What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v4.0

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

going through my list from Winter 2025 we have some more wrapups..

ReZero S3..    Mixed on this one,  only 16 episodes long and the hiatus between episodes 58 and 59 really threw me off.    I enjoyed it,  but it was not as good as previous seasons.  And though as I am being told otherwise I think much content was cut from this arc.   I realize this is one of the shorter of the ReZero arcs there is some very lore related filler that I think was skipped or glossed over.   I really should give S3 a rewatch as I am told that some of my issues were in S3.    This is an example of knowing the LNs and WNs comes back and bites you in the a$$ when you start getting all the adaptations jumbled together..    *cough* utawarerumono *cough*

Nihon e Youkoso Elf-san -  I enjoyed this series,  kind of a reverse isekai and was a very pleasant watch.   Episode 12 kinda leaves the impression that this will be a 1 cour anime... which is sad as this was superior to pretty much all but maybe ReZero for Winter 2025.    And other series of much lesser merit are getting a 2nd season.     They never even got into the dungeon they discovered and plenty of content for a S2.     We can only hope for S2.

 

Also discovered that Quintuplets got some TV specials that I was unaware of..  so gave them a go.

Go-toubun no Hanayome 1st TV Specials..  2 episodes takes place during the last 6 months of High School, and prior to the Movie.   This one fills in some of the gaps about the plot and specifically the Quintuplet he chose..

Go-toubun no Hanayome * 2nd TV Specials..  2 episodes that take place AFTER the movie.   Covers a Honeymoon Trip with all the Quintuplets to Hawaii.   IMO the weaker of the 2 specials and abit of letdown because he and  *his choice* are married at this point and its still like High School.    Just doesn't feel like a natural progression with the 2nd episode throwing any progress away by wasting it on a silly plot.   Each of the quintuplets impersonate Nino to help an english speaking young girl hookup with a Japanese classmate with JP VAs acting in english poorly.     That 2nd episode was painful TBH.  

 

 

Edited March 29 by Stampeed Valkyrie

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

On 3/29/2025 at 7:53 AM, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

going through my list from Winter 2025 we have some more wrapups..

ReZero S3..    Mixed on this one,  only 16 episodes long and the hiatus between episodes 58 and 59 really threw me off.    I enjoyed it,  but it was not as good as previous seasons.  And though as I am being told otherwise I think much content was cut from this arc.   I realize this is one of the shorter of the ReZero arcs there is some very lore related filler that I think was skipped or glossed over.   I really should give S3 a rewatch as I am told that some of my issues were in S3.    This is an example of knowing the LNs and WNs comes back and bites you in the a$$ when you start getting all the adaptations jumbled together..    *cough* utawarerumono *cough*

Nihon e Youkoso Elf-san -  I enjoyed this series,  kind of a reverse isekai and was a very pleasant watch.   Episode 12 kinda leaves the impression that this will be a 1 cour anime... which is sad as this was superior to pretty much all but maybe ReZero for Winter 2025.    And other series of much lesser merit are getting a 2nd season.     They never even got into the dungeon they discovered and plenty of content for a S2.     We can only hope for S2.

 

Also discovered that Quintuplets got some TV specials that I was unaware of..  so gave them a go.

Go-toubun no Hanayome 1st TV Specials..  2 episodes takes place during the last 6 months of High School, and prior to the Movie.   This one fills in some of the gaps about the plot and specifically the Quintuplet he chose..

Go-toubun no Hanayome * 2nd TV Specials..  2 episodes that take place AFTER the movie.   Covers a Honeymoon Trip with all the Quintuplets to Hawaii.   IMO the weaker of the 2 specials and abit of letdown because he and  *his choice* are married at this point and its still like High School.    Just doesn't feel like a natural progression with the 2nd episode throwing any progress away by wasting it on a silly plot.   Each of the quintuplets impersonate Nino to help an english speaking young girl hookup with a Japanese classmate with JP VAs acting in english poorly.     That 2nd episode was painful TBH.  

 

 

I agree 100% about Elf.  I am a book reader so I know there is plenty more.

[26662]

Solo Leveling season 2: GIVE ME SEASON 3 TODAY!  I didn't read the source material and I avoided spoilers all season long.  Season 2 was a delight, start to finish.  And that opening theme song is a banger.

[MinmayMusicManiac]

Was with my  father & we recently saw almost all the CG Saint Seiya on Netflix (final 2 left) & was shocked that Shun was now a woman as both the original manga &anime Shun is a man. However i will admit the dub cast is much better than the edited DIC dub that barley anyone remembers & is lost media. i know its not this season as someone who rarely watches modern anime anything within in the past decade is current to me.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I started Steins gate and it is good. 

[m0n5t3r]

8 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I started Steins gate and it is good. 

I remember the first 10 or so eps were so tough for me... almost gave up on it a few times.  loved it after all was said and done.

After consuming mostly isekai and some other seinen anime and some netflix stuff the past year, I started to miss watching mecha shows so I've been rewatching Code Geass, Macross Zero, Mac Plus, Mac II, and just finished Macross Frontier TV (didn't take things too seriously this time around and just enjoyed the music, mecha action, and the copious amounts of nostalgia evoking callbacks and homages). Not sure if I want to watch the movies just yet so I'm moving on to Gundam 00 and maybe finally watch the new Gundam Seed movie. 

Edited April 1 by m0n5t3r

[Big s]

1 hour ago, m0n5t3r said:

so I'm moving on to Gundam 00 and maybe finally watch the new Gundam Seed movie. 

I still haven’t been able to convince myself to watch the new seed movie. I told myself I needed to rewatch the seed and seed destiny shows to catch up and it was kinda like torture with how bad they were that after Macross got added to Hulu I sorta forgot all about that seed movie.

[m0n5t3r]

17 minutes ago, Big s said:

I still haven’t been able to convince myself to watch the new seed movie. I told myself I needed to rewatch the seed and seed destiny shows to catch up and it was kinda like torture with how bad they were that after Macross got added to Hulu I sorta forgot all about that seed movie.

Not really that excited to watch it myself. And I have no interest in rewatching the entire Seed and Destiny series before watching the movie. Just gonna watch it for the Mobile Suits, the action scenes and just for the sake of completing the series.

[Big s]

4 hours ago, m0n5t3r said:

Not really that excited to watch it myself. And I have no interest in rewatching the entire Seed and Destiny series before watching the movie. Just gonna watch it for the Mobile Suits, the action scenes and just for the sake of completing the series.

I kinda forgot a lot about the series and thought I needed a refresher, although I’m thinking it probably isn’t that necessary 

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, m0n5t3r said:

Not sure if I want to watch the movies just yet so I'm moving on to Gundam 00 and maybe finally watch the new Gundam Seed movie. 

If you've already watched Destiny, there's no need to watch the new movie... it's just Destiny again and worse.

(No really, the plot is exactly the goddamn same...)

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

If you've already watched Destiny, there's no need to watch the new movie... it's just Destiny again and worse.

(No really, the plot is exactly the goddamn same...)

That kind of explains why I haven't been able to finish it.  I am just bored.

[Seto Kaiba]

20 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

That kind of explains why I haven't been able to finish it.  I am just bored.

Yep.  It's exactly the same plot as Gundam SEED Destiny... just as a speedrun version.

A quick skirmish with Blue Cosmos ends in a false flag operation that an outwardly benevolent, technologically advanced, Coordinator-supremacist de facto autocracy ruled by a former genetic researcher and eugenics enthusiast from the Mendel institute uses as a pretext to use the Requiem beam cannon captured from Blue Cosmos to hold the world's nations hostage James Bond villain-style so they can force everyone to adopt a new social model based on the crackpot pseudoscience of genetic predestination also known as The Destiny Plan with the assistance of their super-coordinator protege, an angsty teenage incel "super coordinator" with anger management issues who hates Kira Yamato on principle.

If I had a nickel for every time that happened in the Cosmic Era, I'd have two nickels.  Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[Seto Kaiba]

The series finale of Ameku M.D. came out today.

Whooboy what a stinker.  This one is bad even by this show's standards, with the resolution being such an arse-pull that the writer is probably facing investigation for practicing proctology without a license.

The final case is a locked room mystery where a drug dealer drowns in his father's locked study, and Dr. Ameku is just BSing her way through the explanation without any way to back anything she's saying up because the victim was cremated already and everyone just kind of rolls with it even though there's no proof and the detective somehow drops the charges without consulting any authority (even though the police couldn't establish means or motive, they were going to try him anyway).

I feel like I lost some IQ points from watching this slop.  

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yep.  It's exactly the same plot as Gundam SEED Destiny... just as a speedrun version.

A quick skirmish with Blue Cosmos ends in a false flag operation that an outwardly benevolent, technologically advanced, Coordinator-supremacist de facto autocracy ruled by a former genetic researcher and eugenics enthusiast from the Mendel institute uses as a pretext to use the Requiem beam cannon captured from Blue Cosmos to hold the world's nations hostage James Bond villain-style so they can force everyone to adopt a new social model based on the crackpot pseudoscience of genetic predestination also known as The Destiny Plan with the assistance of their super-coordinator protege, an angsty teenage incel "super coordinator" with anger management issues who hates Kira Yamato on principle.

If I had a nickel for every time that happened in the Cosmic Era, I'd have two nickels.  Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

Does it at least have less singing. The Meer and Lacy’s thing was too pointless and annoying to take seriously 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yep.  It's exactly the same plot as Gundam SEED Destiny... just as a speedrun version.

A quick skirmish with Blue Cosmos ends in a false flag operation that an outwardly benevolent, technologically advanced, Coordinator-supremacist de facto autocracy ruled by a former genetic researcher and eugenics enthusiast from the Mendel institute uses as a pretext to use the Requiem beam cannon captured from Blue Cosmos to hold the world's nations hostage James Bond villain-style so they can force everyone to adopt a new social model based on the crackpot pseudoscience of genetic predestination also known as The Destiny Plan with the assistance of their super-coordinator protege, an angsty teenage incel "super coordinator" with anger management issues who hates Kira Yamato on principle.

If I had a nickel for every time that happened in the Cosmic Era, I'd have two nickels.  Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

I glad you pointed this out. I guess i will just not finish it.

[Seto Kaiba]

10 minutes ago, Big s said:

Does it at least have less singing. The Meer and Lacy’s thing was too pointless and annoying to take seriously 

It has less singing, yes... Lacus is basically demoted to a macguffin rather than a character with actual agency in the story.

[Big s]

4 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It has less singing, yes... Lacus is basically demoted to a macguffin rather than a character with actual agency in the story.

Sounds like a bit of an improvement 

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Big s said:

Sounds like a bit of an improvement 

You'd think, but not really.

It's actually kind of jarring and out of character how Lacus is demoted to a distressed damsel and doesn't really do anything for most of the movie until the big bad assaults her... after which her only real role is fanservice and delivering an upgrade to Kira that lets him Mary Sue his way through the final battle.

 

I tried to be fair to the film and actually went to see it twice while it was in theaters.  It's beautifully animated, but the writing is SO lazy that it's painful and it still has that Gundam SEED problem of aggressively samey design for characters and mobile suits alike.  The enemy mobile suits are the worst of the lot, looking a lot like someone just tossed a Gyan head onto a generic Gundam body.

 

 

Getting started on this season's new anime in a bit.  I've picked up three so far in addition to the continuing titles from last season:

• The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiance and Sold to Another Kingdom
• Catch Me at the Ballpark!
• Once Upon a Witch's Death

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I started Once Upon a Witch's Death and It has potential,  I will be watching it for now.

Edited April 4 by Hikaru Ichijo SL

[pengbuzz]

On 4/2/2025 at 3:16 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Yep.  It's exactly the same plot as Gundam SEED Destiny... just as a speedrun version.

A quick skirmish with Blue Cosmos ends in a false flag operation that an outwardly benevolent, technologically advanced, Coordinator-supremacist de facto autocracy ruled by a former genetic researcher and eugenics enthusiast from the Mendel institute uses as a pretext to use the Requiem beam cannon captured from Blue Cosmos to hold the world's nations hostage James Bond villain-style so they can force everyone to adopt a new social model based on the crackpot pseudoscience of genetic predestination also known as The Destiny Plan with the assistance of their super-coordinator protege, an angsty teenage incel "super coordinator" with anger management issues who hates Kira Yamato on principle.

If I had a nickel for every time that happened in the Cosmic Era, I'd have two nickels.  Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

Sigh... this is why I gave up on Gundam after the final nail which was TWfM; the franchise as a whole has lost its' way.

[Seto Kaiba]

So... I've been watching The Apothecary Diaries, and having an absolute ball of a time with it.

It's like Ascendance of a Bookworm, if that series had the romcom dynamics of Ouran High School Host Club.  Maomao and Jinshi are an absolute delight to watch.

I meant to only do one episode a day, but I've shot through an entire season in the space of about two.  It's just that good.

 

 

8 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Sigh... this is why I gave up on Gundam after the final nail which was TWfM; the franchise as a whole has lost its' way.

Gundam has always been very heavily dependent on its one formula... though I have to admit quite a few of the titles they've released recently have been pretty underwhelming or even outright badly written.  It's not uncommon for them to have a middling title every so often, but lately it's felt like a string of stinkers in quick succession.

I kind of feel like GQX is going to end up being my breaking point with Gundam.  I've never liked those "for want of a nail" alternate timeline stories where everything's mostly the same but slightly twisted.  GQX's plot is one of those, basically the UC's version of the incredibly overused "What if Nazi Germany won World War II?" AU.  Something Gundam's licensed games already did to death in Gihren's Greed.  My feeling is that if a series is going to intentionally do an alternate universe story then it's time to Go Big or Go Home, y'know?  Do something wild and different not just "the universe where character X parts their hair on the other side"... unless you're doing it as a joke.

[Dangard Ace]

Watching:

Wind Breaker S2 and FIre Force S3 are out.  

 

New so far

Rock is a Lady's Modesty. - rock music anime.  Will give it a try

Brilliant Healer - skimmed the first few minutes.  Seems harem-ish.  Probably going to drop.

Catch Me at the Ballpark - Hey a sport anime!  I want my Diamond no Ace back!  Guess I'll try this.

Once Upon a Witch's Death. - She has 1 year to live.  Will give it a try.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

12 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Sigh... this is why I gave up on Gundam after the final nail which was TWfM; the franchise as a whole has lost its' way.

I have lost confidence in Gundam also. The witch from mercury was terrible.  I almost gave up after the 1st half. I wish I did.

[pengbuzz]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Gundam has always been very heavily dependent on its one formula... though I have to admit quite a few of the titles they've released recently have been pretty underwhelming or even outright badly written.  It's not uncommon for them to have a middling title every so often, but lately it's felt like a string of stinkers in quick succession.

I kind of feel like GQX is going to end up being my breaking point with Gundam.  I've never liked those "for want of a nail" alternate timeline stories where everything's mostly the same but slightly twisted.  GQX's plot is one of those, basically the UC's version of the incredibly overused "What if Nazi Germany won World War II?" AU.  Something Gundam's licensed games already did to death in Gihren's Greed.  My feeling is that if a series is going to intentionally do an alternate universe story then it's time to Go Big or Go Home, y'know?  Do something wild and different not just "the universe where character X parts their hair on the other side"... unless you're doing it as a joke.

Yeah; I just felt some series' did it far better than others. While I don't know how most felt about Gundam Wing (seemed a bit different), I liked it and also liked Zeta.

Did not care for Iron-Bottomed Blooded Orphans, and TWfM was what pretty much did it for me on the franchise as a whole. I'll read whatever posts you and the rest of the gang have about GQLameDux, but I really cannot bring myself to watch it.

  

1 hour ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

I have lost confidence in Gundam also. The witch from mercury was terrible.  I almost gave up after the 1st half. I wish I did.

Don't blame you in the least, man.

Edited April 4 by pengbuzz

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

36 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah; I just felt some series' did it far better than others. While I don't know how most felt about Gundam Wing (seemed a bit different), I liked it and also liked Zeta.

Did not care for Iron-Bottomed Blooded Orphans, and TWfM was what pretty much did it for me on the franchise as a whole. I'll read whatever posts you and the rest of the gang have about GQLameDux, but I really cannot bring myself to watch it.

  

Don't blame you in the least, man.

I though Gundam X was bad. The witch from Mercury made x look much better in my eyes.,

[Seto Kaiba]

21 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah; I just felt some series' did it far better than others. While I don't know how most felt about Gundam Wing (seemed a bit different), I liked it and also liked Zeta.

New Mobile Report Gundam Wing has a lot of western fans whom it introduced to Gundam in the 90's, but overall I believe it's still considered a pretty middling installment.  It had some writing trouble, and the plot kind of meanders in the second half.

Zeta, on the other hand, is arguably the gold standard by which all other Gundam titles are judged in terms of its ratings success, its commercial success, and its influence on the franchise as a whole.

 

21 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Did not care for Iron-Bottomed Blooded Orphans, and TWfM was what pretty much did it for me on the franchise as a whole. I'll read whatever posts you and the rest of the gang have about GQLameDux, but I really cannot bring myself to watch it.

Iron-Blooded Orphans is a really polarizing title due to how unstintingly, relentlessly DARK its story and setting are.  All the same, I consider it to be the best of modern Gundam by a long way.  It has a very distinctive art style, a memorable cast, and it punches like a prize fighter when it comes to its chosen social commentary.  It unflinchingly commits to the franchise's War Is Hell moral message on a level most other titles don't.  Understandably, that's a turnoff to a lot of viewers.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I watched "Witch Watch" today and I thought it was good.

[Big s]

On 4/4/2025 at 4:36 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

New Mobile Report Gundam Wing has a lot of western fans whom it introduced to Gundam in the 90's, but overall I believe it's still considered a pretty middling installment.  It had some writing trouble, and the plot kind of meanders in the second half.

Zeta, on the other hand, is arguably the gold standard by which all other Gundam titles are judged in terms of its ratings success, its commercial success, and its influence on the franchise as a whole.

Wing was definitely an intro for most over here. I enjoyed it quite a bit and it seems like a masterpiece compared to anything Gundam has put out in the last decade or so.

I personally love Zeta, but it’s really tough to get others into it because of its weird writing. Characters seem to make the weirdest decisions imaginable, especially the female characters. As odd as ZZ is, it usually makes more sense.

my favorites as far as gundam goes would be the 90’s ova’s. I love War in the Pocket, Stardust Memory and 08th MS team. I really wanted to love unicorn, but it just felt so overly pointless that it made everything else after feel more pointless.

 I didn’t realize kinda like IBO , but it really had some cringy bits and might be the best of the newer stuff. I need to rewatch 00 though, I don’t really remember it that well, just didn’t care for most of the designs.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

Wing was definitely an intro for most over here. I enjoyed it quite a bit and it seems like a masterpiece compared to anything Gundam has put out in the last decade or so.

That is the textbook definition of "damned by faint praise".

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

I personally love Zeta, but it’s really tough to get others into it because of its weird writing. Characters seem to make the weirdest decisions imaginable, especially the female characters. As odd as ZZ is, it usually makes more sense.

The UC is something you kind of have to introduce people to in order, otherwise things just don't flow correctly.

Of course, Zeta is also a product of the time in which it was made... and it very much reflects the sexist attitudes of the late Showa era in the writing for Emma and Reccoa.  The things they do make sense in context, but definitely seem strange viewed through the lens of modern western cultural attitudes on gender roles.  Like the song goes, "It was acceptable in the 80's". 

At least it's not quite as bad about it as, say, Southern Cross which directly invokes "marriage is a woman's happiness" by NAME at the very start as a way of justifying its protagonist's flaky behavior.

 

 

Still havin' a great time with The Apothecary Diaries tho.  That's some quality material.  Enough that I'm looking into picking up the light novel.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I started "Summer Pockets" today.  It was a good 1st episode.

[26662]

Watched the premiere of Lazarus on HBO Max.  I spent more than a decade as a neuroscientist so I was pretty stoked to explore a world driven by an artificial neuromodulator.  Unfortunately, it was a tough watch.  While the story's concept is exciting, the episode was *very* difficult to enjoy simply because of the incredibly flat and off-putting voice acting.  I tried the alternative languages but none was any better than the English track.  Not sure if it's worth sticking with it.  

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I watched the 2nd episode of "Once Upon a Witch's Death" I am still on the fence with this show.  This show is sad, but I can't seen to feel it.

[Seto Kaiba]

Caught the first two episodes of Catch Me at the Ballpark.

It... exists.  It's not bad, but as a slice of life series what it is is nondescript.  It's competently animated but absolutely nothing about it stands out or draws attention.  Generic work events happen to generic employees at a generic ballpark.  It has all the flavor and spice of a plain flour tortilla served with a glass of tapwater.

The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside By My Fiance and Sold to Another Kingdom is...

...

...

...

... y'know how a lot of old fairy tales involve the princess or whatever being treated like total cr*p by their own family for basically no reason?  Yeah, this is that but with a standard otome novel Lady Saint protagonist.  Somehow, her incredible achievements, awe-inspiring Holy power, and constant service mean nothing and everyone hates her guts because she doesn't smile?  Somehow, this is enough for her fiance and her own parents to gleefully and vindictively break off her engagement and literally sell her to another country.  It's such a lazy and paper-thin setup for the standard "jilted girl discovers living well is the best revenge" story that it's honestly impossible to take seriously.

 

Season two of I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years is as bland and inoffensive as I remember the previous season being.  I guess they're kind of doing a Konosuba thing since the goddess responsible for isekai-ing the protagonist is now doing MLM-style public speeches after being demoted to supervising just one world for her irresponsible dispensing of standard isekai superpowers?

[26662]

On 4/7/2025 at 10:25 PM, 26662 said:

Watched the premiere of Lazarus on HBO Max.  I spent more than a decade as a neuroscientist so I was pretty stoked to explore a world driven by an artificial neuromodulator.  Unfortunately, it was a tough watch.  While the story's concept is exciting, the episode was *very* difficult to enjoy simply because of the incredibly flat and off-putting voice acting.  I tried the alternative languages but none was any better than the English track.  Not sure if it's worth sticking with it.  

Speaking of voice acting...  Just started Devil May Cry on Netflix.  I'm 4 1/2 minutes into the first episode and I am in love with the voice acting!  Producers of Lazarus: THIS IS HOW YOU VOICE AN ANIMATION!!!!!  [And the animation itself is top notch too.  I'm not familiar with the IP so I have no idea if what I'm seeing here is the usual or an exception.]

Edit: I hope I didn't speak too soon.  The protagonist showed up at about 8 minutes and the voice actor is only slightly better than the typical English/American talent.

Edited April 9 by 26662

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I started "The Shiunji Family Children" today. I thought it was ok. I just wonder if a harem or not.