Barbarian's Bride is a title that reminds me a lot of Farming Life in Another World and Reincarnated as a Slime in that, after getting a good start and getting you into it, begins the tedious task of world-building and relentless excursions "this is a day in the life of X" slogs. Sure, I get it, you want to draw it out. But please. It's a killer of titles that otherwise would be nice, uncomplicated, digestible pieces of simple entertainment. Not everything has to be Legend of the Galactic Mother Fucking Heroes.

And that's where I come in!

So far I've pulled a pretty decent crop of shows this season. I'll start culling in a few weeks and give more thoughts at that time.

Ewwww! The Fragrant Flower English dub.... Ewwwwww! Netflix again fucking over this show. Why did you cast that voice for Kaoruko? It's like she's right out of a 4Kids dub. I had my fingers crossed for "anyone but Xanthe Huyhn" and a fucking monkey's paw granted my wish.

And then only two episodes today? With episode three coming out in a week? When you're this far behind already? Go fuck yourselves, Netflix.

I've been watching/reading this show for weeks. I like it. Very sweet. Fuck a Netflix.

The Warrior Princess and the Barbaric King (The Barbarian's Bride) got pushed back to 2026. Along with Sentenced to Be a Hero and Witch Hat Atelier also getting the 2026 heave-ho, my stacked fall season has significantly deflated. No season known yet for Witch Hat but the other two are pushed back to the Winter.

Hate that about Barbarian's Bride, but I had to halt reading the manga given that it's ongoing. Plus, it did that thing a lot of them do where it gets in the middle and drags like RuPaul.

Also, a lot of disappointment with last week's Betrothed to My Sister's Ex and Silent Witch, which are currently my Friday watches. 

For the first, it's more so other people being disappointed than me. Unfortunately, Betrothed to My Sister's Ex doesn't have the time to tell the story it wants to tell and is speed-running everything. To be fair, it's been doing this since the beginning. But with the latest episode, the whiplash is more apparent. Part of me was hoping they'd just cut this part out because they don't have the time for it. Specifically, they should've just had Marie not run away. I can completely understand the anime-onlys' frustration. I still like this show but not having the traditional 24-26 episode order really hurts this story. Because this isn't just a Cinderella story but has the b-plot of the sister and the Shederan family's antics.

It's an ongoing bugaboo with me. If the story can't be allowed to breathe, adaptation to the animated medium should not even be attempted.

Anyway. I'm in the same boat as I was. I don't have time to watch all I want to because there's too much getting pumped out, and I'm too old to binge-watch to one or two in the morning and still manage to work for a living. Hell, I've been on vacation all week, and I still can't do it then, either.

One Punch Man S3 (it's OPM, 'nuff said)
Spy x Family S3 (need to go watch S2 now, argh)
Campfire Cooking isekai S2 (yeah, yeah, I know, but it was fun)
May I ask for One Final Thing? (the manga was great)
My Status as an Assassin (yes, more isekai, but looks good)
The Barbarian's Bride (manga was quite good, the world is very interesting)
Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon (long fucking name, but I enjoyed the manga as a revenge story)

And that's just the stuff I'm aware of without looking into any of the rest.

They recently jammed AI up our compliance department's ass, meaning that Copilot now can summarize all the random updates to our quality management plans, meaning we don't actually have to read the whole thing anymore to figure out what changed. So they finally found a reasonable use for it... I guess that's a win.

There was a lot to like about Superman, but the parts I didn't like I REALLY didn't like. It was largely enjoyable, but I likely won't ever see it again.

Since I as a rule get my anime from non-authorized sources I'm hoping I can still get the Fragrant Flower show in my queue in the morning. If not, well boo. I'm certainly not subbing Netflix for the privilege.

I've pulled a number of shows for Spring that I've only watched half of...not out of disinterest but lack of time. At some point I'm going to start culling, but where oh where to start? My affinity for shlock is catching up with me, as this season was full of it.

Summer season, not so much. Tons of returns I'm looking forward to. There's a new Lupin III movie coming on the 27th, as well as the Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid movie. I really need to finish Dan da Dan S1, but I'm already stretched thin...speaking of which, I need to sit down and see AoButa/Rascal movies before Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus comes out. But other shows that are continuing that I actually AM caught up on include Grand Blue Dreaming (FINALLY! The second coming of PAB draws nigh...but is my body ready?), Shield Hero S4, Dress-Up Darling S2 (hopefully they streamline some of the manga's predilection toward people sitting around yammering about inconsequential stuff in this cour), and Call of the Night S2.

New shows I'm interested in: Stunned Hero and Assassin Princesses, Clevatess, Water Magician (tentatively), and Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra. It's a lot on the plate, but I'm already locked in the shows prior to this paragraph, so we'll see. Plus, despite pulling it to watch I haven't actually started Reincarnated as the 7th Prince yet, so I'll just wait until S2 gets batched on torrent before even thinking of fooling with it.

NORM!

Poor Norm...

From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman anime could have been pretty good based on the manga I've read of it, but they absolutely bombed the adaptation. Every fight thus far has been handwaved...there were three (bumpkin vs loli magic sensei, bumpkin and muscle student vs. flying cockatrice, bumpkin and loli magic sensei vs street gang necromancer boss) in the manga that lasted several chapters, and in the show lasts a couple minutes at most. It's a shame, as it had the makings of a unique and entertaining storyline, but the fights have to be there.

After Delicious in Dungeon and Frieren last year, every season will suck in comparison from now on.

Now that the winter season is all but done, I guess it's time to play catchup before the new tide of spring stuff rolls out. I have a HUGE backlog that I don't see myself getting to for quite some time.

I've never heard a retard complain about being called a retard. So retard it is.

AI+quantum computing=Skynet