What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v4.0

[Seto Kaiba]

31 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I started The Saga of Tanya the evil.  I enjoyed the 1st episode.

It's an interesting title to say the least.  I'm quite fond of the alternate history it presents, a world where "sufficiently analyzed magic" became practical technology in the early 20th century and events are slowly building towards world war.  It's one of the top titles in its genre for good reason.

It's a shame that so little of the light novel has been adapted thus far.  A second season was announced back in 2021, but there's been radio silence about it from Studio NUT ever since, so all we have right now is the 12 episode first season and the "special episode" (plus a compilation movie).

If you take a liking to it, there is a passable English translation of the original light novel by Yen Press available in both realbook and ebook form.  Thirteen volumes out so far, with a fourteenth due out in June.

 

15 minutes ago, Big s said:

I watched the first season back when it first came out and before I was completely burned out on the whole dude gets resurrected as something else shows that became way overdone very quickly. I had fun with it. I even bought the figma. 

Success inspires copycats, and they did REALLY abuse the hell out of the premise.

IMO, the only ones in that genre really worth bothering with are the subversions of that "introvert fantasy" that drives most of the genre.  Not coincidentally, the major successes in the genre are almost all hard subversions of the formula where the protagonists either suffer a Reality Ensues, are Blessed with Suck, or end up in something approaching an ironic personal hell.

 

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Success inspires copycats, and they did REALLY abuse the hell out of the premise.

 

They didn’t just abuse it, they tortured it relentlessly and then beat it into submission and then tortured it till it died , then resurrected it to torture it to death a few times too many and then abused it some more

[Seto Kaiba]

4 minutes ago, Big s said:

They didn’t just abuse it, they tortured it relentlessly and then beat it into submission and then tortured it till it died , then resurrected it to torture it to death a few times too many and then abused it some more

Yeah, that's a pretty normal trajectory for any genre that's trending.

You get some rough starts, a few key innovators who perfect the formula and make bank, and then a deluge of low-quality copycats trying to cash in on the trend before it goes out of fashion and the next thing comes along and leaves just the well-established and successful properties.  We saw this same thing happen in the 80's with mecha anime.

 

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

We saw this same thing happen in the 80's with mecha anime.

Yeah, but in those, even the bad stuff was still good 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

19 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's an interesting title to say the least.  I'm quite fond of the alternate history it presents, a world where "sufficiently analyzed magic" became practical technology in the early 20th century and events are slowly building towards world war.  It's one of the top titles in its genre for good reason.

It's a shame that so little of the light novel has been adapted thus far.  A second season was announced back in 2021, but there's been radio silence about it from Studio NUT ever since, so all we have right now is the 12 episode first season and the "special episode" (plus a compilation movie).

If you take a liking to it, there is a passable English translation of the original light novel by Yen Press available in both realbook and ebook form.  Thirteen volumes out so far, with a fourteenth due out in June.

 

Success inspires copycats, and they did REALLY abuse the hell out of the premise.

IMO, the only ones in that genre really worth bothering with are the subversions of that "introvert fantasy" that drives most of the genre.  Not coincidentally, the major successes in the genre are almost all hard subversions of the formula where the protagonists either suffer a Reality Ensues, are Blessed with Suck, or end up in something approaching an ironic personal hell.

 

Thanks, I will get the light novel when I can.

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, Big s said:

Yeah, but in those, even the bad stuff was still good 

There are those who would make the same defense of the many copycat isekai titles.

Also those who would point out that quite a bit of the bad stuff in those old mecha titles was genuinely just bad... in some cases so much so that it drove licensees and studios out of business when they gambled on copycat titles and lost.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

There are those who would make the same defense of the many copycat isekai titles.

Also those who would point out that quite a bit of the bad stuff in those old mecha titles was genuinely just bad... in some cases so much so that it drove licensees and studios out of business when they gambled on copycat titles and lost.

But I will say that most people of the past generation really didn’t badmouth most of those mecha shows, while I hear a lot of complaints from this generation about the copycat reincarnation shows. 
Either way I’ll definitely take another watching or two of Southern Cross over the majority of the modern anime 

[Seto Kaiba]

Well, I think I've finished up for this season except for Yakuza Fiance.  Pretty happy with it overall.

Definitely gonna grab a few of these titles on Blu-ray when they hit shelves.  Esp. Yakuza Fiance, MF Ghost, and Ron Kamonohashi's Forbidden Deductions.

 

6 hours ago, Big s said:

But I will say that most people of the past generation really didn’t badmouth most of those mecha shows, while I hear a lot of complaints from this generation about the copycat reincarnation shows. 

Looking at it logically, I think that has a lot more to do with the existence of the internet and social media.  It's easier for people to express their discontent in the modern era where in the 80's you'd have to pick up a pen and write a postcard to a hobby magazine if you wanted to make a visible complaint about the sameyness of the copycat shows and whether they'd even print it is another matter entirely.  There are some articles in those old magazines that talk about the problem, though with typically professional politeness.

A few titles, like Galaxy Drifter Vifam and Metal Armor Dragonar are noted to have underperformed commercially in part because they struggled to distinguish themselves from the titles they were imitating (Gundam) visually and narratively.  Southern Cross is probably the most extreme example.

Given that many of these isekai properties are, due to the nature of their stories, not likely to spawn sequels I wonder what the future of the genre will look like in ten or twenty years time.  Of the big four, KonoSuba's light novel ended a couple years ago with volume 17 and Overlord's is set to end in a year or two with volume 18.  Re:Zero and Tanya are still going.  A few of the other stars of the genre are over or on hiatus like Ascendance of a Bookworm (out at 33) and Rising of the Shield Hero (on hiatus at 22).

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

A few titles, like Galaxy Drifter Vifam and Metal Armor Dragonar are noted to have underperformed commercially in part because they struggled to distinguish themselves from the titles they were imitating (Gundam) visually and narratively.  Southern Cross is probably the most extreme example.

I actually like all three of those and they seem to be getting new merch decades later

[Scyla]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, I think I've finished up for this season except for Yakuza Fiance.  Pretty happy with it overall.

Definitely gonna grab a few of these titles on Blu-ray when they hit shelves.  Esp. Yakuza Fiance, MF Ghost, and Ron Kamonohashi's Forbidden Deductions.

 

Looking at it logically, I think that has a lot more to do with the existence of the internet and social media.  It's easier for people to express their discontent in the modern era where in the 80's you'd have to pick up a pen and write a postcard to a hobby magazine if you wanted to make a visible complaint about the sameyness of the copycat shows and whether they'd even print it is another matter entirely.  There are some articles in those old magazines that talk about the problem, though with typically professional politeness.

A few titles, like Galaxy Drifter Vifam and Metal Armor Dragonar are noted to have underperformed commercially in part because they struggled to distinguish themselves from the titles they were imitating (Gundam) visually and narratively.  Southern Cross is probably the most extreme example.

Given that many of these isekai properties are, due to the nature of their stories, not likely to spawn sequels I wonder what the future of the genre will look like in ten or twenty years time.  Of the big four, KonoSuba's light novel ended a couple years ago with volume 17 and Overlord's is set to end in a year or two with volume 18.  Re:Zero and Tanya are still going.  A few of the other stars of the genre are over or on hiatus like Ascendance of a Bookworm (out at 33) and Rising of the Shield Hero (on hiatus at 22).

I think it is also an availability my thing. When I got into anime in the mid nineties, I was glad about every new release because there was so little of it (to me Bubblegum Crisis and Plastic Little were the best thing since sliced bread because there was nothing like it in western media).

Plus the companies licensing the titles in the West did already some curation for their customers, filtering out what was too derivative and focussing on the "classics" and titles already being successful in Japan (like Dragonball or Evangelion).

On the other hand some of the less stellar titles were probably chosen by the western licensees because of novelty and shock value (like M.D.Geist or Urotsukidoji)

Nowadays you can just watch everything of every season and filtering and curation is up to the viewer. Which is super tiring and not many people can do that.

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, Scyla said:

Plus the companies licensing the titles in the West did already some curation for their customers, filtering out what was too derivative and focussing on the "classics" and titles already being successful in Japan (like Dragonball or Evangelion).

Yeah, that's probably a big part of it right there... it was very rare for an underperforming title to be licensed at all outside of very specific circumstances (e.g. what happened with MOSPEADA and Southern Cross).

 

9 hours ago, Scyla said:

Nowadays you can just watch everything of every season and filtering and curation is up to the viewer. Which is super tiring and not many people can do that.

Not everything... but the selection is much broader both because the medium is more accepted and because the market model itself has changed.

Switching from direct-to-video releases to subs-only simulcast streaming cut out a lot of the upfront cost, so distributors could license more titles with less financial risk, so we get a broader cross-section of what the industry produces now.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

SAO alternative GGO season 2 ended.  I did not like as much as season 1.

[Seto Kaiba]

Caught the last episodes of the latest season of Blue Exorcist and The Healer Who Was Banished From His Party last night.

The Healer Who Was Banished From His Party was definitely a disappointment start to finish.  The animation is never better than "meh" quality, but the story is so disjointed and so full of random twists that I honestly found myself tuning out repeatedly during the final episode.

Blue Exorcist's season finale was actually pretty good, capitalizing on the tension that's been building all season long during the tedious exposition dumps and culminating in Samael sending Rin off into the past for another major exposition dump with an absolute nightmare face of a smile and the gleeful acknowledgement that he is a demon after all.  The only part that really doesn't land well is the incredibly derivative twist where...

Spoiler

Rin's sword gets broken, releasing his superpowered evil side.  It's Bleach's Hollow Ichigo all over again, but it's settled in like three minutes instead of stretched out into an entire episode, so the whole thing feels rather... inconsequential?  

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Arifureta made me laugh today. All those poor rabbits. Hajime is so ruthless.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

well with 2024 coming to a close in short order,  I played some catch up with Arifureta,  and Danmachi.

Ep 12 of both are delayed..  Arifureta is 1/20/25,  not sure if Danmachi actually announced a date for Ep 12..  so indefinately?

 

Nothing on the radar for Winter 2025 season at this point.   

 

 

[Focslain]

So finished a (re)watch of 86 yesterday, that ending still gets me even after 3 rewatchs (was a friend's first run). 

Saturday we are going thru Arifureta. Enjoying it more then I thought I would, but I just turn my brain off for it and enjoy the ride. We're about to hit S2 and plan to swap to SLF S2 after that.

Sunday group watch is a little behind due to the holidays. 

SAO Alternative GGO - Enjoying it, not as much as the first season, but it's doing ok.
Mechanical Arm - This has TRIGGER written all over it and has been a ride, if massively predictable. The last little twist was a nice touch of minor mis-direction.
Teacher Scared at Ghoul School - Not my thing, but the group is enjoying it so... meh.
Demonlord 2099 - the world building is neat but V3's OPness is a bit much. Fact they swapped to a magic school in the second half while leaving the crux of the problem discussed the first half was a huh moment.
I Parry Everything - Not going to lie, this series, while it had one main joke, was a decent one. Hope it doesn't get another season. It was fun for the ride.
Ranma 1/2 - Enjoying the reboot, liking the new art style and hope they continue this. We're doing the dub version and it's just fine. We just got to Shampoo and it does sound like they got some-one that english is not their first language. Which is a nice touch.

The votes are in for next season which we are doing:

Violet Evergarden
Sakamoto Days
Solo Leveling S2
Dr. Stone (final season)
Dandadan
I May be a Guild Receptionist

Not sure what Mondays are going to be. we're still deciding on that. 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I have 20 shows I plan to watch next season. 

 

These I will definitely watch to the end

Grisaia Phantom Trigger

Solo leveling s2

My happy marriage s2

The apothecary diaries

Welcome to Japan ms Elf (my number new show)

100 girlfriend s2.

[Dangard Ace]

Will watch stuff:

Solo Leveling S2

Apothecary Diaries S2

Sakamoto Days

I May be a Guild Receptionist

S-Rank Behemoth 

Sentai Red

Aquarion

Kinnikuman S2

 

Movies

Kaiju 8

Ninja Batman

 

Maybes are Unnamed Memory S2 and 100 GF's S2.  Only watched episode 1 of season of each and....haven't felt the need to go back.  

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I watched Headhunted to Another World: From Salaryman to Big Four! and it was hilarious.  I had no intention of watching it.  But I was bored and I am glad I did.

[Beltane70]

On 12/31/2024 at 2:22 PM, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

well with 2024 coming to a close in short order,  I played some catch up with Arifureta,  and Danmachi.

Ep 12 of both are delayed..  Arifureta is 1/20/25,  not sure if Danmachi actually announced a date for Ep 12..  so indefinately?

 

Nothing on the radar for Winter 2025 season at this point.   

 

 

Danmachi is delayed until the spring anime season according to the series official website. 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I am trying to get through Claymore finally.  I am enjoying it, but it is a bit repetitive.

[Seto Kaiba]

Started my first show of the Winter 2025 season... Bogus Skill <Fruitmaster>.

It's one of those now-common isekai-adjacent j-fantasy stories in the heavily overused format of "I became a total badass once I learned that my bad skill is secretly broken AF".  It is fantastically boring.

[Big s]

3 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I am trying to get through Claymore finally.  I am enjoying it, but it is a bit repetitive.

I liked it , even though it’s a bit predictable and as you said repetitive. I always kinda wanted more of a conclusion to it though 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

20 hours ago, Big s said:

I liked it , even though it’s a bit predictable and as you said repetitive. I always kinda wanted more of a conclusion to it though 

I feel they could have done fewer episodes.  I mean 24 instead of 26.

[Seto Kaiba]

Another new Winter 2025 series, Headhunted to Another World: From Salaryman to Big Four.

I was morbidly curious about this one since its premise sounds a fair bit like As A Reincarnated Aristocrat's... and it definitely seems to be headed in that direction.  It's the story of a thoroughly underappreciated Japanese salaryman who is summoned to a generic j-fantasy alternate world not to be The Chosen Hero but to assist the Demon Lord with governing because his administration is critically lacking in the People Skills department.  The poor schmuck they get is a low-level salaryman from a borderline black company who finds the Demon Lord to be a more humane and reasonable employer.

It's not bad.  It has some potential, but it definitely feels a bit rough.

[Seto Kaiba]

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if the titular doctor from the medical drama series House were an anime girl?

If so, you're a very strange person... and Project No.9 is currently serving up a new anime series which should scratch your phenomenally peculiar itch.

Ameko M.D.: Doctor Detective is a very strange medical drama about the director of a hospital's pathology department wandering around the hospital and of the nearby area in sandals and solving medical mysteries while generally being rude and judgmental.

Edited Sunday at 01:51 AM by Seto Kaiba

[Duke Togo]

12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Ameko M.D.: Doctor Detective is a very strange medical drama about the director of a hospital's pathology department wandering around the hospital and of the nearby area in sandals and solving medical mysteries while generally being rude and judgmental.

This sounds amazing. I assume it's terrible.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

This sounds amazing. I assume it's terrible.

Project No.9 did a great job with the animation and the presentation is overall actually pretty good.  Most of the characters are actually pretty likeable and I have to admit I couldn't see the resolution to the first "mystery" ahead of time.

Its main problem isn't even its protagonist's unprofessional behavior as a medical doctor or CSI-like interference in a police investigation.  It's the frankly insane leaps of logic that drive the plot, with several based on blatantly incorrect or questionable-at-best medical knowledge.

Spoiler

One of the key points in the first story involves the protagonist jumping straight from "the patient's leg was amputated in an accident" to "the patient's leg was bitten off by the tyrannosaurus statue at the nearby aquarium"... and this insane proclamation isn't even questioned.  (and turns out to be correct)

I'm not sure if the problems in the story are because they're compressing the story of the original light novel to fit the 24 minute TV anime format or the original story is just THAT badly written.

[Seto Kaiba]

Started another new Winter 2025 series, I'm Getting Married to a Girl I Hate in My Class.

I'm honestly not sure what it means when a series has to have its protagonist point out that its entire premise is literally illegal barely seven minutes into the first episode.

In short, two high school students (Saito and Akane) meet at a fancy restaurant where they both discover Saito's widower grandfather and Akane's widowed grandmother had been lovers in high school, have recently renewed their relationship, and have made the frankly psychotic decision to unlawfully force their grandchildren to get married against their will due to their own regrets from childhood.

This series is meant to be a romcom, but it's genuinely unsettling as a premise considering how downright deranged both grandparents act about it. 

Spoiler

Saito is forced into the marriage under the dual threats of being disinherited and his grandfather deliberately sabotaging the family business with the intention of destroying it beyond any recovery.

Whatever Akane's grandmother says to her is left inaudible, but is later implied to be a threat against her own future life plans that would make them impossible.

They go so far as to submit the marriage license without the knowledge or consent of either grandchild (apparently forging some signatures and seals along the way), and forcibly move them in together without allowing them to even see their parents or siblings.  They're forced to sleep in the same bed under threat (and the implicit promise that they're being surveiled in their new house) and the bed is supplied with "Yes/No" pillows that have "Yes" printed on both sides, leading Akane to spend the rest of the episode in the apparently-sincere belief that she's going to be sexually assaulted.

Maybe I'm taking this too seriously because of personal experiences with a similarly batsh*t insane grandparent, but this whole premise is pretty f***ed up IMO.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Solo Leveling s2 episode 1 was great.

[Seto Kaiba]

One more new one today, also a romcom... OKITSURA: Fell in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Knew What She's Saying.

What a title.

The series is exactly what it says on the tin.  It's a romance comedy about a high school student who falls in love with a local girl after his family moves from Tokyo to Okinawa.  As the title suggests, he struggles immensely with this because he doesn't speak Okinawan and she keeps lapsing into it with a thick accent when they talk making her unintelligible to him.

I'm enjoying it so far, though the art style is throwing me off a bit.  The protagonist, Teruaki, is drawn with the industry's usual mukokuseki art style but all the Okinawan locals are drawn with a range of more realistic tan/olive skintones.  The end result is slightly surreal since the titular Okinawan girl is very tan and looks almost orange next to him.  It's set up as a love triangle comedy.  The protagonist is crushing on the local girl Kyan with the super-thick unintelligible accent, so he relies on her friend Kana to translate for him, and Kana is crushing on him and Kyan totally ships it though he's incapable of understanding the very blunt things she says about it.

They do get one really good joke early on about how common the surname Higa is... Teruaki calls out for a friend who interprets for him, but her surname is Higa, so he draws an enormous crowd of people whose surname is Higa and ends up doing a visual gag about how he drew so much unintended attention it felt like a zombie movie... which he then captions ZombieLand Higa... a nod at Zombie Land Saga.  They do the same joke again a few minutes later as a nod to the second season Zombie Land Saga: Revenge. 

It's definitely not a show you can give less than your full attention to, esp. if your Japanese isn't good, because you'll be stuck following two sets of subtitles... one for the Japanese rendered into English, and one parsing whatever Kyan is saying in Okinawan at the time if someone's not translating for her.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I am going to watch YA BOY KONGMING soon. I am completely addicted to the opening. I can't stop listening to it.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I am going to watch YA BOY KONGMING soon. I am completely addicted to the opening. I can't stop listening to it.

Hell of an earworm, isn't it?  That's the same reason I watched it. 🤣

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

On 1/5/2025 at 2:40 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Hell of an earworm, isn't it?  That's the same reason I watched it. 🤣

I have been humming it for the last 3 days, An earworm more like embedding itself in my brain forever.

Edited Monday at 11:19 PM by Hikaru Ichijo SL

[Seto Kaiba]

Started another new one over lunch today... Possibly the Greatest Alchemist of All Time.

It's nothing remarkable or particularly worth watching.  Just another form letter isekai series where the protagonist is accidental collateral damage when someone summons The Hero to their JRPG fantasy world and gets to have an awesome slow life with the implausible super cheat powers granted by the gods.  It doesn't cross the line into being out-and-out bad, but it is bland and formulaic and, as a result, pretty unintersting.

I've picked up two more titles that were just added to the simulcast lineup between then and now: Medaka Kuroiwa is Impervious to My Charms and I Want to Escape from Princess Lessons.  Gonna give those a whirl shortly.