Great episode - everybody got some character growth.

Lululee overcoming her self-doubt was the obvious original focus of this arc, but it was still nice to see.

Jade showed both determination and creativity, both of which he’s going to need if he’s going to keep up with Alina.

Lowe being unexpectedly badass was particularly great to see.

Ah but the highlight - I’ve been especially waiting for the moment when Alina would finally let her guard down, and it was every bit as awesome as I’d hoped it would be. And she even opened up a bit about Shroud. Of course, neither one lasted long before her tsun kicked back in, but still…

Spent most of my anime time last week on season IV of DanMachi, which was pretty good all in all. It suffered a bit from being adapted from a light novel series, in that it was more a handful of juxtaposed arcs than a single overarching story, but it was nice to see Ryu get a good deal of character development, and Bell is finally starting to feel like an actual hero. There’s very little of the old hesitant, self-doubting Bell left, and good riddance. And it was nice seeing the rest of the (extended) familia succeeding without him - Aisha in particular has turned out to be a great character in her own right, and Haruhime is showing signs of what I assume is eventually going to be extraordinary power.

The only thing that really irritated me about all of that was that they got into the whole situation in the first place because nobody believed Cassandra, even after she had just proven herself by predicting the moss monster basically exactly. And Daphne in particular really needs a swift kick in the ass, because her whole attitude toward Cassandra’s premonitions not only puts the party at risk, but deeply hurts a person she claims as a friend.

Between the two cours of DanMachi IV, I took a bit of a break for Ganbare Douki-chan, which was adorable. I remember when the original was releasing, but it slipped past me initially, so by the time I became aware of it, it was already in the hundreds of chapters (one or two page chapters generally, but still). So it just went on my TBR. But the adaptation did its job - it was a perfect quick and easy break, and it led me to finally read through the original series, which was well worth it.

After DanMachi, I dipped all the way back to one that’s been on my TBW basically from the start, but that I just hadn’t yet taken the time to watch - Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou And the first OVA pair - the 1998 ones - are IMO quite simply some of the finest anime ever produced.

It’s a thing I’ve really been keyed into since watching Eizouken. The details that went into these OVAs - the simple but exquisite animations of a weather vane turning in the wind or ripples breaking across a flat stretch of water or the dappled transition from light to shadow on entering a forest - are just breathtaking. And the little incidental sounds all along the way - the ticking of a cooling engine or the creak of a gate hinge or the quiet roar of a gas flame and the rattle of a percolator lid - are just as wonderful. The whole thing is very obviously a labor of love, and the art of anime at its finest.

The second pair, from 2002, are still quite good by any ordinary standards, but they pale in comparison to the 1998 ones.

And at the moment, I’ve gone back to the search for odd gems and currently watching one I’d somehow never even heard of before called Punch Line (which I assume is a pun in Japanese). It starts with a cheesy concept of a guy who manifests superpowers if he sees a girl’s panties, but then almost immediately leaps past that into a thoroughly bizarre genre mashup meta/deconstruction… thing, alternately goofy, surreal, stylish and inexplicable. At this point (about halfway through), it’s pulling in little bits and pieces of plot from all over the place, but is actually looking like it’s going to tie it all together into… something. And if nothing else, it looks great, in a sort of bold colored, cel-shaded style reminiscent of Redline or Kill la Kill or Idaten Deities.

Excited Alina was adorable.

Beyond that though, things were a bit too murky and possibly contrived. I got a bit of that sense that the writers were following an outline and just filling in blanks - “introduce villain here” or “reveal secret quest here.”

Started off the week with Noragami, which was really pretty good all in all, and I’m not quite clear on why. On paper, it doesn’t seem particularly promising, and there’s nothing that really stands out about it, but it was still good, in a sort of quiet, slow-burn way. I suspect part of it is that the characters are well developed and mesh notably well and the story unfolds at a natural pace - it doesn’t seem particularly forced or contrived. It was just solid if unexceptional.

I wasn’t inspired enough to watch the second season though, and ended up finally tackling DanMachi III. I watched the second season of it a few years ago and was so exhausted that I just couldn’t steel my resolve to watch any more then, mostly because I didn’t want to go through another round of some utterly loathsome villain being utterly loathsome while Bell indulges in another round of being sad and weepy and weak. But I like the series and especially the characters overall, so it had to be done sooner or later.

And this one followed that same pattern, so it reached the point at which he was just schlepping around with his head hanging, tearfully going, “Boku wa… Boku wa…” and I wanted to reach in the screen and kick his ass, but it… somehow it wasn’t quite so bad this time. I think he didn’t collapse quite as much and recovered a bit more quickly and surely, and potentially the ever-expanding cast served both to help him and to spread the focus of the story out a bit. However it was, while it was still irritating and I still wanted to kick his ass in the middle of it all, it wasn’t as frustrating and exhausting as season II. And it did seem to make some pretty good progress on the overarching story of Orario and the gods and the dungeon and the point of it all.

Then I knocked around for a bit and bounced off a few things and caught up with the current series I’m following (Honey Lemon Soda, which is still charming and satisfying if unexceptional, Guild Receptionist, which is still on track to be awesome, and Zenshu, which seems to be pulling out of its recent nosedive), then ended up, to my own surprise, starting DanMachi IV. I’ve just started it, but it already feels better than the past seasons. I suspect it wasn’t an accident that it started out with Bell leveling up, plus the focus is much more spread out than it was in the past, since he’s now surrounded by a substantial, diverse and interesting party. Hopefully it’ll hold together…

Ooh… that was a big episode.

First, the flashback served almost as a reboot, which the series really needed IMO. And it did just what I said last week I thought the series needed - it brought some specifics of Natsuko’s problems into focus, and established some context for addressing them in the world of A Tale of Perishing.

Second, the tale of her rise to stardom was great, and I especially liked the meta of using exaggerated art to convey it. It’s a technique that Eizouken actually did better, but still…

And third, we now know who the hawk (or whatever bird of prey that’s meant to be) represents - there was a very brief flash of that same hairdo during her flashback/dream.

I was worried about this series for a bit there, but it looks like it’s going to get interesting again…

Just a nice, solid episode - backstory details, character growth, a few more clues to the mystery and Alina being oh-so-Alina.

Started off the week in grand style. I generally prefer to gamble on lesser known series, hoping for an unexpected gem, so I tend to leave known quantities languishing, content that I’ll get around to them sooner or later. But I was in the mood for a sure thing, so I jumped all the way to the top and watched Sousou no Frieren. And yeah - it definitely deserves its reputation. It’s excellent, and in all respects. The only minor criticism I might have is that the whole mage test arc drug on a bit long, but it introduced (and satisfyingly fleshed out) a whole bunch of interesting and compelling characters, so it was worth it in the long run anyway.

After that, I had two criteria for whatever was next - it had to be another sure thing, and it had to be entirely unchallenging, since I was a bit emotionally drained from Frieren. And I ended up re-(re-re-re-)watching Tenchi Universe. Actually, I just watched the first half dozen or so episodes, until the entire cast had been introduced. It was more of a nostalgia trip than anything else, so once I’d seen Ryouko and Aeka in an epic shouting match, Mihoshi being supernaturally incompetent, Sasami quietly being far and away the best girl, Washuu praising herself, and Kiyone gamely suffering, it’d served its purposes.

Then after a bit of thought, I watched one of the handful of Ghiblis I still hadn’t seen - Omoide no Marnie And unsurprisingly, it was very Ghibli - charming, bittersweet, sort of creepy but mostly comfy, very pretty and ultimately heartwarming.

Then I finally felt adventurous again, and after a bit of wandering, ended up with Mayoiga aka The Lost Village. Partly I thought it looked sort of interesting, but mostly I was intrigued by the wide range of opinions on it - even the people who loved it or hated it couldn’t seem to agree on why, or even really what it was all about in the first place.

I didn’t have any particular issues with it overall. The story seemed pretty straightforward really - neither opaque nor multilayered. It’s broadly allegorical, but it’s more that it’s also allegorical. Mostly it’s just straightforward. The characters were mostly exaggerated archetypes, but I didn’t mind that, since it laid the foundation for what was to come without having to develop each character separately (since in the long run, the most important thing is that they’re all broken in some way). And the ending did more or less tie everything together, though it hand-waved a lot of details.

And honestly, it’s not even close to the dumbest suspense/horror anime I’ve seen.

And along the way, I kept up with the three series I’m following this season (a new record for me - I usually don’t follow any and instead binge them at some point in the future). Honey Lemon Soda is still satisfying-if-unexceptional, Guild Receptionist is still on track to be great and Zenshu seems to have leveled out after its recent nosedive, and hopefully it’s going to head back to fulfilling its notable potential.

Is it just me or does this show seemed aimed at !thighdeology@ani.social enjoyers sometimes with the camera angles on Alina.

Um… duh?

It doesn’t even take unusual camera angles - that skirt is like a neon sign that says “Look here ⬇️”

The next episode is apparently going to focus on Lowe, and I suspect then Alina’s going to relent and join them, notably not just because of Jade, but because of all three of them. And tsundere that she is, she’ll likely make pretty much that exact point.

But Jade’s smitten, and that’s not going away, and he genuinely is a good guy. I think she’ll come around.

After a bit of a nose-dive over the last couple of episodes, this appears to be leveling out.

Ridiculous though it is, it looks like the solution to Memmeln’s issues is going to stick in-universe, since we’re already seeing the results that were the obvious actual point - she’s eased up and become more communicative and upbeat just in general. And we’re quickly moving on through the redemption of Justice. And I suspect that’s going to be a central theme, along with Natsuko’s self-discovery.

I think it really needs to clarify a bit though. It seems to be sort of drifting in multiple directions at once, and it needs to bring some things into focus - especially Natsuko’s obvious deep faults that she hasn’t even really begin to address, what it is that she hopes to accomplish in this world and what everyone wants in the long run.

I still see a lot of potential here, but the opportunities to fulfill it are slipping away.

“Even if it makes me puke blood…”

“You said your inner thoughts out loud.” 😅

Poor Jade…

Another nice episode for this oddly compelling series.

In a way, I think this actually does a better job of communicating the story and the themes and especially the characters than any of the more vivid and interesting series I’ve seen cover more or less the same ground. It’s just simple and heartfelt and earnest, and to its credit. Much like Uka herself.

The only real issue I might take with it is that it rushes through to settling conflicts too quickly and easily. Like in this one, Serina opened up to Uka too quickly, reacted to her entourage’s bullying too forcefully and too quickly, and they made up with her, and then with Uka, too easily and too quickly. In the real world, those sorts of dramas and shifting alliances and grudges and reconciliations would be long and drawn-out and messy.

But they wouldn’t fit in a half hour anime episode, and they are done well anyway, all things considered, so that’s okay.

I wonder what the backstory’s going to be berween Kai and Serina…

Well, first then, of the ones that I’m watching, the only ones that really stand out to me are the OP and ED for Guild Receptionist (which switched places two episodes back). The current OP is gorgeous and the ED is adorable. Of the ones I browsed for the thread, the only ones that really stood out to me were the Apothecary Diaries OP, which is excellent, and the Aquarion: Myth of Emotions ED, which is awful.

So I started off the past week with the rest of An Explosion on This Wonderful World - Megumin’s KonoSuba spin-off - and loved everything about it. It’s just solid - good animation, voice acting and music, engaging characters, interesting stories, and laugh-out-loud funny.

Megumin, or more precisely her hat, regularly reminds me of an obscure one that’s been on my TBW list for years – Majimoji Rurumo, so I finally sat down to watch it, and it was mostly disappointing. Rurumo herself is a decent character, and the tropish Disciplinary Committee chief/tsundere childhood friend is at least better than might be expected, and… that’s about it. Most notably, the MMC is not only one of those intensely annoying harem protagonists who’s mostly in perpetual cringey horndog overdrive except when the plot demands that he set it aside entirely and become preternaturally noble, generous and wise for exactly as long as it takes to settle the current crisis, but is easily the worst version of that I’ve ever seen.

Then I knocked around for a bit, catching up with the current season series I was watching and adding another one, and bouncing off of a few things.

Honey Lemon Soda is still unremarkable but satisfying, and that’s fine. It doesn’t really need to be more than that. And Guild Receptionist is still on track to be awesome. And I caught up with Zenshu, which is… I don’t know. It started off great - the genre mix of an isekai animator with a mahou shoujo transformation scene was brilliant and the animation in particular has been stellar. But then the story did an abrupt faceplant in the last episode and didn’t really recover much in the most recent one. It’s possible that it’s just in a bit of a slog as it sets up drama to come, but it’s also possible that it just went sideways and isn’t going to recover. We’ll see…

Then, in what I thought was a stroke of brilliance, I remembered a series that’s been on my TBW for over a decade, and is generally considered something of a cult classic - Arakawa Under the Bridge But here I am, two days later and seven episodes in, and I’m pretty sure I’ve dropped it. I just have no interest in watching it any more.

The basic concept is great and the cast is great, with one glaring exception - Rec/Kou is just as much of an insufferable and stupidly pig-headed jackass as he was the first moment he appeared. Even after all the time he’s spent on the riverbank and all the experiences he’s had, his character growth remains at zero. And I just can’t tolerate him any longer.

Not sure what’s next…

Interesting episode.

It gives me hope after the unsatisfying conclusion to last week’s episode. I was hoping that that ass-pull that supposedly resolved the last crisis was going to be treated as an unsatisfying ass-pull in-universe, and though they didn’t address that one specifically, that was the broad concept in this episode. Basically, Natsuko was coasting on hubris and unwarranted confidence (not coincidentally just like she apparently was in the real world), and now it’s blowing up in her face.

And Justice looks to be an interesting addition.

Looking forward to the next episode

Yeah - there’s none of that “honor demands that a warrior seek out and defeat the strongest challenger” jazz. She’s just righteously pissed off and makes no secret of that fact.

That was pretty damned awesome. There’s just something really gratifying about seeing Alina curbstomp an enemy. And even in the midst of all of that, I laughed when they thanked her and she went all tsundere.

And Jade, who could’ve been bogged down in cliche, is turning out to be a surprisingly interesting and amusing character. It’s great watching the way he and Alina interact.

And it looks like the next episode is going to focus on Lululee, and I’m looking forward to that.

This series is proving to be a gem.

I caught up on this series last night and absolutely loved it… right up until this episode.

It started off well enough, and it still shared one of the greatest strengths of the series - astonishing art. But the resolution of the crisis of the week wasn’t exciting or funny or even particularly interesting. It was just cheesy and forced and unsatisfying.

I do see a glimmer of hope though - with as self-aware and meta as this series has been, it’s possible that that cheesy solution is going to have consequences somewhere down the line - that it’s going to be recognized as an unsatisfying ass-pull in-universe, and have to be fixed or ret-conned or something like that.

Or I guess it’s possible that a series that had been notably good just face-planted for some reason…

That moment when Ishimori caught herself standing there with her middle school album and suddenly realized what she was doing and started to think that there’s no way anyone could actually be interested in it, so just quietly slunk away - that especially spoke to me. I know exactly how that feels.

I think part of what impresses me about this is that it captures the reality of social anxiety in a way that more exaggerated and stylized depictions - like Bocchi the Rock - never can.

So I get caught up in all of her little victories. They are little, in the grand scheme of things, but they’re also huge in a way. Though even she hasn’t fully realized that yet.

Started off last week with the rest of Scrapped Princess (2003), which was excellent. It has everything - an intriguing story, great characters, fascinating worldbuilding, humor, action, intrigue, drama, tragedy, redemption… And quality animation and music to boot. It was just a pleasure from start to finish.

And then, of all things, I followed it up with one that was even better, and from a somewhat unexpected quarter. Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na / Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! (2020).

It was directed by Yuasa, which is a huge point in its favor IMO - he consistently impresses me. But at the same time, it’s an anime about anime, which is a niche genre that I find to be mostly tedious and self-absorbed, so even with Yuasa at the helm, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot. But I was so, so wrong. It’s glorious, and immediately jumped high onto my all-time favorites list…

One thing is that it mostly skips past the drudgery and workaday world of making anime - the part that most series focus on, IMO to their detriment. Instead, it gets all of that out of the way right off the bat by bringing together a main cast of three who are perfectly suited for their respective roles of director, animation lead and producer, then puts them in a wonderfully run down studio with every tool they might need just sitting there waiting for them. They do of course face problems, but they’re generally more abstract, with the biggest recurring one being that they just can’t stop creating - every idea leads to another idea, every one of which they want to draw.

And that really sets the tone for the anime - what it is is a celebration - a love letter to anime, and further to imagination and creativity and the thrill and fulfillment of visualizing something and striving to communicate it, then watching as an audience gets it, with all the impact you hoped for.

And a wonderful thing about it is that all the while that the characters are coming up with ideas and animating them, trying to capture movement and mood and interesting design, the anime itself, in the background so to speak, is casually throwing in its own wonderful animations. There’s a constant stream of just little riffs scattered here and there - a transitional scene or a bit of background movement or some camera work - that are astonishing, and apparently the same thing the anime is depicting - people creating interesting imagery just for the joy of it.

And even with all of that, the characters manage to be engaging, there’s a satisfying amount of growth and it’s even laugh out loud funny. Even the OP is awesome. What more could I want?

It was almost a relief to follow that up with something… not good. If nothing else, it gave my smile muscles a chance to rest.

Duan Nao / Die Now is Chinese, and… well … it shows. It’s very derivative and tropish. The biggest problem with it though is that it introduced what could’ve been an interesting story in spite of the tropishness, and dropped all sorts of hints to apparent multiple layers of mystery… then ended. With another… oh… 30 or 40 episodes, it could’ve been good. Maybe.

So after that I was in the mood for a sure thing, so I’m watching Megumin’s KonoSuba spin-off - An Explosion on This Wonderful World (2023) and laughing my ass off.

Oh, and along the way, and uncharacteristically, I’m following not one but two different current series - Honey Lemon Soda and I May Be a Guild Receptionist, But. Honey Lemon Soda is okay - most notable so far for being pretty good in spite of being very tropish. Guild Receptionist is great though, and with the latest bit of character background, looks like it could turn out to be really special.

Just got around to this one and I’m actually liking it quite a lot. It’s pretty much just stupid fun, but it’s at least a newish spin on an otherwise mostly unexplored corner of the genre, and it has some great lol moments. And I’m curious to see where it’s headed.