Winter of 2025 anime, from my most favorite to least favorite
from AnimeZone
New entries are here, folks.
This will be my list for the 2025 winter anime, that began airing in January of 2025.
As with previous blog entries, this write-up will cover only anime that I have watched on Crunchyroll from Romania so, whether you yourself will be able to watch these shows from your country, is not guaranteed.
For this blog post, I'll only be covering 7 anime in total. There was one additional show I planned on watching, which was Fate/strange Fake but, alas, that TV series had only aired one episode until now, with the second episode rumored to come out later this year.
So, since I don't like writing about TV series for which I haven't finished watching the full season yet, I will be omitting Fate from this ranking.
With that said, let's get started!
1. The Apothecary Diaries (Season 2 part 1)
This is my review of the second season of this show. If you want to know my thoughts on the first season, please click here.
As was announced, this show got renewed for a second 24 episode season.
It's generally quite rare to see 24 episode anime nowadays. I really don't know why, but I'm guessing it's due to budget limitations.
Most animation companies would rather only spend enough money for a 12 episode season, check to see how popular the show gets and, only if there is enough interest from the general public will they then spend more money on that property.
Thankfully, this show is an exception to that rule, as it got a 24 episode season the first time around and now it got renewed for another one.
And, I'm glad to say that they did not diminish in quality this new season, either.
Whereas last season, the show covered Maomao's past and her family connections, this new one covers Jinshi's past and his background, as a character.
Also, Maomao will have to solve even more mysteries around the palace, this time involving a covert attempt at causing a miscarriage, solving the puzzle involving the royal lineage and its secretive selection process, a scary encounter involving ghost stories around a fireplace and, of course, another assassination attempt against a high ranking official.
As expected, this new season pulled all the punches and kept the whole medical mysteries and political power struggles at the forefront of the story.
There is also a bit more development involving the relationship between Maomao and Jinshi, which I've never really cared much about during the first season but they were clearly hinting even back then about it, but I understand that having a main couple could very well be an additional selling point for this story.
I don't particularly ship Jinshi and Maomao together, but I also don't dislike seeing them together either (which is more than I can say about other anime that I have watched).
Either way, I loved this new season, and I'm really looking forward towards its next half.
2. I Got Married to the Girl I Hate Most in Class
It's time for an overview of one of the shows I enjoyed the most watching this lineup.
It's hard to properly describe how much I missed a good TV series like this one. I generally don't talk like that when it comes to harem anime (and it's usually because they are some of the most cliched out of all the anime during their respective lineup), but this time I actually enjoyed this show a lot.
If I had one word to convey to you my feeling regarding this show, that word would be “refreshing”. Yes, this was a refreshing experience in my mind, at least.
Let me describe to you the plot of the first episode.
Saito Hōjō is the grandson of a very rich and powerful man who controls a large company. Saito goes to school, as usual, has excellent memory and recollection skills and, as such, he does very well on his tests.
In fact, he's first in his class. However, he has a rival that wants to dethrone him from that position: a girl named Akane Sakuramori, who hates him. The feeling is reciprocated.
The two constantly bicker and argue during breaks, they never get along at all, so much so that their interactions are now seen as comedy routines for the rest of their class.
One day, Saito's very rich grandfather, invites him to his home to discuss affairs.
Once he arrives there, he is surprised to discover that Akane is also there, along with her own grandmother.
Apparently Akane and her grandma were also summoned by Saito's grandfather, who had apparently known the two for some time.
His grandfather then explains to everyone how he and Akane's grandma had known each other during their childhoods as well. They were a good match for each other but were too prideful to engage into a relationship. As the years passed, so did their opportunity to hook up and eventually they ended up marrying other people instead.
Now, regretting their past decisions, the two wish to “pass on” that opportunity by forcing their grandchildren to marry each other instead.
Naturally, both Saito and Akane are appalled by their sudden decision and immediately try to resist it.
Still, his grandfather threatens Saito to exclude him from inheriting his giant company if he refuses this arrangement, something that Saito obviously would want to avoid at all costs.
Akane's grandma also gives her an ultimatum of her own if she refuses the marriage, although what she tells her to manipulate her is not revealed to Saito or to us.
Seeing how everything is against them, Saito and Akane are given a twenty four hour deadline to decide on which path they wish to take.
The two obviously hate each other, and are very reluctant on going forward with their plan, but, at the same time, they know they're trapped in their grandparents' web.
Their grandparents also reveal that they had bought a house for the two, where they can spend their married lives in (and they had also taken the liberty of moving all of their stuff into it in the meantime). If they accept the marriage offer, they will not only have to start living together in that house all alone, but also be forced to sleep together, at night, in the same bed (apparently Saito's grandpa has ways of knowing whether they break this rule or not).
As the two think carefully and weigh all their options, the next day comes and they reveal to their grandparents that they decided to go along with the marriage.
Their grandparents then submit a legal form that makes it official and they immediately move in.
Obviously Saito and Akane have second thoughts about all of this but they decide to go forward with it anyways.
However, there is one rule they set out for each other: they must keep their marriage a secret from their peers.
That's the summary.
OK, I will say that I usually hate these types of stories where the main couple hates each other but are forced into marriage by circumstances outside their control.
A good example of this was last season's Yakuza Fiancee that used this exact plot point. I find it cliched, boring and uninspired.
However, thankfully that's the only thing about this plot that I find unoriginal. Everything else, from the characters and their backstories and motivations, to Saito and Akane's relationship with each other were excellently done.
Oh yeah and, obviously, this is a harem anime as well.
The first episode doesn't make that obvious but there will be other girls that will show up down the line, including Saito's younger cousin named Shisei who's an incredible genius that knows everything but who also likes to be spoiled by him all the time and Akane's best friend and classmate named Himari, who also secretly has a crush on Saito.
Despite the dramatic undertones of this story, this is mostly a comedy of sorts. In fact, the nature of the characters and how exaggerated they are, such as Akane's very stereotypical tsundere demeanor, Shisei's very emotionless expressions and Himari's overly optimistic behavior always end up putting these characters in weird situations with each other.
In fact, given how fun Shisei and Himari are, I'd even go so far as saying that Saito and Akane are the most boring characters in this show, given how he's the stereotypical know-it-all calm genius and gets everything right on his tests and has impeccable memory and Akane is simply the tsundere that tries too hard to hate him but secretly develops feelings for him.
The closest plot that did something similar to this show was another anime I've written a blog post for called My Stepmom's Daughter Is My Ex, back from the summer of 2022. That show had the two main characters be the exact same stereotypes that these two had but, unlike that show, Saito and Akane thankfully do have chemistry.
In My Stepmom's Daughter Is My Ex the main couple were so annoying in their hate for each other, constantly arguing over the littlest of things and making mountains out of molehills that I eventually began despising their relationship, hoping for them to break up and never be together.
And yes, it's a very big problem when the show is a romance but me, the audience, was hoping for the main couple to break up. That goes against the entire purpose of a romance, obviously.
Here, yeah the main couple hate each other's guts, this is true. But, as the episodes go by and they learn to live together, they start to tolerate each other, observe each other's good sides as well, and begin solving problems and their differences through communication. They set up house rules so that they can properly live a normal life, they try to look at things from the other's perspectives and learn.
These are things that I have not seen My Stepmom's Daughter Is My Ex ever do. And you know what? I appreciated it took the time to develop the characters in these ways.
This was a show that I initially did not want to see the characters together but, as time went on, I began to hope for them to actually end up in a proper relationship. I actually wanted for them to be happy together.
That is an accomplishment.
I have not been this happy with a harem TV series since Girlfriend, girlfriend finished its second season, and I was very much impressed with it. It was original, it had made me very interested in seeing how the characters evolved and I was very much satisfied with the last episode and hoping for a new season to be announced.
Technically there is also Mushoku Tensei that also is a harem and was more recent than Girlfriend, girlfriend but that one I hardly consider a harem, even though it technically is, given how serious the story is.
But alas, this was a very wonderful experience.
The ending for this show was also quite shocking, and left me wanting for more. I can't spoil what it entailed but it did thankfully go against the flow and shook things up a bit when it decided to not go a specific cliched route, which is something I very much appreciate.
All in all, this was a very enjoyable experience and I very much hope we'll get to see a new season, at some point.
3. Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective
Ever wondered what Dr. House, the anime, would be like?
This is in that style.
Out of all the anime on this list, this is one I felt I wanted the most to criticize.
There's many reasons for why that is, reasons that I'll highlight soon enough but, in hindsight, this did not come to fruition.
While I do believe that this anime is underwhelming, for a wide variety of reasons, it ultimately proved to be not only passable in terms of quality, but even enjoyable to watch.
Let's start with episode 1.
The story focuses on a young genius doctor called Takao Ameku who works at Tenikai General Hospital as director of investigative pathology, a relatively small department for said hospital.
There, she works alongside a young assistant of hers named Yu Takanashi.
Takao is very good at diagnosing patients who give all the other doctors at their hospital a hard time with their complicated cases, which she excels at.
She wishes for Yu to follow in her footsteps and learn from her to become just as good at diagnosing others as she is.
The first episode is about an emergency case in which a young individual that's on the verge of death is brought to the hospital, in a grave condition, with a foot completely broken off and blue blood in his system.
Takao will have to investigate what exactly happened to this individual and this will eventually lead her to discuss with police about the possibility of this being a homicide, as well as getting involved with a T-rex relic.
I won't go any further than this, to avoid spoilers.
So yeah, the show has a very interesting premise, to say the least.
All things considered, I will admit that this show is pretty good.
It kept me asking questions all the way and, I will not lie, there are very fancy stories packed in it, such as a story about a deadly curse that causes all the people who visit a specific grave to become gravely ill, a video that, when watched, causes the person that viewed it to commit suicide, a man who seemingly drowned in a completely dry locked room and the case of a strange apparition of an angel visiting a dying child in his hospital room.
The show likes to use paranormal as the premise for the story, with Ameku then having to come in and provide logical explanations for the bizarre events that had transpired.
These explanations will involve advanced knowledge of anatomy, chemistry, sometimes even physics.
Honestly, I really like this formula. I like it when a new case is presented as being seemingly impossible to be scientifically dissected and then a genius doctor comes in and solves the mystery just with her brilliant mind and ability to pay attention to details.
Most of the episodes I really was on the edge of my seat, always wondering how she's gonna solve this one, and then impressed by how good she is at solving the case before her.
The show also took the time to go into the hardships of being a doctor in the first place, as well, such as discussing about what happens when a doctor forms an emotional bond with a patient and the consequences that that can have on them when tragedy strikes.
Overall, this was a very good show. However, I will also say that, despite its impressive ideas, it was also quite lackluster in execution in certain areas too.
For one, I really felt like Ameku's character felt a bit too inconsistent. When she's supposedly set on exploring a certain idea or handling a specific case, she's very calculated and focused, always optimizing for the most effective route for solving a specific problem, never batting an eye about how difficult or implausible the solution seems. She just marches straight towards the closest solution at hand.
On the other hand, during the angel arc, in which there's a case of a patient that's slowly dying, Ameku started acting very irrational and completely emotional, which hampered her usual brilliant mind.
This felt very inconsistent and a betrayal of her character.
I understand emotional attachment and how that can sometimes impede on taking the most logical actions but, during that specific arc, Ameku was behaving so much out of character and so odd that it really felt like she was an entirely different character altogether.
It's likely that the plot was trying to humanize her and show her vulnerability but that contrast was so strong that to me, as a viewer, it felt like her characterization had broken down and her portrayal was inaccurate.
The whole “strong woman” idea that seems to have been the basis for her character had suddenly and conveniently been forgotten just for that one arc, to show her as vulnerable and sensitive, an idea that truly felt out of place.
Then, there's the opposite issue of how intelligent she is portrayed. Usually I like characters that are very competent and have a rather impressive amount of foresight, who are problem solvers and have impressive critical thinking and pay attention to details. However, for Ameku specifically, this goes way beyond what most normal humans are capable of.
I also had this problem with a different show, called Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective, that also had an anime adaptation that I discussed on this blog, in which the main character, Ron, a genius detective, had an incredible amount of foresight and could focus on details so minute that no normal human being would normally focus on and pay any amount of attention to, and yet he did.
That allowed him to come to conclusions that nobody else came to, always allowing him to be one step ahead of everyone else.
That, to me, felt unrealistic. Still, that show, at the very least, had a quirky style to it, in which characters were clearly exaggerated in their personality archetypes and also were up to wacky antics (especially Ron) which made it clear that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. Furthermore, the Ron wasn't the only one who was useful in that show and, at least thanks to that show's second season, other characters had ended up proving to be useful beside him, giving him a helping hand, which offset his incredible skills and showed that he was only human in a believable and consistent way.
In Ameku, though, these things don't happen. Ameku rarely receives help from the other characters that's significant (the only exceptions are when Yu uses his martial arts to physically restrain violent individuals), her almost always single-handedly solving the case without much other input. Worse, this show is clearly meant to be taken very seriously and is by no means exaggerated or cartoonish, which means that I am genuinely supposed to believe that all of these other doctors, who have medical licenses and are very intelligent, end up being as useless and incompetent until Ameku flies in to save the day.
I can believe certain scenarios and suspend my disbelief somewhat but when I see a character as intelligent as her, be the only one that has the foresight to figure things out all the time with no help whatsoever and be the only one that notices things that nobody else picks up on, every single time, it becomes very off-putting.
I mean, at one point, Ameku was even capable of predicting what other characters were literally thinking, without having any ways of knowing that, effectively seemingly mind reading their thoughts and intentions. Like, I'm sorry but there's only so much I can believe before it becomes ridiculous.
While I'm all for having a genius protagonist doing all the heavy lifting in advancing the plot, their capabilities still need to at least feel human. There's only so far raw intuition alone can get you.
But alas, despite its flaws, the show was still a fun watch.
While I can criticize all the bad things that they were doing, it ended up being quite entertaining.
And, honestly, what more can I ask from it?
If there will ever be a new season of this, I will surely want to watch it.
4. Momentary Lily
It's been awhile since I've discussed an original anime TV series in this blog.
This one is very interesting.
Out of all the shows from this season's lineup, I can safely say that this is the strangest one, by far.
I remember reading somewhere on the web that this is technically a magical girl anime and, I guess to some extent, that might be true, but that name doesn't even remotely do justice in describing what this show feels like.
Some people might say it's a magical girl, but I very much doubt that this show is the first thing that will pop in viewer's heads when they are told about that genre.
Rather, the best way I can describe this show is that it's some weird mishmash of a scifi dystopian plot involving a small group teenage girls, all with their own unique personalities, who like to make small talk and live their lives in youthful ways, crossed with short episodic cooking segments that got crammed into it.
This has to be the outcome of a chart meeting in which studio heads tried to combine ideas over what the most financially profitable show that would yield good TV ratings would look like, and them just going with the first candidate they could brainstorm together.
To this day, I'm still not convinced that what I had witnessed wasn't actually an odd fever dream that cooked up this show.
But, before I get into it, I'll have to discuss the first episode of this show.
The Wild Hunt, which are a group of giant humanoid robots with powerful weaponry on their heads, have wiped out most of the human race.
The Wild Hunt now roam the various cities around the world, still searching for the remainder of the few humans that are still around.
The cities, themselves, continue to function as normal, without the humans that normally operate them, thanks to a very large group of miniature robots also roaming around all the time, dutifully manning and operating all the infrastructure to keep most things still going, such as electricity, drinkable tap water, gas and so on.
In this desolate reality filled with terrifying machines, a small young girl named Renge just so happens to find another group of teen girls in the same city, who were among the last survivors of the human race.
Renge, initially, is very scared of interacting with them, her being shy but, when the leader of the group finds her and introduces herself to her, Renge builds up the courage to speak with the girls there.
The group is formed of Erika (the wise elder sister stereotype), Hina (the gamer girl that talks in gamer speak and Erika's younger sister), Sazanka (the beauty and fashion obsessed one), Ayame (the responsible class rep type that's also a bit of a bookworm) and their leader, Yuri (the cheerful optimistic leader).
All of these girls somehow survived the destruction brought about by the Wild Hunt by using their Andvari, powerful weapons that they had stolen from the Wild Hunt and are able to use to defend themselves against them.
While discussing all of this stuff, new Wild Hunt spawn close to their location and the girls prepare for combat, hoping to destroy them, but Renge also spawns her own Andvari weapon (a flying hover board device) and uses it to destroy the new threats all by herself, impressing the other girls with her skills.
Apparently Renge has been alone for some time around and has no memories of her past. In fact, she doesn't even remember how she had gotten her own Andvari. She's pretty much lost and with no home or family to return to, she's been wandering around the city, aimlessly.
Seeing that she has no other goals in mind, Yuri suggests that she join their group, since they need all the help they can get in fighting the Wild Hunt and also for scavenging for food.
Also, Renge seems to be very good at cooking and she can make even the few foods they had into delicious meals.
And so, Renge joins their group.
That's the gist of episode 1.
So yeah, this is a dystopian survivor TV series where the cast is composed of teenage girls using almost magical scifi weapons against giant robots, crossed with short cooking segments by Renge, for some reason as well.
I still have no idea what this is, and I finished watching this show.
You'd think this is a light-hearted adventure where girls make small talk and discuss trendy topics while also cooking on the side (and, to some extent, it is that for like 90% of the time) but then it gets strangely very dark and somber, in which characters ended up in very dangerous situations, situations that will have dire consequences.
Also, for some reason, a lot of the backgrounds in this show are CG. The characters are hand drawn, you can tell right away, but the backgrounds are not, and you can tell from the level of detail that are given to them.
This is one of those shows that look very slick and eye catching because of that, since the high detail backgrounds with their high resolution textures will give this a unique look that I've never seen in Japanese anime before.
There were points where it was excessively used, like when they used CG tears flowing down the characters' faces, even though the characters were hand drawn, and that looked a bit weird.
But, for the most part, this show was eye candy to look at.
That and the action sequences were very impressive. I loved the fights against the robots, although they would usually end in predictable outcomes that I could see a mile away.
And, despite the style of this show being all over the place, it did eventually rely on common cliches towards the end that made it quite predictable.
But, with that said, I really loved the banter that the girls would engage in. I genuinely felt like I could connect with them. They all had very distinct personalities, they would bicker with each other, apologize later on, rely on each other, comfort each other; they all felt very human and relatable.
That's the one thing I would say this show did consistently well, besides the technical aspects like the CG backgrounds and the sound design: the characters felt human.
Sure, they're still stereotypes with very narrow personalities that have very specific interests and talk points but, deep down, I still liked seeing their friendships blossom.
And, my last talking point is the ending of season 1. This show, for better or for worse, had a very predictable ending.
I don't want to spoil it, but I will say that the fact that it was so predictable really took a lot of value away from it.
I couldn't guess the ending when I started out but, when I got to the second to last episode or even the third to last episode, I could already tell where things were going.
Some plot points were interesting, like Renge's actual background and the reason she had amnesia, the origin of her weapon and also the origin of the other girls, which kept the mystery alive and kept me glued to the show, but the predictable ending kind of killed it to me.
If what I just described to you sounds intriguing enough, go watch it! It might be worth giving the show a watch!
Just be sure to tone down your expectations for the ending or you will be sorely disappointed, like I was.
I will watch a season 2, if one were to ever come.
5. Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World (Season 3)
Another anime that ended up here, that I've only referenced in this blog but never actually got around to reviewing.
Re:Zero has historically been a very interesting case of the fantasy isekai genre. In fact, I would go so far as saying that it is arguably the most unique kind of isekai that I've seen all my life, if not the most unique of all anime.
The basic gist of the show is that a teenage Japanese boy was walking home from a trip to the grocery store, and then ends up being teleported into an entirely new world of might and magic out of the blue, filled with beast men of various races, a lot of otherworldly politics and power struggles, curses, witches and a lot of deadly threats against his well being.
He doesn't get to live for very long, though, as he is immediately murdered by a crazy lady wielding very sharp knives.
However, he soon discovers that he has a very unique ability up his sleeve: whenever he dies, he goes back in time to a last specific “save” point, where he gets to resume living his life from. He doesn't get to control when these “save” points happen though, and he will always go back to the last one.
Using this and his very straightforward ingenuity and resourcefulness, this boy, named Subaru Natsuki, will have to figure out how to avoid dying painful deaths as much as he can.
That's the gist of the first episode from season 1 of the show.
What this blog post is about is season 3. In this new season, we cover the events at the Watergate City, a complex city that has a very intricate irrigation system and that's under the control of Priestella.
I won't go into too many spoilers but I will say that things go awry when a specific member of the Witch's Cult shows up in that city for no apparent reason, just at the same time when Subaru's party also arrives there.
And a lot of suffering ensues.
Much like the previous seasons of this show, there's a lot of backstory and details being revealed this season, including about Garfiel's past, Reinhard's family history and, of course, we also learn about a witch.
Needless to say, this season was choke full of interesting events, and I really loved reading about it.
Technically this began airing the previous season, during the fall of 2024, but only the first 6 episodes were aired back then, before it took a 3 month break. As I hate talking about incomplete seasons on this blog, I refrained from discussing it until the second half of the season also finished airing.
And it lived up to my expectations.
Surprisingly, the show has become much more tame when it comes to gore, this time around, with Subaru's deaths becoming quite infrequent and the brutality of his suffering also having been toned down quite significantly.
While I can't complain too much since, by this point, it's the story that keeps me invested rather than the disturbing ways in which the boy ends up being mauled by, it's still something worth noting if this was the main thing you were interested in viewing the show for.
Other than that, the show continued with its excellent world building, in-depth character development and nuanced plot developments.
It was a treat for the heart. I'll be eagerly awaiting another faithful season from Studio Whitefox, whenever that will come.
6. Zenshu
And yet another isekai anime to talk about.
You know, when I started watching this latest season's anime TV series lineup, I was genuinely expecting for Re:Zero to be the only isekai anime that I will be having to watch.
This show, from the preview it had on Crunchyroll, tricked me. The preview had no indications in it that this will be an isekai. It was dark and gloomy, very sober and depressing, depicting a medieval fantasy setting with death and destruction in it and that made me very curious.
At no point was there any indication in the preview that there will be an isekai component to that story.
Now, granted, the short plot summary that Crunchyroll gives to their upcoming series did seem to talk about something completely unrelated from that preview, something about an animation director that's under a lot of stress and whatnot.
Honestly, the discrepancy between the written plot summary and the video preview on Crunchyroll was so big that I genuinely thought that there had been a mistake somewhere and that the plot summary was from a different TV series, entirely.
But alas, I was the one who was mistaken all along.
I was a fool that fell into the trap, picking this anime because it looked unlike any other fantasy anime that I've ever watched before and then lo and behold, it was another isekai TV series.
And, well, after watching episode 1, I felt compelled to keep watching afterwards as well.
So, here's a short summary of what episode 1 is like.
The episode begins at an animation studio in contemporary Japan, where a young woman called Natsuko Hirose is working on their next big project that they plan to release soon.
The deadline is creeping in and the staff are very stressed about it but, the head of the company isn't very worried since Natsuko, the genius animator that works with them, is on the job and she has high hopes that Natsuko will carry them through to finishing everything in time.
Natsuko, for her part, is a disheveled, lethargic mess of a woman with very long hair that she seldom cuts only after finishing her work, as a motivation for herself to keep going, which has caused her hair to grow so much that it completely covers her face.
As Natsuko is preparing for another long day of work at her office, she gets food poisoning from eating bad food at her desk and collapses on the ground, in severe pain.
At some point afterwards, she awakens in the middle of a strange desert where she is about to be attacked by a giant insect, only for her to be saved by a hero with a sword.
The hero in question is a young man named Luke Braveheart and Natsuko immediately recognizes him from A Tale of Perishing, a movie that she had watched many years prior when she was only a little girl, a movie that, coincidentally, was the whole motivation why she had become so infatuated with animation in the first place.
Luke, along with his party of heroes that were there, see Natsuko but, due to her very long hair, confuse her for a gremlin and leave her behind as they fly back to the nearest city: Last Town.
Seeing nothing else to do, Natsuko follows them into said town.
There, there is a huge celebration for Luke's party for another victory, as everyone congratulates them for their accomplishments.
Realizing that Last Town is very much authentic and is exactly the way she remembers having seen in the movie, as a kid, Natsuko quickly picks up on the fact that she, somehow, had been transported into the world of A Tale of Perishing, and she is now reliving the entire plot of the movie.
After acknowledging this, she realizes that a large attack from the Void army, the antagonists of the movie, will take place that same day and, aware of this, she goes to Luke and his party of heroes to warn them of this upcoming threat.
Luke, however, doesn't believe her.
Still, a couple of hours later and, sure enough, Natsuko's prediction ends up becoming true and a Void army is detected approaching the town.
Luke mobilizes the hero team and go out to intercept them, as Natsuko follows them outside the town walls.
As the hero team is battling the Void army to defend the town, Natsuko's peg bar (the one she had on her before she died), begins glowing in her pocket and speaking to her, urging her to start drawing.
Realizing the urgency of the matter and seeing how the hero team is struggling, Natsuko agrees and then her peg bar transforms into a full blown animation desk, complete with a chair and many stacks of white paper for her to draw on.
Natsuko then immediately begins drawing entire animation frames on said desk, only for her drawings to then blow up and become reality, causing a giant creature to spawn from her desk and defeat the Void army on its own, saving Luke and his party.
Luke, impressed by this massive show of power, asks Natsuko who she is and where she's from. After answering very briefly, Natsuko faints and falls to the ground where her long hair opens up a bit, revealing her face. This causes Luke to realize that Natsuko was actually not a gremlin, but a human like them all along.
Thus ends episode 1.
Yeah, this show is a bit farfetched with its premise.
Leaving aside the fact that a genius animator gets teleported into a fantasy world from a movie that she had watched during her childhood, and that her peg bar that she used at her work can somehow transform into a full animation desk at any location so that she can work at, is already bad enough. But then, the fact that she can complete many frames of animation of work in just a couple of minutes each time, so that her drawings magically become alive and real and always saves the day is on a new level, altogether.
Somehow, I'm only able to suspend my disbelief only so much before it becomes ridiculous. And this, in my opinion, is a bit too ridiculous even for me.
This is the most outrageous premise for an isekai I have seen to date and trust me that that's saying something.
But, if you can somehow stomach all of that and accept it as fact, then this show might just be enjoyable for you.
The show is not a satire, nor a comedy of any kind. It takes itself 100% seriously all the time, regardless of how absurd the premise is.
That...is an intersting choice, to put it mildly.
While it's easy to dismiss it as completely insane just for that reason alone, I honestly don't know how it would be able to execute this idea any other way, in a different genre. Ironically, it taking itself as seriously as it does is the only way I personally see this working at all.
There's a lot of suspension of disbelief that the audience has to undergo for such a premise though.
However, I do really like the style that it's going for. The show will get darker and darker as it goes along, becoming more and more depressing.
That's something I generally enjoy about it, since I like the darker style, but it eventually arrives at a point where the writers feel like they wrote themselves into a corner, since there is very little the characters can do to save themselves.
This is a prime example of how power balancing can become an issue in shows like this, since Natsuko's drawing abilities are so overpowered that she can pretty much draw anything that will always be the right solution to get her and Luke's party out of any conundrum that they are facing at the moment.
While that's fine, in theory, the writes seem to realize halfway through that this is actually an issue since Natsuko always draws something to make the story work in her favor and, so, they have to nerf her towards the end of the season so that she can't use her drawing abilities anymore, and then the power balance tips into the other direction where, suddenly, everyone on her side is too weak, in contrast.
The fact is, a lot of the heroes in this story, Luke and his friends, feel very much like cannon fodder. They exist merely as plot devices to carry the story where it needs to go. When a victory is needed, they will save the day one way or another but, when the story decides that they need to be in trouble, then they get defeated very easily.
This shift in abilities and random outcomes feels so disingenuous and immersion breaking that, towards the half of the show, I was already out of it.
My main gripe with this story is that, for all that it tries to achieve by being dark and serious and gloomy and mature, it undermines by being inconsistent and too wishy-washy with its own logic and rules.
That's where it just breaks down for me. The amount of things I need to overlook just to be able to enjoy this show grows significantly with each passing episode, to the point where I just lose interest.
Oh and, not to mention, there's a romance halfway through the story as well.
I don't know where it came from or why it needs to exist, but it felt very out of place and forced just to set the story in motion to have a dark ending.
This romance had so little reason to exist, other than that ending, and there were so little chemistry between the characters, that I've found it genuinely funny. The only issue is that I don't believe it was intended to be funny.
And yeah, the romance was pretty much crammed in just two episodes of content, making it very rushed and sporadic.
Then, not to mention that there was the ending, which felt wholly unsatisfying, very pulled out of their ass, a type of ending that was written just to give some kind of conclusion to an unsatisfying story but to make it seem like there is the possibility for a season 2, in case the studio heads decide to renew it for another season.
Oh yeah and, I don't wanna spoil too much, but Natsuko somehow ends up back into the real world at the end. How? No idea.
That was kind of the main dilemma of the show: the fact that she had no idea how to return to reality. At the end of it all they just decided that she has found a way somehow because, I guess, the scriptwrites just couldn't figure out how and said that she might be able to do it now.
No reason why. She just can now return to the real world.
I....I don't even know what happened here.
I don't think I hate this show but, when I really think about it, I have so many questions.
Like, why did this show exist? Is it someone's passion project? This is arguably the worst isekai I have seen in a really long while, except for maybe something like I Shall Survive Using Potions!, which was an absolute travesty.
I really don't understand this series, and I tried to. And it's not like the show has bad animation or boring music in it. In fact, the technical aspects for it are really well done, in my opinion. It's just that the story for this is so undercooked that I really have to wonder whether the scriptwriters were under severe deadlines of their own to make this.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: this was an original story, not based on anything. Given how badly written it is, that doesn't surprise me. If this had been a light novel originally, I doubt the author would have made sufficient money to keep the lights on.
I just....I'm done rambling now.
I don't know what to think of this show, honestly. This was such a train wreck that I can't even hate it. I'm genuinely fascinated by how incomprehensibly weird and nonchalant it is in how bad it is.
I feel like maybe if this draft was in the hands of a competent writer, maybe they could write a satire of isekai anime and have fun with it, like how it was done in KamiKatsu: Working for God in a Godless World, but treating this as seriously as it did didn't do it any favors.
Frankly, I am just sad. This show made me sad. Not because of how depressing it tried to be, but more because of what it could be, and the fact that it had so much potential.
But alas, it is what it is.
And, in case this wasn't obvious enough, no, I won't be watching a season two of this, even if it does get greenlit. I'm done.
7. Okitsura: Fell in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Knew What She's Saying
Honestly, I don't know what I was expecting out of this one.
This is an anime TV series that adapts a manga of the same name, that began being published in 2020.
The story is about a high school student named Teruaki Nakamura who gets transferred from the Japanese mainland into a school in Okinawa, which is on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean.
Teruaki tries his best to socialize with his new peers and, eventually, he develops a crush on a girl in his class named Kyan Hina.
Hina is a very energetic and happy-go-lucky girl around his age but she speaks in a very thick Okinawan dialect of the Japanese language, so much so that Teru, being from the mainland, doesn't understand.
He understands some of what Hina is saying, but not everything, and has trouble communicating with her.
Thankfully, Hina's best friend, another girl named Kana Higa, is there to interpret what Hina is saying to him, since she immediately catches on that Teru cannot understand her.
To make matters more complicated, Kana herself develops a crush on Teru but, just as Hina is too dense to pick up on Teru's crush on her, Teru is also oblivious to Kana's crush on him.
And so begins their close, very platonic friendships, as the show will slowly use these characters to explain to us Okinawan culture and how it differs from mainland Japanese culture.
There's a lot more that happens in the first episode that I can describe but, honestly, there's not much point into going into details.
The reason for this is that, while Teru, Hina and Kana are all fictional characters with fictional lives, Okinawa is a real Japanese territory in the Pacific Ocean. And the show uses every episode to teach us lessons about Okinawan culture, traditions, dialect quirks and various common pitfalls and misunderstandings that tourists to that island, especially from the Japanese mainland, may fall for.
In this sense, the TV series is less about these main characters and more a documentary about Okinawa as a whole, told from the perspective of their experiences, especially Teru's.
And the whole romantic crush thing going on between these characters, that's used more as a source of comedic gags than anything else, with the show very rarely treating it in any serious capacity.
The fact of the matter is, the show genuinely feels like a documentary first and a slice of life story about these characters second.
While that's fine from an educational sense, if you're looking for anything more than just that then you will be very much disappointed.
I know I was.
Obviously I wouldn't care much for Okinawan culture, since I don't plan on visiting said island at any point in my life. Granted, I don't really dislike the fact that I did learn some of the things the show taught me but, at the end of the day, I really was watching the show to see how the drama between all these characters would unfold.
And, without going into spoilers, I will repeat myself by saying that it's simply not worth your time if you're in the same boat as me. If you're curious about Okinawan culture and would want to learn more about it then the show will do just fine at that but, if you want anything more than that, you won't find it here.
This is just a documentary about Okinawa in an animated format. Nothing more and nothing less.
The show tricked me from its preview on Crunchyroll by making me think that it's going to be dramatic and suspenseful but, simply put, it isn't about any of that.
And if this will ever be renewed for a new season, I will not be watching it going forward.