100 girlfriends are introduced in this cour, but it's unlikely that you'll love all of them, especially some of the...more problematic ones. The first four (the horny one, the tsundere one, the cute mute one, and the smart one) are great! The fifth is absolutely obsessed with making wacky drugs, and thanks to a failed attempt at an immortality drug, she can switch forms between looking like a pre-teen(?) to her actual curvaceous 17-year-old self, which is...ehhh. As for the sixth girlfriend, well... ( SPOILERS ) But...it's still stupid FUN! Like, the whole premise is utterly ridiculous, and you kinda have to just turn your brain off, yet it's genuinely funny and even kind of touching at some points. Take Shizuka, the cute mute girl, for example. Her gimmick of only being able to "speak" by pointing to lines in her favorite historical fantasy book instead of simply writing her own words or using sign language is, admittedly, eye-roll worthy and impractical, but rather than trying to help cure her of her mutism (which her emotionally abusive mother tried to force her to do), Rentarou instead types up said favorite book as a text file (apparently, no e-book version of it existed) so that she can use a screen reader to "talk" instead. That's so sweet! And he's like that with all his girlfriends, because he genuinely loves them all the same. And the girlfriends themselves are all friends with each other with only minimal jealousy to be found. (In the case of Hakari and Kaname, they may actually be a little into each other, too...) Is it the most realistic portrayal of polyamory out there? No, I imagine not (especially considering the whole "love at first sight" thing that happens with all of them), but there's still something really charming about this series. Call it refuge in audacity, I guess!

I'm in Love with the Villainess - In my (admittedly limited) experience with watching yuri anime, it's rare for a character to explicitly identify as being gay, so it's refreshing to hear Rae (or Rei, as she was known in her former life before she died and was reincarnated in her favorite otome game) say that she's only attracted to women and doesn't see herself ever falling for a man. It's also a bit heartbreaking to discover the reason why she's so over-the-top and ridiculous when it comes to the girls she likes is because she doesn't expect them to actually return her feelings, so she plays off her love as just a joke, protecting herself from inevitable rejection. That being said, her behavior toward Claire, the "villainess" she's obsessed with instead of the three princes who are supposed to be the main love interests in the game, is a bit...much in the first couple of episodes. (To the point that it counts as legitimate harassment.) Luckily, she does eventually tone down her affection, and it becomes less unwanted by Claire. I do think the middle arc involving a conflict between commoners and the nobles, while probably setting up the reason behind Claire's apparent future execution, was a bit weak and hindered by a totally unnecessary and out-of-the-blue incest plotline, but it wrapped up strong with the final arc. While I hope we get another season since there's clearly more to the story involving the commoners and nobles, if we don't, that's okay, too.At least Claire and Rae become an official couple at the end!

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure - I really have been loving this Precure series! Still my favorite after Healing Good, largely do to the great cast of characters. However, it does feel an awful lot like they reached the end of the series and suddenly realized they needed to pull everything together with an actual plot. I would have liked to have learned more about the Big Bad's backstory throughout the series, not just have her suddenly show up a few episodes before the end to finally explain why the Undergu Empire is enemies with Skyland. Oh, well. There are still a few episodes left going into next season, but overall, this was a great series to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Precure!

Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and the Inexperienced Me - I loved the premise of this series. The "experienced" one is Runa, a girl who has slept with a lot of boys just because she believes that's what a girlfriend is supposed to do, not because she actually wanted to have sex. The "inexperienced" one is Ryuto, a meek boy who asks her out on a dare from his friends and is surprised when she actually agrees. Runa assumes he wants to have sex with her right away like all her other boyfriends, but Ryuto doesn't want her to have sex with him out of a sense of obligation, instead wanting to wait until she wants to have sex with him out of her own desire. What follows is a pretty sweet romance between the two, although I could have lived without some of the drama, especially involving Maria, Runa's secret twin sister who was coincidentally Ryuto's first love. Though they tried to redeem Maria in the latter half of the series and have her and Runa reconcile, I'm not sure it really felt all that earned? Also, the fact that Ryuto's two friends fall for Runa's two galpals is definitely a cliche, although at least the guys are both rejected. ( SPOILERS ) I have a sinking feeling they'll eventually get together in the source material, but this is actually a series I hope doesn't get a sequel. It pretty much ends in the perfect spot for the main couple, and I just don't care about the other romantic storylines, which all kind of suck.

After School Hanako-kun - I didn't realize that this was only going to be a four-episode season of short episodes. At first, it seemed kinda strange that something like this was produced since the original Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun aired about three years ago -- although the timing was good since the last episode was a Halloween episode -- but then it was announced that Toilet-Bound is getting a second season, and suddenly it all made sense! Anyway, cute set of episodes. That's pretty much all I have to say!

Girlfriend, Girlfriend - Polyamory seems to be a bit of a trend this season... I somehow forgot that I had watched the first season of this until I was reading ANN's seasonal review guide and realized the premise seemed familiar. That's probably not the most ringing endorsement, but I actually kinda enjoyed the first cour as a semi-realistic look into a type of romantic relationship that we don't see much of in media. The second? Not so much, and it's all due to Mirika. I absolutely can't stand her, and the fact that Naoya comes up with this idiot plan to have her move in with him and the other girls as a way to prove his loyalty to his two actual girlfriends, Saki and Nagisa, by forcing him to constantly refuse her advances (no, it doesn't really make much sense in context either) is just so...so...ugh! And the thing is, she's totally unnecessary! Enough drama is provided by Shino, Saki's best friend who wants Naoya to break up with Nagisa so that he and Saki can have a more "proper" relationship while also secretly being in love with him herself. That's genuinely interesting! I was actually invested in her story line. There's no need for another interloper, especially one who resorts to kidnapping and sexual assault to try to force Naoya to fall in love with her.

KAWAGOE BOYS SING - Y'all, this show is dumb, and not even a fun kind of dumb like 100 Girlfriends. It's just so...dumb. Back in school, I was a choir geek, so I thought an anime about a boys' choir would be right up my alley, but it's pretty clear that the writers don't really know anything about how choirs really work. They can't even seem to decide if the characters (who are so bland that the majority are just referred to by nicknames describing their main personality "quirk") are actually in a choir, a glee club, or a boy band. ( SPOILERS )Worst of all, the music kinda sucks. If you're going to do a show centering on music, then the music has to be actually, you know, good for the show to work.

Jujutsu Kaisen - Yeah, this Shibuya Incident arc that manga fans have been raving about is just not very good. I'll say that some of the fights were really well animated -- at the cost of the health of the poor over-worked animators -- but I didn't care about any of it, even when a couple of pretty major characters (including one of my favorites) died. Fight after fight after fight is BORING.

Next season, I'll be continuing with the second cours of Frieren and The Apothecary Diaries, along with the end of Soaring Sky! Precure. As for new series, I'm definitely looking forward to Sign of Affection (been loving the manga!) and The Demon Prince of Momochi House. There's a third season of Classroom of the Elite coming out, but to be honest, I'm not in a huge rush to watch that. Maybe if there's nothing else better. Metallic Rouge, 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy, and The Witch and the Beast are other possible contenders.

And, finally, my ten favorite anime of 2023! To my surprise, only one returning anime made the list this time, with the rest premiering this year.

Spy X Family

Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

The Apothecary Diaries

Skip and Loafer

Buddy Daddies

Trigun Stampede

My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead

A Galaxy Next Door

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2023 Summer Anime Review

After several really good seasons, I have to say, this one was kind of a dud, but there were a few bright spots.

Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts: Definitely my favorite of the season, and one of my favorites of the year so far! I’m glad that it got two cours, giving the anime enough time to cover the entire manga.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead: If you asked me a few years ago, I would have said I definitely didn’t care for zombie stories, but after becoming a fan of series like School-Live!, Zombieland Saga, and now Zom 100...maybe I kinda do like them? It’s a shame Zom 100 ended up dealing with some production issues, causing a bunch of delays and the cour to actually still remain unfinished at this point, but the episodes we did get were fantastic. I especially appreciated the artistic decision to colorize the copious amount of blood in this show in rainbow colors. Gore is not my thing at all, so the colored blood really helped make it more palatable for me to handle. (Uh, maybe “palatable” isn’t the best word to use when talking about zombies!) I also loved the way they managed to get Akira’s best friend, Kencho, buck naked (Akira sometimes joins him) at least once in almost every episode since he was first introduced in the show. Never failed to crack me up!

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure: Still really enjoying this year’s Precue series! I was a bit worried when Princess Ellee joined the team as Cure Majesty, but I liked that they kept her a toddler, only aging her up when she transforms.

Horimiya: The Missing Pieces: This season is a bit unusual in that it’s not a sequel or even a prequel, but a chance to go back and animate all the stuff they cut from the manga during the first season. Filling in the “missing pieces”, if you will. (And, thus, the subtitle.) I have to say, I enjoyed this season more than the first. It helped that most of the episodes focused on the supporting cast instead of the main couple. I’m sorry, but I’m just not a big fan of Hori, and shunting her out of the spotlight for most of the season just emphasized how much more likable the other characters are. Could have lived without the episode focusing on the sleazy teacher, but other than that, I liked it a lot despite the somewhat random nature of the episodes. That being said, I just wish they had done a straight two cour adaptation from the start. I think the series as a whole would have been a lot stronger that way.

TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You: This was just a four-episode miniseries, which I expected to be mostly like your typical OVA episodes. You know, filler-y and fanservice-y, with nothing really important happening in them? So I was really surprised that this little arc with Nasa teaching computer skills to a class of high school girls – still think asking a guy who never even attended high school to teach is strange, no matter how good he is with computers, but they kinda made the premise work – actually had some relevance to the plot, particularly with the introduction of a character who may be connected to Tsukasa’s mysterious past. I imagine she’ll continue to play a role in future storylines, so definitely not skippable material!

Rent-a-Girlfriend: Almost no Mami, aside from a really random, fourth-wall breaking game explanation and a last-second cameo in the final scene? Minimal Ruka aside from the episode dedicated to celebrating her birthday? The addition of a fun neighbor girl who refreshingly doesn’t have a thing for Kazuya (at least, not yet) and would much rather help hook him up with Chizuru? A lot more focus on Chizuru and her relationship with her dying grandmother? See, this show can be good when it tries! This season was sooo much better than the first two. Too bad it doesn’t seem to know when to quit. Seriously, the end of this season would have been the perfect time for Kazuya to tell Ruka he’s just not that into her and get together with Chizuru for real, but apparently they feel the need to drag things on and on and on...

Bungo Stray Dogs: I think my favorite relationship in the entire show is between a young un-Gifted girl named Aya and Bram Stoker, who she affectionately calls Bra-chan. Despite being under the main bad guy’s control and being, well, a vampire, Bram isn’t all that bad himself, and watching him and Aya become friends while she attempts to sneak them out of the airport was quite amusing. The rest of the plot… I honestly think some characters have become way too overpowered, and there are now way too many of them. Of course the good guys won in the end, but not without the help of a lot of deux ex machina. Well, anyway, it seems the anime has now caught up with the source material, so it’ll probably be a while until we get a new season despite the teaser at the end of the final episode.

Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence: This show was...cute. That’s really all I can think of to say about it. It really was just fluff without a whole ton of substance.

MIX: I really should have seen it coming. This series is from the same mangaka who wrote Cross Game, one of the most tear-jerking manga/anime series I’ve ever read/watched, yet...it still caught me by surprise when it happened. Granted, I can’t say it was done as well as Cross Game, mainly because despite having more time with the character, I was never particularly attached to them, but, still, this cour was a definite step up from the previous one.

Reign of the Seven Spellblades: There are a lot of fascinating concepts introduced in this show, but they don’t quite add up to feeling like a satisfying, cohesive whole, if that makes sense. It felt like the show was more interested in world-building than actually forming a coherent plot. I mean, halfway through the cour we learn that main character Oliver is ( Spoilers )...and then it’s barely referenced again after that. (To be fair, this is an extra-long cour with a couple of more episodes left, so maybe things will pick up again when presumably ( Spoilers ), but still!) Like, what? You can’t drop something like that in a story and not do anything with it! From what I understand from comments I’ve read (MAJOR SPOILERS FROM THE LIGHT NOVELS AHEAD), ( MAJOR SPOILERS ) which, fair enough. I don’t expect to get the full story from one fifteen episode cour, but at least build things up, leave clues, prepare plans, reveal more backstory, explore the teachers’ characters, gain allies...really just do ANYTHING with your main freaking storyline!

Jujutsu Kaisen: You know, I’ve come to the conclusion that I enjoy this series so much more when it’s focusing on Gojo and Geto. The first season was okay, but I really liked the prequel movie and the first few episodes of this season, which also served as a prequel flashback. Then after taking a break for a couple of weeks, the show returned to the present and the start of the much hyped “Shibuya Arc”…and I’m back to being “meh”. Seriously, can we just have a spin-off series devoted to younger Gojo and Geto?

As for next season, I'll of course be continuing with Soaring Sky! Precure and Jujutsu Kaisen, which are carrying on into the fall. Really looking forward to the new cours of Spy x Family and Ancient Magus' Bride, and I've already started watching Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and I'm In Love With the Villainess. I'll probably watch the new season of B-Project -- if not now, then at least eventually, since I've watched previous seasons -- but it's not a big priority, and SHY seems like it might be good. Oh, and After School Hanako-kun is a spinoff of Toilet Bound Hanako-kun, so I'll probably watch that, too. Other possible picks, if available on Crunchyroll: My New Boss Is Goofy, Kawagoe Boys Sing, and The Apothecary Diaries.

Current Mood: blah

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2023 Spring Anime Review

The spring anime season was pretty much a dream for romance lovers like me. Funny thing, I noticed that most of the shows I watched could be joined up into similar pairs. For example, if you enjoyed TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You, you'll probably also like A Galaxy Next Door. If you loved The Ancient Magus' Bride, you might also love Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts. A fan of Skip and Loafer? Check out My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999. Yuri Is My Job! and Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion might not seem too similar at first glance, but both shows feature leads who put on a mask of sorts and lots of manipulation and secrets. Even MIX and BIRDIE WING - Golf Girls' Story - share more in common than just being sports anime (but to say anymore would be a pretty big spoiler for BW).

Anyway, onto the reviews!

Skip and Loafer - By far my favorite show of the season! It's strange... While y'all know I adore friends-to-lovers plots (and, don't get me wrong, I'm definitely rooting for Mutsumi and Shima to get together eventually), I actually wouldn't be too disappointed if they didn't become a couple, because I'm enjoying their sweet friendship just as it is. I also loved the fact that Mutsumi is still best friends with Fumi, who she grew up with. A lot of the time, when a character moves to a new place, their old friends tend to be forgotten until the character goes back to their hometown for a visit. But Mutsumi and Fumi still call and text each other all the time, and it's clear that Fumi has a life of her own off-screen, too, which saves their relationship from feeling too one-sided as is usually the case. The one weak spot? Ririka. The show does a good job of making you like characters that perhaps start out on the wrong foot (*ahem* Mika), but with Ririka... It's just really hard to feel much sympathy toward her when she really only has herself to blame for what happened to her. I really hope this gets a second season.

My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999 - Like Skip and Loafer, I really loved the focus on friendships in this show, and I appreciated that though Akane notices that Yamada is hot right from the start, she doesn't really start crushing on him until she gets to know him better as a friend. Though some might have concerns about their age difference -- she's a 20-year-old second year college student while he's an 18-year-old senior in high school -- by the time they realize their feelings for each other and make it official, Yamada's about to take his college entrance exams, so he'll only be in high school for a few more weeks anyway. Not a big deal, IMO. Speaking of which, I don't really want to spoil too much, but I have to say the scene in the last episoe when they finally confess their feelings is probably one of my favorite anime confession scenes ever. This cour ended in a perfect spot, but I definitely wouldn't say no to more in the future!

Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts - What can I say? I always love a good "Beauty and the Beast"-type story, and this one is a great one. I think it's a cool twist that humanoid beasts actually rule the world and humans are the ones looked down upon, and I'm glad that it's revealed in the very first episode that Leonhart, the current Beast King, is secretly half-human (transforming into one when the miasma surrounding the kingdom is low) and has been releasing all the human sacrifices he receives instead of eating them as believed. Sariphi, the "sacrificial princess" of the title, is a pretty awesome character. No matter what trial and tribulations come her way, whether it comes from Anubis, the king's most trusted advisor, or members of the other clans who hate the idea of the king taking a lowly human as his queen, her kindness and determination always pulls her through. Special shout-out to the crocodile princess Amit, Sariphi's closest friend and ally, whose crush on one of the king's generals is just super adorable. I believe this is continuing into next season, so I'm looking forward to more!

A Galaxy Next Door - For those who don't think that asking for consent is "romantic" or "sexy", I present to you this anime, which makes consent pretty much the most romantic thing ever. The plot does start off a bit non-consentually with Ichiro accidentally touching Shiori's "stinger", which in her strange island culture makes them engaged and bonded to the point where they can't be too far apart without feeling ill physical effects. But after that revelation, the two of them are beyond respectful of each other's boundaries, even wanting to end their forced "engagement" despite the fact that they genuinely do fall in love with each other. They want to love on their own terms, not because of some mystical bond they did not consent to, and really, this was just one of the sweetest romances I've ever watched. Ichiro having to take care of his much younger sister and brother after his father's death also played to my love of stories featuring men taking care of kids. It was a bit strange that their mother was never really mentioned after establishing the fact that she left after her husband's death because she didn't want to be a mother anymore, a storyline that seemed ready made for drama, but maybe they'll explore that in another season, if the anime gets one. Though it ended in a good place, I definitely wouldn't mind more in the future!

TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You - Though we get a few more big clues this cour basically confirming that Tsukasa is immortal and probably from the moon, her true origins mostly remain a mystery for now. That doesn't really bother me, though, because the real joy in this show is just watching how cute and sweet Nasa and Tsukasa are as a couple. I also enjoyed the adddition of Tokiko, Tsubasa's "grandmother" who knows all her secrets, to the cast. She was a hoot! Curious that we're getting a four episode miniseries about Nasa teaching a high school class this upcoming season. Seems kinda random, to be honest -- and IIRC, he didn't even go to high school himself, much less college, so why is he teaching? -- but I'll definitely take more TONIKAWA!

The Ancient Magus' Bride - I'm so glad this series got another season! This new cour has a bit of a different vibe, with Chise attending school and making new friends with her sorceror classmates, but it still has all the mystical charm and well-researched folklore of the first season. Admittedly, while most of this cour did seem like set-up for a larger storyline, with another cour already announced for later in the year, I'm totally okay with that. Looking forward to what happens next!

BIRDIE WING - Girls' Golf Story - - This anime almost makes golf interesting. Or, rather, it's more like the story surrounding the golf is interesting, because let's be honest, nothing can make golf interesting. Sorry, it's the truth. But BIRDIE WING certainly tries its best, which I can respect. From what I've seen online, most fans seem to prefer the first cour, which focused on Eve playing over-the-top underground mafia golf, but I actually much preferred this second cour, which brings Aoi more into the spotlight as the two of them strive for the pros. For me, Eve was too much of a one-dimensional character, only caring about golf and Aoi. (And I guess Klein and the immigrant orphans, although they felt more like plot devices to give Eve a reason to play illegal golf. Otherwise, she doesn't seem to think or care about them unless it's relevant to the plot at the time.) Aoi, on the other hand, felt much more fleshed out, what with her family pressure, the mystery of her paternity, and her serious illness, not to mention her totally obvious crush on Eve. I'm not sure if the ending really hit a hole-in-one, but it's open-ended enough that another season could be made.

Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure - Soaring Sky! is really turning out to be the best Pretty Cure series since Healing Good so far! With Ageha joining as Cure Butterfly in Ep. 18, the main team is finally complete, and I must say, the way they've really spread out the Cures' debuts with this series really reminds me of the first season of the original Sailor Moon anime, which is a definite plus in my book. The biggest weakness remains the villains, who are pretty forgettable, but that tends to be the case with almost all the Pretty Cures I've seen, so eh. Still a lot of fun to watch!

Yuri Is My Job - Hmm, this anime is a bit difficult to recommend because most of the characters are kinda unlikeable, to be honest, but they're also pretty fascinating. It's both fun and frustrating to watch them interact just because everybody has fundamentally different communication styles, leading to a lot of misunderstandings and drama. Still, I did enjoy it quite a bit, minus Kanako's rather disturbing fixation on Hime. Probably not the show for you if you really hate plots that hinge on misunderstandings, but if you don't mind that, it might be worth checking out.

MIX - This wasn't a bad cour, just not as good as the previous ones. With the first season, it was pretty easy to enjoy the story without being familiar with Touch, which MIX is a sequel to. With this cour, however, there were a lot of references to Touch that I think would be more meaningful to those who are familiar with that series (which I am not), especially the amnesiatic man who starts living with the Tachibanas. He seems to be a character from Touch, but I just couldn't bring myself to care much about the mystery of his identity which took up quite a lot of screentime. And they barely played any baseball at all! At least it seems like a tournament is coming up next, continuing into the summer season. Hopefully that means the focus will swing back more toward the Tachibana siblings and the current baseball team, rather than the previous generation.

Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion - There's no denying that this anime is not going to winning any animation awards (even though the character designs are very pretty), but at least the characters and plot help make up for some of the animation deficencies. Unfortunately, with very little of story's various mysteries solved by the end of the season, the whole thing comes off rather unsatisfying. Definitely felt like it was just made as an advertisement to read the original manhwa, which to be fair is true for a lot of anime series, but most at least try to end on some kind of conclusion to an arc (see My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999 and A Galaxy Next Door, which pulled this off beautifully). Raeliana feels like it just...ends. Still hoping we get another season, though, because I am interested to see where the story goes.

Next season, I'll be continuing with the TONIKAWA miniseries, MIX, Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure, and Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts, along with watching the new seasons of Horimiya, Jujutsu Kaisen, Rent-A-Girlfriend, and Bungo Stray Dogs. Unfortunately, My Happy Marriage and Ooku: The Inner Chambers, the only new series that really caught my eye, are on Netflix, so I'll just have to wait and check them out whenever I resubscribe to watch Sailor Moon Cosmos (assuming they again get the movies). If Crunchyroll gets Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence, I may give that one a try, but, eh, it's just not a very exciting season.

2023 Winter Anime Review

Time for the Winter Anime Review! Although, before I do that, I forgot to put my usual look back on the fanfiction I've written in the previous year in my year-end post, so here are the links to those on my Tumblr if anybody's interested:

Traditional Questionnaire

And I did something new and wrote individual posts on each of last year's fics. You can find all the tagged posts here.

Now, onto the anime reviews!

Buddy Daddies - I've said it before, but I have such a weakness for series about unexpected men needing to take care of a small child, and this show has TWO! Definitely my favorite of the season. I just loved watching the two of them learn how to care and eventually love Miri, and while I don't necessarily ship them in a romantic sense, I do adore the idea of Kazuki and Rei being queerplatonic partners (especially since I get major aroace vibes off Rei). My one real gripe about the show is that I just don't buy Kazuki as a hitman. Rei, it makes sense. He was literally born into the business, trained to be an assassin since he was a child, but beyond a throwaway line about him turning out the way he did because his parents abadoned him as a child, it's never really explained why Kazuki decided to become a hitman. (Spoilers for Spy X Family: ( Spoilers )) He's much more suited to being a stay-at-home father or a chef (( Spoilers )) than a killer, and while it is acknowledged that Kazuki isn't that great at being a hitman, that still doesn't explain how and why he is one other than that's the premise of the show. (Honestly, I could have lived without the whole hitman angle altogether. It makes the show sound too much of a ripoff of Spy X Family, and I was much more interested in their every day lives than their jobs.)

Trigun Stampede - The original Trigun was one of my favorite shows when I first started watching anime, but it's probably been at least 15, maybe even 20 years since I last watched it, so I was able to come into Stampede with pretty fresh eyes. First off, the CG animation is absolutely stunning. It's probably one of the best looking anime I've seen, period. I also thought Knives was a much more interesting and complex character than he was in the original and was given a much better reason for wanting to kill all the humans. And the twist? Well, I won't say anything more about that... So which series do I like better? I'd say the characters are more endearing in the original, and I really enjoyed the mix of comedy and drama, but the new series has a tighter, more gripping plot that touches on some really fascinating questions. They're both great in different ways, and I'd recommend both! (And for those who were reluctant to check out the new series because of no Milly, again, I don't want to spoil anything...but I'm looking forward to the next season!)

Delicious Party Pretty Cure/Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure - I found the ending of Delicious Party to be rather lackluster, to be honest, but Soaring Sky is off to a really strong start! Like with the last series, they're taking their time adding Pretty Cures to the story, with the third just making his debut in the ninth episode -- and, yes, that "he" isn't a typo. For the first time, a boy is going to be one of the main Cures! (I believe there have been male Cures in previous seasons I haven't seen, but it seems they only had small roles.) The fourth Cure is also going to be another first for the series, an adult (albeit only an 18-year-old)! We've already met her "civilian" identity, and she seems like she'll be a fun addition to the group whenever she awakens. Then there's Sora and Mashiro, the first two Cures, who already have a super close friendship that I actually wouldn't be all that surprised turned romantic based on all the subtext between them. Now, would they really dare go that far with a Pretty Cure series? I don't know, but, again, their chemistry is so strong that anything seems possible...

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady - Mmm, I have conflicted feelings about this one, despite it getting a lot of high praise in ANN's season wrap up. The animation is beautiful, Anisphia and Euphyllia are interesting characters, and their (absolutely unambiguous) romance is great, but I found the plot and world building fairly weak. Despite Anisphia being the "Reincarnated Princess" referred to in the title, the fact that she used to live in the "real" world is mentioned only, like, three-ish times? We learn absolutely nothing about her previous life other than that she always wanted to fly, and you can be forgiven for forgetting this is technically an "isekai" series due to how little her reincarnation affects the plot. Take that aspect out of it, and very little would change. Also, there's a lot of talk about the kingdom needing to change, but it's never really shown why? There definitely were some corrupt nobles, but with what little screentime is given to the commoners, none of them seem particularly unhappy or displeased with how the country is run, so it was hard to really care about the political stuff. (Really, it comes across more like the only reason why the change is needed is because neither Anisphia or her brother Algard want to be queen/king...) I think it really would have helped if Anis and Euphie interacted with more commoners besides their maid, Ilia. (And I guess Lanie kinda counts?) Still a really good show that I enjoyed, but I wouldn't call it a great one.

My Hero Academia - Well, that was depressing...and I don't mean that it a bad way. After all, it's hard to be hopeful after all the big losses from last cour. Poor Deku really goes through it, forcing himself to leave the school and fight mostly on his own in order to protect his friends, but I'm glad the class managed to ( Spoilers ).

BOFURI - This is just such a fun, relaxing series, even with all the battles. If that seems like a contradiction...well, it kinda is, but seriously, after all the "stuck in a video game" series with dire, real-world consequences, it's just nice to watch a bunch of people simply having fun playing a VR game where nothing's really at stake besides winning events. I do wish they showed a little more "real-world" stuff like the first season did -- as with Magical Revolution, you could almost forget they are just playing a video game -- but that's my only real complaint...well, other than all the delays. They delayed an episode one week in the middle of the season, and now the last two episodes have been delayed, too. I'm not sure if the delays were production problems or COVID-related, but definitely a bit disappointing.

Tomo-chan Is a Girl - I was really expecting to love this show. "Friends-to-lovers" is one of my favorite tropes, so Tomo-chan should have been a slamdunk...except I shipped Tomo more with her upperclassman from Karate Club, Misaki, than her actual best-friend-turned-love-interest, Jun. I don't know... Maybe it was the fact that Tomo and Jun tend to hit each other a lot that tended to turned me off? It's not exactly abusive (and I believe they intended the violence to be seen as comedic), since they're both in the Karate Club and they're pretty evenly matched, but it was a strange dynamic that didn't really work for me. Also, I got tired of Tomo trying to force herself to be more girly so that Jun would see her as a love interest pretty quickly, especially since it's clear from the start of the series that ( Spoilers ). I did really enjoy Tomo's friendship with Misuzu and Carol, though, and I have to admit, there were some pretty hilarious moments. Jun even managed to win me over a bit by the end...but I still would have preferred her with Misaki.

Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun -- The Harvest Fest arc really did take up way too much time, but at least it ended with a pretty good conclusion. These last two cours really have been the weakest of the series, unfortunately. Next up, assuming it gets another season (which I'm almost certain it will), seems to be another festival, but this one is going to be centered on music, which I think will be a lot of fun!

Bungo Stray Dogs - I wish there weren't such long breaks between seasons of this series. (The last season before this aired in 2019, although there was the series of non-canonical Wan! shorts in 2021.) With so many characters and factions, it can be difficult to remember who everybody is, what faction they belong to, and what their Gifted power is. That being said, I did really love that this season started with a mini-arc devoted to Ranpo's backstory, since he's one of my favorite characters. It was also a bit heartbreaking to learn about Yosano's backstory, too. And, hey, the next cour is set to begin this summer, so not a long wait this time!

To Your Eternity - A third season has already been announced, although I'm not really sure where it will go when I felt the end of this cour wrapped things up really well. (Based on the brief flashforward we saw at the very end, ( Spoilers ), which could be...interesting.) Anyway, this series never really got back to greatness of its first few arcs, but I still enjoyed this cour, even though I felt like Fushi ( Spoilers ) kinda cheapened the earlier, heart-breaking deaths.

IDOLiSH7 - Only three episodes aired to end the last cour -- still not sure why; I assume COVID-related -- so not much to talk about other than I really hate Ryo and think his reasons for doing such awful things is one of the stupidest motives I've ever heard for a villain. (Basically, ( Spoilers ) Yes, that's seriously why he decided he hated all idols and wants to destroy them, no matter the cost.) Next season (if there is one) seems like it will focus on Nagi, my second favorite (after Yamato) member of IDOLiSH7, so hopefully that will be fun, but I'm not looking forward to Ryo sticking around...

As for next season, it's once again sequel-heavy. In additon to continuing with the new Pretty Cure, I'll be checking out the second seasons of MIX, The Ancient Magus' Bride, TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You, and Birdie Wing -Golf Girls' Story- (which I actually just finished catching up with, so great timing). There's also Dr. Stone: New World, but since I assume Toonami will get that, I'll just wait to watch it on there. When it comes to new series, I'm most interested in Skip and Loafer, Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion, and A Galaxy Next Door, but might also check out Yuri Is My Job!, Ao no Orchestra, and My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999, depending on early reviews and which shows Crunchyroll actually gets.

2022 Fall Anime Review

This was another pretty great season of anime! I really enjoyed almost everything I watched, with one exception.

SPY x FAMILY: Still love, love, love! This cour was perhaps slightly weaker than the first with a lot that could be considered "filler" (though very fun filler!), but this show has really shot to the top of my favorites, not just this season, or even this year. I'm talking about all-time! Well, I probably would still say Kaleido Star is my ultimate favorite, but seriously, I haven't fallen for a show like this since...well, Kaleido Star! I even bought an Anya Mini Figuarts figure during Crunchyroll's Black Friday sale (although I'm still waiting for them to actually ship it... Gotta give them props for not only giving everyone affected by the back-up free express delivery upgrades, but also a $25 off coupon!). So happy that another season has already been confirmed, along with an anime-original movie!

Bocchi The Rock! - This was not on my initial list of shows to watch this season, but the good reviews it got during ANN's preview guide convinced me to give it a try, and I'm so glad I did! I tend to love series about people forming a band, and this one was no exception. So, so hilarious, and Bocchi's social anxiety was very relatable, but not to the point where it felt cringy like in some shows I've watched. (I'm thinking specifically of It's Your Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular (or whatever it's called).) The music scenes were also really well done, feeling realistic for a new, relatively inexperienced band.

Raven of the Inner Palace - I always love a good historical fantasy shoujo, and bonus points if it involves the supernatural, so Raven was right in my wheelhouse. I loved watching Shouxue gradually opening up to other people (especially her love interest, Emperor Gaojun), and the character and costume designs were beautiful, even if the animation itself was nothing special. I also thought the mythology in the show was really well-done and interesting. Definitely hoping for another season!

My Hero Academia - It's battle time! Pretty much the entire cour was taken up by an epic stand-off between the heroes and the League of Villains, and I was quite surprised by how well it managed to keep my interest throughout the entire arc without any real breathers. I actually somehow managed to keep unspoiled about Dabi's true identity, so I really enjoyed the reveal and the effect it had on Endeavor. The one part I hated, though, was when ( Spoiler ). Having her moment to shine essentially stolen by a male character just left a bad taste in my mouth...

Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun - I'm a huge fan of this series, but I have to admit, this cour seemed a bit weaker than the past cours. I just wasn't all that interested in the Harvest Festival hunting, and it's a shame that Iruma, Asmodeous, and Clara were separated into different groups. Their friendship is the real heart of the show, and while I guess it's nice to let Iruma interact with some of the other characters more, I just don't care much about Lead, who is his partner during the hunt. It's still a pretty good cour, but, yeah, not the best, at least in this half of the season. Another cour is following into the Winter season, so hopefully things will pick up!

IDOLiSH7 - On the other hand, IDOLiSH 7 redeemed itself a little from the last cour, which I found a bit lackluster. This cour still isn't quite as good as the earlier seasons, and I'm just not interested in ZOOL at all, but it was cool to see TRIGGER try to reestablish themselves after a scandal led to them being dropped by their label, and of course, the music is always great, especially Re:Vale's "Esperanza". Interesting that they're taking a month long break, then actually finishing the cour in February with the last four episodes. They certainly ended this week's episode with quite the cliff-hanger!

Delicious Party Precure - Still fun, still cute. I don't really have much more to say!

I'm the Villainess so I'm Taming the Final Boss - With a title like that and a similar premise, comparisons to My Next Life as a Villainess: All Roads Lead To Doom are inevitable, but they're actually fairly different once you get past the surface. For one, Aileen has it way more together than Bakarina, being smart, cunning, and ambitious (traits that unfortunately get her labeled a "villainess"). Also, while Next Life goes the harem route, with all of Caterina's friends falling in love with her regardless of gender while she's mostly oblivious to their romantic intentions, Aileen's pretty set on Claude, the title "Final Boss", once they fall in love. Unfortunately, while Aileen herself is a great character, the story she's thrown in...is not the best. It's not horrible or anything, but the pacing is rather fast, and I don't think her romance with Claude is all that well developed.

To Your Eternity - I feel a bit like a broken record saying this, but while this cour wasn't as great as the beginning few arcs, it was a lot better than the last arc that ended the first season. While Bon started off annoying, he grew on me as the arc went on. I'm not sure how long this cour is supposed to be, but it does seem like it's going to run into the next season, which makes sense considering it started later than most shows.

Housing Complex C - This four episode mini-series was...not good. Way too confusing with too many red herrings, and for supposedly being a horror series, it wasn't very scary at all? Yeah, a definite dud.

And now my annual ranking of my top ten favorite anime of the year! For the past couple of years, this list has tended to include a lot of sequel cours, but there were actually a lot of fantastic new series this year. Of the sequel series, only Kaguya-sama made the list! (Well, and I guess The Case Study of Vanitas also counts since it started last year, but I didn't watch the first part until this year when Crunchyroll started streaming it.)

1. Spy X Family

2. My Dress-Up Darling

3. Bocchi The Rock

4. Love After World Domination *

5. Dance Dance Danseur

6. Kaguya-sama: Love is War Ultra Romantic

7. Raven of the Inner Palace

8. Sasaki & Miyano *

9. The Yakuza's Guide to Babysitting

10. The Case Study of Vanitas

* Denotes series I didn't watch simulcast, but picked up later.

As for next season, I'll be continuing with Delicious Party Precure, Iruma-kun, To Your Eternity, and IDOLiSH7 when it resumes, as well as the new seasons of Bungo Stray Dogs, BOFURI, D4DJ, Tsurune, and the new remake of Trigun, assuming Crunchyroll gets them.. That really doesn't leave much room in my schedule for new series, but the ones that have caught my eye are The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague, The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess, Tomo-chan Is A Girl!, and Buddy Daddies. Man, next season is stacked! I'm...not really sure what I'm going to do! *laughs* Some of the returning series might actually have to wait, because I'm particularly interested in Tomo-chan Is A Girl! and Buddy Daddies.

2022 Summer Anime Review

After a jam-packed spring, the summer anime season was a bit lacking. On a positive note, that did give me time to catch up with spring's Love After World Domination, which I absolutely loved! As for this season's shows:

The Yakuza's Guide to Babysitting - Give me an anime about some unexpected guy forced to take care of a cute little kid who wins over his heart, and I'm there. I do wish it had been a little harder for them to bond at first because Kirishima adjusts to babysitting Yaeka way too easily, IMO, but otherwise, it's just a cute, heartwarming series with the occasional dark moment (because it is the Yakuza). My favorite of the season!

My Stepmom's Daughter Is My Ex - Going into this show, I expected it to be trashy fun on the level of My Domestic Girlfriend or Citrus, but this series surprisingly is a somewhat nuanced take on the whole "step-siblings in love" plot. While it does occasionally fall into fanservice, it's not too distracting or over-the-top. I will say that Isana is the best girl, though, so Mizuto really just needs to get over his stepsister Yume and give his best friend an honest chance. ( Spoilers ).

RWBY: Ice Queendom -- It was really cool to see RWBY, which started out as an anime-inspired American cartoon, turned into an actual anime, and since Weiss my favorite of the main team, I liked that she was the focus on this filler arc, but I do think this would have worked much better as a movie. You can really tell they had to work to make the storyline stretch over twelve episodes, and that was even with the first three episodes being a recap of the beginning of the original series to catch new viewers up. An interesting experiment that I liked well enough, and I wouldn't necessarily mind seeing more RWBY anime, but I don't know if I'm really dying to see more either, you know?

Delicious Party Pretty Cure - Turning Amane, a former brainwashed villain, back to good and having her join the team as Cure Finale did really help with the sense I had about the other girls feeling "off" last cour. I think the creators really learned from the last series, during which I often complained about the other girls being ignored in favor of Manatsu and Laura until the series was almost over. Unfortunately, I also think they've gone too far to the other side, in that Yui, who is supposed to be the main character, feels more like she's in a supporting role. She hasn't gotten much focus at all. And I definitely don't like how Kome-Kome has been a strong focus over the past few episodes. She continues to be more off-putting than cute. It's still a fun series, but, eh. I'm not loving it as much as some of the other Precure series.

Rent-A-Girlfriend - Did we really need that super-uncomfortable, lavishly animated scene of Ruka forcing a French kiss on Kazuya at his birthday party? Did we? I know "Fuck Mami" has been a rallying cry for watchers of the show, but I will take Mami (who honestly didn't even do much this season) any day over Ruka, who gets on my last nerve. Other than that, Sumi continues to be cute but utterly pointless, while nothing much changes between Kazuya and his main love interest Chizuru until it's revealed ( Spoilers ). The season finale, in particular, which focused on Chizuru's backstory, was really good and actually makes me more interested than I expected to be about the already-announced season 3. I just wish they had cut out the rest of the season (which amounted to mostly filler anyway) and started the season with the ending arc.

Classroom of the Elite - I said this a few seasons ago when My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU got a final season, but if there's been more than a couple of years since installments, it would be REALLY helpful to start things off with a recap episode. The first season of this series came out in 2017, and there are, like, a million characters. Only the most dedicated fans would remember who they all are and what happened in the previous season. That being said, I do remember that I didn't really care much for the first season, and that's pretty much how I feel about the second. It was...fine, I guess. A solid "eh". (I will say that Kushida's reason for going after the main characters was REALLY, REALLY stupid, though. Actually, most of the characters' motives for doing things are stupid, now that I think about it, but Kushida's is definitely the most stupid.)

Next season looks to be all about new seasons for shows I already enjoy! In addition to continuing with Delicious Party Precure, I'll be watching the new cours of SpyxFamily (super excited!), My Hero Academia, IDOLiSH7, To Your Eternity, and Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun. That doesn't leave much room to check out new series in my schedule, unfortunately, but I'm potentially interested in:

Bibliophile Princess (except that's going to HiDive, so it'll have to wait)

Raven of the Inner Palace

I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming The Final Boss

More Than A Married Couple, But Not Lovers (not sure yet who's going to stream this)

Housing Complex C is an apparently a four-episode horror series that will be airing on Toonami in October, so I'll also check that out.

Current Mood: blah

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2022 Spring Anime Review

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 - ( Major Spoilers! ) 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 ( Major Spoilers! )

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/( Spoiler ), 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 ( Major Spoilers! )

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. ( Major Spoilers! )

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!

Happy New Year! And Fall Anime Review

Did my usual look back at the fanfiction I wrote last year over on Tumblr!

2021 Fanfic Year In Review

2021 Fanfic End of the Year Asks

It's also time for the usual seasonal anime review, as well as the reveal of my top ten favorite series of the year!

The aquatope of white sand - Last season, I said this had the potential to be one of my favorite series this year, and I happy to say...it is! Kinda annoyed that the "visions" from the first half of the series never really went anywhere, but that's my only real complaint. Otherwise, the characters are great, the animation is gorgeous, and it's just a really, really good show!

Restaurant To Another World 2 - I don't know if this series really needed a sequel, especially several years after the first season originally aired, but I'm glad it got one anyway! I liked that this season brought back a lot of customers from the previous season, and of course, the food porn was incredible! Especially since a lot of the food highlighted this time were some of my personal favorites. I was always excited when it came to watch a new episode, to the point that I actually considered it one of my favorites of the year, as you'll see below!

The Night Beyond The Tricornered Window - I will say that this got off to bit of a rocky start, especially with how Hiyakawa was so possessive and controlling of Mikado (which is a BL trope I hate) but it got a lot better once the story started focusing on the main mystery. It helps that Hiyakawa was given an understandable backstory for why he acted that way and that the story never really portrayed their relationship as healthy or sexy, with several other characters calling out Hiyakawa's problematic behavior. Actually, for a story that's supposed to be BL, I have to say it kinda sucks as one, with a main couple who honestly don't have any real chemistry, but as a paranormal mystery, it's great!

Tropical-Rouge Precure - After complaining that Sango, Asuka, and Minori were being ignored in favor of Laura and Manatsu, this cour delivered by giving the other three Precures a couple of focus episodes each. It would have been nice for them to have been more spread out through the series, admittedly, but as much as I love Laura, it was kinda nice to have a break from the "Laura and Manatsu Show".

SAKUGAN - I'm not really sure how I feel about this mecha series, to be honest! It got off to an amazing start, and there are moments of that initial brilliance in later episodes, but there are also quite a few low moments. Overall, I really liked it, but I also thought it could have been even better.

takt op.Destiny - I feel the same about this series as I do about SAKUGAN. There were points I really, really liked, and I loved the character designs, especially for the Musicarts, but the villains were pretty weak and uninteresting, and the stuff with Anna near the end was just...weird.

Platinum End - Though I had heard some less than positive things about the manga this series is based off, I still wanted to give it a chance because I absolutely love Death Note and Bakuman, created by the same writer and mangaka. The verdict? Yeah, it's pretty bad. The main character, Mirai, is the complete opposite of Death Note's Light in that he's 100% opposed to killing in any situation, even self-defense, which is fine, but he also lacks Light's intelligence or charisma, making for a dull lead. The main villain, Metropolitan, is slighlty more interesting, but he's no L either. Honestly, the best character by far is Mukaido. It's too bad he's not the main character, because I think he has the most interesting story to tell. Also, there are a couple of sex scenes featuring minor characters that are purely there for shock value that I found rather off-putting. That being said, this first cour ended with one heck of a cliff-hanger, so of course I'll be sticking around for the second cour to see if things can get any worse. *laughs*

For the upcoming Winter season, I plan to keep watching Platinum End (assuming it resumes right away; details about the start of the second season haven't been given yet, but there was a title card for the thirteenth episode at the end of the last one) and Tropical-Rouge Precure. I'm also catching up with the first season of The Case Study of Vanitas (which Crunchyroll unexpectedly picked up a couple of weeks ago despite being originally a Funimation title) so I can watch the second season (assuming Crunchyroll also gets it from the start this time). For new shows, I'm hoping Crunchyroll also gets Requiem of the Rose King and Sasaki and Miyano, but those are the only two that have really caught my eye so far based on summaries.

And as for my Top 10 Favorite Series of 2021...

*drumroll*

1. Fruits Basket

2. The aquatope on white sand

3. Zombie Land Saga Revenge

4. Sk8 the Infinity *

5. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! X

6. Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun!

7. Laid-Back Camp Season 2 *

8. oddtaxi *

9.Heaven's Design Team

10. Restaurant To Another World

(* means I didn't watch it simulcast, but picked up later)

And new category! My Anime Movie of the Year was... the Sailor Moon Eternal movies, of course! I don't think I ever got around to gushing about them here, but while the first film admittedly had some pacing issues, the second one was amazing and was about all I ever wanted as an animated version of my favorite manga arc.

Current Mood: excited

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2021 Summer Anime Review

Before I get to this season's reviews, some exciting news -- I'm going to be an aunt again! My sister is pregnant with her second child, due in April. It came as a shock to pretty much everyone since my nephew is already seven-and-a-half. (He'll be eight by the time the baby is born, as long as they don't arrive too early.) Everyone thought for sure he was going to be an only child, but surprise!

Anyway, onto the reviews!

The aquatope on white sand - In a season where I mostly just followed continuing series and sequels, this was the only new series that managed to catch my eye, and I'm so glad I checked it out. Though it's continuing into next season, based on this first cour, I'd say this has the potential to be one of my favorite series of the year. The animation is just gorgeous, the characters are great, and the storyline is poignant. The only thing I didn't particularly care for was the random visions people got at the aquarium, a plotline that never really went anywhere, at least in this first half.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! X - I could have done with a lot less forced kisses on the parts of Geordo and Keith (and did they really need two more kidnappings arcs?), but otherwise, it's always a pleasure to spend more time with Bakarina and her ever-growing harem (shout-out to Nicol's spotlight episode, which was absolutely gorgeous), even if there wasn't much of a plot to speak of now that she's "won" the game. But, what's this? There's a Fortune Lovers II? And a Villainess movie has been announced? Game on!

Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun! - This show just makes me smile! The amusement park storyline was a lot of fun and allowed some of the less popular characters from Iruma's class to stand out more. Also, Iruma and Ameri went on an adorable date! I'm not sure if Iruma actually understood it to be a romantic date or not, but it was still really sweet and cute. Glad this is getting another season!

IDOLiSH7 - Y'all know how much I loved the first two season of IDOLiSH7, so I was expecting to love the new season, too. Unfortunately, even though the story finally focused on the backstory of my favorite member of the group - Yamato - the way his arc played out was somewhat dull, with a conflict that could have been solved in a couple of episodes if he would have just talked to others. (And the choking scene was just...weird.) The second half of the cour picked up a bit, but overall, I'd say it was just pretty good, not great. Still looking forward to second half of the season next year, though!

My Hero Academia - After the endless training fest of the last cour, it was nice to see the show focus back on other things. Even though there was still some training with Endeavor at the beginning of the cour, most of the first arc focused on Endeavor trying to atone for his abusive behavior toward his family, which I thought was handled reasonably well. I liked that it was acknowledged that it was okay for his children not to forgive him, even though he was genuinely regretful. Some scars are just too deep. The second part of the cour turned into My Villain Academia, which was an interesting twist! I've never been too interested in the villains, admittedly, but seeing their backstories did make them a bit more sympathetic.

Tropical-Rouge Precure - Nothing much to say that I haven't said already! It's a fun, but silly, show, and Laura is still the best part of it. I do wish they would focus on the other Pretty Cures beside Laura and Manatsu, though. I can't even remember the other girls' names most of the time. Sango... Yeah, see? (Asuka and Minori -- those are their names! I knew they started with an A and an M, at least.)

To Your Eternity - While the first cour was fantastic, the second cour was a lot weaker, focusing on just one arc (for the most part). I'm still not sure why they decided to animate it now, considering it wasn't even a full cour. Since another season has already been announced, I think it would have made a lot more sense to wait to do this arc then and finish it in less episodes. I just don't think the Jananda arc needed six episodes to be told, especially if they had no real intention of focusing on all the other kids. The last episode, centered on Pioran, was excellent, though, and I am hoping the new season returns back to the greatness of the first cour.

Fena: Pirate Princess - Okay, so Aquatope wasn't the only new series I checked out. I almost forgot that I'm watching Fena on Toonami, which kinda says it all, doesn't it? It's a shame, because there was definitely potential in the premise and it looks beautiful, but the characters just aren't that interesting. Granted, I'm a few episodes behind due to watching on Toonami, so maybe the second half of the series will improve?

As for the Fall season, I'll be continuing with Aquatope and Tropical Rouge Precure (and Fena on Toonami), and I plan to check out the second season of Restaurant To Another World, The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window, takt op Destiny, and Platinum End. I was interested in PuraOre! Pride of Orange when I heard it was going to be about a girls' ice hockey team, but apparently it is actually a combination of hockey/idol show and the reviews haven't been great, so I think I'll give it a pass. It's on Funimation, anyway. I also intend to watch the new season of Demon Slayer, but I'm assuming that will be picked up by Toonami again (maybe once Fena ends), so I'll just wait.

Current Mood: geeky

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2021 Spring Anime Review

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.

Current Mood: geeky

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2021 Winter Anime Review

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!

2020 Fall Anime Review

Thanks to a free one-month subscription to Funimation, I was able to watch some of my more anticipated shows after all!

Haikyu! To The Top - If you remember, I wasn't that impressed with the first half that aired earlier in the year, but this second half went back to being the Haikyu I love. The match with Inarizaki High was intense!

Tonikawa: Over The Moon - SO CUTE! The premise is a little eye-rolly -- 18-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl get married after she saves his life -- but it's just so sweet and adorable, and I love how healthy their relationship is, despite the unusual circumstances. They respect and communicate with each other, and it's just really refreshing to see in a romance.

IDOLiSH7 Second Beat - Still the best idol show out there. The Re:vale duo is a fun addition to the cast, and I liked that some of the mysteries from the first season are being solved, like what happened to Tamaki's sister Aya.

Major 2nd - As I suspected, there were only a few episodes left to overlap with this season, but still a nice way to wrap things up until more (hopefully) comes out.

The Gymnastics Samurai - Not quite to the level of Yuri!!! on Ice, but still really good. I wish it had focused on more events than just the horizontal bar, though. I know it's the Jotaro's specialty, but I didn't even know he was also good at the other events until they showed him competing the All-Around at All-Japan since they never showed him practicing them that I remember. Also, I found Leo and his storyline rather pointless, to be honest.

Healin' Good Pretty Cure - This is the second Pretty Cure series I watched, and I liked it a lot more than first (the original). I think having a team instead of a duo worked more for me. Plus, Rate is probably the cutest animated dog ever! (And I'm saying this as someone who is not a dog-person at all.)

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle - I thought this would be funnier than it was, but it was still amusing enough. Kinda repetitive at times, though I rather liked some of the later episodes that had the demons actually having to interact with humans other than Sya. Still, probably would have been better broken up into 12 minute episodes.

Adachi and Shimamura - Like GS, I don't really know what the point of the little alien astronaut was -- she just seemed really out of place and unnecessary in an otherwise mundane, realistic setting -- but this was a really sweet slice-of-life yuri romance.

Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina - This show has major Kino's Journey vibes, which isn't a bad thing at all in my book. Unfortunately, though the animation is absolutely gorgeous, the show itself is very...uneven. Elaina's reactions, in particular, are very unpredictable, and not in a good way. About the only thing that stays constant about her character is that she's very conceited.

As for next season's picks... Skate-Leading Stars is definitely my top pick, but it's on Funimation. I'll have to pick it up the next time I get a free subscription, although I have watched the first episode already since I'm currently still subcribed. In terms of realism, Yuri!!! On Ice it is not, but it still seems fun! Also looking forward to the second season of Dr. Stone, but I'm assuming that'll land on Toonami, so I'll just wait. So what's actually on the list? From Crunchyroll's announcements, Heaven's Design Team, The Quintessential Quintuplets 2, and Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure (as well as continuing with Healin' Good -- I'm officially a fan now!) are the only ones that are catching my eye at the moment.

And since it's the end of the year, it's time for another round of my favorite anime of the year!

1. Fruits Basket

2. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken

3. Ascendance of a Bookworm *

4. Somali and the Forest Spirit *

5. Haikyu: To The Top

6. My Next Life As A Villainess: All Road Lead To Doom

7. Tonikawa: Over The Moon

8. Kaguya-sama: Love is War

9. Major 2nd

10. IDOLiSH7 Second Beat

* means I didn't watch it as it was airing, but caught up later