HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10
HIGH RECOMMEND - 9/10
HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.5/10
RECOMMENDED - 7/10
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10
I know the article is late and it's almost time to do the Winter roundup, but here we go with the Fall 2023 one and we had a banger of a season with some great shows, two of them showing why they're at the peaks of the shonen and isekai genre (Jujutsu Kaisen and Eminence In Shadow respectively). A great season, a great bunch of shows, I suggest giving all of them a shot. Also since Crunchyroll is changing everything, I watch everything in Japanese with subtitles so change the audio track to see the peak voice acting I catch. Basically, if you catch the clips and they are pretty dull because the English VA isn't putting their best into the scene my bad, if I watched it in English I'd find good clips for this instead, because I know they do exist but who knows with the clips right ?? Let's take a look at what I watched and some things I have to say about them all. JUJUTSU KAISEN - S2 - THE SHIBUYA INCIDENT ARC This was the arc I knew everyone who didn't read the manga and only watched the show was not ready for; when they did the Hidden Inventory/Premature Death mini-arc last "season" I was like okay there's a few moments before anime only fans are stuck with the horrors of the Shibuya Incident Arc. That's what this arc is, pure horror, if you have favourite characters that is; one thing I can say through the entirety of the Jujutsu Kaisen manga is to never get attached to people. Gege Akutami takes pages out of the George R.R. Martin playbook constantly in their series and this arc is our first evidence of that. Basically the Shibuya Incident is the culmination of the plan we see “Geto” and the other talking curses make during the entirety of the first part of the story; seal away Gojo Satoru in the Prison Realm and usher in an age of curses. This season is incredibly packed with fights which is one of my favourite parts you have: Gojo vs Hanami/Jogo/Mahito/Choso, Kugisaki then Nanami vs Haruta, Maki/Nanami/Megumi/Naobito vs Dagon, Toji vs Dagon, Toji vs Megumi, Yuji vs Choso, Sukuna vs Jogo, Sukuna vs Mahoraga, Kugisaki vs Mahito, Yuji vs Mahito, then Yuji/Todo vs Mahito. Basically an action packed season, all of which were incredibly intense battles, and it’s honestly hard to explain the season because it was mostly action other than Gojo being sealed and Yuji now having 15 of 20 Sukuna fingers in him, with Sukuna being able to take control for longer now. Everything else is just a watch and see the crazy fights. Though the one shitty thing is MAPPA was so hard and demanding on the Jujutsu Kaisen animators that they all decided to leave and form their own studio to continue the show going forward. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 THE EMINENCE IN SHADOW - SEASON 2 This has to be one of my favourite not only isekai's but honestly one of my favourite anime just because of how cool yet ridiculous it is. This season we again have our main boy, Cid Kagenou aka Shadow, once again placing himself into several situations that he doesn't even realize how serious they are or what is actually going on. Instead, he just is simply "pretending" to be this side character in other peoples stories while trying to be "the Eminence In Shadow" this delusional personality he has and act super cool doing it. This season has 3 parts to the way it has been told: the Lawless City, John Smith & the market crash, and finally the Orianna Kingdom. Like the last season each one of these small segments make up an interesting story overall in the continuing saga of Cid/Shadow and Shadow Garden. The problem I have with winding down this in a roundup is since these parts are relatively small to make up the whole, if I summarize them there’s a good chance I say & spoil everything that happens within them. Eminence In Shadow is just too damn good for me to spoil anything, the animation is amazing, the characters are super creative, the plot is great, the voice acting is fantastic, it is amongst the top isekai anime ever to me and that is incredibly lofty praise. I will say the season has set up to not have a “3rd season” but they are doing the next part of the story in a movie format before moving on again. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 RISING OF THE SHIELD HERO - S3 We return to Naofumi, the Shield Hero’s, story and where we left off was the party returning from the other world and then destroying the Spirit Tortoise; with their next goal being locating the other 3 Cardinal Heroes to train to fight the Phoenix. First thing that happens is several of the demi-humans living in Naofumi's land are stolen away from their homes as slaves so the Shield Hero, Raphtalia, and Filo head to a colossieum to get them back. There they meet Sadeena, a whale demi-human, who we find is actually Raphtaliia's "older sister", basically the lady who protected her when she grew up; they also meet a Clown assassin named S'yne that we learn more about as the season progresses. This season also shows us more about what happened to the other Cardinal Heroes and how Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu were treated after falling to the Tortoise. How the people treated them as failures, how things turned terrible for them, how Myne corrupted Ren & Itsuki, and how all three of them gained their cursed weapons similar to Naofumi’s rage shield (which is also when he realized that each hero has one of the seven deadly sins). With the party’s help all three of them overcome their issues and join with Naofumi on his land to train and become better to fight the Phoenix. With Ren falling in love with Éclair, the knight Naofumi leaves in charge of his village when he is away, Itsuki learning how to understand life thanks to Rishia, and Moyatasu treating Filo as some kind of muse. During the colosseum we also meet Fohl and Atla, white tiger children who become incredibly strong and important to Naofumi’s party; Atla calling herself “Naofumi’s shield”. I personally looked up future stuff about the two because they’re such interesting characters and found crazy cool info we’ll learn about them in the future. We also see the return of the big elder dragon which became a zombie that Naofumi fought, the “father” to one of his villagers, which they fight again and destroy with the dragon reminding the Shield Hero that his rage will always be a part of Naofumi’s soul. We end on the cliffhanger that involves Raphtalia's family lineage and something desperate they as a party now need to take care of quickly before the Phoenix awakens. HIGH RECOMMEND - 9/10 GIRLFRIEND, GIRLFRIEND - S2 The continuing story of the Naoya and his girlfriend Saki and his other girlfriend Nagisa. Oh, and also the girl that is love with him that he ignores, Mirika, and finally the girl who loves him but can never show it since she's Saki's best friend, Shino. The boy with two girlfriends and two more girls that want him; every guy’s dream, to be the ultimate gigachad all the ladies want. The girls want to do so many things with Naoya, he just wants to do his best to please both his girlfriends. Before anything can happen though, Shino says to all the group she refuses to let this two-timing go on anymore, so she’s moving in with them to stop it (though she has the ulterior motive of trying to get over Naoya by making him just into Saki and not other girls too, she’ll think she has no chance and give up if he’s 100% into one girl). There is a lot of typical romance stuff, going to a festival to see fireworks together, going camping, going to the beach, etc. Each one of these has different romantic tropes and by the end, everyone finds out about Shino and Mirika is on a “test basis” where she has 6 months to try and convince Naoya to date her as well. It's a hilarious harem rom-com that is just something that I find is meant for guys to just sit braindead and watch, which I love; I think it's a funny show to watch and really enjoy it. HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.5/10 BERSERK OF GLUTTONY In a world of knights and magic, where every person is given a “skill” by God at birth, Fate Graphite is stuck being a lowly “guard” for a rich family of Holy Knights that bullies him; the reason being Fate’s skill is not important in the world at large. Gluttony serves no purpose whatsoever in terms of finding job, but the girl he loves and loves him, the Holy Knight Roxy Hart gets him a job at her estate to save him from bullies. To “protect” Roxy he buys a sword, that he finds out can talk to him named Greed, which is also when he discovers Gluttony isn’t just any skill but one of the Seven Deadly Sins that go against the will of God. Once Fate starts to gain stats with Gluttony using Greed, he must constantly devour more and more souls to stay sated, so he doesn’t go berserk and attack everyone. He does his best to contain Gluttony’s hunger, to grow stronger, and protect his beloved Roxy. With the help of another Seven Deadly Sin user, Myne, he learns to truly harness his abilities better to become the best version of himself, defeating another Sin along the way. Roxy does eventually find out about her "Faye's" ability when he does indeed save her from a deadly super dragon; but he knows he could hurt her if he loses control so they part ways sadly while he learns to control himself. RECOMMENDED - 7/10 SPY X FAMILY - S2 Spy X Family is another one of those shows that is just absolutely fantastic, you get some episodes which are nice and simple slice of life episodes and moments but you also get awesome action & mystery thanks to Yor's assassin background & Loid's spy background. This season moreso than the first season had WAY more action even from the first episode where we think Yor gets gravely injured, except she just gets shot in the ass and it becomes a hilarious episode when Loid tries to cheer her up on a date. But like I said, this season has a lot of spy and assassin things in the later episodes that I don't want to illuminate on what exactly happens as it dilutes the episodes themselves. There's still the fun episodes of Anya's school adventures with Becky and trying to become "friends" with Donovon Desmond's son Damian (basically the entire reason this show exists in the first place). Loid knows for sure that Anya is absolutely too dumb to get enough Stella's to become an Imperial Scholar so befriending Damian is basically his only hope; while it might seem like that is impossible Damian has a crush on Anya that he'd never admit. That is how I think it will play out, that he'll have some kind of awkward moment that way that gets the Forgers and Desmonds to meet (but that's jumping wayyyyy too far ahead). This was just another funny season of Spy X Family and that's all I like, this season I did appreciate the amping up the spy/assassin action, it's a show I suggest everyone watch from start to finish. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10
0 Comments
First off, the Summer 2023 season ended in I believe October so I am SUPER late on this roundup, however there's been lots of life reasons for that so my apologies. However, there were so many bangers during that anime season and it has been a joy to watch all of them. Let's kick things off with my favourite of that season by far. BLEACH - 1000 YEAR BLOOD WAR ARC - COUR 2 The Thousand-Year Blood War Arc, Cour 2, is just as amazing as the first part of it. Like, as a Bleach fan I could not be more happy with the adaptation that has happened thus far. One of the best things about this cour of the TYBW is that Tite Kubo had promised lots more changes from the manga to the anime adaptation and here is where we saw quite a few and all of them were amazing, one moreso than others. I knew some of my favourite fights in the arc, not all but some, were going to happen during this cour: Kenpachi vs Gremmy, As Nodt vs Rukia, Giselle & her "zombies" vs Mayuri, and Squad Zero vs Yhwach & the Elite Sternritter. They all happened and damn they exceeded my expectations, just over the top action, over the top animation and voice acting. Like I don't know what to say really. Getting to see the return of Ichigo, Renji, Rukia, and Byakuya from the Royal Palace in their badass new "powerups" was just fantastic. The fight Squad Zero had was one of the manga & anime variations that Kubo changed in this, he had a problem with how he had to rush this arc and didn't have to time to truly depict Squad Zero the way he wanted. This time he did 100%, he showed just how big a threat they truly are, the fact that they have a blood oath with each other where they all have to die in order for one of them to use their Bankai as it is a Bankai that's able to shake and distort all 3 worlds is INSANE. That being said we got Shatatsu Karagara Shigarami no Tsuji which is the Bankai of Senjumaru Shutara, the Great Weave God of Squad Zero, in order for her to use it all the other members killed themselves. And "as far as we know" (sorry it's not true) but based on the anime, she essentially 1 shot 5 different Elite Sternritter with it. Cour 3 may not be until 2024 but I can not wait, this is the most excited I've been to watch an anime because it's Bleach and that's why I don't want to go to into anything else. HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 11/10 MUSHOKU TENSEI: JOBLESS REINCARNATION - SEASON 2 Mushoku Tensei is one of the best isekai ever, if that doesn't say how much of a solid appreciation I have for this series I don't know what does. It's been a few years (in real time) since we've seen the adventures of Rudeus Greyrat, where we last left off he found his father and younger sisters, finally upon arriving back in their homeland he and Eris finally do the deed, but Rudeus wakes up to a note and Eris having left him. This crushes his spirits and he is absolutely devastated, it also gives him a severe case of ED. All men at this point feel for poor Rudeus, dumped by the woman he loves and stuck where he can no longer “raise his sword”. Shortly after he decides to set out and find his mother, also to prove Eris that she was wrong to leave him by not only saving his family alone but becoming the strongest adventurer alone. Slowly building his name as “Quagmire” Rudeus he joins a few quests with someone whom he got into a physical fight with before (and who he becomes friends with); after which he joins an adventuring group full of very nice people that see how down Rudeus is and try to improve his mood. He finds these people to be so amazing to be around and they make him feel better to be himself for the first time in a long time, particularly a girl in the group named Sara whom he grows quite fond of. After saving her life, they go on a date and he screws up his big chance unfortunately because of his ED. Shortly after he heads to the big magic academy where he knows Roxy attended, there he is reunited with Zanoba the prince who loved making figures (who is his “student”). He is also reunited with Sylphiette, who goes by “Silent Fitz” and is a bodyguard for the Princess Ariel. He is unaware of this as Sylphy now has white hair and always wears sunglasses and is said to be a man; Fitz and Rudeus do grow close though and Rudeus comes to think that he is gay for having these growing sexual thoughts towards Fitz, who he thinks is still a man. By the end of the season he does find out that it is Sylphy and through his love for her, her lack of abandoning him, his ED is cured and he promises to marry her and pledges to help Princess Ariel because of how she has taken care of Sylphy for him. One other surprise that happens is Rudeus is reunited with a girl named Nanahoshi, a fellow Japanese person, it’s just HOW he remembers her that surprises him and triggers a massive PTSD attack. Everything about Mushoku Tensei S2 was great and I already know that they’ve announced more for the spring or summer next year in 2024 is amazing and I’m pumped. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 JUJUTSU KAISEN S2 P.1 - HIDDEN INVENTORY/PREMATURE DEATH ARC I am a huge fan of Jujutsu Kaisen and I knew that after the movie that the next arc they’d be covering is the Shibuya Incident Arc and honestly, for people that only watch the anime, I knew there’d be a lot of things that was going to make them VERY upset. I forgot before that sadness we were at least going to get a “somewhat happy” arc with the Hidden Inventory/Premature Death one where the Jujutsu High era of Geto & Gojo’s time there was explored. Gojo & Geto are charged with protecting a girl named Riko Amanai as she is the Star-Child and is meant to fuse with Tengen and become a pillar of jujutsu society. They both protect her and see how much fun she is having and are willing to break the rules to let her live her life, ignore the higher ups in the jujutsu sorcery world and set her free. Unfortunately, Gojo is “killed” by an unknown enemy who then proceeds to kill Riko which between the two causes Geto’s mind to shatter. After losing his fight to this mysterious opponent he just lays there. Gojo returns after this finally able to use reversed curse techniques, to heal and to use other powers. Which he used in his battle against the mysterious opponent, Toji Zen’in. Who goes by his wife’s last name Toji Fushiguro….Megumi’s father. Toji is known as a jujutsu sorcerer hunter, he was seen as a flawed member of the Zen’in clan as he did not have cursed energy (similar to Maki currently) but he had other things that made him incredibly powerful. He was obviously powerful enough to easily “kill” Gojo in their first fight. During their second confrontation Gojo kills him and all Toji asks is, “I sold my son Megumi to the Zen’in Clan, can you protect him from them ??” to which Gojo agrees and becomes Megumi’s guardian from that point on. After we see the events unfold that splits Geto and Gojo’s philosophy on jujutsu sorcery and what causes the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 movie. AFTER this we get into The Shibuya Incident Arc and while I originally thought it was a part of this season, it’s actually a Fall 2023 season anime. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 HORIMIYA: THE MISSING PIECES I loved Horimiya when it first came out, call me sappy but I am a huge fan of rom-com's. I just thought the story of a loner misfit boy and a super popular girl falling in love with each other because they see the sides of each other outside of school that no one else sees is super sweet. The entire friend group that formed around Hori and Miyamura because of existing friendships and new ones is fantastic, the art is great, the voice acting is great, the story is great. So when I saw there was a "season 2" of Horimiya coming out I was stoked. When I started watching it though I felt let down initially, mainly since I didn't realize what the concept behind the show was, it was technically season 2 but it's called The Missing Pieces as it's Hori and Miyamura's side stories during their initial love connection and also afterwards. Basically, things that wouldn't have a few episode mini-arc in the main season, they became the "missing pieces" of their love story leading into their graduation from school and that's how this season plays out. So we do see earlier stages in their relationship again but new situations that we never saw before, then fights they had that we never saw, also family dynamics with Miyamura and the Hori family. We also see other moments in the story that have to do with Miyamura's tattoo problem, which is to say he has tattoos and needs to find a way out of sports, so Toru's "quick thinking" ends up creating the funniest moment in the entire series. When trying to explain to the teacher why Miyamura can't participate in sports he just covers quickly for him by saying, "he's on his period", which absolutely cracked me up because it left everyone dumbfounded but it worked. I think Missing Pieces was a great addition to the Horimiya story and helped flush out the characters even more than they already were; while I would have liked another true "season" this was still really good. I can hope they might do something college/university wise but you never know really. HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.5/10 (NEED TO WATCH HORIMIYA FIRST) RENT A GIRLFRIEND - SEASON 3 To many people, Rent A Girlfriend is an absolutely trashy series that they just can't stand, to me it's just a funny rom-com that while it does have many moments one could consider trashy sure, I find the characters cool and just enjoy it. I think most people's problems stem from our main protagonist Kazuya is kind of a dirtbag and also how the manga is constantly dragging on when it could've ended a LONGGGGGG time ago with Kazuya and Chizuru getting together. Regardless, I've enjoyed all the seasons of this show, but knew what was coming in this season already since I had read it, knowing that I knew it was going to be one of the most character development heavy seasons and also one of the saddest seasons. It is a season where Chizuru knows just how sick her Grandmother is getting, she's in the hospital permanently after last seasons spill, and Kazuya promised her that he'd help her make a movie starring her to show her grandma Sayuri on the big screen. To see the actress her granddaughter is becoming and wants to become. This is the most character defining season for Kazuya as, even though he as like 2 lapses in judgment, he knows right now it's not his job to think about his love for Chizuru and what to do about it. EVERYTHING is about getting this movie made for Grandma Sayuri. He truly shines as an actual human this season, busting his ass, for this girl and her grandma and sure while a bit of it might be because he's hopelessly in love with her; a lot of it has to do with Kazuya knowing just how much Sayuri has faith in him with her granddaughter. We also get to see the introduction of Chizuru and Kazuya's neighbour, Mini Yaemori, who is a cosplayer and streamer and helps out with the movie; and also tries to help out her "master"/"sensei" Kazuya with his unrequited love for Chizuru. Everyone, even Ruka, tries their hardest to help with this movie and when it's finally done and headed to editing, they have a premiere booked, Sayuri falls so ill that she can't make it........and literally doesn't make it. But what Kazuya does for Chizuru and her grandma is, heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time, he loves her and her grandma so much that he absolutely pulls out all the stops and I definitely cried seeing that part. I already said too much, but you'll cry too if you watch it. This season is also when Chizuru starts to realize, maybe she is in love too, but just doesn't know it yet. HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.5/10 MASAMUNE-KUN'S REVENGE R When Masamune-kun's Revenge came out a few years back I thought it was a really interesting concept. It had the backstory of two young kids, one a sheltered and lonely rich girl named Aki Adagaki, and a very fat kid named Makabe Masamune who she constantly protected from bullies. They became friends but one day when he goes to see her, she calls him "Pig's Foot" and makes fun of his weight, it was from that moment on he vowed to get into killer shape and take revenge on Aki. His plan was simple, become an absolutely handsome dude and make Aki fall in love with him, then when they start going out, to dump her immediately and make her feel as worthless and pointless as she made him feel. It's an incredibly vindictive thing to do, incredibly spiteful, but really unique in terms of the start of a rom-com. It ended in an are they/aren't they together OVA episode. Until Revenge R started and continues the story of Masamune trying to get revenge on Aki with the help of Yoshino; his "master/sensei", and also Aki's only real friend and family maid. Now, the clip I've got selected already kind of slams some suspense away HOWEVER, I fully suggest watching this and the first season because there's so many twists and unexpected turns in this second season that I was honestly flabbergasted at having to wait for the next episode so I'd go out of my way to look for light novel passages, the manga, check the wiki JUST to find out what's going to happen before it's animated. I was brought to utter suspense so many times and in a show were you become invested in a romantic pairing, you have to know if it is going to work, or if it doesn't what's going to happen. I was absolutely not disappointed with this season and I can honestly say that while their is probably going to be a 3rd season, ending it where it did isn't the worst way to go out. Bare minimum they'll release another OVA which I am looking forward too. RECOMMENDED - 7.5/10 (WATCH SEASON 1 & THIS) As we do every season, we're here to see what the heck I watched, maybe some of my thoughts and obviously a little or maybe a lot of explanation about the show. You all know how it rolls so let's kick things off with my first and my favourite anime of the season: OSHI NO KO I heard a lot of great things about this manga from Joey "The Anime Man" quite awhile ago and heard it was getting an anime adaptation, so I was expecting big things with his high praise. I was NOT disappointed. It hit hard from Episode 1 onwards, the first episode was even an hour long to flesh things out for the rest of the show. I DON'T want to spoil too much about that particular episode so that's all I shall say. So the premise is that a doctor in a remote clinic is charged with taking care of an big time pregnant idol named Ai Hoshino. He's an idol he knew because a girl that was a terminal cancer patient of his named Sarina was a massive fan and was so infectious that he became a fan as well. After Sarina passed away he took it upon himself to make sure to take EXTRA good care of Ai, it's all going amazing until a crazed fan of Ai's shows up at the hospital and when chasing him down he kills our doc. Surprise, surprise, he is reincarnated as the son of Ai named Aquamarine Hoshino (Aqua) and he is born with a paternal twin sister Ruby Hoshino. Aqua has kept all his previous memories as well as his ability to speak fluently from toddler onwards, basically an adult being a child, and he comes to find out that Ruby is EXACTLY the same as him a reincarnated girl that remembers everything about her past and can talk off the hop. WHAT THEY DON'T KNOW about each other is, well I can't spoil it but you all are smart and might figure it out on your own. Anyways, both Aqua and Ruby are introduced to the entertainment industry as children and growing up in it causes each to fall into a path like Ai with Aqua being an incredibly reluctant actor and Ruby wanting to be an idol like mom. Some of the other main players we see are a girl name Kana who was in a movie with Aqua as a child and doesn't meet him again until high school then on set of a REALLY BAD show the two have together and she eventually moves onto idol business with Ruby. Then via a reality dating show we meet the other two main protagonists: Akane and Mem. Mem is a streamer girl who after the show ends tells Aqua that she always dreamed of becoming an idol and he invites her to join Ruby and Kana (a huge funny moment happens with this too). Akane is one of the top actors in the country and part of a major acting company who has something happen on the reality show and is bullied online relentlessly for it to the point she attempts to commit suicide until Aqua rescues her, then they become romantically linked "sort of". One thing off-topic (sort of) from the show is about Akane's voice actor being bullied relentlessly herself in real life for her portrayal of Akane now whether it was Manaka Iwami, Kristen McGuire, or both IT DOESN'T MATTER. Bullying is bullying, harassment is harassment, but the biggest kicker is that shows that these "fans" (I don't consider them that hence the quotes) CLEARLY didn't get the message behind those three episodes of the show, bullying people just because they entertain and are public figures is disgusting and it hurts them, even if you think it doesn't, or if your review is great but you diss and spit on the VA's portrayal with vitriol it's not necessary. I can only speak to Manaka Iwami's portrayal myself because I'm not a dub person but I thought that Akane was a great character, with her plain jane girl being portrayed so well, and also when she has this one neat moment on the show it's just perfect we also find out she has a nice rivalry with Kana. Okay, tangent over, don't bully, and don't call yourself an Oshi No Ko fan if you do. That being said there's not a lot I want to add because I feel like I already let more slip then I wanted to and I just want people to watch it. It's definitely one of those shows I'm so thankful I subscribe to HIDIVE now. This sounds like a plug honestly but between Call of the Night, Emminence In Shadow, and Oshi No Ko that HIDIVE has been an abolute gem for anime lately. Last thing I want to add before our next show of the season is that the main theme of the show Idol by YOASOBI is an absolute BANGER like one of the best anime themes ever, and I'm not joking. Everytime I watch the opening, listen to the song with it, it gives the gooseybumps. Biggest thing is the song reached #1 on the Worldwide Billboard charts and is the first song made for an anime to ever do that, think about it that it was the #1 song in the WORLD for awhile. Basically watch Oshi No Ko, it's great, any anime that can get me to buy the manga right away is worth it. HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 11/10 KONOSUBA: AN EXPLOSION ON THIS WONDERFUL WORLD When I heard that there was a new season of Konosuba I was excited, that was before I found out it was going to be a Konosuba side story staring my favourite character Megumin. Exploring her life before joining Kazuma, Aqua, and Darkness in the first season of Konosuba. We get to find out just WHY Megumin was just absolutely persistent in learning and putting all her skill points into Explosion magic because using it in the previous series left her one shot drained from lack of mana. We get to see more of her school and family, all of which we are introduced to in the Konosuba movie where the gang goes to the Crimson Demon village Megumin and Yunyun are from. Which also another thing we get to learn, we see why Yunyun calls herself Megumin's "rival" in Konosuba and just what exactly between those two before they became adventurers. We also the start of Megumin's adventurer career and just what pushed her to Kazuma's group as many said she was a "useless" Arch-Wizard. What I have to say about it first off is you need to watch Konosuba and the movie first even though it is just a side story, which I mean you already should have anyways because it is an amazing anime but just in case, it's necessary. Why do I say that, well there are so many references to things that happened in those seasons and movie that you won't understand what is happening or why it's funny, like it's still funny but lacking context takes a lot away from it. An Explosion On This Wonderful World was just such a great and funny show to watch, like I said it is my favourite character in the Konosuba series getting her backstory flushed out even more and that's awesome. We also got some more funny Komekko moments who became a hilarious gem of a character starting in the movie the moment we meet her. One crazy thing is we also find out just how important Chomusuke is, she was only randomly introduced as "this is Chomusuke we're keeping her" in the second season which I was like okay cool but now it's DANG that's cool. It's incredibly animated, like the colour and detail are spectacular, the way comedic poses are drawn to be deliberately over/under animated to get the level of absurdity to the situation across is fantastic. The voice acting is also great, each voice actor brings such a unique flare to them, it makes every Crimson Demon actually seem different and unique from another, and Rie Takahashi pulled out another AWESOME performance as Megumin making her just as ridiculous but serious as usual. HIGH RECOMMEND (KONOSUBA NEEDED) - 10/10 I GOT A CHEAT SKILL IN ANOTHER WORLD AND BECAME UNRIVALED IN THE REAL WORLD TOO This was a show that I didn't start watching at the beginning of the season, it actually happened to be something I saw in an anime clips on YouTube and one of them seemed super cool so I decided to give one episode a shot. I loved it. It's the story of a sad, lonely fat kid whose only friend is his grandfather, after dying he receives his grandfathers house, which is argued over with his family who despise him and he vows to treat others nicely unlike he's treated. When our main protag, Yuuya Tenjo, puts his belief into practice by saving a girl from guys trying to pick her up he gets mercilessly beaten by them. That night after going home, punching his mirror, he finds something weird about his house. There a hidden room where he thought was just trinkets, but there was a door to another world in it, which has a beautiful house, with a beautiful garden in this other world that is surrounded by an evil forest. There is a magic barrier that saves Yuuya from an attack from a massive Ogre, he stabs it with a large weapon he finds in his "status menu" and kills it, receiving XP and items from it Yuuya realizes it's basically an RPG. A weird thing happens that night when he goes home, his body is absolutely changed in the real world to match the skills he has learned in the other world, so he wakes up a very handsome and jacked dude. At school he is being bullied by his brother and sister and their delinquent friends until that same girl he saved, Kaori Houjou, shows up and offers to let him into the elite school she goes to. He decides to attend a "test day" after telling the head of the academy, Kaori's father, how worried he was at not being smart or good enough to attend such a prestigious school; and when he does he realizes how people are nice to him and want to be friends with him for just his attitude. He decides to attend the school with Kaori and all the new (and first ever) friends he's had. Yuuya eventually lives a double life by killing monsters and training in the other world and being a student and friend in the other. One day while training in the other world, he saves a girl from monsters, after 90% of her guards are killed and this girl happens to be the princess of the kingdom where Yuuya's home seems to be. She clings to Yuuya as someone she is going to marry from the moment she wakes up safe in his home with her other knights there and safe, which drives her knight captain to the brink of insanity having their princess just randomly propose marriage. Now going forward Yuuya has fun school and other real world adventures with all the new friends he's made, which to him is an absolute thrill considering what a torture his life was before; on top of that, he meets new people and doesn't create a life but has his own unique adventures in the "other world" as well. I'm not going to say what happens each episode but they're all great. The show also has an animation style that seemed, maybe unique isn't the right word or maybe it is, it's different than normal anime in the way it's coloured and the characters seem to stand out more. The only thing I dislike is not all the fight scenes but I'd say around 85% of them are done in a really, really half-assed CGI; I don't mind CGI in anime if you've ever seen the Fate series you'll understand, but this show it having that. Overall though, I really liked it and hope more comes (now that I've said that it never will just like Grand Blue Dreaming). HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.75/10 DEMON SLAYER: THE SWORDSMITH VILLAGE ARC One of those highly anticipated shows of the season because of course it's the newest season of the "next gen big series" in Shonen Jump and that of course is Demon Slayer. Specifically this time around, the Swordsmith Village Arc. After the grueling fight against Gyutaro & Daki in the Entertainment District, Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke are laid out and nearly dead for months. Upon finally waking up Tanjiro is greeted by Kanao who was deathly afraid for his health but seeing him active again makes her cry. Zenitsu has gone on a mission after recovering and despite showing up there Inosuke is also being sent on a mission, leaving a hurt Tanjiro without a mission and a sword.. Which means that he's sent to the Swordsmith Village to retrieve a sword for himself since he hasn't heard back from Mr. Kanoroji who makes his swords; he is escorted by a lower Demon Slayer to the Swordsmith Village blindfolded and nose plugged so that he is unable to find his way back as the village is kept a hidden secret to all people but a few. This is all in order to prevent demons from finding the place as making the nichirin swords is the only blade able to kill demons so it's vital to demon slayers. We see a really cool gathering of the Upper Moon demons and the tension between some of them and their cool designs finally made in anime form since they find out Gyutaro & Daki died, and after finding the location of the Swordsmith Village, Gyokko (Upper Moon 5) and Hantengu (Upper Moon 4) to take care of things. While in the village Tanjiro and Nezuko encounter: Tokito Muichiro (Mist Hashira), Mitsuri Kanroji (Love Hashira), and Genya Shinazugawa (graduated with Tanjiro and is the younger brother of the Wind Hashira). We don't see a whole lot of just "chill" episodes, everything is packed with action having these Demon Slayers and Nezuko face off against two Upper Moons, while trying to defend the village and each other. Like super action packed. We also learn a little about Muichiro's past and Tanjiro finds out a little bit more about past and the Sun Breathing he's able to wield. Fantastic season, looking forward to the next season which I don't remember what arc it is I believe there's one more arc before the Infinity Castle arc. The only problem I have with the season is the same problem everyone had with it, the CGI fish demons are atrociously done like, such blatantly half-assed work. The reason it's such a big problem considering so many CGI anime scenes are bad it's that ufotable is the studio that makes this show, they are the kings of CGI anime moments like I mentioned the Fate series and more, they just let people down, considering the rest of the CG in the entire anime including this arc still is so well done. Fun watch though. HIGH RECOMMEND - 9/10 (LOSES A POINT FOR UFOTABLE DISAPPOINTMENT) IN ANOTHER WORLD WITH MY SMARTPHONE: S2 I loved the first season of In Another World With My Smartphone, I knew it was a light novel though so I even though I knew it wasn't done because the last scene of the first season was talking about Touya's 9 wives. Since it was a light novel I wasn't interested in reading, honestly, it takes a lot to get me to read the light novel of a series the only one I can think of is Bleach because it's my favourite. The first season came out in 2017 so I kind of figured it was never getting another season, to my surprise I was pleasantly incorrect. THAT BEING SAID. This season wasn't so much disappointing so much so that I don't feel like anything happened to progress the story. Touya basically meets and becomes engaged to the other wives in his harem, he becomes a king of his own country so he can marry two princesses, then finds the rest of the Babylon islands to build Gundams essentially to fight against the enemy they introduced in S1 "the Phrase". That's kind of it. If there's not another season for another 6 years then I feel like this one, though fun, was kinda pointless. That's just the thing though, even though it was not what I wanted after 6 years it was still FUN and that's the most important thing; if it's not fun it's not worth it. I liked some of the cool fights they had in the season, I like the setup for more, but most importantly and I think this is what saves this season, the characters/wives: Lucia, Hildegard, and Sakura. From the art design, to their personality, to everything about them they help make the show. Also, flushing out more on the characters like: Elze, Linze, Yumina, Yae, and Leen was very interesting as well. One thing I did also enjoy was that as they got more islands and started to construct better weapons for the girls, they became less of a "Touya is OP and does everything" to actually fighting and killing on their own; so much so that they even joke about it when Touya is about to kill stuff and the girls charge in and take everything out before he can get a shot off or a slash in. This season seemed to be more about building up characters then progressing the story really, I also don't want to say "harem building" either but you could see it that way, but there was so much more to HOW each one joined then it just HAPPENS. I'm gonna say if you watched the first then watch this, if not, watch both seasons that is if you like OP protagonists who've been isekai'd and get a harem (side note: it's not in a Kirito way). RECOMMENDED - 7/10 SUMMONED INTO ANOTHER WORLD FOR A SECOND TIME So you get summoned into a world different than yours as a hero to be savior of the realm sort of deal, after the war, your friend that also got summoned goes nuts and you defeat him sending you but not him back home but with different looks, then flash-forward 5 years and bam the same world summons you again to stop a war. Such is this story in a nutshell. Though our hero, Setsu, doesn't let any of his class know, except his childhood friend, about his past. All Setsu's former friends come to realize he's back despite his different appearance, whether it is former party from the Kingdom or the Demon Queen, Animal King, the Water Goddess, etc. probably due to his immense power and aura not having changed. Setsu slowly goes the continents to prevent a war between humans and demons who had a truce after the last time he was summoned. They come to discover it is neither humans or demons provoking each other it was Touma, a former hero summoned with Setsu, and his followers all of which have some crazy power. Some of the adventures Setsu has on each continent are so cool, like a fight he has on the Beastman continent for "love" (it's not actual love it's one-sided); there's also meeting Levia for the first time and she's like a Goddess of the Sea, huge dragon, but can also turn into this badass chick to fight on ground with Setsu. I think that the characters and the personalities that develop when you watch them are what really makes this show, like it could come across as just another bland isekai show (and some might see it that way) but I find things like this make it stand out. The design of these characters should also be included in that because there's so many of them that are maybe not "unique" but very good looking and I really like them; particularly the demon and beastmen. I think if you like isekai shows and want a new one then give this a shot it was a fun run, I am not sure if there's gonna be more but who knows right ?? RECOMMENDED - 6.5/10 A little late for this roundup so my apologies folks, considering we're already like 6 episodes into Spring 2023's season right now. But it was an incredibly fun and interesting set of shows during Winter 2023, unfortunately some of them got put on hiatus so they aren't complete, but for the most part what I watched was great and fun. So let's kick things off with our first show................... TOMO-CHAN IS A GIRL! This is an anime I think I remember seeing the preview trailer for like a year ago and it seemed super interesting. Mainly because I enjoy a good rom-com and this one had a good premise to me. A girl named Tomo is in love with her childhood best friend, Jun, but he only sees her as a guy-type friend; the reason being that Tomo has been a tomboy her entire life in fact Jun didn't even know she was a girl until they were in middle school together. Secretly though, Jun ignored Tomo for a year because not realizing she was a girl until middle school he did quickly develop feelings for her in middle school as she was essentially his perfect match. Tomo’s best friend (and Jun’s friend) Mizuzu has always told Tomo that she needs to act more girly in order to attract Jun; in the back of her mind though, Mizuzu truly feels like Tomo probably doesn’t need to change anything for Jun. She’s in a complicated situation herself because she feels almost as if she’ll lose a friend, maybe two, if they’re together and she’s not actively trying to sabotage that but they could get together much quicker if she pushed properly. I believe in her case, Carol coming along to be a newer friend addition to the group provide her with the stability to push Jun and Tomo forwards. But yes, Tomo goes out of her way several times to be more girly: trying on newer more feminine clothes when she hangs out with Jun, trying to not wear shorts under her skirt, trying to do less masculine things. However there are still times she gets into fist fights with other guys, like when she protects a couple female classmates who go onto develop “weird feelings” in their mind because Tomo ends up coming across as both another girl to them but also as a kind of prince charming. The “end of the series” which isn’t over yet in manga form, but they ended this season in a way that doesn’t necessarily require a season 2 which is nice. It all wraps up in a great set of episodes. HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.5/10 DON'T TOY WITH ME MISS NAGATORO 2ND ATTACK Nagatoro and her Senpai are back in the “2nd Attack” of the series. While it takes awhile for it to actually show, throughout this entire season they very much try to show that Senpai is into Nagatoro and vice versa. Which is something that I like for sure, as funny as it was in the first season, you knew this was going to be what happened going forward and I like that rather than mess around it was clear from the get go. It is still awesomely funny like the first season and the moment to moment interactions between the two are great, still very funny and unique, a little more flirty this time though. As are interactions with her friend group of Gamo, Yoshi, and Sakura once again (who are VERY AWARE how much each one likes the other). We get introduced to “Anetoro” aka Nagatoro’s older sister, who probably has a name in the manga but I haven’t read it in a bit, and she as big of a shit disturber as her little sister. We also meet Senpai’s friends who are surprised that “he’s becoming so popular” considering he’s hanging out with these very popular younger girls. The thing about this show is that it’s all well and good to go, “oh this happened and this happened” but honestly, it is way better to watch it because it’s way more funny to just get caught off guard by the jokes. The “2nd Attack” was just as good but better in places than the original season and I’m looking forward to more seasons as the manga progresses further. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 I also normally don't include the ending song videos but this one is really good so I did decide to include it. THE REINCARNATION OF THE STRONGEST EXORCIST IN ANOTHER WORLD The strongest exorcist of feudal Japan (sorry I don’t know what era) is killed by his apprentice, before dying he uses all his last bit of strength to create a reincarnation charm. He is reborn as Seika Lamprogue, who was left on a nobles doorstep so he accepts him as his son but lies and says it was that of a mistresses child. Thing is, he is born magicless in a world of magic, that makes him incredibly defective and especially as the son of a noble; basically the only way his father could come out okay is by having his son join the army. Seika however, spends all his hours making the charms he used as an exorcist, this allows him to conduct the same kind of “magic” he was able to do in his past life: summon yokai and ayakashi, summon elements based on their compounds, do all sorts of other weird things. Using this kind of “magic” he gets his father to let him join the Magic Academy with his servant Yifa, a descendant of elves, who can control spirit magic. It’s here they meet and eventually befriend the next hero, Amyu, who spends her entire entrance ceremony slaying demons (while Seika fights the demon boss unbeknownst to her). Some twists and turns, eventually the crew of three becomes a crew of four when a young girl pretending to be the hero named Mabel joins them. They have several interesting fantasy stories: tournaments, dragons, curses, meeting a Holy Princess and her knights (who kidnap Amyu). Near the end from both the “final boss” and from this Holy Princess we find out who Seika really is and what his relationship with Amyu truly means. We are also told what is going to happen to him in the future if he maintains his current life path, basically what he fears will come to pass, he will die protecting someone no matter how hard he tries to avoid that fate. RECOMMEND - 7/10 IN/SPECTRE 2 Time to continue on the mystery and problem solving issues for all things supernatural with The Goddess of Wisdom, Kotoko Iwanaga, and her boyfriend the half-kudan/mermaid & human, Kurou Sakuragawa. I have to say that I prefer the little 3 episode bursts of stories and mysteries rather than 2 stories last time; granted one of the old ones was focused on the series antagonist Rikka and this time she plays a very small background role sort of bidding her time. We have a story about a Yuki-ona and her beau whose life she saves and then prevents him being accused of murder. We have a story about a man who asked a yokai to kill his wife so their company and their family could thrive and thought that’s what happened but it isn’t. We have a story were a cursed doll is terrorizing a small town and the only person that knows is an old lady and her “pet yokai cat”. We even have a side Rikki story and some other small ones too. I like these short bursts of mysteries it adds a lot to the show, makes things vary up and interesting. Like usual I think for me the biggest thing that shines through with In/Spectre is the characters that are used whether it’s our main ones or different yokai they are all fantastic as are the stories they are in. Since it’s a Crunchyroll Exclusive I know there will be more and that’s great to hear. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 8.5/10 CHILLIN' IN MY 30'S AFTER GETTING FIRED FROM THE DEMON KING'S ARMY I personally understand the feeling of just trying to chill in your 30’s like our main bro Dariel in this show. Chillin’ in your 30’s is a rough deal sometimes, however, the reason he’s trying to do that is he is kicked out of the Demon Lord’s army. He is a demon that can’t use magic, so the top of the Four Demon Generals wants him gone (it’s mainly because he was outshone by Dariel his whole life). That leads us to our guy meeting Malika in the woods, after saving her, she changes his life forever. She takes him to her village, introduces him to her father as head of the guild so he can become an adventurer as a new job; by doing this Dariel realizes he can use human abilities and was actually a human the whole time and never a demon. Being between both worlds Dariel, the entire series, tries his best when it comes to disputes or issues between humans and demons to settle it with diplomacy. It’s why when he gets married to Malika, he takes her fathers job as village chief, and no matter what happens whether it’s a Demon General that finds them or the former hero fighting another Demon General, Dariel always does his best to solve things with diplomacy. It was a fun show to watch for what it was, very chill, enjoyable, and I just enjoyed everything about it; I think if an anime can be fun in just 12 or 13 episodes AND finish a fun story that is PERFECT. RECOMMENDED - 7.5/10 NINGEN FUSHIN: ADVENTURERS WHO DON'T BELIEVE IN HUMANITY WILL SAVE THE WORLD What happens when adventurers who legitimately all have great reasons to hate the world, to not trust anyone and anything around them, are the ones in charge of and eventually go on to save the world from destruction? Well that’s what we’ve got this time around, imagine not trusting anyone and with good reason: having your party dump you for no reason, being accused of heinous things you didn’t do, being betrayed by your fiancée, being betrayed by your party. All of these are valid reasons to never put faith in others again but in a funny way, our heroes: Nick, Zem, Karan, and Tiana form the party Survivors because they do what they can to survive and while they don’t fully trust one another they are working for the benefit of each other. They all agree to one rule, we party together and dungeon together, split the earnings but no one questions each others hobbies; in the end that becomes a load of nonsense because they all learn to work together, trust each other, spend time together and become a true party. Like I said, they become adventurers that save the world in the end. Their actual adventures during the show are all pretty unique but nothing I’d say that’s overly special, apart from a match that Nick has with a beastman, to settle a dispute the guild has it where one party member solves math problems and that dictates who can hit who and it was pretty funny/unique. IT'S A FUN WATCH ONCE - 6.5/10 THE MISFIT OF DEMON KING ACADEMY 2 The thing about this show is I was excited to see it continue with what I assume is whatever is left of the manga (or light novel) because the author of the book passed away last year. I figured that we’d see up to what she did in this season and then that’d be it unless she left behind her planned notes so that someone could continue both works; however, that doesn’t look like it happened. In fact, we paused Season 2 after Episode 6 for I’m not sure what reason. This season looks so far to be Anos and the crew finding the Spirit King, trying to figure out things with Gods, and eventually fighting the TRUE Avos Dilhavia (not the one that Lay/Kanon was pretending to be). This poster unfortunately shows who it is but that is what the shows poster is; anyways, finding that out it made me super pumped to see what happens next. Realistically, I know that Anos and the crew will encounter a massive hardship but find a way to overcome it, I just wish that it finished off this season. I RECOMMEND THE SERIES BUT WAIT ON THIS UNTIL IT'S DONE NIER AUTOMATA: VER1.1a Another show that was paused after 4 episodes, there is more now and it’s still not done but I have to say this about the show. It is absolutely beautiful. If you want the story of Nier: Automata, particularly a more expanded version, or tried the game and the gameplay isn’t your thing then this show is definitely for you. I stopped watching after the pause, but I know there’s more now so I am going to return and finish it, however even a few episodes in and you’re hooked whether you already liked Nier like me or even if you don’t. Fantastic everything and I’m looking forward to the rest. JUST FROM WHAT I'VE SEEN - 9/10 BLEACH IT. IS. ABSOLUTELY. EVERYTHING. I. COULD. HAVE. ASKED. FOR. Honestly, if that's all I put about what we've seen of the 1000 Year Blood War Arc in the return of Bleach, then that's my simplest review possible. It's dark, it's violent, it has showcased everything great about the arc so far, the fights in it have been masterful. I don't want to say anything more. Bleach is amazing and deserves the most praise of any anime this year and that's not just bias; legitimately it's a flawless show and the 2nd cour can only be better with better fights and better reveals of greatness. IT'S THE BEST. HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 12/10 CYBERPUNK 2077: EDGERUNNERS This is I believe what saved Cyberpunk 2077 as a franchise and while some might say how can an anime save a game? Isn’t it the developers that save a game? Well, when Cyberpunk 2077 was released it was critically and user slammed for in many cases being a broken mess and not at all what you’d expect from a great studio like CDProjektRed. The devs tried their hardest to remedy that over time but it was still just always, “oh Cyberpunk you should hold off on buying that, it’s still broken, etc.” Then Netflix aired Cyberpunk 2077: Edgerunners, an anime that takes place before the story of V and Johnny Silverhand in the game, and people LOVED it. It follows the story of a young David Martinez, a kid enrolled at an expensive Arasaka Academy, who watches his mother die and somehow stumbles into a Sandevistan spinal piece. It’s a highly sought after piece of cyberwear, after installing it he finds how useful it is with him slowing down time while using it and gets involved with Lucy, Rebecca, Maine, and a bunch of other “Edgerunners” who take jobs and make lots of money doing it. After something awful happens, David becomes the leader but this also leads him to install more and more cyberwear and thus increasing his chances of cyberpsychosis. FROM HERE, I can’t say a gawd damn thing, cuz everything after spoils stuff; even things I’ve already said might be too much. The most important thing about Edgerunners is this. It spiked the game sales, people started to notice the devs hard work in fixing the game, the devs made sure to show people how much Edgerunners meant to them by tossing stuff from the show into the game. You can get a David Martinez drink at the Afterlife bar, drinks are only named after people who become legends in Night City, you can find all the Edgerunners gear (guns, clothes, etc), and people who associated with them before can have different dialogue if you do certain things now. Also people now try to make cyber builds like Lucy and Sandevistan builds for melee like David and they are super cool. It led to the devs receiving a Steam award for their continuing efforts to improve and update the game. So for the awesome visuals, awesome story, awesome characters, awesome everything, and the fact that it saved what I thought was a great game just boosts Edgerunners high for me. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 (YOU DON'T NEED TO PLAY THE GAME EITHER.....YET) CHAINSAW MAN What was supposed to be the biggest hit of the season, the anime debut of the much beloved new shonen series Chainsaw Man finally dropped. To me, having never read the manga but heard a lot of really great things about it, I was excited to see it. Then we’re first introduced to Denji and I was like, hmm, this guy is going to be one of those clowish main characters isn’t he; I was definitely right, he was kind of a goof before merging with his devil dog Pochita and still was when he became the Chainsaw devil. With the ability to grow chainsaws from his wrists and head. Then we have the straight man in Aki, a man who is absolutely no nonsense Devil Hunter, whose only goal in life is to kill the Gun Devil that destroyed his family. And finally rounding off the trio of what we could say is the “main crew” is Power, a fiend (a human slightly mixed with a devil but not the same way Denji is), she is the Blood Devil and can control and manipulate blood turning it into things like weapons. We have side characters, who are still important, like Kobeni and Himeno, and finally the boss of the Special Squad of misfits in the Devil Hunters of Tokyo, Makima. Makima is someone who you aren’t quite sure what to make of, she lifted Denji out of poverty sure, but was it because he was a unique devil when she found him? Sure she seems to care about her team but she has bosses that seem like unsavory people and she agrees with their philosophy and has told them she would put Denji down if need be. She has some kind of twisted contract with incredibly powerful devils in comparison to say Aki’s deal with the Fox Devil and Curse Devil and Himeno’s with the Ghost Devil. Though she seems to have good intentions and is the head of a squad of misfit devil hunters. I personally know a lot more about Makima then I shall say, just like I know a lot more about Denji, Aki, Power, Kobeni, and everyone then I’ll say because though I haven’t read the manga I’ve heard about it. Saying too much about the awesome fights and the cool devils you see and interesting scenarios, kind of ruins it if I say all sorts of nonsense. My only gripe is SOMETIMES the animation throws me off, like there are certain angles they use, or certain uses of 3D that throw me off; other then that it’s been great. HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.5/10 SPY X FAMILY - PART 2 We return to Ostania and the adventures of the Forger family, Loid, Yor, Anya, and Bond. Well okay, the adventures of Twilight the spy, the Thorn Princess assassin, the ESP child, and the future predicting dog. The continuation of Operation Strix, the plan to keep West and East from breaking into a war, a war that could easily be started by Donovan Desmond a war happy member of the Ostanian government. The idea is for Twilight to get a fake family, have the child infiltrate the school Desmond’s child goes to, become an Imperial Scholar so that he can meet Desmond and deal with the issue. Well needless to say, Anya isn’t exactly “Imperial Scholar material”; she’s dumb as a rock. In fact, the only reason she was the first person in the school to get a Stella towards becoming a scholar is because she saved a drowning child. Extracurriculars can lead to them as well. Twilight can obviously see things not going as well as he'd hoped especially with Anya’s test scores and school results but he’s determined to make it work. This season we see him, Anya, and Bond stop a terrorist plot to ignite the East vs West war. We see the introduction of Nightfall, the female version of Twilight, who absolutely loves him and feels that she should’ve been his wife for Operation Strix. There is even a slight showdown between her and Yor, one that leaves Yor questioning if she’s the right woman for Loid; which he absolutely says she is mainly in order to continue the façade and fool the neighbours, school, and more that they are a normal couple. The only other eventful things this season are Twilight and Nightfall have an underground competitive tennis tournament to try and capture some information from a painting and MOST IMPORTANTLY, Donovon Desmond shows up to school and Twilight finally gets a chance to meet him. We shall see what happens next in the lives of the Forgers. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 8.5/10 UZAKI-CHAN WANTS TO HANG OUT - SEASON 2 We return to the show with one of the most annoying kouhai characters ever, Hana Uzaki, and her adventures with her constantly annoyed senpai Shinichi Sakurai. This time around though we get a “wow” moment from the very start of the season. We get what seems like a flash forward to the end of the season where Sakurai ends up on top of Uzaki in what seems like a racy situation in his apartment. All of this gets explained as the season rolls along and what a fun season this was. It actually focused more on Hana’s entire family getting involved in the show which was great. We got to see more of Hana’s mom, Tsuki, and her brother, Kiri, and are finally introduced to her younger sister, Yanagi, and her dad Fujio. I honestly think that this is what made the season, sure we still had interactions between our regular cast but having the Uzaki family interacting with Sakurai this much was hilarious. Sakurai continued his cooking lessons with Hana’s mom, who is still under the false impression that he is lusting after her as well as Hana, said that he could call her Tsuki and that infuriates Hana as he still won’t call her by her name but will call her mom by her first name. Sakurai to avoid all of the heavy romantic situations that he and Hana have been put in decides to start going to the gym to get her out of his head; unfortunately for Sakurai, Hana’s father Fujio is the head trainer there and neither of them find out about each other. You know they don’t know who one another is because he is blabbing about how Hana is in love with her college senpai, asking Sakurai how he would handle something like that, and he responds in such a pure and sweet way. Kiri’s only interaction with Sakurai is when he is absolutely shown up at the pool by him in both swimming and in “size” *hint**hint*. Finally, Yanagi is one of the best new characters because she sees exactly what a child her sister is being even though she’s in college and Yanagi is middle school. So she goes out of her way to go to the coffee shop to see Sakurai, prods Hana into acting on her feelings by teasing him into maybe hanging out with her instead of Hana, basically does all she can to give both her sister and Sakurai the push they need. This also is very appreciated by the “coffee crew” as they don’t want to do more than they already have for a bit. We finally meet the Sakurai family as well, the father that Shinichi despises actually gives him good advice; “unless you want rumours spread about that girl spending all that alone time at your place, you better take responsibility and take the initiative to ask her out properly.” This all culminates in Sakurai spending Christmas Eve at the Uzaki household. Where Fujio finds out that the male senpai that Hana spends all her time with is Sakurai, who he’s been blabbing all these things about her too, to prevent her finding out he calls a truce where he’ll stop being mad that a “boy is with Hana” just don’t say anything to her. They proceed to get him drunk and he spills the beans, not fully, that he actually does like her to her entire family; which he also admits during the first shrine visit on New Years though only in his head. The adventures of Uzaki and Sakurai will continue for sure. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9.5/10 MORE THAN A MARRIED COUPLE, BUT NOT LOVERS In what seems like an incredibly, incredibly odd high school assignment imagine having to get together in a male and female pair and spend a year together acting as a married couple. That includes any and all things that married couples do (except for sexual activities as they provide separate rooms for the boy and girl in the dorms). Enter Akari Watanabe and Jirou Yakuin. Two people who couldn’t be further apart in terms of their lifestyle, Akari being a gyaru with the typical over bubbly popular girl attitude and the elite kind of life and Jirou being a simple guy who enjoys playing games and talking to his one friend. The only two things they share are they are both in love with someone which as far as they know is one sided; the other thing is that they are paired together as a married couple for this assignment. Akari isn’t pleased because she wanted to paired with the guy she liked, Minami, and Jirou wanted to be paired with the girl he liked Shiori. So the start isn’t exactly happy for either of them. BUT that changes in several different ways over the shows 12 episodes, first it’s at a glacial pace but then Jirou makes moves unintentionally that shows he does care about Akari and she does too. Basically, they are both in love with each other but Jirou doesn’t think so at all and Akari finally admits it to Minami, her crush of all people, that she does like Jirou. It’s a great rom-com and honestly, I think that Jirou and Akari have a much better chemistry with each other than either of the characters do with the people they like or liked. Besides the characters themselves who are funny, serious, just generally great; the art style and vibrant colour use is amazing. There’s always a good romance show every season and I’d say this is one to not miss out on. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10 I'M THE VILLAINESS, SO I'M TAMING THE FINAL BOSS The newest entrant into the what I'm calling the "villainess is actually nice but reincarnated into an otome game" genre. Granted there's only two of those shows right now (as far as I know): My Next Life As A Villainess and now this I'm The Villainess, So I'm Taming The Final Boss. But that new category of shows is incredibly fun to watch. What makes the show in this case is our heroine/villainess, Aileen Lauren d'Autriche, and once she finds out who she is and that she's stuck in the otome game she used to play she decides to avert her fate and play the game in a different way than it can be played so to speak. In the game there's no way to seduce the Demon Lord, who is the elder brother of Cedric, the current Crown Prince she was engaged to; however that's her plan, to seduce and marry the Demon Lord Claude (former Crown Prince). She struggles and struggles to convince Claude that she has feelings for him, but upon her constant insistence, her constantly helping small demons with problems, and her need to help all those around her Claude eventually falls for her. The whole story goes through TWO games of that otome game, one where there is surprisingly another girl who was reincarnated, who's trying to play the "good girl" but is actually the evil one. The story is too back and forth all over the place for me to offer any simple explanation other than it was very good and fun to watch. My only issue ever was because I became relatively attached to the Aileen & Claude relationship, that there was a couple episodes where some "stuff" happened that I had a hard time getting through 2 episodes of the show. I think it was a fun show to watch though. RECOMMENDED - 7/10 BEAST TAMER The story of Rein, a beast tamer who is kicked out of the hero's party, which itself is weird because usually we see people joining these kinds of parties. What the hero, Arios, and his party didn't understand is that Rein isn't an ordinary beast tamer; well, Rein thinks he is and that everything he does is normal but every character in the show over and over tells him he's not normal. Being not normal all starts when he meets, helps, and tames one of the Ultimate Species, a Cat Spirit named Kanade; no beast tamer has ever or should ever be able to tame an Ultimate Species. That was just one though. Rein goes on to tame three more Ultimate Species: Tania (a Dragonoid), Runa & Sora (both Fairies), and lastly Nina (a demigod). He ends up changing the lives of all of these girls because he's such a great person; they also change him too because his self-confidence was in tatters after he was kicked out of the hero's party. The girls help him understand that just as he is, he's important, he's a great adventurer and he's the greatest beast tamer ever. The other people who think Rein is awesome is the adventurers guild and the entire city of Horizon where they live. He makes sure that he keeps the people of that city safe, he doesn't want the city destroyed and people killed like his home village. So each girl has like a mini-story as to how he has them join, however the main story revolves around Rein, Arios, and a few other people. I'd ruin too much of the story but needless to say if you watch the video below you'll get an idea of what I mean when I say Arios becomes more of a problem then helpful as a hero. I thought the show was super fun and enjoyed it a lot. RECOMMENDED - 7/10 AKIBA MAID WAR One of the absolutely most gongshow ideas I've ever seen. That's the definition of Akiba Maid Wars. It all starts with a sombre moment of two maids heading into their cafe in 1985, one old and one young, then another maid timidly walking up and killing the older maid before running away scared. All these years later that same maid, Ranko, returns to work at the Oinky Doink Maid Cafe as a new maid along with Natsumi, our main maid, a sparkly and bright eyed girl who loves maids and can't wait to be one. What Natsumi doesn't realize, is that being a maid in Akiba is actually quite a dangerous job, it's something Ranko understands though so when the manager and other maids at the cafe ask her to deliver a letter to another cafe she accompanies her. That is when violence insues, where Ranko single-handedly wipes out the entire cafe to both protect Natsumi and to do her job as a maid in Akiba; like I said, being an Akiba maid is not what Natsumi expected, not just all frills and laughs but death and violence. What we see from that point forward is the Oinky Doink Cafe doing various things to try and make money in order to provide late sweets money for the conglomerate they work for, Creatureland. They gamble and almost get sold into slavery, they gain money by killing people from another cafe, they do all sorts of crazy shit to try and make money back for the company. It's while trying to get this money we witness the return of the Crimson Supernova a maid getting out of prison; who is of the same era as Ranko and has the same attitude towards violence as her just is a little more psychotic. Deaths of friends, deaths of lovers, deaths of so many more people all lead to a crazy climax in this show which the best way to explain is just pure hilarity; the concept alone is a gongshow and it's just so much better to watch it and experience the crazy. I didn't even wanna ruin it by showing this Ranko video below but it helps provide context to the crazy and honestly isn't even the funniest/craziest part in the show. HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 REINCARNATED AS A SWORD Being reincarnated in other worlds happens all the time in anime, being reincarnated as a hero, being reincarnated as a slime, being reincarnated as an average joe. Then recently being reincarnated as inanimate objects became a thing and here we are......Reincarnated as a Sword. He doesn't have a former name, forgetting his past life, but our Intelligent Sword is able to use certain abilities like Telekinesis to fly around and doing this he collects more skills and becomes incredibly powerful; so powerful that he feels anyone that uses him will be unstoppable. Little does he know how right he is, a young girl of the Black Cat race named Fran is a slave when she finds him and uses him to stop the slavers; Fran names our sword Teacher because he provides her with skills and the help she wants to evolve her race (Black Cats don't evolve but she wants to try). From there they go on several different adventures proving that Fran, with help from her Teacher that only 2 people know about, go on crazy journies to fight demons, goblins, Blue Cats, and the worst of humanity. It's a unique isekai show and one that I suggest giving a chance. RECOMMENDED - 7.5/10 THE EMINENCE IN SHADOW Another isekai show but one that I absolutely LOVE this season of shows. The Eminence In Shadow is what happens when a kid thinks that isekai situations are real; he trains his body via martial arts and other methods to be the absolute pinnacle it can be but it's still not enough for him, so magic is all he wants, and kills himself to try and isekai to a world with magic. Well he gets exactly what he wants and is reincarnated into a world with magic and it doesn't take him that long to master its use. By the name of Cid Kagenou in his regular life but "Shadow" in his vigilante life he goes about creating his own unique spells and making a suit of slime that is able to do all sorts of crazy things. The book he read in his old world about magic gave the idea that you could become the "Eminence in Shadow" if you learn magic a certain way, even though he knows magic he figures there's no way he'll ever become that and uses his powers to take out villains regardless. However, upon freeing several girls and telling each of them that they have hero blood and the Cult of Diablos is who was trying to hurt them; these girls along with Cid form Shadow Garden to "stop the Cult", a cult that Cid was bullshitting about but actually is a thing and that actually was part of their plan. So his life growing up and currently is essentially trying to blend in as a background character; what he doesn't know is that being the "Shadow" he's anything but a background character. From dating the Princess as Cid, to saving her as Shadow, from mistakenly getting a smart girl Sherry to love him as Cid, to killing her evil "father" as Shadow, to sacrificing his life for the student council president as Cid, to saving her life as Shadow, leading to her loving Cid, to just so many other things. Cid is hardly a background character, whether he likes it or not, he and Shadow Garden are the main protagonists in a big plan. The show is absolutely just a blast to watch, great characters, great action, great voice acting, great animation. It ended up also being a 2 cour show so I'll rundown what I thought of part 2 but honestly, if it's half as good as part one then it's gonna be great. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9.5/10 One thing I have to say is that when I first got into anime, I don't mean Dragonball when I was a kid but currently into it, that one of the shows that got me into it was Bleach. It was 355 episodes long and right from the beginning it hooked me, the story of a boy who gained Soul Reaper powers in order to save his family and then goes on several adventures: saving Rukia, stopping Aizen, and stopping the Fullbringers plus all the filler arcs. Just all of it was fantastic, ya some Bleach fans will argue with me and say stuff like the most common "the Bount Arc is terrible, skip it" my suggestion is don't. From beginning to end, 95% of Bleach was great and there was only a few singular episodes that were duds. The problem for me was, it ends at the Fullbringer Arc, I knew that the 1000 Year Blood War Arc existed and was going on in the manga while I was watching the show for the first time; I knew they had no plans to continue the anime and was absolutely devastated about that. It wasn't actually until recently that I found just why they didn't continue the anime, it wasn't that they didn't want to, it was that at the time they finished animating the Fullbringer Arc was when Tite Kubo was just STARTING the 1000 Year Blood War Arc. Basically, rather than do a massive filler arc of anime, not knowing when he'd conclude the manga they decided to wrap the series. It made me sad to just see it stop knowing that there was more out, but I came late to the Bleach series and thus was my punishment. Then I heard around the time of the 20th Bleach Anniversary, they were finally going to animate two things, Tite Kubo's side story Burn The Witch which is about the British Soul Society and MOST IMPORTANTLY that they would be animating the 1000 Year Blood War Arc. I was stoked, like absolutely stoked, I couldn't wait to see it especially with more modern animation. It said October and here we are with the launch being the 10th and it now the 19th, 2 episodes have aired, while I don't know if I'm going to do a week by week episode review I feel like talking about the start of the arc and the first couple episodes. Let's start off with Episode 1 Things are relatively plain and simple in Karakura Town, we see two young shinigami show up to the town being told that they need to take out the Hollows there and "don't leave everything up to the Substitute Soul Reaper". They head out to defeat Hollows and are very suddenly overwhelmed by not just one or two but at least 10 or more Hollows and it looks like they're easily about to be killed when we see this......... The slow return walk of Ichigo Kurosaki, Substitute Soul Reaper, as he arrives on the scene with Ishida, Inoue, and Chad to save these two young shinigami from a fate worse than death; being eaten by Hollows. It all culminates in the scene below and it was so great, after such a long time, finally seeing Ichigo release his Bankai again and the build around it before unloading a Getsugatensho, like I can't express as a Bleach fan how happy that made me. Seeing him do it in the trailer when that first dropped made me happy but this was totally in the moment and in the show; it was exactly what I wanted. Upon rescuing the two kid shinigami, they get them gigai's so they are able to take on a "human form" while in the Realm of the Living. Ichigo decides to go on patrol however and senses a massive spiritual energy, he comes across this person clad in white who had a partial Hollow mask. An Arrancar from Hueco Mundo, however, with Aizen gone they shouldn't be a threat anymore; but upon this stranger being called an Arrancar he seems massively insulted. Figuring for an easy Arrancar fight Ichigo engages and quickly discovers that this person has really weird powers, powers that he's only ever seen one person use and that is Ishida; which means that Ichigo immediately thought to himself wait is this guy an Arrancar with Quincy powers too, what's going on. At the same time as Ichigo is in a fight with this enemy, several hooded white figures appear in front of the Head Captain; they have come to declare war on the Soul Society, they don't say who they are with merely that Captain Yamamoto already knows doesn't he? Just as he's about to kill them, his lieutenant is smashed against a wall by giant blue light. Not quite dead but mortally wounded and he shouts to the Head Captain what these intruders can do, right at the same time Ichigo is about to do it in the World of the Living..........they can steal Bankai. Surprisingly, the enchantment and weird ability didn't seem to fully break Ichigo's Bankai, it looked like it might have however nothing happened. It is after this we are introduced to this incredibly powerful man who severed the arm of one of his subordinates without even moving or blinking. Like it is crazy to see how powerful this guy is and how much fear he strikes into the people around him. He looks awfully familiar to long term Bleach fans though. Very much the spitting image of Old Man Zangetsu, the manifestation of Ichigo's Zanpakuto. I know who he is, where this is heading and am super psyched. Now it's onto EPISODE 2. We start off with that same powerful man killing one of the soldiers who argued in his presence before praising the Arrancar who fought Ichigo as he didn't intend for him to win but just to keep him busy. Praises him then he kills him anyways, when asked about why kill that Arrancar when he did well this mysterious and clearly powerful man said that it's easy we shall just replace that one with others. They'll obey because they don't have a choice, which is when we see that it's because these former Hollows and current Arrancar only need to see that their current ruler former Espada and Aizen's replacement, Tier Hallibel, was beaten soundly and easily by this singular person. A clear show that they had no chance to take him or his army on. As long as he both held onto Hallibel and showed that he bested her so easily, the Arrancar would bow to him. Knowing that Hueco Mundo was in danger, after escaping Nel and Pesche (one of escaped to the World of the Living to find Ichigo. They told him everything that happened and hoped that Ichigo would help, which of course he agrees to. This is when Chad points out that they knew this would happen, that even though Ichigo was enemies with the Arrancar not too long ago that the kind of person he was that he'd easily and simply jump to Hueco Mundo to help them when he heard. They didn't initially think about it either but realized they he was right and that's when Urahara showed up and asks if they need a Garganta to get there and that he'd be joining them. Before heading out though......the two young shinigami are told terrible news via their soul phone; that 1st Division Lieutenant Chojiro Sasakibe was killed in an attack against the Soul Society and they were to return immediately. This baffled everyone as they knew he was an incredibly poweful shinigami, he was the lieutenant to the Head Captain, so of course he was and he was beaten easily. But the funeral would have to wait, Ichigo promised Nel, so off to Hueco Mundo they head. It is here where Nel explains the fate of the Hollows and when they see a collection being marched through the desert. Ichigo without hesitation jumps towards the fight but before he can get involved Tier Hallibel's 3 Fraccion' (her underlings): Sun-Sun, Apacci, and Mila Rose appear to get revenge for their Queen on these invaders. The mysterious person the three of them attack tells them they are powerful so they should stand down and join their glorious cause, upon their decision he easily defeats them and we see the picture below as Ichigo arrives on scene. And it is next episode where we will see the faceoff between Ichigo and this mysterious Quincy captain. Who I will say is named Quilge Opie and is not just a member of the Quincy Wandenreich but the Sternritter, the elite of elite Quncies, and is Sternritter J (as all are given a letter designation). It is going to be one hell of a battle that's all I can say and I can't wait to see it happen. One of the coolest things in the episode is the way it ends, in a mix of back and forth shots between a Soul Society Captains meeting and Hueco Mundo that Captain Miyuri Kurotsuchi says point blank that even if no one wants to 100% admit it, the ability to exterminate Hollows and the type of powers they possess that it can only be the return of the Quincy. And it is. THE NEW EPISODE RELEASES TODAY AND LIKE I SAID THE FIGHT IS GONNA BE AWESOME. ALSO THE NEW OPENING SLAPS............JUST LIKE ALL BLEACH OPENINGS DO (I SHOULD'VE JUST EXPECTED IT) HEY EVERYONE, it's that time of the year again, another anime roundup and this time it's for the Summer 2022. It was a crazy great season and every show had a lot of great moments and there were some unexpected surprises this season. It was great all around but let's kick things off with our first show. RWBY: ICE QUEENDOM Hearing that RWBY, a 3D animated serires based heavily on anime, was getting it's own anime was exciting to me. Like I was stoked because I'm a huge RWBY fan. The one thing I knew that was going to throw me off was the voices because for the first time I'd be hearing the voice actors that did the Japanese dub of the original series. Ya, a "Japanese dub", because RWBY is a show made by Rooster Teeth in Austin, Texas and it's an all English speaking cast. So, being a fan of the voices of Barbara Dunkleman (Yang), Arryn Zech (Blake), Lindsay Jones (Ruby), and Kara Eberle (Weiss) I was like hesitant to hear their Japanese counterparts but I love them. They all did an amazing job. The animation for Ice Queendom is beautiful, like the fights are amazing, the characters look great, the effects, everything is on point. So the interesting thing about this, is most people would ask what's the point of just redoing RWBY but in anime form, the show does a good job at coming close to that feel. Well, whereas it starts off with the first few episodes being exactly like the first few episodes of RWBY, at around the 3rd or 4th episode things start to change due to a mysterious Grimm called "Nightmare". It changes the entire dynamic of the series and creates alternate versions of the characters, or alternate personality quirks we see Weiss become an incredibly strict and militant person with a mix of qualities that her sister and father have. I would say she's more of "her father's daughter" and what the Schnee family would want at that point. We also see a version of Blake in the White Fang if she continued to follow Adam's lead. I don't want to go to into everything that happens because it's just so awesome and all RWBY fans should watch it, if you were waiting for the English dub it's going to start soon and that's another reason I don't want to spoil things too much. To be honest, I'm probably going to re-watch this myself for my classic voices in English even though I did enjoy the original version of Ice Queendom. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 11/10 (ESPECIALLY FOR RWBY FANS) RENT-A-GIRLFRIEND - SEASON 2 Rent-A-Girlfriend is back with its second season and this is the start of what I can say is "the best part of the series thus far" granted some of that will probably carry into Season 3 but still this is what kicks all that off. We start to see more character building behind all our main characters, Kazuya is starting to become a better character, we're seeing more from Chizuru, Sumi is coming out of her shell, Mami is becoming more revealing, and Ruka.......well she finally starts to become the dirtbag she is in the manga during this season. Kazuya gets to see the side of Chizuru that she mentioned she wanted to keep to herself, her acting, he stumbles upon her play and when he sees it he's truly astounded by how good she is in it; that she captivated the audience and they only seemed to be looking for her in the play. When she doesn't get the "pro" job from it, he just encourages her onward, and pushes her to pursue her dreams and he's the only one besides her grandparents to do that. They go through the usual rental girlfriend shenanigans but with a little more familiarity as Chizuru trusts Kazuya more now. Then Ruka has her moments in this season that start to show what kind of person she is, she has the "I'm going to force myself to stay at Kazuya's overnight and bring condoms too" moment and she has the moment I wrote an article about where she sexually assaults Kazuya. They find out during Kazuya's birthday that Mizuhara's grandmother is going to pass away, her biggest regret is that her grandmother will never be able to see her perform on stage or in a movie. At this moment, Kazuya steps up and becomes the most selfless he's ever been, putting aside all his thoughts of love for Chizuru (or mainly because of them) he says we can use crowdfunding, I can set up your movie, we WILL get your grandma to see you. While we don't get to see it, this is the start of one of the sweetest things you will see and I'm looking forward to seeing it in the third season whenever that is. HIGH RECOMMEND - 9/10 OVERLORD IV We finally return to Nazarick this anime season and continue to follow the story of Ains Ooal Gown and his followers. After taking over the city of El-Rantel in season three, Ains has set up Nazarick as the centre along with that city as the Sorcery Kingdom with him as it's lead. This whole season is set up to put a wrap together on the stories we've seen so far with the Empire, whose leader realizes there is nothing he can do to stand against Nazarick and the Sorcerer Kingdom and thus volunteers to become a vassal state to prevent them from destroying the country. WHICH is exactly what Ains does to the Re-Estize Kingdom for certain things that he claims they have done against his Kingdom. Secretly, this was a plan conducted in secret by an unknown force to help Ains but I shant ruin it. There was also several episodes of what some people might consider filler that weren't related to the war but that's untrue as it involved Ains co-operating with the Dwarven Kingdom, conquering the White Dragons, and destroying most of the Quoga race (keeping only the bare minimum for soldiers in his army). This season saw a lot more fighting than in previous seasons and I loved it for that, got to see alot more action from all the Floor Guardians with the exception of Deimurge who spent most of his time on secret missions. There were new character I look forward to finding out about and conclusions to the stories of several old characters we have come to appreciate. It was a great season and if the next time we see them is Overlord V great, if it's Isekai Quartet great, it doesn't matter I'm just looking forward to the return of the crew from Nazarick HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 DEVIL IS A PART TIMER - SEASON 2 After a NINE YEAR wait, The Devil Is A Part-Timer is back with it's long awaited second season. I couldn't be more pumped because I loved the first season, I never bought the manga though because I was so many volumes behind it would be hard to buy them all and catch up. So this is all new to me and I have to say that I love it. The only thing is that a different studio has done the animation so that kind of threw me off at first, as it does with most fans of franchises when the studio changes, but honestly the new look is quite nice as well; I do think that Maou and Alciel do seem a bit more off than I'd like because of the more rounded features this studio brings but even then you get used to it quick. The whole story this time around has nothing to do with Emilia still chasing after and trying to kill Satan, in fact, her and Suzuno have more of a "friendship/peace" than you would expect with them this season. Then the lynch pin to all this comes around in the first or second episode, Alas Ramus, a baby girl made from a golden apple who claims her dad is Satan and her mom is the Hero.....so Maou and Emilia. We find out that Alas was actually part of the World Tree and the reason she is their "daughter" is because Maou planted her seed when he was a child and Emilia holds the sacred sword she's a part of. Very similar to how Sariel tried to reclaim the sacred sword from Emilia in S1, in S2 Gabriel (another archangel) tries to reclaim Alas Ramus who is a part of the World Tree and thus part of the sword. There are a few episodes of what some people might consider filler but, in fact, all of the things that happen in those episodes set up the big events that occur in the story. While going to the beach to work because their apartment is being renovated seems like filler, they meet another Demon General named Camio, who Maou left in charge before leaving, and he tells the story of what is happening there right now. How they spend time at Chiho's family farm and things happen there as well; basically everything progresses the story forward even if it seems out of place. It was a great second season and I hope they don't take another 9 years to release more of it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 ORIENT - SEASON 2 I was really looking forward to the continuation of Orient based on the end of the first season because I continued on with a few manga chapters (not a lot, I didn't want to spoil myself because I knew they'd be releasing a season 2) but I was excited for this because I knew there'd be a lot more action. I was NOT disappointed when it came to that expectation; season two was full of crazy action as Mushashi, Kojiro, and Tsugumi found the Uesugi Bushi Band that was somehow related to Kojiro's father. The Uesugi Band gathered thousands of bushi, including the Takeda band one of the other 5 great bands, in order to kill the kishin named Yamata no Orochi on Awagi Island; the specific reason to kill this one right now is that if it becomes any stronger it will merge with the Great Black Kishin and it will become more unstoppable. Mushashi is actually split from Kojiro and Tsugumi for almost the entirety of this season, which I think is important, you see him grow as a character because of it. You get to see the blossoming of love between him and Michiru, the “princess” he saved at the end of season one; but most importantly is you get to see Mushashi finally humbled as he saw himself as this important bushi before but now realizes more than ever just how much teamwork and effort truly goes into a bushi band and being a bushi. There is A LOT of stuff that happens in this season and A LOT of stuff that I don’t want to ruin because if I talk more about Mushashi, the people he meets, Michiru, or any of the Uesugi bushi it could spoil things and I feel Orient deserves everyone’s attention as a really great sort-of overlooked shonen. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 11/10 LYCORIS RECOIL My favourite new anime of the season has to be Lycoris Recoil and most of that has to do with our heroines Chisato and Takina. They light up the screen so to speak with their personalities immediately when we meet them; particularly Chisato who managed to essentially become everyone’s “best girl” of the season right away. She’s a spunky, upbeat, girl who tries to do her best for everyone in the world because she was given a second chance at life. Thing is, Chisato is a Lycoris, and what they are is a group of elite trained orphan girls whose job it is to protect Japan in the background without letting the general public know they commit unspeakable acts to keep them safe. She refuses to kill though, she was given a second chance and she feels all bad people deserve that same chance; which puts her at odds with her bosses and thus why she works at LycoReco café doing side jobs with former members of DA (who are in charge of the Lycoris). Takina joins them after a botched job she did with fellow Lycoris girls. It’d do a massive disservice to this show for me to sit and blah blah, honestly, watch the clip with this and you’ll see how cool I mean. Honestly, please watch Lycoris Recoil, it was a great show and I’m sad it’s over. I hope we get to see more of it but if we don’t, at least we got the crazy adventures of Chisato, Takina, and the rest of LycoReco café. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 BLACK SUMMONER Reincarnating into another world where he was given the option by the Goddess Melfina, to keep his memories from the past or trade them all for more skill points, Kelvin our hero decided to go with more skill points. He also decided to pick the class of summoner, which is incredibly rare as there are only four, so he has been told to keep it a secret. And he was given the option to take anything with him and being enraptured with Melfina’s looks he asked for her to come and be a summon of his; she agreed because she was flattered but let him know that until he was a high level there was no way he’d be able to summon a Goddess. So our hero starts out by collecting a simple slime, his new buddy Clotho, and they go adventuring and doing the usual level ups that people in isekai worlds do. All this before Kelvin buys an elven girl slave who is treated incredibly poorly and breaks a curse on her, Efil as she is known is so grateful that she tries to work twice as hard to prove that she’s worth keeping around (though he’d never get rid of her as he appreciates and has an incredible soft spot for her). They all fight a black knight named Gerard who Kelvin defeats and he becomes a summon as well, then fight a demon who is protecting the Demon Lord’s daughter Sera and upon defeating the demon Kelvin promises to look out for Sera. After this he’s finally able to summon Melfina he has the MP to be able to do it and is as stunned as he was when he first met her; she gives him the power to summon a hero like she would, however this gives Kelvin pause, it means he’s summoning someone from another world like him and would that be fair? He does finally decide to summon a hero, a young girl named Rion, who’s so happy Kelvin summoned her because she was bedridden her whole life before passing away; he gave her the opportunity to live and be a person she says. The last few episodes are what I’d like to keep hush hush about, everything else you’d think is spoilery but you can see all those characters in the title song so it’s not a big deal. It’s a great show all around but the last few episodes are great with killer action and just it's well worth the watch. HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.5/10 MY STEPMOM'S DAUGHTER IS MY EX Alrighty, so let's get this out of the way right off the bat, no this show is not like Domestic Girlfriend and no it's not "that kind of thing" it is actually a very wholesome slice of life show that has a TERRIBLE sounding title. Thing is that the title is absolutely true. This is the story of Mizuto and Yume, two awkward kids that their very first and only relationship with each other in their last year of middle school, things get worse near the end of the year and unsure of the future they breakup. It's after this that Mizuto's father has a relationship with and gets married to Yume's mother; neither of the parents know however that the two dated each other so when they introduced the kids to each other to let them know they're siblings. Obviously, both of them are quite surprised by this revelation. That’s when a funny thing happens, knowing they both have the same birthday, they have to decide who’s going to be the older sibling; so they decide on a game to figure it out. Since they used to date, if for some reason, one of them shows affection or “slips up” say in how they approach each other as just brother or sister now; if it happens they have to treat that person as either the younger brother or younger sister for awhile. Thus begins a back and forth they have trying to become a normal family but also trying to figure out which is the older sibling. There are a lot of funny moments in the show, a lot of sweet moments, a few “oh jeez” moments, it’s a really chill show with really funny and neat characters. If you base everything on the title of the anime, you never know what you might miss and that’s definitely what happened with this show. RECOMMENDED - 7/10 PARALLEL WORLD PHARMACY A doctor works himself to death, then he’s re-incarnated into the body of a boy named Farma who was struck by lightning and in a coma. He is actually part of a famous pharmaceutical family in the Empire he lives in the Medicis family; where his father is the pharmacist to the Empress. The medicine in this world is quite far behind the world our protagonist comes from and thus with the godlike abilities he is granted he is able to construct any substance as long as he knows it’s chemical composition. Eventually, his tutor, his father and many others discover there is something not right about this “new” Farma; they figure he is the incarnation of their pharmacy god. When visiting the Empress, Farma uses his ability to sense disease to discover that she has tuberculosis and while all other people have given up on her, he plans to use his skills to save her. After curing the Empress she allows him to open his own pharmacy, taking care of both nobles and commoners at completely reasonable prices something tragic happens. Farma realizes quite quickly thanks to a note from his brother that tuberculosis isn’t the only uncurable disease in this world; having essentially reverted back to a more “primitive” time period than the regular world this world has yet to see “the Black Death” or bubonic plague. Farma tries his hardest to prevent the plague from spreading, the way it did in medieval Europe back in his world, and he manages to do his best in that regard. Including defeating the incarnation of the Black Death, an old colleague of his father’s who was killed years ago. It was an interesting show, and ya another isekai, but I don’t mind watching those at all. Give it a go and enjoy if you are feeling it. DECENT AND ENJOYABLE - 6.5/10 In Rent A Girlfriend there's technically four girls that are "girlfriend material": Mizuhara Chizuru (the girl Kazuya wants to date and our main girl), Mami Nanami (Kazuya's ex), Sumi Sakurasawa (a quiet and shy girl), and finally the topic of our discussion today Ruka Sarashina (technically Kazuya's girlfriend but he doesn't actually see her that way nor is he truly interested). Ruka is a girl that from the beginning comes off as incredibly overbearing, incredibly clingy, and very possessive. Time rolls around to Kazuya's birthday and after finding out when Chizuru's birthday was his grandmother insisted that it was going to be a double birthday party for them now. Chizuru reluctantly agreed but said her grandma was in the hospital so she would need to go there first. Trying to keep it on the downlow Kazuya says that he'd celebrate with Ruka on the Sunday after his party, but he accidentally says that Chizuru would be coming to his place with the family. Ruka shows up to his house uninvited and inserts herself in trying to "be the girl that Kazuya's family wants; to be Chizuru". She's doing a fairly good job too buttering up the family; and upon learning that Mizuhara is going to be late/not be able to come she almost says that "she loves Kazuya more than anyone".......but right as she does, in to save the day, is Mizuhara Chizuru. She immediately radiates the energy that Kazuya's family loves from her. The biggest problem is what comes next and that is Kazuya's grandmother offers the engagement ring that was hers and then Kazuya's moms to her. Stunned, she doesn't know what to do, she's just pretending and can't accept it and Kazuya knows that she's in such a weird spot. He looks at Ruka and realizes that she's in a worse spot, because being his "technical girlfriend", she's seeing his family all over Chizuru and on top of that giving her a treasured family heirloom that people usually only give women they figure will end up being family down the road anyways. It's at this point Kazuya realizes that he has to come clean with his family, he can't put both these girls, particularly Chizuru in this spot anymore. He goes to the toilet before revealing all. On his way to the bathroom and her way out, THIS HAPPENS.......... Ya so that happens..............
So I've seen a lot of people defend this move on Ruka's part saying that "she's just being assertive because that's her man", "Kazuya was sending mixed signals to her", "she's just trying to beat Chizuru", and more. Let me explain what this actually is and why there is no way you can possibly defend it no matter what you think it is or how it is. It is SEXUAL ASSAULT, plain and simple. There's no way around it. The definition in the dictionary of sexual assault is "non-consensual touching of one person for the sexual gratification of another, including rape, fondling, molestation, or other unwanted contact." For anyone that is like "whoa, whoa isn't that a bit excessive like it's not sexual assault it's relatively harmless." Let me ask you this, IF that was Kazuya who pulled Ruka in or pinned Ruka to a wall and forced a kiss on her and then when she pushes away saying "no we shouldn't" and he did it again............what would you call it ?? You would call it sexual assault. So just because Ruka does it, doesn't make it okay, it doesn't make it playful, there's no justification to it. It's wrong. And even she says, "Sorry, I crossed a line there, but I don't want to lose. I have no regrets." THAT is not something you can just say after doing that and not get away with doing what you did. Yes, you don't want to feel inferior or whatever but still god damn you can't do that. When I saw on Twitter that someone said it was sweet that Ruka was making the first move on Kazuya because they are dating and he hasn't made any moves. Listen, even if they are technically dating, you can't put moves on your partner if they say they don't want to. I just don't get how people are willing to defend Ruka, even she said she crossed a line, like she admitted what she did was wrong. I understand that in a show like this everyone is searching for a "best girl" and it's between Chizuru, Ruka, Sumi, and Mami & people are willing to defend their "best girl" to the death. That's just the twisted way the anime/manga world works sometimes. We're going to top all of this off with something simple, after all of this stuff happens, after all of the problems she causes and the sexual assault. HE FEELS BAD ABOUT TAKING HER FIRST KISS.........HE FEELS BAD...............BRO WHY SHOULD HE FEEL BAD AT ALL ????? I don't understand it and worst part is that..............Ruka actually gets WORSE............. SPY X FAMILY Spy X Family is the big new show of the year, not just the season, it's something that has the internet caught up in a storm. The show is set in the country of Ostania who is in something of a Cold War with its neighbour Westalis. In order to keep peace in the world Westalis' spy agency WISE sends their best operative, the spy known around the world as Twilight, to Ostania in order to stop Donovan Desmond from starting a war between the two nations. WISE created Operation Strix for Twilight, he was to create a fake family, have his child enroll at Eden College, become an Imperial Scholar, meet and get close to Donovan Desmond through this, and stop a potential war. In order to kick this off though, he needs his fake family, posing as psychologist Loid Forger he adopts a young girl named Anya, whom the orphanage seems desperate to get rid of. The reason being, and no one knows this, is Anya is an ESPer and can read people's thoughts so she can come off incredibly odd; there are a lot of times this comes in handy later on for the Forger family though. Twilight got a daughter now he needed a wife, he found one in Yor, a good civil servant girl who was worried about people thinking she was a spy because she was in her 30's and not married; she didn't have to worry about the spy thing, just the fact that she's the Thorn Princess a world renowned assassin. So a spy, an assassin, and an ESPer all living in the same house as one of the oddest families you could possibly imagine. Needless to say this is a show that is much better watched and experienced than me telling everyone what happens per episode but it has amazing performances by the voice actors, great animation, awesome music to go along with it, it's just an amazing show and it blew me away. Like I said, this is a show best experienced, in order to get the jokes and action and sappiness first-hand. My biggest takeaway is I can't wait until Part 2. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 SHIKIMORI'S NOT JUST A CUTIE This show was another one like Spy X Family that had the shit hyped out of it before the season started. Coming off of My Dress Up Darling, everyone wanted to see if the screenshots and trailers of this Shikimori girl could provide a new "girl of the year" in anime. Well, it provided as such. I think what makes Shikimori an interesting character is that she's never portrayed as a helpless girl that needs help with everything. In fact, it's the opposite, it's her boyfriend Izumi that is more of the damsel in distress. She comes to his rescue all the time from the smallest things to major things that happen; her friends, her classmates, and even Izumi often reference how she comes across as the Prince Charming more often then not. Like I said, Izumi has to be rescued a lot, and that is because he has tremendously bad luck like if something bad is going to happen, it will happen to him, and it always did to the point that his childhood was miserable. That all changed when he met Shikimori (there's an episode about it so I don't want to give it away) but these two come off as perfect together, she saves him all the time and is always there for him and her goal was to re-invent herself as a cute & cool person for high school, which Izumi saw before anyone else. Their side cast in the show are their best friends: Nekozaki (an athletic and competitive crazy girl), Hachimitsu (a lazy shut in), and Inuzuka (a very chill guy and someone that Shikimori sees as a rival for Izumi's affection even though the two are just best buds). Then there's one other important character that I can't speak too much about without blabbing about the story. Each side character brings a great part to this series and honestly, if you don't have great characters who compliment each other, then a slice of life show (which is also a rom-com but still) doesn't play out well. The show is beautifully animated, well acted, the music fits perfectly, I just genuinely enjoyed this show. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10 TRAPPED IN A DATING SIM: THE WORLD OF OTOME GAMES IS TOUGH FOR MOBS As someone who's played dating sims. both the guy with girl choices and the girl with guy choices, this was a show I had to check out. Totally worth it. Basically a guy is forced to play and beat an otome game (dating sim where you are the girl and there are routes for all the guys) for his sister, getting all the routes and ends, before she gets back because she wants to hear all about it. He stays true to his word and does it, but when he goes outside to take a break, he trips down his stairs and well.....dies. He wakes up as an incredibly insignificant "noble" in the world of the otome game he just played; a mob character, whose life it is to just be in the background. Unfortunately, with the knowledge of this entire world, that's not exactly what happens. Despite his claim to always being a mob character, he consistently involves himself in the lives of the otome games story. He is confused though because Olivia, the games female protagonist, ISN'T the lead and it's some small girl named Marie; what he doesn't know is that Marie also came from his world and has the same knowledge so she just managed to insert herself in the same role that Olivia was in and make the Prince and his crew fall in love with her instead. Well, Olivia becomes fast friends with Leon for Bartfort, and you can obviously tell there is something there on both sides but Leon specifically says in his head he won't make any kind of move because he's just a mob character and Livia is supposed to be with one of the five main guys. He also then steps up and becomes champion for Angelica Redgrave, who was the Prince's fiancee, and all she wanted was for Marie to stop twisting his thoughts; again getting involved in main character plots even though it wasn't a mob's place. The thing is, he uses the games knowledge to get through so many obstacles that should be impossible for someone in his station to get through; and it leads to him progressing higher and higher in the noble ranks because he passes off the credit to others but the high ranking families know exactly that their sons haven't done anything and it's all Leon's doing. The show is full of a lot of funny moments, a lot of great things, some mech fights if you like that, some romance, and I really enjoyed the show. HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.5/10 THE GREATEST DEMON LORD IS REBORN AS A TYPICAL NOBODY A reincarnation of a Demon Lord anime, which I don't know if it's a full on trend yet but with this and Misfit Academy I see that it could become one. The thing is I really like the reason behind the reincarnation of Varvatos into Ard Meteor; having to kill his only friend because she was cursed, he couldn't take the loneliness and died to be reborn in an age where he'd be able to make friends. Which he does when he's a young lad, Ireena, a young elf girl that has no friends and seems rather ostracized from everyone but becomes attached to Ard when he saves her. Fast forward to their joining a magic academy, seeing a young succubus girl Ginny, being bullied he decides to confront the bully in a duel. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't expecting his reincarnation to be so soon that his teacher would be one of his former subordinates, who almost immediately figures it out, when she sees him use a massive spell called Giga Flare and double casts a protection spell on the kid he used it on; apparently no one has double casted since Varvatos' era and no one has used that spell except him. Things and knowledge he had no idea about. Then moving forward another of his subordinates, Sylphie, is told by another of his subordinates that Ard is Varvatos and so she joins the academy to test this out; he tries to dispel the notion but in a sword fight he basically gives himself away. There are a lof of enemies Ard has to deal with in his secret form, where he merges Ard with his best friend Lydia's soul to create a "new Varvatos" that he can use, some of which you don't expect to be enemies and some that are very clearly world destroying enemies. You find out a lot about each character along the way based on small stories they are told and you find out the most about Ard/Varvatos when they are sent to the past when Varvatos is still alive and so is Lydia. I urge anyone who likes fantasy shows to give this a shot, especially if you like that overpowered magic and Demon Lord stuff. RECOMMENDED - 8/10 LOVE AFTER WORLD DOMINATION What if you were a Power Ranger and you fell in love with and then started a relationship with your worst enemy ?? That is essentially the premise of Love after World Domination. Fudo, the Red Gelato "Ranger" of Gelato 5, falls in love with Desumi, the "Reaper Princess" of Gekko their mortal enemies. At first, she thought he was teasing him when he asked her out, tricking her because she had never had romance experience but after proving his sincerity they made it work. By constantly "fighting" each other during the Gelato 5 vs Gekko battles, Desumi and Fudo only have one or so regular dates, most of them are tricking either Gelato 5 or Gekko to going to an amusement park or whatever so they can sneak off with each other. It's a very sweet story of a meathead guy who's shown no interest in love in his life until the one person he finally does just happens to be one person he is ABSOLUTELY not allowed to. It's a Romeo & Juliet situation but HOPEFULLY if this has a light novel or manga that it really doesn't end the same way that story did. This story right now just has Desumi and her other Princess series friends doing things and Gelato 5 doing things and coming together in typical super Sentai battles fashion. I'm a BIG sucker for romance/rom-com shows and this one's funny mix of that Sentai thing makes it hilarious. All the characters are great in it on both the "good guys" and the "bad guys" side; honestly, if there wasn't such a "need to take over the world" from Gekko I could easily seeing them all work together as friends (even though a few of them are monsters). RECOMMENDED - 7.5/10 DATE A LIVE IV One thing I heard from a person whose opinion on anime I respect a lot because he's one of the people that got me into it, to the extent I'm at now anyways, is this he asked, "Do people actually still watch Date A Live??" Well the simple response is yes, a lot of people still watch Date A Live because this is Part 4 and spoiler (but not really a spoiler) but they immediately before the credits of the last episode just say Date A Live V in big font.....so there will be more. I think that the series is fantastic, yes it has some fanservice but I wouldn't expect a show where the hero, Itsuka Shido's goal of saving girls called Spirits by sealing their powers via their affection towards him to not have some. The nice thing about Date A Live is that while it can be considered or is considered a harem style show, it actually has a great story to it, and that is something that is incredibly rare. Date A Live IV was fantastic, each season they introduce new and interesting Spirits and they are always so creative and unique. This time we have Sister aka Nia Honjou, who is actually a famous mangika; she was captured by the bad guys DEM Industries, who tried to Invert her so they could use her powers for evil. Nia has the ability to use her book Raphael to find out just about anything she wants, which is extremely powerful. Then we meet Zodiac aka Mukuro Hoshimiya, who is a Spirit that is floating aimlessly in space and has shut herself off from the world. She has the ability to use her key and close off people's thoughts and other interesting abilities and movements. To me though, the stand out moment of this season is we find out more and more about Tokisaki Kurumi's plans and desires, why she wants to devour Shido, and I have to say that it is AMAZING and I love it. It's also why I can't wait until Date A Live V. So besides the great new story, this new season of the show has a completely new art style, some people might hate it but I love it; the colours pop, everything is vibrant and it is very pleasing to look at. It's a great new addition to the show. The other thing about this season is that they new Spirits are both acted incredibly well, their voice actresses do a great job bringing out these neat personalities. Though I'm just super jazzed about all this new stuff to do with my favourite character Kurumi. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10 KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- We start off the show with another banger of an opening theme song by Masayuki Suzuki, who's obviously huge in Japan, but what I love is that they've gotten him to do ALL the seasons of Kaguya-sama Love Is War. Let's move forward though, Ultra Romantic is the 3rd season of this super popular show, one that I really like myself. The comedy this season has ramped up even more than past seasons, the jokes are funnier, the moments are better. There's been new characters introduced like Shijo Maki, a relative of Kaguya, who make for interesting situations and more great comedy or serious spots depending on the situation. I like that more and more characters play a bigger role, Hayasaka has a huge role this season moreso than previously, as well as Shirogane's dad and his sister Kei. The biggest thing this season go around is that love actually seems to be in the air. We find out that our boy Ishigami has a massive crush on Tsubame, his senpai and leader of different clubs he's been in, but he sees her as rather out of his league and doesn't know how to proceed until being pushed by of all people, Kaguya, to make a move when he's ready. To do something before you regret never doing it. Which is something you can tell both Shirogane and Kaguya seem to understand this season, that high school is flying by and their just wasting it doing the silly games they've done over the past 2 seasons rather than just confessing and dating. The way the end plays out is great and having personally read the manga, I know where it's leading but I really like the anime and the way they've brought it to life; I always enjoy seeing pages brought to life. It's funny, sweet, great to watch, just enjoyable as a series. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10 THE RISING OF THE SHIELD HERO: SEASON 2 The Rising of Shield Hero returns with its second season following the adventures of The Shield Hero Iwatani Naofumi, this time with his name clear of the things in season one and being treated like the true hero he actually is, he sets off to meet Queen Melromarc along with Raphtalia, Filo, and new party member Risha (a former member of the Bow Hero's party). She tells Naofumi that one of the Sacred Beasts of the world, the Spirit Tortoise, has awakened prematurely and is now on a rampage and causing mass devastation; he agrees to help, while the three other Cardinal heroes refuse to help out. Armies of the world unite to take on the Spirit Tortoise, whom we we find out is being controlled by someone thanks to the Tortoise's familiar Ost Hourai. She becomes something of a temporary party member and speaking of temporary party members, who Naofumi's group finds in the tortoise, is even more surprising because they "team up again" with L'Arc, Therese, and Glass; surprising because last time they met they were told the next time they'd have to kill each other. The only way to truly stop the waves is for the Cardinal Heroes of their worlds to invade and kill each other, is what we knew about this beforehand but that has to be put on hold. Those 3 came to look for the man causing these problems, the Book Hero, Kyo Ethnina. After Naofumi and company battle him, they chase after him into his world, unfortunately this splits the party up; Filo is lost, Raphtalia becomes small again, and all of them are Level 1 again to top it all off they're locked in an inescapable prison. They find all this out from the Hunting Hero, Kizuna Kazayama, who's been stuck there for a couple years. Naofumi manages to get them all out and the race to stop Kyo is on. Raphtalia is seperated from them after this, she then becomes a hero herself, unintentionally after meeting L'Arc, Therese, and Glass while in prison. The show picks up the pace and the action this season, there's more grand set pieces, the story broadens it's scope with the new world the heroes went to, you see things you didn't expect, all of our favourite heroes get a boost, some new people become more important, it's a great season and I'm looking forward to the continuation whenever that is. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10 We are now off to the current seasons roundup of anime, as we speak we're into the Spring 2022 season of the anime so I've been watching that and also I have to apologize to all, my articles have been non-existent since work got more intense. Now that I'm going to have the summer off, I'll be able to pick up my article writing to normal. That being said, here's the anime roundup for the Winter 2022 season and damn there were some bangers this season; like it was just an amazing season with new hits and things I've grown to love and can't wait for more and the return of some killer anime from the past. Let's start with one of my favs of the season............ MY DRESS-UP DARLING The most popular show of the season, was also my favourite. My Dress Up Darling is the story of a loner boy, named Gojou, who's passion it is and goal in life is to make hina dolls and his chance encounter with the most popular girl in school, Marin Kitagawa, who has a crazy secret. She wants to cosplay. They run into each other when they're both trying to use the sewing machine at school; Gojou to make hina dresses and Marin to make a cosplay dress for herself. After seeing that Gojou knows how to sew, she desperately asks him to make her Shizuku cosplay, which after a bit of convincing he decides to take on. He learns all about the eroge that it's based on by playing it, he takes everything so seriously that source material is important to him, and obviously playing an eroge when his grandpa walked in on him was a surprise. Gojou finds out Marin needs it within 2 weeks and nearly has a heart attack knowing how hard it is to sew things, but knowing that he wants her to be happy, he pushes through his tiredness and makes it for her. Thrilled she goes to her first cosplay event and from there not only do more cosplays follow but so does a blossoming romance. At least from Marin's side for now. That is what I liked the most about the show is how wholesome it is, it never really tries to be super raunchy, it never does anything dumb, it is just a really wholesome story about a quiet, loner, dorky boy who is passionate about something he loves meeting an energetic, outgoing, popular girl who is passionate about something she loves and they work together to make something they both love. Then it just so happens that ACTUAL love is a side effect of it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 11/10 ORIENT What I can guarantee is going to be one of the next big shonen series going, Orient is the story of Musashi & Kojiro two boys from a small village in a world controlled by Kijins and Oni. This world has been taken over by these creatures and humans have come to accept them as their gods and rulers, beings that they must bow down too. The exception to this rule is those who become Bushi, people who have fought against the Oni and Kijin since they first appeared. Kojiro was born the son of a Bushi by birth and was treated like an outcast by everyone for it, everyone except for Musashi, who made plans for the two of them to both become Bushi like Kojiro's dad one day and fight the oni. Not thinking that Musashi was actually serious until realizing that he used his time becoming a "miner" in the oni mines to train his swordsmanship skills. They fight oni and kishin together for the first time before being saved by a Bushi band and that's when they decide to take off from their town, forming their own Bushi band, eventually being joined by a girl who left her band named Tsugumi. The world being established so far in the anime isn't just that the oni are bad but also that there is a group of people who are hunting the Obsidian Goddess, a woman who is able to control all nichirin swords which are those controlled by Bushi. This goddess happens to reside in Musashi, whether fortunately or unfortunately for him in that regard, because it makes him a massive target in this world but also someone who has a hidden ability to become extremely powerful. It's a show that I find gives off great vibes, there's lots of humour, great fights, all of the characters are well put together, and it has one important thing to me: if you can cause me to start reading the manga because I can't wait to find out what happens next HIGH RECOMMEND - 9/10 LIFE WITH AN ORDINARY GUY WHO REINCARNATED INTO A TOTAL FANTASY KNOCKOUT GASP AN ISEKAI SHOW !!! However, with a really funny premise so it intrigued me from the beginning and when I gave it a watch I loved it. The reason being is that this time it wasn't your typical power fantasy isekai like 95% of the shows out there, it was a show where the main hero is actually a dude who got drunk, was upset about not getting any girls, and said wow if I was a cute and short blonde girl I'd be like a god. His best friend Jinguji who was there with him said that he was talking nonsense, he was a fine person, things will happen surely. Soon after, they're both transported into another world. Jinguji is there as his usual self, business suit and all, but Tachibana is exactly what he mentioned he could be a god as; a cute, small, blonde girl. As they arrive in this new world, they come across the Goddess of Love who sent them there and she's so unpleasant that they just constantly insult her, and she takes exception to this and puts a curse on the two of them. The curse is simple; they feel heavy romantic feelings for one another, the only way to break the curse is to defeat the Demon Lord. Well, needless to say that they want to break that curse as fast as possible because it becomes very apparent, very quickly that moments do happen that makes them feel romantic towards each other and they have to pull back from that very quickly. They spend their time going from being worshiped in a small village, to traveling around beating up bandits, destroying the worshipped deities of groups of people, fighting the Demon Lord's soldiers, or dealing with the whims of a whiny princess of the kingdom. I really like this take on isekai anime, it's honestly a funny combo rom-com show with more of a heavy emphasis on the comedy of course, everything else is spot on about it too. HIGH RECOMMEND - 8.5/10 IN THE LAND OF LEADALE This is a weird isekai but not an isekai, this is the story of Cayna, technically a character in the VRMMO world of Leadale. She was bedridden and potentially going to die and unfortunately during a power outage, she did, but Cayna somehow woke up in the world of Leadale but now it was a living and breathing world. It's in this living and breathing world that she now finds herself as her high elf character, the "Silver Ringed Witch", feared throughout Leadale for the past 200 years. Then top it all off with the fact her three "kids" that she bought with real world money to be NPC children for her are actual people now and they are all prominent members of the royal court, Cayna's life is strange to say the least. It all starts off with her awakening in a small village, one that treats her so well that she ends up moving there and after saving the life of a guard she goes on a trip to become an adventurer in the royal capital. Where she of course meets her three children: royal builder Kartatz, royal academy headmaster Mai-Mai, and high priest Skargo all of whom are thrilled to see her. What I like from there is she goes on simple adventures so it's not a super complex show, what provides most of the enjoyment is how interesting the characters are; each one of the characters provides an interesting and fun vibe to the show and that's what makes the best slice of life shows work, even though this is sort of an isekai slice of life. RECOMMENDED - 8/10 MISS KUROITSU FROM THE MONSTER DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT One of those shows that I started watching to see what it was and ended up loving because of the premise, the humour, the everything about it. What's the show about you ask ?? Good question. It is the story of Miss Kuroitsu, an ambitious scientist who works for the monster development department of Agastia, a group trying to take over the world. Her job, along with her boss Dr.______, is to develop monsters to fight against Divine Swordsman Blader. Essentially it's the everyday life and trials of someone who develops monsters that face off against different sentai fighters. It's great because how often do we just see Power Rangers/Super Sentai where we just go, "oh they're cool, time to beat on those monsters", do we truly understand just how hard it is for people to make those monsters on the other side ?? Do we understand the feelings of the monsters when they fight, when they lose, or what they do on their off time ?? It is an AMAZING concept and it hooked me. Then we take a look at the crazy amount of humour in it, it's perfect, you have an incredibly powerful monster in Lord Megistus who treats this like any other 9-5 job and makes sure that the employees are taken care of properly, that people are hired properly, and that monsters are developed to fight Blader properly. We have an executive board made of top ranking monsters: an agoraphobic spider-woman, Lady Camula is a vampire that loves idols, Uncle who is a master spy but also a creepy guy to women, and so many more personalities. There are rival factions, there's other ranger types, there's magical girls, and more. My favourites though are the monsters that Miss Kuroitsu develops. One was set to be a very tough wolf boy, with incredibly strength and toughness to take on Blader, but Supreme Leader thought he wasn't cute enough so last second they had to put the brain of Wolfy into a female body; of course he's super pissed because in simulations he was this jacked wolf boy but is now a petite wolf girl but with none of their thoughts changed. And obviously develops a massive crush on Miss Kuroitsu. Then there's Cannon, who they were going to design to be a massive mechanized chicken robot, but budget restraints left him a giant fluffy chicken with a gun. Miss Hydra, who they wanted to be an actual tough Hydra girl but ended up again not being cute enough, so that had to change, and budget cuts meant they constantly had to scale back how many heads she could have. She develops a big crush on Cannon. Melty, a chocolate girl made of defective chocolate. And others, they are all unique. The show is just so awesome and I love it. Also one of my favourite parts is the theme song, which is below, absolute banger maybe my favourite of the season. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9.5/10 ATTACK ON TITAN: FINAL SEASON Attack On Titan's Final Season Part 2 started and I was looking forward to them finally wrapping up the show and seeing how they animated the end of the show since the manga had ended quite awhile back by the point this debuted. Well, long story short they didn't finish and we can expect a Final Season Part 3 in 2023. Let's look at what did happen however, first things first the opening theme for this part is an absolute banger, like 100% it is one of the beset openings for Attack on Titan ever, but the accompanying video is hilarious because they basically just say "fuck if you haven't read the manga by now just fuck yourself and read it we're showing what is going to happen." I loved it. Then we will talk about several things but I don't want to go too much into it because I feel this show is better watched than explained. Why do I feel that ?? Because Attack on Titan has been getting CONSISTENTLY BETTER over the years and the fight scenes and other action has been absolutely amazing, even the simple talking scenes are conveyed so great. They also make sure to put so much weight into the relationship between Zeke and Eren. My favourite part of this, which I knew was going to happen because I read the manga, but is the team up of almost the entire main OG crew. Annie and Reiner joining back with Mikasa, Armin, Connie, and Jean to put a stop to Eren (with the help of others of course). But it's just amazing, MAPPA studios absolutely outdid themselves with putting the manga pages to life; that's what I really see is the manga pages coming to life, moreso than any other version of Attack on Titan. I hate having to wait until 2023 for the rest, I also hate that they broke it up into this 3rd part in the first place when only 2 parts were promised. Regardless, I'm looking forward to the wrap up of Attack on Titan, whenever that is. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 11/10 DEMON SLAYER: ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT ARC The show was absolute fire, this second part of season two was great to watch, it was CRAZY to see the fight unfold between the Upper Rank demons and Tanjiro & Usui. The fight scenes were amazing, like only ufotable can pull off animation that's such a perfect combo of movement, colour, intense action, and music. The way the studio has been able to adapt the manga is BETTER than I could have hoped for. I don't really have a lot to say about this show other than watch Demon Slayer in general but this second season is absolutely amazing. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 ARIFURETA: FROM COMMONPLACE TO WORLD'S STRONGEST - SEASON 2 I was super stoked that there was a second season of Arifureta being released. It was a series I was super into when it first came out, while I didn't read ahead or anything I definitely wanted to. I wanted to find out what happens to Nagumo, Yue, Shea, Tio, Miyu, and Kaori (and to a lesser extent the classmates too). Basically, Arifureta Season 1 had a great setup with solid world-building, great characters, and an interesting plot and premise. It’s an isekai with an overpowered main character yes, but unlike your Kirito’s or Rimuru’s, Nagumo basically was a wimp who had to go through unimaginable tragedy to gain power. Now on his quest to beat the other Great Labyrinth’s and gain enough power to beat a mad God, you’d figure it was in order to save the world or something, but no it’s just to get back home to Japan. Nagumo does have a tsundere side where even though he pretends he doesn’t care about his classmates or this world they currently reside in, he does care. What I love about this season is that the action kicks up even more than before with several different fights that happen. They attain the power of three more labyrinths in this season, which I can only assume makes them all crazy powerful. There is also a massive conspiracy that happens in the royal capital that involves basically everyone, but if I get to into what happens in it then I ruin the fun. Needless to say there is a lot that happens, a lot of action, a lot of fast paced things and it sounds like I’m repeating myself but in a show like this I can’t go too much into what happens in the fights without ruining the fights. Anyways, I was pumped to watch Season 2 and am going to enjoy the rest of it as it continues. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 10/10 THE CASE STUDY OF VANITAS Well the first season of The Case Study of Vanitas may have happened in the summer, but this current season happened and the only reason it caught my attention was seeing this Jeanne X Vanitas in lists of "best couples of the year", so I caught one clip on YouTube, and was like.........I need to watch this show it seems hilarious. And then I had 24 episodes to go through this season, two seasons worth of an anime, and I loved every minute. The Case Study of Vanitas is a tale of two stories almost, the story of a vampire named Noe who was tasked by his teacher/father figure to find out more about the Book of Vanitas. And that of Vanitas, a human who uses the Book of Vanitas, something most vampires are terrified of to heal vampires that have been cursed. The reason that vampires are scared of this book is that all vampires are born under the Crimson Moon, however, there was one vampire by the name of Vanitas born under a Blue Moon and she was bullied relentlessly until she put a “curse” on vampire kind and said that her book would be able to steal a vampires true name. To steal a vampires true name is akin to killing that person, they become cursed and grow to have an uncontrollable bloodlust that leads them to attack random people until they become disfigured with the curse. Vanitas, the human, does not use the book that way however and uses it to do the opposite, it is able to uncover a cursed vampires true name and return it as well. Though he explains to Noe that if he must he will put a vampire to death in the way the book was designed if their curse is too far gone. They pursue this quest all throughout Paris and the French countryside, finding and curing those who are cursed. They meet several interesting characters during their journey, my favourites being Jeanne, a vampire whose job it is to kill both cursed vampires and humans and Roland, a paladin from the Church, tasked with hunting vampires. Jeanne’s stickler to the rules up until she meets with, deals with, then eventually falls in love with Vanitas is priceless; she is a tragic character and also one that is funny and enjoyable to watch. Roland on the other hand if a goofball who was dead serious about killing Noe and “saving” Vanitas from him until he saw how much they genuinely got along, then it confused him to the point that he decided to just observe and appreciate it. He becomes an interesting comedic relief character but also can be a serious aide to Vanitas and Noe. I don’t want to give away what happens in the last few episodes because it reveals a lot about the plot but I highly suggest watching this; also I didn’t go too in depth about their visit to the French countryside or other big plot points as it just ruins too much. The aesthetic is great, the art great, atmosphere great, characters are amazing, voice acting is top notch, and I may get into the manga to quench my need to know what happens next before Season 3. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED – 10/10 SHE PROFESSED HERSELF PUPIL OF THE WISE MAN The story of a VRMMO that gets turned into real life, which now that I listen to it, I've heard that as a premise so many times now. Well, each one tends to have a different side premise and in this case it's the story of a VRMMO that's servers stop functioning so everyone that was playing has truly resigned to the fact that this is a real world now and that NPC's are real, the damage and suffering are real, etc. The thing about our main character is that, he a wizard named Danbilf, is one of the Nine Wise Men that protect their kingdom; problem being, he was messing around with a specialty mirror item to change his appearance just before the servers crashed and he went from grizzled old man to young girl. The king of the country (Danbilf's real world best friend) finds it hilarious that he's become this little girl that seems like just the type Danbilf thought was cute. Problem is, after the servers went down, the Wise Men scattered and now the kingdom is in danger; with only 2 of the 9 around, Solomon sends out Danbilf to find the others; he's given one condition though, he has to go by the name Mira and say that she is the pupil of Danbilf and not the man himself. It's from this point forward that Mira goes on several different adventures in an effort to find the other Wise Men, not actually finding any during the series but coming close, and I'm sure she does/will in the manga or if they do another season but it was a very fun show to watch. The characters are designed nice, the show is beautifully coloured, the voice acting is fantastic, all of the stuff that makes a great show is there and I do hope for a second season. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - 9/10 THE STRONGEST SAGE WITH THE WEAKEST CREST Strongest Sage With The Weakest Crest is a typical reincarnation story, so not an isekai persay, just a great sage named Gaius who reincarnated several times over his life to try and receive one of the four crests that he desired. He managed to receive all of them several times, but finally reincarnated himself into a boy named Mattias who would grow up to have the crest he wanted. However, it was deemed as the Crest of Failure during this current age; the reason being is that between Gaius' death and reincarnation demon's managed to weasel their way into the human world and weaken them by putting shackles of good crests, deeming them failures, by teaching humans that wordless spellcasting was terrible, and more. These are things that Mattias finds out during his first few weeks at his new academy. Along with his love interest Lurie, her best friend Alma, and Iris the Black Dragon, they set out across the country to save their kingdom from the demon menace. They power up and learn more and more about just how deep the rabbit hole has gone about the demon corruption in their country. It's a show that is just for simple enjoyment is what I found, something I'd like to see more of but won't be sad if I don't. RECOMMENDED - 7.5/10 THE IRREGULAR AT MAGIC HIGH SCHOOL: REMINISCENCE ARC OVA If you ever wanted to know the story of what Miyuki and Tatsuya were like prior to the events of Irregular at Magic High School Season One, this is a solid OVA. It basically just explains what things were like when the two of them were young and there was one surprising thing; Miyuki was scared of and hated Tatsuya. She didn't see him as a brother or even just her bodyguard, just merely a scary person that she disliked a lot. Considering her adoration, to an almost sexual desire, of Tatsuya during the regular events of Irregular at Magic High School you might wonder just what the hell happened. Well long story short, saving Miyuki and their mother's life, Miyuki finding out why Tatsuya has no emotions except for her after what their mother did, everything that happened. That's part of the reason Miyuki grew so attached to Tatsuya. It's nice to kind of get a background into just how Tatsuya became the way he is and Miyuki the way she is. RECOMMENDED - 8/10 (A MUST FOR IRMHS FANS THOUGH) |
AuthorThere's not much to say about me other than I'm an avid gamer, comic reader, sports fan, etc. just passionate about things I love. Archives
October 2022
|