Kaiju No. 8, Clevatess or Call of the Night (Season 2). Which one would you pick as your favorite?

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.