What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)

Short first episode impressions for the new season in the order I watched them over the course of the past few days:

Hana-Kimi — Heard one comparison to Vampire Dormitory and yep, I'm on board with that. But also what's going on with her to make that decision in the first place?

There was a Cute Girl in the Hero's Party, so I Tried Confessing to Her — Similar kind of idea as MaoYuu but with a more generic isekai angle to start. The character faces regularly look off and it looks like they're applying a texture as a filter that's distracting to me. Also she couldn't hire an S rank adventurer but what about a D rank one since that's what he is currently? And if I was him I'd at least consider something like that as an angle to get closer to her, but nope stereotypical adventurer's life it is.

You Can't Be In a Rom-Com with Your Childhood Friends! — This is the kind of show that would be five minutes long if the characters communicated with each other honestly instead of lampshading every stock romcom harem trope the author can think of while building the entire show out of them.

The Villainess Is Adored by the Prince of the Neighbor Kingdom — Turns out I will inhale nearly any Narou-kei show out there no matter how bad the premise is as long as it's a villainess one, and this one's about as generic as it gets to start. I'd be curious to see how this subgenre came to be if anyone's done a deep dive on it.

The Holy Grail of Eris — Another villainess setup, this one looks like it could be pretty fun with a contrast in the lead duo.

Roll Over and Die — Not sure how I feel about this one, already have enough narcissistic assholes in positions of power in my life right now.

Mayonaka Heart Tune — At least he's not a total dumbass with his approach given the end of the episode. He could try to come up with an excuse to record them and then do the same audio processing to reproduce how he would have heard Apollo if he thinks that would actually work though. Also his motivation find her in the first place is kind of silly given how he's presented himself in high school so far, but that's why he's at least part dumbass after all.

Tamon's B-side — This is a lot of fun already, reminds me of Oshibudo with its look at idol fan culture. I also really like her design, the shape of her face feels like a throwback for some reason (maybe it's the nose).

Champignon Witch — I like the atmosphere of this one and Luna's an intriguing character already, looking forward to more but I'm still wary given it's done by Typhoon Graphics and that studio has a poor reputation with me personally.

The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be Wife — Oh this is a fascinating premise, I'm enjoying it. Interesting society and side characters too, Jirashi takes the best catgirl baton from Kisara after last season.

Isekai Office Worker: The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter — Yet another anime that makes me think about learning how to use an abacus. I'm not a fan of the "I live to work" attitude of the main character but hopefully he'll relax some in this new world. Or as I saw someone put it in one of the Reddit episode threads: we're going to watch an exhausted man get the capitalism pounded out of him by a hot boyfriend.

You and I Are Polar Opposites — That's a creative opening/ending pair. The main couple here are a fascinating contrast to several from last season's romances (thinking of Kashiwada/Oota, Yano-kun, and A Star Brighter Than the Sun over the course of this one episode). I love the shift when they started holding hands, yes the world changes like that.

In the Clear Moonlit Dusk — Oh hey Unison Square Garden for both OP and ED? Best girl spotted but Yoi's not bad either and I like the interaction between the leads so far.

Fate/strange Fake — I watched the special when it initially came out but not the first episode so I rewatched Whispers of Dawn along with starting the show proper. I like Narita's writing and a Holy Grail War is a perfect scenario to drop in a giant cast of characters with multiple conflicts and intersecting goals.

Ikoku Nikki — As the kids say, the vibes are immaculate. I began crying a little past halfway into the episode, specifically when Makio took the pile of receipts and unopened mail on the table and just... dropped them on the floor next to it, and didn't stop sobbing until after the episode ended and I'm not sure I can entirely put into words why. I think it's not primarily the tragedy of Asa's situation but more that I see my current self in Makio. A lot. And that's not something that happens in anime.

I'm glad I did my write-ups for the other shows before starting Ikoku Nikki because it wiped them from my mind. The only other anime I can remember hitting me like that in the first episode was Cross Game and I was done for the evening after watching it as I needed time to just sit and process it and recover emotionally; I can only hope that's how the rest of the show will go as well. I saw some people already identify it as their anime of the year after its premiere and I can see what they meant by that.

Quite a season.

It seems the competition for viewership has become so fierce that a lot of shows are now resorting to 1 or even 1.5 hour long first episodes to stand out and make their full pitch before the audience loses interest and drops the show. I'll be interested to see whether this pays off - if so, expect to see everyone doing it in a couple of seasons!

Fate Strange Fake

I liked this more than I expected to.

• Lush animation with Fate's characteristic saturated colours but also beautiful thick line art (giving it a distinct look from A1's own Fate/Apocrypha), all on top of a much more focused story compared to episode 1.

• The cheery ED feels right out of Gundam Reconguista in G.

• Ayaka and her Saber feel awfully familiar...

On the downside, despite this being a new continuity, there's absolutely no concession made to newcomers in terms of exposition. Anyone not already familiar with Fate may well bounce right off.

Shibou Yuugi de Meshi wo Kuu

A demonstration of how direction trumps budget. The actual animation is average at best, but the visual style and choices about everything from framing and colours to timing and delivery make it stand out from the pack like a long lost Shaft show (especially with that letterboxing).

I'll be interested to see if they can keep the rest of the season compelling now that they've shown their hand, though.

Jujutsu Kaisen S3

The usual high quality animation served with a story that's been firmly reined back in scope. I did laugh a little when I realised

The direction flirts with being a little obnoxious at times, but I'd rather see people try to make shows that look visually interesting and not quite hit the mark over just playing it safe.

Boku no Hero Academia Illegals S2

It's very low key as a season opener, but that's fine. My only complaint is that the new antagonist doesn't seem particularly interesting, but there's plenty of room to move the story in any direction from here on out.

I can't remember if the original series ever expressly stated that it was illegal for regular people to use their Quirks (as opposed to just acting as a hero without a licence) - in fact, I'm pretty sure it happened on that show all the time - but it's potentially quite an interesting premise to focus on.

Enen no Shouboutai S3 cour 2

Exceeded my (low) expectations. Just having the show focus solely on the protagonist again is a significant improvement. If they just do a season about him fighting other dudes without spending half of each episode on Adollah, I'll be satisfied.

Fumetsu no Anata e S3 cour 2

Still compelling. Somehow the writing remains on point thematically for the development of the protagonist regardless of whether the episodes are about the new characters or the old ones.

Trigun Stargaze

It's pretty good. You have to give Orange props for sticking with 3D animation when everyone else (what happened to Polygon?) seems to have given up. Yes, it will never look quite the same as 2D animation, but there are ways of delivering a scene that 3D really excels at, and material like Trigun is full of opportunities to show them off.

Also:

• Millie is finally in the show and has a great dynamic with Meryl.

• This episode contains the last (posthumous) voice acting performance for Tarako. I wasn't a fan of her Monokuma, but I thought she did quite a good job as Zazie.

Jigokuraku S2

Not flashy, but still solid as an action show.

Not the biggest fan of the current plotline they're doing with the protagonist, but I can see where they're going with it and expect he'll be back on course shortly once the point is made.

Oshi no Ko S3

I'm fine with any kind of horror, but shows like this honestly make me kind of queasy. Putting the central plot aside, it just feels so dark and cynical every week to see how the sausage is made in the 'content industries' and how two-faced and traumatised everyone involved in it is.

Great animation as usual though.

Not so much new titles comparing to the previous week thread, but I still have some.

• Android wa Keiken Ninzuu ni Hairimasu ka??

  Itʼs basically an almost-hentai / a hard-ecchi about clanker-yuri. If youʼre interested, I recommend to watch uncensored version for sure, because, as I know, othervise you would watch censored kissing, yeah... For some reason, I still remember a kiss scene in Ex-Arm… Just in case, animation isn't bad here. Sadly, one episode is very short: somewhere around five minutes, if not shorter.

  I know, if I want something longer, better for me to check the second seasond of Mato Seihei no Slave, but there's a problem: I dropped on the first episede during the first season due at least two reasons: low quality, and MahoAko with kinda the same nich was airing. For the start Iʼll see how many do I have ongoings, if not so many then maybe I will watch all. As I know, the second season is better in quality: we have a new studio here — Passione, itʼs them who made Nukitashi; for compare, the old studio were Seven Arcs which also made the second season of Grand Blue, and where animation was notable very cheap / low.

  Oh... to much text for this title, heh.

• Seihantai na Kimi to Boku

  Suprised me. From the name of the title I expected a classic repetable gag content, whichʼs I usually don't like, and very common today. But no, the first episode is solid in storytelling.

  It also has a good animation, and an incredible openning which I recommend to check it, even if you don't like SoL / romcom: itʼs typical and atypical — a fresh thing here.

  Btw, while weʼre speaking opening then I should mention one from Shibou Yuugi de Meshi o Kuu (which I mentioned in the previous week thread): yeah, where we saw just cars and nothing else... it was a opening, yeah — I realized it only on the second episode, heh. Indeed a fresh moment. An ending here is incredible for sure tho, thereʼs already a full version song.

• Toumei Otoko to Ningen Onna

  Basically romcom / SoL around detective agency, but with supernatural things, where a main heroine is blind, and her partner is invisible. While I mentioned detective, the first episode doesn't have it so much; our heroine isn't detective, but just works in detective office. But itʼs very cute, keep near you antidiabet meds, (;

  For now, the situation with blind is for sure better than in Majutsushi Kunon wa Mieteiru where it feels more like a chūnibyō moment.

I finally started watching Jujutsu Kaisen. I have to say that for me the entire show is being carried by the animation and the story feels like an afterthought. The characters are rather poorly developed and it kind of just throws a tournament arc right at you practically at the beginning. Granted I am not one to get into Shonen battle anime generally.

I guess this is more of a "I plan to read", but I had no idea that there's a Jujutsu Kaisen sequel that's been serialized for 4 months now: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/chapters/jujutsu-kaisen-modulo

I'm praying it's a better sequel to JJK than Boruto was to Naruto.

A cute anime I've been following recently is The Daughter of the Demon Lord Is Too Kind!. I read the manga for this ages ago so it's cool to see it adapted into an anime. It's a cute comedy showing the Demon King's secretary try to shape the Demon King's daughter into a ruthless demon only for the daughter to be super kind and helpful.

Finally finished the 5 bonus episodes of *Watashi ga Koibito ni Nareru Wakenaijan, Muri Muri! (Muri Janakatta!?) that came out Jan. 1 (which was a pleasant surprise, i had forgotten about that being in the works). I liked it a lot, hope to see a S2 someday.

Watching the first season of Kamisama Kiss. The second season is due to come out on Tuesday. We liked it so much we bought the entire manga too, which I've started but may wait until I'm a bit less overwhelmed with work before hand. It's just really cute, but also I love the “oh, I'm accidentally a God” aspect too, as it relates to some of the kinds of things I love exploring.

We also finally got around to finishing Ranma ½. The last part of the last episode is so cute with a line from Akane saying she doesn't mind what physical form Ranma has. And, FWIW, there's a whole story there about how I ended up here, as documented in this Tildes post, but the tl;dr; is that my spouse and I accidentally wrote a pretty awesome fan-fiction novel, as discussed in this blog post; whee.