What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v4.0

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Wow, Danmachi really has gotten serious.  Freya is the worst.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

21 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

Wow, Danmachi really has gotten serious.  Freya is the worst.

Without going into spoilers,  the whole Syr/Freya thing is just largely coming across as irrelevant.     Especially coming off the events of S4 where IMO the series saved itself from a very terrible story arc (S3).    Its still too early to tell,   and unlike some others like ReZero I don't already know what is coming.    I still personally don't think this series was ever able surpass S1,  and has been going downhill since.    S4 came the closest to the level of S1 IMO and now as of S5 Ep 5 we are sliding back down into S3 levels.. or so it seems. 

Again just my .02

 

Edited November 1 by Stampeed Valkyrie

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

16 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Without going into spoilers,  the whole Syr/Freya thing is just largely coming across as irrelevant.     Especially coming off the events of S4 where IMO the series saved itself from a very terrible story arc (S3).    Its still too early to tell,   and unlike some others like ReZero I don't already know what is coming.    I still personally don't think this series was ever able surpass S1,  and has been going downhill since.    S4 came the closest to the level of S1 IMO and now as of S5 Ep 5 we are sliding back down into S3 levels.. or so it seems. 

Again just my .02

 

Sounds right too me.  I am not a giant DanmachI  fan.  I am a ReZero book reader and this season will be great to the end.

[Seto Kaiba]

Just got back from a showing of Overlord: the Sacred Kingdom.

Not gonna lie, I can see why IGN gave the movie a bad review.  It's a very compressed adaptation of the light novel that is absolutely no ambassador to anyone who hasn't seen the anime up through the middle of its fourth season.  It cuts out several major scenes, and merges a few others.  Unfortunately one of the scenes it left out was a really important one that explains why the demons absolutely ham it up about Neia's bow being a "rune" weapon, so there are several scenes where demons just engage in dreadful acting about it with zero direct explanation.

It's not a bad speedrun of the story, but it's definitely not for the non-fan.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I watched the Spy X Family code white and it was really good.

[Seto Kaiba]

Well, the 2024 Autumn simulcast season's about 2/3 over... and I'm surprised how many of the new titles I'm having fun with this season.

Ron Kamonohashi's Forbidden Deductions continues to be a lot of fun.  I'm not super-thrilled that it leaned far enough into the Sherlock Holmes references to become an unofficial sequel/spinoff of Arthur Conan Doyle's 19th century detective series, but that happens so wearily often in detective anime that it was expected.  The actual cases are always very inventive and have wild conclusions, which keeps the series fun.  As long the "House of M" stays in the background it should remain an exciting detective series.

MF Ghost is another one where I'm consistently impatient for the next episode.  It's everything a racing anime should be, which you'd expect from Shuichi Shigeno penning a sequel to his iconic series Initial D.  The shilling for Toyota is at least understandable, and it's almost funny how Kanata seems to be able to summon a Eurobeat soundtrack as soon as he starts drifting.  IMO, the only weakness MF Ghost has is that its occasional asides with the race queens for fanservice purposes veer into creepy "My face is up here" territory more often than not.

Spoiler

For example, there is a scene in today's episode (#19 "Lonesome Cowboy") where the scene cuts away to the MF Angels having a chat about relationships while off camera.  The series isn't shy about how sexualized the whole "race queen" thing is on-camera, but even off-camera the angle of the scene switches to a closeup of their bikini bottoms for a good thirty seconds of their conversation.

As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World has finally stepped foot into the civil war arc it was teasing at the end of the first season.  It's doing OK with it, since the protagonist Ars stays out of the combat for the most part and focuses on what he does best which is reading people and trying to manipulate events through non-violent means.  It's still plenty engaging, but the last few stories have felt a little... thoughtless?  Like the original author didn't know quite how to resolve those plots while keeping Ars out of the fighting.

Blue Exorcist's fourth season has finally found the point where the original manga started to suffer from darkness-induced audience apathy.  It's handled extremely well by the studio (which is to say, the intense creepiness of the moment is brought across faithfully) but it still ends up making the story less interesting by raising the stakes TOO far to the point that the series is suffering a multiple impending-apocalypse pileup. 

Spoiler

Namely, the point where Lightning confronts Samael/Mephisto and is given access to the old Exorcist academy that was closed after the Blue Night.  That's the part where it starts getting a bit Warhammer 40,000 with the reveal that Gehenna in this series basically works the same way as the Warp and that the Illuminati were created to continue the True Cross Order's abandoned research on creating a better host body for powerful demons.  Research which accidentally birthed a new chaos god Satan, causing the Blue Night.

The only thing stopping it from crossing the line fully into WH40K territory is that the Eight Demon Kings aren't (generally) malicious... they're just bored and want to have fun in the living world.  Except Lucifer, whose despair at being too powerful to live in reality has him wanting to destroy the world so the legally distinct not!Warp can go back to being undisturbed by Human thoughts.

365 Days to the Wedding continues to be a fun little romcom.  It's slow, but the way the characters are handled manages to keep it a lot of fun to watch.

Yakuza Fiance/Raise wa Tanin ga Ii is a pretty wild ride too.  It's another one where I'm impatient for each new episode of this hilariously awful mismatched arranged-marriage mafia couple.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World Season 2 has been good lately.

 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

So ReZero S3 is 8 episodes? wait wut?

The 2nd half airs in Feb 2025? ...    guess I can start watching,  as I said previously I already know what is coming assuming it stays faithful to the LNs.