What I Watched This Week – 4/14 – 4/20

Mobile Fighter G Gundam Ep.1-25 – I’ve heard this talked about over the years as an especially over the top installment in the franchise, and after watching Bravern last season, I was in the mood for some more less-than-serious mecha anime. And on that point, it’s kind of hard to believe that this cheesy, bombastic series packed with corny dialogue and goofy mecha designs is part of the franchise best known for being deathly serious and antiwar. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, as the premise of space colonies each sending a fighter to Earth in a patriotic-themed mecha to battle it out in a tournament where the winner earns the right to rule space is just the sort of anime nonsense I’m here for. Pair that up with the angsty main character delivering a passionate speech about his hand glowing with a terrible power before shouting “SHINING FINGER!” and delivering his finishing move nearly every episode, and I’m just thoroughly entertained. Looking forward to more nonsense in the second half. 7/10

Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01 – I had about an hour to kill the other night, so I threw on this 40-minute OVA I found over on RetroCrush. In it, a part-time mechanic gets stuck in a mecha by accident, then goes on a rampage across the city while trying to meet his girlfriend before she leaves to study abroad. I’m not sure how or why this anime came to be, as the mecha design is extremely detailed with a ton of cool little features, and the animation was on point, but it’s an original that’s not associated with any other titles so far as I could tell, and the story is extremely thin and almost beside the point. It wasn’t a bad time, but it did kind of feel pointless. 6/10

Winter 2024 Anime Roundup

Anime of the Season – The Apothecary Diaries

I’ve been hearing about this series since Raven of the Inner Palace aired a while back, and the fans spoke so highly of it that I was dubious of anything living up to the expectations they’d set. Luckily for me, they weren’t exaggerating one bit, and the anime adaptation delivered a story that had me itching to watch the next installment as soon as the episode ended each week.

The story opens with Maomao getting abducted and sent to work in the imperial palace, where she intends to keep her head down and just quietly do her work in the inner palace, only to find a little matter involving poison she can’t resist poking her nose into, leading a powerful young man in the palace to take notice of her. Throughout the story, her desire to mind her business and not get tied up in palace affairs wars with her absolutely insatiable curiosity wherever drugs or poisons are involved, and it leads her in and out of a series of mysteries involving the residents of the palace, changing the course of her life. It was an absolute treat to watch her and Jinshi dance around each other, as Maomao wants nothing to do with the beautiful man all the women fawn over, and he finds her lack of interest in him irresistible, and seeing the way all the seemingly unrelated mysteries built towards a larger conspiracy was immensely satisfying. When you combine all this with an equally colorful supporting cast, a gorgeous color palette, excellent background art, and solid animation, you get the sort of anime you feel lucky to get to watch. 9/10

First Runner-Up – Brave Bang Bravern!

Equal parts sincere and farcical, this series takes all the tropes and homoeroticism of mecha anime and dials them to eleven. It boasts some of the best 3D mecha animation I’ve seen, a star-studded voice cast, and a story with the perfect mix of comedy and action. If you’ve ever clapped your hands and cheered for an over the top robot fight, this is the show for you. 9/10

Second Runner-Up – Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

The entire series is beautifully drawn and animated, with a perfect soundtrack and voice cast to match, and it takes a fantastic, heartfelt story about valuing the connections you make with others and elevates it to another level. A poorly paced exam arc in the second half that takes the focus off the main trio dampened my enjoyment somewhat, but it easily would’ve been my anime of the season in most seasons. 8/10

The Dangers in My Heart S2 – Kyotarou and Anna keep getting closer and closer over the course of this season, and the way they timed the emotional high of each episode to the soundtrack and the title card has me ready to swoon the moment I see the word “karte” written in white on a black screen. A nicely produced romance about a middle school boy and girl pushing each other to be their best selves that I’m really glad I watched. 8/10

Kingdom S5 – Xin and his Fei Xin force are under the command of the ruthless general Huan Yi in this arc, and they rediscover how merciless and inhumane war is as they fight a battle in Zhao territory as part of Qin’s effort to unify China. Xin’s voice actor completely knocks it out of the park here, delivering several emotional speeches with the perfect amount of gravitas. 8/10

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! – I knew when the female lead leapt off a balcony in front of the male lead after being jilted by her fiancé and he immediately fell in love with her that I was in for a good time, and it never let me down. Rishe’s constant scheming that drew on things she learned in her six previous lives, and Prince Arnold’s mix of bewilderment and affection for his unpredictable fiancée, made this one of the best fantasy romance series in years. 8/10

Mr. Villain’s Day Off – The premise of a general in the evil organization fighting the rangers for control of Earth strictly avoiding work on his day off sounds like the setup for a sit-com, but the story it actually settles in to tell is one that quietly highlights the beauty and comfort found in the ephemeral moments of daily life. A relaxing slice of life series that was the perfect capstone to my Sunday evenings this season. 7/10

A Sign of Affection – I have some nitpicks about some adaptation decisions in the anime that made the female lead appear less disabled than she is in the manga, but, on the whole, this was a lovely shoujo romance about a group of young adults doing their best to forge their own path in the world, with some nice production values. 7/10

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! – If you can look past the wild title and premise, and you don’t mind some inconsistent character models or animation, there’s a nice workplace romance in here centered on a group of grown men talking things out and supporting each other as they navigate their messy feelings. (It’s not as funny as the manga is, though.) 7/10

Sengoku Youko – It took me a few episodes to warm up to this historical set fantasy adventure, but once the story got going, with a solid mix of strong character development and the occasional emotional punch to the gut, I was all in. The character designs are unique and expressive, the action is nicely choreographed and animated, and the voice actors really put their backs into some of the more intense moments. 7/10

Undead Unluck – The pacing was a bit of a problem, with some incredibly long recap segments in episodes in the second half, but the chemistry between the two leads – a man who can’t die and a young woman who causes life threatening bad luck to anyone who touches her – made this action series about fighting to stop the apocalypse a really fun time.  7/10

The Witch and the Beast – If you’re like me, and you go weak in the knees for a chain smoking man with bedroom eyes in a long coat, and a messy woman who might get you both arrested when you go out drinking, then this supernatural themed noir is the show for you. Production values are inconsistent over its run, but the writing and voice acting are solid throughout. 7/10

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic – A boy getting isekaied by accident when his classmates are summoned to be heroes in another world could easily have been the start of yet another story about an aggrieved loner making it big as an overpowered hero in a fantasy world, but it thankfully subverted expectations and delivered an isekai adventure with a bit of heart and a cast of likeable characters. 7/10

The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil – What appeared to be a gimmicky battle of wits love comedy in the beginning turned into a solid forbidden romance between a demon and an angel with genuinely good chemistry between them. The two leads were easy to root for as they caught feelings for each other while fighting their way through the ridiculous situations they kept landing in. 7/10

The Demon Prince of Momochi House – This is a neither good nor bad anime about a teenage girl inheriting an old house in the woods that serves as a gateway between reality and the spiritual world, and moving in with the mysterious teenage boy and his ayakashi attendants who protect it. The characters are likeable, and the romance is pleasantly cheesy like an otome game, but the rushed pace of the relationship development and the quickly resolved yokai cases just feel like they adapted more manga than the runtime supported. 6/10

Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I’m Not the Demon Lord – Deadpan, autistic-coded Yumiella is a ton of fun as the OP main character in this otome isekai, and she and her love interest make a great couple, but the level grinding wasn’t exciting enough, and the jokes weren’t funny enough to overcome the poor visuals. 6/10

Bucchigiri?! – Hiroko Utsumi directing an original anime mixing old school delinquents with Aladdin and the Lamp sounded like it could be a rollicking fun romp in the style of her previous original, Sk8, but pacing issues led to a repetitive first half, the main character was deeply unlikable, and the rushed ending felt unsatisfying. The art and animation were generally quite good, with some great fight scenes, but the writing needed to be better. 6/10

Solo Leveling – The series is very well produced, with exciting action scenes set to a lively soundtrack, but any time I started to relax and enjoy some nicely animated fights, the main character would come out with some eye-rolling, angsty teen speech about the strong preying on the weak, and it just wasn’t for me. 6/10

Shangri-La Frontier – There’s little to criticize in the production of this VR MMO themed action series. The voice actors gave great performances, the monster fights are well animated, and the art has a distinctive feel to it. Unfortunately, the story just never really grabbed me, the stalker girl really annoyed me whenever she appeared, and the extras at the beginning and end of most episodes felt like padding. 6/10

My Instant Death Ability is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me! – An unusual teenage boy with the ability to instantly kill anyone by just thinking about it gets sent to another world with a bus full of his classmates, and the ensuing adventure kept me entertained the whole time, but I can’t quite call it good. The manzai comedy dynamic between the male and female lead was a fair bit of fun as they traveled across the land, poking fun at common isekai tropes. 6/10

Blue Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati Saga – I remember really enjoying the first two seasons of this series, and I still love the characters, but this season just never clicked right for me. The opening arc felt rushed through, and the main arc had a cartoonish buffoon of a villain that completely undercut the horror of the story. It wasn’t a chore to watch or anything, but it could have been better. 6/10

Metallic Rouge – Like many others, I had high hopes for this original sci-fi series Bones put out as an anniversary project, but despite the generally solid visuals, the poor writing drags the whole show down, making this one of the biggest disappointments of the season. The incoherent plot fails to come to a point, the dialog is a terrible mix of forced quirkiness and tedious monologuing, and the characters are largely one-note and undeveloped. 6/10

Sasaki and Peeps – The hour-long premiere episode suggested this story about a middle aged salaryman who discovers his new pet bird is a reincarnated wizard from another world might be a fun take on the isekai genre, but the end product felt more like someone playing with their dolls than crafting a coherent story. It continually introduced new characters and new tropes all the way through to the last minute without tying anything together. 5/10

The Fire Hunter S2 – On the one hand, I appreciate how different it is from other series, with unusual character designs and an imaginative fantasy story that isn’t an amalgamation of light novel conventions. On the other hand, though, the production is incredibly rough, and the plot got increasingly hard to follow, making this a bit of a slog by the end. 5/10

Fluffy Paradise – I was basically on board in the first half to two-thirds of the series, when it seemed like a harmless little reincarnation isekai about a girl collecting animal and monster friends, but it completely lost me when it broke out the reservation camps and dead bodies in the last arc. Just a poorly written show that misunderstood its appeal. 5/10

What I Watched This Week – 3/24 – 3/30

Re:CREATORS – I’ve had this series on my watchlist for years, but for some reason I just kept putting off watching it until I saw somebody on Twitter say that it was leaving Prime Video at the end of March. I don’t know what took me so long, because a show like this is absolutely my kind of food. It had some really cool story ideas centered on the characters of video games, light novels, and manga being pulled into the real world, where they could track down their creators and give them an earful about all the nonsense they’d been put through. The idea of story characters having beef with their writers absolutely tickled me, and the way they had to fight the main antagonist through a multimedia crossover story project had some great moments when the writers got philosophical about their craft. The soundtrack by Hiroyuki Sawano was exactly what you could expect from him, and while he is sort of a one-trick pony and his music basically always sounds the same, I really like that pony, and it hits for me every time. The character designs are unique and distinctive, the animation was great when it needed to be, and the voice cast did a great job bringing all these different character types to life. My only complaint is that the final battle against the antagonist was hugely anticlimactic in the end. Everything leading up to it was so exciting that it was disappointing to go out on a whimper. 7/10

Slayers Try – The third season of Slayers has our four heroes about to head out on a journey to explore the world beyond the magical barrier that had, until recently, surrounded their home kingdoms when they run into a dragon that drags them into an affair tied up in an apocalyptic prophecy. The season was structured a little oddly, as it was sort of split in two, with a handful of more humorous episodes between the two halves that focused on the looming threat. It introduced a new faction into the series lore that made things kind of interesting, and brought back the enigma Xellos from last season, who continues to obscure his actual motives or loyalties, and whether he’s friend or foe. The animation seemed notably worse than the previous seasons, with several scenes where the characters would be talking to each other with the images remaining static. The adventure was exciting enough, and the final battle was grand enough, though, that it was still a solidly fun ride. 7/10

What I Watched This Week – 3/10 – 3/23

Outlaw Star – It’s hard to believe, but this space adventure series is over twenty-five years old somehow, and I figured I should watch it while it’s still streaming. It follows a brash and cocky young man with an assortment of scars and bright red hair who runs an odd-jobs outfit with a level-headed and precocious eleven-year-old boy on a frontier planet. A series of coincidences gets them tangled up in the affairs of an outlaw attempting to outmaneuver a band of pirates, and sets them on an action-packed journey across the galaxy. I have to admit that I never really took to the main character, and just found his cocky recklessness vaguely annoying as he spouted one-liners while fighting every fight the same way every time. The rest of the cast was a touch more palatable, with his young business partner Jim and the wooden-sword-wielding assassin Shizuka being my favorites. It was a fun enough romp through space, but it was definitely dated, with more homophobic humor than I care for. 7/10

Yatterman Night – This is a spin-off of a series from the 70s, and it takes the villainous henchmen trio from that series and makes them the protagonists of a story where Yatterman is the villain. The story opens with nine-year-old Leopard discovering that she and her mother’s friends Voltkatze and Elephantus are the decedents of Doronjo, Boyacky, and Tonzura from the original story, and they become so angry at the Yatterman empire for not helping them when her mother was sick that they decide to journey to the capital to give him a forehead flick. I have never seen the original series, and those who have I am sure could pick up on lots of Easter eggs throughout the series, but everything stood alone just fine for me. I had a lot of fun watching Leopard take on the persona of Doronjo, complete with costume and villainous laugh, and Voltkatze’s quickly engineered contraptions and Elephantus’s incredible fighting strength made for exciting fights against the Yatterman forces. The animation was surprisingly good at times, giving the action a ton of life. A fun adventure with a colorful cast. 7/10

You Don’t Know Gunma Yet – I threw on this series of 3-minute shorts to kill some time one night, and there isn’t a whole lot to say about them. They center on a high school kid who has just moved to Gunma prefecture and learns various facts about the region that had been exaggerated for comedic effect. It all had the vibe of poking fun at where the rednecks live or something, and I don’t know enough about Japan to get most of the jokes or know whether they were punching down. 6/10

Slayers Next – I liked, but didn’t love the first season of this series, but I ended up really getting into this sequel season. Lina, Gourry, and the crew open their latest adventure by spoiling the world domination plans of the princess of a neighboring country before embarking on a quest to find a magical tome that Zelgadis hopes will have a clue for turning human again. I thought chasing after a mystical book was a fun and classic hook for an adventure, and I thought the new characters they encountered, the new villains, and the new threats to the characters were just all around more compelling than in the previous season. I can tell that if I had watched this in the 90s when I was a teenager I would have been up to my eyeballs in Lina and Gourry fan fiction. What a fun show. 7/10

What I Watched This Week – 3/3 – 3/9

Slayers – I could have sworn that this was on Crunchyroll, but it is one of the titles left behind on Funimation, so I feel like it’s a good idea to watch the series this month. It follows a brash young sorceress named Lina Inverse, who has made a name for herself by attacking gangs of bandits with her overwhelming firepower and running off with their treasure. When the looted treasure gets her tied up in a powerful sorcerer’s plot, she ends up on a wild adventure with an assortment of colorful allies at her side. I’m not sure if this is actually good, or if it’s just so delightfully 90s that I have no choice but to enjoy it. Lina is just this side of the line between annoying and amusing, the villain is kind of evil for the sake of being evil, and I can tell the story plans to milk the romantic tension between Lina and Gourry for ages without committing to anything, but they all have a fun dynamic together, and the fourth-wall-breaking jokes reliably get a chuckle out of me. I’ll keep watching. 7/10

Serial Experiments Lain – Yet another “watch it before it disappears off streaming” series, this was a weird one I don’t really feel equipped to talk about intelligently. The plot, in as much as there is one, follows a middle school girl named Lain who receives a new computer from her father and proceeds to blur the boundary between reality and the online world called The Wired in ways nobody expected. Although I definitely found it confusing at times, I enjoyed the way the story explained very little of what was happening, as it felt a bit like it was inviting me into the muddled headspace of the main character, who had no idea what was happening herself. I’m sure there was a lot of storytelling going on in the background and in the shot composition, as there were many scenes that just lingered on the characters with only an electronic hum for accompaniment, but I don’t have an art degree, so I’m just surfing on vibes here. I don’t think it’s aged poorly or anything, but it does feel like it is very much a product of when it was made. The late 90s anxieties surrounding the newly emerging world of the internet absolutely pour from this series. 7/10