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.

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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.

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I haven't been watching much of any anime right now because of life. Anyway, someone uploaded Riding Bean onto Youtube (not that it wasn't already there) and that upload appeared in my feed so I rewatched it. I get that it has problematic elements or whatever but I've always had a soft spot for this OVA, particularly Bean Bandit and blonde Rally Vincent. (No, I will never call her Larry.)

So that got me diving into Gunsmith Cats. The manga. I guess this part of this post goes more into the Reading thread but I don't feel like making two posts: I wish Gunsmith Cats didn't get so weird about showing bush and boobies of young girls and women. It shows us Bean Bandit's ass in one chapter, I guess, but no men get anywhere near the treatment that the young women get. I wouldn't mind the nudity if the men were also a part of it and it wasn't so skewed towards lolis. And then, it's like, let's make the prominent villain of this a creepy-ass rapey lesbian? EW.

I do kind of like brown Rally and I like Bean Bandit. The cars and the guns are cool and I like the Chicago setting and the majority of the art. I can't call Gunsmith Cats bad. But I certainly can't recommend it to anyone. Also, I haven't gotten to the ending but it apparently shits the bed.

Sonoda, just finish the Bean manga already.

And, yes, I am ignoring that Bean Bandit short. Because it was ass.

[jonhammstein]

Did you ever read Cannon God Exaxxion? It had a similar deployment of female characters. Guess that's just Sonoda's M.O.

[B E C K]

No, I haven't read it. I've heard of it. I googled it and it doesn't look like anything I wanna touch. But, yeah, Sonoda wants to show off his underage waifus. I mean, that Ken dude-groomer man May ends up with is obviously a Sonoda self-insert. We know Bean's a self-insert as well but Bean's the protypical unstoppable 80's action hero type of insert. He wouldn't be as cool if Sonoda made him that pervy and Bean also has fuck-all to do with May; so Sonoda makes this mid-thirties Japanese dude that should've been killed off or should've fucked off a long ass time ago but instead gets a Happy Ending (I guess both figuratively and literally) with May.

Sonoda apparently thought Rally in the Riding Bean anime wasn't as sexy. His artwork from that Kickstarter thing makes her look younger. Along with the Gunsmith Cats Rally being 19, it's like, WHY. If he wanted young Rally, he should've stuck to the dark-skinned Gunsmith Cats version and her relationship with Bean. I just think a younger Rally wouldn't be his partner in this type of work.

I dunno, it's probably just my taste talking: I thought the character was her sexiest and worked the best in the Riding Bean anime. She comes across as Bean's contemporary. Like if they were turned against each other somehow, she'd hold her own against him despite lacking the physical strength and driving skills.

Then I also found out Goldie, who also should've been taken out in her initial arc, was kept alive because he couldn't bring himself to off her. Dude, she didn't improve the story. At all.

And people are like, "Riding Bean/Gunsmith Cats would never be rebooted these days." Because WOKE or whatever.  And it's like, probably not. Yeah. Stuff with guns and tits gets shafted, no pun intended. Getting independent backing for an OVA was their best shot. And if that Bean Bandit short is all they have to offer, then we can leave both properties alone at this point. Minnie May's taking off her panties and Becky Farrah peeing? Yeah, bro, NO THANKS.

[B E C K]

I finally finished the Monster Meat anime.  I still plan to finish fat girl anime, girl monster wants to eat girl anime, and princess chinese not-anime but haven't gotten to yet.

Overall verdict is that it's okay. It doesn't really go anywhere or do anything. It's absent on plot. It makes you think it'll be about the monster-eating girl dealing with being an outsider/outcast but once she leaves home, no one reacts to the level that it ever becomes a plot beat. Everyone's nice but just apprehensive. Then they eat delicious monster tacos or whatever and are "thanks, m'lady." So then you think it's about her relationship with the Duke. But before we get half-way through, that's resolved, too. Will the Duke's people accept her? See first point: apprehensive until they're not. Okay, what about her monster research with the potential to produce weapons? No time to address that, the show's too short. Again, this wasn't a bad show. It doesn't look good enough to feel cozy and it's not funny enough to just chill with it for laughs. It really needed something more of a plot. As much as summer's Betrothed to my Sister's Ex rushed way too fast through the story, at least shit happened.

[B E C K]

New season, ho.

I watched Sentenced to be a Hero.  I'm sure lots of people will enjoy this one. It currently has a 4.9 at Crunchyroll.  It has a cool-ass protag design with Yuichi Nakamura in the lead role as Xylophone Forbatz. This character feels wasted in this thing. I wished this cool guy was in a badass show doing rad shit and having fun. Instead, he's in this mid show being bitchy and weepy. Maybe I'm being too harsh and it'll improve later. But this first episode was just existing and only got semi-interesting at the end.

This world doesn't make sense. These "heroes" or whatever get sent out and the knights are all "you don't get to save me, shitty baka". Then what's the damn point? I thought these heroes or whatever are expendable fodder. Why are they even there if you don't want them to be there? What's even the point of the sentence in the first place? And Xylophone here has a noted history. Why don't more people know about him? Shouldn't everyone know about him?

The pink-haired character was so goddamn annoying. I was hoping he was gonna get fridged and that didn't happen. The knight woman had a really stupid hat and was also annoying. Literally no one else got more than half a minute to try and be a character.

Then we have the issue with the characters explaining too damn much. And it's almost like they're not explaining the shit they should be explaining but are explaining other shit that doesn't need explaining or could be explained later. Because I couldn't even tell you what the story is for most of the episode. What the fuck's going on? There's a demon lord or something and monsters. And there's bitchy knights. And there's dead people called "heroes" that steal and are also bitchy and can just choose to never be heroes. And goddesses that are, uh, created or sum shit. I don't fucking know.

Like a really mid Outer Limits episode, there's no story here until literally the last ten minutes. Isn't the point of being an extra long episode that you're giving us extra story? What they gave us could've been done in half the time.

Afterwards I watched Tamon's B-Side, which managed to tell more story in its 23 minutes than Sentenced could do with 58. Bleh. For what it's worth, Tamon's B-Side is good. Don't know if I'll stick with it.

Sentenced will be one that I'll circle back to if some really cool shit happens. But right now, in terms of vibes, it's like a Temu Clevatess.

[jonhammstein]

I liked Sentenced quite a bit. Mostly the animation. It was borderline feature film quality, how did they swing that? I also appreciate a fantasy setting that isn't just another isekai for the pile, or something that doesn't immediately fall back on MMO rules to establish all its worldbuilding.

I will agree that it was giving Clevatess.

[B E C K]

You know what, it does get extra points for not being a damn isekai. I want to stress I didn't hate it. I just found it wasteful with the elements it had. And it annoyed me at times. I liked it better than Solo Leveling and I think the protag's cooler in this. But it's not pulling me in like Clevatess did.

[B E C K]

I finished This Monster Wants to Eat Me from last season. I binged it, which I probably shouldn't have. I should've picked a stopping point and split this up into at least two if not three viewings. Because I ended up feeling impatient and exhausted at the end, but that's not because of the show. The show overall was good. I don't really like the info-dump monster that shows up and creates drama.  And the end is sorta... I mean, I didn't expect the suicidal girl to be cured or anything, but there needed to be some plot thread with more of a conclusion to it. A promise being broken and fixed with another promise is, kinda meh. Still have to give this one an A.

For the new season, watched the first ep of Journal With Witch, which feels weirdly cozy despite having a character becoming orphaned. I liked it. I'm interested in seeing where it goes.

Also dipped my toe into the anime with the demon boy-guy simping for the girl from the hero's party. I lost what little curiosity I had on this before I got half-way through. It's just... there.  There's worse stuff than this but no thanks.

[jonhammstein]

Journal with Witch was good. Not much else to say about it. I wondered at first if the aunt was meant to be trans, but it seems not?

The Darwin Incident has my attention. It's a little uncomfortable, and I'm iffy on the art, but nothing too egregious so far.

[B E C K]

I watched new Ronin Warriors. I know that's not what it's called but I can't be arsed with its real name. It's a mixed bag. It's weird that the government has fake Ronin Warriors. And the guy who's supposed to be our Red dude is so unlikeable so far. Also, he cuts four dude's hands off. I know those guys weren't good people but what the fuck. I think I'd be more open to this if this were an original property rather than piggybacking on the good will of the prior show. Admittedly, I didn't really watch the original so for all I know this one is true to the themes from that one or whatever. Not sure if I'll stick with this but I can't call it terrible.

Isekai Office Worker had a decent first episode. I don't know if I'll stick with this either, only because some of the interesting world elements could very well be abandoned for the BL. I'll give this one another episode or two to win me over.

Also tried some of A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation. I feel like it was trying to be cozy but it's not a good-looking enough show to pull that off.  I got bored about five minutes in. I might give this one another shot. Maybe I'm just feeling tired or something.

[jonhammstein]

Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table is kind of awful. Not sure I'm up for the subject matter.

[B E C K]

Holy Grail of Eris is fine. I've read a bunch of the manga or webtoon or whatever this one is. It's been a while. I remember it being an engaging enough story but I'm not feeling drawn into this adaptation. It was a bit boring.

Gave that Gentle Noble anime another shot and finished the episode. This show is everything Frieren's sometimes accused of: walking simulator with no plot. This dude is isekai'd--albeit not from our world--and he doesn't care. I like the idea that he's so confident that his king will get him back so he doesn't worry. But, dude, you're in another world. How are you even paying for shit? He keeps gold coins on him that he pulls outta nowhere, maybe in his asshole, but wouldn't people call him out for the differing currency? He has zero concerns for necessary resources. Maybe he explained it and my ass just zoned out. So far, this is a nothing show.

[B E C K]

Invisible Man anime is nothing special. Watching the blind person navigate her life in various small ways were the most interesting parts. I'd rather watch a whole show about a cute blind girl living life without the sentient monsters populating the world or the invisible bore. Not that the monsters add any element of anything to this show's world. They may as well not be monsters at all. Maybe the monster thing matters later in the story. I don't think it will though.

[B E C K]

Polar Opposites is cute! A++