What I Watched This Week – 4/25-5/1

Go Lion – I picked this up for two reasons: I’m a big fan of Netflix’s Voltron reboot, and because I’m trying to watch at least one show from every year since I was born, and there weren’t a lot of options for 1981 easily available for streaming. And those are probably the only reasons I’d suggest anyone pick this up. I wouldn’t say I disliked it – it was neat seeing what made it into Voltron, and the style and format was pretty nostalgic for me – but it was 52 episodes of monster-of-the-week rendered in laughably bad art and animation. The repetitive plots and the mustache-twirling villains declaring that they’d get them next time for sure made me feel like this was a children’s show, but then all the graphic mayhem, pools of blood, and cannibalism seemed very much not for children, so I have no idea who this was made for. In any case, if you like Voltron, or if you like goofy-ass monsters with names like Killwrestler or Deathbeetle, it might be worth a try. 6/10

Castle in the Sky – Back in January, I bought a stack of Ghibli movies when they were on sale, and I’ve been watching one a week on average. While this movie had many of the things that make Ghibli movies so good, such as imaginative art, fluid animation, strong female characters, and a healthy sense of adventure, something about the story structure made this my least favorite of what I’ve seen so far. Maybe I’d feel differently if I saw it years ago, or before watching so many of their movies all in a row, but the plot just felt a little uninspired. 8/10

Armored Trooper VOTOMS: The Last Red Shoulder – Although this 60-minute OVA released about a year after the main series aired, the story takes place somewhere between the first and second arcs of the TV series, when Chirico reunites with a trio of fellow soldiers from his old unit to exact their revenge on their former commander who tried to get them killed during the war. Some watch orders suggest watching this between episodes 13 and 14 of the main show, but I’m glad I watched it after I finished the main series, because I don’t think I’d have appreciated the background on the characters that it gives, and it would have spoiled a key moment in the show. 7/10

Winter 2021 Anime Roundup

It’s a bit late, but here’s a list of all the weekly anime I watched during the Winter 2021 season ranked in order of enjoyment. For the second season in a row, I saw so many shows that looked interesting that I ended up following more shows each week than I did in any previous season. There was an adaptation of one of my favorite mangas, several sequels to shows I enjoy, a few intriguing originals, and a whole bunch of light novel adaptations that piqued my interest, making it a little difficult to find enough time in the day to watch it all. And despite watching a whole 22 series, I didn’t watch the super popular sequels to Attack on Titan or Re: Zero that aired last season, because I’m a rebel or something.

Unsurprisingly, Jujutsu Kaisen comes out on top for me, as the way it combines all the battle shonen tropes I love with some delightfully badass female characters and sparkling fight animation makes it pretty much the top battle shonen ever for me. Coming in second is the romantic comedy Horimiya, which belongs on any romance fan’s watchlist for how skillfully it builds relationships through character conversations. Rounding out the top three, and just edging out the comfy af CGDCT Laid-Back Camp season two for my favorite sequel, is World Trigger season two, which improved on everything I liked in season one, left out everything I didn’t, and had me counting the days and hours until each Saturday afternoon. Finally there’s my pick for best original, Sk8 the Infinity, rounding out the top five with its ebullient and campy take on skateboarding and bromance.

(If you’re curious about what I’m watching in the Spring season, check out my list here. Clearly Winter taught me nothing about time management or discernment, as I’m up to 25 shows I’m watching weekly, with plans to binge at least five more later.)

1. Jujutsu Kaisen Ep.14-24 – I mean, I guess I haven’t seen all of them, but I’ve seen quite a few battle shonens by now, and this is my favorite one so far, and it’s not even close. The thing I enjoy about battle shonens is how they take some teenager who is minding his own business and throw him into increasingly bonkers situations with the fate of society on the line and watching as he learns how powerful he is with the help of his friends. Putting an agreeable and thoughtful kid like Itadori into this recipe as the protagonist, having our deuteragonist Megumi be quiet but not abrasive, giving us a whole slew of well-rounded and strong female characters, and then mixing in absolutely spectacular fight animation with tons of movement and style basically makes this the shonen of my dreams. 10/10 Crunchyroll 

2. Horimiya – As a long-time fan of the manga, I can’t tell you how excited I was when I heard this was getting an anime adaptation. Neither the manga nor this adaptation is without its flaws, but the story does such a spectacular job of developing distinctive characters and having them interact in a way that is both hilarious and realistic, that the things it does well far outweigh its weaknesses. I love how it shows the main couple  develop a romantic relationship through talking about their feelings and engaging in physical intimacy like an actual couple would. Like the manga, the anime loses a little bit of its shine after Hori and Miyamura get together and the story switches focus to the side characters, but the situations stay amusingly heartwarming, and things never get boring. 8/10 Funimation, Hulu

3. World Trigger S2 – Season 1 aired over six years ago, but I only just watched it two weeks before the new season started, and thank God because having had to wait six years after the first season ended just as a coalition invasion force was attacking our heroes would have been brutal. I enjoyed season 1 despite its sometimes wonky animation and ill-advised filler arc, and season 2 improved upon everything in the previous season and left out all the things I didn’t like. Opening with the invasion in progress got the viewer right back into it, with all the fight choreography and tactics that makes this series unique, and it keeps that enthusiasm level all the way through the main characters’ rank wars battles in the second half. Season 3 airs in the fall season, and I can’t wait to see Osamu and Chika grow stronger, and get to see more of my boo, Hyuse. 8/10 Crunchyroll 

4. Laid-Back Camp S2 – As far as cute girls doing cute things series go, this is probably my favorite other than Azumanga Daioh. It’s just the perfect mix of cute characters, beautiful scenery, light comedy, food porn, and coziness. There’s no half-baked yuri bait, there’s no overwrought interpersonal drama, and there are no boys anywhere. It’s just a group of girls with different personalities indulging their love of camping and the outdoors in their own ways. Bonus: Rin’s grandpa can get it. 8/10 Crunchyroll 

 

 

5. Sk8 the Infinity – I originally hadn’t planned to watch this series about edgy skateboard racing in Okinawa, but it was so highly rated, and so many people were talking it up, that I got curious and decided to give it a try. I’m a little surprised, honestly, at how popular it was considering it was basically a colorful and well-animated festival of good-looking guys with tons of romantic and sexual tension between them. That’s 110% my kind of thing, as I’m absolutely here for cute boys doing athletic things while tangled up in relationship drama with their best bros, but it’s not exactly something mainstream sites or Reddit are usually into. But if you’re into colorful art, well-rounded characters, fluid animation, and a nice little story about hard work versus raw talent, you should give this a whirl. 8/10 Funimation

6. Kemono Jihen – Mixing horror, drama, action, and comedy, this show about a supernatural detective agency run by a tanuki and staffed by a collection of yokai tweens manages to be both incredibly creepy and heartwarmingly wholesome. Some of the situations they investigate go to some very dark places, and watching children deal with these issues and the fallout made them a little extra disturbing. I’m always here for a story that boils down to “all we have is each other”, so I really enjoyed the dynamic between the kids and seeing them develop strong bonds of friendship with each other after experiencing traumatic childhoods and being separated from their families. 7/10 Funimation

7. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime S2 – Like season 1, this season had its strong points along with some rather boring parts. I thought the most interesting thing about this story was Rimuru learning the rules of the world he was reincarnated in while accidentally building a nation-state around himself, and while the arc with the schoolkids wasn’t exactly pointless, it was kind of dull. After he ties that matter up, and action moves back to the city of Tempest, the story picks back up with some controversial actions and major changes for Rimuru and his people that I found pretty exciting. The arc continues in the summer season three months from now, and I’m looking forward to seeing the aftereffects of his decisions. 7/10 Crunchyroll, Funimation 

8. Cells at Work: Code Black – Having enjoyed season 1 of Cells at Work, and hearing that Kenjiro Tsuda was voicing the narrator, I was looking forward to this spin-off series anthropomorphizing the inner workings of a less-than healthy adult male. It was interesting to see shonen anime style dramatizations of situations ranging from stress to erectile dysfunction to gout to heart attack, and Tsuda’s narration gave it the perfect menacing air. My one complaint, and it might be unfair of me, was that it didn’t address how people don’t necessarily choose to live an unhealthy lifestyle, and seemed to both condemn and valorize overwork. 7/10 Crunchyroll, Funimation

9. Cells at Work S2 – I don’t know if it was because this sequel and the spin-off series both ran on the same day in the same season or what, but season 2 of this didn’t delight me as much as season 1. It was still informative while being equal parts adorable and exciting, but it felt a little repetitive and like it wasn’t really doing anything new that the previous season hadn’t already done. 7/10 Crunchyroll, Funimation

 

 

 

10. Heaven’s Design Team – It is honestly baffling to me that so few people watched this wonderful show about the designers working in God’s animal creation department. The way it blended animal facts with designer and developer humor about working for a difficult client made for an educational show that was consistently funny week after week. I know I will never look at an otter again without imagining Neptune and Shimoda squeeing over how cute it is, or see a koala without thinking of God asking for “an animal that looks cute, but isn’t.” 7/10 Crunchyroll 

 

11. Dr. Ramune: Mysterious Disease Specialist – Episode 1 of this comedy about a doctor who deals with supernatural diseases featured a girl crying mayonnaise tears. Episode 2 featured a guy whose dick turned into a fish cake, and at that point I was hooked. In a way, it reminded me of Natsume’s Book of Friends in that each episode featured a character who had some sort of malady caused by a brush with mysterious spirits and the solution usually lay in working through some sort of stressful or traumatic relationship they had with their family. The stories weren’t particularly deep or subtle, and the solutions were a bit simple, but I found the hopeful message and the focus on healing and being true to yourself refreshing to watch.  7/10 Crunchyroll 

12. Dr. Stone S2 – While I enjoy this series about restarting civilization after the world’s population is mysteriously petrified, I don’t love it as much as most other anime fans seem to. The individual science projects where Senku builds some sort of modern object like walkie-talkies or a tank using only the primitive materials he and his friends can scavenge from the environment are entertaining and interesting, and I definitely enjoy all the different characters in the fairly large cast. However, the animation verges on slideshow at times, and while I get that the show needs some sort of conflict, the “war” with the nation of anti-science meatheads never really excited me. 7/10 Crunchyroll, Funimation

13. So I’m a Spider, So What? Ep.1-12 – This isekai about a girl reincarnated as a sentient spider in another world reminded me a little bit of Kingdom season 1 in that I really enjoyed the story and the characters, but the CG was right at the edge of what I could stand to look at. It doesn’t really break any new ground in the isekai genre, as both reincarnating as a monster and having the fantasy world governed by RPG-style rules and stats have been done before, but it is the first series I’ve seen where a whole group of kids got isekai’d together. Major props to the voice actress for the titular spider for carrying the show with her monologue and discussions with herself without other characters to play off of. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in the second half as the war between the factions heats up. 7/10 Crunchyroll 

14. 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team – It’s hard for a sports series about volleyball to escape being compared to Haikyuu, but I was ready to give this a chance hoping for a more drama-oriented than action-focused story. It started off pretty well with hints of interesting backstories for the main characters, and I liked the art and animation quite a bit. However, the pacing never felt quite right with lots of time skips, big and small, breaking up the story and preventing any tension from building. In the end, it was a perfectly serviceable sports series, with all the tropes and story beats you’d expect, that never really sets itself apart from the genre. 7/10 Funimation

15. Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki – I hadn’t planned to watch this light novel adaptation about an elite gamer with zero social skills getting life coaching from a girl in his class because it looked like one of those dime-a-dozen harem romcoms where a loser boy is inexplicably surrounded by cute girls who want him. While the loser boy was inexplicably surrounded by cute girls, they didn’t want him and he didn’t seem particularly interested either. What it ended up being was a fairly thoughtful look at how social circles work and how to navigate them. I thought it did a good job of showing both the strengths and the limits of Aoi’s philosophy of approaching social life like a video game and the friendships between the boys and the girls were a lot of fun, but every episode had one moment of industrial-strength cringe that made me wince. 7/10 Funimation

16. Log Horizon S3 – Season 3 of this story about players trapped inside a video game was as good and as frustrating as the previous two seasons. I still enjoyed the politics where Shiroe navigates the upheaval in the city and manages to come out on top with a new government, and I also liked the fight scenes where characters struggle against ever-evolving enemies. However, the kids are still kind of annoying, and that weird love triangle was such a waste of time and energy. 6/10 Funimation

 

 

17. Otherside Picnic – This yuri-scented light novel adaptation about two college students who repeatedly visit an alternate dimension populated by various urban legends wasn’t all that bad, but the best way to ruin a horror story is to show the monster, and all of the monsters got a lot of screen time. There’s hardly any development of Sorawo and Toriko’s character motivations or their relationship, and if the show hadn’t been tagged as yuri, I’m not sure I would’ve guessed their relationship was meant to be romantic based on how they act towards each other in the anime. To top it all off, they adapted the novels out of order for some reason, cutting whatever tension remained after showing the silly monsters by introducing head-scratching plot holes. 6/10 Funimation

18. Hortensia Saga – I went into this expecting a generic fantasy about warring factions within a kingdom, and I got pretty much what I expected. The factions were all well-defined and distinct from each other and the power struggle between them was interesting, since, for the most part, none of them were totally good or totally evil. The voice acting was surprisingly good, but the art and animation was kind of flat and uninspired, and the ending felt like the bad end you’d get in a video game after making bad choices, despite the anime characters making the good choices, which was kind of unsatisfying. 6/10 Funimation

19. Back Arrow Ep.1-12 – In a lot of ways, this fantasy-set mecha original series reminds me of the toy commercial cartoon shows of the 80’s and 90’s. The colors are bright, the costumes are kind of silly, the acting is hammed-up a bit, the good guys are very good, the bad guys are very bad, and big robots fight each other while shouting their conviction at their opponent. It’s fine and fun and all, but there’s not much to it. 6/10 Funimation

 

 

20. Wonder Egg Priority – This sci-fi drama started off really promising, but ultimately devolved into a hot mess of sexism and plain bad writing that too many people have convinced themselves is deep because innocent people suffer and the art and animation is really good. You could argue that it’s a little unfair to rate and review it now, since the true final episode has been delayed until the end of June due to production problems, but thanks to a late plot twist and an overall lack of care and sensitivity for their handling of sexual assault, transphobia, and suicide, I can confidently say there’s nothing in that episode that can rescue this story for me. It’s a story about the unique trials of girlhood written by a man, and it shows. 5/10 Funimation

21. Jobless Reincarnation – There was a lot I really enjoyed about this adaptation of a foundational reincarnation isekai light novel. The art and animation for both the characters and the backgrounds were stunning, the voice acting was excellent, and the plot did a good job of making you excited for and curious about what would happen next. HOWEVER, the elephant in the room here is the main character was an unemployed shut-in and trashbag human who was reincarnated into a world where he can indulge his straight-up disgusting pedophile fantasies without facing any repercussions. And lest you forget that child Rudy who is stealing panties and putting his hands on a sleeping pre-teen girl has the mind and memories of a 40-year-old man, his thoughts are narrated by Tomokazu Sugita in his deep, mature-sounding voice. Usually I’d be able to watch around gross behavior like that, but something about the cheeky narration just made the whole thing disgusting. 5/10 Funimation, Hulu

22. Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town? – One virtue of these long-ass light novel titles is they do save me the trouble of writing out a summary for the plot. It does what it says on the tin, which would be fine, but I found pretty much all of the jokes dreadfully unfunny, and that’s sort of a problem for a comedy series. If you like basic fantasy, and harems with a dense af main character, this is probably passable fare, but some of the voices cut through my head like a knife and the main character’s cluelessness really tested my patience by the end. 5/10 Funimation

What I Watched This Week – 4/18-4/24

Mekakucity Actors – I pretty much only watched this because Crunchyroll announced it was leaving the platform and the summary looked mildly interesting, so I figured I’d check it out while it was available. What ended up happening was that I noticed every single little Shaftian visual tic, from that weird broken neck, over the shoulder pose to the bizarre closeups of peoples’ inner eyes to the constant jumping between camera angles, and they all drove me straight up a wall when mixed with a downright incoherent sci-fi plot involving inherited superpowers. The light novels seem to have a high rating, so I can only assume this was a bad adaptation, but it was not very much fun to watch. 5/10

Millennium Actress – For reasons unclear to me, I made it to the big age of 40 without ever seeing a Satoshi Kon movie until I watched this last week. I’ve clearly not been living my best life, because I absolutely loved this movie about an elderly actress reflecting on her life and career. The way it blurred reality and memory as well as mixing up real and fictional memories seemed the perfect way to tell a story about remembering the past, as nobody remembers anything in a straight line. I’m going to have to find the rest of his movies if they’re all this beautiful and thoughtful. 9/10

Armored Trooper VOTOMS – My foray into classic mecha anime continued with this 1983 series about a special forces soldier betrayed by the army and left to fend for himself as various factions pursue him across the galaxy. It’s from the same era as Gundam and Macross, and also spawned lots of OVA and movie sequels, but it’s a lot different from the other two in tone, as it’s a bit grittier and more pessimistic. Our protagonist is a teenager, like in the other two series, but this time he’s been a soldier for years, which has left him disillusioned and a bit cold to other people. I enjoyed the action and the push and pull between the different powers, from corrupt police to rebel generals to shadowy quasi-religious societies, as they tried to capture and/or kill the main character. I was just a little sick of the brassy soundtrack at the end of 52 episodes, and could have done without some of the strobe effects they used, especially in the opening, that bothered my eyes. 7/10

What I Watched This Week – 4/11-4/17

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

What I Watched This Week – 4/4-4/10

Princess Nine – I had really hoped to enjoy this late-90s series about a girls’ baseball team aiming to take on the boys at Koshien, but I found it kind of disrespectful of female athletes, and the second half of the story was overpowered by a romantic side plot that was, quite frankly, super annoying. I didn’t have a problem with the idea of a girls’ team competing against boys, but I had a hard time with the idea of girls who were new to baseball being able to compete against boys who’d been given every opportunity to play their entire lives. The main character had a martyr streak that really grated on my nerves, and she didn’t ever seem to learn from it and curb her urge to put everyone else’s feelings before her own, making the drama pretty repetitive. 6/10 Crunchyroll

Princess Mononoke – The last time I watched this movie, I think Clinton was still president, so I figured it was time to give it another viewing. Thematically it has a lot in common with Nausicaä, with a conflict between a small clan living in harmony with the natural world and a larger community intent on subjugating it, and it’s pretty clear who the good guys are here. It’s as pretty as Ghibli movies usually are, although not quite as mind-blowing as I remember it feeling when I watched it 20 years ago. 9/10 HBO Max, Netflix

Humanity Has Declined – Every once in a while I watch a show and I enjoy it, but I couldn’t explain it to anyone or say exactly why I liked it. In this case I could point to the delightfully cheery art and coloring, or the wry observational humor, or the unusual non-linear storytelling, or the cute little faeries and their well-meaning mischief, or that Miyuki Sawashiro does one of the voices, but I’d be hard-pressed to choose what specifically made the show so great.  8/10 HIDIVE

Shirobako – I was a little worried about watching an original anime about a studio making an original anime in that it might either get a little too explain-y or too inside baseball, but it manages to strike an almost perfect balance between giving insight into the industry and staying entertaining. While the show follows five friends who were in the anime club together in high school, the story centers on one woman who is an entry-level production assistant at a medium-sized animation studio. Her specific duties and the company processes are unique to anime production, but the various employees and interpersonal conflicts, friendships, and drama are completely relatable to anyone who’s ever worked in an office. When the show ended, I was sad to say goodbye to the characters, and I totally want a spinoff series of Goth Lolita Koshien. 8/10 HIDIVE