LogFAQs > #974443700

This block of anime were hard to make writeups on for various reasons, but I'm just going to post them and move on rather than agonize over it.

Next update after this will have a very popular show on it I swear. And actually that's arguably true of all the remaining updates if I were to continue in blocks of 3 (which I probably won't at the end but I digress).

33. Aria
Genres: Slice-of-life
Favorite Character: Akari Mizunashi

I feel like this is a bit of a weird show to describe its appeal to somebody who hasn't already seen it. There are no real specific points of drama or suspense, but the show doesn't really need them. Aria lives by the philosophy that it's possible to find beauty through people living their day-to-day lives (in fact this might even be a direct quote from the show), but after having watched the show it's hard to disagree. Every episode feels like its own little treasure to unpack, whether they're exploring a new area or meeting a new person or holding a new event or whatever. The cast has great chemistry and the setting is probably one of my favorites in anime. All-in-all a very peaceful and pleasant anime and it's just very easy to unwind and watch a few episodes of the characters giving it their best.

32. Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu
Genres: Historical, Drama
Favorite Character: Sukeroku Yuurakutei

Note: I only watched the 1st season of this show
Rakugo Shinjuu is a period drama about the Japanese storytelling art of rakugo, which also explains a fair amount of what I liked about the show. The characters are quite well-realized; the drama is interesting; and it's interspersed with great performance scenes. I appreciate that the show--at least to some degree--let's the performances breathe, because this is the sort of thing I wouldn't have had any feel for otherwise as an outsider. I wasn't a huge fan of the ending to this series (this might be why I never got around to season 2), but it also wasn't as much of a black mark as some of the other series so far where I've said that.

31. Blast of Tempest
Genres: Mystery, Fantasy, Action
Favorite Character: Aika Fuwa

I think a lot of my praises for this show are sort of style-over-substance, but at the end of the day this is just a show that was immensely fun for me to watch. I really like how the story uses a combination of present-day and flashback development to slowly reveal information about the characters and the story. It's done in a somewhat intricate way and it makes the ride incredibly suspenseful and satisfying, even if it's begrudgingly probably fair to say that at the end of the day the story ends up a bit nonsensical. The story also has this peculiar method of characterization where its characters will for some reason just devolve into these hot-headed philsosophical monologues and Shakespeare quotes and things like that. I could see people finding it annoying but in this case I ate it like candy. I do also love the characters of this series a lot, and the story does have a lot of emotional weight that it mostly delivers on. Overall a very cool and intricate series that was just a blast (of tempest)