What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v4.0

[Big s]

15 hours ago, 505thAirborne said:

 This is my new series for now, this was on Adult Swim last night and I immediately liked it. I found it online & just watched 4 episodes in a row, it's been a while since I've done that. 

Licorice recoil happens sometimes. I like that the logo is of a red vine snapping back.

Not sure how to make an entire series about a singular candy problem

[pengbuzz]

23 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Nope... Metallic Rouge was written by Yutaka Izubuchi and Toshizo Nemoto.

Izubuchi's principally a mechanical and character designer with a lot of iconic titles on his CV including Gundam 0080 and Gundam ZZ, the Patlabor movies, and Yamato 2199.  Nemoto's a writer whose filmography is less impressive but still contains some major titles like Legend of Galactic Heroes and Macross Delta.

How it ended up such a complete and total cluster**** is anyone's guess.

Heavy drinking and/or drug use? 🤷‍♂️

[Seto Kaiba]

7 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Heavy drinking and/or drug use? 🤷‍♂️

It's Japan, a certain amount of social drinking for work is expected... and those long hours and late nights the animators do surely mean a fair amount of caffeine...

... but I think the best/most probable explanation I've heard anyone pose was over on MAHQ/MechaTalk.  Specifically, that Studio Bones seems to be using Metallic Rouge as a sort of elaborate demo reel to showcase the capabilities of its animation staff and that the kind of threadbare story is an excuse plot crafted to get them from one animator friendly set piece to the next.  That'd definitely explain why the series is visually very impressive but narratively a complete train wreck.

 

Watched some more of The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil... and I've completely lost track of what's going on with this one.  This latest episode was just one huge exposition dump, and it's clearly dumping things that are supposed to be important and shocking but the series has done so much nonsensical screwing around that it doesn't really feel like important and shocking revelations.  It feels like an excessively dramatic distraction from the antics of this dumb*** couple.

Hokkaido Gals are Super Adorable! is still a cute but kind of generic romcom.  The will-they-or-won't-they is leaning heavily towards "will" right now, though it still has a bit of an issue in that the three female leads don't feel particularly distinct since they all have essentially the exact same appearance but for their hair.  (I guess the mangaka has a type.)

I've basically given up on 'Tis Time for Torture, Princess.

Dungeon Meals is still a damn solid series, though.  Kinda weird that now, of all times, after the cast have been eating all kinds of horrifying monsters that explicitly or implicitly eat people the series decides to actually mention food safety when Laios gets sick from eating uncooked meat that contains parasites.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Gurren Lagann is awesome.  It is a somewhat deep show.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

40 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

Gurren Lagann is awesome.  It is a somewhat deep show.

It can be at points..  One of Gainax last gasps before splitting to the winds. 

The series has its moments,  and I enjoyed the movies as well.

 

[pengbuzz]

20 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's Japan, a certain amount of social drinking for work is expected... and those long hours and late nights the animators do surely mean a fair amount of caffeine...

... but I think the best/most probable explanation I've heard anyone pose was over on MAHQ/MechaTalk.  Specifically, that Studio Bones seems to be using Metallic Rouge as a sort of elaborate demo reel to showcase the capabilities of its animation staff and that the kind of threadbare story is an excuse plot crafted to get them from one animator friendly set piece to the next.  That'd definitely explain why the series is visually very impressive but narratively a complete train wreck.

Well in that case, it's certainly a far more understandable reason than say, the driving forces resulting in the utter trainwreck that was Southern Cross.

Maybe I'm comparing apples and oranges here?

Edited March 12 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

My weekly watch group is starting Kaguya-sama: Love is War season two and Lupin III Part V... both excellent shows I'd highly recommend.

Honestly, Kaguya-sama: Love is War is what I'd call the best romcom anime of the last ten years or so.  It just seems like that one never has a dull moment, though with three seasons and a movie any further development heads into the parts where things get dramatic in an unfunny way.

Lupin III Part V is another trip and a half... blue jacket, AKA modern Lupin, still just feels weird considering most of the iconic Lupin stories are set in the 60's (green jacket) or 70's (red jacket).  Lupin's new signature gizmo, an AR monocle that he uses to hack things like video cameras, is an odd bit of future tech but no weirder than some of the nonsense he's had in the past.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Tomozaki season 2 is awesome.  Still love mimimi the most.

[Seto Kaiba]

In a way, it's actually kind of impressive how everyone working on Metallic Rouge except the animation team is completely phoning it in.

The most recent episode (#10) is really blatantly stalling for time... 

Spoiler

... with Rouge's out-of-nowhere copy Cyan having stowed away in the most conspicuous manner possible despite it not really being clear how, and suddenly having a totally different personality from what she's had in every prior appearance so they can waste time on her acting like a spoiled child instead of advancing the plot and have Naomi spend every waking moment deliberately antagonizing the killer robot they're sharing a small spaceship with.

Gene's subplot is similarly stalling, with the Immortal Nine having taken him prisoner and pulling a "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to dine." on him.  They end up doing a fair bit of meaningless reminiscing about how the Immortal Nine were supposedly raised on the Junghardt estate over a dinner of... chocolate bars.  It's only really noteworthy for the implication that the Immortal Nine are probably the only Neans who WEREN'T treated like crap by everyone.  It seems rather odd that the few Neans who were treated more or less exactly like Humans are the ones who want to Kill All Humans while the rest seem pretty uncommitted to the bit.

The only mildly useful bit of exposition is that the Puppetmaster from the circus a few episodes back is (probably) the one who made Cyan.  Gene says he's Human, but he doesn't look it.  He's definitely working for the Usurpers though.

 

The Witch and The Beast is wrapping up the "The Witch and the Demon Sword" arc... I had high hopes for this series based on the first story arc, but it's turned out to pretty weak on average.  There's been almost no exposition about the main characters, and otherwise it's basically just a monster-of-the-week format with slightly more emphasis on action (and an arsehole protagonist) than Witch Hunter Robin.

Spoiler

As much as the demon sword has been built up as the power to destroy the world... it doesn't seem to actually be up to much more than "the power to slightly inconvenience the road commission".  It doesn't really destroy much of anything, it just slashes at the ground and carves ditches in the road.  The entire fight between a Greater Elemental, the Demon Sword, and Guideau just ends with a few dozen buildings flattened and the Demon Sword seemingly destroyed by a single punch to the face.  It's the very picture of an anticlimax... made worse when the instigator of the whole incident is dismembered by Guideau from seemingly miles away with thrown stones.

 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

I haven't proceeded with Metallic Rouge past whatever episode I mentioned previously.   It was a disjointed mess and it sounds like it still is.

I keep seeing Witch Hunter Robin mentioned over and over.. its been a looooong while since I have see that one.    A Bandai America release from the early 00's.   From what I remember of it,  I never understood why Robin was turning against her own kind.   Even more so that her team hated Witches and disliked her..  the premise just seemed off.     I don't remember it being particularly bad,  but it wasn't good either.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

6 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I keep seeing Witch Hunter Robin mentioned over and over.. its been a looooong while since I have see that one.    A Bandai America release from the early 00's.   From what I remember of it,  I never understood why Robin was turning against her own kind.   Even more so that her team hated Witches and disliked her..  the premise just seemed off.     I don't remember it being particularly bad,  but it wasn't good either.

It was one of those quiet, moody, action-dramas that were big in '02.  Its exposition was often on the subtle side and buried in relatively slow-paced conversations between various characters separate from the action.

Spoiler

All of the STN-J agents are latent or active Craft users (witches).  You have to be in order to use Orbo, because it's a dangerous experimental witchcraft inhibitor that does bad things to regular humans in its incomplete state.  Zaizen's plan is to perfect Orbo to the level that it can be used to protect regular human witch hunters from the craft without injurious side effects.

Robin is a witch hunter because she was raised to be one.  She was taken in by the Roman Catholic Church after her mother died and raised to be a witch hunter in a convent in Tuscany.  The conventional wisdom in-story is apparently that witches make the best witch hunters because (depending on the superpower lottery) they can detect or even protect themselves against hostile witchcraft.

It's implied that the other STN-J members were essentially drafted or volunteered because they either Knew Too Much or were family to a witch who went out of control and needed to be put down and are working for the STN to prove they don't need to be hunted themselves.

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Edited March 14 by Hikaru Ichijo SL

[Seto Kaiba]

Crunchyroll started announcements for its Spring 2024 lineup.

Not a lot stands out so far... there's something that looks like an off-brand Godzilla called Kaiju No.8, a third season of Konosuba, another cour of Mushoku Tensei, a Saint Seiya series, a third season of The Irregular at Magic High School (or "It's not incest if we genetically modify you so much you're not technically related anymore." ), and the inevitable slew of isekai shovelware.

 

HiDive's new app is finally working.  It's actually a huge step up.  Way too freaking late, but a huge step up from what they had before.

For now, I'm digging through my backlog.  Lupin III Part V is as good as I remember it being, though the inexplicable pink jacket breather episode in the middle of the first arc is odd to say the least.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

Did a quick scan of https://www.livechart.me/spring-2024/tv

A few titles stand out.

As mention previously 3rd season of Konosuba..   The Megumin centered one was a flop. 

3rd season of Slime..  still haven't watched the 2nd.. 

Date Alive V..   I don't have high hopes.   

Spice and Wolf reboot... why?  

Duke of Death 3rd season..  The CGI is still terrible,  they should be nearing the end here considering everything they skipped in S2.

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

5 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Did a quick scan of https://www.livechart.me/spring-2024/tv

A few titles stand out.

As mention previously 3rd season of Konosuba..   The Megumin centered one was a flop. 

3rd season of Slime..  still haven't watched the 2nd.. 

Date Alive V..   I don't have high hopes.   

Spice and Wolf reboot... why?  

Duke of Death 3rd season..  The CGI is still terrible,  they should be nearing the end here considering everything they skipped in S2.

 

I was looking at my spring anime and I have 18 show I will watch.  Never have so many.

 

Looking foward to

 

Konosuba season 3

Spice and Wolf

Yuru Camp s3

An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride

Mahouka s3

Mushoku Tensei Part 2

Hibike Euphonium 3

The Misfit of Demon King Academy II Part 2

Date A LIVE V

Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers. I started the light novel and it is really good.  The main are voiced by Yuuji and Shana from Shakugan no shana.

So many sequels.

[Seto Kaiba]

We're into the home stretch on the Winter 2024 season...

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer remains one of the less dull, but still not particularly interesting, titles in the season.  It's story hasn't really done anything to grow beyond the now tired and overused isekai trope of the protagonist being reincarnated in a fantasy world as a monster and working to evolve their monster form towards a human appearance to go back to a normal life.  The trope itself is marginally more tolerable without the usual isekai trappings - Rentt is reincarnated in the same fantasy world he already lived in - but it still feels like extremely well-trodden ground thanks to several high-profile isekai titles like So I'm a Spider, So What? and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.

Spoiler

That Rentt was reincarnated as an already humanoid monster - a basic skeleton - cuts some of the more typical legwork out of it and within a few episodes he's already one step short of a form that's outwardly human... having evolved from a skeleton to a ghoul to some kind of minor vampiric minion towards being a vampire.

The only thing that really makes Rentt stand out is that he's actually reasonably pleased to have Come Back Strong and intends to use his superhuman abilities to chase his life's dream of... ranking up as a generic fantasy adventurer.  The series also echoes the same basic tropes of isekai with Rentt having the makings of a harem already together even before the start of the story proper, with multiple women being willing to overlook that he's a cannibalistic monster because it's him.  After the first couple episodes, when Rentt resumes working as an adventurer, the story loses what little sense of direction it had and he's just another murderhobo with questionable sartorial choices in an obviously D&D-inspired western fantasy setting.

Spoiler

It definitely seems like the season finale is set to end with Rentt completing his speedrun of "return to human form" by evolving into a vampire thanks to some vampire blood he was given as a quest reward by a mysterious noblewoman of impossibly vast wealth.

 

Eleven episodes into The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic and the story still feels very amateurish, underdeveloped, and lacking in original thought.  If nothing else, the writer of the original light novel - Kurokata - has a bright future writing for Capcom's Resident Evil series.  From start to finish, it feels like someone C.S. Goto'd their fanfic for another series.  The characters are thinly written and cliched, there doesn't seem to be any actual reason for the conflict driving the story, and the one antagonist that's been introduced so far is a basic axe crazy Black Knight who just happens to be weak to only the protagonist's technique...

Spoiler

and the boss's gimmick is basically just that one boss from NES Final Fantasy who's weak to Cure.

It's bland and lifeless and terminally lacking in imagination.  At the end of the day, it feels like the output of an AI prompt to write a statistically average isekai series.

 

Tales of Wedding Rings is just a form letter ecchi harem anime with an action excuse plot.  It is what it is, and what it is is borderline unwatchable.

 

Mashle's second season follows on from the reasonably strong first season and remains pretty entertaining, if One Punch Man-style comedy is your thing.  It's still committed to its bit as a parody of Harry Potter, though it's gradually pivoted more and more towards being a standard shounen action series with each episode of the second season as the story's antagonist moved away from inter-house conflict as the obligatory magic boarding school to a government kangaroo court and then the setting's off-brand Voldemort "Innocent Zero".  

Spoiler

With Mash being as broken as Saitama, there really wasn't any doubt he'd clear the trials to become a Divine Visionary with relative ease... the fun was mainly in seeing how he'd break the minds and spirits of Innocent Zero's followers with his bullsh*t strength.

It's also really obvious we're heading towards a Jojo-style confrontation with taciturn punchy boy Mash facing off against smug Time Stop villian Innocent Zero.

It definitely feels like it's running out of ideas, though... and there's only so long Mash can continue doing physically impossible things like punching music out of the air before the conceit that he doesn't have any magic has to be dispensed with.

 

Blue Exorcist: Shimane Inquisition Saga really should have been a compressed filler arc in the manga and the anime.  It was one of the weakest story arcs in the manga, focusing on a character who spent the entire story up to that point making themself as unlikeable as possible and an antagonist who was a teaspoon-shallow card carrying villain with no real motive besides "be as evil as possible at all times".  It's being made years after interest in Blue Exorcist faded, and feels really skippable in terms of how little substance its story has and how it's sandwiched between two more important story arcs.  It's a 3/10 hard skip at best unless you LOVE Blue Exorcist.

 

A Sign of Affection remains one of my standouts for this season.  In isolation, the romance story is nothing particularly remarkable and the art style definitely speaks to the author having very specific tastes.  It's the sensitive and clearly well-researched treatment of the main character's deafness that really sells this one.  It gets invested in the problems that the deaf have in social and professional situations and the difference that it makes to have people willing to put in the effort to make them feel welcome and supported.  It loses a little of its tension with the teased relationship starting relatively early in the story, but it remains an interesting and unconventional take that's managed to hold my interest for the entire season.

[Seto Kaiba]

Continuing the wrapup of the 2024 Winter season...

 

The Strongest Tank's Labyrinth Raids is one of those copycat titles that doesn't really feel like it has, or even wants, an identity of its own.  It's not an isekai story, but it follows a lot of the same tired "my VR MMO became real!" tropes with the characters consistently using video game terminology and occasionally having hit points show up on the screen for some reason.  There is the vague implication that...

Spoiler

... the various top-tier monsters and Demon Lords managing the labyrinths the story revolves around are playing a game of some kind.  The labyrinth management system they use generates resource points that are spent on copying existing types of monsters and traps and on gacha pulls to get new kinds.  They even refer to it in those exact terms, which raises the question of whether they're truly playing a game or this story is just not bothering to distinguish itself from the many "our world runs on MMORPG logic" isekai titles out there.

It can't seem to make up its mind which direction it wants to go on, which makes the story a bit messy.  At the very least, the protagonist's siscon tendencies were quickly dropped from the story.  The animation work is... not great.  It's never better than mediocre, but it frequently dips into the terrible when there are action scenes with a lot of motion.

 

Banished from the Hero's Party S2 is much the same.  It's one of those fantasy stories that isn't an isekai title but copies a lot of tropes from them even when it doesn't necessarily make sense to.  The first season was a fairly generic riff on the already well-trodden ground of "I'm living a slow life in a fantasy world as a pharmacist" schtick that a dozen or so titles in the isekai genre had already beaten into the ground like a tent peg.  Season two is actually taking the story somewhere interesting... in a rather desultory way.  It builds on the previous season's minor subplot involving the "blessings" - a sort of talent or compulsion believed to be imposed by the setting's gods that pushes people towards a specific (and not always desirable, safe, or healthy) path in life - and how people balance that with free will.

Spoiler

TBH, I'd rate this series a lot higher if it focused on that instead of the generic slow life pharmacist stuff.  The subplot involving the former Hero Ruti trying to live a slow life herself thanks to having weakened her blessing as The Hero until she could resist its urges entirely while the new Hero speedruns the slippery slope as he totally gives in to his blessing's urges blindly on the assumption that they are instructions from god and becomes a Lawful Evil sociopath would be a pretty interesting dichotomoy if we had more attention spent on it.

We unfortunately don't get to see the Hero Van's Start of Darkness, so it loses a certain je ne sais quoi when his first apperance has him already being an unheroic Hero who is at best indifferent to the death and suffering he causes and at worst simply an unquestioning spree killer at the beck and call of a corrupt bishop and a fake fairy.

It's still not a very good series, but there's some signs of potential there in season two that weren't present in season one.

 

7th Time Loop: the Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy is very much in the otome game isekai style though like a bunch of the other titles I've followed this season it also foregos the isekai aspect in favor of having the protagonist be reincarnated in the same fantasy world they already lived in.  It follows a lot of the same otome game tropes with a cast full of pretty boys and the protagonist using her knowledge of future events to derail the previous romance plot and avoid various Bad Ends she's already aware of.  It doesn't feel as compelling as some of those titles, I think in part because the protagonist only has the knowledge of a repeating seven year period in the same world.  It has much less of the comedy that usually comes with the premise too, partly because her chosen romantic partner is completely deadpan 99% of the time.

Spoiler

It's not bad, but its plot suffers a bit from its protagonist having intimate knowledge of literally everyone who is important to the plot except Prince Arnold from her various time loops.  Her story never goes off the rails the way stories of this type usually do and that sucks a bit of the drama out of it.  She's too hypercompetent for the story to develop much tension.

It's not bad, but there have been several better examples of this same kind of story in the last few seasons so it doesn't really stand out.

 

Villain-san's Day Off never really went anywhere or did anything with its premise.  It almost doesn't have a story.  It's a tokusatsu series villain who, in his off hours, lives an utterly unremarkable daily life in Japan.  I guess it counts as a "feel good" series, with what little it has apart from daily-life being the comedy of a tall, frightening-looking man's over the top reactions to ordinary inconveniences and pandas.  I feel like they could do more with the premise.  Especially since Villain-san's interactions with his fellow villains are pretty funny and his interactions with the tokusatsu hero team off the clock are just as out there.  It's OK, but it feels kind of insubstantial.

 

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

The Dangers in My Heart Season 2 was great on Saturday.  I hope it gets a satisfying end.

[pengbuzz]

14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Continuing the wrapup of the 2024 Winter season...

 

The Strongest Tank's Labyrinth Raids is one of those copycat titles that doesn't really feel like it has, or even wants, an identity of its own.  It's not an isekai story, but it follows a lot of the same tired "my VR MMO became real!" tropes with the characters consistently using video game terminology and occasionally having hit points show up on the screen for some reason.  There is the vague implication that...

  Hide contents

... the various top-tier monsters and Demon Lords managing the labyrinths the story revolves around are playing a game of some kind.  The labyrinth management system they use generates resource points that are spent on copying existing types of monsters and traps and on gacha pulls to get new kinds.  They even refer to it in those exact terms, which raises the question of whether they're truly playing a game or this story is just not bothering to distinguish itself from the many "our world runs on MMORPG logic" isekai titles out there.

It can't seem to make up its mind which direction it wants to go on, which makes the story a bit messy.  At the very least, the protagonist's siscon tendencies were quickly dropped from the story.  The animation work is... not great.  It's never better than mediocre, but it frequently dips into the terrible when there are action scenes with a lot of motion.

 

Banished from the Hero's Party S2 is much the same.  It's one of those fantasy stories that isn't an isekai title but copies a lot of tropes from them even when it doesn't necessarily make sense to.  The first season was a fairly generic riff on the already well-trodden ground of "I'm living a slow life in a fantasy world as a pharmacist" schtick that a dozen or so titles in the isekai genre had already beaten into the ground like a tent peg.  Season two is actually taking the story somewhere interesting... in a rather desultory way.  It builds on the previous season's minor subplot involving the "blessings" - a sort of talent or compulsion believed to be imposed by the setting's gods that pushes people towards a specific (and not always desirable, safe, or healthy) path in life - and how people balance that with free will.

  Hide contents

TBH, I'd rate this series a lot higher if it focused on that instead of the generic slow life pharmacist stuff.  The subplot involving the former Hero Ruti trying to live a slow life herself thanks to having weakened her blessing as The Hero until she could resist its urges entirely while the new Hero speedruns the slippery slope as he totally gives in to his blessing's urges blindly on the assumption that they are instructions from god and becomes a Lawful Evil sociopath would be a pretty interesting dichotomoy if we had more attention spent on it.

We unfortunately don't get to see the Hero Van's Start of Darkness, so it loses a certain je ne sais quoi when his first apperance has him already being an unheroic Hero who is at best indifferent to the death and suffering he causes and at worst simply an unquestioning spree killer at the beck and call of a corrupt bishop and a fake fairy.

It's still not a very good series, but there's some signs of potential there in season two that weren't present in season one.

 

7th Time Loop: the Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy is very much in the otome game isekai style though like a bunch of the other titles I've followed this season it also foregos the isekai aspect in favor of having the protagonist be reincarnated in the same fantasy world they already lived in.  It follows a lot of the same otome game tropes with a cast full of pretty boys and the protagonist using her knowledge of future events to derail the previous romance plot and avoid various Bad Ends she's already aware of.  It doesn't feel as compelling as some of those titles, I think in part because the protagonist only has the knowledge of a repeating seven year period in the same world.  It has much less of the comedy that usually comes with the premise too, partly because her chosen romantic partner is completely deadpan 99% of the time.

  Hide contents

It's not bad, but its plot suffers a bit from its protagonist having intimate knowledge of literally everyone who is important to the plot except Prince Arnold from her various time loops.  Her story never goes off the rails the way stories of this type usually do and that sucks a bit of the drama out of it.  She's too hypercompetent for the story to develop much tension.

It's not bad, but there have been several better examples of this same kind of story in the last few seasons so it doesn't really stand out.

 

Villain-san's Day Off never really went anywhere or did anything with its premise.  It almost doesn't have a story.  It's a tokusatsu series villain who, in his off hours, lives an utterly unremarkable daily life in Japan.  I guess it counts as a "feel good" series, with what little it has apart from daily-life being the comedy of a tall, frightening-looking man's over the top reactions to ordinary inconveniences and pandas.  I feel like they could do more with the premise.  Especially since Villain-san's interactions with his fellow villains are pretty funny and his interactions with the tokusatsu hero team off the clock are just as out there.  It's OK, but it feels kind of insubstantial.

 

 

Guess none of these would touch .Hack//, right?

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Banished from the heroes party s2 just seems slow and dull. Which is strange because the light novel isn't.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Guess none of these would touch .Hack//, right?

Hm... dunno if I'd go that far.  The .hack// franchise definitely had far more of a cultural impact than any of those titles will have in the short run or the long run, it was more of an acquired taste where these shows are unimaginative and formulaic but intended for a very wide audience.  It definitely popularized the "VR-MMO" schtick that has become such a staple of isekai and isekai-adjacent titles like Overlord, Skeleton Knight in Another World, Phantasy Star Online 2: the Animation, Gundam Build Divers, Sword Art Online, How Not to Summon a Demon Lord, etc.

I know a lot of viewers struggle with .hack//SIGN because of how bleak and depressing it can be thanks to Tsukasa's circumstances, and I'll admit I suffered a bit of darkness-induced audience apathy for it myself.  I guess that's why they tried to go lighter and softer with Legend of the Twilight Bracelet and such.

 

 

Hokkaido Gals are Super Adorable! is trying to jerk the audiences heartstrings and not doing a great job as it nears its conclusion.  The Will They or Won't They waveform has begun to collapse towards "Won't", with the main girl planning to...

Spoiler

... study abroad in preparation for a career in fashion...

... leaving just one week together with the luckless protagonist.  It lacks impact because they haven't even reached the point of a confession never mind dating, and he has two other nearly identical love interests who aren't leaving.  It's mildly enteratining but as romcoms and such go it's very much in "You tried" territory IMO.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I was watching Gurren Lagann last night and they killed my favorite character.    I do not know anymore.

Edited March 19 by Hikaru Ichijo SL

[Dangard Ace]

2 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I was watching Gurren Lagann last night and they killed my favorite character.    I do not know anymore.

 

Whoa!  Whoa! 

 

Fight the Power!

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I am watching Chihayafuru and I am mixed on this show. 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

Back from the End of Evangelion US Movie screenings.       I was quite surprised by the number of people who came,  probably the largest turnout for an anime movie locally I have ever seen.       They did it episodically like it was originally screened.. episodes 25 Air and 26 End of Evangelion.      Still holds up 27 years later.     During the intermission between 25 and 26 people starting getting up and leaving thinking it was over.. lmao

Up Next week for me are the screenings of Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out and Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid.   Which are volumes 8 and 9 of the LN series.    Both play into each other pretty heavily and setup the events further on the series.       As a whole though,  they both individually are pretty weak and quite the departure from earlier Volumes. 

https://www.fathomevents.com/events/rascal-girl-double-feature/

 

They also teased a theatrical release of Spy x Family movie,  mentioning April 19th.. but I see nothing in my searches.

 

 

 

Edited March 21 by Stampeed Valkyrie

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Chained Soldier finished and it was OK. I would like to see more. Wow, s2 was announced.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

So coming back from the double feature screening of Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out and Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid.   I am probably one of the more critical reviewers..   so I will give 2 different reviews..  1st.  Anime only viewers..  Both movies are fairly well executed,  Sister definitively brings the sister arc to a conclusion,  and Knapsack adds to Sister but also directs attention to the MC this time around all while introducing some new characters.    2nd. LN readers.. Its no surprise that the series seems to have started dipping compared to the events concluding LN 6 and 7.   Which IMO was peak for this series,  neither Sister or Knapsack kid have any real substance outside of introducing new Characters and new Concepts of Adolescence Syndrome.    This really feels like a filler Arc leading into the University Arc.. aka later novels.  

 

Also wrapping up some Winter 2024 titles..  I am out of synch with my group as they tended to focus on series I had no interest in.. so all me this time.

Sousou no Frieren -  this series wrapped up with episode 28 and was the highlight for me this season.   I personally would like to see more,  maybe after the manga has time to advance as they are almost caught up.      I'd recommend.

Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha -  This was a hit or miss title for me,  it interested me enough to read abit of the manga and it had its points.    This is the typical MC now has or is getting OP abilities and now everything is easy trope.       I realize that 1 cour is not enough to really flesh things out,  but then I ask myself do I want to see more,  particularly as the Manga seems to have gone off the rails..

Shin no Nakama S2 -  I enjoyed S1,  but that was largely tossed for a new "Hero" that ruined S2.    The plot was boring,  the climax was boring,  and the resolution even felt boring.  

Dosanko Gal wa Namara Menkoi -  Well Boobs...  yes I said it.. Boobs.   Rom Com,  with some humor probably more wholesome then some expect.    The climax and resolution lead me to believe there will be no S2.   It was entertaining but nothing stands out.. except... boobs.

Sasaki to Pii-chan -  This one I was going to originally write off as the premise seemed silly.   Instead I got dragged into it,  probably my 2nd favorite of this season.   And they announced a S2.. so good times.

Metallic Rouge - Dropped   I commented on this earlier completely disjointed mess.

Ore dake Level Up na Ken - or Solo Leveling..   Dropped.   The MC became unlikable once he went full Giga Chad.  

 

Handful more still going and wrapping up this week.   Will post more then.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

 

Banished from the heroes party s2 ended at it was just so dull,  I loved season 1.  They tried to cram too much in. 

[Seto Kaiba]

My 20+ title Winter 2024 season is almost done... I'm down to just five titles now: Mashle, Metallic Rouge, The Witch and the Beast, Bang Brave Bang Bravern, and Dungeon Meals.

I gotta say, Winter 2024 has been a pretty unremarkable season.

Of the 22 titles I ended up sampling, I'd call almost all of the shows I followed mediocre-to-poor fare.  A bunch of them (e.g. The Strongest Tank's Labyrinth Raids, Banished from the Hero's Party, The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic, etc.) just feel painfully underdeveloped, with a tediously unoriginal concept spread too thin across the most generic kind of light, often isekai, fantasy story.  The other frequently recurring problem was that quite a few (e.g. Villain-san's Day Off, 'Tis Time for Torture, The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil) had such narrow premises that they were either locked into a single joke for the entire story or had to virtually abandon their premise after just a few episodes because they couldn't find any way to work it into what the characters were doing.

Netflix's Dungeon Meals definitely stands head and shoulders above all the other titles I watched this season for sheer enjoyment.  It's been a while since a series grabbed me the way Dungeon Meals did and had me actually impatient for a new episode the entire way through.

The worst of the bad lot was definitely Metallic Rouge.  Beautifully animated by Studio Bones, but with the worst writing I've seen since Tatsunoko's The Price of Smiles.  The art is amazing, and the plot is a nonsensical trashfire.

 

The one bit of good news I saw on the horizon is the Overlord movie's coming out this fall.  I'm very interested to see if they'll tone the light novel's story down at all for the film, as it's home to some of the light novel's most controversial moments.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I finished Gushing over magical girls.  I can't believe how much I liked this show.  I feel guilty about it.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

6 minutes ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I finished Gushing over magical girls.  I can't believe how much I liked this show.  I feel guilty about it.

This show was great,  even the last episode was entertaining.        This might be AOTY!   lol

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

44 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

This show was great,  even the last episode was entertaining.        This might be AOTY!   lol

 

Very funny. Definitely not AOTY.  Right now for me is Frieren or Dangers in my heart s2.  But it was much better than I expected.

[Seto Kaiba]

Well, Metallic Rouge has limped into the final stretch... and ohboy is it a trainwreck of poorly exposited "reveals" and hot nonsense.

Spoiler

We get a brief look at a trio of holographically telepresent Junoids/Usurpers, and it looks like I was almost certainly correct that the Visitors and Usurpers are two different factions of the same species rather than two different species.

Immortal Nine members Graufon and Noir fight to the death outside the circus ship and the fight only lasts about thirty seconds from start to finish before Graufon decides his only chance for victory is to commit suicide by blowing himself up.  Seems like a hasty decision, but also seems to kill him without actually harming him somehow.  He's totally uninjured and gets to give a valediction that would surely be more impactful if he'd more than about three and a half minutes of screen time in total.

We have to endure a protracted discussion as Double-Headed Aerkos argues with itself about whether to help Flash Sylvia or not at the prompting of Gene.

Hell Giallon leads Rouge and First around for no particular reason besides apparently letting Flash Sylvia make a dramatic entrance... at which point Flash Sylvia seemingly kills him for no real reason beyond not liking him and seemingly knocks him into the black hole reactor they're standing over.

The puppetmaster has another one-sided and needlessly cryptic conversation with Cyan, who's wearing one of his masks.

Flash Sylvia demands Rouge offer up her life to decrypt Code EVE, and Rouge refuses... because she can't eat chocolate if she's dead?

Ash announces that he knows what the puppetmaster looks like under his mask.

Honestly, the only thing that impresses about these unimaginative fight sequences anymore is how many of the Immortal Nine are doing their acrobatic fighting wearing kitten heeled robot boots.  Even the men.

Flash Sylvia launches into a rant about how the Neans created for the Venus terraforming project only "live" for three years because the environmental conditions there are so harsh that even the most robust Neans can't operate there for long without breaking down.  New powers as the plot demands are in full force too, as Sylvia regrows an arm she lost in the fight in a matter of seconds.  Rouge is seemingly defeated, with Sylvia poking her Id out with the spear. 

Instead of helping the now-wounded Rouge, Naomi runs away right into an ambush of robot soldiers and is saved by a surprisingly not-dead Giallon, who reveals that her plan is to destroy them all by sabotaging the terraforming plant's reactor and that he also knows that she's the Visitors pet Nean.  She sets the plant to blow and then goes back for Rouge, who is just barely crawling around.  She takes out her own Id somehow (it can be done nondestructively?  Then why all the stabbing!) and gives it to Rouge.

Rouge arrives just in time to interrupt Sylvia decrypting Code EVE and then the puppetmaster is revealed to be the long-dead Dr. Roy Junghardt, whose murder was what supposedly drove the plot to begin with.

It looks like there's one more episode of this mess to sit through, but the writing is so messy that it feels like all the exposition they forgot to do in the first 2/3 of the show is being thrown in all at once and the result is even worse than when there wasn't any.  The end result is a story where things just happen without any real buildup or payoff.  It feels more like an anecdote related by run-on sentence than a narrative.

 

The Witch and the Beast is headed into the final arc of the season, which seems like a bit of a comedown now that Ashaf and Guideau have found the witch who cursed Guideau to... something.  Really that hasn't been explained properly.  It looks like it might imminently be, though, as this arc starts with a pretty significant flashback to when Ashaf and Guideau first met.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

The wrong way to use healing magic ended and it was a pretty good series.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

Chiyu Mahou no Machigatta Tsukaikata or Wrong way to use healing magic just wrapped.     I think there will a S2 after watching the last episode because they do just about everything to hint to it without an actual announcement.     All in all this series had a lot of potential,  and still does if it wraps with just one season that would be quite as shame. 

Tsuki ga Michibiku Isekai Douchuu 2nd Season -  carry over from last season.   2nd season really had no sense of direction or plot.   Still going so will keep an eye on it.

Dungeon Meshi -  Still going,  I enjoyed this season and I expect the Gainax/Trigger foot to drop at some point in the next half.   Worth checking out so far.