As always, all of these shows can be found on Crunchyroll. Let's begin!

1. Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku (Season 2)

These are my thoughts for season 2 of this show. If you want to read my thoughts on season 1, you can find them here.

A short recap, in case you didn't watch that season, is that this criminal that was sentenced to death named Gabimaru, along with many other people that have committed very severe crimes and have been captured, are sent on a distant island that's rumored to host an elixir of immortality to retrieve said elixir and bring it back to Japan. Whoever manages to achieve this will be granted a pardon for all their crimes.

Gabimaru wishes to receive this pardon so that he can return home to his loving wife.

Once on the island, though, things don't go very well and Gabimaru is forced to use his ninja skills to defend himself from very powerful and dangerous monsters that inhabit it, while also struggling to get along with other criminals that are fighting for the same objective as him.

In this new season, we continue to watch the adventures of our heroes, as they make alliances with each other, to survive on that island.

We'll get to discover more about the odd creatures that inhabit it, the masterminds behind them and all the strange phenomena there, as well as discover a plot that said masterminds have devised to eliminate all of humanity.

The best way I would describe this show is something akin to Naruto, seeing how it's all about ninja and ninjutsu and how they fight, but if Naruto had zero comedy to it.

This show is played 100% straight. It's pure unadulterated action on steroids and strategizing, in the best ways possible.

I don't want to spoil too much but I will say that every episode was a treat and I do love it how even Gabimaru, despite being as overpowered as he had been presented in season 1, gets to have his ass kicked during this season, to the point in which he is almost killed.

The fact that he was brought so close to death, given that the first episode of the first season established that Gabimaru was almost unkillable, even by the most skilled of executioners, should give you a hint about how strong his opponents will be, this season.

And yeah, what more can I say? It's just pure action, at its finest, with some good plot twists that I haven't seen coming, cool fights, good ideas and a lot of world building.

Definitely waiting for a season 3, as well, since the plot was left on a cliff hanger.

2. The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be Wife

This is one of those anime that is an adaptation for a romance manga.

Generally, I'm very much against workplace romance manga, since they are usually painfully slow at developing the relationships, but this one is an exception to that rule, thankfully.

The plot of the show is about Shizuka Yakou, a woman that works as an assistant at a detective agency in a big city.

Shizuka was born blind and had never known to recognize light or colors. She walks around with a cane and does her best to be a productive member of society.

She works alongside Kikira, the company's only IT guy, Jarashi, a large and muscular cat lady that does most of the physical work at the agency and her employer and their boss, Tounome, an invisible gentleman that likes wearing classy suits.

Yes, in this world, we have beast people, elf people, invisible people and many other eccentric types of intelligent races, all cohabiting in the same country, trying to get along with each other.

All four of them work in a small office, taking on odd jobs like finding missing people, finding out details about stalkers, looking into odd behaviors that people bring up to them and so on.

Generally, this sounds quite boring for a lot of reasons, and I get why one would think that. Hell, I thought it would be like that, but I was very pleased to find out that the addition of different races made a lot of these mysteries or cases that needed to be solved, quite unique.

The world that they inhabit is very colorful and interesting, filled with wacky characters like a couple made up of a dark elf that causes curses around him and his girlfriend who's a white elf, who own a tea shop.

There's a hot spring resort that is seemingly haunted and is losing customers (apparently, ghosts don't exist in this world so there has to be logical explanations for the paranormal phenomena).

There's also a village of invisible people as well, in which literally everyone that inhabits it is invisible.

And so many more.

I loved how creative the show got with its world, and I was very much looking forward to each new episode, only to discover more things about it.

And as for the romance between Shizuka and Tounome, it was fine.

It was nothing to write home about, but I did appreciate how much I got to learn about them throughout this season.

I never realized how novel of a concept this was: the idea of a man that's invisible falling in love with a woman who can't see to begin with. The idea is that Shizuka, unlike everyone else, isn't bothered by Tounome's invisibility, since her other senses are so well sharpened that she can notice his presence anyways.

I did appreciate that their relationship evolved over time, with the first episode being Tounome even asking Shizuka to be his girlfriend. Generally, that's almost unheard of, for a romance manga adaptation to be so quick with its confession, but here it got going fast.

It reminded me of another romance manga adaptation that I genuinely love, called Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You, which is also on Crunchyroll and is also an amazing experience. Granted, I'm not saying that this is as good as Tonikawa, but it's got that same energy to it.

And yeah, the show is about how Tounome and Shizuka date each other and eventually decide to get closer and closer together, up to the point in which they decide to cohabit.

Granted, I was hoping they would go even further, this season, to the point in which they marry, but they didn't get that far.

But still, that's incredibly remarkable, as far as I'm concerned, for a romance manga to go this far in just 12 episodes.

It left me wanting for more, much more. If this will ever get another season, I'd be there to pick it up.

3. Fate/strange Fake

This is a very strange one.

Normally, I'm quite receptive to Fate anime adaptations, since they are some of the greatest pieces of animated media to come out of Japan.

Fate, as is, is a humongous franchise in that country, recognized by many people.

Naturally, I was very much interested in another Fate adaptation, once I heard that this was coming out.

However, there is a problem with this series: and that is its first two episodes.

But before I get to that, I'll start by describing the first episode, which on Wikipedia is marked as episode 0.

In the fictional town of Snowfield, in Nevada, the United States, a new holy grail war is being invoked by rogue mages.

Lord El-Melloi is reading about this new war from a different country, far away, trying to observe it from a distance. One of his students, a young man named Flat Escardos, travels to said town, without the school's permission, to witness said war, where he ends up summoning a Berserker class servant for himself.

Elsewhere, Assassin is also summoned but quickly tries to kill her own master, not wanting to assist him in his endeavor, before he can use his command spells on her.

Gilgamesh is also summoned as the Archer class heroic spirit, where he is paired with a native American woman named Tiné Chelc, who wishes to use his powers to win the Holy Grail, so that she can reclaim the country for her people.

As other servants slowly become summoned by various other people, including by a girl in a coma in a hospital, Gilgamesh meets Enkidu, who also just so happened to be summoned, and the two commence battle with each other, over the Nevada desert.

There's a bit more to it but that's the general gist of it.

Please forgive me if the above summary is inaccurate since it's been a while since I've watched that episode and I had to read about it from Wikipedia, to jog my memory. Why that is, I will explain now.

My problem with this series is, like I've said before, its first two episodes (technically it's episode 0 and episode 1).

On Crunchyroll, episode 0 aired on July 2nd 2023, episode 1 aired on November 23rd 2024 and episode 3 aired on January 10th 2026.

Episode 4 aired a week after episode 3, so from that point on, new episodes came out on a normal, weekly, basis.

But episodes 0 and 1 aired at least a year apart.

That, to me, is scandalous.

For a story that's meant to be told in a TV series format, the fact that this show treated its first episodes like movies and aired them so spread out over time, is a really bad idea.

By the time the series started airing normally on a weekly basis, my memory of the previous episodes was so hazy I could barely follow the plot.

That's not a good thing. The fact that the studio in charge of this thought that this was a good idea, really shows how out of touch they are.

In fact, just because of this issue, I was half debating on not watching this series at all, just because of how pissed off I was at it.

I feel like there's something to be said about the need to have a proper viewer-friendly airing schedule. That's one of the most basic things that a TV series can do, and this show had the audacity to ignore it.

But alas, I'll try to be neutral and pretend that this didn't happen.

So, how was the series overall?

It was fine.

It's just Fate, all over again. It has servants that are powerful people from history that wield powerful noble phantasms to do battle against each other, in a battle royale to see who wins the Holy Grail.

It's endlessly entertaining and I genuinely wanted to see how the fact that this is the first series to take place in the US would affect the story (it didn't do much but it's at least a novel concept).

As always, certain masters will make alliances with others, based on their philosophical affinities, while going against others.

I would say that I didn't care much for the second to last two Fate anime that I watched, those being Fate/Apocrypha and Fate/Extra. Fate/Grand Order was mostly alright, although nothing groundbreaking either.

This one, I'm happy to say, took me by surprise. I was invested in the alliances, most of the characters, the backstories for them, and a bit about the masters as well.

In fact, I think this is one of the better Fate anime that I've seen in recent years, on par with Fate/Grand Order even.

A significant drawback to this series was its number of characters though: this is one of those Fate anime that have way too many servants and masters.

It's very easy to get lost, after awhile, when you have to keep track of the number of characters in the story, how each of them relate to each other, what allegiances a specific character has, what are their goals, who are their master, what are their master's goals and so on.

The equation became so complicated that, halfway through this TV series, I lost track of the plot, it was that bad. I just began turning my brain off and just watching this show for its epic action moments (which there are many of).

I haven't seen this many characters in a Fate TV series since Fate/Apocrypha and that was a big turn off for me.

And the fact that the first two episodes had aired so far in the past that I forgot certain plot points, that did not help matters.

And before I get anywhere, let me just say: the story ended on a cliff hanger. The war is far from over when the last episode finished, there's some plot threads that remain open, only a few characters had died, and there's a lot that still needs to happen.

And I don't like it when TV series are obviously leaving a lot on the table, to be handled in a future season.

But, here, I kind of get it as well, since there's so much plot that has to be gone over that it's unreasonable to expect for a single 13 episode anime to cover it all.

So, even though I don't like it, I get it.

And despite all the issues that this show had, I mostly enjoyed my time with it.

Am I willing to forgive it for airing the first two episodes so far apart? No, not really.

And if the next season will do that again, assuming it gets produced, I will definitely be dropping it entirely.

I have very little patience with anime that do that. Either you follow a proper weekly airing schedule, or don't even bother! Just because you're somewhat decent, doesn't mean you're special.

4. GNOSIA (Part 2)

This is my review of the second half of GNOSIA. If you want to read my thoughts on the first half, they can be found here.

The general summary that I can present, in case you didn't read that and don't know anything about GNOSIA at all, is that it's an anime adaptation of a video game of the same name, a game in which the player is tasked with identifying the liars that are infected with a dangerous disease among the crew of a space ship, using logic and deduction to single them out, so that they get voted by the majority of said crew members to be put into cryo sleep (or, if the player is themselves infected, they have to lie to deceive the others until the number of Gnosia infectees among the crew is at least the same as the number of non-infected crew members, at which point, they win).

The anime adaptation stars Yuri, that takes the role that the player of the game would have had, in which they are awakened from stasis one day and find themselves on the ship, where infected Gnosia are hiding among the crew members and are out to kill the non-infected ones.

Yuri has a silver key on him, that had been given to him by another character on the ship named Setsu, the key allowing him to travel back in time whenever he dies, usually at the point in time in which he's awakened from stasis.

Every time he loops back this way, who the Gnosia infects ends up being someone else and Yuri has to figure out all over again who they are (and sometimes they themselves are infected too).

I'm not going to lie, I like these ideas. The game sounds very fun, although I probably won't go through the process of buying it myself, but it looks like a good experience.

The anime goes above and beyond in trying to be an entertaining adaptation. I can't say how faithful it is to the source material since, like I said, I never played the game that this is based off of and, thus, I will be judging the anime solely on its own merits.

And, after saying that, I will add: I loved it.

The show clearly had a high budget behind it, with gorgeous visuals, highly detailed character designs and very nice visual effects to boot. It also didn't cheapen out on the music, since it had some great artists working on the intro and outro.

This is one of those shows that you can tell, even from a glance, that it's someone's passion project. Someone, out there, played the game, loved the story and ultimately said that they wanted to see this on the TV screen.

And they did not spare any expenses to make that a reality. And for that, I will say, I very much appreciate the efforts since he produced something that is, by no means, a masterpiece, but is still an awfully entertaining piece of media.

Compared to the first half, this part will cover new plot points, including what happens when Yuri's silver key gets filled up with knowledge, which allows the end of his looping, uncovering more mysteries of various crew members and, of course, a possible almost-romance between him and another character.

I won't spoil how the show ends but I will say that it had a surprise for its viewers near the end where it had a fake ending episode. That, coupled with the fact that the next week when a new episode was supposed to air just so happened to have the Winter Olympics on the same day which caused the next episode to get delayed by another week, led some people to think that the fake ending was real and stopped watching the show.

To an extent, this is partly Crunchyroll's fault, since they have no way of telling their users when a show is officially done airing or not. Users typically just have to wait another week after the last episode to see if any new episodes of that show continue the story. If there's no such new episode, it's usually assumed that the show ended.

It's because of this that caused me a lot of headaches when I assumed a show ended when it actually didn't (i.e. Tasūketsu: Fate of the Majority) or I assumed that a show had not ended when in fact, it did (i.e. Kaiju No. 8 (Season 2)). Both cases are extremely annoying to me since it messes with my schedules.

But I digress.

In case you're watching the show yourself, don't be fooled by the fake ending! There's another ending waiting for you, which is much better.

My only complaint for the show is the lack of consistency in some areas but, at least compared to the first half, this half was a bit better at explaining things and finally filling some plot holes that were never thoroughly addressed in the first 12 episodes.

Overall, this was a very fun series to watch. As far as adaptations go, this is probably up there among the best or, at the very least, deserves an honorable mention. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some people discovered the game because of this highly successful anime.

I won't expect another season out of this, since it ended on such a good note, wrapping up almost everything nicely, but, if it ever does get renewed somehow, then I'm sure to continue watching it.

5. Journal with Witch

If you've been reading my blog for a significant amount of time, you'd know that I'm a sucker for TV shows like this one.

Granted, I do get the argument that shows like these shouldn't even be animated to begin with, since the drama can well be expressed by real life actors as well, but I don't consider this to be that much of a loss.

The good thing about animation is that you can make your characters have more expressive faces during heavy scenes, although you need to be careful not to overdo it, since it can detract from the experience if they start to look goofy.

But I digress.

What's this show about?

Well, in a nutshell, it's about a 15 year old girl named Asa, whose parents end up dying, one day, suddenly in a car crash.

Left with no means of providing for herself, her extended family debate over who should take her in, now that there's no one to care for her.

Seeing as how everyone is treating this like a sudden burden, Asa's aunt, a 35 year old woman named Makio, decides in the spur of the moment to be the one that takes her in, at least until she becomes 18.

Makio is a novelist that writes fiction, is generally antisocial and lives a reclusive life in her small apartment, which clashes with Asa's generally extroverted personality.

Still, the two learn to live with each other, despite their seemingly incompatible personalities, as Makio struggles to become a surrogate mother to Asa and Asa has to learn to cope with the sudden loss of her parents.

That's episode 1.

Now, at first glance, this is giving me shockingly similar vibes to a different anime with a somewhat similar premise called Bunny Drop. Much like this show, it's also an anime adapted from a manga about an adult having to take in an orphaned girl when their relatives aren't very keen on doing it themselves. And it's also about the growing bond between that adult and the girl, as they have to learn how to live with each other.

This show, however, is a bit different in that the adult protagonist is a woman, not a man, is a bit quirky (in that she is antisocial and awkward a bit) and, most importantly, the child here is 15 years old (in Bunny Drop she was much younger).

Outside of this, I respect both of these shows for how mature and timeless they end up being.

Very interestingly, this show has a lot of valuable lessons that work for both age groups: those that are around Asa's age as well as some lessons for those that are around Makio's age. I just so happen to fall in the latter category, and I'm happy to say that this show had an educational side for me, since it treats the idea of parenting with a lot of realism.

Makio learns how to deal with a child that needs to grow into her own person, to be supportive of her but not controlling, to maintain a fine balance by being by Asa's side but also allowing for her independence and also maintain the life that she has always lived up until this point.

Asa, as well, has to learn to deal with what it means to go through the death of your parents, learning how to mourn, to not allow depression and loneliness to take over and also learn about other people's boundaries.

These are very good lessons to teach.

What I like most about this show is the dialogue. The conversations flow naturally: they speak in ways that people of their age would actually talk, with Makio being wise and thoughtful with everything that she says which goes well with her being a fiction writer, Asa being more abrasive and blunt, how they interact with each other and have small disagreements when trying to live together, how verbal conflicts can erupt and how mean and nasty they can be, even from a teenager, how one says something but then forgets about it later on, how misunderstandings can happen and so on.

All of this feels purposeful and natural. Nothing being said feels out of place or character. Everything is just so consistent and realistic, which makes this a very solid watch.

The lives of the characters, their experiences, the life lessons they learn, how they deal with their problems and how they approach them, all of these are presented slowly and simply to us, as we, the audience, dive into this world filled with characters that feel so real that you can genuinely have a deep conversation with them.

These are not paper thin characters, they feel like real human beings, presented in a natural way.

My only gripe with this show is how slow it is, but that's a given seeing how well it portrays human interactions. This is not meant to be watched by young kids. I can see someone around Asa's age watching this and learning from it, but not much younger.

Other than that, this was a blast. I loved this show, I loved the characters and the artistic visual metaphors that the show uses to express their feelings and emotional state.

A season 2 would be more than welcome, in my opinion.

6. Sentenced to be a Hero

Oh boy, where do I even start with this one?

Well, I'll start by saying that this show got off on a wrong footing with me.

The first episode that aired of this, it came out on a Saturday, and it was a full hour episode, introducing the main characters.

Normally I like that since it means shows like this anime are taking themselves seriously and want to set things up properly, which I am always a big fan of.

However, Crunchyroll, in all of its wisdom, doesn't tell you about the airing schedule of any particular TV series that is currently airing.

If you wanna watch something on Crunchyroll that's currently being aired, for the very first time, the only thing the website tells you is the airing date of its first episode, that's it.

That's usually good enough, since that tells you the day of the week that new episodes of that TV series will air in, since all of them air on a weekly basis usually.

This time, however, the first episode came out on a Saturday, but all subsequent episodes came out on Thursdays.

Which, for someone like me that tries to plan ahead what they are going to watch, in which days of the week, ended up messing my schedule a lot.

I had other shows I needed to watch on Thursdays, among of which was a different TV series called Roll Over and Die that I was hoping to follow, but because I had to reschedule everything so that I could now fit this show in my Thursday schedule, I had to drop that entirely.

So yeah, just because of this show, you won't get to read my thoughts on Roll Over and Die since I never finished watching it.

But alas, let's move onto episode 1 of this show:

In a medieval world that heavily employs magical seals to create powerful weapons, powerful demonic creatures called Faeries are quickly spreading throughout a kingdom, in an event called a Blight, destroying human settlements and generally corrupting the land, as they gain territory.

One day, as he is being chased by said creatures, a thief called Dotta Luzulas is running away with a casket on his back.

Just as he is about to be killed, he is saved by a fellow young man that throws explosive daggers, named Xylo Forbartz.

The two, evidently, seem to know each other.

It is revealed later that both Xylo and Dotta are both heroes: criminals that are enslaved using magical seals painted on their bodies, who are under the servitude of the country, as disposable soldiers.

People, generally, have an aversion and strong dislike towards heroes, since only those criminals that commit the most heinous of acts end up being forced to become heroes.

After being questioned by Xylo, Dotta finally admits that the casket that he was carrying was, in fact, stolen by him from a bunch of soldiers that were transporting it.

The two open up the casket only to find the dormant body of a little girl in it, which Xylo determines is most likely a goddess.

Goddesses are divine beings with great power, that help humans fight back against the Blight and who have the bodies of small girls.

They are generally immortal since they don't grow up, but can die if bodily harm is inflicted onto them.

As the two ponder what to do with her, they notice that various Faeries are running rampant nearby, about to invade a village.

As Xylo prepares to aide in defending the village, the goddess in that casket reveals herself to have awoken and declares that Xylo is her knight, and that she will assist him.

Xylo refuses her help, though, and ventures onto the battlefield alone, only for the goddess, now known as Teoritta, to follow.

As Xylo fights against the incoming wave of Faeries, Teoritta joins the battle and tries to assist him, but Xylo is stubborn and tries to fight on his own, without her help.

Xylo then meets up with a bunch of Holy Knights, a military group that was defending said village, under the command of a woman named Patausche Kivia, who quickly recognizes that Xylo is a hero because of the seal on his body.

Under the threat of another wave of Faeries that's approaching, Xylo tries to help Kivia fight them off, only to be overwhelmed.

As the battle ensues, realizing that they are losing and that there's no other way out, Xylo decides to allow Teoritta to help him, forming a pact with her and activating her powers.

This causes Teoritta to summon a rain of swords that obliterate the Faeries and clears the battlefied.

With Teoritta's help, Xylo defeats that wave of Faeries and brings victory to humanity.

It is then revealed, through a flashback, that the reason Xylo was sentenced to be a hero to begin with was that he had killed another goddess in his past, because he had been framed and sent to a battlefield that was bound to be overrun by Faeries. Knowing that leaving a goddess be captured by Faeries would corrupt her and bring about the end of the world, Xylo murdered her with his own hands, to prevent that from happening.

The higher ups, not believing his story and declaring him a vile human, sentenced him to become a hero.

That's the story of episode 1.

Ok, so there's a lot to unpack here.

The first and most significant thing that I want to talk about is the animation.

This show has gorgeous action scenes in it.

Every time there's a battle against Faeries, there's some very nice looking animation that accompanies the battle, making the action sequence come alive on the screen.

It's fluid, it's well animated and it's simply gorgeous to look at.

I also like the idea of the story: a penal hero that uses throwing daggers as grenades and a goddess that has the power of summoning swords at infinitum like Gilgamesh are very cool ideas.

In fact, this entire premise is chock-full of great ideas.

There's a hero that thinks himself as the king of the empire and is very talented at making magical weapons using the seals he draws on them that give them powerful properties.

You have magical bombs, magical machine guns, magical cannons, all of these really cool technology that exists in this world, demonic creatures that corrupt the land and, as it later turns out, also have intelligent commanders controlling them.

All of this stuff is great.

After Clevatess from the previous season, I was very much looking forward to a dark fantasy to keep me entertained.

And I was hoping this would be it. Spoilers: it wasn't it.

There's many reasons why I don't like this show: the main one being the plot.

I dislike plots in which the main character gets framed for doing something horrible, and this is the reason why everyone around him treats him horribly, not listening to him, marginalizing him, and so on.

This isn't the first anime that does this, nor will it be the last.

Granted, the fact that he gets framed by someone else would be fine and all, if the story actually focused on it and tried to show who the person that did the framing was, what his connection to Xylo was, what his motivation was and so on.

Here, that doesn't happen.

Outside of the very first hour long episode, Xylo's backstory and the fact that he was framed, doesn't get mentioned at all this entire season.

Since the entire point of Xylo's personality is the fact that he declares revenge on the person that framed him, you'd think that this would be a huge plot point for the story. But it's not.

The story of this season is just: Faeries are invading this part of the kingdom, Xylo and his comrades have to go rescue the people there. Now, Faeries are invading this other part of the kingdom, now Xylo and his comrades have to go there too.

And every time they visit a new place, it's the same story: the people there don't trust Xylo since he's a hero, they ignore his advice, they treat the heroes badly, but when the Faeries attack, Xylo saves everyone anyways, they get their recognition and then they move on.

Rinse and repeat.

I'm just done with this.

I really wanted to like this show. But I hate generic cookie-cutter plots like this one.

Granted, the animation for the fight sequences is nice every time, like I said, but is that really enough to carry an entire series of 12 episodes?

Some people, particularly younger ones, might argue that it is. Hell, if I was 10 years younger, I feel like I would have been more forgiving of this show as well. But as it stands, I want something more.

I want an interesting plot or maybe some character development or at least some world building, I don't know, something! Just give me something more than just good animation! I'm not asking for much here.

The plot is just the recycled “protagonist is an underdog that everyone mistreats, then proves to be powerful and reliable”. That's it. On repeat.

Nothing more.

I wanted to know more about Xylo, to know his backstory, who the previous goddess that he was with was, what his previous life was like. Or hell, any of the other heroes, for that matter.

I had so many questions about all the heroes, not just Xylo, since they all seemed very interesting. But the show just treats them as pawns on a chess board, it doesn't go into details about any of them, they just exist there for Xylo to command.

Xylo himself is a mess of a character, since it feels like he is just a Guts-wannabe (from Berserk). It's just the hard boiled egg archetype of the guy that's always grumpy, has had a rough life and doesn't like anyone but is deep down actually a good guy, who just wants to help others out but without saying it out loud.

Granted, I've seen this archetype before, and I didn't mind it much, but here it's particularly grating given how illogical his character usually is. Xylo constantly refuses to employ Teoritta's help, even after forming a pact with her, because of....I don't know....ego, maybe?

This goes so far that, at some points, he risks other people's lives just because of that. Time and time again he jumps into battle by himself, trying to defeat Faeries, only for himself to almost die before Teoritta shows up and saves him.

Had this been a kid doing this I would have been more forgiving but he's portrayed as a full fledged adult, for crying out loud; and not just any adult, but a strategist, no less.

Surely he can figure out that not using the powers of a literal goddess and putting himself and others in peril because of that is not a good idea, right?!

I just, I don't get his character.

Teoritta, herself, is just a goddess that, for some reason, wants to receive head pats from Xylo whenever she does a good job at helping him.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. She's a goddess with great power that, for some reason, wants praise from her knight. Not much more to her character than that.

The world building is also very shallow: there's a bit of talk about the politics of that world, how there are people that preach coexistence with the Faeries, and who constantly betray humanity whenever they can, but that's also shown very marginally.

The world just feels very paper thin.

You feel like, given the existence of Faeries, there would be interesting religions, cultures, social constructs and things in this world, but it's explored so very little.

This is where, for all of its faults, Clevatess did a better job than this show, in that it showed a bit more of the world, it explored it a bit, it explored magic and the various magical deities in it, it explored the strengths of various kingdoms and so on.

Here, outside of the very last episode, in which something particularly interesting happened with Kivia, nothing interesting happens to any of the main characters.

The world is mostly unexplored, the characters, both the main and side ones, are also unexplored, the Faeries are just monsters that keep attacking, no rhyme or reason why, there's an assassination plot that felt like it might go somewhere but it doesn't get explained why it's even a thing in the first place.

Everything, from top to bottom, is just shallow. There's no depth to anything, whatsoever.

Unless you want to watch a show with pretty fight scenes that are fluidly animated and that's it, there's not much reason to give this one a shot.

I cannot, for the life of me, recommend this TV series. Nothing about it is worth talking about.

As dark fantasies go, I was hoping it might do something unique, something a bit dark, morbid, or at least interesting, but it just didn't.

The show had one strength: the fact that it has good animation in it, and that's the only thing it did right.

Everything else was just boring, under-cooked, shallow and just unremarkable in every single way.

For a premise so interesting and with so many good ideas behind it, the fact that it doesn't utilize them at all feels like such wasted potential.

If this were to ever get a new season, I'm unsure if I'll ever continue it. I really hope that it will become better, if and when a new season will ever get greenlit, but I'm not sure if it ever will; or hell, if I'll even bother watching it.

We'll see.

7. The Holy Grail of Eris

An anime about the ghost of a woman that was executed?

You'd think that with a premise like that, this show would be a banger even from episode 1.

And yet, here we are, with this show being almost at the bottom of this ranking.

To be fair to this show, at least it has a plot that's intriguing, in comparison to Sentenced to be a Hero which, for the life of me, I would have to struggle to recall the latter's plot.

What makes this show be ranked even worse than that is the fact that, for better or for worse, Sentenced to be a Hero has good animation for its fight scenes, which are very pretty to look at.

This show doesn't have that.

But before I get to that, a small recap for episode 1:

A small girl is running through a crowd on a rainy day, at one point getting lost in it.

As she tries to find her way out, she witnesses, first hand, the public execution of a strange woman, who's yelling curses at those that are there to watch her get killed for her crimes.

As it turns out, this woman being executed is named Scarlet Castiel, the daughter of a high ranking noble of that country who was executed for, supposedly, trying to assassinate the king by poisoning him.

Fast forward a full decade and that small girl, whose name is Constance Grail, participates at a large party where she is invited for being the daughter of the Grail family, a family of lesser nobles.

At said party, Constance encounters the ghost of Scarlet who, for some reason, only she can see and hear.

While being at the party and enjoying herself, a girl gives Constance her hairpin, asking for her to hold onto it, before disappearing suspiciously afterwards.

Constance doesn't think much of it but, as it later turns out, this was a set-up by a different noble girl to frame her for “stealing” said hairpin, in front of everyone there.

Constance, being very timid and introverted, is bad at defending herself and is under a lot of pressure because of this but, just before she's about to collapse under the load of the accusation, Scarlet, who had witnessed the entire thing, possesses her and begins speaking through Constance's mouth, pretending to be her.

She sways the public in her favor, revealing the set-up against her and convincing everyone that the girl who was the mastermind of all of this, was the one to blame, surprising everyone at how sharp tongued and cunning she turned out to be, not knowing that it was Scarlet that did the talking.

Later, as Constance wakes up after that, she thanks Scarlet for her help in defending herself in front of everyone. However, Scarlet then reveals that, in return for her help, she wants Constance to assist her in finding out who was the one that is responsible for her past execution as, as she claims, she had been framed as well and she had never intended to poison the king, to begin with.

And thus begins the story of Scarlet and Constance, who have to find out the events that led up to Scarlet's execution and who masterminded all of this.

That's episode 1.

Now, I'll simply say that the premise for this story is simply genius.

The plot is there, there's a lot of characters that get introduced and have their own strengths, weaknesses and goals and, most importantly, there's always an element of mystery around Scarlet that kept me asking questions.

All in all, the first episode was an absolute win, as far as this show is concerned.

However, my main issue with this show is a simple one: this show is for adults only. And not because there's anything risque about it, there's no sexual content in it that's particularly on the nose, no heavy violence or gore of any kind. It's just very boring.

The show has a lot of talks about politics, the state of affairs of that country, the various clans and hierarchies of nobles that exist there, what their relationships to each other are, discussions about various businesses and how they operate, a lot of that stuff.

This stuff might be digestible for adults, since they can tolerate this for better or for worse, but kids would get bored very quickly if they had to watch through this.

Hell, I am a fully grown adult and I was barely managing to keep myself watching this, not because the plot was overly complex, mind you, but because I was getting bored.

There's a plot about a woman that was Scarlet's friend that committed suicide but left behind a strange key. Then there's a plot about this secretive organization that sells a potent drug on the streets, then there's a plot about the king's consort that is actually a girl that lived in an orphanage, then there's a plot about a war brewing between this country and one of its neighbors, there's just a lot.

Mind you, it's all very interesting and cool, I'm not gonna lie, but the show focuses a lot on dialogue and figuring things out, one step at a time, which can be a problem.

This is very clearly a light novel adaptation since there is just so much dialogue in this and so very little action. The few action sequences there are, they aren't animated very well and they are mostly forgettable.

This is just a story about a mystery, about a villainess that turns out isn't even a villain, but just someone that was framed.

Why was she framed? And by whom? Well, I can't spoil it but I will say that I liked the reveal.

One thing that this show did well is that it kept me guessing throughout, making me constantly wonder how they are gonna explain anything.

And, for what it's worth, the ending was surprisingly satisfying, tying everything up with a neat bow and closing all the threads that it starts with.

Everything gets explained quite well. There's even a question that I had about why Scarlet never remembered the day of her execution, that gets answered in the last episode which I really liked and, well, it all just wrapped up very nicely in the end.

If you're willing to put up with all the dialogue of this show just to get an interesting mystery, this might be a good watch for you.

For me, even Sentenced to be a Hero was a better watch, personally, because I liked the action in it since, like I said, it was well animated, but this show had the superior plot overall.

I am shallow, in that I value good animation over a good story, like that, but Sentenced to be a Hero won over this one just barely.

I can easily see a world in which, had I been just a bit more invested in the political stuff of this story, I might have considered this to be the better show.

Oh and, I really hate it when shows, in the last episode, after tying everything up, decide to sequel bait for no reason, outside of just “we want to tell more stories”.

The reason I chose to watch this show over Roll Over and Die was simply because I had hope that, given that the light novels for this ended, that this might have a proper and satisfying ending to it; which it did, but for some reason, the show still decided to sequel bait at the very end, going all “but it's not really the end just yet” in the most comically shoehorned in non-ending that I have ever seen.

That really left a bad taste in my mouth.

That's not to say that I wouldn't watch another season of this, if it came out, it's just that why would you tarnish a perfectly good ending with a “but is it really over...?” question that has no place here. Everything got solved, all the characters had a happy ending, all the questions got answered, all the character arcs had ended. Why ruin a good thing?

I don't know. I just didn't like that. It felt cheap and beneath this. A show like this didn't need that. If it will ever get renewed for a new season (which is a big IF), then I might consider watching it.

But I just don't see the point of a new season honestly, nor any direction where it could head in after the events of season 1.

8. Dead Account

And now we arrive at the final entry in this ranking.

This is, without a doubt, the show that I enjoyed the least.

Before I begin talking about it, let's discuss the first episode:

Soji Enishiro, a teen that has a very active online presence, posts rage-bait videos on this world's version of Youtube, to make revenue from it.

It works quite well for a short while, although he keeps getting hate from his followers for always click-baiting them and treating them with low quality entertainment.

However, despite his bad reputation, Enishiro is doing this for a good cause: he has a bed ridden sister that's very sick and he needs money to send her to the US to pay for a treatment surgery, that will save her life.

Still, one day, as he walks around, he gets attacked by a man with a giant hammer, who's trying to destroy his smartphone, for some reason.

There's a bit more to episode 1 than that, as it explains why he's being attacked, but I won't spoil it since it's a bit of a twist.

So, long story short, why is this the worst one out of all of them? Simply put, this is the most cliched story out of the bunch.

Outside of the twist in episode 1 over why he's being attacked at all, there's nothing in this show that was particularly hard to predict.

I could guess, without much effort, everything that was going on, as it was being set up.

This is the stereotypical underdog story, in which everyone will treat Enishiro as an inept man, for one reason or another, considering him either incapable or simply evil for very shallow reasons, Enishiro has to grow to become strong to prove them wrong, he proves them wrong in battle and that's it.

Oh, the battles in this show revolve around smartphones. Yes, this show is about exorcising smartphones that become portals of the dead to corrupt the living.

Sounds like a cool idea, right? Enishiro becomes an exorcist, goes to an exorcist high school where he has to learn to deal with apparitions of the dead.

Well, it's not cool. This becomes an anime about high school drama.

Yes, it talks about a competition between two classes, and how they have to fight each other so that they can go on more important missions, later on.

That's it.

I just hate high school drama anime. I just do.

If you're gonna do something creative about exorcisms, like bring them into the modern world and have it tied to digital devices, that's fine, that's cool. Talk about it! Do something creative with it! Talk about how glitches affect the exorcism, how you might need to repair your phone as it breaks down, what happens if you lose cell coverage and how that impacts the exorcist's powers. Get creative with it!

But no, the only thing that this story does is that, if your phone's battery dies, the exorcist loses his powers. Ok, cool concept, I like that but that's not enough to justify 12 episodes of this. Do a bit more with that!

There are good ideas with this, but it all boils down to the fact that, at its core, this is just high school drama about friendships, proving your worth to your peers and not losing sight of what's important.

That's all well and good, don't get me wrong, but it's all stuff that many other anime, shounen or not, have done so many times in the past that it just doesn't do it for me anymore.

Nothing about this stands out. The characters are boring and predictable, the plot twists aren't anything to write home about, it's just the classic underdog trope, all over again.

If you're fine with watching that, good! That's cool.

I'd say there's more to this show than just that (and there technically is, since there's a very faint amount of fan service in the very last episode in a hot spring scene but even that was half baked) but that's pretty much it.

I feel like the comedy was supposed to save this show but even that doesn't work, since there are barely any jokes here, either.

The only thing that I feel like this show did well, which other cliched series failed at, like last season's Tougen Anki, was the fact that it established an identity for itself.

This show, for better or for worse, has a unique style and mechanic, that being exorcists that use smartphones, at its core. And it's a cool image, honestly.

Tougen Anki technically also had the whole concept of Oni using their blood powers for survival, which is also a cool idea, but it didn't establish a proper identity with it, I feel. Like, I could watch a fight scene from Tougen Anki 10 years from now, and I feel like I'll barely remember about the show from it, whereas here it's a bit more well defined.

But that aside, there's not much more to say here.

It's just an underdog story, with the protagonist becoming more powerful as the story progresses.

Nothing about it is amazing. If you don't mind the cliche, give it a watch!

As for me, I'm done with it. Even if a season 2 gets greenlit, I won't watch it. I'm dropping this one.

Yeah, sad to say, I didn't have much time to watch anime this season, so I kept my list short. That and one of them is the continuation of a TV series that started last batch.

Hopefully, this will be enough to interest at least some of you since, even though this list is short, it has some good TV series in it.

As always, these are all viewable on Crunchyroll. This list is in the order of my most favorite shows to my least favorite of this lineup.

The List:

1. This Monster Wants to Eat Me

Let's look at a manga adaptation.

This was a very nice surprise to me. It didn't look like much, from its first episode, so I was very impressed by how much this story has evolved throughout this season.

The plot is about a young woman named Hinako, who's just a regular high school student that meets a strange girl named Shiori, that looks to be around the same age as her, who immediately befriends her for no obvious reasons.

Hinako has been suffering from depression ever since the rest of her family has died in a car accident where she was the sole survivor. Ever since then, she's been struggling with wishing for death, because of how painful it is to live without her loved ones around anymore, but, because of her having heard her family's last wish of them wanting her to stay alive, she cannot bring herself to commit suicide.

One day, after school, while waiting for her best friend, Miko, Hinako is lured into the ocean by a strange girl, which turns out to be a horrific monster that tries to eat her, only for her to be saved, at the last second, by Shiori.

Shiori has very long claws and a semi-mermaid form, very Jekyll-esque. She then reveals herself to the saved Hinako to be a Japanese mermaid, a specific type of yōkai (Japanese monster) that is incredibly powerful.

She then also reveals to Hinako that the reason she had approached her, earlier that day, was that yōkai like herself can smell from afar the blood of humans and apparently Hinako's blood smells very savory to them.

It is, for this reason, that that sea creature had just attacked her.

When Hinako tells Shiori that she actually wishes to die, Shiori responds with the fact that she intends to eat her herself, but only after she grows a bit more, so that she becomes even more delicious. In the meantime, Shiori pledges to protect Hinako from other yōkai.

That's the synopsis of episode 1.

Now, there's a lot to unpack here, but I'll start by saying that I think this is a horror manga, but just very toned down.

For example, Shiori's true monster form isn't revealed until much later (in episode 1, she was still more than half in her human form). Apparently, Shiori has the ability to change shape at will, her being able to appear however she desires.

Her true monster form, when it finally gets revealed, was refreshingly horrifying to look at.

I haven't seen such a monstrous design in a long time in anime, which left me very stunned and in awe at how much they could get away with, in her design.

Make no mistake: Shiori has an agenda of her own and is, for the most part, a horrible inhuman creature that lacks any semblance of human morals.

The contrast that this has with her normally beautiful human form is quite shocking, but adds to the delight of the show.

Oh and, before I go any further, I should mention that this is a yuri story (or, for those that don't recognize this Japanese term, it means it's a story involving the romantic relationship between female characters).

I usually hate to use the term lesbian in the context of anime, since that is such a politically charged word that almost has new connotations for the English crowd, but, in a sense, that's what this is: it's the lesbian relationship between Shiori and Hinako.

Granted, it took me a while to piece together the fact that this was even a romance at all, since the show tried so much to make it seem like their friendship was innocuous and innocent.

And, to an extent, it still is, but it gets a bit more physical than I expected towards the end.

But leaving this aside, it should come as no surprise that I'm a huge fan of this plot. I've always been enamored with love stories between humans and monsters, and this is one of those types of plots, thankfully.

Shiori is a surprisingly cunning little woman, that always manages to manipulate Hinako into agreeing with her. Usually this would be a major red flag for a romance, but I'm happy to say that this show is self-aware, and doesn't shy away from showing how damaging their relationship is to each other.

Moreover, while I'm not going to go into spoilers, I will say that the basis of their agreement has a lie somewhere in it. I'm not going to say what that lie is but it will play an important role, later on, one which almost completely fractures their relationship.

But leaving all of these things aside, I just liked the psychological angle that this show adopts: how it talks about depression, trauma, feelings of craving suicide and mental illness.

These are very mature subjects that I would normally very much fear to see in lesser shows, just because of how much damage they can cause if not done right, but here, they are handled quite tastefully.

It shows how much someone can suffer just because of a simple accident, how one's life can go upside down from a single event and how trauma can rear its ugly head even in the most innocuous of moments.

Honestly, big props to the creator of this manga! This story is very original and very well done, as far as I'm concerned. Then again, I'm by no means a mental health expert, so I can't speak with regards to inconsistencies or accuracy.

And the addition of the horror elements to this story was superbly done. When Shiori's past is revealed and her true form is shown, I was genuinely impressed at how incredibly vile looking the show portrayed her to be, and yet the story kept her personality the same and I genuinely liked how well these two elements meshed together.

Usually, I'm not a fan of horror anime, since I feel that they are usually just annoying and cheesy, but this one was done right. Shiori's mere presence on screen, when in her true form, was sending me shivers down my spine.

And the ending, while I can't say did everything I wanted, left me wanting to see more. I liked seeing the moments between Hinako and Shiori, I liked how deception between them almost broke their bond with each other but they found a way to still make it work, and I like how otherworldly Shiori's personality turns out to be, her being incapable of understanding humans and human emotions but eventually having to learn them, when forced to by circumstances.

This was simply a masterpiece, in all shapes and sizes.

This might genuinely be the first horror manga I've seen that I genuinely find to be well done. It's truly scary, psychological, intelligent, symbolic and mature, has deep and introspective characters that learn to grow together and is very much an amazing experience, all around.

I doubt that this will ever get a second season, but I will definitely be watching it if one does get approved.

2. Li'l Miss Vampire Can't Suck Right

I'm not gonna lie, I didn't expect much out of this series.

This is a manga adaptation that's about the high school life of a vampire which, in essence, sounded like a very terrible idea to me.

Generally, I'm a big fan of anime about vampires, since I feel like they are the most imaginative and fun to watch (i.e. anime like Mayonaka Punch, Call of the Night, Hellsing, Rosario+Vampire and others). The only one that broke that rule was Seraph of the End, which was just recycled shounen tropes packed into two seasons, but even that had some amount of suspense to it.

Now comes this one about high school, and I was very skeptical I would like it. I thought from its synopsis on Crunchyroll that it might become a romance TV series at some point (spoilers: it didn't), but I didn't have high hopes for it.

Well, it turned out that it was just as good as I had hoped minus the romance part.

The story is about the high school life of a little vampire girl named Luna Ishikawa.

In this world, all sorts of mythical creatures and monsters can attend school (although the show only focuses on Luna as the only monster from her school).

She's popular in her school because of how mysterious and noble she appears to be, with everyone always admiring her from a distance. However, she doesn't have any close friends.

One day, she gets assigned cleaning duty with her classmate, an ordinary guy called Otori, and they remain behind to do the job.

While doing so, Otori notices that Ishikawa is constantly snaking away, which leads him to believe that she is hungry. When confronted about this, it's revealed that Ishikawa, being a vampire, needs to drink human blood to satiate her hunger but is actually bad at sucking it, since she doesn't have anyone to practice on and she's been trying to keep this a secret, since it might ruin her image of a cool vampire that her peers have of her.

Realizing the conundrum she is in, Otori, being the nice and helpful guy that he is, offers her to practice sucking blood on his arm, which Ishikawa gladly takes him up on.

However, since she is unskilled at doing this, she eventually sucks so much blood from him that he faints.

Thankfully, he recovers and a happy Luna asks him whether they can continue practicing in secret because his blood tastes so good, to which Otori agrees.

Later on, during a lunch break when the two are on the school building, Otori advises Ishikawa to take big bites from his arm, instead of nibbling, so that she can suck more efficiently. Afterwards, it's also revealed that when she drinks blood, Ishikawa can fly with her retractable wings.

That's the gist of episode 1.

OK, so right off the bat, I know I already said this but, just to drive the point home, this was not a romance anime, as I expected it would be. Or, maybe the show thinks that it is, but, to me at least, the relationship between Ishikawa and Otori can, for the most part, be described as a parental one, in which Otori acts as a caring mother and Ishikawa acts like his child, always sucking blood from him the same way that a child would suck milk from her mother.

That's not an analogy I came up with, the show constantly makes this joke: treating Otori like a mother figure for Ishikawa.

In a sense, this is pretty fitting since Ishikawa, in the show, has two forms: her usual “cool vampire” form in which she's drawn with full details on her body and of a regular height for someone of her age and her chibi form which is just a very tiny cartoony vampire girl that is the size of a human baby.

The show likes to infantilize Ishikawa this way when she's in her chibi form, treating her as being needy, emotional and very vulnerable, as well as someone that gets lost a lot.

It's the same technique that's used in other anime to make a particular character appear cute and dependent of others, which is supposed to incite feelings of attachment from the audience.

And I'll be damned, it works.

Every episode, whenever I'd catch of glimpse of chibi Ishikawa, I'd go “Awww” like a mindless animal that just saw something incredibly cute in the wild, making me want to affectionately hug her.

It's a very insidious form of manipulation, one that the Japanese are known of employing in their anime, but it simply works and is highly effective.

But, if you're reading this and thinking to yourself that this is just a simple moe-blob anime that relies on the cute factor of the protagonist to stay afloat, I'm happy to announce that this isn't the case. There's more to it than that.

The show is also very creative, which I was hoping would be the case.

For example, it's revealed that Ishikawa, being a vampire and all, doesn't show up in photographs (she doesn't even cast a shadow in real life, either). Because of this, there aren't many ways that you can capture her presence easily, but due to Otori's creativity, he finds a way to do it. I won't spoil how he did it, I'll just say that he has found an ingenious way of doing so.

Also, the blood sucking moments in the show were surprisingly wholesome for me. I thought it could very well become lewd or sexual in some way, but the show had the restraint of not going there, instead making the moments very clean and fulfilling to the soul. I don't know what it is about, but they really did capture the sense of a baby sucking milk from their mother when Ishikawa was sucking blood. Maybe it's because of the fact that they usually portray her in her chibi form when she's sucking.

It's so difficult to pin down, but it just worked.

At other times, during a festival organized by the school, it all looked like it was simply going to repeat the whole festivities thing which, I'll be honest, I've seen done to death in high school anime before but, because this show is creative, it ended in a way that only a show about vampires, could. I won't spoil it, but it was magnificently done, and it made me so glad that this worked in the way that it did.

This made me realize: why did I like the show so much? What's it about that is so well executed that it worked, when so many other high school anime fail for me?

The answer is twofold: one, the moe aspect of this show. It's just cute, endearing even. I cannot look at chibi Ishikawa for a second and tell you “I hate this show” without feeling like I'm a very bad person. Yeah, it's emotional manipulation, at the end of the day, but I just like watching the cuteness simply for cuteness' sake.

The second, and more important aspect is: all the characters are likeable. This isn't to say that they are well written or complex in any way (they just aren't), but they are likeable. I was thinking that Otori will end up becoming just a shallow protagonist, given that his only role was to help Ishikawa with his practicing with her, but nope, it's later shown that he is just that kind of guy: the kind that doesn't just want to help Ishikawa, but help anyone in need. He likes to dedicate time for others and try to sort other people's problems for them, even to a fault. The show recognizes this as an issue and doesn't try to sidestep it.

Ishikawa's friends are also friendly and notable, them always trying to do right by her and trying to take care of her when she needs it, which I also found enjoyable.

And the ending: it was so fun. I will say Otori got a nice present from Ishikawa, one that only her could give to him. It wasn't romantic, but it was still a very nice sign of their friendship having blossomed, and grown.

Overall, I loved all of these characters. I loved Otori, Ishikawa, Sakuma, Kusunogi, Ishikawa's parents, the school principal, all of them. It was just a fun world to inhabit and, by the end, I genuinely felt like I had been part of their lives.

It was a fun world, a colorful world, an imaginative world and one that had me saying “I want more of this” but also, if a new season won't get greenlit, then I can still say “I'm satisfied with just this much”. It never left me being disappointed, all the episodes left me happy and the characters were simply fun to be around.

This world, as fuzzy and cartoony as it was, was a fun one to be a part of. I'm very much glad that this show didn't break the trend of vampire anime being good because, honestly, I would have hated to be disappointed by this one. Thankfully, this wasn't the case.

3. GNOSIA (First half)

I'll start this off by saying that this anime is based off of a video game with the same name, that originally came out in 2019 on the PS Vita.

It later got ported to other, more contemporary consoles as well, and for Windows too.

I'm usually a fan of visual novel adaptations, because sometimes they are geared towards adults and so the stories usually have more mature undertones to them, which I definitely like.

This, however, doesn't feel like one of those adults-only kind of games.

But before I go any further, let's talk about the first episode.

The episode starts out with a young man named Yuri, being woken from a capsule by a woman named Setsu.

Yuri has been unconscious for some time, since the cruise ship that they are currently on has departed from the planet. He is also amnesiac.

Setsu now begins to explain to Yuri the details of what has happened while he was unconscious.

Apparently, their ship, called the DQO, has departed from the planet Liu-An, who was being ravaged by the Gnosia. Gnosia is a disease that makes people want to kill non-infected individuals, and compels them to lie to appear innocent at all times.

The ship's AI computer, LeVi, detected that one of the passengers, on board, is also a Gnosia infected, and is lying to appear as non-infected. Because of technological limitations, the computer cannot determine exactly which one of the passengers is infected, at least not until the infected one is put into cryogenic sleep.

Due to the current state of affairs, and since the ship is programmed to self-destruct if they don't put the Gnosia infected passenger into cold sleep soon, Setsu explains that all the passengers on board will have to hold meetings to determine who the infected person is.

As they finally arrive in the meeting room, Yuri gets to meet these other passengers: a very outgoing and seductive young woman named SQ, a highly intelligent organism named Racio, and a silent introvert named Jina.

When they start the meeting, Racio reveals that she immediately suspects Yuri for being the infected, since it's very “convenient” for him to have amnesia in the midst of all of this.

However, after Yuri defends his position, this ends up going against her when the passengers of the ship decide to vote who to put to cold sleep. The majority vote is that Racio will be put into cold sleep.

After doing so, the ship AI confirms that it was not Racio who was the one infected, so they have to continue having more meetings to decide to choose a different passenger, next.

However, before they could have their next meeting, the ship is programmed to do a warp jump, so they have to each return to their rooms. During this jump, the Gnosia infected will have free reign over the ship while everyone else will be unconscious, and will be able to kill one other passenger.

Yuri struggles to think about this, wondering who he should vote for, next.

But before the warp jump can take place, SQ enters Yuri's room, where it's revealed that she wants to talk with him.

After having a bit of small talk amongst themselves, the warp jump takes place and Yuri wakes up after it in his room.

During the jump, it appears that Jina was the one that was killed by the Gnosia.

Now, it's just Yuri, SQ and Setsu who are left. Yuri is warned that, if there will become a point when there will be the same number of Gnosia infected people as uninfected people on the ship (after leaving out the ones put to cold sleep) the Gnosia will immediately take over.

Knowing this, Yuri knows this is his last chance at saving the ship: if he chooses wrong between Setsu and SQ, he will die, murdered by whoever is the Gnosia.

Feeling the pressure, and also feeling that there's something that Setsu is hiding, Yuri decides to vote for Setsu to be put into cold sleep.

Knowing that these are the rules they have agreed on, Setsu laments that she was not able to sway Yuri on her side.

Just as she is about to enter her cryo-pod, Setsu gives Yuri a strange silver key that seemingly immediately enters his body.

After that, once she is put to sleep, SQ reveals herself to be the real Gnosia, and now she is alone with Yuri. It's at this point that Yuri realizes that he was mistaken for voting Setsu but, it's too late, and gets murdered by SQ.

However, immediately after that, Yuri finds himself back at the beginning, waking up in the same capsule as from the start of the episode, him meeting Setsu a second time.

Thus ends episode 1.

Now, there's a lot of things I like about this show.

The first, and most important thing, is that I like that Yuri makes mistakes in the beginning but, as the show progresses, he learns from them.

Much like the video game, the more you play it, the better you get at it.

Yuri is not a genius, by any means. He is just another random guy who wakes up one day, is put in front of an insane scenario in which he's forced to partake in, knowing that if he makes just one wrong move along the way, he risks either being put into cryo-sleep himself by the other ship mates, or he ends up getting killed by the Gnosia (or something else entirely, as will become apparent later on).

And yes, Yuri will make mistakes along the way. And sometimes, those mistakes will cost him, dearly.

But I just like how well the plot is handled.

I'll just put out a disclaimer now: I did not play the game that this is based off of.

However, it definitely felt to me that this was inspired by a werewolf video game (and I realized this before I looked it up).

The ideas and mechanics behind the plot are very rigid, reminding me of games like Among Us.

But, of course, this is an anime, not a video game; and while it is inspired by a video game, the plot can only be linear. A huge part of the enjoyment of this experience, which is the ability to vote for who you think might be the Gnosia, is removed from here, since this is a linear non-interactive experience.

As such, I was worried that this show might become boring, once all the rules of the game are revealed and the audience can then just use logical thinking to sus out who the Gnosia actually is, each episode.

But, surprisingly, this did not happen. Instead, each new episode would introduce new characters, new rules, more stuff that Yuri has to cope with, all while learning to be better at spotting lies.

And, most importantly, I liked that each character in this show gets fleshed out with important backstory as the story moves on.

Had the show only focused on the rules of the game and trying to sus out who's the Gnosia and who isn't, I'm scared that it would have flopped, big time.

But, thankfully, this never happened. Instead, the show knew when to talk about the game, when to talk about Yuri, and when to talk about other characters as well.

There are some really interesting characters, like an alien looking guy named Shigemichi, a cowboy dressed captain named Jonas, a mute young woman named Kukrushka, a human-cat hybrid called Chipie and so much more.

Oh and I didn't even talk about the talking dolphin in this show. Yes, there's a talking dolphin that will be part of the passengers.

There's a lot of good stuff in this, and I really love the colorful cast of characters and the rich sci fi setting in which, so many bizarre things can end up happening.

The plot twists that we get are very hard to predict, which always keeps you on edge. And sometimes, catastrophes happen that aren't even related to the Gnosia at all.

In the current age when most anime are fantasy, I really miss the sci-fi ones. This isn't to say that sci-fi is more interesting than fantasy, but I feel like the current anime landscape is oversaturated with fantasy (and the current isekai craze didn't help matters, either).

Granted, there are some things that I dislike about the show too: like how the rigid rules behind the game keep reminding me that this was originally meant to be played by a human player.

And by that I mean, there's really no reason why certain restrictions have to be in place, other than because the game just needs them to be there. Stuff like, why can the Gnosia only kill exactly one non-infected person during the warp jumps, why can't the Gnosia vote each other out to confuse the others, why can't passengers who were placed into cold sleep be taken back out once it's confirmed that they weren't the Gnosia (at one point, this even happens for entirely different reasons, so this is possible), why can't there be loops where the starting number of Gnosia is already equal to the number of non-infected passengers and so they can take over immediately? Or, for that matter, why can't there be loops when there just so happens to not be any Gnosia on board at all?

But yeah, I get it, there's some things that just can't be helped.

That's inevitable.

Overall, there's clearly a lot of passion put into this anime though. The art style is very polished, the music is definitely well done, the plot twists are unpredictable, the character development is prominent and there's even romance sideplots that keep things fresh. Hell, I read online that even players of the game were surprised by certain plot twists from the anime.

Clearly a lot of time and effort went into making this piece of art, and I'm all for it. I cannot say that their efforts went unappreciated.

If you really like this type of stories, then I highly suggest you check this out. It is so worth your time.

4. My Friend's Little Sister Has It In for Me!

It's probably best if I keep my review of this show short.

There's not a lot of reasons for why this is, mainly just that this did not interest me a lot.

The story is about a high school boy named Akiteru Ooboshi (or just Aki), who is a young man obsessed with being efficient in life.

He tries his best to follow the shortest possible routes to success in his life, and is also very flexible when it comes to following others' rules, sometimes even skirting the rules entirely if doing so fits with his own goals.

He is friends with a classmate of his called Ozuma Kohinata, who is a very talented programmer and whom he respects greatly.

Akiteru is actually the leader of a video game development group called the 5th Floor Alliance because, as it turns out, all the people working on this indie game just so happen to live in the same country, in the same city, in the same building and on the same floor (the 5th floor). It's on that specific floor where Akiteru and Ozuma also live, as neighbors.

There are also other members on that floor that are also involved in Akiteru's development group but, for now, I'll omit talking about them.

The game they have developed has garnered quite a following in Japan and they are praised as being highly talented despite still being in high school.

Akiteru also has his own nemesis: Ozuma's younger sister, a girl named Iroha who has a very disciplined and orderly personality at school but is, in fact, a childish troublemaker that loves to tease Akiteru while at home.

A running gag between Akiteru and Iroha is that Iroha likes to make fun of Aki's inexperience in love, and how she may have feelings for him, only to do a U turn at the last second, and reveal that she's just playing a prank on him, at his own expense. This always infuriates him.

One day, while the two are bickering amongst each other, Aki receives a phone call from his uncle, who's the CEO of a well established video game company in Japan and who is aware of Aki's success as the director of his team's indie game, and he invites Aki to dinner at a restaurant, but only after Aki confirms that he is not in any romantic relationship with anyone yet, to him.

When the day of their meeting comes, his uncle makes Aki an offer: he will put in a good word for him at his company, to make it likelier that Aki will be hired there after he'll finish high school, if Aki agrees to act as his daughter's girlfriend until they'll graduate. His daughter, Mashiro Tsukinomori, who is Aki's cousin and someone he was very good friends with back when they were kids, has recently moved schools and will now be Aki's classmate in the future, and her dad wants to make sure that other boys will not try to court her, so he wants Aki to act as her boyfriend to keep them away from her.

Aki, always being obsessed with efficiency, takes his uncle up on the offer and agrees to pretend to be Mashiro's boyfriend.

However, things might not go so well when, due to a misunderstanding in which he walked in on Mashiro while she was in the bathroom, Mashiro thinks that Aki is a pervert and has a severe dislike towards him.

Thus ends episode 1.

Yes, this is a love triangle anime, in which Aki will have to pretend to be his cousin's boyfriend, while also trying to handle the childish antics of Iroha on the side.

Or at least, that's what the show will have you think.

In reality, this is barely a rom-com at all. It's just a regular high school slice of life where the romance is set aside and, instead, it's just about the drama that the characters partake in.

Honestly, I liked the beginning and I was hoping that the show would cover the life of a high school video game development group, because anime has seldom focused on these kinds of things.

And, it makes you think that's the direction it's going to be but, in reality, it's just about Aki's high school life, not his professional life.

Like, how difficult it is for Aki to make friends with Mashiro, after she thinks of him as being a pervert, how he wants her to make friends with everyone, how he wants to focus on his tasks as group leader but other issues make things difficult, like how a drama club at his school are about to be disbanded and he has to help them because something something, one of his group's members is part of it.

Basically, if you're still following, it's not about the video game development process, it's just high school drama.

And, frankly, I just couldn't bring myself to care.

There's nothing particularly wrong about high school drama, per se, but I feel like the plot should really be about something a bit more than this, since it promised that Aki was also the leader of an indie game group.

I felt like the story just kept focusing on things that have very little merit, instead of the things that could actually be interesting.

And as for the romance aspect of the show....it's also very underwhelming.

For starters, I generally am forgiving of incestuous relationships in anime because I feel like they have potential for very good drama, when done right, but this show doesn't even acknowledge that Mashiro and Aki are related at all.

I mean sure, it mentions that Mashiro is Aki's cousin in passing, but they never say “Hey, we're actually related. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this, after all?”. Some might say that since they are only pretending to be a couple, that's going to be fine, but then, later on, the show decides to throw that out the window and then try to take their relationship seriously.

This is like the show trying to have its cake and eat it too. Are you actually treating this whole incestuous thing seriously or aren't you? Because, if you are going to take it seriously, you should probably address the elephant in the room and actually talk about it.

Anime that want to have incest in them but just conveniently never address this issue are really bothering me, since that's actually a good premise for an interesting story that can have thought provoking questions behind it, but the show is too scared to even touch this idea with a ten foot pole and suddenly forgets that these two characters are related at all.

But then, there's Mashiro herself: she's just a stereotypical tsundere. She starts off by disliking Aki because of a complete misunderstanding, but then slowly, throughout the show's run, warms up to him and becomes more and more interested in him.

Tsundere have existed in anime for like decades, at this point. I just want something more interesting done with this stereotype. Vanilla tsundere is overdone.

Akiteru, for his part, is the stereotypical efficiency nut that doesn't have any qualms about breaking rules, as long as it suits him. At some points, he ends up actually lying to others' faces, just so he can manipulate them into doing what he wants. Sure, he has a good heart and has no ill intentions, but it's still underhanded when he does it.

The only character I liked was Iroha. She turns out to be a bit more interesting in the show than I expected, but she doesn't get enough screen time, in my opinion.

Again, the show focuses a lot on Aki's relationships with Iroha and Mashiro but, after seeing a lot of love triangles in other anime done much better, it just pales in comparison.

A show, similar to this that I've watched on Crunchyroll a year ago was a show called Love Is Indivisible by Twins, another anime light novel adaptation that's a slice of life high school TV series, but done much better. You can read about my thoughts on it here.

That show, for all its faults, was at least more entertaining and actually compelling with its love story, had a slow romance development but actually got somewhere.

Like, if you're actually going to do a love triangle story, at least commit to the bit and do something with it, reach a conclusion! If not for the audience reading your story, at least for the sake of the characters in your story.

I don't want to read about how Akiteru solves his school's drama club disbandment problems, I want to read about his love life with the two girls! But the show doesn't commit to either, it tries to focus on both at the same time, only doing half as good a job for each, ultimately doing a disservice to both.

This is my problem with romance high school anime in general: they focus too much on the high school aspect and too little on the romance.

And then, at the end, when at least some kind of conclusion has to be drawn in the sand, the show then does a 180 degree turn and goes literally back to the status quo being like Just kidding, there's no actual romance here. You'll have to wait for season 2 for that.

Blow me!

Granted, Love Is Indivisible by Twins also had a very unsatisfying ending as well, but at least that had more focus towards the romance aspect throughout the middle of the runtime. That and, at least Jun, in that show, ended up being slapped in the face (which was greatly satisfying for me). The protagonist here didn't get slapped, so there was nothing satisfying about this one.

My only hope is that the light novels for this were actually much better than how the anime adaptation was. Maybe they are, I don't know. I never read them. This review is strictly for the anime, but the anime itself sucked.

Did this show have more plot than Li'l Miss Vampire Can't Suck Right? Yes, it definitely did. But the reason I liked that show more than this one is that, ultimately, that show was actually fun to watch. It clearly had passion, creativity behind it. I genuinely liked how they integrated the supernatural elements into its high school setting. And even if it didn't have all of that, the show was still hundreds of times more entertaining just because of the vampire lead who was so cute to watch.

This show didn't have any of those, so it was relying on a good story to fall back on. But it didn't have that either.

I'm done. On to the next one.

5. Tougen Anki: Legend of the Cursed Blood (second half)

This will be my review of the second half of this TV series (of its first season). If you wish to read about my thoughts on the first half, you can check them out here.

This show...really went sideways with this second half.

There were some things I liked about it, don't get me wrong. This isn't like the worst TV series I've seen in a while, but it was below average when it comes to delivery.

If you read what I thought about this show during its first half, you'd know that, even back then, I didn't like it very much.

It had good ideas, an interesting execution, and a semi-fleshed out plot but, all things considered, it was still a mediocre action TV series with subpar character development, half baked characters and with a very predictable sequence of events that led me to dislike it quite a bit.

Here, in this second half, not much has changed except that there's even less character development.

After the events of the first half, our team of Oni trainees, along with their teacher, decide to travel to Kyoto, for some reason, wearing undercover clothes to disguise themselves, since the oni-hating Momotaro agency now know how they look like.

In the process of visiting the new city, one of them ends up being forced to use his Oni powers in the daylight to save a little girl from being run over, exposing that they are there.

This doesn't go unnoticed by the local Momotaro agency in Kyoto, who decides to look into these things, further.

That's pretty much the gist of the first episode of this second half.

There's a bit more to talk about, but that is the most important information you need to be aware of.

There's also another Momotaro character named Shinya Momoiwa and Mikado Momodera that get introduced here, that will play a bigger roles as the antagonists of this second half, but I won't go into details about what their involvement will entail.

Long story short, there's gonna be a bit of deception going on behind the scenes in which the Oni, unsurprisingly, will get framed for a lot of devastating incidents in which a significant number of civilians will die.

First, I'll talk about what I liked about this second half.

The main thing that I liked in this part of the story is the introduction of this Mikado guy. He is, for all intents and purposes, a very strong and gifted Momotaro that has a lot of power and is extremely skilled in combat but, more importantly, he is a rational and kind person who wishes to make justice into the world, and doesn't simply hate all Oni just because he's a Momotaro.

That, to me, was a nice addition to this world.

I liked to see that not all Momotaro characters are just some combat driven lunatics that are controlled for their blood lust against the Oni and have at least a little bit of depth to them.

As such, this was the one and only thing about this second half, apart from the combat and action sequences, that I genuinely liked.

During this second half, a fledgling friendship will blossom between a Momotaro and an Oni. That's the crux of it.

And....well, it did play a big role, but not in the way I hoped it would.

But before I get to that, I'll talk a bit about the combat in this series.

Much like in the first half, the combat and techniques that the characters use to defend and attack are awesome. I love seeing the blood techniques being used, how they are countered by the Momotaro agency. I liked the creativity behind the powers of both the Oni and the Momotaro, and I liked that they now added reconnaissance abilities for this as well.

Pretty much everything involving the strength and abilities of the characters and anything pertaining to the action sequences, I liked.

The fight scenes were cool, significantly long and well done and well animated, which made me sufficiently happy.

Now, let's talk about the things I didn't like about this show.

And boy, there's a LOT to talk about.

I'll start with the plot: it's cliched as fuck.

I won't go into spoilers but, I'll just say, this turns into the whole cliche of two friends who believe in each other but who have their relationship put to the test, because an evil third party decides to deceive one of them and make them turn against each other.

I'm not going to say much more than this but, again, this is the whole plot point of 'Who are the real monsters, here?', in which the Momotaro Agency (or, in this case, just one person from this agency) becomes unscrupulous and ends up targeting and killing civilians in order to further their plans against the Oni.

This whole spiel about humans being more evil than the literal Oni has already been done in the first half of this season, so seeing it be done again in the second half as well felt both surprising and unwelcome.

I mean, can't you get a bit more creative than this?

Mikado being introduced kind of offset this a bit, since the plot added some dimension to the agency, thanks to him alone.

But outside of this, it's the same recycled crap all over again: the Oni are framed for doing something truly despicable, the Momotaro confront them and try to exterminate them, fighting ensues between them and the Oni win and then the whole truth gets exposed.

It's the same formula from the first half (except this time there's also a framing element to it), simply repeated. Same candy, with the same taste, just a different color.

And I figure that the whole plot involving the true friendship between our main characters being put to the test was surprisingly badly done this time around.

Had this plot involved characters that were romantically involved with each other, I feel like it would have been highly more effective and entertaining.

Or, at the very least, their friendship should have been even more pronounced and significantly more fleshed out. The fact is that a Momotaro and an Oni have only known each other for a single night, literally, and now they trust each other so much that one cannot even fathom the thought that the other could be evil?

How much trust can you put in someone you've only met during a single night?

I know this seems like a nitpick, but the whole show tries to make this look like a big deal, like the two are genuinely meant to be friends for the rest of eternity, just because they have this weird chemistry between them that's very difficult to fake. And when the Oni is framed as having done these horrible things to civilians, the break-up moment between them is supposed to be stomach churning.

This is, for all intents and purposes, complete bullshit.

There were times in which I was literally siding with the bad guy, mentally asking that specific Momotaro how gullible he can be. I mean, sure, the Oni was being framed for having done all these terrible things but, if the plot had actual depth to it, how much more interesting could it have been if the Oni really was the evil culprit behind those murders?

Or, better yet, what if this second half was more about morally ambiguous decisions, like the righteous Momotaro trying to come to terms with the fact that he's a Momotaro and has a duty to perform to his agency, in which he has to kill Oni, even though they might not be inherently evil per se. Basically, he'd have to make a decision about fulfilling his duty as a Momotaro or following his own personal moral principles.

How much cooler of a plot would that have been?

But no, it's the cliched recycled boring plot of “Oni are actually good and there are some rotten apples within the Momotaro agency that are spoiling the whole bunch”, kind of thing.

It feels like the show is only interested in having straw-man arguments about racism and nothing else, at the expense of so much potential.

But leaving aside the plot, let's talk about some logical inconsistencies in this show.

The show really tries to portray that there's this inherent difference between Oni characters and the Momotaro, even though I still don't understand the argument. Like, both of them have incredible powers at their disposal. What's even the point of trying to differentiate between the two?

The only thing that sets them apart is the fact that the Oni characters have horns on their heads (which they can easily hide, so that barely even counts) and the fact that all their abilities are blood-based.

Other than this, the simple fact that there's even a conflict between these two parties feels like just forced conflicts for the sake of forced conflicts.

I really find it hard to believe that the Momotaro would have trouble accepting a ceasefire with such powerful beings, especially given how much potential for combat Oni seem to have.

Then, there's the less obvious stuff.

Some abilities that Oni have seem to make literally no sense. At one point, a particular character creates a giant wave of blood to engulf a Momotaro enemy in it, to defeat him, so much bood that they cannot possibly have contained all of it in their body. The human body can only house around 5 litres of blood, not nearly enough to create a giant wave of it.

Then, there are points in which characters should very easily have died from the amount of trauma they took during battle; I maybe can tolerate at least a little bit of this happening to the Oni (since, you know, Oni are purely fictional creatures and you can make up any rule regarding their bodies), but then you have Momotaro, who are supposed to be regular humans, that take so much damage that they should have easily died from it, but still don't. The Momotaro sometimes are damage sponges in this show, surviving insane amounts of blunt force trauma that would have normally caused multiple fractures in normal humans in reality, if not immediate death.

Then, there's a case in which a specific Momotaro character just gets a single bleeding wound on his neck and that's it, he's dead. Him, simply for not being a combat person, just died from a single wound in the neck, just like that.

It's very inconsistent.

Another time, an Oni character literally gets his foot blown off one of his legs and he does not bleed out immediately, but is still able to function normally (but don't worry, his leg will be just fine later on, for some reason).

Then, another time, a regular human character ends up in a car crash, just because his vision gets altered by someone's powers that replaces what he should see with what they're seeing, effectively blinding them while they're driving the car. That made me chuckle, I'm not gonna lie.

Here's the thing: the fact that you would somehow get blinded in your eyes while driving doesn't necessarily mean you'll crash the car. Most drivers have an instinctual sense on how they should move their foot to hit the brakes of the car and stop it before they crash. The fact that he died like that made no sense to me.

Or how about when a character walks right into an explosive trap and survives it without even a scratch, just because they were “careful” and “saw it coming”. How does that work? I don't know.

Then, there's the action sequences themselves: don't get me wrong, they are cool, but they don't make sense at all. Like, a character can just stay on the side of a building just by running, somehow defying gravity, or how they can dodge a continuous rain of bullets aimed directly at them just by running sideways.

Yeah, apparently, running in this show makes you invincible.

This is why I hate guns in fiction. They are usually portrayed as being so much more finicky than how they really are. I'm not going to pretend that I know how it is to shoot another person, but I don't feel like it would be that hard to do that while they are running.

This is literally just Stormtrooper aiming, in anime form.

You get the idea.

I don't wanna harp on these inconsistencies for too much, since, like I said, the show is cool and it has flashy fights and cool abilities but damn, the moment you apply even the slightest bit of logic to it, it falls apart so quickly, it's incredible.

Or, and this is my last complaint, I promise, how that particular Momotaro has so much blind trust in the Oni despite having known him for just a single night, but then, the moment he sees the Oni at the scene of a tragedy, he loses all hope and simply refuses to trust literally anything the Oni has to say, not even refusing to hear him out.

That was so contrived and amateurish, that it was pulling me out of the experience. The simple fact that you had incredible blind faith in someone you barely know but, after all of that, you slingshot into the opposite direction and don't even wanna hear them out to see how they defend themselves is unbelievably contrived, on all grounds. There's literally no middle ground when it comes to that Momotaro, it's either he's in full trust mode of the Oni or in complete distrust mode. There is no in-between.

I just can't anymore.

This show was just too ridiculous. I watched it for the cool powers that the characters had but even I couldn't take it anymore, after a certain point.

After watching intelligent shows from this batch like This Monster Wants to Eat Me and GNOSIA, that had so much more logic and forethought put into them, this show just looked like it was written by a high schooler.

Or, at most, someone that's studying writing in college.

This isn't to say that I think that the person who wrote this plot is necessarily from those age groups, but it's at least clear to me that he's targeting the high schooler demographic with this.

In fact, I think even teenagers would find some of the plot points in this show to be extremely dumb, but they are more likely to forgive it, just because the action is cool.

For me, as an adult, it felt jarring. I just couldn't get into the plot. It felt contrived, boring, simplistic and very much predictable.

The only good thing I can say about this show is that, after last season when I watched Kaiju No. 8, I will at least say that this show is better than that. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying it's more intelligent than Kaiju No. 8. All I'm saying is that it's more entertaining than Kaiju No. 8.

Kaiju No. 8 was worse, to a fault, because, unlike this show, it targeted adults as its main demographic (at least, I think it did). Due to this, it had to be more intelligent and add extremely boring side arcs to the story, involving military command structure, power struggles and disagreements between the humans, cadets that are trying to reach new heights and are constantly challeging the status quo, all things that sound really cool on paper and can make for a good story, but in reality just slowed everything down to a crawl and took away time from the fight sequences.

This show, even though it's way more dumb than Kaiju No. 8 on pretty much any level, is at least fun to watch (at least for the fight scenes). When the fight scenes happen, which isn't very often sadly, but when they happen they are very much fun to watch seeing how they play out, what abilities a specific Oni or Momotaro have and how creatively they get to use it.

Granted, none of the fights are surprising, you can see the outcome of the fight from a mile away, but at least they are entertaining to watch. Kaiju No. 8 also had predictable fights too, but they were boring to look at, which made that even worse of a bargain.

So yeah, this show had cooler fights than Kaiju No. 8. That's all I'll say.

The fact that I got more enjoyment out of this show than I did for Kaiju, even though Kaiju was supposed to be more up my alley since it was meant for adults, isn't a complement towards this show, as much as it is an insult for Kaiju No. 8. It's just that bad.

But aside from this? I'm officially dropping this show. I cannot fathom why they chose to adapt 24 episodes for this show, when there are many, so much better written stories out there, that deserve these many resources instead.

If this will ever get a second season, I'm not watching. I'm done. It's just too dumb for me. I can easily see someone that's younger that can get into it, but for me, personally, it just insults my intelligence on a level that is unforgivable (and no, this isn't me saying that younger people are dumber than older ones, I'm just saying that they are usually more tolerant of dumb things than older people).

We have 9 anime entries for this season, and I'm excited to talk about most of them (and also, a bonus one at the end for those that have a Hidive subscription).

This has been a busy season, since I've had to watch new episodes pretty much every single day of the week, except for Monday. Fridays and Sundays were especially difficult since I had 3 shows to watch in each of them, so I was very much busy throughout my weeks.

Do I regret it? For the most part, no. I had a lot on my plate but I am glad to say that things worked out well, and I had a lot of content to enjoy.

And with some special exceptions, it was a very nice roundup. I very much enjoyed watching most of the shows that I'll be discussing today.

So grab a cup of coffee (or tea, whichever you prefer) and let's get cranking.

As always, all of these anime will be available on Crunchyroll from Romania, since that's how I've watched almost all of these (with the exception of the bonus entry at the end).

Let's begin.

1. Night of the Living Cat

This was such a wild ride.

Imagine, if you will, a zombie apocalypse that turns modern day Japan into a desolate place with only a handful of human survivors, but instead of actual zombies, it's regular domestic cats.

Yes, this show is about a virus that turns people into cats when they get touched by them without protection gear.

Humans turn into adorable, small and playful cats that want to cuddle and play around.

You'd think this would be easy to solve. Just employ the army and get rid of the cats, right?

Well, the story starts when most of humanity (or at least in Japan) has already been turned to cats.

The plot follows a group of three survivors: Kunagi, Kaoru and Arata, as they maneuver around the abandoned lifeless city, trying to scavenge for food, fuel and gear to survive in this maddening world.

Kunagi is an especially interesting case since he is a young man that suffers from amnesia, since he doesn't remember who he is or where he came from, but who just so happened to wake up on his own. It just so happened that he entered a cat cafe that was owned by Kaoru's brother, where he was offered to stay until he can remember his past.

Then, the cat apocalypse suddenly happened and all cats began to turn humans into them, and now Kunagi, Kaoru, Arata and Kaoru's brother have to escape. Kaoru's brother sacrifices himself so that the other three can get away from the cats, and now they are left to fend for themselves.

They manage to secure a car and, using it, they now have to find ways around the city without attracting the attention of their feline foes.

That's a good description of the first episode.

What's interesting about this show is that, for the most part, despite cats causing this chaos and civilization extinction event, nobody really seems to hate them at all.

If you can't tell already, this show is a satire of American zombie TV series. It's all played for laughs more than anything else.

Of course, the action is real and the cats will behave like predators going out of their ways to turn Kunagi and his allies into more cats, and our heroes will have to find ways to defend themselves, such as using cat toys to lure them away from the main group, or using improvised water tools to spray cats with water to deter them from approaching.

And if you're wondering: no, there's no real animal violence in this show, thankfully. This is all played for laughs and is very lighthearted.

It's very funny seeing the main characters almost lose control of themselves when they want to stop and cuddle with a cute cat, only to suddenly remember that they shouldn't and cry in pain because they can't pet the cute cat. The cats aren't mind controlling anyone, mind you, it's just that all the human characters in the show just really love cats. And really, who doesn't love cats?

There are some serious moments from time to time, though, as human characters will get turned into cats on occasion, and the show does treat it as a serious loss, like a tragic event. In fact, the survival aspect of the show, while it's played for laughs, is not underplayed. There are times when cats will pose a serious threat to their survival, and our heroes will have to get creative to escape.

While the story is absurd in every way possible, it takes itself seriously and the action sequences, while intentionally over-the-top, are well done, like Kunagi riding a motorcycle to escape a giant cat monster, or a cowboy trying to shoot with water guns at cats that are approaching him.

Oh and, this is a minor spoiler, but there will be cats that will control other, bigger animals in the show, later on. Like how cool is that?!

Imagine a cat on top of a brown bear, as the cat controls the bear. That's so creative I can't even begin to describe it.

Or there's also another cat that's actually very intelligent that will appear, later on, and become an ally to our heroes. And that cat will receive a small device that will translate everything it says into English, but only in famous movie quotes.

I love the ideas behind this show. It was so creative and funny.

It has everything I liked about an anime: it's absurd, surreal, nonsensical, funny, dramatic, creative and, most importantly, it had cats; lots and lots of cats.

As a cat lover, I couldn't ask for more.

And, the cherry on top was that, at the end of each episode, you'd get a short educational post-credit segment with our main characters trying to teach you on how to be a responsible and informed cat owner, which was a nice touch.

If there's any show that is as surreal as this one, it was another one I wrote about back in spring of 2023, called Too Cute Crisis, about a bunch of aliens who arrive on Earth and try to study humanity, only to have their invasion plans halted because of a cat being too cute.

I love shows like these that are both wholesome and family friendly, but still very entertaining even to adults.

This needs a season two, since the whole virus plot doesn't get answered just yet and I really want for there to be a continuation to this story. As is, it was very good and I do not regret watching it, but I feel like it's incomplete and there's a lot more that needs to be addressed, such as who created the virus and who is the mastermind behind all of this.

Please, Japan, give me a season 2 of this!

2. Detectives These Days Are Crazy!

It's time for a comedy.

I'm not gonna lie, I loved the preview for this show when it first came out.

It looked wacky, full of energy and was just unhinged in the best ways possible.

And yeah, I made a judgment call to watch it because of that since, usually when something is wacky and unhinged, that's a green flag that the whole show will be like that.

And what would you know? I was right.

The first episode is split into two parts.

In the first part, we are presented with 35 year old Keiichiro Nagumo, a private detective that had a successful career in his high school days but is now struggling to pay his rent and food. He thankfully manages to get a case that involves getting evidence that the client's wife is cheating on him. But before he can start the investigation, a high school girl named Mashiro Nakanishi arrives at his office and suddenly requests to become his assistant.

When inquiring why such a young girl as herself wants to become the assistant of a private detective whose agency is barely getting any new cases, Mashiro gives out a petty shallow excuse that does not impress Keiichiro, so he declines her offer.

Instead, he decides to take on the case on his own. He follows the suspected wife around the city until she and a strange man that she's with enter a young cafe.

Keiichiro, knowing that a single old man like him would stand out like a sore thumb if he followed them in, decides to wait for them outside so that he can continue stalking them but Mashiro then arrives and offers to pretend to be his girlfriend so that they can enter together.

Begrudgingly, Keiichiro accepts and they do so. As they stand at the same table, Mashiro realizes that Keiichiro is very bad with technology and anything that's new, since his ways of collecting evidence are very outdated and conspicuous. Seeing no other ways, Mashiro manages to help him solve the case by making it seem like they were taking a couple's picture on her phone when, in fact, they were taking a picture of the cheating wife and her boyfriend in the background, which they then sent to the husband as evidence.

Seeing how Mashiro had helped him solve his case, Keiichiro concedes and hires her as an unpaid assistant as a reward for her help.

He later regrets his decision when he realizes that Mashiro had gone around the city posting fliers of his agency everywhere, claiming that they are willing to accept whatever odd jobs there are, in an attempt to boost his business.

The second part of this episode involves a miscommunication gag in which a new client asks Keiichiro's agency to help him deal with a bees' nest.

To save time, Mashiro agrees to handle the situation on her own, and leaves the office to arrive at the client's house while the client himself remains at the office with Keiichiro.

Keiichiro gives out instructions to Mashiro over the phone to guide her to the house but, because of a miscommunication, Mashiro arrives at the wrong building that houses a bunch of yakuza.

Thinking that she's talking about the bees, Keiichiro instructs Mashiro to kill all of them, and so she proceeds to invade the building and starts attacking all the yakuza in it. She overpowers all the yakuza in just a couple of minutes, clears the building on her own and has one lone young member beg for his life to her, and she decides to spare him in the process.

After “clearing the bees' nest”, she returns to the office thinking that she had accomplished her job, none the wiser.

The yakuza man that she had spared, named Nezu, decides to also join Keiichiro's agency as an unpaid assistant as a show of gratitude.

So ends the first episode.

So yeah, this is a lighthearted comedy, if you couldn't tell.

The jokes are basically non-sequiturs, always making fun of the characters, like how old and outdated Keiichiro is, how muscle headed and selfish Mashiro sometimes is, or just how odd the situation can get sometimes.

The show likes to poke fun at the characters and even break the fourth wall multiple times, while also introducing other strange people like the Nipple-Tasting Man, whose only purpose is to serve as a gag for a bunch of episodes (and yes, he is a recurring character).

I loved this show.

It's the type of comedy that I certainly like. The comedy and jokes reminded me a bit of Mayonaka Punch but it was even less grounded than that, if that's even possible.

This show likes to defy the laws of physics, common sense and even tropes, innovating at everything that it does and also providing an instant punchline that sometimes works, other times it doesn't, but at the rate of jokes that it keeps telling, you're bound to laugh at least a couple of times each episode.

If you're a fan of nonsensical comedies that loves to make fun of its characters, I highly encourage you to check this out.

There is no overarching plot in this one, since it doesn't take itself seriously enough to have one, but honestly, it doesn't need one. It's all about the jokes and, hey, if the jokes are funny, that's good enough for me. If that's also good enough for you then I suggest you watch this.

3. Hotel Inhumans

Time for a manga adaptation.

I really liked this show. It had a very distinct style, with many interesting twists and turns each episode that kept me guessing all the time.

The plot revolves around two concierges that work at Hotel Inhumans, a secretive inconspicuous hotel that is actually an establishment founded to serve underground assassins from all across Japan.

The two are a young man named Ikuro and a young woman named Sara.

The premise of the show is simple: Ikuro and Sara, as full time employees for the hotel, must ensure to cater to every need that the hotel's guests may have, regardless of difficulty. And given that their guests are assassins, you can imagine that the requests can very quickly become wild.

Episode 1 follows a young man named Siao who works for the Okajima gang. He is an assassin that works for this gang to protect his sister, Mao, who is being held by them in a secret location.

Each year, to prove that she is still alive, the gang give Siao a recording of his sister singing a lullaby.

During one of his missions, after killing his target, Siao is betrayed by the head of the gang and almost killed by them but manages to escape.

Having nowhere to turn to, Siao arrives at Hotel Inhumans, per the instructions of the previous gang leader, and requests Ikuro and Sara to help him save his sister from the gang's hands.

After looking into the matter, Ikuro brings Siao to a chapel where he confronts the leader of the gang along with his henchmen. by themselves.

As they are about to be killed, Sara swoops in and very easily kills all the henchmen and incapacitates the gang leader, all by herself.

Now, seeing as he is cornered, the leader tries to talk himself out of being killed by the three. Once Ikuro realises that he's lying and that Siao's sister is actually dead by hints left behind from her last lullaby recording, Siao kills the leader.

At his sister's grave, Siao meets up with a small girl that also was there to deliver flowers. It is at that point that Siao realizes that this girl must be his niece and that his sister was a mother.

Back at the hotel, Ikuro reveals that he had known for some time of that little girl's existence and had set Siao up to meet with her. This wasn't what Siao had wished from them, initially, but it was the closest he could get to fulfilling his customer's needs.

That was episode 1.

As you can tell, there are many plot twists in this show.

It kept me guessing all the time, which I've found to be very refreshing.

Some episodes end with a bitter sweet ending, since, as you can imagine, the assassin world is filled with tragedy, and this show doesn't shy away from that.

Every couple of episodes introduces new arcs, with new assassins, each with their own stories, backgrounds, motivations, personalities and needs. And then it's all about Ikuro and Sara trying to find ways to accommodate them in whatever ways they can.

Some of the stories are insane, such as one involving a young girl that's deathly ill trying to recreate a miso soup that tastes the same as her mentor had made for her before her own untimely demise, but without her knowing the exact recipe or ingredients. And Ikuro and Sara have to figure out this recipe from a small clue (that being the girl's nickname) while a group of other assassins are out to kill her.

Others involve a dementia afflicted old assassin that visits them and is very much mentally unwell, as Ikuro and Sara have to make sure that he doesn't reveal the true purpose of their hotel to others.

And many other such stories.

Some of the stories are tragic and don't end on a happy note, as you might expect. Others are heart warming.

It's all around just a fun experience.

I've really enjoyed my time with the show, and I honestly love how professional and capable both Ikuro and Sara prove to be, as well as how likeable they both are.

Moreso than anything else, the show is about professionalism and service excellency from two young concierges that cater to the most atypical of crowds.

That's what this is, in a nutshell.

And it was a very entertaining ride.

I will be returning to this one, no doubt about it. I really hope for a season two. 🤞

4. Tougen Anki: Legend of the Cursed Blood (first half)

I'm not particularly thrilled about this one.

This is the one anime that I didn't initially know what to expect but, as time went on and I kept watching it, I very much realized that it wasn't really for me.

Before I get into my thoughts on it, let's talk about the first episode.

Shiki Ichinose is a high school dropout that is trying to live a peaceful life with his dad at their family shop. Shiki is rebellious and loves guns.

One day, while living his life as usual, Shiki gets attacked by a strange old man who seems to possess incredible powers.

He gets saved by his dad just in time, and they immediately try to run away from the man in question.

His dad explains to him that Shiki is actually an Oni, the descendant of a group of very strong creatures that can control their blood and use it as weapons in combat. Oni have caused a lot of turmoil and suffering historically and, because of this, a clan of humans named the Momotarou have made it their mission to exterminate all Oni and their descendants.

The man in question that had attacked them and is still pursuing them is, actually from the Momotarou clan, and have tracked down Shiki.

But before they can make their escape, Shiki gets captured.

I won't spoil the ending of the episode but, needless to say, you can probably figure out where this is going.

Shiki will eventually awaken his Oni powers, have to fight for his life, learn how to work with other Oni and prove to the Momotarou that he isn't the monster that they think that he is.

That's this plot, in a nutshell.

This is based on a shonen manga, and this really shows. The childish humor, the focus on fight sequences, the moments where it feels like it's gonna be gruesome but always shies away from becoming too graphic, all of them are tropes in shonen stories like this one.

And the anime adopts the style of the manga and goes full force with it. It feels custom made to cater to a young, teenage demographic. From the rebel protagonist, to life lessons about team work and trusting your friends, even to the ending song that's literally called “What Is Justice?”, everything screams teen energy at the max.

And that's where my issue with this show lies. I'm just too old for this kind of stuff. Had I been 15 years younger, sure, I can really see myself loving a show like this. But as I am, today, it all just feels like a shallow corporate creation specifically made to engage teens and gain their attention.

This feels like it wants to be a culture bomb and I'm not sure if it will succeed at it. It might become, if teens will really get into it and become popular enough, but that remains to be seen. I'm so disconnected with the newer generations that I cannot predict, for the life of me, whether this will become big enough of a phenomenon with them to ingrain itself into the modern ethos of shonen anime.

For now, I just felt very bored at it.

But I did find the gimmick of transforming your own blood into weapons for combat to be surprisingly innovative. Frankly, I'm surprised that this is the first time I've seen an anime do that. Surely it isn't the first one to employ such a gimmick, but it's the first one that I, personally, saw to use this.

And while I do find the concept of using blood for combat to be extremely gross and life threatening even, the show abstracts away from that and intentionally doesn't let you dwell on the details of this setup. You'd think that using such weapons too much would cause sufficient blood loss to kill the Oni, but that doesn't happen.

But I really liked some of the designs and powers of the main characters. The fact that the protagonist loves guns, you can probably predict that his powers will involve making guns out of his own blood. And yeah, while that sounds gross, it is actually surprisingly cool the way it gets executed.

But then, the show gets bogged down by the classic cliches of the genre: the uptight teacher that just doesn't get it, the discrimination that the Momotarou have against oni, the whole “who are the real monsters?” dilemma, the chosen one trope, the having to learn to master your emotions, the unlocking of new powers whenever a significant impediment happens; it's all so recycled that I just didn't care anymore.

Again, if this had come out 15 years earlier, I would have been impressed. But I've seen these tropes done to death already. This felt like a paint-by-numbers kind of show almost.

But, still, that doesn't change the fact that certain ideas are still cool and I do find the blood techniques to be a nice new idea that I'm glad gets executed. I'm just sad that the story has to go through all of these points again, when so many anime have done them in the past.

And let me just say, the humor and shallowness of the characters are really turning me off. There are multiple times in which the characters feel so shallow and one-dimension that they feel like caricatures of what real people would be like, them always possessing only one trait and nothing else.

The fact that these characters are also sometimes cracking jokes at the worst possible moments and acting like buffoons when the scene demands that they be serious is killing my mood. I know that that's a classic thing in some shonen anime but it feels particularly egregious here.

But maybe this just is my age showing and me not understanding what the youth want out of their shows, these days. I don't know.

Either way, am I done with watching this show? Well, I thought that I was but apparently I'm only halfway through the season. While I do sometimes drop a show by this point if it's very bad I'm looking at you, Tasuketsu, I'm not at that point with this show. I dislike the show, and I do feel like it's not for me but, at the end of the day, I've seen worse shows than this one, and I feel like I can stomach another 12 episodes of this.

So yeah, you'll see me writing about the second half of this show in the upcoming batch as well.

5. To Be Hero X (Part 2)

This blog post will cover the second half of this TV series. If you wish to read about my thoughts on the first half, feel free to do so here.

Long story short, I really liked the show. It had some things about it that I found boring but, for the most part, I really liked the action sequences and the story.

This second half will cover the backstories of more heroes that have remained unexplored, as well as a plot point about a mysterious substance that can turn people into monsters called “fear”.

Much like the first half, the action sequences are very nice in this. The music is also very memorable and the art style is experimental, with each hero arc having a different one that's unique to it.

We also get to learn more about Hero X, which is a focal character that keeps getting talked about constantly by other characters in-universe, as well as his personality.

And yes, this is also the half in which we get to see the dog arc in which, yes, there will be a literal talking dog hero. I won't spoil too much about it, and honestly it was more underwhelming than I expected it would be, but it was pretty original, at least.

There were also more connections being made with what happened in arcs from the first half, such as the reason why the original hero Nice had committed suicide.

This show really loves making references to other arcs, all the time. It's kind of its thing.

All in all, I liked the show. But, as time went on, the momentum that this show had started to wane on me, a little bit.

While I like the formula of constantly switching up the main character of each arc and sometimes showing the same events from different points of view, it became tiresome after a certain point. I've found this way of doing things refreshing initially, since so few other anime do it, but now I understand why this technique is so rare.

I will say that, after 24 long episodes, the gimmick was losing its charm. I'm very thankful that this was the only show that did this, this season.

Other than that, I liked this. I do feel like this second half was a bit less impressive than the first one, mainly because the aforementioned technique was becoming tiresome for me but, overall, I still see them as a good experience.

If you like this sort of storytelling that involves multiple points of views, switching main characters and art styles, and a fleshed out world with multiple characters all partaking in the weaving of the story, then this is very much for you. Just be aware that this might get a bit too much as you approach the ending.

6. Clevatess

Are you in the mood for a dark fantasy story? If so, then I have good news for you.

This one is as straightforward a concept as it gets. Let's start with a synopsis of the first episode.

A group of heroes employed by the Kingdom of Haiden, travel to the far south of the human empire to confront one of the lord of the dark beasts that lives at the corner of said empire.

The heroes, armed with mystical weapons of great power called Regalia, include a young woman named Alicia Glenfall.

Alicia had become a hero, as a promise to her late father, so that she will open up the world so that humans can advance into new territories that were previously unreachable to them because of said dark beasts that block their paths.

Armed and ready to confront the beast, the heroes attack Clevatess, the dark beast of shadows, in an attempt to slay him.

Clevatess, being an immortal creature that can manipulate shadows, easily overpowers the heroes and begins to kill them one by one.

In the process of doing so, Clevatess also learns that it was the king of Haiden that had sent them to his territory.

Angered by this, Clevatess leaves his mountain in anger and attacks the capital of Haiden, pretty much decimating everything in his path and murdering both soldiers and human civilians alike.

Eventually Clevatess makes it to the castle and destroys it entirely, before confronting the king himself.

He asks the king for why he had ordered the heroes to attack him, but the king answers that he wouldn't understand the reason even if he told him.

Dissatisfied by this answer, Clevatess decapitates the king and starts to leave. Among the rubble of the castle, Clevatess is called out by a dying woman, who begs him to spare a crying baby that she holds and save him from death.

Clevatess, very disinterested, inquires why he should save this baby, as he doesn't see humanity as more than an insect that needs exterminating, now that they had provoked him. The woman responds that this baby will bring peace to the world and show him why humanity is worth saving, but only if Clevatess will save him.

Intrigued by this answer, Clevatess agrees to take the baby boy with him, effectively adopting him, and then leaves the capital and flies back to his mountain.

There, Clevatess quickly realizes that he is unfit to take care of such a young boy and that the baby will most likely need a nursing mother to give him milk when he's hungry.

He resurrects the female hero Alicia, whom he had previously killed, using his powers, and, to her surprise, he orders her to feed the baby milk. Alicia is obviously surprised but, since Clevatess is in full control of her body, he forces her to do so, only to then discover that Alicia is incapable of producing milk, since she is not pregnant.

Alicia informs Clevatess that, because he needs to feed the baby, they will need the help of a nursing mother, a woman who still lactates, to provide them with the milk.

And so, Clevatess decides to take the baby, who he now calls Luna, and his new slave, which is Alicia, with him so that they can find a nursing mother for the baby.

Thus ends the first episode.

Initially, I will admit that this first episode did not leave a very good impression on me.

I can't really explain it, maybe it's the avalanche of isekai fantasy stories that I've seen the past couple of years, but seeing something so dark and broody all of a sudden left a bitter taste in my mouth, especially when you look at the kill count from the first episode alone.

Clevatess pretty much wrecks the capital of Haiden and while no official count of casualties is said, the implied toll of deaths in just this episode alone is staggering. Not that this is in any way a bad thing but, to me at least, it felt so unexpected to have a first episode so unapologetic and dark.

Thankfully, this taste didn't last long and, as more and more episodes came in, I began to warm up to this show.

Needless to say, fantasy has been ruined for me because it's the stereotypical genre of choice for isekai anime, and this is why seeing something so dark put me off initially, since I wasn't used to stories being so cold and dark.

The show will continue to have a lot of implied suffering, including references to slavery, rape, still births, hanging and much much more.

This is not a fun world to live in, and there are consequences for a lot of stuff.

And Clevatess practically decimating the capital of Haiden and killing off what seemed to be the whole royal family will have side effects, as well, since for the rest of this season, another neighboring kingdom will take this opportunity to invade them.

So yeah, there's a bit of politics in this too.

When I began to digest what the show was doing and take in the story, I quickly realized that this was, for all intents and purposes, what I've been waiting for from a fantasy setting anime for such a long time.

I don't mind dark and mature TV series in a fantasy setting. In fact, I prefer them. It's just that, after so much isekai slop recently, I've just become surprised that such high quality shows even exist anymore. I thought they were extinct.

This show has proper world building, power scaling, character development, and a unique style and presentation that follows it from beginning to end. And my only fear of it was that Clevatess would turn out to be too strong. But thankfully the show realizes that this could be a problem and thankfully underutilizes his powers and tries to make excuses on why he cannot use them at certain points, so that his allies, like Alicia, will have to think on her feet and survive on her own.

That was surprisingly refreshing.

So many new ideas were used that also set this apart as a unique fantasy series, like Clevatess not necessarily being the bad guy of the show, but making him just be another character that simply follows his own interests and has his own goals. There are also other dark lords that will partake in the story as well, to keep things balanced.

And Alicia will also have her backstory revealed in this one as well.

Honestly, all things considered, I really liked everything.

From beginning to the end, this was a surprisingly well done and beautifully detailed world, interesting plot twists, and some very heart wrenching battles that were also very nicely animated.

For anyone that will ever say “This guy just hates fantasy”, I will always point you to this specific anime and say “No, I don't hate fantasy. I just hate fantasy isekai”. This show could have so easily been done as a recycled isekai anime in which Clevatess was a reincarnated white office worker that somehow had the powers of a god, and this really could have turned into another slop.

But it didn't. It knew how to build an interesting story and not use recycled cliches and shallow trends to make itself stand out.

And I, very much, appreciate that. If a new season gets greenlit for this, I will be sure to watch it.

7. Kaiju No. 8 (Season 2)

It was inevitable that we would also talk about this one, seeing how I already covered season one in my previous blog post here.

I strongly suggest you read my thoughts on season 1 to get an idea of why I'm going to say what I'm about to say here.

Basically, I didn't like this show's season 1, nor do I like this season, either.

There's many reasons for why that is but it all boils down to the fact that this is simply a very generic style shounen jump story about a protagonist that ends up ultra powerful (basically, out of pure luck), enrolls in some para-military organization to protect his country against giant monster threats, and uses his powers to covertly do just that while trying to maintain his kaiju powers a secret from his peers.

Major spoilers for season 1 ahead.

If you watched season 1, you'll know that, by the end of it, his secret gets discovered by everyone and they all become aware that the protagonist is, in fact, Kaiju No. 8.

Now, that's all well and good.

My issue with the show, even from season 1, were all related to the plot. I hated the whole generic “the protagonist is actually a hero but he has to maintain his powers a secret” subplot, since it was such a generic overused trope in fiction. I'm glad that they threw that out the window by the end of that season, and that was giving me hope that the show will finally improve into something better.

And, to some extent, this second season started out in a promising direction.

Major Kaiju attacks take place in the city and Kafka has to protect all his peers only to discover that, for some reason, most likely due to the enemy's interference, he is unable to transform into Kaiju No. 8, and so now he has to fight in his human form until he figures out a solution.

Ok, so the author decided to nerf the protagonist for some reason now.

I didn't like that but I was looking forward to seeing how Kafka will survive everything.

Well, the conclusion to that arc wasn't what I was hoping it would be. He figures out how to transform again, but the reason he was unable to in the first place was another generic excuse that I've seen other shows do before this one.

But ok, sometimes stories like these will naturally reuse plot devices from other shows. Maybe it's not very original but as long as the fights are entertaining, who cares about the story, right?

Well, there's the second issue with this show: the fights just don't grab me.

I hate the action sequences in this anime. During season 1, I could never figure out why that was but now, during this season, I think I've figured it out. The problem is that nothing has any impact.

When the hero fights and throws a punch, the enemy survives mostly unscathed. Sure, he gets thrown back a great distance (and maybe goes through a whole bunch of buildings in the process), but that doesn't change the fact that he survives the big punch and rises back up to fight.

Same thing when the hero gets punched. The show pretends that it hurts and that there are consequences, but nothing has long term impacts.

All the punches, all the kicks, all the hits, they are all superfluous. They are just done to make the fights look cool, but they don't actually do anything.

When a punch doesn't hurt the one getting punched, then I stop caring when I see punches.

It's as simple as that. I'm sick of the heroes and enemies being punch sponges, constantly throwing big punches around like it's supposed to mean anything when the story clearly doesn't think that they are a big deal.

During certain fights, with the whole explosions and complete destruction that the environment undergoes during these fight sequences, there were so many times when I said to myself “This character cannot possible have survived that”, especially when that character is just a regular human without any special powers, only to be proven wrong time and time again.

Frankly, it lost all its credibility, at that point.

The show tries to pretend like it can get serious, like during the point when a major character dies during this season (and yes, everyone in the plot makes it look like it's a big deal), but given that the subject matter is that Kaiju keep invading Japan and doing extreme amounts of damage, I'm really surprised that the casualty count is as sparse as it still is.

There's only been 1 good guy that died this whole season. 1. After like half the city has been decimated. Are you kidding me?!

Then, as if that wasn't enough, the show then decides to take detours and grow other minor characters, rather than focusing on the big plot, trying to make them grow stronger too.

I'm generally all for character growth, especially for minor characters in a TV show, but I never cared for these ones. They are all shallow, generic, the kind of people that are simply “good guys that want to protect and are willing to give their lives for that goal” kind of characters. Literally, just the most generic soldier personality you can think of.

In fact, this entire show just feels like military propaganda, since this season, at least, was less about Kaiju No. 8 and more about the good guys that protect civilians. It just tries to show the soldiers growing, working together, assisting each other, pulling each other back up.

That's all this show is. It's military propaganda, but for a paramilitary organization that doesn't even exist.

I never cared one bit for any of the characters. Nor did I care about Kafka, for that matter, since they are so paper-thin characters that you could literally sum up each of their personalities in just one sentence.

Couple this with the fact that a lot of higher up characters that are very strong are always just quirky and make irrational decisions just because they feel like it, like always treating Kafka like an underdog even though he clearly is one of the strongest assets that they have, just because that's the way this boring trope works, and I'm at my limit.

This isn't a proper story anymore. It's just regurgitated recycled shounen jump tropes into a single TV series. None of these cliches have any rhyme or reason for being added here, specifically, they just are added because this story is a paint by numbers kind of story that wants to reuse as many popular ideas from other stories, as it can.

Hell, even Tougen Anki, which is a different anime from this batch that I'm reviewing, even that was more enjoyable for me to watch, despite having extremely amateurish dialogue between its characters and also being full of cliches. Because in that show, at least, the fight scenes actually felt like they had impact and depth to them, and the blood techniques used in that show were actually kind of cool to look at.

And that show is clearly meant for teenagers, just trying to be flashy and cool but while also being as shallow as you can get. And me, as an older adult, I still got more of a kick from watching that show than this one, that's full of mature characters and would arguably be more up my alley.

And last but not least, the ending of this season was just abysmal.

Given how bad this season was, it was already bad enough and I doubt the ending could have saved it from being a car wreck, in my eyes. But, to add the cherry on top, the ending was a spit in the face, as if it wasn't enough.

I don't wanna spoil what the ending is but I will say, it's a cliffhanger. And not the kind of cliffhanger that's at least tasteful and leaves some kind of resolution behind, but the kind of cheap cliffhanger that you get in anime at the end of an episode in the middle of the season, not a season finale.

This cliffhanger was so undercooked and so out of nowhere, I genuinely was fooled into believing that the last episode of this season wasn't even the last episode, and that another episode would surely come next week. But nope, no new episode came, which left me confused. I then went to reddit to see what was going on and yes, apparently I wasn't the only one that had been fooled. There were other people who couldn't believe that that was the season finale, and had to use other websites that confirmed it to finally come to terms with it.

Imagine watching a show that was so poorly written that the literal season finale didn't even register to you, the audience, as a season finale. There were no hints, no signs, no resolution. Just one big “fuck you” type of cliffhanger, in the middle of the story, just stuck in there like “Yeah, we did that. Whatcha gonna do about it?”.

I'm done with this show.

There are no redeeming qualities for this anime. None whatsoever.

The only thing it did kind of well was the plot point at the end of season 1, in which Kafka revealed to everyone else that he had been Kaiju No. 8 all along.

That was a bit unique and kind of cool. That was literally the only thing that this show had going for it, and it was good enough that it gave me sufficient hope to want to keep on watching, even though I knew that it was a bad TV series.

Now, I don't need any more reasons. I'm done with this.

Even in the off chance that this gets renewed for a new season, and I suspect that it will, I'm fully dropping this. It's not only bad because of its story, but it now is actively insulting me and my time, for watching it. And frankly, I don't need that from my TV shows.

8. Akrnights: Rise from Ember

I ain't going to lie, after the mess that was season 2 of this show, my hopes for this new season were quite low. Which, in a sense, ended up playing in this show's favor, as I feel like the plot finally started to move forward in a way that made sense.

If you want to read about my thoughts on the previous two seasons of this show, you can read about them here and here.

My main complaint about season 2 was that it had very few important things happening in its story and everything felt like it was progressing at a exceedingly slow pace.

Generally, I like it when TV shows do that, since it allows for proper world building and it gives the audience time to build an attachment towards the characters. However, Arknights took this to a whole new extreme and really tested my patience, always making me question why I was watching the show in the first place, since everything felt like it was of such little importance in the grand scheme of things.

There were no side quests or anything of the like. Every event had a place in paving the way towards progressing the story, it was just happening at a very slow rate.

In the context of a video game, this might not be that much of a bad thing since, the whole point of a game is to have fun. If the gameplay is engaging enough and there are enough addictive mechanics to keep you playing, then story just becomes a commodity that rarely plays a good role in the overall enjoyment.

In anime, however, this doesn't work anymore. You need an engaging story to keep the focus of the audience, since there is no gameplay loop to keep them interested anymore.

This is where the drawbacks of this adaptation start to rear their ugly heads. The show, for better or for worse, takes its time in developing the plot of the game, very slowly unraveling the intricacies of the story and the background of the characters by drip feeding you with minute details every once in a long while.

After the horrible slow paced crash that was season 2, my expectations for season 3 were at a new low, but I chose to keep watching it simply because I felt like there might still be something worth salvaging here.

And, while new details did pop up that almost went into the backstory of the doctor character, which I am very curious about, it was still not enough for me to justify the 27 long episodes that you'd have to watch to get up to speed.

Like I had said previously, this show isn't for people who aren't fans of the game. If you come into this hoping to discover an incredible story with amazing characters and gut wrenching plot twists, I'm sad to say that this simply isn't it.

There are plot twists in this, don't get me wrong, they just aren't anything to write home about. The characters aren't particularly interesting and the few ones that have an intriguing background are kept in the shadows and seldom talked about, which really left a bad taste in my mouth.

But I digress.

I will continue to follow this show, simply because I am curious to see how the plot will evolve but, as I have said before, this show is not worth watching unless you're a fan of the game. If you aren't, there's very little to be enjoyed on this one.

9. The Water Magician

And we finally arrive at the very end of this ranking, which implies that, yes, this was the anime of this batch which I enjoyed the absolute least.

Make no mistake, I hate this TV series. The only reason I picked it up initially was because of the video preview that Crunchyroll had of it, that showed a single young man suriving in nature all by himself, which made me think that this was going to be something like a survival series, or maybe some sort of nature exploration story.

What we get, instead, is a recycled isekai plot about a 20 year old guy that, after an untimely death, gets reincarnated in a fantasy world by some god, is given a home in the middle of the wilderness as well as powers to create and manipulate water, in both its liquid and solid states.

This man is called Ryo, and he is the protagonist of this show.

Nobody from that world knows of his existence even, since he is so far away from civilization.

After multiple months of self training, Ryo gets a better grasp of using his water powers, as he lives a quiet and peaceful life in his home all by himself.

He kills some creatures with his powers but still lacks in strength.

One night, he encounters a glowing headless knight on top of a lake that is incapable of speech, but is clearly intelligent and very powerful. After a brief fight with it, Ryo realises that this knight is actually trying to coerce him into training with it, so that he can better master his water powers.

After many nights of fightning with that knight, Ryo eventually becomes very strong.

At the end, the god that had recincarnated Ryo, realizes that he also has Eternal Youth as an ability, which was not initially planned.

There's also an Assassin Hawk that Ryo manages to kill after becoming stronger, which he couldn't do before, but that's about it for the first episode.

In essence, this looks like a very interesting take on the isekai genre. At first glance, you're probably thinking that this is a new approach of storytelling, in which the protagonist discovers the creatures of the forest, goes on quests by himself and explores dungeons to become stronger. And, while I was hoping it would be that, it turns out that I was wrong; very, very wrong.

The first episode is deliberately crafted into misleading you that way.

If this were all about journeys of self discovery and nature exploration, I'd have very little issues with it.

But as soon as episode 2 rolls in, that gets quickly thrown out the window, as a new male character gets introduced called Abel, who will become Ryo's friend and will be used to propel the story in a new direction. Specifically, Ryo will decide to guide Abel back to civilization, and then he will move in with him there.

And, as soon as they reach the first city, all that mystique and sense of wonder that this show had, evaporates.

It then becomes the cliched fantasy isekai experience of: Ryo decides he wants to go on quests, he starts out as a rookie, but is actually very overpowered for his rank.

Powerful magicians are in awe when they hear what he can do and don't believe it initially.

Then, there's a plot about the underground layers that spawn monsters which become overactive and, to prevent the monsters from overflooding the city above, adventurers have to cull them.

Then, a bunch of men get teleported into very low depths, along with Abel, and they are about to die because of very powerful monsters, only for Ryo to have to save them.

It's all just incredibly boring stuff.

This is another prime example of a show in which the protagonist is just so overpowered that he stops caring about his enemies and just wants to have fun, just for the sake of having fun.

When the protagonist doesn't feel like he's in danger, I stop caring. And Ryo is a prime example of this.

He never takes anything seriously, he never feels like he's about to die. He just always pulls out an incredibly strong spell out of his ass whenever a monster is about to attack and then just nukes them out of existence without batting an eye. No surprise, no suspense, no drama, and barely even any action.

I guess the point is to be amazed at how creative all the water spells he has are, which I guess that's a good idea, but is really not a good enough reason to sit through all these episodes of recycled cliches.

There were only two times in which I felt like Ryo ever got serious when fighting someone, at least in this first season. I won't spoil them, but one is fairly early on during a strange magical eclipse of some kind, that didn't last very long, not even a full episode, and another is at the end of the season.

Both were quite nice fights, and it felt like things were getting interesting, but they were, in my opinion, too short and not very creative or interesting. They were, at least, the only fights when I thought that Ryo was being serious.

And then there's the lack of world building. I'm sick of fantasy anime having the standard goblin, demon, dragon-esque creatures always in their settings. Nothing is particularly new about them, they just have to be in the plot somewhere. No new creatures or anything particularly interesting.

I mean, it's a medieval fantasy setting, for crying out loud. Do something with it! Introduce religions, art, history, geopolitics, something new to it that makes the world interesting. But the show never does. Instead, it's all just about this one character that treats everything like a video game.

I just cannot take this show seriously, for the life of me.

When Konosuba came out, it wasn't about Kazuma's life of becoming strong, it was about making fun of him and his team. The show was incredibly shallow too but it was self-aware and took advantage of itself to make funny jokes, laughing at its own expense. It took all these fantasy tropes and made a satire of the genre. That worked.

Here, there is no comedy. The show treats itself 100% seriously, which just means that it needs to have an interesting story and character growth. But, strangely, it has none of those either, so all that's left is just....I don't know. I don't even know what this was. It felt like it was another self-fellating power fantasy of the author's self insert in which he wanted to be the center of the world.

I just can't anymore. I'm so done. This isn't the worst isekai I have seen in my life. I Shall Survive Using Potions is miles below this one, at least. Compared to that, this is the equivalent of Lord of the Rings.

But it's still not good. I'm so done with the lack of an interesting story, the episodes that are filled with boring dialogue between paper thin characters, the lack of tension in fights, the lack of world building, the lack of chemistry and passion.

The only thing this show is good at is being used as an example of everything that's wrong with the isekai genre. I'm done with this.

I don't believe this will ever get a season 2 but, in the off chance that I am wrong, I will avoid it like the plague.

Bonus entry: Call of the Night (Season 2)

This is a bit of a special one. Normally I would not include a Hidive anime anymore in these rankings, since I am a big fan of Crunchyroll and I watch most of my anime on it.

But, with that said, I liked season 1 of this anime so much that I just could not stop myself from going out of my way to watch the second season as well.

The fact that a second season was greenlit was very nice and I watched it without a moment's hesitation.

Just to be clear, this bonus entry is by no means worse than any of the above. I just added it here as the very last entry since it's a special case, as it is not available on Crunchyroll and I did not watch it there. But in terms of how much I enjoyed watching this show, this would be ranked sandwiched between this blog post's entries for Detectives These Days Are Crazy! and Hotel Inhumans. That's right, I would rather have watched a new episode of this series than a new episode of Hotel Inhumans, that's how much I love this show.

Honestly, I did not expect to write about a continuation of this TV series after such a long time.

I knew that a season 2 was coming, and that I would absolutely love to watch it, but I have since canceled my HiDive subscription since they began refusing to service Romanian customers.

And Call of the Night is really a HiDive exclusive, not available on Crunchyroll so, after my cancellation, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to continue watching the show.

But alas, I've found a way and, even though the show is still not available on Crunchyroll, nor do I think it ever will be, I believe it's definitely worth a watch if you can.

If you want to read my thoughts on season 1, you can read them here.

In a nutshell, I really liked the show, even going so far as saying that it is among, what I consider to be, the best romance anime in recent years. In fact, I genuinely think that it surpassed any romance anime on Crunchyroll that I have seen, to date.

The moment I saw that a Bluray for season 1 got released in my region, I immediately rushed to snatch it.

Even if you leave aside all the romance aspects of the show, the beautiful shots of the night, the unique hybrid style of horror and thriller that it adopts and the depth of the human interactions that the show presents, really left a good taste in my mouth.

It was such a strange and unique experience, unlike anything I have seen in a long time.

Couple that with the band Creepy Nuts performing for both the opening and the ending of that season, and you got a real classic on your hands.

This new season, well, it pretty much continues everything that season 1 left behind.

In this new season, we get a glimpse into Nazuna's origin and understand how she became a vampire, as well as discover more lore about the main antagonist of the show and what her relationship with Nazuna is like.

This confrontation was already hinted to be a big thing, back in season 1, and I will say, it did not disappoint.

I'll do my best not to spoil you with anything since, if you like season 1, I do believe you will also like season 2 as well, since they pretty much maintain the same style of comedy, thriller and romance, throughout.

My main issue is that the romantic undertones do take a step down in this season, since a lot of plot progression and character development has to happen to all of our main characters, and that's a lot to undergo, but there were some sweet moments between our main couple that I could enjoy.

They weren't many, but they did exist and were satisfying enough in my opinion.

This new season also introduced some new mysteries that it has yet to resolve, which brings me hope that they might be hoping for another renewal into a season 3. Whether we will get one, remains to be seen.

The action sequences, while even less prominent than the romance ones, were well executed, but they were never the focus of the show.

The human interactions and life lessons were, and still are, the meat and potatoes of the show. Characters will grow and, for this season at least, Nazuna will see the most development out of all of them.

My only gripe is, ironically, the protagonist Yamori, never seeming to change at all, or learn anything. He has kind of become just an avenue of plot progression, since he seems to be the only one to figure out what the antagonist is going to do, before she does it, revealing her plans and even predicting her feelings and emotions.

In season 1, Yamori's intelligence was hinted at to be above average for someone of his age but it was still believable. Here, he has become almost like the oracle character, in which the author uses him to progress the plot since all the other characters aren't smart enough to realize these things by themselves.

The fact that he, a middle school kid, seems smarter than these women who are vampires and who, if you can believe it, have lived for a significant amount of time and have way more life experience than him, was enough to break my immersion of the plot, although not enough to ruin the season for me.

But that's a nitpick.

There were also some uncomfortable moments for me when the show helped me realize that the main couple has a bit of an overly creepy age gap going on here. Yamori is, if you can recall, still in middle school; I believe he is 14 in the story. Whereas, Nazuna is between 30 and 40 years old. Yes, she is a vampire and that's why she looks so young, so they look like a good match. But that left a strange taste in my mouth when that sunk in.

Granted, I won't harp on this too much since, at the end of the day, it's just fiction, and I can put these things aside, especially for a show as well fleshed out and entertaining as this. For me, personally, this isn't that big of a deal, although it really makes me wonder how Yamori always acts as the more mature one in the relationship.

But, if this age gap is a bit too troubling for you, just be aware that it is a thing.

And yeah, the gorgeous night shots make a nice return in this new season as well.

Seeing this on an OLED TV enhanced my experience even more. The contrast was just stunning. I know that they're all just drawings, not even real photos of the night, but they look so damn good.

Creepy Nuts also make a return doing the opening and ending of this season as well, which is a nice touch.

Overall, I did enjoy this. If you felt like season 1 was a good watch, definitely give this new season a shot as well.

It's very much worth it.

New season, new stuff.

This time around, I'll be keeping this specific blog post short, mainly because I only have 6 TV series I've watched for this particular anime batch (one of which is The Apothecary Diares, which should be well known to you if you read my past blog entries already).

Crunchyroll had some interesting candidates this time, and I'm glad to say that some were better than I expected (while others being just mild). However, there wasn't anything this season that I can say I particularly hated with a passion.

The last entry on this ranking is gonna be a bad show, yes, but it's not a “so bad it's good” kind of show. It's just boringly bad.

But let's not go into too many details. Let's start with the rankings!

PS: I ditched the first episode screenshots to avoid copyright strikes

1. A Ninja and an Assassin Under One Roof

We're starting off strong with, what is arguably, the most surprising entry on this list.

Frankly, when I watched the Crunchyroll preview for this show, I had no idea what to expect.

Sure, I knew it would be a comedy, and I suspected that it would be dark comedy given the subject matter, but I didn't expect for it to be as good as it turned out to be.

Make no mistake: I loved this show, to the brim.

This is a nonsensical type of comedy that is absolutely chock-full with many original ideas that were very much welcome.

But before I get ahead of myself, let me summarize the first episode of this TV series.

Deep inside a forest inside a ninja village, a young girl named Satoko Kusagakure flees the village, along with other villagers that decided to desert their hometown and find new lives for themselves in the outside world.

As soon as they manage to escape, they all go their different paths, hoping to integrate into modern day Japan as regular civilians.

Satoko, however, is not very good at doing that and, eventually, she ends up alone in a dark alleyway, on the verge of starvation, due to not being able to make money to buy food.

There, she meets up with another girl around her age, a girl named Konoha Koga.

As the two make acquaintance with one another, they are attacked by another ninja from Satoko's village, who had been tasked with killing her as punishment for her fleeing. Konoha gets roped in with Satoko but she very quickly and easily disposes of the attacker, killing her in cold blood.

It is then revealed that Konoha is actually a very skilled assassin who's very much used to killing other people and doesn't mind getting her hands dirty. She's part of an association that takes jobs to assassinate others and whom she's trying trying to climb the ranks of.

After witnessing Satoko dispose of the dead attacker's body by using a secret ninja technique that only she knows which turns dead bodies into leaves, Konoha gets the idea of partnering up with Satoko, since her ability to dispose of bodies is exactly what Konoha needs to improve her assassin work, since that is the main thing holding her back in climbing the ranks.

After some persuasion from her part, Satoko agrees to partner up with her and, in exchange, Konoha will allow her to live in her apartment for the time being, as well as promising to protect her from future ninja that may be pursuing her.

And such begins the relationship between the very feminine and innocent Satoko and the poker faced and cold blooded Konoha.

That's the premise of this show.

So yeah, where to start?

I was never much into dark comedy TV series, mainly because I find them always relying on recurrent gags that get old very quickly, but this show broke that trend for me.

I love how every single time a new ninja appears to threaten Satoko's life, she always ends up being murdered very swiftly and without much effort. Most of the ninja barely get any screen time at all.

The show doesn't portray the exact means in which they are killed, that happens very quickly off screen, but it's still nice to see how quickly the body count increments with each passing episode.

Also, all of the characters in this are very unique and have nice designs. The simple fact that a lot of the enemies barely get any screen time at all is a bit of a shame, although it did caught me off guard.

I was expecting for this gag to wear off on me eventually but no, every time Konoha kills someone, I ended up laughing.

As sinister as that sounds, the show just knows how to deliver that punchline each and every time, without it getting old.

And the duality of Satoko and Konoha's personalities always clashing with each other is such a joy to watch.

Seeing how innocent and gullible Satoko usually is, always ends up clashing with the harsh reality in one way or another, and then her and Konoha have to figure out how to fix things.

Their partnership felt a bit strained at first but I very quickly bought the idea that they were becoming friends.

That and all the characters are so fun to watch interacting.

The show is basically a nonsensical comedy. There's a mad scientist type of character that appears later on as a rival to Konoha, and she mixes things up and the trio become embroiled in a lot of wacky shenanigans.

I love their relationships and how they interact off each other.

And yeah, there's also a sort of pseudo-romance that forms later on, between certain characters.

I won't go into details but I will say, I very rarely end up shipping a lesbian couple, mainly because I never find their relationships believable. This time, however, I genuinely found myself saying “Yeah, I want to see these two together”.

The show never crosses that border, always holding onto itself and never making things more than just a close friendship, but I genuinely liked seeing those two interact.

And combined with the comedic non-sequiturs from the show, and I genuinely respected this one.

The show just likes bringing the cold hard reality to ruin any moment that tends to become too cheesy, in a simple way of shattering expectations in a way that's both blunt but also stylistically unique.

That and there's a robot Satoko that makes an appearance later on that can shoot lasers out of her eyes. I mean, what more is there to say?

Do yourself a favor and give this show a watch! It is very much worth the experience!

2. The Apothecary Diaries (Season 2 second half)

As promised, I am returning to talking about this show.

I've talked about this show on length, many times before. I've praised it for its originality, focus to details, unique world and atmosphere and its superb musical compositions.

And yeah, Maomao just keeps kicking ass everywhere she goes.

This is a continuation of the first half that began the previous winter batch, of which I already wrote.

I want to keep praising this show again but, really, I don't think there's anything left to say that wasn't already said.

Maomao ends up biting more than she can chew, this time around, when her meddling ends up almost revealing the masterminds behind the attempted assassinations against imperial officials that were shown the previous season, the new character Shisui ends up playing a very major role, political turmoil in the country ends up rearing its ugly head and one of the concubines of the emperor ends up going missing.

That and so many questions that were left unanswered previously end up being explained now.

Honestly, I think this is the most intelligent TV series I have watched in recent years. The mysteries, the drama, the class and style that it displays, they are just wonderfully done.

This is a masterclass in how anime needs to be done and I am so thankful that I have decided to pick up this story, for it is the one ongoing plot that keeps on giving with each passing episode.

And for those that want to learn more about Jinshi's character, this second half will finish the introduction of his full backstory, so there's more to digest about him.

I simply cannot do this show justice just by writing all of this about it.

If you don't mind complex stories that deal with real drama and has very intricate plot twists, please give this show a watch. It is amazingly fruitful.

3. To Be Hero X

And yet another superhero anime TV series set in modern day Japan has appeared.

This one, I'll be honest, I have mixed feelings about.

Let's get into the first episode, shall we?

Lin Ling, who works for an advertising company and who is obsessed with superheroes, is giving his boss his new pitch that he hopes will inspire other people.

Lin Ling is very enthusiastic about heroes and is passionate about learning more about their lives and backstories, especially about two named Nice and, his girlfriend, Moon.

In that world, heroes exist and save lives, and their powers (as well as their weaknesses and sometimes even curses) are intimately tied to the amount of faith that the majority of people have in them. When people start to believe that a particular person should be able to fly, then they will gain the ability to fly. Conversely, if people start to lose faith in a particular hero, they will eventually lose their powers.

After the pitch that he had made to his boss goes very poorly, Lin Ling gets fired and is now without a job.

As he considers committing suicide by jumping off a building, Lin Ling discovers his personal hero, Nice, flying and landing onto the same rooftop as him.

But before they could interact, Nice jumps off the building and crashes down below, dying from the impact.

Lin Ling is horrified, realizing that he had just witnessed his own personal hero having committed suicide and is then found by Nice's personal manager and her bodyguards who take him into custody being he was a witness.

After Lin Ling explains to them what he had seen, the manager realizes that, by some strange coincidence, Lin Ling's face almost looks like Nice's face.

Using this to her advantage, and not wanting to give up her job because Nice had died, the manager decides to release a public statement in which she hides the fact that Nice had died and, instead, she swaps their identities, her claiming to the public that it was actually Lin Ling that had killed himself by jumping off a building and then disguising Lin Ling as Nice, asking him to continue being the hero he had always looked up to.

Lin Ling is obviously very reluctant about taking up this role but, since people believe that he is Nice, he slowly ends up acquiring Nice's powers and slowly but surely starts turning more and more into Nice.

That's the premise of episode 1.

Now, before I go into more details, I will say, this isn't just about Lin Ling.

Yes, he is the main character of the first arc of the show however, this isn't the only arc.

This show is divided into multiple arcs, all with their own main characters. They all share the same universe, with some characters that have already appeared in a previous arc making a very short comeback in new arcs to further the plot.

The show follows all of their personal stories, their tragedies, how they each end up becoming heroes and how they all will eventually end up competing against each other in a public tournament that takes place every 2 years, that's there to update the rankings among all the heroes of the world and with the number 1 spot earning the title of Hero X.

Now, as I learned, this story is part of a larger plot that encompasses two other anime that aired in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

This series is, in fact, the de facto third season of those shows (which are actually just two seasons of the same show).

I didn't know this going in. And I never watched any of those previous seasons, so I was going into this blind. In my defense, Crunchyroll didn't make it very clear that this was a continuation of that saga.

Either way, for someone that went into this completely blind, I had no trouble whatsoever following the plot.

The ideas are very simple to grasp, the plot was very easy to follow and the show came into its own very nicely at the end.

The multiple arcs thing was actually very welcome, since it felt like it was constantly keeping things fresh, always introducing new characters, new enemies, new dilemmas, it was actually very fun.

My only gripe with the show was the fact that most characters felt shallow, especially the bad guys.

The motivation of the villains in this show is not particularly interesting, with a lot of somewhat intelligent and competent characters always devolving into mere shadows of their former selves.

I didn't like that very much.

That and also, I didn't really like the world building in this one. I genuinely feel that a society in which faith in others can literally confer other people supernatural powers would be wildly different than our current ways of living. Religion, philosophy, technology and social norms would be very different if we had the rules that that world has, and yet this show treats that world as just another iteration of modern day Japan, which is so very boring to me.

But, outside of those pet peeves of mine, yeah, I liked the show. The stories were engaging, the main characters were somewhat fleshed out, there is some character development happening and certain arcs had some nice and heartwarming endings (although not all).

And yeah, it had some unexpected plot twists at times.

Overall, it was a good experience. I very much enjoyed watching it. And also, I did become a Lucky Cyan fan. Her arc was very emotional.

4. Once Upon a Witch's Death

This one was interesting, to say the least.

I feel like I needed to have a show with magic in it, for this season (there's also Teogonia in this batch but I'll get to that in a minute).

My overall thoughts on this show are that this was an interesting idea that suffered from a pretty lackluster execution.

The story follows Meg Raspberry, a young girl who's the apprentice of Ms. Faust, an old lady who's renowned across the whole world as one of the Seven Mages.

On her 17th birthday, Meg is informed by Faust that she has only 1 year left to live, before a curse that had been placed upon her since birth will rob her of her life.

There is, however, a solution: Meg has to collect in a special magical glass bottle, 1000 tears of joy from other people. This will allow her to create a Seed of Life, which will make Meg immortal, effectively nullifying her curse.

Meg is unsure how to take this news but, as she walks around the town of Lapis, she encounters a young girl whose mother had passed away recently.

Being friendly, Meg offers to help the girl find the pink flowers that her mother had always loved, so that they can bring them to her grave.

After following the girl to her house and meeting with her father, Meg realizes that the flowers that the mother loved so much were Yoshino Cherry Blossoms, from a foreign country in the far east.

Being Faust's apprentice, Meg is knowledgeable enough in magic to cast a spell that creates the illusion of those particular flowers to fall from the sky around them, which reminds the family of the dead woman and gives closure to them.

The father and daughter cry together and their tears of joy automatically become captured inside Meg's glass.

Thus begins Meg's journey into stopping the curse that threatens her life.

That's episode 1.

This series is based off a light novel and that clearly shows.

For one, this is a dialogue heavy show. There's a lot of talking and world building constantly going on, and this will become eerily obvious as the show progresses.

On the one hand, that's one of the show's greatest strengths. I really like the world building being done here.

There's a lot of imagination being used to create this colorful and vibrant world. There are many quirky and nice characters inhabiting it as well. And the rules of this world are fairly standard and simple: magic is almost like this sort of essence of nature that flows through all things and objects and is one with the world. Sometimes magic can also disrupt the natural flow of things, bringing about natural disasters of sorts.

Then there's spirits, intelligent beings that appear as floating orbs of energy that only some people can communicate with. And then there's demons which are malevolent and who make deals with mortals in order to bring evil to the world.

As cliched as all of these concepts feel, I'm very impressed by their integration into the plot. Nothing ever feels out of place, everything is woven into the story organically and in a believable manner, and all the elements are always done in a manner that is consistent and easy to understand.

And I also really like Meg as a main character. She's quirky and a bit of a brat but also has a good heart and knows her way around the world.

I found her to be a very nice and refreshing take on the role of a female lead in a magical world.

The fact that this girl is capable of not only taking the news of her upcoming death very well, but is willing to fight her destiny without even batting an eye is very unique and, I feel, actually believable when taking in her personality.

However, when all is said and done, there is one thing that ruins this show: it's the lack of action in it.

This story takes itself way too seriously. There's almost no comedy in it at all, outside of Meg's quirkiness from time to time.

This might be fine in certain cases, but I feel like the show is too slow paced in what it does, and the constant talking and lack of interesting events ends up hurting it more than it helps.

I'm fine with exposition dumps and character introductions but I generally dislike shows that take a very long time to get into the main plot. And yeah, that's the other thing I really don't like about it: almost everything feels like a side-quest.

Technically it all ends up helping, since Meg is collecting tears of joy throughout all of the show's length, this is true, but it almost turns into a formulaic adventure-of-the-week type of story, in which every new week something new happens in the town of Lapis that Meg will have to help others with.

That's really unfortunate, since this is an interesting world that does have a lot of promise. I just wish it had a bit more meat and bones that I could chew on.

But alas, the world building makes up for its drawbacks.

Overall, I enjoyed watching this. Could it have been done better in certain areas? Almost certainly.

But I'm not gonna fault the show for being too slow paced, since I'd rather have that than be too fast paced, instead.

Either way, I'll be looking forward towards a new season of this.

5. Please Put Them On, Takamine-san

Ok, there's also this show that has magic in it, although, at this point, I almost can't take this show seriously at all.

This is what I like to call “a good idea, with good execution but whose very nature is bringing it down” kind of show. Why?

Because this is an ecchi show. And it knows it's an ecchi show. And it takes full advantage of the fact that it is an ecchi show.

What's it about?

Shirota Koushi is a regular high school student that's pretty much the very definition of a loser. He lives an average life, mostly invisible by those around him, as he tries to go through his school classes uneventfully.

One day, while hiding in a gym storage room, the class representative of his class, Takamine Takane, also sneaks into the same storage room as him and, unbeknownst to her of his presence there, she begins undressing there to change her clothes.

Shirota remains quiet to not give away his presence until she's done and leaves.

Later during that day, as the teacher is handing out their test results and Takamine receives an almost perfect score, she suddenly decides to pull down her panties in front of the class, much to Shirota's complete dismay.

A couple of seconds later, Shirota suddenly realizes that time has turned back for him and that the teacher is starting to hand out their test results all over again, only this time Takamine receives a complete perfect score somehow.

Apparently nobody else noticed this discrepancy, and nobody remembers Takamine having taken off her panties at all.

When asking Takamine directly about what had transpired, Takakine realizes that Shirota was somehow now immune to her powers.

Seeing that he is the first person to be able to have recollection of those erased events, Takamine decides to reveal to him that she has special powers: the power to turn back time to undo past events whenever she takes off her underwear or bra.

Since Shirota had previously seen Takamine's breasts while she was changing in the storage room earlier that day, this somehow made him immune to her powers of turning back time, meaning that his mind travels back in time unscathed along with hers whenever she removes her undergarments.

Seeing that this is the current state of events, Takamine offers to Shirota to become her “closet”, meaning that she wants him to partner up with her and carry around a bag full of spare underwear all day long. Since taking off her underwear to use her powers completely causes said underwear to vanish into thin air, Takamine wants for Shirota to put new underwear on her body, so that she can keep using her powers continuously if she needs to.

Shirota, realizing that there's nothing in it for him and that she's trying to use him as a man servant, considers refusing her. Seeing his reluctance, Takamine decides to “persuade” him by shouting that he had assaulted her, causing the entire school to immediately come to her rescue and restrain him and call the cops on him.

Realizing that he has no way out of this predicament and that his life is officially over, Shirota shouts to Takamine that he agrees to become her closet, causing her to use her powers to undo all those past events and save his life from being ruined.

Thus, now Shirota has become Takamine's personal closet and one of his first duties is: he has to put her underwear on her in the middle of class after she uses her powers during it.

Thus ends episode 1.

That was a long summary that I had to write, but that's really necessary for a story like this.

Honestly, how else would you explain a plot such as this to a complete newcomer?

This show is pretty much a textbook example of nonsensical absurdity that exists only to be perverse and show Takamine in many unusual and questionable situations where she's scantily clad or, sometimes even, completely nude.

Leaving aside the fact that this show had one of the most unstable release schedules on Crunchyroll when it came out (I never could figure out on which day of the week new episodes were supposed to come out since it kept flip-flopping between releasing the censored episodes and the uncensored ones), the show just isn't that good.

It tries to be a comedy by putting the protagonist in very weird situations in which he is forced to put underwear on Takamine without anyone else noticing him, and that is the source of tension with regards to the episodes.

To be fair to the show, it was quite creative and novel in coming up with these unique situations, sure, but the problem is, most of them are simply not realistic.

I could not believe that this man was able to put on underwear on that girl in the middle of a class, without anyone noticing at all. I don't care how stealthy you are, that's simply not possible.

The amount of suspension of disbelief that you have to pull off to buy into some of these premises is absolutely mind boggling. And trust me: I tried.

I feel like this premise would have worked better in the context of a harem, because it would at least add some variety to the ecchi scenes and make it a bit more interesting, but it didn't do that. This is one of those “one true love” kind of stories and it sticks to just Takamine.

There's some differences between the censored and the uncensored versions, obvious ones, but nothing to really write home about. Honestly, I'd pick to watch the uncensored episodes any day of the week, but mostly because I find the censorship so annoying in this show that it's actively distracting. The nudity is really not that impressive either though.

Nothing is particularly original here. If you want to watch nudity with a bit of comedic edge and don't mind the absurdity, I guess it's fine just for that.

But I got tired of how much I was supposed to suspend my own disbelief. Like one time, while Shirota was at Takamine's house so that she can help him do his homework, she used a cat costume to distract him so that he ended up staying later than intended (her excuse was that it would help him study somehow).

Oh yeah, Takamine is just not honest with her own feelings. She's clearly attracted to Shirota but keeps making excuses whenever he catches her in the act of being kind towards him.

And Shirota, for his part, is just the dumb ecchi protagonist that simply can't catch a hint and never realizes that she has feelings towards him.

The one good thing that the show did was the ending of season 1, where it took a step forward and decided to be brazen about the direction it was going.

I'm not gonna spoil what it did, but I will say that it did some things that other, more respectable shows, were too afraid to do. And that left me with a good taste in my mouth.

Was the ending so good that it justifies watching the whole show though? Maybe, but it really depends on the person. For me, it wasn't worth it, but I can easily see other people who may be able to enjoy it.

As for me, I'm not planning on watching another season of this one.

6. Teogonia

And we finally arrive at the very end.

This one, I had high hopes of.

The premise is fairly simple. In a remote small village called Lag Village, a young warrior named Kai is involved in fightning in an invasion of their village by anthropomorphic macaques. During this skirmish, Kai is saved by a man named Olha Vezin, the son of the chief of the village and a Guardian Bearer.

In that world, Guardian Bearers are powerful individuals that were chosen by a god of a particular piece of land to protect said land against aggressors.

Olha uses his enhanced strength and stamina as a Guardian Bearer to fend off the invading forces of the macaques. The bodies of the dead monkeys are then dissected to extract their God-stones. In that world, each living creature has a God-stone in their body. Having that God-stone removed will immediately end that creature's life.

Once extracted, liquid from another creature's God-stone can be drank in order to rejuvenate the body and fuel it with a surge of spiritual energy.

After the defeat of the macaques, all of their God-stones are collected by the villagers and shared among everyone that has fought in defending the village.

Kai is disgruntled since low ranking warriors like himself only receive small amounts of God-stone juice and food after their victory, while the chief's family receives much more.

He wishes he could become stronger, so that he could advance in rank among their army and receive better rewards.

Kai is also plagued by visions of a past life and glimpses of knowledge that are not his. He is troubled by these and is uncertain of what to make of them.

He had a vision of creating flames from his own hands, which makes him wonder if he is capable of such an act.

Later on, during another invasion by demi-humans against their village, Kai is severely injured, making him unable to run. When the other villagers are forced to retreat, they have to leave him behind.

When another enemy is about to take his life, Kai uses the knowledge of that vision of summoning flames from his hands to actually create magic and gain the upper hand against the demi-human that he's fighting, only for him and his enemy to fall into a river below.

Thus ends episode 1.

If it wasn't obvious already, this is another isekai story.

The protagonist is actually reincarnated from our world, and the visions that he sees is from a past life from living in, what I assume to be modern day Japan.

Using glimpses of scientific knowledge from our society, Kai is able to construct unique spells that will come in handy in solving various problems in that world.

I admit: I'm very fond of that idea. The idea of someone using modern day knowledge to gain an upper hand in a fantasy world is an intriguing one.

Of course, this concept had already been done to death in other anime, so this is nothing special by itself.

But the foundational idea is a good one, and I feel like this world and these characters are unique enough that, given enough imagination and time at the drawing board, I'm sure a very interesting story can arise from all of this.

Sadly, that's where all the good things I have to say about this show end.

This story was just severely overwhelming.

You may wonder how a lowbrow ecchi show like Please Put Them On, Takamine-san ended up having a higher spot in this ranking than a serious plot like this one. I'll tell you how: that show took some risks.

Like sure, Takamine-san was absolutely nonsensical and completely unhinged but, at the very least, it had the fanservice to make it stand out, somewhat.

And I'm not that big of a fanservice fan. In fact, I consider it one of the cheapest ways of setting yourself apart. But, at the end of the day, it's something.

Teogonia doesn't even have that much going for it.

The problem with this show is it's story. It is incredibly cliched, to an extent I never thought possible: the cliche of the chosen one, the cliche of the underdog, the cliche of reincarnation and knowledge from a modern day Japan in a fantasy setting, the cliche of the woman that wants to be recognized as a warrior but isn't because she's a woman, the cliche of the damsel in distress, the cliche of the corrupt nobleman that's a bastard and needs to get his comeupins, the cliche of the arrogant warrior that is too prideful to listen to reason until the protagonist has to intervene, the cliche of the love interest that ends up pulled out of the story.

It is incredible the amount of cliches that could be crammed into one single show. This anime is absolutely fascinating in how uninspired it is.

I have never seen a show be so devoid of originality before. The more episodes I was watching, the more dread I was feeling in my soul.

The show isn't bad, per se, and if you watch these cliches for the very first time here, I'm sure you will enjoy it. But after watching these cliches and common writing tropes so many times before, done in so many other shows before this one, sometimes done even better, this felt very disappointing.

I will say: this world is interesting. I feel like, in the hands of a competent writer, this could have become a very good series.

But it just lacks originality. These characters are so shallow, but even with their shallowness they still deserve a better written story about them.

This lackluster story is pretty much responsible for single handedly killing this show off for me.

A good comparison of a similar show would be Sengoku Youko, which I already reviewed on this blog, in the past.

Both Sengoku Youko and this show are fantasy-esque anime TV series that start out a bit underwhelming and have seemingly boring protagonists and cliched story elements in them. However, what set Sengoku Youko apart and what made it one of my most cherished anime TV series in recent years was the fact that, even though it had cliched plot points in it, it still knew how to tell interesting and unique stories.

The characters were fun and complex in it. The dialogue was timeless and memorable. The quotes were deep and introspective. The character growth and motivations were deeply explored and showcased over many episodes.

And guess what? Sengoku Youko also suffered from common tropes like the Chosen One, the damsel in distress, the protagonist underdog that wanted to become stronger. But the difference was that it knew that if it wanted to set itself apart, it needed to explore the characters and the themes of the show more deeply than just surface level.

Teogonia doesn't do that. Everything is surface level here. There's no deeper layers to the characters, no hidden meaning behind the plot, no introspective conversations or character growth.

Everything just feels so shallow in this one.

I feel bad for harping on this show so hard, but it really is that simple. This story lacks depth at a fundamental level.

I just wish there was more to it than what meets the eye. Towards the end it started picking up steam by putting the protagonist in the role of an arbiter among different species, which I like the idea of but it didn't do much with it.

Maybe a season 2 would flesh this one out a bit more, much in the same way that it did for Sengoku Youko but, as it stands, this one's very underwhelming.

I couldn't bring myself to like it. I've definitely seen far worse anime TV series in recent years than this one, but nothing as unoriginal as this, at least.

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.

Greetings from the other side of the internet! I have returned with yet another ranking, for my audience to read.

This time around I've only picked 5 shows to watch, mainly because this season's selection was quite lackluster. Well, to be fair, they were 6 shows but sadly the sixth show on this ranking got delayed through the middle of its airing until February.

Since I have a personal rule not to talk about a TV series until its current season is fully aired and I finished watching it, I will be omitting that particular one from this list.

And, thus, we have only 5 shows here.

Also, the images that I will be using in this blog post will be more generic than usual, a trend that will continue into the future for all future postings on here. This is because I got a DMCA takedown request on this blog because of one of my images and, as such, I will be going out of my way to use images from either the public domain, or images hosted on other websites than my own.

So yeah, that's why this has happened.

Finally, as a reminder, all of these TV shows are available on Crunchyroll, if you have a premium subscription there. But, since this stuff is subject to regional licensing, I have to mention that these shows were available from Romania. Depending on where you are, some of them may not be available to you.

Anyways, without any further ado, let's get the ball running:

1. Ron Kamonohashi's Forbidden Deductions (Season 2)

It's finally here.

This will cover my thoughts for the second season of this TV series. I recommend you read my thoughts on the first season before you go ahead. You can find them here.

As I previously said in my review for season 1, I really wished that this new season will cover the origin of Ron's curse and how he ended up where he was.

And, thankfully, this new season decided to bless me with what I've asked for.

Well, I'm sure the plot for season 2 was already planned for well in advance of my review, so I take no credit for it, obviously, but still, I'm happy that things panned out the way that they did.

So, in this new season, we finally find out more about Ron's past, who his family is, what his connections are with a house of criminal masterminds that orchestrated a lot of the crimes that they investigated and, interestingly, we also learn about Ron's father figure in this one.

It's pretty much all I wanted out of this show and even more.

Yes, there will be some filler episodes that focus on menial murders that have very little relevance to the bigger plot; they are what I call “filler episodes”.

But, for the most part, this season was what I hoped the first season would be like.

The fact that the first season was composed almost entirely of what I would call “filler episodes” was very disheartening. It made me reluctant to recommend the show, mainly because it had a lot of inconsequential padding that was only there to gather an initial audience so that the staff could actually make season 2 interesting.

It took us a while to get there but, finally, here we are.

And in this one, we get even more interesting modus operandi explored for entirely new criminals, stuff that I find very nice to explore.

We get a surfer that ended up drowned at the beach, a mysterious kidnapper that kidnaps very talented people to make works of art for him and then releases them and, of course, we get into the details of Ron's past and why he ended up as the genius that he is.

The show seriously suffers from cliches, though, and just as before, Ron is still just as eccentric and weird, always making me roll my eyes whenever I see him appear on screen.

But, to make matters a bit better, we also learn why he is so good at deducing what other criminals do this season, as well as learn that the House of M is responsible for his curse.

And, finally, this season, Isshiki ends up being slightly useful towards the end (emphasis on the world slightly).

Either way, this was a good watch.

I genuinely enjoyed this new season and, if you watched the first season and thought it had an interesting premise but lacked in execution, I feel like this season may just be what you want to see.

This is a definite improvement over everything that was shown a year prior and I, personally, am definitely looking forward to a new season. Whether a new season of this will appear or not remains to be seen since, unlike last time, it was not confirmed.

2. Sengoku Youko (Season 2 part 2)

These will be my thoughts for the second part of the second season of this show (yeah, this has been a very long journey, looking back at it). If you wish to read my thoughts on season 1, you can find them here and if you also wish to read my thoughts for the first part of this second season, you can read them here.

I think this was the longest running series that I've written about, in this blog.

Granted, I consumed anime that were far longer than this one, since I was a fan of Naruto since I can remember (although I never finished watching Shippuden the way I originally planned to do), but I never covered the ones that I watched in this blog before.

As I said in my review for season 1, I thought that this anime was playing the long game since, even though I admit that it had good ideas and a very interesting world that it had built for itself in the first season, I thought it was going too slow and that it lacked a proper sense of identity for itself.

Well, I'm glad to say that, as of the second season, most of these issues have been resolved, and I'm thankful that I decided to keep watching this.

It was a long journey, but we got here.

The story continues with Senya's journey in trying to defeat the Void People who have only been causing him trouble, as well as Tama's journey in trying to revert Jinka back to his normal self again.

I cannot go into more details when it comes to this show, since there's really a huge amount of stuff that we have to talk about and, frankly, I just don't want to cover it, given how much story there is in this show.

Season 1 started as this simple journey of Tama's, Jinka's and Shinsuke's who wanted to make the world a better place (and for Shinsuke to become a better swordsman) and it eventually became so much more than just this.

As the plot continued to unfold, I will say, I was becoming more and more engrossed in our characters' journeys.

The closest anime that I did write about in this anime blog of mine that comes only slightly close to what this show managed to accomplish would be Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer which ran from summer of 2022 until winter. That show didn't have as many episodes as this one did (it only peaked at 24 episodes) but it was also an overly ambitious story with a semi-interesting plot, decently fleshed out characters, a large cast and an an energy to do great things that only a few could rival.

But, sadly, all good things must come to an end and that show suffered from a lot of technical problems which, in my opinion at least, were caused by an insufficient budget. Those problems hampered that show's quality a lot, to the point where the last episodes were subpar. And that's a real shame, since it had such a strong start that very few could rival.

This show, thankfully, did not suffer from the same issues and studio Whitefox knew to invest just the right amount of money to make this an experience that would be very memorable for all of us.

Like I said, my main gripe with this show was its very slow beginning, which was really doing it a disservice, but the story compensated for that by switching the protagonist of the show from Shinsuke from season 1, to Jinka in season 2.

That, in my opinion, was a monumental life changer that made this show stand out from the lot. Granted, I'm sure this is not the first anime that did this, and many might say that it's just a simple gimmick that, if overly exploited by other anime in the future will only serve to annoy future viewers, but, as of right now, that was a very interesting decision that did this show a lot of favors.

Senya's viewpoint was far more interesting than Shinsuke's and, thankfully, the time skip that aged up most of the characters also added a great deal of momentum towards the show's favor.

Not a lot of anime do time skips like this one nowadays. The last one I remember (which I watched, personally) was Twin Star Exorcists but, in that specific case, the time skip pretty much ruined the show for me, since all the events that happened afterwards were very much a genuine downgrade from the plot of when the main characters were children.

Here, the time skip was an upgrade, as the characters became wiser but, most importantly, more competent in what they did after they grew up, which allowed for some interesting fights.

But, what I liked the most about this show, was genuinely the theme about the passage of time.

This is very subtle, but the passage of time is a focal point around which the entire plot is focused on.

The ending was incredibly fascinating and it gave this show a timeless feel, with character growth unlike which I've ever seen before. It conferred me a sense of growth, of sadness and bitterness when I saw how certain characters had passed, but also of satisfaction and happiness when I saw how the world had evolved as time went on.

It was a fascinating watch.

This was an incredible experience. I cannot for the life of me recommend this show enough. It was an absolute masterpiece that I am so glad studio Whitefox decided to completely adapt. I sincerely believe that, had Whitefox decided to adapt only 1 season or only 2 seasons but without this last part, the story would have been sorely incomplete and objectively inferior to what we've just had.

The fact that the studio understood the greatness of this plot and said “You know what? This story needs to be told in its entirety” and burned so much money to make it happen, was something that I deeply appreciate.

This was an extremely reinvigorating experience. Was it flawed? Yes. There were times in which the plot became cliched and overly simplistic, plot holes do exist if you look closely enough and I do feel like there were issues with the pacing of the show, since the last episode had to cover so much ground, but it eventually ended in a manner that left me saying “I'm glad I watched this, but I don't wish for more. It's just complete as it is” and left me with a smile.

If you can stomach the 35 episodes that this anime has, I humbly suggest you give it a shot. I admit, the beginning is very slow, and you will get bored, but it's worth the wait. It will eventually grow and become something very special.

3. TsumaSho

Why are anime about families so good?

It used to be stuff like My Home Hero, then Buddy Daddies (not to mention incredible classics like Clannad as well), Grandpa and Grandma turn Young Again and now we have this. Is this just a coincidence or do Japanese writers are just exceedingly good at writing timeless and memorable stories about families?

Well, regardless, it's time we delve into this one as well.

Our story begins when an adult hard working husband loses his beloved wife, Takae Nijima, in a car accident.

This untimely death throws the man into a horrible depression, with their daughter alongside him, as their lives become completely ruined from this.

Fast forward ten years, and the two are still living miserable lives. The daugher, Mai Nijima, is working in a boring job and is suffering from having no friends or relatives she could talk to except for her father, whose name is Keisuke, who is emotionless and very quiet all the time.

The two regularly eat takeout foods that they microwave and they don't even bother trying to change their current lifestyles.

One fateful day, a little 10 year old girl named Marika Shiraishi, rings their doorbell.

Keisuke opens the door, only to be confronted by the furious Marika who yells at him for living an improper life.

She claims to be the reincarnation of Takae, and she wants to scold him for allowing his and Mai's life to go downhill like this after her death.

Naturally, Keisuke is very skeptical and unsure how to take this but he allows the girl inside his house where she continues to explain herself.

Both Keisuke and Mai eventually become convinced that Marika is indeed Takae's reincarnation after she reveals to them information that only Takae would have known.

This causes a lot of turmoil, as they are unsure how to deal with this.

Takae then proceeds to scold the both of them for living like that, her saying that she's very disappointed in them for taking this path.

However, they soon accept the current reality as it is and both Keisuke and Mai immediately agree to accept the young Marika into their family, happy that the Takae that they had always known had returned to them.

Takae decides to start visiting their household regularly (since she lives in a different household, now that she is reincarnated in a different family), while hiding her visits from her divorced mother, Chika Shiraishi.

Takae starts giving Mai advice on what to do so that she can find herself new friends and, possibly even, a romantic partner and she also starts visiting Keisuke at his job to give him bento lunches to eat in his lunch breaks, something for which he is very thankful for.

And so ends the first episode.

So yeah, this is another odd anime.

But, despite its outrageous premise, it is ripe with a lot of drama.

I can't call this a slice of life, for obvious reasons. Some might wonder if this is a mystery kind of plot, in which Marika just pretends to be Takae and fools her family into this ruse, but, really, that's not the case. This is a supernatural story, in which Takae's soul inhabits Marika's body.

It's as simple as that.

Granted, even with this supernatural element thrown in, the show is very down-to-Earth and tries to treat itself as seriously as it can, discussing issues about hiding information from your family, dealing with loss and mourning, and trying to make difficult decisions about sacrifices and compromising.

Really, when you get down to it, the show is very mature and simple in its life lessons.

It's a story about a family that has lost its core foundational member that was the one that made everyone smile but who, ten years later, reunited with said member and is trying to make the best of it, together.

I won't go into any more spoilers than this but, I will say, the ending was especially satisfying to watch.

I was afraid that they would chicken out and do a “everyone is happy” type of ending that leaves a lot of things ambiguous about how they will work out but, thankfully, that wasn't the case. The plot tied all the knots, no loose threads remaining. And sometimes tying all the knots implies that not everyone will be happy. Sacrifices have to be made.

As a fan of drama, this was just my cup of tea.

I loved every episode of this show, it was very much exactly what I wanted it to be.

If I had to nitpick, I will say that one plot thread towards the end got resolved in a rather unsatisfying way. I don't want to spoil what it is, but I will say that a certain scenario that Keisuke was making up turned out to be a lie that he did for someone else's sake, and that felt like a cheap cope out to me that left me very disappointed.

But, overall, the show accomplished way more than it left behind, and I can confidently say that I was happy that I watched it.

A season 2 is almost impossible to happen, given how it ended, but, assuming I am wrong and they do continue the story somehow, I am absolutely up for more of this content. I loved what this show was about and I definitely wish for more.

4. Negative Positive Angler

Do you like fishing?

Your answer to this question may, very well, be a resounding “no” but, even if that's true for you, you may still like this TV anime series that's all about fishing. “How do you know?” you may ask? Well, it's because I am one of those people that hate fishing but I still enjoyed this show.

The plot is as straightforward as it gets.

College student Tsunehiro Sasaki is struggling with a debt problem, as he is struggling financially every day, barely managing to make ends meet.

One day, he is diagnosed with a terminal illness, given a grim prognosis that he will only live another 2 years, and advised by the doctor to immediately seek medical treatment for his condition.

In spite of this, Tsunehiro decides to run away from his problems and spend the little remaining money that he has at a gambling parlor, ignoring all his problems.

But, as bad luck would have it, debt collectors that were specifically looking for him manage to find him there, and realizing that he's in trouble, Tsunehiro makes a run for it, only for them to give chase.

As he runs away through the city streets from his pursuers, doing his best to get away, he eventually gets cornered against a ledge above a large river flowing through the city and, while trying to get away from them, he slips and falls down into the water beneath and is immediately captured by a strong water current and carried out of the city, into the nearby gulf.

Not knowing how to swim, Tsunehiro closes his eyes, expecting to finally meet his untimely demise.

However, soon after, he wakes up on a concrete platform, surrounded by other people around his age: a girl named Hana Ayukawa (who's the one that swam out to save him), a pink haired fellow named Takaaki Tsutsujimori (who was the one that went out of his way to convince her to rescue him) and some others.

Tsunehiro then realizes that he is now on an artificial platform, close to where the city he lived in was, a place that was specifically there for fishermen to fish on.

Tsunehiro thanks them for saving his life, very grateful that he had finally lost the debt collectors that were after him, but realizes that he is stuck on that platform with Hana and Takaaki until morning, since the boat that is supposed to allow them to return to mainland was scheduled to arrive only in the morning.

Not having anything to do to pass time, Tsunehiro eventually agrees to grab a rod and fish alongside them, as they are all clearly enjoying their hobby together.

And so, Tsunehiro is slowly about to discover a new passion in his misery-filled life.

That's the first episode of this show.

So yes, this is, technically speaking, a sports anime, that's about recreational fishing. Unlike many other sports anime though, what stands out about this one is that it has very little competition in its plot.

For the most part, the show treats fishing as a hobby, something the characters engage in only because it's their favorite way to pass time.

There's no fishing tournament in this show (well, OK, there is one but only for one single episode and it's mainly used as a side-story more than anything else), the stakes are very low and it's mostly about having fun with your friends doing this outdoor activity.

And I think that's what this show does best: it's about life engaging in the hobby you like most.

The anime is a slice of life story about recovering from the depths of despair, when you're at the lowest point you can be in life and how you can make a recovery from it, even if it all seems hopeless.

I will admit: the whole premise of “it all seemed doom and gloom until I discovered this new hobby and all of a sudden I've found myself with new friends and a job and it all worked out in the end” didn't exactly strike me as something I would be fond of. And, while I don't wanna spoil how it ends, that's kind of the whole idea that this show is going for.

It's all about living your life to the fullest and trying to make the best of it.

Until recently, I genuinely wasn't interested in these types of stories. I always thought they were very cheesy and unrealistic..

But, now that I managed to sit down and take it for what it is, I realized that, if you simply look at it from a different point of view, it becomes quite nice. Its honesty and simplicity are actually quite refreshing.

It's basically the whole “Make the best of what you've got” Japanese mentality, distilled into a show about fishing. That is quite an interesting concept and, for what it's worth, this show did it fine.

And yeah, there's a lot of talk about fishing here. You will learn a lot about this hobby, whether you want to or not, but it thankfully doesn't overtake the plot of the show.

Fishing is the mechanism with what the show conveys its message, but the message itself is still there, in plain sight.

And if you're like me and don't care much for it, you can still appreciate it for its amount of depth and how fairly accurate it appears to look when describing this activity.

I never knew how many fish types there were in Japan, how many fishing techniques there were, the types of bait you can use, and so forth. Even for me, who's someone that's very uninterested in this hobby, even I've found the stuff that they were talking about quite fun to listen to, even if I still don't plan on picking up this hobby myself.

If nothing else, the show was quite informative.

Maybe it's just me approaching middle age and starting to like stuff that most kids would find tedious and boring, but I've suddenly found myself taking a liking to these menial and straightforward stories about accepting reality as it is but still finding ways of making your life work regardless.

It's a fairly straightforward story about doing your best and allowing your friends to pull you out of your misery, even when you're at your lowest.

My only complaint for this show is that a lot of the stuff that it describes as tragic and horrible get resolved quite swiftly and conveniently; stuff like financial issues, not having a place to live, or even dealing from a terminal illness, they all get conveniently resolved whenever the plot feels like it makes sense for them to resolve for it to have the most dramatic impact on the audience.

Brushing off heavy things like that felt a bit too idealistic and shallow to me, personally, but I still understand why the show did them.

I would have liked for more drama and a far darker ending to the story than what we've got, since I felt like that would have had more impact on me, personally, but I still think that we got something decent here, nonetheless.

Could it have been a bit better? Sure. But what it ended up being was perfectly serviceable anyways.

Even if you're not into fishing, I would still recommend you give this show a watch. If nothing else, it will be a valuable lesson about appreciating what you've got.

5. Yakuza Fiancé

Alright so, we might as well get this one off our chest now.

This is one of those TV series where people will tell me that I'm wrong about, that everyone will try to defend and tell me that it's actually a very underrated masterpiece or what have you, and I will simply disagree with them.

But, at the same time, I don't want for this review to come across like I'm hating on this show. Granted, I don't love the show either.

I'm somewhere in the middle with this one. I don't like it enough to even call it decent, nor am I angry enough at it to say that I hate it.

I'm just indifferent to this one.

The show is about a high school girl from Osaka named Yoshino Somei, who grew up in a yakuza family.

Despite her family's ties to underground crime, she has tried her whole life to distance herself from them and tried to stay clean and safe, doing everything she could to live a normal life for herself.

One day, she finds out that her grandfather had arranged for her to marry the son of another yakuza family, a young man from Tokyo named Kirishima Miyama, who's also in high school.

Naturally, Yoshino is very much against this arrangement, especially since she had never even met the guy before but, at her grandfather's request, she eventually concedes and moves to Tokyo where she meets up with this Kirishima.

Kirishima, initially, presents himself as an attractive and earnest man, who claims he has little ties to his yakuza origins and that he's also doing his best to make an honest living for himself.

This puts Yoshino off at first, as he's the first person she has met outside of her family that also seems to have a dislike for the yakuza.

But, soon enough, Yoshino sees Kirishima return home late into the night with blood on his body, clearly indicating that he had lied and that he still participates in the less savory deals that the yakuza are known for.

Soon enough, Yoshino discovers that Kirishima is actually a very sadistic person and that his nice persona was actually just a facade to pretend to be a well mannered individual.

When seeing how Yoshino is not very willing to be cooperative with him, Kirishima drops the act and demands from her to sell her body to others, in exchange for money to give to him.

That, coupled with the fact that the girl is facing bullying at her new school in Tokyo, causes Yoshino to hate the new life there and want to return home.

When she gets to talk over the phone with her grandfather again, he advises her to try a new strategy: if she wants to get revenge on Kirishima, she should try to seduce him in the next couple of months and then, once she will have him at her fingertips, she should break up with him and leave him in the dust. That way, she will make him miserable.

Yoshino accepts this as a challenge for herself.

After that, Yoshino gives Kirishima the money that he wanted from her, her having revealed that instead of selling her body for sex to make it, she had sold a kidney for it.

Moreover, she's making it clear that she won't give up so easily and that she will put up a fight before she returns to Osaka, revealing a side of herself that Kirishima had never seen before.

This unsophisticated, combative and crass side of her causes Kirishima to suddenly proclaim that he had genuinely fallen in love with her and now he's even more interested in going through with the arranged marriage.

So ends episode 1.

OK so, a couple of things I want to make clear: I didn't care much for this show.

Initially, I said I would want to watch this show because it clearly had a dark edge to it, since anime about yakuza life are usually quite interesting and I wanted to see where this one was heading.

The show had an interesting premise, although I'm never a fan of the old arranged marriage romance cliches.

Nonetheless, I gave this show a chance and I powered through it, following the plot, the characters and everything about it.

And, the general takeaway for me was that, for better or worse, I got what I was hoping for: it does delve deep into yakuza life, into thugs and gangs, manipulation and criminals doing illegal things, and it goes quite hard into action scenes.

The problem is that the show is very underwhelming.

Much like Tasuketsu: Fate of the Majority, which is another show I've encountered that had a similar issue, there's a lot of dialogue and talking in this show that slows it down a lot.

This is clearly a mature show geared towards mature audiences, which is both a blessing and a curse for itself.

The plot advances at a slug's pace and, the few action sequences there are, they aren't very flashy or particularly well animated. In fact, they are very realistic and short, as far as I've seen.

The show doesn't even try to pretend that it has flashy action. And every action scene is padded out by many minutes of dialogue that surround it, in which characters are constantly strategizing, scheming, doing plot exposition or something similar. It's all that, non-stop.

And while this is still miles ahead of Tasuketsu since it at least has some proper action sequences, I would still have preferred something a bit less talky and more shooty.

When you get down to it, this is just a coming of age story for Yoshino. Yes, she hates everything yakuza and she hates violence, but the story will put her in the position of having to deal with thugs and people who are out to get her or Kirishima, to take matters into her own hands and get her hands dirty in the process.

In that sense, it is a bit of a feminist anime since Yoshino is arguably one of the most capable female characters I've seen in anime in quite a long time, which I really like.

On the other hand, it was that this show was constantly trying to shove romance between Yoshino and Kirishima down my throat, which was something I really disliked about it.

Granted, I'm usually all for having romance in an anime and trying to make things work in that sense but this was one that I really felt gross about.

Kirishima has a very sleazy personality, one that lies, manipulates, seduces and is also very sadistic and even blood thirsty at times. He is an incurable asshole that doesn't take “No” for an answer and likes to gloat and takes pride in every single win he gets.

But, with that said, I both hate and like those characteristics about him. For one, I miss this type of character. I wanted someone that's a genuine manipulator and liar, who tries to get into women's pants, who cheats on his girlfriend, has ulterior plans, and who's scheming all the time. I really like this about him.

I wish more anime male leads were this conniving and cold, at least for the sake of diversity. In that respect, this was a breath of fresh air seeing someone as heartless as him.

But, on the other hand, I really don't like seeing this guy trying to sweet talk an honest girl like Yoshino. Clearly he's infatuated with her and he wants to make her his, but I just feel dirty watching these two getting together.

But, then again, I've had to sit through genuinely terrible romance anime like A Condition Called Love (from the spring of 2024 anime), and that felt even more disgusting than this one, so I can at least say that I personally feel like I've seen worse.

Either way, your mileage may vary.

I really wish the anime focused more on the yakuza stuff and the plot developments and less on the romance portion of the series.

Lastly, I want to say that my other gripe with this show is the character designs. I really really hated the designs of these characters.

Visually, they looked like these people were into their 20s, like Kirishima and Yoshino were at least in college, and yet the story told me that they were still in high school. That felt very weird to me.

I don't know why the characters look as old as they do. Maybe it's just my brain playing tricks on me, but these people do not look like teenagers. I know that this is animation, and a character's apparent age is very subjective, but it just felt very wrong to me.

Oh and, another thing is that a lot of characters had very odd looking designs on their pupils. Like some characters had trapezoid shapes in their eyes, for no apparent reason. I don't know what those reasons are but they looked off putting and very distracting to me.

That and, the animation from this show is really choppy.

I don't know what budget this TV series had, but the animation looked very cheap. Maybe it's because it had a lot of action sequences throughout the series (they were very short lived though) and they had to burn a lot of money on that, but the moments of silence or just talking felt like there was very little money being spent on this. The animation was as bare-bones as it got during those moments.

Initially I didn't notice that but, when a friend of mine pointed out this to me, it became very noticeable and jarring.

I don't know why the show had such a lackluster animation, but it stood out after I began noticing it.

Oh well.

Those are my thoughts on this show.

Overall, I felt like the show was a bit too slow, the plot too dialogue-heavy and the animation and character designs off putting in more ways than one.

At times, it genuinely felt like the show was somehow an adaptation of a light novel, it had that much dialogue in it, which obviously isn't the case since this is adapted from a manga. So why there is so little action and so much dialogue in this one, I really cannot say.

I don't think I will be continuing this show, even if a season 2 were to come out. It just lacks the polish that I need and the style of storytelling is just not for me. But, with that said, I'm sure there are other people who would like a show like this one. So, who knows? Give it a shot!

You can find part one here.

6. Mayonaka Punch

I've been waiting so long to talk about this one.

This is one of those entries in which I feel like most other people will accuse me of over-hyping this show, overpraising it and calling it “underrated” for no good reason, but I will stand my ground on this one.

Because, while I will admit that this is just a simple comedy that doesn't do much in terms of innovating the medium or tackling societal issues or debating heavy philosophical topics, I will argue that not every show needs to do those things.

Sometimes a good show can just be fun.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's discuss the plot of the first episode, shall we?

Young adult Masaki Sonoue is a popular NewTuber and co-founder of the Hype-Girls NewTube channel, a small channel that has been growing for the past months and has managed to garner a significant amount of success.

However, one day, after raging out and physically punching another one of the girls of their channel in the face, a huge amount of backlash from the fans of the channel emerges against her, a public online scandal that devolves so much that Hype-Girls ends up kicking Masaki out of their group just to quell the online hate.

Abandoned by her channel collaborators who were also, incidentally, her friends, Masaki tries to start up her own channel to try to find success again. She tries recruiting new members for her team but has little luck doing so, as the online hate against her continues and nobody is willing to associate themselves with her anymore.

Meanwhile, at Bonpai Manor, a manor in a different part of the city, a pink haired vampire girl named Live awakens from a 20 year long slumber after having a conspicuous dream involving a strange girl.

Live meets up with Ichiko, another vampire living at that manor and who's also Live's assistant, who has been awake that whole time and has tended for the manor and doing all the tasks necessary to keep their family still together there while Live was in her deep slumber.

Ichiko gives some brief information about what has happened since Live went to sleep, while also revealing that, since she had started trading stocks to make more money, she ended up going into debt and now they are penniless.

While doing so, Ichiko accidentally reveals to Live an image of Masaki on a NewTube video thumbnail from a video feed that she had been scrolling. Live realizes from that picture that the girl from her strange dream was, in fact, Masaki, for some odd reason.

Later on, the girls at the manor very quickly run out of blood to drink, as Live has consumed almost all of the blood bags that they had in storage, to recover from her long sleep. Realizing that they will be needing more blood for sustenance, Live decides to visit a nearby hospital to find a new supply.

As nighttime arrives, by pure luck, Masaki arrives at the same hospital as well, since she was reminiscing how that abandoned hospital was where she had shot her first video with the girls from Hype-Girls.

Masaki was walking alone on the hallways of that hospital, remembering moments of when they had filmed their first video there, until she stumbles upon a room where Live was searching for blood in, the two meeting seemingly for the first time.

Live immediately recognizes her from her dream again and also senses the blood dripping from Masaki's nose (a nosebleed that Masaki had accidentally caused for herself a couple of minutes prior after hitting her head), the scent of Masaki's blood driving Live mad with hunger.

Realizing that she's in danger, Masaki makes a run for it, trying to get away from a desperate Live until she reaches the rooftop of the abandoned hospital.

Seeing no other way out, Masaki walks to the edge of the rooftop, threatening to jump off if Live doesn't leave her alone.

Live doesn't go along with her, though, and Masaki accidentally slips, beginning to fall off the building. However, in the nick of time, Live saves her using her flying powers.

Seeing how Masaki had calmed down, Live begins pulling her along as the two fly through the night sky above the city, amazing Masaki with the gorgeous view.

After the two settle down again, Masaki decides to make Live an offer: she will agree to allow Live to drink her blood, but only after Live helps her get 1 million views on her new NewTube channel. Seeing that vampires exist and witnessing their powers firsthand, Masaki is convinced that that's the surest way to popularity that she can achieve for growth.

Live agrees to her request.

That's the synopsis for episode 1.

Now, let's start by stating the obvious: I'm a sucker for night shots of cities in anime.

The scene with Live flying with Masaki in the air above the city during nighttime reminded me of the first episode of Call of the Night, also an anime about vampires. While this show wasn't as gorgeous as Call of the Night was, not even close, it did have the same feeling of alluring promise of fun and wonder, of excitement and sense of discovery.

Given that this show is an original work that came out only recently, it wouldn't surprise me if they took inspiration from Call of the Night's first episode as well. I'm not saying that they did, and even if I did say that, I wouldn't have any proof of it, but it's just a hunch from me.

Outside of that, I just liked the general feeling of the first episode.

It was giving me good vibes, the type of vibes you'd expect to see from a laid-back, nonsense type of comedy TV series that doesn't care much for rules and just wants to take you on a ride, as the viewer.

And boy, was it a wild ride. I loved this show to a fault. It was wacky, filled with slapstick, color, energy and fun.

But, surprisingly, it also had some deep moments as well. They weren't many, mind you, but they were there and the few that I did see gave me a nice surprise. The show has some relevant things it wanted to talk about and some nice life lessons to impart. Granted, none of the lessons are very original or mind blowing, but they are important nonetheless; lessons such as “confront the people you need to confront early on, otherwise you might regret waiting for too long”, “learn to cherish the simple things in life”, “appreciate your family” and “don't be mean to your friends” are somewhat cliched and had been brought up in many anime before this one as well, but I've found them to be organically meshed well into the episodes here and have had a deep emotional impact on me.

The fact that the show didn't need to include those lessons into its episodes at all, since the comedy was already very well done, but it did so anyway, went a long way for me to appreciate it for what it was.

And also, the fact that Masaki, the protagonist, is a violent unhindered bitch that lashes out at anyone that pisses her off was such a nice sight to see. In the medium of anime where most protagonists are sterile angels that are seldom selfish or even assholes at all, it's such a nice breath of fresh air to see someone as unhinged as Masaki was. Her flaws felt very relatable, and the fact that she also learned her lesson by the end of the show and grew a very tiny bit since the first episode didn't get lost on me either.

And this was another show that flourished in randomness, which made it very difficult for me to predict any of the plot twists that the episodes would take. Simply put, whenever a TV anime manages to make it difficult for me to predict where it's going is, by itself, a very nice surprise. I love it when I can't put together where an episode is going, and this show managed to achieve that almost all of the time.

Simply put, the show was unpredictable in the best of ways.

And the characters were just so fun. I loved every moment of seeing them onscreen interact with each other. This is another one of those shows where, if you take any two characters and put them alone in a room with each other, you would get a funny script that simply writes itself without much effort. I love it when characters are written like that.

My only complaint was that the very last twist of the very last episode was a bit predictable (as I saw who was the mastermind of that plot before it was revealed), contrary to what I said earlier, which kind of lessened the impact for me a little bit, but I was still satisfied with it.

The show was very much what I wanted to see. It's these shows that come to mind whenever I ask myself what is the poster child for “anime” as a genre: raw, unadulterated, chaotic and full of energy TV series that need to unleash onto you, the viewer, all their maddness, while also bringing you into their colorful unhinged world.

This is what, I feel, anime should be like: it takes full advantage of the medium of animation, while also relaying important information and deep life lessons on the side as a bonus. And it does that while having a distinguishing and unique personality as well.

This is what I want from anime.

I want another season of this show. I genuinely feel like this show deserves more and that there's potential for even more fun to be had with these characters.

If a new season never gets greenlit, I will be sad but it won't be the end of the world, as the season wrapped up most of the important loose ends that it had. But if a new season does get greenlit, I will be sure to watch it.

7. SHY (Season 2)

The SHY anime adaptation returns once again, in a brand new season on TV.

For those that are new here, just know that I've already covered the first season of this anime in my fall 2023 lineup blog post. You can read my thoughts on that season here, as I won't be repeating myself. If you want a TL;DR summary though, basically SHY is a Japanese manga that began being published in August of 2019 and is still ongoing as of the making of this blog post. It currently has 26 volumes and these opinions that I'm writing cover the manga's anime adaptation done by studio Eight Bit.

Specifically, this entry will describe my thoughts for the anime's second season.

To be frank, I wasn't very sure if this particular TV series was going to get a second season. Back when I finished watching its first one, I had my doubts that it would be popular enough to get one but, apparently, the studio decided to renew it.

This is interesting. Maybe they see the potential in superhero anime, as other TV shows like My Hero Academia highlighted how there's a large audience that the anime market can tap into; or maybe the manga is simply that popular in Japan, and there was high demand for a continuation of the anime.

Who knows?

The first season had a lot of potential, I will say, and I loved to see the story take dark and unsettling turns but also maintaining a sense of elegance and pride, never going too far with its sinister undertones and still trying to keep itself afloat with its lighthearted superhero theme.

This new season does the same, although the story didn't grab me as much this time around.

The plot here will focus on, believe it or not, the princess of a hidden ninja village named Ai Tennoji who ran away from her home after being sheltered for almost her entire life, in hopes of discovering and exploring the outside world on her own. She just so happens to meet up with Teru and Iko and immediately befriends them.

Ai is secretive about her village, though, and leaves out the true purpose for why she ventured into the outside world.

Amarariruku, in the meanwhile, will plan to take over the world using one of their new members, a strange and mysterious girl named Utsuro Karakururi.

I won't go into more detail, since I feel like that is unnecessary.

This new season has some good points, but also some weaker ones as well.

First things first, I will say, I feel like this show is still a very worthwhile watch.

One of the main highlights of this particular season is that circumstances will force Shy to take up a role of leadership for a rescue team, later on.

Teru, being very shy and socially awkward, will have to force herself to manage a team of other heroes and ensure the safety of others while in this mission.

I won't be trying to become too political in this, but I feel like this is the poster child for what a feminist anime should be like.

People generally take issues with Hollywood's implementation of feminist movies, very many arguing that it's too on-the-nose and loud in its messages, and I get that and I absolutely agree with this.

Anime, thankfully, has gone under the radar in these instances, mainly because, in my opinion, anime TV shows and movies are a bit more subtle in their political leanings and keep their affinities out of plain sight.

This show is no exception to that rule.

The show doesn't scream 'Girl power' every episode, nor does it shove in your face Teru's prowess as a perfect leader or abilities as a female superhero.

In fact, the show goes the exact opposite route and underlines her shortcomings and vulnerabilities all the time, but in a good way.

The point of the show is to present the protagonist's growth, both as a competent hero that saves others but also as just a human that needs to become functional in society.

Shy will have to learn to become a good leader. Sooner of later, she simply will have to become better at dealing with others and commanding forces to coordinate rescue efforts.

And this season puts her in that uncomfortable position, to force her to adapt.

Of course, she won't be alone, and she will have a team helping her along the way. Most of her other team members will also be female, which brings up my pointing out how this is mostly a feminist work.

But, like any good feminist piece should do, this season also shows cool moments with a couple of male characters as well, to complement its message. Characters like Ming Ming and Davie John will also get their spotlights, with John in particular appearing very cool and allowing us to finally get a glimpse into his powers.

The antagonists will also get their fair shake, with the introduction of Doki Baragaki, as well as the return of the joyful Kufufu.

And, finally, we will finally get to see Stigma's abilities in actual combat, assisted by a ghostly apparition of another Amarariruku member named Quabala.

Honestly, this show was a lot of fun.

The second thing about this new season that I wanted to point out, is how I like that we finally get new characters being shown in the spotlight. The old characters were absolutely fine, but I like how new arcs in TV shows sometimes decide to move the spotlight slightly away from the protagonist and onto new characters to bring in new elements and to spice things up.

Ai is a very fun character to show, and I was very fond of her personality.

But, as with the last time I talked about this show, there are some things I also dislike about it.

The most glaring issue I take with this show is its cheesy dialogue that constantly makes me think that this show was obviously geared towards a younger audience.

While I wouldn't say that the show is geared necessarily towards children under the age of 13 (although it's still accessible to them), my guess is that this is targeted towards teens, mostly to the female teen crowd even. The fact that wikipedia claims that the manga is Shōnen in nature (i.e. targeted towards teenage boys) feels a bit inaccurate to me. The reason I say that this is geared towards a younger audience is due to its cheesy cliched lines talking about one's “heart” and “purity”, filling the world with “love” and fulfilling “dreams”.

Then there's the boring anime cliches that are omnipresent everywhere, like how all the right people are there at the right moment to save someone, how someone has an long winded speech as they are about to die, how someone is struggling with deep regrets over their dark past, sorrowful and mourning over the road not taken.

And couple that with the happy-go-lucky ending that solved most of the problems and wrapped everything up as neatly as possible, and it felt somewhat too sterile.

Almost, although there was one aspect of the ending that at least tried to bring some sense of sourness to it which I cannot spoil. You'll have to see it for yourself to see what I mean.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on this show.

Would I watch another season of it? Honestly, yeah I would.

As cheesy as it is, it's still a fun and entertaining show nonetheless. This is exactly what I was hoping I would get if a continuation were to happen after the first season.

I genuinely am now interested in the saga of Amarariruku, and I wish to see Stigma's backstory as soon as possible.

This story has potential, it has interesting twists and fun yet relatable characters. I've never been much of a superhero anime fan but this show is rapidly changing that.

I am very much hoping that this will get the same treatment as My Hero Academia and continue being adapted for far longer, especially since there clearly is still a lot more manga to draw material from.

8. Pseudo Harem

You didn't think I'd have a full top 10 list without a harem anime sneaking its way in here somehow, did you?

Yes, this is a romantic comedy slice of life story in which the protagonist, a highly talented boy named Eiji Kitahama, is surrounded by a harem of exactly one girl. Confused yet?

The first episode shows us a first year high school student named Rin Nanakura who is walking around the school campus trying to find someone from the Drama Club.

She ends up meeting Eiji, a second year student at that school and, after hearing her desire to join the same club that he's already in, Eiji decides to pull a prank on Rin and pretends that he's currently the only member of said club, and that he's also the club president.

Rin is impressed and happy that she gets to work with him but, after they arrive at the Drama Club room, she realizes that he had pranked her when seeing how the room is full of other people and the actual club president (who actually isn't Eiji) welcomes her.

Later on, during PE class, Eiji confides in Rin while they are on the side talking to each other that he has always wanted to have a harem of girls that would be interested in him but is sad that he has no one like that.

Rin, realizing how sad he is, playfully decides to try out her acting skills (since she has always wanted to become a famous actress) and creates fake personas for herself, personas of girls that would actually be romantically interested in Eiji.

The fake characters she creates are Cool-chan (a girl who's always calm and calculated), Impish-chan (an outgoing girl that likes to tease him all the time) and Spoiled-chan (a little sister-esque character that constantly wants to be spoiled by Eiji). All of these characters are forthcoming and Rin makes it a point to play them as if they are interested in Eiji and are part of his personal harem.

Eiji is very much happy with this development (as well as impressed by Rin's acting skills), to the point where he gets a bit too much into it.

After that point, Rin will constantly switch personalities between herself and one of those girls to play around with Eiji, while also developing feelings for him in real life as well.

That's the gist of episode 1.

Yeah, the premise is very simple and straightforward. Honestly, I was expecting for the whole Rin using fake personalities to get across to Eiji that she likes him gag to get old very quickly but, surprisingly, it didn't.

The whole show is just a series of jokes about how Rin and Eiji are somewhere alone in a room, they talk about their current lives, and then Rin gets the idea of using one of her personalities to tease Eiji in one way or another.

The show likes to have fun with itself, and I can respect that.

It was getting a bit boring, seeing how Rin would almost always confess to Eiji but when he realizes what she's trying to say, she gets very embarrassed and backtracks by switching to one of her fake personas and pretending like it was one of them that did the confession instead, playing it off as a joke.

But thankfully the story doesn't do just that, and it eventually evolves the romance, as time goes on.

Seeing the characters like to spend time together, laugh together, act together, even participate in plays together and, eventually, kiss and confess to one another, reminded me why I like watching romance anime in the first place.

After such a long time of watching romance anime where the relationships are very much stagnant or evolve at a glacial pace (I'm looking at you Spice and Wolf) this was such a nice breath of fresh air.

In fact, I would even go so far as to say that this is a prime example of how I genuinely wish a slice of life high school romance love story would be done in anime: have two main characters that are semi-interesting and not complete stick figures, have them have great chemistry together, have them gradually grow and develop feelings with each other, sometimes teasing and joking about it but never completely discarding that idea and, eventually, have them realize their feelings and act upon them.

This is such a simple and mind numbingly straightforward formula to follow, yet for some reason so many anime seem to fail at it one way or another.

This one just follows that formula, without innovating or doing much to change it but, still, having a personality and style of its own.

And you know what? It worked.

Sure, the first couple of episodes, where the main characters weren't yet sure of their feelings, were a bit boring and slow but it picked up the pace as it went along.

By the time the show ended, and I saw the characters and where they ended up being, after the long journey from episode 1 to what became of them now, it felt like such a treat.

And this is also a nice example of how to do a romance anime without even needing to involve sex or fan-service in the story at all. You don't need that, a story can remain pure and family friendly and still be impactful, as this show highlights.

Not only that but the show also introduced some excellent drama towards the end as well, with a very important decision to make in which Rin had to make on whether she wanted to continue a relationship with Eiji or if she should follow a proper acting career and part ways with him, as that had been her dream all along.

I won't say how they solved that dilemma but, what I will say is that I was very much satisfied with the conclusion of that arc.

Overall, this was an excellent experience. I could talk about everything I liked about this show but, really, the only thing that I genuinely think needs to be said is just “Go watch it!”.

There are very few reasons why you might dislike this show and I feel, generally speaking at least, most people would like it unless, for whatever reason, you genuinely hate slice of life romance stories.

I doubt this will ever get a second season, since pretty much everything got wrapped up pretty nicely and I don't think there's anything else left to say. If a new season does get announced, though, I'd be sure to pick it up again without any hesitation.

9. Love Is Indivisible by Twins

This was another entry in which I had high hopes for. On the outset, this looked like a very interesting idea that I haven't seen done for quite a while (the last anime with a premise similar to this that I watched would be kiss×sis). Thankfully this show treats the characters and plot more seriously than kiss×sis did, though.

Episode 1 shows us the life of a young boy named Jun Shirosaki. He and his parents move into a new neighborhood when he is a young child and there he gets to meet their new neighbors: the Jingūji family. While doing so, he gets to interact with the two daughters in said family, Naori and Rumi Jingūji, two girls that are fraternal twins.

Given that he shares an interest in reading, like the way Naori does, he immediately hits it off with the twins and they quickly become close friends.

Naori and Rumi look very close to each other, but their personalities couldn't be any more different: Naori is a nerdy girl that's the top of her class, has a high affinity towards reading and being an otaku geek, and has a very devious and feminine side whereas Rumi is a tomboy that likes sports and playing basketball, is quite shy and very cautious but likes making friends all the time. Still, the two love each other as siblings and they try to keep a cordial sibling relationship with each other.

Fast forward to the end of their middle school and Rumi decides to confess to Jun, asking him to date her, despite knowing that Naori also has romantic feelings for him.

Jun is taken back by this but, reluctantly, he agrees to go forward with this and he and Rumi become a couple.

However, at Rumi's insistence, the two keep their relationship a secret from everyone else to not attract unwanted attention, the only exception being Naori, who Rumi confides in.

They all enter the same high school, Rumi joining the basketball club while Naomi simply spends her days with her best friend and Jun tries to maintain a healthy balance between his studies and his secret relationship with Rumi.

But, one fateful day, while talking alone to each other, Rumi reveals to Jun that she wishes to end their relationship abruptly, which comes as a complete shock to him.

Jun is shaken by her inexplicable desire to part ways with him but, knowing that he doesn't really have any choice in the matter, begrudgingly accepts the new state of affairs, choosing to still continue being friends with Rumi nonetheless and watch over her from the shadows.

So, just as suddenly as it started, Jun and Rumi's relationship comes to an end.

Naori is surprised to learn from her sister that Rumi decided to severe romantic ties with Jun, but still goes ahead trying to be supportive of her. Deep down, Naori suspects what the reason for the end of their relationship could be.

So ends the first episode.

So, to cut to the chase, this is another high school slice of life teen romance story.

I've seen other stories that have a similar premise before, although I will say that the way this show told its story felt surprisingly fresh to me, nonetheless.

The way the family drama is done in this show reminded me of a similar anime called Domestic Girlfriend, back from 2019.

Also, the fact that this anime is based off of a light novel series is blatantly obvious here as all the episodes are filled with so much quirky dialogue between the characters that it's very clear that the conversations are the focus of everything.

My general thoughts of this show are that I actually really like it.

Setting aside the cliched premise of two sisters that are close to each other but are forced into an unpleasant rivalry to get the attention of the same man, I liked the execution of the drama.

And while, technically, this is a romance anime, it hitting all the beats that a romance would take, at its core, this is pretty much just a teen drama.

There were times when I said that I'd gotten bored by slice of life teen dramas and that I would never watch them again but, even so, I would always change my mind and decide to continue watching them anyways.

Some teen romantic dramas I like and others I hate for being too boring and realistic. This was one of those instances where I actually liked the execution, thankfully.

A big reason for this is the dialogue between the characters. This, in my opinion, is the perfect example of what realistic human dialogue looks like: it's long, filled with unnecessary trivia and pop culture references but also filled with personality and quirkiness; this is especially true for instances where the people speaking are teens.

Moreover, another big reason I loved this show is the realistic sibling relationship between the twins. Naori and Rumi are constantly at odds with one another, while still trying their best to be courteous and supportive and allow breathing room for each other, avoiding being overbearing.

And, even when it becomes very clear that they both have feelings for Jun, they do their best at trying to not allow their jealousy for the same boy get in the way of their own relationship to each other.

Personally I found that to be a unique but also very realistic way of handling these issues.

And while things do eventually escalate to a serious fight between the two, it never goes too far and the conflict only goes to show the humanity that these girls have and how their struggles are very real and relatable, which made me sympathize with them.

However, with that said, there are issues that I also have with this show.

For one, I've come to really hate Jun.

The show tries to pass him off as a simple and earnest guy that's trying to build a life for himself but he really ticked me off towards the end, when it became obvious that all of the drama in this show eventually is caused by his indecisiveness. Yeah, this is another one of those anime that likes to bring about a romantic triangle with only one guy in it, where the guy cannot pick which girl he wants to end up with.

Harem anime are notorious for always leaving things ambiguous towards the end, which sometimes is done right, but a lot of other times it just pisses me off because it's too scared to pick one pairing to finish off with.

With romantic triangles, this is even more of an issue, simply because the realistic and relatable human characters that are the focus of the story make it even more painful for me, as a viewer, especially when the protagonist says that he can't choose only one of them. I get that sometimes it's unfair to make a choice, but this show makes a good point how not making a final commitment can sometimes be worse than making one that's unpopular.

The ending felt so disingenuous and whatever-ish that it felt very unsatisfying.

I genuinely feel like taking your time to make a proper choice is, most of the times, a good thing, but that can only go so far before it becomes ridiculous. This genuinely became almost ridiculous towards the end, how non-committal it wanted to be and how long it was taking for Jun to make a decision (spoilers: he still doesn't make one by the end of this first season).

But alas, it is what it is.

Would I watch another season of this show if it was to ever air?

Yeah, I would.

I enjoy watching these characters, seeing how vibrant and full of energy they are, seeing them interact and work off of each other and, especially, I want to see more drama between Jun and the girls.

Also, I want to see the girls continue to slap Jun every chance that they get, because I do feel that he very much deserves it.

10. Tasūketsu: Fate of the Majority

And we now arrive at this entry.

Before I begin, I just wish to state that this is my review of the first ten episodes of the anime, as those are the only ones I have watched. I have not watched any episodes beyond the first ten (the first eleven, actually, but the eleventh episode is mostly a recap episode, so I don't think it counts). Please be aware of that.

This one's going to be probably another one where I see a lot of people disagreeing with me, especially the fans of this show.

I have some stuff to say about this particular TV series, but I'll start by describing the plot of the first episode for now.

Young teen Saneatsu Narita is a regular high school student that's trying to live his time alone, with his father working overseas and his mother gone from his life.

He's a particularly intelligent individual that is quite adaptable and clever but is not very good with using computers.

One day, at school during computer science class, he sees his computer screen light up with a strange text being displayed on it saying “You can read this message” (I don't remember the exact text from that episode but it was something along those lines).

Saneatsu finds that message strange but ignores it and moves on with his life.

The next day, Saneatsu realizes that something is off when the TV doesn't seem to work at all for no apparent reason.

Before heading to school, he decides to visit his best friend's house, to pick him up as well so that they can go together, only to notice that he was dead in his own home.

Saneatsu panics, unsure what was happening, only to then receive a phone call from a classmate informing him of what's going on and asking him to come to school.

He does so and there he meets up with other students, a group of survivors that were all sharing their stories of what had happened that day to each other. Apparently, they had all woken up to the sight of their families and friends dead in their own homes that morning. The cause of death is unknown, since they all seemed to have died out of the blue. In fact, the majority of the city's population had seemingly died this way, to the point that there were no emergency services to rely on, no authority to declare a state of emergency nor anyone to help them at all.

As they discuss further what was going on, they discover that all the people in that room had one thing in common: they had all seen that same ominous screen at one point the previous day, the same weird screen that Saneatsu had seen during computer science class.

But just as they were thinking that, the laptop that they had running in that room turns on out of the blue as well, with a new message being shown on the screen: “You live in Tokyo”.

Suspecting that these strange messages on computers might be behind the sudden deaths of other people, everyone in that room pay close attention to that message, although they don't know what to do about it.

The next day, all the remaining survivors gather at school once again, in the same room, to discuss what they should do next again.

But, as they gather up again, they discover that even more among them had gone missing (most likely have died). This time around, even the phone network has gone down as well, so now they can't even get in touch with each other by mobile phone if they ever decide to split up.

When assessing who was missing, they soon come to the conclusion that those that have gone missing since the previous day were people that did not live in Tokyo (again, obviously having something to do with the ominous computer message they had seen the previous day).

Seeing how they cannot contact anyone by phone anymore and how there's no TV, they start verifying what little resources they have left: electricity still seems to be running, there's also clean water still running and the radio still seems to work.

But as they try to make a plan of action, a new broadcast is made through all the computer systems everywhere across the city, in which a digitally modified voice begins speaking. The voice calls itself the Emperor, and it claims that the testing phase of his game has completed.

The voice then proceeds to describe the game that he is talking about: Tasūketsu, a death game in which all the remaining survivors living in Tokyo have to find a specific postbox or a specific laptop hidden in a designated area of the city every day. A new designated area gets chosen each day. If a postbox or a laptop is found by a player, that player can then use it to submit a question of their choice that may only have one of two answers, to the Emperor.

If no valid questions are submitted that day, the Emperor will choose a random question from among a list of his own instead.

At the end of each day, at midnight, the chosen question will be displayed on computer screens across the whole city, and all the players whose answer to said question would be the majority answer among the two options, will die, thus shrinking the group of survivors each day by at least half.

In order to survive, the Emperor told them that there are envelopes scattered across the city which, when opened, will confer whoever opened them supernatural powers called Rights and Prime Rights.

Prime Rights are more powerful than Rights but, in order to accept them, whoever wants to acquire them will end up sacrificing a random part of their bodies in exchange.

Once a user has already received a Right or a Prime Right, he may not receive another one.

Finally, the last survivor standing will get the privilege of meeting with the Emperor face to face.

Then, the broadcast ends, and the designated area for the next day is displayed.

Seeing no other way of surviving, everyone there agree to cooperate with each other so that they can improve their chances of survival.

However, the next day, after finding a gun, one of the survivors begins threatening the others and taking matters into his own hands, which prompts everyone to flee by car and leave him behind.

Saneatsu, while searching for a postbox or a laptop, finds an envelope with a Right in it but decides putting off opening it for now.

Instead, he asks another survivor from their group, a young girl around his age called Saaya, who is their leader now, to have a private conversation with him.

Saneatsu tells Saaya that, since she's their group's leader, he will confide in her that he intends to kill the Emperor.

Saaya agrees with his reasoning, saying that she'll do everything in her power to support him.

For now, though, they will need to participate in the game just so they can ensure their own survival.

As they bond with each other by taking a selfie, later that day, it's revealed that the question that had been submitted to the Emperor was “Male or Female”.

Seeing how one of them is now bound to die by midnight, Saneatsu and Saaya decide to promise to each other that, whoever will get to survive, they will do their best to kill the Emperor to stop this madness.

Midnight arrives and the entire male population of survivors, including Saneatsu, collapse to the ground all of a sudden, dead.

Saaya cries in silence as she hardens her resolve to get her revenge on the Emperor.

So ends episode 1.

OK so, that's the gist of things.

Basically, you've got a death game in which survivors post a selection criteria with only two answers, and the players who end up in the category with the majority answer will die.

That's pretty much it.

Who the Emperor is is shrouded in mystery, as nobody really knows.

The Rights and Prime Rights system is quite interesting.

Various survivors will end up with various supernatural powers, such as the power to divide anything into slices, the power to turn body parts into weapons, the power to turn inanimate objects into dolls that do their controller's bidding etc.

Honestly, the idea is quite cool.

The premise itself is not half bad, and I really like the potential that such a setup has.

Sadly, this is where all the nice things I have to say about this show end.

The synopsis of episode 1, which I just described to you, may make it sound like a genuinely interesting plot with very many twists and turns that might seem very compelling, at first glance. Trust me, I thought the same after watching that episode.

It looked so cool and interesting that I was hyped to see more.

But then, as more and more episodes came out, and as I watched one after another, I soon began to realize one crucial flaw with the show: the fact that it's very boring.

This particular show has a very good setup, with a highly interesting premise. The problem with this plot, though, is its lackluster execution.

The way the story is written, it feels like it was a deliberate choice from the author to make the beginning to be so compelling and interesting, just to attract a lot of newcomers to the story. But as the plot evolves, you soon realize that there's not much more it has to offer, beyond an interesting beginning.

My main gripe with the show is that it's constantly about strategizing. That's it. That's what all the characters do in this show: they talk a lot and they strategize at each and every corner, whenever a new piece of information is revealed. That's all they do.

With a premise like this one, you'd expect for there to be a lot of action, a lot of cool fights using supernatural powers and inventive techniques.

But really, that's just wishful thinking. There is very little action in this anime, with the very few fights that there were in the first 10 episodes being very dull, short and unimpressive.

In fact, I, for the life of me, cannot recall any action sequence from this anime, despite me having just finished watching its first 10 episodes. The fact that it had such little impact on me is very concerning.

Most of the conflicts in this show are resolved by simply talking. That's it. It's just talking. All they do is talk things over. Even when it's with an enemy or an obvious threat, they either talk it out to reach a common consensus or they just run away. That's how most of the conflict resolution works in this show, at least until the tenth episode when they deal with the Emperor.

Some might say that that's the realistic approach, as most human conflicts in real life resolve through talking most of the time, but I will argue that realism isn't always a good thing. In fact, realism is usually a very bad thing, especially in fiction where the entire purpose of it is to escape reality in the first place.

I don't want realism in a show where the characters acquire supernatural powers. I want epic fights. And this show did not deliver on that front.

Strategizing might also seem like a good approach to take with a premise like this, since I believe that there are many people that like stories with a sophisticated plot where you have to follow the plans of the main cast, but even that doesn't really work here. The issue is that a lot of rules of the game are hidden, with Prime Rights allowing players to change the rules of the game at their will, when they want to.

This pretty much means that the author of this story can pull out anything out of their ass whenever they feel like it, and use the It's a Prime Right so anything is allowed card as an excuse. I don't want to get into specific examples, since that will bring about spoilers, but I will say that using this rule, even death was reversed at one point, which nullifies any impact that dying has in this show (which is a problem when the entire selling point is this being a DEATH GAME).

And the characters are genuinely so one-dimensional as well.

Saneatsu has no real personality, outside of being intelligent. That's his whole personality, besides wanting to stop the Emperor. That's what defines him.

His friends aren't much better, all of them being generic characters that are one-note and bring little to the table.

The only good thing I can say about this anime that genuinely entertained me were the last couple of episodes that led up to Saneatsu's team confronting and eventually defeating the Emperor.

That last confrontation, as well as Saneatsu's plan, were well thought out, although a bit fragile as well. That plan seemed to rely on a lot of things being just in the right place at the right time for it to work. If anything was misplaced or mistimed in any way, it feels like it wouldn't have worked at all. The fact that everything lined up just right at the end felt a bit convenient but, honestly, I was so glad the show ended that I didn't care anymore.

But wait! Did I say ended?

Funny you say that. Because, after the tenth episode ended, I was pretty much certain I was done with this show.

But then, next week came, and I soon realized that the show continued to be updated on Crunchyroll. And, to my horror, I saw another eleventh episode being added. Horrified, I went ahead to watch it, only to discover that it was a recap episode.

Yes, this means that the show wasn't close to an end. There were still more episodes to come into the future.

The show decided that ending it at the point where the antagonist was defeated wasn't good enough for a finale, so it said Let's add more to the story by adding new characters and a new antagonist as well in the most contrived artificial fake-out of an ending I have ever seen.

Why, oh why do you torture me so, show?

I'm just....done. That's all I have to say. I'm so done with this BS.

The fake-out ending that it had, while contrived and not very satisfying, was a good point to call it quits. Why prolong it any further than that? I haven't seen a show so desperate to pull the curtain at the last second and shout But wait! There's MOOOOREEE like that since the Code Geass anime ended its first season.

Like, why are you doing this?! Who are you trying to impress?

If it's me the show was doing this for, I'll tell you one thing: I wasn't impressed. In fact, I quit watching this show entirely after episode eleventh.

Had this show ended at the tenth episode, I would have said that it was serviceable (not good but serviceable). Now, I cannot even say that.

I'm sure fans will say that this is the point from which it gets better (and, for all I know, they might be right), but I don't care anymore. If the first half of a show is crap, I see no reason to keep watching it just in the hopes that it might get better. If you want me to spend my time on you, you have to earn it, and this show didn't.

After watching the first episode, I went to Wikipedia, only to discover that this anime is actually an adaptation of a manga that's been around since September of 2013. At first, I was very surprised by this discovery, and I was asking myself what took it so long to get an anime adaptation, after more than a decade later.

But now, after watching the first ten episodes, I now see why. This makes too much sense to me, now.

This is a manga series and it makes sense that the manga author would try to prolong this story to infinitum. After all, this is how the guy makes a living for himself. So I can see how he'd stretch the story as much as possible, to keep earning money from sells of his manga.

My only issue with that is, though, that if this was indeed the work of a manga story that keeps getting stretched and elongated continuously, then the execution really needed to be better, to entice me to keep watching. Long running anime series that are adaptations from manga do exist, and they are for manga that have been longer running than this one has. Obvious examples include One Piece and Naruto, who everyone know quite well, although you can point to many others as well if you want to.

The point is, those other series did a better job at managing an interesting story and keeping the readers invested. This one didn't do that for me.

I've rambled enough. I'm done with this show.

This is the very first time since I've began covering anime TV series in this blog that I ended up dropping a show. I genuinely avoid dropping TV shows because I think it's in poor taste to do so.

However, I just couldn't force myself to go through with this one. In fact, it was an effort to even get to the tenth episode and not drop it earlier. The fact that the show decided it wanted to keep on going after that while using a fake-out ending no less, felt like a spit in the face to me. I just couldn't take it.

So yeah, I didn't finish this one, nor do I plan on doing so. I don't care if it's unprofessional of me to write about a TV show without finishing it. To me, the show itself was unprofessional even for existing. So no, I have no regrets.

This time around, I've decided to watch 10 anime series once again, so this can technically be called a top 10 anime list, although, obviously, it's not much of a top 10 list when 10 is all that I have watched at all.

In all fairness, though, not everything on this list is worth a watch and I would personally say that the 10th item on this list (i.e. the TV show that I enjoyed the least out of this whole ranking) is a series that everyone should avoid watching at all costs, in my humble opinion. Maybe I am wrong about this, given how I haven't even watched the entirety of that TV show (yes, I dropped it while it was still airing; it was that bad), but I'll get to that when I get to that specific show's occurrence in this list.

With all of that said, my last note that I want to leave you off on before I get to the actual ranking is, again, the fact that all of these anime are ones you can find on Crunchyroll as of the making of this blog post (or at least, they are accessible on Crunchyroll from Romania, specifically, given how geoblocking is a thing).

Now, let's get down to it.

1. Atri: My Dear Moments

I don't think it's a surprise that I picked this show from Crunchyroll's 2024 summer lineup.

There will be many people that might not have heard much about this show, who aren't aware of what it is or who might not even care much for it. Hell, before watching it, I wasn't very knowledgeable about it, myself.

But, the moment I saw the short preview for the show on Crunchyroll, I had the feeling that this was going to be something special.

I don't know how to put it in any other way but, sometimes it's very obvious, even from the preview of a show, that the staff working on the project had put their heart and soul into making it and that it will be a very special treat. It's hard to describe that feeling but, after watching enough anime, you'll get to understand it eventually.

This is one such special show.

Even from episode 1, I though to myself “Yeah, this is different than all the other anime from this season” and, lo and behold, I was right.

But let's not get too ahead of ourselves! I'll start out by describing the first episode now.

A young 17 year old boy named Natsuki Ikaruga awakens, one day, at the sight of Catherine, an adult woman that he's acquainted with, in his room, smiling at him in anticipation for the good news she's about to convey.

Catherine informs him that she had been informed by a trustworthy source of a possible treasure that they can get their hands on, quite easily, to make quick money.

Natsuki, knowing full well of Catherine's shady past and unreliable sources, is skeptical of this news but decides to humor her nonetheless and goes along with her request.

Later on, Natsuki's childhood friend, Minamo Kamishiro, also arrives at Natsuki's ship (where he lives at), and tries to convince him to join her in going to school, something which Natsuki adamantly refuses to partake in.

Natsuki had been living an unfulfilling life. He had lost his right leg in a tragic childhood event.

Moreover, the entire planet had become victim to a strange rise in sea levels that had engulfed most of the land and continents, leaving behind only a small fragment of humanity who are now struggling to survive by living in whatever small land areas are still above the waters.

No one knows what the cause of this mysterious sea level rise is, but it's quite clear that it's had a devastating effect on the entire planet.

The island that Natsuki, Minamo and Catherine are currently living on is only a small land mass that's also slowly being devoured by the sea, everyone merely waiting for the inevitable to happen and for them to lose their homes too.

Natsuki had traveled, back when he was younger, to the mainland to study so that he can learn how to potentially fix the planet but, sadly, he had given up on doing so when he realized how difficult this would be. He eventually would end up blaming his missing right leg as the reason for his failure and him having returned to the island, even though his grandma, who was a marine geologist and who had predicted the sea level rise but nobody believed her at the time, would scold him for having turned out to be a failure.

Fast-forward to the present and now Natsuki, after having recently gone through his grandma dying a month prior and struggling to use a malfunctioning artificial limb to compensate for his missing leg, is in desperate need for money just so he can buy a new prosthetic leg for himself and replace his current one.

As such, even though he dislikes it, he has to go along with Catherine, for even the slightest chance that she might be on to something.

Catherine tells Natsuki that the treasure she was talking about is something that was hidden in his now-deceased grandma's house, which had been engulfed by the waters.

The only way to reach the house now is by using Natsuki's submarine.

Minamo, worried that Catherine might eventually backstab and kill Natsuki the moment he does recover his grandma's treasure, decides to join them in their adventure, to protect him.

As such, they embark on a journey and Natsuki uses his submarine to descend into the ocean waters and travel to the underwater area where his grandma's house used to be, while Minamo and Catherine wait on the ship above the waters.

As Natsuki descends into the deep water and reaches the house, he doesn't find any treasure but, instead, finds a strange glass capsule that seems to hold a big doll in it.

As Natsuki approaches it to inspect it closer, the doll opens her eyes and it turns out that she is conscious, startling him.

Natsuki realizes that the doll in question is actually a robot in human form, also known as a humanoid in that world.

As he ascends back to the surface, the young boy slips when exiting his craft and falls into the water, beginning to drown when the humanoid from earlier swims up to him and gives him mouth-to-mouth to share air with him to keep him alive, effectively saving his life.

After the girls save the two and bring them onto dry land, the humanoid reveals to everyone there that her name is Atri and that she is an old generation humanoid, a model that's been discontinued in the past, and that she had been built and kept alive by Nonko, Natsuki's grandma.

Atri is a very cheerful, 14 year old looking girl, very energetic and a self proclaimed “high performance” humanoid.

She wishes to be reunited with Nonko, her master, to continue to follow her orders but, it's then revealed to her by everyone that Nonko had already passed away and that, because of this, her new master should logically be Natsuki, her grandson.

Atri agrees and so she designates Natsuki as her new master. Since she's a humanoid, she's programmed to follow her master's orders, at all costs.

Not having much use for a humanoid, though, Natsuki and Catherine decide to see if they can sell her instead, seeing how this was most likely what was actually the treasure that Catherine had heard about.

So, Natsuki and Catherine travel to a local wares market where Natsuki, taking notice of Atri's worn down legs, decides to buy her new shoes to wear.

After consulting with an expert about how much she is worth, they learn that Atri, due to being a discontinued old model that cannot be acquired anymore very easily, is actually worth a lot of money, which makes Catherine very excited.

Natsuki, however, is a bit hesitant to the idea of selling her, seeing how she had just saved his life.

Atri then reveals to them that they should wait before selling her, since she apparently has a very important mission that she has to fulfill first, a mission that's been instilled into her by Nonko since she was created.

When they ask Atri what that mission is, Atri, while trying to remember it, claims that she had forgotten and she can't remember what that is, yet.

Both Natsuki and Catherine are in disbelief, seeing how Atri is a robot and yet she actually forgot her most important mission, prompting Natsuki to call her a “piece of scrap”, which apparently was used as a racist slur against robots in that world, making Atri very angry at him.

Still, because of this revelation, they decide to not sell her that day just yet, but wait off until tomorrow.

As they are traveling, Catherine insists on continuing to sell her, since they need the money, and Natsuki reluctantly agrees with her.

Catherine asks Natsuki to give Atri the order to join her to her house, since she's worried that Natsuki might run away with her and sell her on his own.

Natsuki agrees, gives Atri the order, and she hops onto Catherine's motorcycle to follow her home. As Catherine accelerates and the both of them leave Natsuki behind, Natsuki notices how one of Atri's shoes, the ones he had bought her earlier that day, had fallen off just before they left, prompting him to try to run after them, only to fall behind due to his defective prosthetic limb.

He laments at how pathetic and worthless he is, having to sell his grandma's property for money, and decides to return home to his ship and sleep for the night.

There, he has one of his recurrent nightmares that forces him to awaken, scared, only to find Atri, for some reason now in his bedroom, trying to comfort him after that nightmare.

So ends the first episode.

With a summary like this, it's pretty clear that this will be a plot heavy show.

Even from the first episode, it was packed with a lot of content that it had to go through, revealing the characters, the world, their motivations and their personalities, and also setting up the story.

I will admit that I felt that this episode was a bit rushed, seeing how choke-full of content it was and how quickly it seemed like it wanted to burn through it, but I get it. This is a 13 episode anime, after all, and there's only so much plot you can fit into those few episodes.

That, and given the huge amount of backstory that needs to be filled in to describe the characters, their backgrounds and their life, is also a huge task that needs to be accomplished.

I recently had gotten a brand new OLED TV just before I started watching this show and boy, I will say, this anime is gorgeous to look at on a big screen; the shots of the sea, the sunsets, the crisp clean quality and the vibrant colors popped right off the screen. I might say that this was the best looking show of this lineup, or even the best looking anime TV series that I've personally seen, in recent years.

This ain't movie quality budget, but it's as good as you can get for a regular TV series. I really hope I can get my hands on a Blu-ray for this show, when and if it gets released for region B.

Besides this, when looking up this show on the web, I noticed something peculiar about this: this anime is based on a visual novel of the same name, developed by Frontwing and Makura, the creators of another visual novel series named The Fruit of Grisaia which, incidentally, I did play.

The story for the visual novel was written by Asuta Konno, who had also wrote the plot for another visual novel called If My Heart Had Wings, although I am not familiar with that one.

I tried to look up the visual novel that this show was based on, only to discover that, among other things, it isn't technically an eroge, mainly because the original game did not contain any sexual content in it, whatsoever. Normally this isn't a big deal with visual novels sold on Steam, since developers of said novels usually publish patches that add the missing content into the game after it's already been installed on the system, but there was no such patch here, to be found.

This means that this visual novel was made, from the ground up, to have no erotic content in it whatsoever since day one.

This might seem like an unimportant bit to focus on, but, seeing how one of the developers of this game was Frontwing, who is famously known for their selection of eroge, this feels like an outlier.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I have a special kind of appreciation for these types of games, the kind that are visual novels but that also have zero erotic content in them. Given how over-focused and hyper-fixated the modern Japanese visual novel market is on erotic scenes and mature content, it feels so special seeing one example of such a game that said “No, we're not doing that. We have an important story to tell, and we can't risk botching that over some shallow crap like that” and set itself apart, when doing so.

I tip my hat to that. They have earned my respect.

That and the other developer for this game, Makura, is also the developer of another visual novel called H2O: Footprints in the Sand, an old game that was adapted into an anime by Studio Zexcs back in 2008 and which, incidentally, I have watched and I consider an old underrated gem, from a bygone era of the anime industry.

So yeah, I knew just by seeing those that developed those predecessor games, that I was going to like this story. All the signs were there, pointing me to it.

And yeah, no surprise, I was hooked on it.

If I had to boil this show down into its most basic idea, it's the old tale of the forbidden romance genre, one which I'm also very fond of.

The idea of a human falling in love with a robot is an old trope in literature, and has been for a very long time, but this adds some new spins onto it.

The main thing that this show does that I find to be quite original, is the fact that the show puts into perspective what it means to “love” and have a “heart” in a new way.

I won't go into spoilers, since I feel like this definitely needs to be enjoyed by oneself, but I will say that I like how they handled the fact that Atri is a robot and would have a difficult time understanding human emotions.

The conclusion that they made and how they explain away her behavior, while still making a romance involving her work, is quite clever.

Also, I did find it very ironic that she was arguably the most colorful and charismatic character out of the whole main cast, despite being the only one who was a robot.

Initially I wasn't expecting this to turn out to be a romance though. I've seen instances where an anime would feature a kiss in the first episode of a TV series, but then abandon the whole romance plotline and instead focus on something different while conveniently ignoring it (I'm looking at you, Isuca) , but this thankfully didn't do that. It said that it was going to pursue a romantic arc and it went ahead and did it.

Granted, I will complain a bit about the romance in this show by saying that it was very rushed and felt artificial.

The relationship between Natsuki and Atri felt very spontaneous, considering how they only allocated 2 episodes to it to get it established and then went ahead and used it as a source of drama, later on.

I don't want to sound unfair towards the show, since I understand that budget limitations probably meant that they couldn't extend this anime to more than 13 episodes in length, so some compromises had to be made, somewhere.

It's just that, when the whole structure of your story relies on that one element, I kind of want it to be treated more organically and given more time to develop.

But alas, you can't have everything.

Then there's the elephant in the room that was so subtle that I didn't even realize it myself until the show had to point it out to me but there's a significant age gap between our romantic leads, Natsuki and Atri.

Natsuki, in the show, was 17 years old, while Atri looked like a 14 year old girl. For what it's worth, Atri is actually way older than 14 years, seeing how she was a robot that was created by Nonko to be Natsuki's mother's partner when she had been a child, but I know that most people won't care about that excuse.

Frankly, an age gap of only 3 years didn't bother me and, while Atri was clearly shown to be shorter in height than all the other characters in the show, that was so subtle my mind didn't even register it until they mentioned her apparent age.

If you are someone that finds these issues too glaring to ignore, I advise you to skip this show. The age gap thing wasn't that big a deal for me, personally, but I've also been desensitized to it in the past before, usually with way larger age gaps than this one, to the extent that I didn't even notice this one.

And if the issue is that Atri is too young-looking for you, I can absolutely understand that but, then again, I've seen way more mainstream support for couples like Kazuma and Megumin from KonoSuba, and Megumin in that show was even younger looking than Atri is in this one (and yeah, I am one of their supporters).

But I'm leaving that out in the open so that you can make an informed decision for yourself.

But aside from the seemingly rushed romance that the show had, my other complaint is that it's still full of cliches that have been used before, many times.

Cliches like how generic the villains in this are. There was one villain that made only a brief appearance in the beginning but was quickly forgotten about later on, that felt so terribly one-note and so shallow that I was rolling my eyes with all the scenes with him in it.

Like, his character was so over-the-top evil that it was actively taking me out of the show and boring the hell out of me.

Or how, in a flashback scene, the reason why a young character is on the verge of dying is due to bullying from her classmates.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that these types of things happen and they should be very much called out and discouraged; it's just that, the people in that flashback were so nonchalant and shallow that they were actively cheering on suicide, which I found too over-the-top and ridiculous.

I'm all for calling out bullying as evil, but the show goes to great lengths to have straw-man arguments that feel so shallow that they don't even apply to real life anymore. I found that scene so implausible (especially since it was taking place at a school, with at least one teacher there) that it was ruining the illusion for me.

Or, even the romance part suffered from cliches as well, since the show needed to squeeze in the fact that Atri was actually the mysterious unknown girl from Natsuki's distant past that had saved him and made him fall in love with her, just so that they can manipulate his character into falling in love with her faster in the present.

It's cliches like these that bother me, since I feel like this show is above them but still ends up relying on them to save time, since there's only so many episodes it has in its budget.

Then there's the plot holes and inconsistencies that normally I want to ignore, but then when I actually think about what's going on, I realize that there are glaring issues with this story. Stuff like how, towards the end of the show, we finally find out Atri's true mission, her true purpose that she had, and yet for some reason, despite her having to fulfill this very important role, her creator, Nonko, had set her up in an underwater capsule to be discovered by others, which would allow her to go astray and wander around while interacting with other people, including her grandson (something that could have caused her to be killed, injured or sold to the point where she wouldn't be able to fulfill her mission any longer, as was made obvious over the course of the anime). Why not just set her to wake up on her own in the place where she always needed to be to fulfill her purpose, from the very beginning, so that she wouldn't have to rely on others to help her? Why go about this convoluted way to get her to arrive there?

Or how Nonko, despite having this very important thing she needed Atri to do, kept her grandson in the dark rather than employing his help in assisting Atri to do her job, which would have been way easier, rather than keeping all of this a secret from him and having Atri reveal this to him herself, in the future.

It's little tidbits and inconsistencies like these that really annoy me, since I genuinely feel like this plot could have been so much better, had it only gotten a couple of more rewrites.

But, either way, I still loved it.

I've always been a big fan of the forbidden romance genre, and I did enjoy the drama that came up when discovering why Atri's model was discontinued. I like the angle that they were approaching it from, and I've been a big fan of seeing this style of romantic drama done well.

This is basically what Vermeil in Gold had wanted to be, had it been written with more forethought put into it. This show did it right, Vermeil did it wrong, and I'm so glad to finally see an anime attempt to do this trope justice after so many years of waiting.

Granted, like I said, this show still has its flaws and inconsistencies, but it's miles ahead of what Vermeil and so many other romances before it, did.

However, with that said, because of the issues that I've mentioned, I still won't say that I like this show more than other romance anime that I've taken a liking to, over the past years, like Call of the Night (which, sadly, isn't on Crunchyroll). Those other shows did the romance aspect far more organically and enjoyably than this show did, it didn't rush things and it evolved the characters in a way that made me actually root for them.

Here, I was also rooting for the main couple, but it felt a bit artificial and forced, a feeling that I was pushing to the back of my mind, but was still there, nonetheless.

Hell, even on Crunchyroll, I feel like there are better romance anime than this one as well, that are less cliched and take their time to develop things properly, like Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You, where the romance felt more believable once again, and more natural.

But, still, I enjoyed this show and respect it for what it is.

And the ending did left a very nice taste in my mouth, a feeling which I wasn't expecting to feel to the extent that I did. It felt timeless, almost like it was a very unique and satisfying ending to a tumultuous and exciting story that went full circle. Seeing how much the protagonist had progressed from being the shallow husk of a human being that he was in episode 1 to what he had become in the final episode made me smile and appreciate the journey that he had taken.

That and, as a final compliment to this show, I respect how little pandering and focus it spent on the whole environmental aspect of its story. With a story like this, this felt like prime ground to talk about how important climate change is and how we should all work against global warming, cutting down emissions, and doom tripping us into how this could become our world if we don't take action now.

The fact that the show didn't take that route and never became preachy or self important about these issues didn't get lost on me, and I appreciate it for having the maturity and self restraint to not fall into those lesser obsessions.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable experience.

I have a feeling that I will remember this show for years to come, maybe even decades. It's one of those shows that, despite its flaws, was executed very well and it had the right heart to get across a timeless message. The same way that I still remember to this day H2O: Footprints in the Sand and how memorable and impactful it was, the same way I remember watching Yosuga no Sora and remember how traumatizing it was and yet how pure and emotional, I will probably remember this show as well.

For all its flaws and inconsistencies, it had one thing going for it, and that's the fact that, at its core, it had a beautiful, yet flawed heart.

2. Sengoku Youko (Season 2)

Well, I'm happy to announce that this show has finally got a new season.

I was afraid that Studio Whitefox might pull another Re:Zero on us and take their sweet time to make a new season of this show as well, but thankfully the wait was mercifully short this time around.

If you wish to hear my thoughts on the first season, you can read them here.

Basically, a TL;DR of the first season is that this swordsman-in-training named Shinsuke joins a wise fox girl named Tama and a young sage named Jinka in their quest to make the world a better place and, on their journey, they will encounter many difficult to deal with supernatural creatures named katawara and will, sometimes, also have to fight against a group of spiritually powerful Buddhist monks named the Dangaisyuu.

The ending of the first season really left a mark on me, and I was intrigued and wanted to see where this story will go.

This, I'm happy to report, is a worthy continuation of that story that elevated it to new levels. To keep it short, I will say, I am glad that I continued watching this TV series.

This continuation covers the life of Senya, a young boy that is incredibly strong, for having thousands of creatures embedded in his body that he can control at will.

Back during season 1, Senya was a minor character and an enemy to our main cast.

In this new season, he's the protagonist who, for some unknown reason, woke up one day and realized that he was suffering from amnesia, him having forgotten his own identity and his entire past life.

He is guided by Shinsuke, the protagonist of the first season, who acts almost like a father figure to him, keeping him under his tutelage despite them having been enemies before Senya had lost his memories.

Tama and Jinka are nowhere to be found yet, at least in the first episode.

Also, a new girl character around Senya's age gets introduced, named Tsukiko, who Senya immediately befriends.

Unsure of what to do next, Senya listens to Shinsuke and follows him everywhere they go.

One fateful day, all the children in the village where they were living in get kidnapped, during the night, by a group of katawara that wanted to eat them but Senya immediately defeats them using his powerful morphing body, which he discovers that he can control.

The children are impressed by his abilities and Tsukiko's own family are happy to welcome Senya into their home, her father even suggesting that he should consider marrying her.

After that happens, the village gets visited by a corrupted mad god that attacks Senya, out of the blue, forcing the latter to defend himself.

During their combat, Senya gets thrown back and, one of the blades protruding from his body, accidentally slices Tsukiko's father, killing him.

Eventually Senya defeats the mad god but is very remorseful, seeing how he had been the cause of Tsukiko's dad's death.

The next day, trying to avoid causing more commotion there and suspecting that the reason why that mad god had appeared in such a remote place was because of their presence there, Shinsuke decides to take Senya and leave the village with him but, before they exit, they find Tsukiko begging them to allow her to join them in their journey and train her so that she can also become stronger.

Thus ends episode 1 (of season 2).

I liked this continuation.

I was a bit put off, initially, when seeing that this new arc changed the protagonist to Senya, a character who I didn't care much for during season 1, but I quickly grew to like him. Senya seems like a good kid, a bit of a stick figure initially but he eventually shows that he has many sides to his personality.

The personal conflict that he ends up having, hating his own body and pledging to find a way to turn his body into a normal human was very interesting to me, especially since it was literally the opposite goal that Jinka had had during season 1.

The eventual relationship that will grow between Senya and Tsukiko was a bit cliched, though, since I didn't feel like this show needed a romantic component to it, but it was still passable. Tsukiko turning into a damsel in distress later on, felt unnecessary and boring but I like how, after a time skip, she becomes stronger and manages to hold her own in battles, especially since she has a strong desire to become more powerful after seeing her father die before her eyes.

There were more things that I liked in this season than I did in the first one. For one, Senya has more interesting things happening to him, given that he is a very strong individual that holds a lot of power, so naturally he will end up living an eventful life.

The battles that Senya has are very impressive and the fluid animation from the first season thankfully carried over to here.

I also liked the age progression that some of the characters had. Yes, there is a time skip this season where a lot of the characters age up a significant bit, and I liked how they end up being.

Tama felt just as mature as she was before, although she did change her personality ever so slightly after the time skip.

I also like how her love for Jinka didn't fade at all.

If I were to nitpick at all, my only gripe with this new season is that very little is revealed about the antagonists and their goals, although that's going to be delved into in the future, I'm sure.

And also, just before I end this review, I want to commend this season for having the best opening and ending of the entire 2024 summer lineup that I'm reviewing in this blog post, by a lot. I adored both the songs and the visuals of the opening and the ending, they were incredible.

Clearly Studio Whitefox wanted to make something special here, and that shows.

I can't wait to see more. I want to see Senya's journey and find out what will happen to everyone and their lives in this universe.

3. Too Many Losing Heroines!

This one was a very interesting one.

Out of all of the shows of this particular lineup, this one was the one I had the least amount of expectations for.

After the first episode, I was even more confused than before about where this show would be heading but I still decided to continue watching, hoping that it would go in interesting directions.

So, let's start with a look into the first episode before anything else.

First year high school student Kazuhiko Nukumizu is enjoying reading one of his favorite novels at a local cafe when he, out of the blue, just so happened to notice the voice of one of his classmates, Anna Yanami, talking with a friend of hers at a different table nearby.

Yanami was speaking to Sōsuke, a childhood friend of hers, who was having trouble getting over the fact that another girl that he was having feelings for was planning on moving to another country.

Feeling sorry for him and wishing to be supportive of his feelings, Yanami advises Sōsuke to pursue his feelings and encourages him to go after her nonetheless, so he can confess to her properly and let her know of his feelings for her.

Emboldened by her encouragement, Sōsuke promptly runs out of the cafe to chase the girl at the airport, leaving behind a heartbroken Yanami who was very conflicted with herself, since she also had romantic feelings for Sōsuke.

Seeing how Sōsuke had left, Yanami glances at the soda cup that he had been drinking from and, after a moment of hesitation, she grabs it and begins sucking the remaining soda out of it through its used straw, effectively having an indirect kiss.

However, while she was doing that, she just so happened to notice Nukumizu's shocked and disappointing stare at her, as he had witnessed the whole scene from a couple of tables away, unbeknownst to her.

Feeling the social judgment of having a classmate catch her in the act of desperately engaging in an indirect kiss after, effectively, being dumped by Sōsuke, she immediately moves to Nukumizu's table and starts defending herself to him, as a last ditch effort to prevent him from spreading weird (albeit truthful) rumors about her in their class.

Nukumizu is now in the awkward position of having to be supportive and kind to this girl that had just been rejected by her childhood friend, while also trying to cut the conversation as short as possible, since he doesn't want to get involved in Yanami's love life.

Seeing how she's desperately trying to explain herself in great detail to him, unloading all of her frustrations and feelings about her failed relationship with Sōsuke, Nukumizu offers to lend her money for her food there, at the cafe.

However, he soon starts to regret this when he realizes that Yanami begins ordering a large amount of food for herself, him finding out that she's actually a glutton despite her slim figure.

The next day comes and Nukumizu gets summoned by a member of the literature club, another girl from his class named Chika Komari, to their room. When inquired why he was being called for by that club in particular, Komari (who's very socially awkward and has social anxiety when talking to other people) reveals to him that he, apparently, is also registered officially as a member of their club and that the club president has recently become more intolerant of club members that don't participate in the club's activities.

It's then when Nukumizu remembers that, indeed, he had signed up for that club in the beginning (or, more accurately, was pushed to sign up) but had forgotten about it.

In the meanwhile, another girl, Lemon Yakishio, who's also Nukumizu's classmate and a very prolific runner in the track club is trying to get Nukumizu's help in finding out more about Mitsuki Ayano, one of Nukumizu's male friends who she also has a love interest in, despite Ayano already being in an established relationship with a different girl called Chihaya Asagumo.

During lunch break, Yanami complains about how Sōsuke and his love interest eventually got together after her having encouraged him to confess to her, and is now very angry that the couple is asking her to go out with them, her hating the idea of that since she still hasn't gotten over Sōsuke choosing a different girl from her.

Nukumizu tries to console her but he then shares the receipt for the food that Yanami had ordered at the cafe, the previous day, where he had lent her money.

Yanami, after hearing the huge sum of money that she owes Nukumizu after that day, seeing how she doesn't have money herself, decides that the best way to pay him back is to make bento lunches for him for the next couple of days, with Nukumizu having to estimate the monetary value of each bento that she would make for him, until it'll pay off her entire debt to him.

Nukumizu agrees and so begins their strange (and mostly platonic) relationship with each other.

That's the gist of episode 1.

I'll start my review by first saying that, if you're generally put off by harem anime and are scared that this might turn into one of them, I'm happy to tell you that this isn't the case.

Nukumizu doesn't turn into a harem protagonist and this, thankfully, doesn't devolve into that (not that there's anything wrong with harem anime either).

I think that it's pretty safe to say that, by the end of this first season at least, Nukumizu is straight up friend zoned by all of the heroines in this show. He doesn't get to develop any romantic relationships with any of the female main cast, although he does befriend all of them and is supportive of them.

There are some points in the show where it's hinted that Yanami and Nukumizu might, one day, evolve to become closer together than mere friends, but that's just a false flag that gets planted.

At least for now, there doesn't seem to be any push towards that particular relationship and that idea is merely treated like a comedic gag more than anything else.

Now, with that said, the show is still worthwhile to watch.

This is a slice of life high school drama with a lot of jokes in it, pretty much. The main subject that this show tackles is how a girl of their age should handle rejection from their romantic interest; not the most mind boggling of premises, nor particularly intellectually stimulating, but it's still a pretty important subject that's very relevant to young people nonetheless.

Yeah, that's where the title of the show comes from. It's about “losing heroines”, i.e. girls in Nukumizu's class that get their hearts crushed by boys that aren't interested in them (or can't reciprocate their feelings for them).

I love character deconstruction plots, especially those that take drama seriously and explore how various characters deal with rejection in various ways.

That and I love that the show portrays women as being more than simple love hungry plot devices. The heroines in this show (that is Anna, Lemon and Komari) all have various personalities, hobbies, strengths and weaknesses, and they are all, for better or for worse, very quirky and unique.

Nukumizu grows to learn all of these and respect each and every single one of them, albeit while also trying to maintain boundaries and not get romantically involved with any of them.

Simply put, Nukumizu is a good friend that tries to be there for all of them.

The show covers 3 arcs, one for each of the heroines, and how they deal with their insecurities and sadness after being rejected.

I won't go into detail but I will say that it was a very good and mature story, that was tasteful and showed how to deal with a loss but still come out of it without harboring toxic feelings for oneself or for other people.

Overall, it was an interesting drama.

My one complaint is that Nukumizu was a bit bland and uninteresting but that's pretty much by design. The story treats him as a mere witness to the lives of those around him, while the true protagonists are the girls that he surrounds himself with.

I'd love to watch another season of this show, if it were to ever get greenlit.

4. VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral After Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream

Are you surprised that I'm talking about this show?

It's not very well known that, for a small window of time, I was a follower of VTubers on YouTube and, even today, I may still try to watch some stream if I'm in the mood and I have nothing to do.

As such, I felt like it would be fitting to also watch an anime TV series about VTubers like this one.

I'll get straight into the plot of episode 1.

Kokorone Awayuki is an underappreciated VTuber working for the VTube company Live-On. She's part of Live-On's third generation of VTubers, a generation that has many quirky and fun female characters like Hikari Matsuriya who likes to hold gaming endurance streams, Mashiro Irodori who was the artist that designed Awayuki's 3D model and is very interested in drawing sexually suggestive sketches of her character and Chami Yaganase, who does ASMR streams.

Awayuki herself made her character seem like a very feminine snow princess that's always in a dress, delicate and fragile, and who tries to attract an audience using these characteristics.

However, in reality, she is a very crass and nervous person that needs to drink a specific brand of chūhai called Strong Zero just to have the courage to do live streams and who is also, incidentally, sexually attracted to some of her coworkers' models and who masturbates to them during their streams in secret.

Yeah, the show never explicitly acknowledges this, but Awayuki is a pervert and a closet lesbian.

This is in stark contrast with the persona that she's trying to play during her streams, always trying to deceive her audience by pretending to be a very innocent and pure maiden.

This persona, unfortunately, isn't producing good numbers for her, as she's among the lowest performing Live-On VTubers of her generation, which is causing her an inferiority complex.

One fateful day, however, while streaming, she gets very inebriated off of drinking too much Strong Zero, the alcohol causing her severe sleepiness, and she falls asleep before she can turn off the stream, leaving her mic on and snoring and talking in her sleep across the entire night.

During this time, she reveals hints about her true unhinged personality and how she “goons” to other Live-On VTuber's models, which shock her audience.

The next day, Awayuki is awoken by her phone ringing, her realizing that she was being called by her manager. Her manager reveals to her that she had fallen asleep with her mic and stream still on the whole night, and asks her to immediately close them, before she accidentally reveals personal information across the internet.

Awayuki, very surprised and shocked by this development, does this but, at this point, it's too late, as everyone is now aware of Awayuki's true personality.

However, to her surprise, her accidental stream has also caused her to go viral on the internet and now she has garnered a new following.

Awayuki, later on, apologizes to her manager for her indecent accident, feeling very remorseful about what had happened and scared that she may lose her job at Live-On but, surprisingly, her manager seems very receptive to the fact that she had gone viral and is finally blooming in her career as a VTuber, even though it's entirely by accident.

Her manager encourages her to keep producing content for their company and, to Awayuki's surprise, also suggests that she embrace the new persona that the world is now aware of and double down on her raunchy attitude, since this seems to be what her new fans are fond of.

Awayuki is initially very reluctant to take that advice, her having worked months on building the pure and innocent feminine persona for so long only to have it all shatter in just one night but, after contemplating on the matter a bit, (and after receiving supportive comments and encouragement from her fellow coworkers that were surprised to discover this new side of her, especially that she was gooning to some of them in secret), she decides to follow her manager's suggestion and decides to “free herself” of the shackles she had set up, and instead become true to herself and be honest with her fans, at long last.

And so, with renewed vigor, she pops open another can of Strong Zero and starts a new stream where she's finally honest and direct with her followers.

Despite the occasional troll comment and some haters that dislike her change in character, the majority of her followers seem happy with the change and they affectionately call her new character “Shuwa-chan”.

Thus ends episode 1.

Now, there's a lot to unpack from that synopsis but, the basic gist of it can be understood just from the title of this show.

This is the classic girl is faking her persona to gather a following –> she's very unpopular for being fake –> something happens that reveals to the world of who she really is –> she goes viral –> she embraces her new fame and realizes that all that matters is to be honest with her fans and coworkers –> she becomes free and popular.

This is a telltale story that's been done and redone so many times in the past that it's not even worth talking about, anymore. The only original spin that this TV series did was that it's doing that from the context of VTubing, which is a relatively modern phenomenon.

But, then again, while the formula is very cliched and unoriginal, the reason it's still widely used even to this day is because it's very successful and popular. And, well, this is no exception.

I like this show for having an unhinged female protagonist that likes to drink alcohol and get loud during her streams.

Granted, the show likes to think that she is unhinged but, I hate to be the guy that says this, I've seen real life VTubers that are far more unhinged and unapologetic in how controversial they are than Awayuki could ever be.

But I get it. This is a TV series and they could only go so far in making her into a degenerate, before they would get in trouble for having a crazy main character that could be perceived as a bad role model for young people.

The fact that she is a lesbian is also gonna be a point of contention to a lot of people, I'm sure, but the show purposefully only marginally addresses that and then moves on, never actually focusing on it or making any big deal out of it.

Personally I have no qualms with a lesbian protagonist and I liked the fact that the show wasn't overbearing about it and just glanced over it, almost like saying “Yeah, that's the way she is”, but never bringing that into the forefront, since it's not conducive to advancing the plot.

I also loved the cast of the show.

All the girls in it were very lovely and fun to watch. Besides the third generation VTubers that I've already mentioned above, there's also Sei Utsuki who's very sexually forthcoming and likes to play eroge on her streams, Nekoma Hirune who plays comically bad video games and, later on, we also get introduced to the fledgling fourth generation that includes Alice Sōma who is very much obsessed over idolizing Awayuki, Eirai Sonokaze that is suspiciously very knowledgeable about vulgar animal trivia and Kaeru Yamatani, who's been so heavily traumatized by the adult world when doing job hunting that she likes to psychologically regress into a baby whenever she gets the chance to.

To be honest, all of these characters were so fun to watch and their antics made me smile more times than I can count.

The episodes that they get featured in were also very creative. Some of them feature the girls playing various games on stream including horror games, in another they are doing a pop quiz trivia kind of game, in another they are in a survival game in which two of them are traitors and are trying to sabotage the whole group and, of course, there's the final episode that's about doing a collaboration with a coworker that's always been against doing collabs at all but decided, out of the blue, to do one with Awayuki anyways for some (initially) unknown reason.

To put it simply, it was a lot of fun.

I loved the show for how colorful it was, how vibrant the entire cast was and, sincerely, how much it seemed to love the very idea of VTubing as an art form.

My only complaint is the fact that the show felt a bit directionless since there really wasn't any real overarching plot that this season seemed to want to follow. It was just various events in the lives of these VTubers and having them play off of one another. That's it.

I don't particularly mind that since, if you know anything about VTubing you know for a fact that the craft is intentionally aimless by design, but I can imagine that there are people who might take issue with that.

Overall, it was a fun watch. If there would ever be a second season of this show I'd love to follow up on it. I simply love these characters and I want to see what shenanigans they might get themselves involved with again.

5. Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf (Part 2)

And now we'll talk about the second half of this anime. If you're curious about my thoughts on the first half, feel free to read them over here.

To give a very quick summary of my thoughts on the first half, basically I thought it was a fine beginning to a very interesting story. I genuinely liked the setting and the impeccable world building of the show, although I didn't care much for the extremely slow romance between Holo and Lawrence.

This second half will continue with two new arcs.

The first is about a new character named Fermi Amati, who is a very influential and talented fish broker, who, by pure random chance, meets up with Lawrence and Holo. Holo tells him a fake story that the reason she travels with Lawrence despite them not being married or related in any way is that she owes Lawrence a huge amount of money, so now she's forced to accompany him until she pays off the debt.

Smitten by Holo's youthful charm and feminine appearance, Amati decides to take matters into his own hands and makes a contract with Lawrence in front of multiple people in the merchants guild in which he pledges that he will pay off all of Holo's debt to him, in exchange for her hand in marriage.

Seeing this as an easy opportunity to make money, as Lawrence has faith in Holo's loyalty to him and hoping that she would choose to still stick with him even after her fictional debt is payed off, Lawrence signs the contract.

However, later on, things take a turn for the worst when, due to an ugly misunderstanding between Holo and Lawrence, this loyalty is put to the test and Lawrence realizes that he may have legitimate cause for concern.

That's one of the arcs.

The other is about Lawrence and Holo traveling to a new, small and reclusive village named Tereo, in search for information with regards to Holo's hometown, only to discover that the priest there that may have been able to aid them in their travels is suspiciously missing and, in his place, is a young girl named Elsa Schtingheim that's clearly hiding something.

Worse, the town chief also seems to be harboring secrets that he wishes to keep from these two outsiders.

Lawrence and Holo will have to discover this particular town's mysteries, as well as get involved in the town's politics and also have to perform a miracle just to save the townspeople from being persecuted by the church for paganism, later on.

So yeah, that's the gist of this second half.

The world building from the first half still remains a strong point here as well.

The way the show depicts this world, its inhabitants, their beliefs and loyalties, the social structure and economics, and just the feel of the anime, is impressively done.

The show stands out for taking its time to flesh this world out to a high degree.

There's also a genuine air of mystery in this second half, since Lawrence will be forced to interact and also do business with some fairly peculiar individuals, one of which is a female alchemist with a particular knack for the supernatural and pagan stories.

So yeah, this second half is a bit more detached from reality than the first half, with more supernatural elements playing a role, although thankfully they are very much shrouded in mystery and are kept in the shadows.

There are a lot of questions that remained unanswered by the anime with regards to these elements, and I like how that is done to never reveal too much.

And, like I said for the first half of this show, but I absolutely love the rituals and the devotion that the people in this story have for what pretty much is this universe's version of Christianity. While I don't care much for religion in fictional stories, I genuinely believe that you have to have a heavy focus on it if your story has a medieval setting, something which so many fantasy anime, as of late, get wrong.

I can't say for certain but, to me at least, it seems that isekai anime try to avoid the topic of religion to stay as inclusive and politically correct as possible, to not roughen any feathers. The issue is, medieval Europe was a very Christian-focused historical setting, and omitting this particular aspect from their fictional universes can very genuinely make the world that they inhabit seem very hollow and soulless as a consequence.

This story, for better or for worse, doesn't do that and portrays religion as a key point in these people's lives, it being brought up constantly and highlighting the amount of influence that the Christian church has in this world, much in the way it had in real life medieval Europe.

I find that particularly realistic and, regardless of your personal thoughts on Christianity as a real life religion, it would be disingenuous to argue that it didn't play a heavy role in medieval times, pre-Renaissance era.

That and I still adore this show's focus on portraying merchant life and how to make (or lose) money in this world.

It explains things in a very approachable manner, so that anyone can follow the plot points made in each episode about various topics, such as supply and demand having impacts on prices. These things are still very elementary for anyone and, by modern day, they are considered common knowledge, but the show still shows how they can play key roles in various circumstances and make or break someone's career, especially if you're a merchant in that world.

My only complaint about the show is, again, the love story between Holo and Lawrence. I cannot emphasize enough how shallow and slow it develops.

Back when I wrote my opinion piece on the first half of this show, I made it a point to highlight how the romance wasn't grabbing me and I was hopeful that this second half will fix that. It did not.

The romance in this second half moves at pretty much the same glacial velocity that it did in the first one.

The interaction and dialogue between Holo and Lawrence feel specifically designed to act as teases, hinting very playfully that there might be something blooming between the two but never committing itself to any particular direction.

Worse, in this second half, the whole Amati arc left a very bad taste in my mouth, because it showed how brittle their relationship actually is and how easy it is to become undone over a pretty obvious misunderstanding.

Granted, the show tried to patch that by showing that Holo was still leaving clues behind for Lawrence to pick up on, because she still had somewhat of a faith in him that he will come to get her, but it still felt extremely shallow and unnecessary. I dislike when shows introduce a breakup moment in the story just for the sake of padding. Yes, they eventually did patch things up and correct the misunderstanding, but it just felt disingenuous, forced and, most importantly, cliched.

This left me severely disillusioned with regards to the quality of the romance in this story.

And, to make matters worse, this is the end of this season. Unless the studio decides to renew it for another season, the inconclusive state of the romance will remain permanent. The fact that this season had 25 episodes and yet it was still incapable of giving us a happy ending with regards to their relationship proves to me that this is just a bad TV series, at least as far as being a romance is concerned.

Some might say that the fact that the light novels are still ongoing to this day should have made it obvious that the romance was never going to conclude yet as there's still much much more story left to tell, but, even then, that doesn't make me feel any better, and in the off chance that this will never get renewed for another season, it won't change the fact that it was just a horrible tease that had no satisfying conclusion whatsoever.

But I digress.

Honestly, if you're merely wanting to watch this show for the romance, I will heavily suggest that you quit. There just isn't any here; or at least, none of any real substance.

Honestly, I haven't felt so disappointment in a romance anime not delivering since Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie, and while I will say that this is still far better than that atrocity of a TV show, by a long margin, it's still very shallow and dissatisfying.

However, with that said, if you plan on watching this anime for its world building or its topics of trading and focus on merchant life, then I will say that it is absolutely a worthwhile watch. Its medieval setting is very well fleshed out, the mysteries and supernatural elements add a nice spice to it and the characters are somewhat fun and quite intelligent and resourceful.

It's a nice break from the overload of high school anime that are everywhere nowadays and, at least compared to a lot of isekai shows, it does a better job at portraying a realistic universe with genuinely interesting arcs and thought provoking dilemmas.

So yes, I do feel like this show is worth a watch nonetheless.

Would I watch another season of it if it ever came out? I do think that I would. I just wouldn't watch it anymore for the romance aspects though, since I have since given up on that. But for the world building and the characters that inhabit it, I would gladly spend more time in this universe.

This is just part 1 of this ranking. For part 2, please click here.

6. Kaiju No. 8

And now we arrive at, arguably, the most popular show from this ranking.

I'll be honest, I had high hopes for this one.

Not because I was a fan of the manga that this was based off of, but mainly because Crunchyroll was hyping this anime up, big time.

When the first episode of this anime came up, Crunchyroll introduced this streaming feature, as well as a countdown, where it allowed its users to watch the anime live, as it was being aired. The countdown was there to let users know exactly when the episode would air, as up until then, Crunchyroll users would have to patiently wait for new episodes to roll in, since there was no exact schedule for when they would appear.

Leaving aside whether these features were any good or not, as the userbase on Crunchyroll seemed to have mixed feedback towards them, it was also a big event.

Crunchyroll was hyping this show up like it was the next Attack on Titan, and I was a bit worried whether it would live up to the hype.

Still, given that it was being hyped as much as it was, I eventually felt compelled to at least give it a shot.

And, well, it's time to let you know of my feelings towards it.

But before I get into that, let's start this ranking off with a brief summary of episode 1, first.

Basically, the show introduces us with a big kaiju attacking the city and with the Anti-Kaiju Defense Force successfully eliminating it.

Kaiju are giant monsters that occasionally attack human cities and are treated pretty much like natural disasters. They are pretty mindless, without any rational thoughts or emotions and they simply seem to wreak havoc around them for no reason whatsoever.

The Anti-Kaiju Defense Force is a military group whose sole purpose is with dealing with them whenever they attack and getting rid of them, while trying to minimize the amount of casualties in the process, as much as possible.

Soon after this particular kaiju is dealt with, Hibino Kafka is introduced. He's a 32 year old single man that works for the cleanup company that has to get rid of the dead remains of kaiju.

He is quite experienced at his job, working quite diligently and fulfilling his tasks very well, but is dissatisfied with the way he turned out to be.

Mina Ashiro is the 27 year old captain of the Defense Force's Third Division and is among the most talented members of said Defense Force. She is renowned in Japan for her work in getting rid of kaiju swiftly and without many casualties, with everyone around her recognizing her for her hard work and accomplishments in life.

She and Kafka used to know each other back when they were young kids, with the two of them promising to each other to become members of the Defense Force once they become older, so that they can fight kaiju together.

Kafka still remembers that promise, and yet he is filled with remorse, knowing that, unlike Mina who was very talented, he had applied many times to join the Defense Force alongside her but was rejected every single time.

Now, at the age of 32, Kafka is too old to be eligible to join the Defense Force, and has to resign himself to living the rest of his life working as a regular and underappreciated cleanup worker, who has to clean smelly dead kaiju corpses for a living, while Mina is treated as an overly competent hero that saves lives.

One day, as Kafka goes to work like usual, he meets up with an 18 year old young man named Reno Ichikawa, who also got hired at the same cleanup company and will be joining Kafka's team in disposing of corpses.

Reno is aspiring to also join the Defense Force, and is disappointed when he hears how Kafka was forced to give up on his dream because he eventually got too old.

After a long day at work where they have to dispose of another kaiju corpse left dead in the middle of the city, Reno informs Kafka that the minimum age eligible to join the Defense Force has very recently been raised, so now Kafka can once again apply if he wishes to.

Kafka is happy to hear this and thanks Reno only to then, out of the blue, have another yoju (a smaller kaiju) appear out of nowhere while the two of them were alone and attack Reno.

Kafka saves Reno at the last second, and orders him to run away from them so that he can call the yoju in while he will distract it.

Kafka grabs the yoju's attention and runs away with it following him, trying his best to survive even though he's a mere civilian, but he eventually gets caught by the said yoju, who tries to eat him.

Reno returns and saves Kafka from the yoju in the nick of time (after having called it in), and they both get saved by Mina and her squad that have been dispatched to get rid of it.

Later on, at the hospital where Kafka and Reno are being looked at after their encounter with that yoju, Reno commends Kafka for saving his life from that yoju and says that he was very cool, and recommends he still give joining the Defense Force one last try now that he has become eligible for it again.

Kafka decides to listen to him and vouches to give it one last try but, at the last second, a flying insect-like kaiju appears out of nowhere in their hospital room and shoves itself inside Kafka's mouth, Kafka effectively being forced to swallow it.

A couple of seconds later, Kafka's body transforms and he becomes a humanoid kaiju, complete with an exoskeleton and the full appearance of a human-sized kaiju, but with Kafka's mind controlling it.

Not knowing that said kaiju is actually Kafka, another patient that was passing by immediately phones the kaiju in, and Kafka is forced to flee from the hospital, knowing that they would be after him, while Reno joins him.

Thus ends episode 1.

So yeah, that's the premise.

Episode 1 wasn't very compelling for me. It felt very cliched and slow and it followed all of the beats that most Shonen Jump anime would usually take.

The whole “old man that missed fulfilling his dream and now is sad” trope wasn't grabbing me at all, mainly because, ironically, I am of Kafka's age, and I felt like the show was insulting me for “being old”.

I can understand the idea of wanting to live a better life, regretting the “road not taken” cliche, and all of that, but for some reason it just wasn't pulling me in.

Not helping matters is the entire premise of the show, too. I'll be honest, I've never understood the whole “giant monsters that attack cities” Japanese thing. I was never a fan of Godzilla, I never understood the appeal to it, and this show wasn't doing it for me either.

I just feel like, if giant monsters that would occasionally appear out of nowhere to attack human settlements was indeed a thing in that world, then society and the nature of cities would be very very different to how they are in our world, since humans would naturally build other types of structures that would be more resilient to such attacks, most likely have underground bunkers and other means of adapting rather than having conventional regular cities with tall buildings that are fragile and easy to get destroyed all the time.

The lack of imagination and world building that this show exhibited, as a result, was turning me off a lot.

Moreover, if kaiju were indeed a thing to exist, I would have many questions like “How did they appear? What do they want? How did they evolve?” honestly I would treat it as entirely new species of animals being discovered and I would want a documentary style breakdown to learn how they work.

The show doesn't do that, though, it treating these creatures as mere monsters to be slaughtered, with no emotion, no habits, nothing of any substance about them. They are just killing machines that are plot devices to get the story going. I found that to be so very unimaginative and boring.

The only thing which was kind of grabbing me, to some extent, was the fact that the show was trying to portray Kafka as having the potential and personality of a true hero.

Even though he has a slow body, is unfit and generally not as athletic as his younger peers, Kafka is shown as having the right personality to become stronger and be willing to put himself into danger in order to save others.

I liked that idea.

Honestly, I was hoping for an underdog kind of story, where the moral would be “If you have the right state of mind and the heart for it, anyone can be a hero, regardless of how old or physically unfit they are”, and it would use Kafka to prove that point. That was my hope, at least.

But no, obviously it wasn't going to be that unconventional.

The first episode didn't even end yet and Kafka had to transform into an overpowered kaiju with the strength to decimate an entire city at his will, and the entire point of “even small guys can be heroes” went right out the window with that. All my hopes were smashed into smithereens, just like that.

I've seen other anime like this one, where the protagonist had incredible powers and had the potential to change the course of a war. Anime such as Attack on Titan, Seraph of the End and others where the potential lied in the protagonist, but ultimately what mattered was his heart rather than his powers.

But what made those other shows stand out was their world building, combined with their story and characters. Here, the world building is almost non-existent. It's all about Kafka keeping his kaiju identity a secret (since he later discovers that he can turn back to his human body at will), deciding to join the Defense Force along with Reno, and then be treated by everyone like crap initially for being old and unskilled, only for him to have to prove his worth to everyone and also, in the meantime, have to save his fellow Defense Force companions using his secret kaiju powers every once in a while.

That's the show in a nutshell, and I feel like this story is pretty much Attack on Titan but diluted into just the standard cliches, with nothing new added to it.

The point of the show was to have cool epic fights, that's kind of the highlight of it, and maybe that could have worked but, again, I've seen the overpowered protagonist trope done before. Given the amount of isekai anime that I've seen, that should surprise no one. Just having an overpowered protagonist isn't doing anything for me, anymore, as I've seen epic fights where the protagonist overpowers his enemies so many times already that I'm numb to it.

And the only show that managed to pull off the overpowered protagonist being overpowered and actually being entertaining was One Punch Man; and that's solely because that show was creative in how overpowered a single punch could be, and it was having fun with it.

Here, the show doesn't even seem to want to have fun with how powerful Kafka seems to be in his kaiju form. It just plays it 100% straight, treating it as this cool never-before-seen idea that will blow our minds, even though this isn't the first time I've seen this, and probably won't be the last time, either.

Another example of this idea done right would be Chainsaw Man, where these ideas were utilized to a great extent but there, at least, it felt like the show was having fun with itself and the fights taking full advantage of Chainsaw man's skills.

Here, it's entirely just “Kafka can do an incredibly powerful punch” or “Kafka is super fast and can evade all attacks” or other such tired nonsense. It was just so lame. I mean, grow a tentacle! Spit firebombs! Turn Giant! Do something original!

And the violence in Chainsaw Man was another point that was keeping me glued, because all the punches felt like they had weight and it was bloody and gruesome on every corner. Here, nothing was registering to me. I was seeing the violence, but there was no gore, no blood, no nothing.

It was just....I don't know, it just wasn't doing it for me.

Maybe had I never seen other shows that did these tropes before, like maybe had I never seen Attack on Titan, Seraph of the End, Chainsaw Man*, One Punch Man or anything like them before, maybe, just maybe, I would have felt like this was original and worth a watch. But as is, I didn't.

After seeing enough anime, this one just felt like it didn't bring anything new to the table. It felt like just another Shonen Jump anime that wanted to do the overpowered protagonist idea all over again, reinvent the wheel but doing nothing to make itself stand out.

Honestly, I just didn't enjoy it.

By the time this show was done, I couldn't muster the power to care.

I know there will be fans of this show, particularly people that don't watch a lot of anime and aren't used to seeing these tropes be overused, like they actually are, and that's perfectly fine. Everyone needs to have their junk food, and I feel like there's value in shows like these, regardless of how cliched and recycled they are.

It's just not for me. The action sequences felt weightless and without any impact, the protagonist that wanted more from his life and became overpowered felt cliched, the constant bonding with his fellow Defense Force cadets was boring, the occasional overpowered minor character was cool but I've seen that done better in Seraph of the End or Attack on Titan (where, incidentally, the characters felt cooler), it was just all around a boring experience.

Would I recommend this show? Sure, if you like kaiju or what I described up until now, you might like watching the show. It wasn't doing it much for me, but I will admit that I am a bit of an outlier, since I watched a lot of anime in my life, so I could immediately sense these recycled tropes and realize how tired it was, but for the average occasional anime enjoyer, I feel like they might enjoy this show more than I did. So I'd say at least give the first two episodes a shot, since I feel like it could be worth your while, and then see what you want to do from there.

And would I watch another season of this show if it came out? Honestly, I think I would, just because season 1 ended on a high note and it does make me wonder where the story can go from there, but I won't be as hyped for it as other people might be.

It wasn't a bad watch per se, but it wasn't as great as Crunchyroll was making it out to be, that's for sure.

7. Gods' Games We Play

And now it's time we talk about some games.

This is another one of those shows that I didn't know what to think of when I started watching them, but I was hoping they would turn out to be better than what they ended up being.

Honestly, while Kaiju No. 8 was the most underwhelming show of this lineup, simply because Crunchyroll kept hyping it up as the next big thing that they had, this one didn't even get that much attention.

Sure, it had its fans, but I felt like most people didn't watch this show on Crunchyroll, and that left me wondering why. But, as the episodes of this went by, I soon realized why that was. And the reason was because this show sucked.

So, what's it about?

The show is about a dragon goddess that woke up from a frozen slumber at one of the poles, and broke free from the ice that kept her there.

Immediately after coming out of her hibernation, the goddess, named Leoleshea, asks to meet the greatest Apostle of that world.

Apostles, in this world, are humans who have received Arise, which is a special power that they become capable of controlling, and which confer that Apostle the right to play in the Gods' games, a series of games that Gods have created so that Apostles can compete in them.

Gods have descended in this world onto humanity because they were very bored and have challenged Apostles to play in the games that they created, so that they can prove their wit and intelligence against them. Any Apostle that loses any three Gods' games will lose the right to play in these games for the rest of their lives.

However, any Apostle that manages to win at ten such games will trigger what's known as a “Celebration”. Nobody knows that this Celebration entails, but humanity has agreed to send their Apostles to compete in these games nonetheless.

Fast forward one year, and Fay, a teenage boy Apostle that's very intelligent and talented, returns to his employer, Miranda, after complaining that he had ended up in another dead end in his search for a missing person.

Fay has been searching all his life for a young girl that he remembers to have been his games instructor, who had gone missing some time ago and whom he had never seen since.

Once he returns to their base, Miranda takes Fay to meet Leoleshea, as Fay is believed to be the best and the brightest Apostle that's currently still alive, as he is a rookie at the Gods' games that he, nonetheless, has already won in three times already.

Fay meets this Leoleshea goddess, only to be completely amazed at the fact that she seems to 100% physically resemble the young girl that Fay remembers having played with during his early childhood and which had instilled a love for games to him since then. Leoleshea resembles the person he had been looking for, his whole life, to his amazement.

The problem is that Leoleshea doesn't seem to remember Fay at all, her acting like this is the first time they have met.

Fay is tasked by Miranda to act as Leoleshea's caregiver, as she is extremely dangerous given the fact that she is a god in that world, and has incredible powers that can destroy the entire human race at her whim.

Fay takes up this task and says he wants to introduce himself to Leoleshea, only for her to ask him not to.

Instead, Leoleshea had devised a game for them to play together, in which they would get to know each other.

The game is like the game of Memory, in which players have to pick face down cards on a table and, for every two cards that they pick, those cards get to be turned face up and then, if they match, then that counts towards that player's score. The player with the higher score, at the end, wins.

This game would be similar, except for a couple of differences.

• Instead of using regular deck cards, the cards used in this game will be pieces of paper on which Leoleshea had written key subjects to introduce yourself with (i.e. "Name" or "Blood type"). Each of these subjects come written in pairs, so if a pair is successfully matched by a player, the other player has to truthfully introduce themselves on that subject
• There is one pair of blank cards which, when matched, allows the player that matched them to ask the other player any question of their choice and they will have to answer truthfully to it
• The cards will be flying through the air in circles rather than being placed on a table, with each card having a different orbit and speed, to make memorizing the placement of particular cards more difficult for both of them
• Finally, unlike the traditional game of Memory where, for each time a player successfully gets a matched pair from their picks, they get to have another turn after that, to have the chance to pick a new pair, this game will not have that rule. Instead, the players will only get one single chance to get a matched pair before the turn advances to the next player, regardless of whether they get a match or not

Using the above rules, Fay and Leoleshea start playing the game against each other, to get to know each other better.

Fay quickly proves to be very skilled, as his memory is so good that he can still remember the exact positions of the cards that had already been revealed previously, despite the cards literally flying in circles through the air.

Using this skill, Fay strategically picks the pairs of cards that allow him to find the pieces of information that he was interested in, about Leoleshea.

Leoleshea, for her part, is also very good at this game and she ends up picking the blank cards pair, which allowed her to ask Fay any question of her choice.

She asks Fay, directly, what his end goal is with being her caretaker and, since Fay is bound by the rules of the game to answer truthfully to her question, he admits that his end goal is to figure out, as a god, why she doesn't just return to her realm and what she's doing in the humans' realm.

Satisfied that he had answered her honestly, Leoleshea stops the game and reveals to him that she had come to the human realm to play games with the humans.

After playing a game of tag with humans in antiquity, Leoleshea had hidden herself underwater but, after waiting for so long, she fell asleep and, eventually, the water around her had frozen over, trapping her in ice for millennia, until she had woken up a year prior to these events.

Now, she discorvered, she is unable to return to the gods' realm as the connection between the gods' realm and the humans' realm is only one-way, which means that she is now trapped in the human realm for the foreseeable future and, the only way for her to return to her realm, is to win at the gods' games as well.

Consequently, she wants Fay, who is the brightest Apostle of his time, to team up with her and for them to play the gods' games together, so that they can win together so she can return to being a god once again.

After hinting that she knows what will happen when the first Apostle will win ten times at the gods' games, and after Fay presses her on to explain, Leoleshea reveals that humanity will get to have a wish granted to them (it's actually any number of wishes, as many as they want, given that the games are almost impossible to beat).

Seeing how Leoleshea wishes to participate in these games and how Fay, himself, had already been playing in them as an Apostle and had already beat three of them, he agrees to team up with Leoleshea (or Leshea, as she agrees for him to call her), and they both embark on a journey to play these games together, as a team. Leshea wishes to win all 10 times so she can return to being a god and Fay wishes to find out why Leshea looks so much like the girl from his childhood that had gone missing many years back.

And so ends episode 1.

OK so, right off the bat, I want to say that, just from episode 1, I feel like this show had a lot of potential.

The story intrigued me, a lot, but there were some small issues that I had with it which, while they didn't ruin the episode for me, they did raise a bunch of flags in my mind, that was difficult for me to ignore.

My biggest issue with the show was Fay. He had all the potential to be a truly genius player, and the show likes to portray him as a prodigy of his generation, however, that already made me worried, since I've always hated the overpowered protagonist trope in isekai anime.

Granted, I know that this isn't an isekai anime but, still, the trope is still unchanged, so that caused me issues.

And yeah, I was right to worry, as the “invincible and incredibly powerful protagonist” trope continued to be a severe problem that hampered my enjoyment of this show, all throughout its first season.

I hate it when protagonists are overly fit and talented in the story, so much so that they never even fear the possibility of losing.

Fay has this uncanny characteristic that he's always optimistic and analytical at all times. He's friendly and always has a smile on his face and he never gives up or show any weaknesses.

While that's all nice and cool, it really caused a disconnect, for me at least, when I just didn't see him as human after a point.

Real humans have weaknesses, they have doubts, fears, insecurities, especially in games where the stakes are so high and when, supposedly, the entire human race is putting their hopes on your success.

The fact that Fay never loses hope, never once doubts himself and is portrayed to always be right and come up with the correct solution to the problem at just the right time, it really made me feel like Fay was less of a character and more of a plot device, rather than anything else.

And the simple fact that he was able to literally memorize the placements of the cards in the Memory game against Leshea, despite the cards literally flying in circles in the air at different speeds, made him look so very inhuman to me.

I don't doubt that there are geniuses with incredible visual memory in this world, photographic memory is indeed a thing, but I feel like even those people would have some trouble in a game like this, yet Fay performed flawlessly at it.

That made me feel like he was more of a robot than an actual human being.

And it won't get any better later on, either.

Fay will simply be treated as the always right hero, that always solves the puzzle at the right moment, with the right solution, all the time.

And again, I've said this many times in the past and I'll keep saying it as many more times as I need to: if the protagonist doesn't worry that they might lose in the face of adversity (the way Fay never worries), then I, as the audience of the show, don't see why I should care about said challenge either.

And that, pretty much sums up this show quite nicely for me: I just don't see why I should care about Fay, nor his challenge.

The fact of the matter is that, also, the stakes are quite low.

Yes, Fay is humanity's best bet at winning ten gods' games, so him winning is something I'm supposed to be in support of, but I really couldn't muster the energy to care at all.

The reason why I didn't care for this end goal is that Fay, hilariously enough, has no dreams or wants that he's fighting for.

Literally, the show says that if any Apostle ever manages to win at ten gods' games, then humanity will be granted infinite wishes, yet, ironically enough, Fay is never shown to have any wish that he wants to be granted.

Leshea is the one that is portrayed as wanting to beat the games, but that's simply because she wants to return being a god (and even then, it's implied in the show that she plays the games more for the fun of it, rather than the sole purpose of returning to her original realm).

One could argue, maybe, that Fay's end goal is to find out why Leshea physically resembles the girl from his childhood, but even that plot point got entirely sidelined after episode 1 was over. Why? I don't know. This was only briefly mentioned again in the last scene of the last episode of season 1, to remind the audience that yes, that's still a thing apparently.

I don't get it.

A protagonist that is just an emotionless husk that has no desires, no fears, no insecurities, but is just a genius that likes to play games just for the fun of it, was not doing it for me.

I was constantly asking myself why I should care.

And the sad answer to that is that I shouldn't. And I didn't.

Some might say that the games themselves would need to provide for the reason to care, as Fay may lose his life if he's not careful in the games that he plays but, it's quickly established that Apostles don't even die in these games; in the event that they would normally die, they instead get teleported back to the human realm and receive a loss in their record. If an Apostle receives three losses in total, they lose their rights in playing in the gods' games for the rest of their lives.

And yeah, Fay losing the right to play in the games would be a big deal, since humanity would lose their most talented Apostle and, probably, never get to have their wishes granted, except for the fact that, again, nobody in this show makes a big deal out of needing for their wishes to be granted, in the first place.

Had humanity been on the verge of extinction, starvation, had Fay been living in poverty or anything like that, then maybe I would have a reason to care and want for him to win the right to have his wishes granted. But that's never done, Fay just plays for the fun of it, not out of any necessity.

That just killed it for me.

And couple that with the fact that Fay now has a literal almighty god in his team (namely Leshea), who can pretty much do anything almost, and the odds became very much stacked against the games.

Granted, the way Fay wins is usually through his incredible wit and strategizing, rather than relying on Leshea helping him, but her assistance was really dissipating any sense of impending doom, seeing how powerful she was.

And Leshea won't end up being his only ally: there will be other girls that join him as well, one that can teleport herself or other people that she had recently touched anywhere she wanted, another that has super powered foot kicks and then another, this time another god, that decides to assist him later on.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention? Most of Fay's allies end up being girls around his age (or female gods that just look like they are his age). Yep, that's right, this is a harem anime as well.

This show felt sleazy with its fan service, I'm not gonna lie.

It tries to put Fay's allies in dubious positions, exposing parts of their bodies in the weirdest of moments. A good example is how they shoehorn a swimsuit episode, in the middle of a gods' game, for no reason other than fan service.

Usually I'm quite forgiving of fan service in anime, seeing how they are done for my pleasure by definition, but, for this show at least, it just felt out of place.

Like, the entire point of the show was to take it seriously and constantly wonder how Fay and his allies are going to win in the current game, only for that tension to immediately evaporate when the story decides that it's time for a swimsuit scene with the girls because, why not? Those are popular, right?

And, I mean, if the fan service was notable, at least, I might give it a pass, but it's the most held back, watered down, fan service I've seen. Like, they show the girls in bikinis for two episodes, just for a couple of seconds each time, with nothing more than that.

I mean, it's nice seeing them in swimsuits, I guess, but this is by no means groundbreaking. Anime has been doing these types of scenes for decades by now. If you're going to be raunchy, at least be raunchy and push the envelope. Be unique!

The fan service feels almost like a studio mandate, a checkbox that executives behind the scenes wanted to check, just for the sake of doing everything they could to gain even the slightest bit more audience for their show. The fan service had no soul or heart behind it.

I was hoping for there to be some romantic progression between Fay and Leshea, but there is none. The story doesn't feel like it wants to commit to anything serious like that.

Literally, the only reason why one would want to watch the show is for the gods' games in it.

And yeah, I will admit, there are some cool ideas behind the games, like games where you have hidden victory conditions, hidden losing conditions, hidden rules, video game mechanics, card games, gambling games, pretty much anything and everything you can think of.

I do like that the games were getting quite creative, although I do feel like certain times, the game should have been over had Fay just asked Leshea to do something specific that would have shortened the game specifically.

There was this one game, where Fay needed to put a flower on top of a pyramid, where I feel like, had he relied on his ally that can teleport, the entire game should have ended very quickly, but the staff deliberately ignored that to prolong the adventure more.

Another time, there was another game where Fay needed to roll a bunch of 20-faced dice in such a way as to have all of them roll to the number 1 to unlock the next event.

Fay literally admitted that it would take hundreds of millions of times to roll all the dice until they would get to that specific outcome, as rolling dice is supposed to be, by design, entirely random, and there were like 5 or 6 dice there.

And yet, even when the story admits that it's impossible, one of Fay's allies manages to roll those 20-faced dice in the correct way just once, and they got the correct outcome of rolling them all to 1. Like, I feel like the story is cheating, whenever it tries to pretend that it's very down-to-Earth logic based but then it resorts to pure incredible luck like that to advance the plot.

I just....I don't get it.

This feels like another one of those anime that, had I been younger, I may have enjoyed it a bit more, given the focus on games, but as a grown adult, I just lost interest. With low stakes, no real end goal from our protagonist, lack of a plot and the occasional unnecessary and watered down fan service that felt out of place, it just didn't do it for me.

Maybe if I played the games myself, I would have liked it a bit better, but as anime is a non-interactive medium that's very linear, I just couldn't muster the will to care. The story always felt like it was Fay's, not mine, which made me not care.

If a new season of this gets announced, I don't know if I would watch it. I'm not saying I wouldn't, but it would highly depend on my mood when picking the shows. I kind of want to give this show another chance with a new season, but I don't know if I'm willing to spend that much time just to risk wasting it on a boring plot like this.

Maybe I will, maybe I won't. Right now, I cannot say.

8. A Condition Called Love

And we finally arrive at the end of this ranking.

It's safe to say that, since it landed on this spot, this is the show which I dislike the most from this particular lineup.

This show is one for which, if a season 2 will ever get confirmed, I won't watch it, nor do I care much for the source material that this was based off of.

But before I can go into why I dislike the show, I should first start off describing its first episode.

The show is about a 16 year old first year high school student named Hotaru Hinase who, one cold winter day while at a local cafe with her friend, they both witness a messy breakup scene between a girl and her boyfriend named Saki Hananoi, a handsome young man who Hotaru's best friend recognizes as a student from a different class at the same school as them.

Left heartbroken, Hananoi leaves the cafe in silence.

Later on, after Hotaru and her friend also leave and separate, Hotaru just so happens to meet up with Hananoi again, who's still dejected from his breakup and is standing alone, on a bench while having snow constantly fall on him because he had no umbrella.

Feeling sorry for him, Hotaru approaches him and positions her umbrella so that both of them can be under it. In those moments, while looking up at her face, Hananoi falls in love with her.

The next day, Hananoi visits Hotaru in her class, at school, and confesses to her in front of everyone, only for Hotaru to reject him.

After school, Hananoi waits for Hotaru at the school's exit and decides to still follow her when she comes out and, when she asks him why he's still after her seeing how she had rejected him, Hananoi says that he should still give her the chance to get to know him before allowing her to make a proper decision.

Hotaru has a good life with her family and her friends, she's happy with the way things are going, but she has never understood feelings of romance or crushes.

When Hananoi asks her about what types of hair styles she prefers, Hotaru casually says that shorter hair is probably better, just because it's easier to wash.

The next day, Hananoi shows up with his long hair cut short, this being obviously because of Hotaru's previous suggestion, which makes her feel uneasy a bit.

Later on, while having another conversation with Hananoi, Hotaru admits that she has never felt romantic attraction towards anyone and, as such, she wouldn't be able to be in a relationship or reciprocate Hananoi's love for her, thus she wants to avoid hurting him by rejecting him.

Hananoi suggests that, her not understanding love isn't an issue and that she should, at least, give a relationship with him a trial just to see how it feels like. He suggests she should try being in a make-believe relationship with him until Christmas, which was already approaching.

Hotaru is unsure about his proposal and doesn't agree to it immediately but allows herself to consider it.

Later on, Hananoi is seen also removing his earrings because he feels like Hotaru might find them too flashy but, when Hotaru suggests that he shouldn't change his looks just because of her and insists that him put them back in, Hananoi reveals that he had lost one of them.

Later that day, Hotaru lends one of her hair pins to a friend while they run around the track field but said friend ends up losing one of the hair pieces there.

Just before they can go on the field to look for the missing piece, it begins to snow outside so the entire field becomes covered in snow.

Realizing that it would be impossible to search for her lost hair pin now, Hotaru decides to leave it and return home.

Later that evening, Hananoi calls Hotaru asking her what the pin looks like, causing her to worry and making her realize that Hananoi was on the track field of their school that night, rummaging through the snow trying to find Hotaru's missing hair pin.

When Hotaru also arrives there and confronts him on this, she reprimands him for not thinking enough about his own well being, as his hands were already frozen from rummaging the snow and she takes him to the nurse's office to take care of him.

Finally, the next day, Hananoi returns Hotaru her lost hair pin, him saying that this time he had waited for the snow to melt before he went again to search for it. In response, Hotaru also gives him his missing earring back, and she says she had found it by the school's vending machine.

Seeing how much he had put himself through just for her sake, Hotaru eventually says that she wants to give dating him until Christmas a shot.

And so ends episode 1 of the show.

OK so, yeah, this show is a slice of life high school romance story.

It's about this girl, Hotaru, who never understood romance and is otherwise very casual and sheepish when it comes to love, and has her discover what being in a relationship actually entails.

Hananoi will be her very first boyfriend and they will have to navigate the realities of being in a relationship with each other, for the first time, despite Hotaru's inexperience.

Honestly, I liked the premise of this show, and I genuinely saw a lot of potential behind it.

The first episode seemed pretty promising and nice, although Hananoi left me with a pretty bad taste in my mouth due to how much of a stick figure he was.

I hoped that as episodes went by, this would improve over time and become less of an issue but, really, it didn't.

This is where I get into my first and main problem with this show: I really dislike Hananoi, a lot.

Historically, I've been very vocal about my stance on main characters not defining the TV shows that they are a part of. I've said in shows like Bucchigiri that even if the main character is a shallow dunce that's extremely and wholly unlikable, that the show can still survive and prove to be a good show, in spite of that, if it knows how to play around it in a clever enough way.

However, Bucchigiri was a comedy at its core, and such a thing was possible for them to get away with because his incompetence and shallowness were used as recurring gags. Even more, the protagonist in that show, despite being a simple minded buffoon, eventually grew to be likeable and overcame his cowardice to become a true hero towards the end, which helped that show immensely.

This show, on the other hand, doesn't have those benefits. For one, this is a pure romance, not even a romantic comedy, so I really have to like the main leads in the show because of that. Why? Because in romance, the audience is supposed to want for the main couple to succeed in getting together, that's the point of it.

Here, Hananoi was actively hampering my enjoyment of the show, simply because he felt like a very troubled and, to a degree, disturbed young man that had a lot of issues that made me genuinely worried for Hotaru's well being when she was around him.

Why?

Well, even from the first episode, Hananoi was triggering red flags towards me all around.

Granted, I will admit that I am a straight man approaching middle age, not a high school girl, so I understand that I am not the target audience for this show, but Hananoi's pretty boy aesthetic was really rubbing me the wrong way even from the very first episode.

Like, the fact that he was very much depressed because of breaking up with his girlfriend, feeling very dejected and standing all alone on a bench while snow was falling, was very natural and I was empathizing with him at that moment.

But as soon as Hotaru enters the picture and tries to be nice to him, he immediately switches gears and falls in love with her; no cool down period from the previous relationship, no remorse for his ex girlfriend or anything like that, he just sees Hotaru lend him a helping hand and then, the very next day, he's in her class asking her to be his girlfriend.

That's very unsettling. And scary.

Honestly, if I was the ex, I'd feel insulted how this man felt so little for me that the moment I took issue with him and decided to break up, he simply decides to go for another girl the very next day.

And it wasn't because Hotaru defended him, or tried to be there for him, it was entirely because she simply held an umbrella over his head while it was snowing. That's all there was to his attraction.

Well, OK, that was weird, sure, but maybe he is simply that flexible and quick to get back up on his feet. You never know.

Then, it's the fact that Hotaru had rejected him, clear as day, but he still chose to wait for her, at the end of the school day, for her to exit the building so that he can accompany her home, even though she had already rejected him by that point, nor were they even friends.

The show glosses over that, trying to make it seem like not a big deal but, really, he's just acting like a stalker at that point; but instead of actually stalking, he's being upfront about it and tries to follow her home. The only reason this worked was because Hotaru did not get creeped out enough to tell him to leave her alone, right then and there.

Then, when Hotaru says what hair style she likes, in response to his own question, and she answers that she likes short hairs, simply because they are easier to wash, the next day this man came to school with short hair, after cutting his long hair, just to appeal to her.

This man has no self respect, no personal identity, no fashion style or wants or desires. He pretty much just wants to appeal to this girl, as desperately as possible.

The anime tries to play it off as him being earnest and diligent but, really, it came across as very creepy and unhealthy.

Like, in proper context, Hotaru didn't even agree to dating him by that point, at all, so she's pretty much a stranger to him, but her saying that she prefers shorter hairstyles because they are easier to wash was enough to cause him to change his entire body image just to appeal to her; and she didn't even agree to be his girlfriend by this point, mind you.

Worse, after Hotaru's friend had lost her hairpin that day, Hananoi was planning on spending the entire night, on that track field, rummaging through the snow, in an attempt to find the lost pin hidden in it for her.

Like....bro, what?!

It wasn't until Hotaru herself showed up and had to knock some sense into him that that stuff that he was doing was crazy that he changed his mind; and not crazy in a charming kind of way, as the anime was trying to play it off as, but crazy in a “this man is mentally unwell” kind of way.

And this was just the first episode, mind you.

There's way more than that where that come from.

Like, there's another episode where Hananoi arrives early for his date with Hotaru. And by “early”, I don't just mean “early”, I mean at least “two hours early”, where all he does is stand there, waiting for her.

That is not how real men work.

And, worse, this sets a very bad precedent because young inexperienced girls who may be single and who are, coincidentally, the target audience for this show (I assume that's the target audience for this), this show will set these unrealistic expectations for a boyfriend to them, so they will then expect for their future boyfriends to arrive two hours earlier before the set time for their date, they will expect for their boyfriends to be willing to change their appearances and looks based on their whims and they will expect for their boyfriends to rummage through snow, at night, looking for something that they had lost because that's what “romantic” means to them.

Make no mistake, I feel like having high expectations for a partner is a good thing that most people should do, but those expectations have to at least be realistic. This show is setting expectations that no normal human being would ever meet, expectations that only the most desperate of stalkers would ever be willing to fulfill.

But, to some extent, I know what the fans of this show will argue. They would say that I'm a hypocrite, that as a straight man, of course I wouldn't understand why Hananoi is so obsessed over Hotaru; it's not supposed to be logical, it's because he's the impersonation of what the ideal boyfriend should be like. He's more of an ideal, rather than a real human being.

And, everyone will argue, and I can see this argument being made, that men also have anime TV series that set unrealistic expectations for women as well: shows like The Helpful Fox Senko-san, where Senko is overly cheerful and helpful towards the protagonist in that show, how she goes above and beyond to make sure that he is happy and comfortable, and that it sets very toxic examples with how selfless and obsessed she is with him in that show.

I get that argument, and I can see a valid point in it.

Because of this, had this been my only criticism of Hananoi, I would have backed down and conceded that this was simply a case of a TV show simply not being for me and moving on.

However, this was not the only unnerving thing about him. As the show went on, he continued to trigger red flags from me, everywhere he went.

Even if you set aside how obsessed and selfless Hananoi is, the fact of the matter is, he has no true character to himself. Outside of being Hotaru's boyfriend, the man has no qualities.

He has no likes, no dislikes, no passions, no dreams, no motivation outside of wanting to please Hotaru. If you take Hotaru out of the picture in this story, Hananoi has no identity to himself.

Hell, the way he is portrayed, I genuinely believe that, if Hotaru were to be caught cheating on him, I am convinced Hananoi is mentally unstable enough to be capable of committing suicide from that. I wouldn't put that above him; that's how much he relies on Hotaru being a nice girl to him.

Some women might find that romantic and a good trait for a boyfriend to have, but I find it highly unhealthy.

But, again, Senko-san is the same in that regard, so we can chalk this all up to it being what an idealized boyfriend in fiction would be like.

Then, there's the fact that Hananoi makes some dubious decisions while he is in a relationship with Hotaru.

For example, there is a small part of one episode where Hananoi, for no reason whatsoever, selfishly decides to put some distance between himself and Hotaru, so that they can keep their spaces (she agrees to this arrangement at his request, but only because she is inexperienced in the romance department).

Usually setting a distance between yourself and your partner is done for a good reason that warrants such measures, but the show never explained why he did that. It was Hotaru that needed to push the boundary between herself and him to end that ridiculous arrangement. Granted, that decision did allow for their love to grow stronger, but that doesn't change the fact that it was a nonsensical and borderline psychotic requirement that had no reason to be there, to begin with.

Or, in another episode, Hotaru and Hananoi are talking, but it's clear that something is bothering Hotaru a lot. When pressed about it, Hotaru keeps it to herself and doesn't reveal what that is to Hananoi.

As they are about to leave the rooftop, Hananoi reveals to Hotaru that the door to the rooftop where they were on was locked, and that they were stuck on top of the school.

During this time, while rummaging through their thoughts, Hotaru eventually reveals what's been on her mind all along to Hananoi.

Then, their friends come up to the rooftop to unlock the door for them, only for them to reveal that said door had never been locked all along. It is then revealed that Hananoi had lied all along, just to buy himself extra time alone with Hotaru, just so she can reveal what was actually on her mind.

Granted, I'm all for talking about your issues with your partner so that you can discuss your differences as much as it's needed, but if my partner told me that they don't want to discuss something, then that would be the end of it.

I wouldn't then decide that I need to buy myself time alone with them, until they change their mind to talk about it.

That's not only scummy, it's downright manipulative in the worst ways possible.

If Hananoi is willing to lie this easily about something, like that door being locked just so he can keep Hotaru there on the rooftop with him, for a matter this trivial, imagine what else he's willing to lie about.

But the main thing which I hate about his character, besides being manipulative and underhanded, is the simple fact that he is extremely unlikable.

He's not just avoiding conversations with other people, he outright is unfriendly towards them.

Pretty much, Hananoi is merely tolerant towards Hotaru's female friends because he has to, since Hotaru does need to have friends, but he's also extremely cold, to an unnecessary degree, towards her male friends.

Again, the anime tries to play this off as quirky, but it's deeply unsettling.

This type of controlling behavior was triggering red flags to me, non stop.

I'd understand it if they were also courting Hotaru, or being unreasonably cold towards her or him, but that's not the case. Literally, one of them even outright says that he cares about Hotaru and he's looking out for her as her friend, and Hananoi treats that as a bad thing.

Like, what the hell is his problem?! He is literally the newcomer into Hotaru's life and yet, after she decides to allow him into her life as her boyfriend, he wants all of her male friends out just because he doesn't like them.

Normally that would be acceptable if there were reasons why he didn't like them, like if they mistreated her, or something, but they were simply looking out for her.

Hananoi is unusually cold towards everyone, tries to act cool and mighty whenever he feels like it, wants Hotaru to not be around her friends, is over imposing on her male friends whenever he feels like it, and is also willing to cheat at games whenever he's making a bet against them (like he did, once, while playing ping pong with one of her male friends).

The more episodes I was watching, the less I liked his character; and that's a problem when he's the main lead in this romance story.

By the time the anime ended, I was genuinely wishing for Hotaru to break up with him. I liked her enough that I was feeling bad for her, for being with this asshole in a relationship. And, mind you, that's not what a romance is supposed to make you feel like.

I will admit, at the end of the day, I was spoiled by other, much better romance anime, like Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You, A Sign of Affection or hell, even this lineup's Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again; shows that are far more genuine in their romances, who have characters that love each other without being underhanded, obsessed or manipulative, and who feel clean cut and honest.

Granted, even in A Sign of Affection, Itsuomi was being a bit of an asshole towards Yuki's childhood friend, but that was because the childhood friend was being overprotective and unreasonable; and even then, Itsuomi was still trying to be curt and nice towards him, not like the asshole that is Hananoi here.

I digress.

Honestly, this show didn't do it for me. This feels like one of those romance animes that had good intentions, but got lost along the way because of the male lead.

However, would this show have been better if Hananoi was written differently? Honestly, I think so.

To give credit where credit is due, the show does evolve the romance over time, to a significant degree. I'll still say it's far better than Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie, by a long mile, and it has redeeming qualities.

And, objectively speaking, I feel like the show ain't that bad. It's on the last spot on this ranking because, subjectively, I didn't like it at all, but objectively, it wasn't half bad.

Objectively, I feel like the show is still better than the likes of The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague, simply because the romance does go somewhere, and I feel like the show does talk about important stuff that are relevant; stuff like knowing how to establish rules about your relationship from the very beginning, knowing how to set boundaries in a relationship and how to take things slowly, how to become comfortable with one another, how physical contact is necessary for a relationship.

All of these are important things to talk about and, I will admit, I was surprised that this show took these topics and treated them as seriously as it did. Honestly, it's got good ideas behind it.

It's a shame that the execution was ruined for me, due to Hananoi being the male lead. That, honestly, ruined it entirely for me and, as the show went on, it got worse and worse.

I hoped he would undergo some character growth towards the end and, the show claims that he did, but I really don't see much of an improvement. He did become tolerant towards Hotaru wanting to spend time with her friends over him sometimes (yes, imagine that was a plot point in this show), but that's as far as it went. He was still extremely intolerant and insecure about her male friends being around them.

Honestly, I just don't like the guy. It's as simple as that.

Had I been a teenage girl with lower standards, maybe my opinions of Hananoi would have been different but, as it stands, I just couldn't stand him. And if this show was done with a comedic edge to it, in which they went all out and treated Hananoi like an irredeemable bastard, like in KonoSuba, then I would have liked it way more; or maybe if the show didn't try to put him in the spotlight and pretended like he's a good guy and made him over the top unlikable, like in School Days, then I would have liked that much more.

I'm fine with a main character being an asshole if he either grows out of it, or if the show plays along with it and makes him get his comeupins or, at least, it's being honest about him and showing him for the asshole that he is. This, however, doesn't do any of those, but tries to play it all off as quirkiness.

As it stands, it just feels manipulative, in trying to make me sympathize with, what it looks to me to be, a pretty annoying insecure unstable teenager that has an unhealthy obsession over his girlfriend.

The show tried to make Hananoi appear relatable by showing his tragic past but, really, while I can see that past making him become the unlikable character that he is now, that still doesn't change the fact that he is unlikable, nor does it excuse it to me.

Like I said, if a new season of this gets greenlit, I will not be watching it.

OK so, we're at the end of a new season of animes, and it's time to wrap things up again with a, as is tradition on this blog, with a new post ranking the shows that just ended.

This season has been quite a nice one, and it had a lot of shows that I particularly like. Even the worst ranked show on this list, I can say, wasn't very bad, objectively speaking; I just didn't like personally, on a subjective level.

Overall, I felt very happy with this lineup. This season had a lot of very good stuff and I'm just itching to write about them.

As always: all the shows in this ranking are available on Crunchyroll from Romania. Some of them may be unavailable to other regions of the world, due to licensing differences. Please keep that in mind.

So let's get started with the ranking!

1. Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again

This is a very innocuous title.

Generally, most people wouldn't think much of a TV show with a title like that. I certainly didn't, when I first saw the description, on Crunchyroll, for the show.

It looked like a very boring and uninteresting idea, the idea that an old married couple turns young again, and shenanigans ensue. That's a very cliched and overused plotline in fictional media, and I didn't care much for it.

I was absolutely not expecting much from such an entry, especially since Crunchyroll didn't even have a video preview for what the show would be like.

I generally like to use video previews for upcoming TV shows, to gauge what the style and humor of the show would be like, and I tend to avoid watching shows that don't even have that preview on Crunchyroll.

But, even so, even with the lack of such a video preview, and even with the overly cliched premise of the show, I listened to my gut feeling and decided to go ahead and watch it, nonetheless.

Honestly, I am so glad that I listened to my gut.

This show was very much worth watching. Is the premise cliched? Yeah, it is a bit. However, this show proves that, even with an overly cliched premise, at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is execution. And this show executed this premise flawlessly.

What's the first episode like?

An old couple are tending to an apple tree orchard that they own when, one day, they find a golden apple on the tree that they had been growing since they were young.

Tempted by the delicious looking golden apple, the couple decide to eat it.

The next day, they wake up young and healthy once again, almost like they are in their 20s (although they still retain the gray hair from their old age).

They are amazed by this development but, still, they decide to go about their next days as if nothing had happened.

The episode then covers the people around them acting absolutely astonished at the fact that they had become young again, especially their adult children who are incredulous at the fact that their geezer parents had become younger than themselves.

Running gags include how the granddaughter becomes overly attached to grandpa, which causes uneasiness in everyone around them, how the now-young-looking-couple absolutely obliterate the competition in a sports festival where there victory seemed already won by the opposing side since they had young people participating for them and other such gags.

That's kind of the gist of episode 1.

This might seem like a sparse summary of episode 1, but that's because this is simply how the episode is structured. Not only that, but all episodes are structured such that they are just a series of running gags, sequenced one after the other.

The reason I'm praising this show as much as I am is because of how wholesome the show is.

The humor is very innocent and simple, where the main idea is that the couple can now do things that they couldn't do before, now that they are young again.

The show explores topics like them playing video games again, celebrating Halloween with their grandchildren, participating in overly exerting sports or physical activities, or even just going on a honeymoon and visiting a new city.

This might seem like it would date the show quite a lot, as it's introducing stuff that feel very specific to this time, but it's honestly surprisingly timeless.

The couple is open to trying new ideas, they never shy away or try to preach how the old times were better or how the youth has lost their ways, as I'm sure less inspired writers would immediately attempt with this premise.

Instead, the show simply jokes about it, but also makes them particularly capable and adaptable to the new times and allows them to be good at things they wouldn't otherwise be capable of doing.

I liked that.

But, more importantly, disregarding the constant gags that run all the time, the show is timeless in a different way, in which it talks about old and new romantic relationships all the time.

The couple, despite turning young again, seem just as attached and happy with each other as they had been while being old, which makes it very nice. There was an idea that was played with, in one episode, where grandma suffered a concussion and temporary amnesia, where she had lost memories of being married to her husband and now grandpa needed to make her fall in love with him again.

It was an interesting idea, that I really liked, and I also liked that the show didn't shy away from claiming that love would happen again, even if they had to start over again.

There are good ideas in this show.

Also, there's another background romance between their granddaughter, Shiori, and another boy from her class that she just happens to be interacting all the time with, Shota.

The show is mostly about human relationships, more than anything else. It talks a lot about achieving your dreams, having regrets over things you never got to accomplish, how timeless romance can be but, at the same time, the fragility of life and coming to terms with one's own death.

Given the theme of family that this show hovers around with, I want to say that the closest anime that I can think of that I can compare to this would be Clannad: After Story, as the two shows seem to draw a lot of parallels.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that this show is anywhere close to being as good as Clannad was. However, the way it talks about life and family feels, if not similar, at the very least inspired to how Clannad talked about these things, in a generally timeless manner.

I respect this show a lot for that.

One last thing I want to say, but this show also had a very nice and profound ending.

The ending was left ambiguous over what it implied, leaving the audience to imagine if it was a sad or happy ending, but I will say that it was done almost perfectly. It left me wondering and even a bit scared, but I am glad that they ended on the note that they did.

I would have liked for them to go the 'sad ending' route, just because I'm a fan of those, but they left it ambiguous to not be overly depressing, and I get that.

Overall, this was a perfect anime that talked about life, romance, family and, most importantly, age. I love everything that this show did and I couldn't get enough of it.

Absolutely worth your time to watch it.

2. Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf

Honestly, I didn't know what to think of this, when I learned that they would be doing a remake of this anime.

For those that don't know, Spice and Wolf is a still ongoing light novel series, being written by Isuna Hasekura, that originally began being published since February of 2006. The light novel series is quite old but it was chosen to be adapted by ASCII Media Works into a manga from September 2007, and later on it was also chosen to be adapted into an anime by multiple studios, which got to air from 2008 to 2009, was directed by Takeo Takahashi (the guy that also went on after this project and also directed Yosuga no Sora, So I Can't Play H!, Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers, Citrus and some other anime as well) and got a total of 24 episodes and two OVAs animated for it.

So, to put it mildly, this intellectual property is well established. Not only this but that aforementioned anime also became a cult classic and is seen as one of the most influential staples of the romance genre from the anime community, to this day.

And, personally, I did like the anime, although I will admit that I did not finish watching it. I remember watching that anime many years ago, and stopping after finishing the first season (after the first 12 episodes). I planned on continuing to finish it and watch the second half as well, but I never got around to it.

From what I heard online, the original anime never finished adapting the story and left a lot of viewers hanging although, since I never finished watching it myself, I could never confirm this, so take it with a grain of salt.

Still, I was very much surprised when I saw this entry pop up a couple of months ago, animated by Studio Passione and claiming to be a remake.

Takeo Takahashi was returning as the director for this remake as well, although this time having a co-director named Hijiri Sanpei also co-directing along with him.

This was a big thing, and I didn't know whether I was liking the idea of a remake of the original or not. On the one hand, the original anime felt adequate enough and I believed that it was entertaining enough and had enough heart to it that I didn't feel that a remake was necessary in the least.

On the other hand, though, I did eventually drop the original midway through, so maybe it wasn't as enticing and entertaining as I remember it being.

Maybe the remake could fix that?

Either way, here we are, midway through the remake as well, and now I'm going to convey my thoughts on this show and tell you what is it about it that makes it worth watching.

The show starts with a traveling merchant named Kraft Lawrence who's visiting a pagan village to buy some of their wheat and who plans to sell it for a higher price to other merchants.

The village he's visiting is known to have a bountiful harvest of wheat and he also has good relations with them, as he had been a customer of their wheat since many years before and, as such, he stands to negotiate good prices for it.

He enters the village in the midst of a festival that they are having, in which they are celebrating their new harvest while also mentioning Holo, the name of their pagan wolf god who is said to be the reason why their harvests have historically been so bountiful.

After buying some of their wheat, Lawrence leaves the village, planning to travel in the night on his carriage as he is in a hurry to deliver his goods to other towns and cities nearby.

After leaving the village and settling down in the middle of nowhere, for the night, Lawrence discovers a strange girl with wolf ears and a large tail sleeping and hiding in his carriage. Once she awakens, she reveals herself to be the wise wolf Holo, the god that that pagan village worships.

Holo claims she decided to abandon her village, and so she took the liberty of hiding in his carriage while he was passing through.

In disbelief, Lawrence asks for proof that she is the real god Holo, otherwise he would turn her in to the church who would burn her for claiming to be a god.

Seeing no other way of convincing him, Holo eats some of the wheat that Lawrence had in his carriage to transform into a giant wolf beast, who scares him.

This incident convinces Lawrence to return to the pagan village and seek to stay the night there, where he and Holo talk.

Holo claims that the villagers of the pagan village have grown skeptical of her existence and have been losing faith in her over the years, mainly due to the occasional poor wheat harvests that she produces every once in a while, to protect the village's soil. In recent years especially, with the advent of new farming techniques that seem to have bolstered their wheat output, most villagers have started to abandon their faith in her and turn towards the more mainstream faith in the one true god that the church is promoting everywhere.

Seeing how the village she has been protecting over so many generations have become disbelieving towards her, Holo had decided to abandon this village and currently plangs to go towards the north, to a different village where she had been born in, where it's much colder and the winters are longer.

After hearing her story, Lawrence agrees to allow her to travel with him in his carriage for a time, provided she can end up paying for her own expenses.

Holo agrees, claiming that as the wise wolf god, she is more than capable of making profits through her business-savvy knowledge, moreso than most other people, so she can earn her stay by his side.

And so, the traveling merchant Lawrence and the wise wolf Holo become traveling partners, as they travel across the country to make a living for themselves. During this time, they need to avoid attracting attention onto themselves, as the very influential church in that world would surely want Holo burned if they were to ever discover her existence.

Thus ends episode 1.

So, right off the bat, I could very much sense the similarities between this remake and the original anime as well.

Granted, I haven't watched the original in many years, so my memories of it are a bit fuzzy, but I remember it enough that, in broad strokes, I feel like the first episodes match somewhat well with each other.

This show also seems to have a very technical focus towards economics and the life of a merchant, talking about negotiating prices all the time, buying products when they are lower value and selling them at higher prices to make a profit, exchange rates between different currencies, the seasonal values of certain goods and so many other stuff in this area.

I liked that, both in the original and in this remake.

It feels like it makes the world that they inhabit have a realistic feel to it, filling it with a sense of genuine lore that makes it believable.

Moreover, despite this being set in a land that is made to replicate medieval Europe, from the looks of it, it didn't fall for the common temptations of adding magic or quests, dragons or other supernatural entities into the plot in any ways.

After the deluge of isekai anime from recent years, seeing an anime be set in, what looks to be medieval Europe, and yet still resisting the temptations of adding unnecessary superfluous fluff to that universe felt like a breath of fresh air.

In this world, gods are prayed to and believed in by the general folk, but, with the sole exception of Holo, they do not make appearences or fly down onto the Earth, there is no magic or potions in this world, prayers are not miracles in any way but mere chants that have little practical effects and the people feel like they are part of a genuine medieval society. These are all good things that make everything feel down to Earth, almost historically accurate even.

Granted, I know that this is the style that the light novels were most likely going for, as the time when they started being written and set the style for themselves was way before this isekai anime craze and before any of these tropes even became popular to begin with but, still, it's refreshing seeing this type of world building.

And, for what it's worth, I also liked seeing all the humans in this world. They all felt realistic in their portrayals, all of them having genuine emotions, wants and needs and also affiliations and loyalties.

Honestly, this is what I liked the most about this anime: it's its sense of grounding in a medieval setting. There's no magic, no quests, no treasures, no kingdom wars or demons or demon lord fights, no enchantments of buffs or skills or levels or any of that; just life as a merchant trying to make money for yourself.

And, the economics being talked are genuine and they are dumbed down in a way that I feel like most laymen without degrees in economics can follow without much issues. I liked how accessible the story was.

But, aside from that, this anime is mostly a romance between Lawrence and Holo. And, to put it bluntly, I liked the chemistry that these two had.

Granted, there are some cliches that pop up every now and then, like betraying your loved one when you're desperate, which I don't particularly like.

Still, I like how they played Holo's wise wolf personality in this anime, as they make her very cunning and clever, somewhat manipulative even when she needs to be, while also staying loyal to Lawrence for helping her out.

Lawrence himself isn't a stick figure either, as he learns over the travels to be somewhat more selfish when the time comes and also learns how to better negotiate with people that he interacts with, as well as adapting to hard and difficult situations.

Really, there is character growth in this show, and I liked both of them a lot.

Granted, my one complaint about this show is that the romance is quite slow, and I feel like there are times when I feel that it's unnecessarily stagnant even, but I'll be waiting for the second half of the show before I can make a proper call of how this will end.

Overall though, this was a very fun and, for the most part, entertaining anime.

Do I regret seeing it over the original? Honestly, I don't. I never planned on dropping the original in any ways, it just so happened back then, but now, I definitely won't be planning on dropping this one, and I still plan on finishing through all of its currently airing episodes.

I don't know how this remake is planning on adapting the entire plot, seeing how the light novels are still ongoing, and probably won't stop being published any time soon, but I do hope to see a proper conclusion to our characters' struggles and a final happy ending to their love story.

Here's hoping for a nice ending, for the next half of this story.

3. KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! (Season 3)

How could I make such a ranking without Konosuba making it in the top 3 spots?

Truthfully, I wasn't sure how to rank this show and Spice and Wolf, as they were pretty much tied in my head this season.

I enjoyed these two shows almost equally, so it was very difficult for me to pick one over the other.

In the end, I had to make a choice, and I chose Spice and Wolf over this show but it was very close, I'll say that.

When's all said and done, it came down to which genres I like more: romance or comedy, and that's how I made my choice. Spice and Wolf was not a very good romance, but it was a romance, nonetheless, that had a lot of other good qualities to it, whereas this was a very funny comedy.

However, if I were to reverse the ordering of these two shows in this ranking, I wouldn't necessarily find it wrong, nor would I cry about it.

Honestly, I could talk about Konosuba right now, since I've never addressed the show in my rankings before outside of Megumin's own spinoff but, really, who doesn't know about Konosuba already? It's among the most popular isekai of all time, and for very good reason.

I'll just very briefly try to describe episode 1 of season 1, just to give you a hint of what the show feels like.

So, in episode 1, this teenage guy named Satou Kazuma ends up in the afterlife talking to Goddess Aqua, who tells him that his previous life as a boring NEET had ended abruptly when a large truck almost ran him over, the scare of which gave him a heart attack in the moment and caused him to die on the spot.

Aqua laughs at Kazuma's misfortune, and acts disparaging towards him knowing that he was a shut-in with no social life in his previous life but offers to reincarnate him in a parallel medieval world filled with magic and monsters, where he has to defeat the Demon King as an adventurer.

After deciding on the specifics of this arrangement, Aqua tells Kazuma that he can take with him anything of his choice to the new world, that might aid him in his quests.

Seeing how disrespectful and mean Aqua was to him, Kazuma makes the 200 IQ decision to choose her to bring with him, which prompts Aqua to be replaced from her role of overseeing the afterlife with another goddess who promptly teleports them to the new world.

As such, Kazuma now has to defeat the Demon King of that world to bring peace to it and also to attain a great deal of money and fame for himself.

However, he soon realizes that despite forcing her to come with him because of his decision, Aqua seems to be pretty useless in this world, as she seems to have only very limited healing magic abilities and knows some party tricks to entertain mortals with.

Seeing how useless Aqua is to him, Kazuma decides to take matters into his own hands and register as an official adventurer in that world, forming a team with Aqua, in the hopes of at least earning enough money to be able to buy food for themselves, much less defeat the Demon King.

There's more than happens in the first episode but that's pretty much the main gist of it.

In short, Kazuma has zero knowledge of how to be a good adventurer, is very poor because he started out in that world with no money on him and has only a bunch of low level skills like “Steal”, that allows him to steal items from a different person, as well as having very high luck.

Aqua, his companion, has very limited intelligence but a lot of fortitude and specializes at healing but is overall quite selfish, reckless, and dumb (and also an alcoholic). Moreover, she had lost her status as a god when Kazuma had chosen her as the item to bring with him, which means that they have to defeat the Demon King now for her to return to being a god again, which is obviously what she wants now.

And so begins their journey together, at defeating the Demon King of that world.

That's the summary of it.

Honestly, there's a lot of stuff that happen after that, especially once Megumin and Darkness also enter the stage as new companions, but I won't go much into details. Suffice it to say, this isn't as much an isekai anime, as it is an isekai parody, more than anything else.

Yes, sometimes this show takes itself seriously and yes, it has good action sequences from time to time, but almost everything in this show is played for laughs.

Kazuma is selfish and a scumbag, at the end of the day. He isn't the ideal hero by any traditional meaning of the word, except that he is very adaptable and reliable most of the time.

His party is even more useless than him, which makes a lot of the adventures that they go on end up in very humorous situations.

The show makes fun of a lot of isekai and fantasy tropes almost every episode, with its selfish but still endearing characters and its tongue in cheek humor.

This season, the show will cover various arcs of the story, most important of which is Kazuma finding an infinite money making magical item, himself getting kidnapped by the princess of the kingdom and becoming her “big brother”, and a new arc concerning Darkness and her noble origins.

There's a lot of stuff to discuss but, I am glad to say, the colorful cast and the charming wholesome humor make a great and very welcome comeback once again.

I already mentioned how, in my previous review of KonoSuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!, Megumin's spinoff TV series, I found the humor to be a bit lacking and repetitive, and how I longed for the return of the main cast into the story.

Well, here the main cast did return and, boy did I miss seeing them.

The humor made a nice return to form, almost every joke landed quite a lot, with new improvements this time, with them making fun of arranged marriages in the nobility, the innocence of a child princess that gets to be body-swapped with Kazuma and, last but not least, Kazuma unlocking the ability to change voices at will.

Needless to say, a lot of chaos ensues.

There's not much more I can say about this show that will do it justice.

I will say that I feel like this season was more plot focused than the previous ones, which lent itself to fewer jokes, sadly, but the jokes that they do do are very funny and worth staying for.

I also would have wished for more romance moments between Kazuma and his love interest but those got sidelined in favor of the plot. Oh well.

Still, if you liked the first two seasons of Konosuba, there's little reason why you wouldn't like this one as well. All the charming moments are still there, the wholesome humor and the quirky characters make a full return, and it was such a treat.

It's worth seeing.

4. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (Season 2, Part 2)

And today we'll be covering the second half of season 2 of this TV show, in this entry.

You can read about my thoughts of the first half here.

This is simply a continuation of that, as nothing much changed about the pacing or the story of the show since then.

I'm not going to talk much more about Mushoku Tensei, as I personally feel like it's among the most renowned isekai anime in existence, and most people already know about it.

This second half of season 2 continues with Rudy's journey after finally deciding to marry the love of his life.

Before the marriage can happen, though, he needs to secure himself a house for their family. Then, he has to think about children with his new wife.

But as most things go, trouble eventually rears its ugly head even during these happy moments of his life, when Rudy will receive an ominous letter informing him that his mother was finally found, many years after she had disappeared during the mass teleportation incident, but she needs to be saved.

During her rescue, another character from the past will reappear, and Rudy will have to make many difficult decisions along the way.

So yeah, that's the general gist of this second half.

Season 3 was already announced as well, so I'm also looking forward to that too.

Honestly, this season was pretty satisfactory, all things considered.

I disliked the slow pacing and the fact that not much was happening, in the beginning, because I thought that things were starting to look up for Rudy and were becoming quite boring overall, seeing how now he needed to settle down with his wife and look forward to a new life as the head of a family, but that quickly changed when the letter informing him of his mother was received.

So yeah, there's more story to be told.

To some extent, I did dislike that there was even a continuation after the first half of this season, as I felt that they ended on a very good note, with him deciding to marry who he decides to marry, he already fixed his health issues that he was concerned about and he had gained a place at a prestigious university.

All things considered, I thought that was a good place to end on.

Especially given the small side quests that seemed to become prevalent in this second half, in the beginning, I felt that most of this was just an after story, and I was getting bored, since I felt like the meat and potatoes of Rudy's life had already been covered and detailed.

But, apparently I was wrong. There's way more than needs to happen, and I'm happy to say the story took me by surprise at how dark and gloomy it became, towards the end.

Granted, the plot became a bit cliched at some points, here and there, like how Rudy got the news about his mother at the worst moment possible, how he's the only one that can save her, how he arrived just in time to save a particular recurring character, at the very last moment and how said character falls in love immediately with him.

There's a lot of that that I found to be cheesy.

Then, there's the fact that the show suddenly decided to go in a different direction than what I wanted, and went with a harem route.

Don't get me wrong! I don't dislike harem animes, nor do I have any issues with them, but this felt like it was ruining, what could have been, a very sweet and nice love story. Rudy was already married and happy, he already had a child on the way, the fact that the story needed to shoehorn in another love interest in the middle soured my mood quite a bit.

And the reasoning for it taking that direction also felt very weak and unjustified for me.

I don't know, I kind of dislike the direction that the plot is heading in. Had the show ended at the first half of this season, I would have been more than satisfied with the story and would have considered it perfectly serviceable.

As it is, it feels like it's adding unnecessary fluff just to appeal to a particular demographic.

But I digress.

The ending didn't fully rectify any of these flaws, mind you, but it did leave me impressed that it, at least, left things on a down-to-Earth note.

Usually stories like these want to end on a happy, overly sugary note, trying to be as saccharin as possible to leave the audience overly satisfied. I appreciated that the show pulled back a bit and said “No, that's not how real life works”, and left us on a sober ending, instead, where there is a component of a happy ending, sure, but a lot of things were left uncertain and heavy losses had been incurred already.

What I like the most in this story is the fact that all the characters feel human, relatable, flawed and even selfish, at times, but never to a degree that's unrealistic. I like the heavy conversations that they have, how difficult certain moments are and how sober and honest certain life lessons can be.

Overall, I feel like the show did what it needed to do. I do regret seeing the story go in the direction that it did, as I hoped it would end at the place where I felt was most fitting for it to end at, but I do understand the need to continue the story to tie up the loose ends that remain hanging.

Overall, outside of Konosuba, this still remains my favorite isekai anime of all time, and I will contend that it's among the best implementations of the genre, that I've ever seen. It's absolutely worth a watch.

5. Viral Hit

It's time we look at a show about fighting.

Generally, I'm not much into anime TV shows that cover fighting as their main selling point, but I'm personally glad that I still gave this show a look.

This is an animated adaptation for a manhwa that's being released as a web comic.

The author for this manhwa, Taejun Pak, is also known for a different manhwa titled Lookism, which I heard was semi-popular in South Korea.

I don't read manga in general, much less manhwa, so I don't know much about Lookism personally, but, with that said, this show is pretty cool and I like the direction that it took.

So, let's talk about episode 1.

Yu Hobin is a high school student that always gets bullied in his class by a guy named Pakgo and his cameraman, nicknamed Snapper.

You might think “Why does a high school student need a cameraman?”. Well, the reason is because Pakgo is a famous Newtuber (Newtube being this world's version of our YouTube) and he's trying to make a living for himself, and uses Hobin in his videos to attract an audience. Secretly, Hobin is being bullied to appear in his videos as a willing participant but, behind the scenes, he's effectively treated as a slave and he makes no money out of it.

We later find out that Hobin's mother spends her entire time in the hospital, being treated for cancer.

She's fighting for her life against the cancer but the treatments that she's undergoing are incurring hefty medical bills that Hobin has to cover.

As an only child with no father (or, at least, his father is never mentioned in the anime), Hobin is forced to make money working as a part time employee for a fast food restaurant.

The low wage that he receives barely covers for his mother's medical expenses, and he's constantly struggling to survive and is in desperate need for more money.

One day, after hearing how much money Pakgo is making from his Newtube career, both Hobin and Snapper decide that they should make their own channels to start making money.

Pakgo tells Snapper that he is incapable of doing this, though, as he's still technically a minor and, as such, he cannot legally have a bank account to have his videos' revenue sent to.

Knowing that his parents would not allow him to use their accounts, Snapper decides to, instead, rely on Hobin and use Hobin's mother's bank account, instead.

Not wanting to suffer more bullying from Pakgo, Hobin agrees, and sets up a new Newtube channel for Snapper and also connects his mother's bank account to it, without her knowledge.

At some point, later on, while Hobin is working on his shift at the fast food restaurant, he makes casual conversation with a coworker around his age named Choi Bomi.

Hobin has a crush on Bomi, but he keeps that to himself.

Pakgo comes into the restaurant with his smartphone live streaming everything to his Newtube channel and then, to gain popularity and also to ask Bomi out, he comes to the counter of the restaurant where Bomi asks for his order and he then claims that his audience is asking him to challenge her.

He gives her a picture of a large burger that she'll have to make for him in half a minute and, if she cannot fulfill this challenge, she'd have to give him her phone number as a penalty.

Not wanting to be rude to him, since he's a customer, but also troubled by the prospective of having to give him her phone number, Bomi is visibly distraught, which Hobin picks up on.

Not wanting to make her go through this ridiculous setup, Hobin takes it upon himself and does his best to fulfill the challenge in her stead, successfully making the burger that Pakgo had requested in 30 seconds.

Thus, Bomi did not have to give Pakgo her phone number.

Bomi is happy about this and she does appreciate Hobin's assistance.

Later on, at Hobin's house, Hobin has Snapper come over and use his desktop PC to live stream a video game Let's Play for the Newtube channel that he had set up previously.

While Snapper is making the content at the desktop, Hobin is in the kitchen making him food, at his request.

Hobin laments the state of his life and how miserable he is for being used by everyone around him, especially since Snapper isn't paying him any money for everything that he is doing for him and his new channel.

As he walks with the ramen that he had made for Snapper to the living room, Hobin trips on the power cord for the PC, while Snapper was playing, and also accidentally pours the hot ramen on Snapper, which enrages him.

Hobin apologizes for everything, but Snapper starts beating him up, yelling at him for tripping on the power cord and causing the PC to shut down, which abruptly ended his live stream and caused him to lose significant revenue.

At one point, Snapper says that Hobin's clumsiness is why his mother has cancer, which finally pushes Hobin over the edge and angers him enough that he finally decides to fight back and start hitting Snapper, turning their squabble into a full on brawl in his house.

The next day, Hobin wakes up to a phone call from Snapper in the early morning, with Snapper yelling at him to delete the video of their fight from his Newtube account.

Hobin is confused at first, since he had not recorded, much less uploaded, their fight to the internet.

Snapper claims that the live stream had recorded their fight through his desktop's webcam but Hobin doesn't understand how that could be since he had accidentally tripped on the power cord and disconnected it, last night.

That is until he realizes that the power cord that he had tripped on wasn't the desktop's power cord but the monitor's power cord, which was the reason for the screen going black and fooling both Hobin and Snapper into thinking that it had turned off and the stream ending when, in fact, the desktop continued to be on all the time and the live stream continuing to go on in the background while they fought.

Realizing this, and knowing that only he had the password for that Newtube account (as he had been the one to set it up for Snapper), Hobin listens to Snapper's request and attempts to delete the video, until he realizes from the comments on the video that he made a very large sum of money, just from that one video, because of the high number of views that he had gotten.

When Snapper returns to school, he realizes that everyone around him is making fun of him, as the video of his fight with Hobin had already become viral and everyone is now aware of it.

Tragically, Snapper now discovers that the pecking order in their class has changed, and he is now the runt of the class, since no one can respect him anymore after taking a beating from the lowest loser like Hobin. Not even Pakgo is willing to defend him anymore.

Enraged by this state of affairs, Snapper later confronts Hobin and asks for half the revenue of that video, but Hobin refuses, since he is in full control of the money, due to the fact that the money is in his mother's bank account.

After another fight between the two of them, Snapper eventually tries to reconcile with Hobin, and makes him an offer: rather than fight for that one video like they were already doing, he proposes a collaboration between the two of them: Hobin would become the star of their Newtube channel and be featured in all the videos and Snapper would simply be the cameraman and the producer for their videos (since he already has experience in those fields and the recording equipment, for having worked already as a cameraman for Pakgo).

Snapper initially proposes a 9:1 revenue share between him and Hobin, respectively, hoping that Hobin would agree to it, as he had always done up until then, and also hoping that this would restore the pecking order in his favor.

Hobin, however, finally grows a spine and refuses.

When realizing that his proposals don't work, Snapper keeps changing the split until it reverses to 1:9 instead, to which Hobin finally agrees to.

The pitch of their new joint channel will be Hobin calling out bullies and fighting them, since that has already proved successful when Hobin had fought Snapper and becoming a viral hit.

And so starts Hobin's attempt as a fighter against bullies.

So ends episode 1.

So yeah, that's the pitch.

To tell the truth, I found this to be an interesting start to what seemed to be a fresh idea.

Generally, I haven't seen many animes talk about school fights that much, so I've found this to be quite a nice and original idea.

Of course, I did watch Bucchigiri a while back, which I already talked about here, but while that show is about fights and is also very action packed, Bucchigiri focused more on gang fights while this show is more one-to-one fights, instead.

I'm not the biggest fan of the underdog trope in animes, but I will commend it when it's done well, and here I feel like it's been done well enough.

I will praise this show for keeping things simple and making the character not become an overpowered god like I was initially afraid it would do.

Hobin is initially a very weak character, who is extremely malleable and has trouble even against the lowest thugs. And, even as the show progressed and he became stronger, he still encountered enemies that were constantly more difficult to deal with and were causing him issues, making him feel uncomfortable and even wonder if he would win.

I like it when the opponents keep becoming more and more difficult to deal with, and this show did it in a realistic manner.

Moreover, I also appreciated how down to Earth this show was with its fights. It never went cartoon-ish with it and it still kept things simple and easy to follow. The show will also explain what techniques Hobin used to become better in fights, how he strategizes how to deal with specific opponents and fighting styles, and how he deals with each situation on a case-by-case basis. The analytical focus of the fights and how he plans on handling them was quite intriguing.

It's from this show where I learned a bit about Taekwondo and about sumo wrestling, how to fight a regular thug or how to fight multiple people at the same time. It's got good lessons and, while I cannot vouch for how realistic any of these lessons are or how practical they are to follow since I'm not a fighter myself, they did appear to have a genuine feel of authenticity to them, to the extent where I feel like regular people can use the stuff they see here and put it to good use in real life (although I'm definitely not suggesting you should take fighting lessons from a fictional TV series, by any means).

There were issues that I did have with the show, though, such as how lawless the world that they were in appeared to be, or how very cliched and one dimensional all the villains in this show were.

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect for minor characters to care about what the protagonist is doing at any point, especially if they are strangers to him, but in this world it looks like every random stranger on the street wants to take your money at any moment's glance. Or how the school was fine with a lot of stuff where the students could pretty much beat each other up with no consequences whatsoever.

Like, doesn't law enforcement exist in this world? Or any kind of authority for that matter?

I know that the story calls for Hobin to have to defend himself, but it feels kind of ridiculous how everywhere he goes, there's someone around the corner that wants to steal his money or ruin his life forever and he has to fight them.

And then there's the issue with how the internet is portrayed. I know that, to some extent, there is a certain feel of novelty when thinking that being a content creator on YouTube can give you a lot of money, and that is indeed true for a minority of people on the platform but, realistically, I find it genuinely hard to believe that anyone could make a career out of fighting bullies on YouTube. There's a very good reason why, when you go there, you don't find that many videos of that type of content, and that reason is because YouTube uses demonetization on videos that contain violent content, especially fights which are from real life and wouldn't be staged.

Had Hobin's channel been real, YouTube would have immediately demonetized all of their videos, if not outright deleting his channel altogether for the kind of content that he's making.

Given how even swear words aren't allowed on YouTube videos without the algorithm significantly punishing the video makers for it by removing it from the recommended section, I find it unrealistic how actual real fights would become popular on it, at all, especially to the extent where someone would make a lot of money out of it. That just doesn't happen in real life.

Then, there's the issue of how certain content creators in this story do some horrible things, on stream, live, and seem to get away with it, such as beating people up on stream and, at one point, even putting a girl's life in danger from a prank that almost caused her to be hit by a car. That type of stuff would be enough to get people arrested in real life, had there been any semblance of consequences in that world. And even if the police wouldn't get involved, with the current online climate of cancel culture being a thing, real audiences are extremely unforgiving for any type of content that's actually morally reprehensible in this way. If a video maker would be shown to bully someone in real life, and their audience became aware of it, his subscriber count would go down the very next day and no amounts of apologies or pretend crying is gonna be enough to save his channel. His persona would forever be doomed on the internet, from that day onward and his social media will be filled with negative comments that will stick with them permanently.

Basically, this world is too lawless and forgiving, is what I'm saying. The internet isn't the wild wild west nowadays, like it used to be. This type of stuff wouldn't fly in modern times.

But aside from these inconsistencies, I liked the story.

I liked the friendships and relationships that Hobin managed to build over the course of this story and, to some extent, there were some opponents which got to be humanized a little bit, and the story tried to show their side of the story as well (although I still think that most of the bullies in this show are very shallow).

Overall, I think this was a good watch. There were times when I was on the edge of my seat, wondering how Hobin will recover from that, or how he was gonna win when all the cards were stacked against him.

I think the show is good, and worth a watch. As far as slice of life action shows about fights with an underdog trope go, this one is definitely a good one, and I would recommend for people to watch.

I'm definitely up for a season 2, if one were to ever get announced. 🤞

This is only part 1 of this ranking. For part 2, click here.