What I Watched This Week – 4/23-4/29

Technoroid: Overmind – I saw that Anime Feminist chose this as one of their five recommended titles from the winter 2023 season, and decided to give it a try so I could see if it was as bonkers a pick as it seemed to be. I wouldn’t have put it on my own list of standouts, but I did find it entertaining, if a bit shallow. I thought the music was above average for an idol show, the character designs were distinctive, the voice acting had the right amount of personality to it, and the characters were easy to root for. The sci-fi angle wasn’t terribly deep, and the racism allegory with the android persecution movement was pretty simplistic and wrapped up a little too neatly, but it was a perfectly pleasant story about five nice boys doing their best. 7/10

KonoSuba Movie – Legend of Crimson – This series continues to make me laugh despite my better judgement. None of the characters are entirely likeable on their own, but the way they play off against each other when they’re together just feels right. They’re cowards, liars, and weirdos, but they always come through for each other in their own way. I thought the visuals were nice in this movie, too, with lots of fun distorted reaction frames and some nicely drawn fight scenes with creative enemy designs and resolutions only this group could pull off. 7/10

Cardcaptor Sakura, Ep.51-70 – I don’t know how I missed the memo that this was possibly the most wholesomely bisexual anime out there, but had I known, I’d have watched this years ago. There were parts of this series I didn’t care for, like Sakura’s whining, or how anti-climactic both major boss fights felt, but taken as a whole, I really enjoyed the ride. The visuals are fantastic, as cel animation generally looks great when it’s remastered for HD, and the character designs still look fresh 25 years later. It does an admirable job of managing a fairly large cast of characters, giving even minor characters some space to develop and add to the story. I really enjoyed Sakura’s relationship with her brother, a realistic-feeling mix of teasing and genuine caring, as well as the many romantic entanglements that came and went over the course of the story. All told, this was a fun action/adventure shoujo with some characters I won’t forget any time soon. 8/10

What I Watched This Week – 4/16-4/22

WWW.Wagnaria!! – This took a bit to get started for me, as the beginning leaned a bit too heavily into how wacky the cast of characters was before I had a chance to get to know them. The jokes started to land better for me after I became more familiar with everyone and they began to feel more like people than zany stereotypes. The one thing this series and the series it’s spun off of does just about perfectly is how it captures the way everyone in these sort of part-time jobs full of people under thirty are all sleeping with each other. Shows with multiple ships can feel contrived sometimes, but the forced proximity of a family restaurant backroom makes all the pairings feel perfectly natural, even if the characters are a bit odd. 7/10

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: The Movie – Scarlet Bond – While I enjoyed this, I don’t really have much to say about it. It introduces a new character related to the Kijin crew that survived the attack on the ogre village who is now living in a neighboring kingdom in service to the young queen who named him. The movie then follows Rimuru et al as they involve themselves in the kingdom’s problems and solve them all. Nothing particularly deep or thoughtful, and there was a Fairy Tail-level death scene fakeout or two, but I had fun. 7/10

Cardcaptor Sakura Ep.26-50 – The girls’ whining is still a little grating for me, but I’m really enjoying this classic shoujo action/adventure. I like the characters and how they play off each other: Xiaolang torn between his two crushes, Tomoyo and her wide selection of magical girl costumes, Chiharu always dragging the recreational liar Takashi away, and so on. Sakura and her brother have one of my favorite sibling relationships in anime, with just the right mix of teasing, button-pushing, and genuine affection. I’m a little dubious about what’s happening after collecting all the Clow cards, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy it all in the end.

What I Watched This Week – 4/9-4/15

Cardcaptor Sakura Ep. 1-25 – Of all the 90s shoujo I’ve watched, I’m enjoying this the most, but I continue to not understand the hold these series have on people today, because oh my God, could 90s shoujo heroines whine. Other than the constant whining, and insisting that “oh my God I could never solve this problem I have the magical powers necessary to solve”, I’m enjoying the cast of characters and the funny little monster of the week predicaments they get into. I think the animation looks fantastic, as stuff from this era usually does when it’s remastered for HD, and the costume designs are really cute. I am amused that her rival for her crush is another boy, although it’s pretty clear right off the bat that her crush isn’t gonna work out. I’m less amused with her parents’ relationship, as any way I do that age math, I want dad nowhere near young women in the future.

Yamada’s First Time: B Gata H Kei – This raunchy little comedy about a first-year high school girl with more libido than brains started out really funny, but ended up limping over the finish line. I enjoyed Yamada’s hare-brained attempts to get laid despite not knowing the first thing about romance or relationships or just about anything. She was surrounded by a cast of amusing characters, from the level-headed friend who tried her hardest to rein her in, to the ultra-rich girl competing with her to be the queen of the school, to the earnest boy Yamada set her sights on to lose her virginity to. Where it started to fall apart for me was the final third of the series, where she turns on this intense tsundere act towards the boy she was trying to get with that just felt cruel, and like she was toying with him. At that point, it started feeling repetitive more than amusing, but I mostly had a fun time. 6/10

Winter 2023 Anime Roundup

Anime of the Season – Tsurune S2

I hadn’t watched season one, so I did not plan to watch this show this season, but all the gorgeous screenshots and gifs on Tumblr got to me, and I watched the entire series during the last week of the season. Hilarious, honestly, that the show I wasn’t even going to pick up ended up being my favorite of the season.

As good as the first season was, this was an upgrade on pretty much every front. All of the intersecting relationships between the characters at different schools made for more interesting and more grounded drama than the previous season. The art and animation both absolutely sparkled, and the sound design made you feel like you were watching in person. In particular, the spat between the two cousins/best friends on the team made for one of my favorite episodes this season. Something about how realistic their disagreement was, pushing each others’ buttons like only lifelong friends can do, and the way they resolved it by tiring themselves out in a tense archery duel that ended with a fit of the giggles, just thoroughly charmed me. I adored all of these characters, and I hope we’ll see more from the franchise. 9/10

First Runner-Up – Tomo-chan Is a Girl!

I had my doubts about this early in the series, with all the boob jokes and efforts to make Tomo girlier, but they were all gone by the end. It was just a solid romcom about a loveable group of lunatics that actively affirmed that Tomo was perfect the way she was. 8/10

Second Runner-Up – Buddy Daddies

The hitman content was not as good as the stuff about two single men in their twenties suddenly grappling with the minutia of parenting a five-year-old girl, but I was entertained week after week, and thought they did a good job sticking the landing. 8/10

IDOLiSH7 Third BEAT! Part 2 – Idol shows have a reputation for being harmless vehicles for hot guys/girls, but wherever that idea came from, it absolutely does not apply to this show, which repeatedly punched me in the gut and made me feel. Ryu is a top-ten hateable villain, for sure. 8/10

Play It Cool, Guys – I believe this was pretty popular in Japan, as it’s also getting a live-action drama, so I hope that means we can look forward to more relaxing, lightly amusing shows about cute guys doing cute things in the future. I just really enjoyed watching a handful of fairly normal dudes bumble around. 8/10

Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro S2 – As much as this series is a comedy first and foremost, I just really love the relationship between Nagatoro and Senpai. Their dynamic is so playful, and they have great chemistry along with a genuine friendship. 8/10

The Vampire Dies in No Time S2 – Season 1 was a little uneven with the jokes, but this season was consistently funny, episode after episode. The character interactions hit better once you’re more acquainted with everyone, and the silly situations were just better this time around. 8/10

In/Spectre S2 – The end of season one dragged quite a bit with the Steel Lady Nanase arc, but this series was made up entirely of shorter, three-episode arcs that made the best use of the medium and the characters. Kotoko is the tiny, thirsty queen we need in these troubled times. 7/10

“Ippon” Again! – For years now, I’ve been wanting a serious girls sports anime that wasn’t an anodyne cute girls doing cute things show, and this pretty much gave me what I was looking for. The judo matches had a nice level of tension and excitement to them, and the girls were free to get intense, work hard, and not look particularly pretty while doing it. 7/10

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale – This sat at the top of the chart for me this season, until the final episode had me ready to take my earrings out and square up. The infuriating story decision isn’t necessarily irredeemable, so I will watch part two this summer to see what they do, but my expectations are low. 7/10

The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague – This was more of a vibe than it was a story, but I enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of a bunch of yokai who are otherwise bog-basic office workers interacting with their human coworkers. 7/10

Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun S3 – My love for Iruma and all his friends knows no bounds, and I’m really hoping for a season four, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the harvest festival arc felt really padded and dragged out in this season. 7/10

My Hero Academia S6 – This season had some pretty epic fights and story developments, including a resolution of sorts for Todoroki’s family situation and a boiling point for Deku’s self-destructive selflessness, but it was a little uncomfortable to watch the angry citizens portrayed as ingrates. It had a whiff of “Blue Lives Matter” to it. 7/10

Malevolent Spirits: Mononogatari – In many ways, this is just a basic off-brand action shounen with a blunt main character taking his anger out on everyone he fights on a quest for revenge, but I think the female lead and her retinue of tsukumogami adds enough novelty to keep things interesting. I look forward to watching part two. 7/10

Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte – I enjoyed the unusual approach to otome isekai in this, where two players in the real world became connected to the characters inside the game, who heard their voices as though the gods were speaking to them. It was nice to get a full adaptation of the source with multiple ships setting sail, but it started stronger than it finished. 7/10

Handyman Saitou in Another World – With the exception of two poorly paced episodes in the middle of the season that centered on a hideously animated monster in a group battle in the dungeon, this was a highly entertaining and refreshing take on isekai, with a cast of loveable characters. 7/10

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV Part 2 – If you stripped out all of the titty harem business, or just focused on building a genuine romantic connection with Ryu, this would shoot to the top of my favorite action/adventures. All of the dungeon exploration and fighting is just fantastic, with high stakes that get your blood pumping. 7/10

UniteUp! – It was feast or famine with this show. The first episode was straight up the best premiere I watched, and there were several excellent episodes where characters struggled with their families or with adjusting to working as an idol, but there were multiple production delays, some of the voice acting was fairly wooden, and there were several episodes that were merely okay. I wanted more Kacchan content! 7/10

Revenger – I can’t really argue with the people pegging this as an edgy revenge story, but I thought the main character had an interesting internal conflict, the fights were creative, and the guys were all easy on the eyes. 7/10

Kaina of the Great Snow Sea – The 3D CG animation wasn’t fantastic, and the second half that focused on a war between two remaining kingdoms was a little blah, but the setting was imaginative, the backgrounds were gorgeous, and the two leads had great chemistry. 7/10

The Fire Hunter – On the one hand, I really love the world building and all the intersecting plots going on in this post-apocalyptic fantasy. On the other hand, a number of questionable artistic choices mingle with straight up sloppy work to make the visual presentation an extremely mixed bag. 7/10

By the Grace of the Gods S2 – This is one of those shows that I can’t quite bring myself to call “good”, because the animation and art are just meh and the story is barely a story, but the vibe is so chill and the characters are so nice that watching it every week felt healing. 6/10

Giant Beasts of Ars – This is one of those fantasy shows that entertained me while I was was watching it, but I will likely never think about again. It had some creative world building, I enjoyed the adventuring party that formed around the main characters, and the voice acting was solid. 6/10

Ningen Fushin: Adventurers Who Don’t Believe in Humanity Will Save the World – If they didn’t decide to tie one of the main characters’ backstories to a false accusation of sexual abuse by a spiteful child, I would have enjoyed this fantasy adventure series about a party united by their histories of being betrayed by those they trusted a lot more. 6/10

Trigun Stampede – Having enjoyed the original anime and everything else this studio has done, I expected to enjoy this. While I didn’t hate it, something about the story and characters just didn’t click with me, and I didn’t like how they animated the characters’ faces when they were talking. 6/10

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement – I am sort of in awe of the author’s sheer audacity in taking the colonialist power fantasy subtext of modern isekai and making it bright, glowing, neon text. Not a good show, but an entertaining one. 6/10

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady – I really wanted to love this one, but I thought the writing was a bit of a mess with inconsistent characterization, elements introduced then quickly forgotten about, and a underdeveloped romance that felt unearned. 6/10

What I Watched This Week – 4/2-4/8

Uncle From Another World – It’s a shame this show had so many production issues, because it was an entirely delightful take on isekai and nostalgia for late 90s video games. I really enjoyed the conceit of viewing an isekai adventure through the lens of the isekaied person recounting the events the way people narrate their vacation photos. I know the art and animation occasionally melted down, but I thought the visuals were above average on the whole, with several fights that blended 2D and 3D animation pretty well. More importantly, the characters played really well off of each other, with Koyasu and Fukuyama the perfect voice actors for the uncle and nephew, as both actors excel at delivering zany comedy with a straight face. 8/10

Kaguya-sama: Love is War – The First Kiss That Never Ends – I thought I was getting tired of this series and how everyone hypes it to the high heavens, but any time I watch it I always end up laughing out loud and falling in love with the characters all over again. Chibi Kaguya had me snickering in the beginning, Kaguya’s inner turmoil represented in her head as a court trial provided an amusing transition into a more dramatic stretch of the story, and the resolution of the tension and miscommunication between the two leads was incredibly satisfying. Additionally, I’m even more interested now in Ishigami and his complicated ties to Iino and Tsubame. I really want more of that plotline. 9/10

Galaxy Express 999 Ep. 61-81 – I think I am going to put this on hold for a bit. I just don’t think an episodic anime like this benefits from watching it straight through like I have been. Even if Matsumoto’s politics weren’t in conflict with my own, each of the stories follows a similar pattern: They arrive at a new planet, they run into some sort of trouble with the inhabitants, the resolution involves some sort of moral lesson, and they escape in time to hop on the train just as it leaves. I don’t think having a pattern is necessarily a bad thing, but it feels repetitive when you watch 20 episodes at a time.