Patlabor the Mobile Police (TV) – Shows about police are not generally my thing as it’s a little tough to picture them as the good guys, but having them be in another country and mixing in giant robots changes the flavor enough for me. I wouldn’t call this show straight up comedy, but it wasn’t a super-serious mecha action series either. It follows a lovable band of borderline incompetent police in a near-future Tokyo’s mechanized division as they fight everything from drunks to criminal masterminds, destroying copious amounts of property along the way. I thought it looked really good for a show that aired in the 80’s, and I really enjoyed the characters’ personalities and interactions. 7/10
The Highschool Life of a Fudanshi – At only three minutes an episode, this twelve-episode series goes by pretty quickly, but it does an admirable job of setting up the story and firing off the jokes with the short time it has. The animation is pretty lackluster, bordering on puppet show at times, and the humor does kind of boil down to “I like gay things but I’m not gay, I swear”, but as a filthy fujoshi myself I couldn’t help but laugh at the self-deprecating humor. 6/10
Hourou Musuko: Wandering Son – I’ve held off on watching this for a long time because I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch a story about middle school students struggling with gender identity written by someone who, if I’m not mistaken, is a cis man. When Crunchyroll announced it would be leaving their catalog on April 21st, I figured I might as well watch it and see what I thought of it. I didn’t exactly dislike it, and it didn’t feel particularly fetishistic or disrespectful, but there was a lot I didn’t really enjoy. Much of the story was centered around putting on and acting in plays, which seemed to be making a connection between gender identity and playing a role that I’m not sure I’m comfortable with. Additionally, a number of the supporting characters made casually transphobic or otherwise unsupportive comments that weren’t really pushed back on by the narrative, which didn’t make a lot of sense for a story that wants to treat gender nonconformity sympathetically. 6/10