Anime

Thanks for the nominations for the year-end awards everybody! We ended up with quite a few nomination forms for me to work through this week. Please look forward to the voting round beginning this time next week.

As for anime, some thoughts on the past week:

• Dan Da Dan - We got to know a bit of the new main cast character and...he's a lot... Looking forward to this coming week's finale.
• Tower of God - It's almost over. Definitely still here from the sunk cost of watching so much, but it still manages to have its moments.
• Loner Life Isekai - Finale aired this past week and it was fine. I don't expect this to have a season 2, and it frankly doesn't deserve it. Season 1 ends at a good point.
• 365 Days to the Wedding - I continue to enjoy this show, but sometimes it can be tough watching two extremely socially awkward people try to figure out a relationship.
• Negative Positive Angler - Really great episode 11 to set things up for a finale this week. I've been really pleased with this show and the past two episodes have been really narratively satisfying.
• Villainess in History - Lots of things being set up in this show and I am not sure there is going to be a payoff for it all yet. It has a lot of fun moments though.
• Appraisal Isekai - War is hell...except when you take a break and have a snowball fight. A pretty fun episode this past week.

I still need to catch up on the past couple episodes of Orb. I have held off to give this show the time and attention it deserves in my opinion. It's been excellent so far, but it is running through next season too, so I am probably going to catch up on it during the slow period between seasons.

Weekly ranking roundup:

1. Anime Corner - Full Results - Weekly Winner: Bleach: TYBW
2. Reddit Karma - Weekly Winner: Dan Da Dan

Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma and /u/Nooble5 for the Anime Trending chart.

Status quo prevails this week again as both AC and reddit keep the same winner. One surprise is Blue Lock jumping up to #2 on AC's chart. I am glad that somebody seems to be enjoying it!

Woof, the holidays are upon us, and it's unusually busy at work too, for this time of year.

That doesn't leave me much time for watching anime, as opposed to keeping up with real life.

I'm really happy that some fellow anime-loving lemmings have stepped up to post in a good chunk of the episode threads for shows that I follow!

One show that I'm surprised doesn't have more visible support here is Let This Grieving Soul Retire/Nageki no Bourei wa Intai shitai

Not that I actually have watched any of it, but some random comments from users here say they watch it and it's decent-to-good.

For me, it got lost in the seasonal deluge of isekais with long names, so I never bothered to try a single episode, and at this point with my own neglected watching queue, I really don't plan to start.

2.5D Seduction has wrapped up and a new season has been announced immediately. All in all, it was a decent adaptation. The animation was wonky at times and a few things got skipped (if I remember correctly), but they got the spirit of the manga right. Yeah it was way less ecchi than the manga, but that was never the main selling point of the manga and makes this more accessible as well. I don't think it's fair to call it censorship either.

It also made realise again how nice the 24 episode format is. You can get nicely accustomed to the anime and it isn't over once it gets going. I wish there were more 24 episode anime rather than a new 12 episode anime every season that, most likely, will get glossed over because of the sheer amount of other new anime every season.

Rewatched Sakura Trick since I have yet to rate it on AniList, and it's been a while since I watched it.

I've forgotten how much of a win this anime is with the non-stop lesbian kisses. I was thinking 100 Girlfriends has the most kissing scenes in anime but after the rewatch, Sakura Trick just blows it out of the water (until season 2 of 100 Girlfriends maybe?)

The plot isn't very good to be honest and there isn't much character development. Well, who gives a shit. I'm just here to watch cute girls kissing each other.

Side note: I have forgotten how much boob-jiggle there were in this anime.

In short, this is one of the best non yuri-bait. The only way it can be better is if they go further like in Gushing over Magical Girls.

I would give it a 8.5 / 10, rounding it up to 9 / 10.

I'm still not watching any current anime, but Negative Positive Angler is on my TBW.

I finished up Boogiepop wa Warawanai (2019). It was pretty good all in all. As I noted last week, I watched the original series - Boogiepop Phantom (2000) - years ago, and while it was intriguing, it was a bit too buried in the surrealistic visual imagery of the era, which made its already subtle plot pretty much indecipherable. This one was much more straightforward in style and presentation, which is a much better approach, since part of the overarching theme is bizarre mysteries and horror taking place right under our noses and virtually everyone failing to even notice. And with a more straightforward style, I was better able to follow the recurring characters and appreciate their certainly not coincidental growth, and piece together hints about the mysterious Towa Organization that's lurking in the shadows behind many of the crises that Boogiepop and friends face. And now the light novel series is on my TBR, which is presumably the intent.

Then, casting about for an entirely different tone, I thought back to series adapted from manga I particularly enjoyed, and suddenly remembered Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san (2013), so that was next, and it was wonderful. It's a slice of life gag series centered on a notably staid high school student/tsukkomi who spends his spare time fishing, and the childish, self-absorbed, seemingly immortal mermaid/boke whose attention he catches after he literally catches her (more than once - one of the many running gags is that no matter how many times she ends up with a hook in her mouth, she just can't resist a fishing lure). It expands out to an entire cast of legendary creature bokes, and has more laugh-out-loud moments stuffed into its 13 minute episodes than anything I've watched in quite a while.

Then most recently I watched an oddity called NieA Under 7 (2000). I just happened on it listed in a stack and thought it looked interesting, and I ended up quite liking it. It's a sort of melancholy slice of life about a distressingly poor ronin (in the modern sense of the term - someone who's out of high school and studying for, but hasn't yet passed, college entrance exams) who lives above a quaint old bathhouse in Enohana with a brash, selfish, free-wheeling alien freeloader (in their timeline, aliens crash-landed on the Earth about 20 years previously, and have since just sort of blithely blended in with human society). The art style is rough and simple, but it fits the setting of a broken down bathhouse in a broken down town, and the overall feel of it is satisfying - mostly melancholy but with bits of hope shining through, and with a pleasantly well-developed cast.

And I have no idea yet what's next. I've been sort of considering catching up with either DanMachi (which I burnt out on with the second season) or Re-Zero (which I dropped after the first season because I hate Subaru with every fiber of my being), but I just can't quite get myself inspired. We'll see - something will present itself, one way or another.