Lurker > Robazoid

No danger of me dropping it, I'm definitely enjoying it! That's a good idea too about giving it more focus and using the season episodes as stopping points. It'll definitely help motivate me

I've started the earliest shows in my seasonal watch project. I'll probably always have a few going simultaneously, but for the most part I'm working forward in time.

-Legend of the Galactic Heroes, I'm slowly making my way through. Sorry for the slow progress Martin, it's a long anime! I'll probably post more detailed thoughts when I reach something that feels like a natural midpoint.

-Revolutionary Girl Utena is really intriguing but tough to binge because parts of it make me sad. I barely even know what's going on, I just feel so bad for Anthy. Her rat friend Chuchu is my favorite character. It's also nice to finally see what everyone was talking about back when Revue Starlight was airing, there sure are a lot of parallels between the two shows.

-Lost Universe is a lot of fun so far! There's something about some of these older anime that can make them really charming. Like, the older art style really enhances the absurdity somehow. I mean look at this, it's great.

https://imgur.com/a/iigkZIO

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Topical.

https://youtu.be/IQe6z02M9OY?si=ZOlY1L6qwvvJJ0QE

I was a bit sad that video glossed over the close-captioned subtitles, because that's my big problem with Disney+. It mostly focused on people not realizing shows exist because Disney doesn't promote them, but, pfft, I'm a big anime fan who checks MAL every season. That isn't a problem for me!

...Then partway through the video he mentioned a sequel to The Tatami Galaxy that came out in 2022 that I've never heard of. What the fuck? I even watched The Tatami Galaxy in 2022, how did I not know about this?

I'm not sure if anyone else will be interested in this, but I'm sharing it anyway! Back when I finished my 400th anime, I mentioned that what I've seen is heavily skewed towards more recent years. Only 31 were from 2010 or earlier compared to 73 from 2018 alone. Well, I wanted to try and balance that a little.

I've put together a list of one anime per season, and I'm going to start at the beginning and slowly make my way through it. It goes primarily from 1999 to 2023, but I couldn't find anything for Summer 2000 (there were only five new anime that season I mean wtf) and there were two seasons in 2018 where I've already seen pretty much everything. I substituted those with one anime per year from 1998, 1997, and 1988 to reach a total of 100 anime. I would've gone back further but there simply weren't that many shows debuting per season in the 90s and very few are available on streaming.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t_nYA59DR6AsZJvCk8l1AiuPRnF9jE0l6IWUqzAdatA/edit#gid=0

I'm only counting the debut year for anime with more than one season, but obviously I plan to watch everything once I get to them. It was rough finding shows for a few of these seasons. I'm going to have to go to Tubi of all places to watch "Arjuna" for Winter 2001. Still, a lot of anime that people recommended I download are on this thing, so thank you to everyone who helped me fill it out! I'll accept any criticism of my choices or suggestions for changes if anyone cares to look into it. I'm excited to watch most of these, though. A lot of them are anime I always wanted to watch but never got around to.

I won't exclusively watch things from this list. There are still a handful of shows I'm halfway through and need to finish, plus I may still watch the occasional random anime. I'm excited to get started on this project, though!

Man, after episode 3, I'm really close to moving Unnamed Memory into the "bad" column. From what I've read elsewhere, it's really rushing through the source material and excising all the things I'd actually want to see. There weren't any good character moments to develop their relationship, so everything feels hollow and unearned. I get the sense that there's a good story in there somewhere, this adaptation just isn't telling it.

This was my most anticipated anime of the season, too. After this and Momochi House last season, it's like my most anticipated anime is always cursed.

This topic is filling up so I made the next one, as I said I would when we healed the schism. I don't mind making them, but anyone who doesn't block or get blocked can make them too. Someone who's been here longer than me should also probably make the coveted #300 once we get there.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/80754271

UshiromiyaEva posted...

You are definitely misremembering how exactly that all went down towards the end of season 2.

Yeah that could be, it's been a few years. I'll probably rewatch Sound Euphonium at some point before continuing the series, maybe I'll like it more then. There have been a few shows in the past that benefitted greatly from a rewatch. Sometimes it helps to know what's coming.

I watched the first two seasons of The Duke of Death and His Maid and I'm caught up on the currently airing third season. It's about a guy who lives with a sexy maid who constantly flirts with him, but he has a curse that kills anything he touches to they can't get together. The anime is like 50% fanservice and 50% dumb comedy. That's why I was surprised to enjoy it as much as I did! It's not high art or anything, but I had fun with it. The animation is all CGI, which I'm guessing would turn a lot of people off. I didn't mind it though. It had a consistent style that really grew on me.

The premise is vaguely similar to another "sexy maid flirts with guy" anime from a few years ago, "The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious". I absolutely hated that one, it had one awful joke that it told over and over, plus it was creepy watching an adult sexually tease a literal child who was mostly just confused. By comparison, "The Duke of Death and His Maid" handled the concept a lot better. For one thing, it had way funnier jokes. The duke's sister Viola in particular was hilarious. I loved the segments where she came over to visit. She always brought such an energetic, chaotic vibe. The large cast of side characters were all fun too.

Still, the main thing this anime did right was the romance. Sure, a lot of jokes boiled down to the maid flashing some skin to fluster the duke. Their relationship has a lot more going on beyond that, though. While the duke often protests the maid's behavior, it's clearly a dynamic they both enjoy. It was cute whenever they let their real feelings slip out and talked about a potential future together. They each care so deeply for the other. It made me want to root for them to find a way to break the curse.

Anyway, I'll talk more about this once the third (and final?) season ends. The first three episodes of it have been good so far. Hopefully it stays that way!

UF8 posted...

oh i decided to do a runthrough of all the bad isekais a couple of days ago just to see if there's any worth continuing

It definitely looks like I made the right choice by only trying that Appraisal Skill one. It isn't super great but it sounds better than any of these.

I checked the Youtube channel I watched Tonbo on and now the videos are blocked in my country, lol. It was nice while it lasted. Of course now I'm hooked, so I'll have to figure out Amazon Prime after all. I haven't watched a video there in years and apparently now they have ads? I hope it isn't too awful.

Anyway, I said a bit ago that I was done picking up new shows this season. It turns out that I lied! Here's my early impressions on two more that I caught up on over the weekend:

-Wind Breaker was getting good reviews, so I decided to check it out. I skipped it early on because it sounded kind of generic, I mean a delinquent guy getting into fights at his new school isn't exactly revolutionary. Still, it's been pretty enjoyable so far! I expected the main dude to be an angry edgelord, and he totally is, but I like the other side of him where he gets all flustered whenever someone treats him with kindness. The other guys have all been fine characters too. More than anything though, the fight scenes have been super well-animated and lots fun. The production values really lift the whole anime up, plus it's doing just enough unique things to make the otherwise generic premise come alive.

-YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master sounded like yaoi bait based on the MAL description. I mean it's literally just a short paragraph that only talks about a prince who gets a boy servant and they form a, quote, "strange" relationship. I skipped this early on based on that. Nothing against yaoi, I'm just not into dudes. Thankfully, I read elsewhere what the anime is actually about. It's about an interesting fantastical court full of political intrigue! I guess it could potentially turn yaoi later, but I kind of doubt it since one of the big plot points is that there are four royal ladies competing to be the next empress. Forget the prince and the servant, I'm having fun just watching these ladies snipe at each other with backhanded comments. One of the four candidates admits she's only there to get drunk and enjoy the show.

There's a lot of info-dumping and worldbuilding. Like, a lot. Three-legged shapeshifting ravens, a country split in four each with their own lords at different levels, various court factions... everyone has their name and role displayed when they first come onscreen and I still had trouble keeping track of everyone. I imagine that would turn a lot of people away. However, I'm enjoying Yatagarasu so far. I like this style of political intrigue. It helps that it has an interesting central conflict where a younger prince is being chosen as heir over a seemingly more qualified older brother. The servant boy Yukiya has been a relatable main character, too. I'm glad I decided to give this show a chance. It's easily in the upper half of the season so far.

Dangers

There are only three or four saves left by my count, but I'm trading for Dark Gathering if someone wants to help me out. I can save now.

7th Time Loop

Beastars

I know that the golf anime is part of some sort of NFT thing, but I don't care as long as the show itself is good! It's not like the story is about NFTs or anything. I don't think anyone on that island even owns a computer.

It turns out the new golf anime, Tonbo, is getting slowly added to some random Youtube channel (I think legitimately? I dunno, it didn't seem like a pirate channel or anything). It's a week behind Amazon, but I don't have easy access to Prime Video anymore so it's good that I can watch it here.

Anyway, the first two episodes were actually really good! After Highspeed Etoile and Oblivion Battery both crashed and burned, it's nice to have a decent sports anime this season. A former golf pro, fleeing something from his past, moves to a rural island and meets a young girl who is surprisingly good at golf. So far, Tonbo is kind of a mixture of Birdie Wing (making ridiculously tricky shots despite limited clubs) and one of those "reluctant mentor" shows where a guy gets a kind of surrogate daughter. It looks like it'll be a cute and fun anime with occasional feels. After two episodes, it's already shaping up to be one of my favorites of the season.

In addition to everything else I'm watching, I'm trying to catch up on sequel seasons in anime I've fallen behind on.

I finished the third season of Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun. I enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was as good as the first two seasons It essentially had one big arc rather than multiple shorter ones. It also spent a lot of time on the secondary characters in the Misfit class. I mean I like all of them too, but my favorites are Ameri (who barely got any focus) and Iruma himself, who didn't get his usual spotlight. There were entire episodes where he didn't show up at all. Still, I don't want to put S3 down too much! I still like the setting, and the story does a great job at mixing comedy into the various demonic school situations. Unlike the previous seasons, S3 also never got super serious. The few episodes where this show got dramatic were always the worst, so it was nice to have it be lighthearted and fun the whole way through. So S3 was a step down, but only slightly. I hope it gets another season in the future.

You need a few more tiers so spiders and most other bugs can be well below every other type of creature. Almost no one likes spiders or shit like mosquitos.

The only bugs people like are honeybees, ladybugs, and maybe certain kinds of ants.

Mushishi

GameFAQs

I used to have a rule that I needed to watch three episodes before dropping something no matter how awful it was, but I stopped doing that last year. Yuri is my Job was one I dropped after one episode because I knew it 100% wasn't for me. I also tried watching The Eccentric Family, an older PA Works anime, but I got such bad vibes from it that I dropped it after one episode too. Like, these people ate the main tanuki guy's father and he didn't seem to care and was also very blas about them wanting to kill and eat him too. I nope'd right out of that one because I felt like it would just make me angry. Hated the main girl. I was proud of myself for stopping that show after one episode.

I doubt I'll ever be the type to drop a lot of anime, though. If anything, I might go back and actually finish a few I have dropped. Urahara, Beatless, and Psycho Pass deserve another chance. When I drop a show, I want it to be special. I want it to mean something! If I can slog through trash like Highspeed Etoile, that means dropped shows like Gantz are on a whole other level of bad.

But if I drop them, that means the anime defeated me!

Dennou Coil

More first episode impressions!

-Kaiju No. 8 was okay. Awesome production values, plus I'm a kaiju fan so the setting is cool. The worldbuilding aspect of workers coming in after to clean up the corpses is neat, and I'm kinda sad that won't be the focus of the show. As for the main dude and what the show will actually be about, this first episode wasn't enough to sell me on that yet. I mean he only just transformed at the very end, I feel like this could still go a bunch of different ways. I'll have to watch a few more to give it a fair ranking.

-Whisper Me a Love Song was good too! I have a bad track record with yuri anime. Usually I'm hopeful at the start but then they descend into shitty melodrama (I'm in Love with the Villainess, Citrus) or simply never go anywhere (Adachi and Shimamura). Still, I'm going to keep giving them a try until I find the one for me! The two leads in this are good characters and cute together so far. I'm taking the risk of getting my hopes up again.

Anyway, this is everything I'm going to follow (for now). I'm fully caught up on everything except episode two of Highspeed Etoile, I couldn't bring myself to watch it yet. I'll probably write more about each of the shows a bit further into the season when the ranking has solidified, but this is it for now.

Potential to be Great
Laid-Back Camp S3
A Condition Called Love
Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night
Unnamed Memory
Train to the End of the World
Tonari no Yokai-san
The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio

Fine I Guess
Whisper Me a Love Song
Mysterious Disappearances
As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill etc
Kaiju No. 8
A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics
Astro Note
Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included

I Should Probably Drop These But I Won't
Oblivion Battery
Gods' Games We Play
Highspeed Etoile
Grandma and Grandpa Turn Young Again

7th Time Loop

Dark Gathering

Mushishi

OBLIVION WING
+3 Flareon
+2 Spiritomb
+1 Burmy
-1 Toedscool
-2 Hatenna
-3 Bewear

ELECTRIFY
+3 Veluza
+2 Phanpy
+1 Nidoking
-1 Dondozo
-2 Froslass
-3 Garganacl

The second episode of A Condition Called Love really solidified it as my favorite of the season (not counting sequels, Yuru Camp S3 is too good). It's, like, 80% a super cute romance and 20% a super creepy romance. Those two distinct parts are meshing surprisingly well and I am here for it. My reaction at several points was essentialy "Aww, how sweet... wait, what the fuck". It's great! Plus it's doing what I've always wanted romance stories to do. It's actually examining what it means to be in a relationship with someone. I know it's still early, but this is shaping up to be one of my favorite anime romances ever.

More first episode impressions

-Mysterious Disappearances was neat! I wasn't sure what to expect from this after reading the premise, but what it wound up being was weird in a fun and interesting way. Main girl has a relatable internal conflict with how she's growing older while her dreams remain unfulfilled. I also want to learn more about her mysterious coworker. He's clearly got a lot going on, to the point where I wonder why he's working at a random bookstore... though, my current theory is that he's there just to appreciate how hot the main girl is, and hey I can't blame him for that. I'm liking how it handled the supernatural stuff, at least so far. Not sure if the rest of the season will hold up, sometimes these weird mystery anime flare out by the end, but right now I'm excited for it.

-The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio was pretty great too. I like the two main girls and their dynamic with each other. It's a relationship that seems difficult to get right. Both girls had to be likable in some ways to get the audience to care about them, but also unlikable in other ways so that it'd make sense for them to hate each other at first. I was kinda worried they'd screw it up, but so far I think they're doing a good job. There was a moment at the end of the first episode that really sold it for me. I guess I'll spoiler tag it if anyone cares about super early spoilers for this comedy idol show. After Yasumi tripped her to jolt her out of her nervousness, Yuhi threatened to lodge a formal complaint... and for a second Yasumi is legitimately freaked out because she isn't sure if Yuhi will really do it or not. Then it turns out Yuhi is just embarrassed and Yasumi goes right back to teasing. I really liked that hostile uncertainty they have towards each other, even as they're clearly growing slightly closer.

The other thing I want to mention about Voice Actor Radio is that I recognized who was voicing the two main girls instantly. They sound different in their day-to-day life, but when they're in actor mode, well, I've been hearing those voices for years! They also voice two characters in BanG Dream, Kokoro and Kanon. For those of you don't know BanG Dream, those two are in the same happy-lucky-smile-yay band and they're two of the sweetest, friendliest girls ever. My only worry now is that I don't know if I can suspend my disbelief to the point where I can accept that Kokoro and Kanon are enemies!

Watched the first episode of Oblivion Battery, a baseball anime about a superstar catcher who gets amnesia. When I read the premise for this, it sounded like a hardcore sports anime similar to Blue Lock or something. It turns out that it isn't like that at all. What it actually is, at least so far, is a terrible comedy. The amnesia guy has seemingly reverted to the mindset of a three-year old and spouts nothing but the most juvenile jokes. I lost count of how many jokes he made about nipples and none of them were funny. His friend, a superstar pitcher, also has the personality of a piece of cardboard. For good measure, they also threw in a boring normal guy. This is our main cast and I don't like any of them. I really hope amnesia dude becomes less insufferable as this goes on, and maybe they'll introduce a few characters to add some actual spice to this cast. I went into this thinking it couldn't be worse than Cinderella Nine, but so far it's way, way worse.

Anyway, here's my season ranking so far. Gods' Games We Play fell really hard after episode 2, Train to the End of the World had an amazing episode 2 and rose a bit, and Unnamed Memory debuts pretty high! For as much as I dislike the bottom four, this is still shaping up to be a decent season.

Spring 2024 Ranking so far
-Laid-Back Camp S3
-A Condition Called Love
-Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night
-Unnamed Memory
-Train to the End of the World
-Tonari no Yokai-san
-As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World
-Astro Note
-A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics
-Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included
-Oblivion Battery
-Gods' Games We Play
-Highspeed Etoile
-Grandma and Grandpa Turn Young Again

TORMENT
+3 Venomoth
+2 Krokorok
+1 Porygon
-1 Nosepass
-2 Kartana
-3 Quaxwell

PSYCHO CUT
+3 Mareep
+2 Spectrier
+1 Clobbopus
-1 Xerneas
-2 Golurk
-3 Sawk

First episode of Unnamed Memory completed, it seems like it'll be pretty good! I didn't like the prince's whiny friend who contributed absolutely nothing aside from begging to turn around, but I have to assume he'll be getting less screentime from here on out. Both the prince and the witch were great, and I'm excited to see more of them together. This is the show I was most excited for going into the season, and it hasn't disappointed me so far.

MartinFF7 posted...

And also don't watch the "next episode" previews at the episode's end, not worth it ever and REALLY not worth it in a few situations. Some episodes don't have ending song so gotta be more prompt in the episode skip, lol.

Thanks for the tips, I'll try not to get spoiled! It looks like the episode thumbnails on Hidive are all the same picture of the two leads now, so at least I won't need to worry about that.

Mushishi

@MartinFF7 I started watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes after all. I figured out how to view more episodes on Hidive (with the jankiest workaround imaginable, god that website sucks now) and I confirmed they have the whole series. I'm pretty sure the second season they have listed there are the two Gaiden seasons, whatever those are.

Still, I started with the first movie, Legend of the Galactic Heroes: My Conquest is the Sea of Stars. It was conveniently uploaded to Youtube, as is the second movie which I'll watch tomorrow. My understanding is that the second movie is an extended remake of the first two episodes of the show. Everywhere I've looked said to watch the two movies, then go straight to episode 3 and continue from there.

The first movie was fine. I definitely like sci-fi space battles, and it had lots of nice looking shots of the fleets. The two main dudes are cool too, though at the moment Reinhard is significantly cooler. Yang is held back by his side's leadership being absolute morons. Yang kept going "hey do this really obvious smart thing or everyone dies" and then his dumbass commanders go "nah, we're doing the stupid thing instead". I hope that dynamic doesn't last very long into the actual series because I'm tired of it already. Reinhard's commanders are morons too, but he's at least mostly in charge of his own forces unlike poor Yang. I have absolutely no idea what these two sides are fighting for, but right now I'm Team Empire! Let's crush that lousy Alliance.

Anyway, I'm not sure how long this behemoth of a show will take me to finish or how often I'll post updates as I go. I just wanted to let Martin know that I have finally begun watching it.

After episode two of Gods' Games We Play, I sadly have to admit that I was giving it too much credit after the first episode. The first actual game was super mediocre. This is going to fall in my seasonal ranking quite a bit.

I only had time for one episode this morning, I should've watched the Train one instead!

MartinFF7 posted...

It's time!!!

I looked up LotGH on Hidive, but man this website sucks now. I can't even scroll over further than 20 episodes on the series page, it just stops loading new ones there. I also can't figure out why it has two seasons listed. Maybe it's just split arbitrarily in half or something, but the first episode of S2 is "The Hero of El Facil" and that doesn't appear to be an episode title in the series according to Wikipedia. They've made it impossible to tell if they have the full series or what that second season even is.

Tell you what Martin, I'll watch LotGH right away if Hidive ever gets its act together and becomes easier to navigate! I should've watched it earlier before they ruined themselves. If only I'd known.

On another note, Ghost Hound was my 400th anime! In honor of that milestone, I want to share some fun stats I compiled while I was bored at work. This is a list of the 400 shows I've completed at least one season of sorted by their debut year. I feel like I've watched a decent amount, but the anime from 2010 and earlier only adds up to 31 shows, or less than 10%. Clearly I need to diversify a little and watch more older anime.

1995 - 1
1998 - 1
2002 - 1
2003 - 2
2004 - 1
2005 - 2
2006 - 3
2007 - 4
2008 - 5
2009 - 4
2010 - 7
2011 - 9
2012 - 13
2013 - 17
2014 - 16
2015 - 20
2016 - 22
2017 - 33
2018 - 73
2019 - 16
2020 - 15
2021 - 17
2022 - 41
2023 - 62
2024 - 15

I finally watched one of the anime I downloaded awhile ago, a random horror/supernatural one I found while looking for stuff unavailable on streaming.

Ghost Hound was pretty good! It's about a group of teens in a rural town who start having out-of-body experiences, and it got really spooky and weird. It had lots of spirituality and pseudoscience to explain everything that was going on, which I enjoyed because it helped anchor the strangeness in the reality of the setting. I liked all the characters too. There was a main group of three who were each troubled in different ways. All of that was explored really well, especially the main guy Taro who had major trauma from a childhood kidnapping that killed his sister. There were lots of great side characters too, like the doctor lady or the psychiatrist. Everyone got a lot of development and contributed in interesting ways.

Still, the absolute best part about this anime was the sound design. I watch anime with headphones, which probably enhanced the directional noises. The first few minutes of the first episode featured a fly buzzing around a room. I could follow the noise moving between ears and all around the room. I've never seen that effect done so well, and that's just one example. There were lots of really harsh droning noises or an otherworldly grinding or a thumping heartbeat drowning everything else out. This anime used sound to set the mood of a scene better than anything else I can think of off the top of my head.

I got super invested early on and it held on all the way to the end... but, sadly, I thought the end was a bit of a letdown. I still have a few unanswered questions, and the answer for a couple of the big mysteries couldn't help but feel underwhelming. Still, this was a good anime overall. There was a moment in the fourth episode that was one of the spookiest moments I've ever seen in an anime. This show was worth watching for that alone!

Etoile is too boring to even be "so bad it's good", I don't think it'll get any kind of traction like that.

More first episode impressions:

-Grandma and Grandpa Turn Young Again was absolute trash. After reading the premise, I had hoped that it would be a heartfelt story about a loving couple who get to do things together again. The very beginning teased them finally going on the honeymoon they never got to have back in the day, and I can imagine lots of comedic possibilities from something like that! Imagine them at some trendy beach surrounded by hip young people, only their sensibilities are 70 years outdated so they don't really fit in. That could be funny, and them still being very much in love would be cute too. Instead of doing anything like that, though, this is a comedy about how everyone wants to fuck them. Literally over half the segments in the first episode boiled down to "they're hot now". The granddaughter really, really wants to fuck her grandfather. The daughter-in-law wants to fuck her father-in-law. All the old geezers in town want to fuck young grandma. Ugh, it was awful. Even the few segments that weren't about their hotness weren't funny. Let's watch five minutes of them winning at various sports, that's hilarious right? What if we have an old guy, in front of his grandkids, badmouthing his dead wife because he always wanted to fuck young grandma instead? Ugh ugh ugh. I also hated how they kept their exaggerated old people voices even now that they're young again. I didn't think anything would be worse than Highspeed Etoile this season, but here we are.

-As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World was fine. It's still an isekai and has all the baggage that comes with that like stat screens and awkward infodumping. Did I really need to hear all seven of the former kingdoms if the bottom line is "they're all one empire now"? Still, the premise is interesting and unique enough that I'm still interested in it. The main guy's power to see people's potential is cool. The setting, a corrupt empire doomed to fracture, reminds me of the Three Kingdoms era in China. If this is going to be about the main dude being a Liu Bei-type figure, gathering people of talent to conquer the turbulent times, then I'm excited for it. The first episode definitely gave me some hope.

-Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night was surprisingly great! I really liked the story it told with the one girl's mural and how it brought the two of them together. More than the story, though, was the way it was told. Lots of creative uses of flashbacks, lots of dynamic angles, and really high production values all around. If it can keep up this quality the whole way through, this could easily rise in my ranking and become the best show of the season! I wasn't planning to check this out at all initially, but I'm glad I did.

Spring 2024 Ranking so far
-Laid-Back Camp S3
-A Condition Called Love
-Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night
-Tonari no Yokai-san
-Gods' Games We Play
-Train to the End of the World
-As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World
-Astro Note
-A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics
-Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included
-Highspeed Etoile
-Grandma and Grandpa Turn Young Again

I don't think I liked Arte enough to check out the manga, but that's good for the people who want a conclusion.

On the manga front, I've been busy reading The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch. I think I was the only one who cared about its anime adaptation last year, but it was hilarious and the manga has been equally great.

Today I watched Arte, an historical anime about a girl who becomes an artist in Renaissance Italy. I liked Arte as a character, she had a lot of fun moments and always pushed towards her dream. I also liked her mentor Leo and a few of the side characters, like Veronica. However, I wasn't a big fan of how much this focused on sexism. Women almost certainly had it rough back then, but it isn't especially fun to watch people mock and dismiss her over and over. It felt like half the episodes featured some variation of "lol you can't do this, you're a girl". Don't get me wrong, it was satisfying to watch Arte power through and prove them wrong, but I still would've preferred more variation in the storylines. It was a fine anime overall, but definitely not one of my favorites. Lots of the art looked pretty, at least.

Tonari no Yokai-san does feel like a show that could wind up being really special. It hasn't quite gotten there for me yet, but the potential is definitely there! As you said, the sound design was on point.

More first episode thoughts. I was going to watch the Jellyfish show too but of course Hidive fucked up one of its only two new shows this season, I guess I'll watch it later.

-Tonari no Yokai-san was pretty good! I definitely got Kamichu vibes from it, so anyone who liked that show should at least check this out. It's about a small town with lots of fantastical stuff like a cat turning into a supernatural creature or tengu wandering around, but it's all played for a slice-of-life vibe. I'm a sucker for this kind of world-building, like when a girl saw a gigantic mist creature wandering around so she knew it was going to rain later. I felt like they tried to introduce too many people early on, so I don't have a feel for most of the characters yet. I enjoyed it, though! Plus there were some hints of slightly darker elements, which is intriguing in an otherwise happy show like this. I'm curious to see where they go with it.

-Highspeed Etoile, hoo boy. If this doesn't wind up being the worst show of the season, I'll be surprised. The whole first episode was a race where they told us outright who the favorites for first and second were, and then those two got first and second with zero twists. I guess that would be fine if the race itself was interesting, but it really wasn't. I guess the animation looked pretty enough if you don't mind CGI, but there's only so much "car passed other car, then another car passed" that I can take, and the bland commentary didn't help. It's sci-fi, they could've at least added Mario Kart weapons or something. All they have is a limited boost, and this first episode didn't even use that in an interesting way. We're on the straight part of the course, time for everyone to boost, and since everyone's boost lasts the same amount of time it has no impact on the race whatsoever. Ugh. The only reason I have any hope for this show at all is that the actual main character wasn't introduced until the very end of the episode. I hope I wind up liking her, at least. Maybe she'll be a prodigy who can make this shit interesting.

Spring 2024 Ranking so far
-Laid-Back Camp S3
-A Condition Called Love
-Tonari no Yokai-san
-Gods' Games We Play
-Train to the End of the World
-Astro Note
-A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics
-Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included
-Highspeed Etoile

Watched the first episode of Astro Note, the show about a chef who gets a job at a lodge and falls in love with an alien girl. It was... weird? Like all the tenants are complete weirdos, but that isn't what I mean. The chef guy went there after seeing an ad about hiring a chef. Then everyone starts apologizing because I guess the ad was fraudulent and they aren't hiring a chef? But they 100% need a chef, they just aren't hiring one? The whole first half of the episode was a weird back-and-forth of "we absolutely need a chef for a bunch of reasons, sorry we can't hire you though". Of course main dude is smitten with the alien girl so he moves in on his own, I guess to work there for free? She gives him a budget of 250 yen per person per day, but I know enough about what the yen is worth to know that isn't enough for a decent meal. I guess he's paying for their meals out of his own pocket, too? This guy better start getting sex soon, otherwise he's getting screwed.

Anyway, my massive confusion for the premise aside, it wasn't a bad show. I liked a few of the weirdos at least. Astro Note definitely feels like it'll be unique.

MacArrowny posted...

Worth noting that we thought Pon no Michi was unlicensed last season, but it actually got streamed and translated on Youtube.

Oh cool, I didn't know that. I should check it out sometime.

I miss the days when MAL had a big simulcast news post showing where everything went. It made things so much easier.