What Anime are you watching?

[jonhammstein]

I had a similar reaction to Sanda. After the first episode, I was all-the-way onboard. After the second episode, my jets have cooled substantially. I think the story suffers from premise overload. They're setting up way too much, way too fast, and it's like the viewer is expected to take things for granted. Like, now he's sprouting ski blades out of the bottoms of his feet and that's just something we all associate with Santa Claus, you know?

The art style's too nice to pass up, though.

[B E C K]

See, I initially thought it was just the regular Japanese school setting but with this kid who's descended from Santa. But, no, we're post-apocalyptic. We're running out of food... and of children. The headmaster is made out of botox and clearly evil. Also, people don't believe in Santa but they also believe in Santa and, I guess, want to kill Santa. And Evil Botox Man apparently has these people on speed dial.

The whole "children are treasured and could murder a man" is wild. Not to mention it feels too close to the whole predator/prey aspect of Beastars where one chunk of society has a disproportionate level of powet over the other.

Also, the children are kept in some sort of boarding school to, uh, protect them?  Then where are all of the guards? Surely there'd be guards or at least monitors around at all times if children are this valuable. It's like Jyu-Oh-Sei all over again: "children are rare and valuable." "Also, we're leaving a bunch of these children out to die."

I think the story has so much craziness with just Sanda's character alone and him turning into Santa that it literally didn't need anything else above. It could've gotten away with being set in a relatively normal (or close to normal) highschool and let us experience different "normal" situations in Japanese life with the aspect of either turning into Santa or being Santa.

[B E C K]

The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess
The more unique aspect of this one is that the woman that's isekai'd is thrown into her own story. She's not a published author or anything either. It's basically her teenage girl musings writing her own OCs. And instead of being isekai'd as her actual insert character, she's instead made into the sister who is a villainess. The main character also expected to eventually be isekai'd into her own world for some reason. So that's kinda neat.

Also, a lot of these villainess shows have this set of stock characters but this story sort leans in differently with several of the mains. That's all a nice change of pace from the usual set of bargain bin stock characters.

Unfortunately, where the lead character is usually the best thing about these types of shows, this one is not.  She's not terrible but there's nothing that compels me to watch her. Thinking about it more, I noticed it may be beccause things just happen "because of plot."

For example, she recalls that her sister will be attacked by their uncle and wants to save but no one will believe her. So she up and leaves. Except she's in confinement. How was she able to get a horse and just leave? Then she barges in and saves her sister. She tells her sister and sister's boyfriend to leave and uncle's all "effff you" and comes at her. Assassin Boy arrives in the nick of time to save her. How did this happen?

Uncle: I stood up again and attacked her.
Sister: I walked out of the room and didn't see or hear anything.
Sister's Fiancee: I walked out of the room and didn't see or hear anything.
Assassin Boy: Durrrr, I saw you escape from confinement. I didn't tell anyone else. I was also on a horse right behind you but I could never catch you.

HOW? Was your horse fat? The main character was super scared to ride a horse and all quivering and shit. How did Assassin boy not catch up? Also, why did the sister and the sister's fiancee leave without taking villainess with them? The villainess is supposed to be in confinement. Does no one have guards?

My point is nothing has to make sense: it works the way it works to bend to what needs to happen for the villainess. That's just stupid. I haven't read the source material so for all I know the anime flubbed this in adaptation. But right now, it's hard to be on board for this one.

[B E C K]

Hero Without a Class: Who Even Needs Skills?!
Welcome to generic info-dump anime fantasy world #2934.

The class system of this world is stupid.  The kids get in line and get told their class:
"You are a blacksmith."
"Yay, Dad, I can follow in your footsteps."

What the fuck? So are you telling me that if that kid didn't get told he was a blacksmith, it wouldn't have been possible? Is his dad forced to apprentice outsiders? If they take over the business, do they kick out the old blacksmith's family? How do you get blacksmiths in this world if the crystal ball or whatever says none of the kids are blacksmiths? Will things just stop being made? Is learning not a thing?

The main character, as the title states, is classless and people look down at him. Except, not really. The story tries to present him as a hard-working humble lad passed a bad lot in life by being declared classless. Except, not really. This is because our main character is Kirito Coldsteel and he's the best. I mean, that's not his name, but fuck what his name actually is.

This character doesn't care he's classless. He doesn't suffer for it at all. He's not immediately ostracized when the town finds out nor thrown out of his home. His parents don't care except when his mom cried once. Only the bad or dumb or WRONG people care, you see. But Kirito's strong and he'll show them. He learns everything by watching it. What? You hit him once? Good job, but you won't hit him next time. He'll tell you all of this before **teleports behind you**

Also, Kirito's parents are a swordmaster and an archmage for crying out loud. No one was gonna seriously bully this kid and you can't convince me otherwise. The "worse" we see is that two kids wanted to bash their swords on him. The exposition kindly informs us this action won't actually hurt Kirito Coldsteel or anyone else involved. This world has some sort of Divine Protection that can be applied, which is an interesting concept but also nerfs any stakes or tension from anyone possibly being injured. It happened one time so far and they had holy water, a thing everyone just carries around, I guess. So they're fine. Everyone's fine.

Kirito Coldsteel sucks. He tells us he works hard but fuck if we ever see it. He's arrogant and stuck-up and does it with all of the expressiveness of a plank of wood. He keeps commenting on girls' chest like some weirdo and his sister wants to make out with him. Because you can't have a sister without having incest, amirite? I mean, the child-like blonde in the guild wants to strip for you, Kirito. But Kirito's not a bad guy. You see, he dodges whenever the thirsty child jumps at him. #notallmen

And all of this leads me to wonder: what's this show's fucking problem? Kirito making remarks on chests are bad enough but then some dude basically tells a woman she's dressed like a whore only for the both of them to just fuck off and never come back? What was the point of that interaction? It wasn't done as a joke either, the dude was being hostile for no fucking reason. Leading me to ask again: what's this show's fucking problem? 

[jonhammstein]

What did you think of that dog licking that girl and getting all hot and bothered? I suppose it's someone's kink, but I don't know, man. Just made me uncomfortable, even more so than Beastars. Makes you wonder if this stuff is by and for people who feel romantic urges towards their pets. Ick.

[jonhammstein]

Sorry, that was non sequitur AF. I was referring to With You, Our Love Will Make It Through.

And having had some more time to process it... yeah, I'm still skeeved out.

[B E C K]

Sorry, that was non sequitur AF. I was referring to With You, Our Love Will Make It Through.

And having had some more time to process it... yeah, I'm still skeeved out.

Wtf. Just watched it now. Why did it get so freaky at the end? Bro! It was already strange sexualizing this dude's abs (when he's supposed to be a teenager) and then this? I guess this show thinks it can get away with this 'cause he's a doge? 

[B E C K]

I looked into the manga and it gets worse. Dog boy wearing a muzzle and feeling some boobies is somebody's fantasy and good for them. They, uh, got theyselves an anime.

[jonhammstein]

Wow. I think the disconnect for me is how bright and wholesome it is on the face of it. Like, it's not dissimilar from something like Blue Box, or Fragrant Flower.

But then just under the surface...

[B E C K]

I started watching This Monster Wants to Eat Me. This one had been on my list but I didn't make time to get to it until a couple of days ago. It seems decent. It's supposed to be yuri. I'm not sure if I see the yuri yet or I'm just dense. The first three episodes were pretty good but the last two made me feel a bit meh about this show. They aren't bad episodes but they change some of the context of what I've been watching and I don't vibe with this. It still seems like a good show overall but I liked the plot better when the focus was on a single yokai integrating into her life.

Also, the main character's family is dead and she's severely depressed. Not a spoiler or anything. Just stating this because there's an understandable sense of profound sadness to this show with this main character. I imagine a lot of people won't want to sit through a show with a main character that feels so bereft she wants to unalive to join her family. At the same time, this element is what makes the show feel so gripping.

[jonhammstein]

Holy smokes, have you seen this Disney Twisted-Wonderland thing? I can't believe it's real. Or, I suppose I can considering the Disney of today, but still. I got up until the point where the cutesy talking animal mascot character revealed itself and I turned it off.

Seriously though, why does this exist? Who is the target demographic?

[B E C K]

I saw some teaser of something for that a while ago and legit thought it was just some fan animation or something with someone's OCs. I didn't know it was a mobile game full of twinks getting an anime.

[jonhammstein]

Okay, the fact that it's just a protracted advertisement for a gacha game makes perfect sense. I won't even bother giving it a second look.

The newest batch of St*r WarzzZZ Visions was mostly whatever. The one that stood out to me was called "BLACK". I don't know that I'd say it was St*r WarzzZZ so much as it was using St*r WarzzZZ as a canvas for a really fucked up painting.

[B E C K]

Okay, the fact that it's just a protracted advertisement for a gacha game makes perfect sense. I won't even bother giving it a second look.

Yeah, I watched most of the first episode and bit of the second yesterday. It's not the most offensive thing I've watched this season. I actually like the main character somewhat. Like someone took the "stereotypical Japanese school boy who gets isekai'd" formula and made it a bit special with a few tweaks. Too bad this character's not in a better show.

There's pretty boys. Many, many pretty boys. They are pretty to look at. They wear makeup and use pretty magic while looking pretty and are divided up in houses in their magic school. But instead of houses founded by Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw you have, like, Ursula the Sea Witch, Scar, and Jafar. The target audience being a Venn diagram of fujos into visual kei, Disney adults, and Potterheads.

The aesthetic's kinda pretty... at least until I got to the part with the cheap CGI witches and the derp ghosts. But you can't waste the budget for the pretty boys on simple things like three Temu Caspers. If you want to look at pretty boys, this is your AOTS. I might chell it out again just to look at some pretty boys using pretty magic. Like when I go to the zoo and swing by the flamingo pond.

It's clearly trying to sell that mobile game. The whole room's on fire and instead of two of these dudes combining their half a brain cell to put it out with their, uh, FUCKING MAGIC, they're all running around or standing around or some of them are even sitting around. The scene then switches from character to character, giving each of them the chance to talk during the "big scary fire" so that all of the fujos get to see their favorite boy on screen for at least a second while he recites one or two lines of dialogue.

Then Red Bitch Riddle Shittlesticks or whatever the fuck this character's name is gets all mad at the main character. You know the archetype: looks like a girl, really angry for no fucking reason, tries to kill the main character, needs a fucking Snickers, and probably tops.

It was okay. The show's okay.  I don't care about these characters. They're pretty to look at it but they're fucking boring. Story?  Is there supposed to be one in a giant commercial?

[jonhammstein]

Went to see Virgin Punk: Clockwork Girl. Guess I should have done more research, because I incorrectly assumed it was a movie, but it's pretty much an OVA! Remember those? They kind of stopped existing around the time streaming video became ubiquitous, but it looks like they've found a new means of delivery: limited theatrical release!

Now to be fair the production value outshines anything currently airing, and that's as it should be. But when's the next installment? Does anyone actually know? The thought of watching anything one episode at a time with a year or more between episodes doesn't really appeal to me.

[B E C K]

I was confused about that. I kept seeing the teaser, trailer, or whatever on my feed for it but never heard anything about a series.