Spring 2022

Finished

Healer Girl 

This is honestly such a weird show for me because it's not usually one that I would touch at all, but somehow, I was weirdly into this? It's sort of a crossover between a cute girls doing cute things SOL and an idol anime - where the main girls are studying to be healers, but like, they heal people through the power of SONG and sing their way through the ups and downs of their lives. 

It's just kinda a really wholesome and sweet anime about girls being a lil gay and going through finding themselves, but also their desires to help people who need it - and even though I'm not a huge fan of the random singing, they're just kinda quaint and adorable and I really like how soft and sweet everyone in this show is. I end up getting really teary at all the parts, and while again, not objectively a good show, there is just some part of me which kinda just ended up really loving this in guilty pleasure but not really guilty way. One of my favorite parts is the random moment in the show where they talk in a sing song voice for about half the episode and its adorable. I also audibly laughed out loud when they make Hana go to America just to giv e her that roundabout circular story of healing a girl on a plane - but like that's not to say I fucking didn't tear up like an idiot during it. It was a really sweet story and I love how earnest it is. I picked this up in the middle of the season but I'm weirdly glad I did. 

Tomodachi Game

God this is such a fucking hype show - I usually find 'edgy death game' shows not super interesting (the idea of just killing your cast off is honestly not that interesting to me, who thrives off like, prolonged big character line up interactions (looking at you, Juuni Taisen), but also the whole concept of just sacrificing characters for no reason is also just kinda boring to me. But weirdly enough, this is actually a really fun show. 

This show in comparison, actually ditches the angle of death, although it is mentioned as an aspect of this reality for some other characters, but replaces the 'death' bit in 'death game' with a lot of debt (they cover this early in the show, asking if they'll be killed, but they say, nope you're worth more to us alive than dead). The more you play the game, you either accrue more debt, or you win and slowly chip away debt with wins. However, the games are made to break down the relationships between people while you're forced to play in a team. 

However, the premise aside, it isn't really the key point of this show (despite the opening arc being misleading on purpose). The actual point of this show is the MC (Katagiri Yuuichi), and all of his friends who all harbor some secrets that are all tied up with each other's pasts, and they're thrust into 'Tomodachi Game' as a result of the debt and you basically watch to see what sort of secrets everyone is holding and all the fucked up shit about their pasts and how they get there, but MOST IMPORTANTLY, you watch for the MC and how good he is at fucking up everyone in the Tomodachi Game, because he has literally no life skills, but is incredibly good at deconstructing everyone's psyche which makes him great when its a game that pits people against one another. 

I actually find the psychological aspect really interesting in this show - the small moments where they talk about human connections or expectations to what they might do, but also the kinda just asspull hype-ness of watching the mad man pull off all these insane strategies to win games that seem hopeless, is just fucking fun. It's not dark and depressing like death games that try to say something meaningful or criticise society, it's literally just an insane show which gives you plenty of fun. 

I have also taken it upon myself to pick up the manga and boy is this fuckin manga just fun. I'm not sure if this show will get another season because of how it is, but like, damn it would be fun to get another season. If you liked the anime, definitely read the manga. 

Otome Game Sekai wa Mob ni Kibishii Sekai desu

This is an isekai that absolutely fuckin slaps and I love it. I think since forcing myself to watch some subpar isekais have led me to absolutely despising some of the shows, but this is one of the early fun ones (although admittedly, it does get a little self indulgent after the first arc), but the first half of this is fucking fun. 

The MC of this show is basically a NEET lad who got blackmailed by his sister into playing this otome game on 100% playthrough, and eventually he dies due to exhaustion from playing the game (reminder, get a drink of water and take a break from the screen!) and is reborn as a mob character in the game he just cleared. Due to the amount of hours he put into it, he basically knows the world back to front, and eventually decides to use his ingame knowledge of the world to hack the system and get out of his mob hack. There's some stuff that isn't fully explained in the anime from the LN, such as the hierarchy of women being better than men, and the men having to work harder to marry up and be recognized (although like, lets not think too hard about the fact that theres finally a matriarchal society and the strongest person is STILL a man and everyone's wet for him), ((like really, i'm trying not to as we speak)). but basically (SPOILER) due to his sister being reincarnated as Marie in the same world, she basically takes it upon herself to steal the actual protagonist (Olivia) role in the story, forcing all the boys to be in love with her instead of the intended character and fucking up the timeline and the actual story. In addition to Leon/MC's meddling. Anyway, the first half is definitely fun with how much they just go hell for leather with his 'gesu' personality of just being an asshole and provoking everyone, but once he makes friends with Angelica and Olivia and has things to protect and starts building his harem, the best parts are still when he's being really fucking scummy and everyone hates him, but he's just badass. I found myself enjoying this a lot, although it does get a little generic at the end, it's by no mean a bad show, especially considering how trashy some of the other isekai can get. Also, it has a really great ability to just fucking tie up all the plot points that it raises - which is honestly, an amazing trait compared to some other shows out here. Even though the harem gets real serious, it's nice to get the MC still being a bit scummy. Good ending, good introduction to the story, solid show.  I'm sure I'd enjoy this second season a smidge more than the others, but that's iF we're getting one. 

Ao Ashi (ongoing)

(I think this is a two cour but I'll fix this if it isn't). 

I have really terribly mixed feelings about this show - stemming primarily from the source material, which sort of filters its way through the show and uh. I think you really need details to fully understand the context of the show, so like, I'm gonna get into it. I heard this was really popular in Japan, so I decided to have a stab at it and see what the hype was, and also because I do love a sport anime - and after watching up to the first arc of the show, I ended up binge reading the manga up until Chapter... I believe like 200 but I could be wrong. I'm gonig to get into some manga content here because it kinda seeps into the rest of the show and I'm sure it'll be touched on in the rest of the show as it's a two cour. You are warned - spoilers.  

I enjoyed myself so much with the opening introduction arc of this show - it's really a beautiful and lovely story that touches the borders between seinen and shounen - like making monetary sacrifices for your dreams and pursuing what you want and balancing the two, and the establishing of Aoi/MC's desires and goals and dreams is such a wonderful touch to showing us who the character is and where he comes from and why he wants to achieve his goals. In a way, it reminds me of the entirety of Ahiru no Sora's opening - such a long way they've travelled onto to get to the start line. I really liked the entire story arc with his mother, brother and him and the cost of his dreams and how they take the risk on his dreams - it really made me emotional. 

And after that, we basically get none of it at all lmao - it's like the author went yeah nice backstory, now we're going straight into shounen territory where we basically talk about rediscovering soccer strats and stats, and just the uphill battle of Aoi trying to make a name for himself as he goes to Esperion youth. it's definitely still fun and really interesting, but I think one of the weakest parts of this story/narrative from the author is that they really have no idea what genre of story they wanted to write. There's basically no mention to Aoi's drive or motivation to his mother or thoughts of his brother after this, but is replaced with Hana, the girl he meets at the try outs, who takes a shining to him because he (his eyes) reminds her of her stepbrother/coach Fukuda, and this whole section turns into this horribly overblown romance section, where Hana has a one sided crush on Aoi because she reminds him of her first crush (her stepbrother), to which Aoi is completely oblivious to, even after she makes all these meal plans for him. there's also another girl introduced who is the daughter of the sponsor of the club who happens to want to be a soccer coach despite no training or active involvement, and she also becomes a little enamored with Aoi - and Hana catches Aoi and the girl hanging out and gets jealous and strikes up a relationship with this hot 16 year old prodigy in the club and makes meal plans for him - and the anime spends about like 30% more time on this romance in the show than in the manga, which IMO, already fucking spends long enough on the romance. SO while this whole fucking romance thread is happening and involves Aoi, he himself is basically unaware of the general situation, and continues his sport manga life at trying to improve himself to be the best soccer player he can be - funny because his reality is 100% soccer, but the actual story is only 70% soccer and 30% pointless romance that the MC is unaware of. So yeah, between the fucking sport shounen vibes and the complete confusion of the romance happening, the story can get really muddled with what exactly it's trying to convey to the audience as a narrative. The actual sport part however, is fine. I think there are some moments where people who actually play soccer will genuinely enjoy - for example, I had a chat about the episode where Kuroda and Asari get mad at Aoi for not knowing what he was supposed to do, and honestly, I related to that and I like that they are trying to explain soccer to people who aren't soccer people.

Anyway this show is fine. Also, shout out to the voice actor for Aoi is also in his debut role and the animation is a nice touch.  There are so many moments that could be so good - if only the author stopped self projecting with his dick about his romance while he was writing a good story about soccer. I joke that this is my favorite romance anime - but it's not inaccurate with how much time they spend on the girls being horny about eyes. 

Spy x Family (ongoing) 

Listen I know you're all fucking creaming yourselves over this show. Is it good? yeah. Is it like, THAT GOOD? Ehhhhhh. I've had like no less than 3 casual watchers come up to me and ask me about the hype behind this show and I would probably attribute it to the fact that there really isn't anything quite like it - both with the addition of kid comedy moments and the pretend family shenanigans. 

I read the manga a good while before the anime was announced after some sort of random MAL recommendation on another show that I was watching, and checked it out. I have to say, it is a solid comedy and that's exactly the type of shit I need in life. I was really intrigued by the premise (a spy dad, assassin mom and psychic daughter pretend to be a family sounds exactly like the type of set up for a joke), and the pay off with the material is good. I also feel like there are definitely more of a wider age range within shows recently (imo), and so this kinda hits this niche of being like, a memeable show but also one thats really accessible/approachable because of how easy it is to watch with the minimal fanservice and kinda wholesome themes. 

It also helps that the actual content has been translated into anime in a really faithful and fluid way (reminds me of KNY with the small transitions and really taking their time to adapt the material with good pacing and minor original content that adds to the story) (The whole addon with the castle was a nice touch but I wasn't sure if I needed it there?). I think the manga was relatively pretty popular before they even got any big news about the anime, so they put a lot of care in making this a good show. That said, there's really not a lot that actually stands out to me as super memorable personally - I think it's a good show but there's nothing that particularly say stands out to me as something I'd want to rewatch, despite it being a relatively high quality show with lots of care and effort being put in its production. I personally prefer the manga far more with its comedic pacing, as I personally feel like the anime is a little too earnest, whereas the manga is really just comedy slaps. This is a two cour show with a break in between at the moment, so there will be more. 

Tiger and Bunny 2 (Ongoing)

This is one of those shows I had zero interest in, and to be honest, I'm not even sure I would choose to finish it on a normal day, but for some reason, I keep on watching. I think I'm just trying to see what everyone else sees in it. Also it does remind me a bit of Super Crooks, with the same western setting vibe and copious amounts of Tsuda Kenjirou on Netflix. I'm not sure if this is a second cour or when it's coming out - but for the moment, I'll review up to the current bits. I also skipped the movie so I think I've missed a smidge of context so I'll just roll with it and expect that it's been explained for everyone. Maybe I'll rewatch it later. 

I don't mind this season - I do find that it flows a little better than S1 for me because you get a good basis for both Kotetsu and Barnaby's relationship, so it works better as a sort of background setting to set up the bigger parts of the show and fleshing out the other characters which didn't get much focus in the first season. You get the introduction of the buddy system, some familiar faces and a few new ones (Thomas, Ryan, Cat and Ryan), which is a good amount to add to the crew - who are new heroes and a little younger than the others. Honestly, thinking back, Tiger and Bunny is really not a kinda show which sits down and explains a lot of things to you, there's barely any world building or character building, but you're sort of just forced along to something happening in every single moment and episode and finding out things about the characters through interactions, but at a lot of times, they feel weirdly unresolved and sometimes almost forced. For example, Thomas and Ryan both have honestly grating personalities, and Kat and her mother's relationship (which I hope will eventually get resolved) is kinda just there. Also there was a whole subplot about Blue Rose having a crush on Kotetsu (and honestly, don't sue me, but even as a fujo, I can't really see the Barnaby and Kotetsu relationship?) but i prefer the slight change towards her and Ryan having a partnership and being lovely towards each other because of his insecurity and her trust in him - and yeah I like that they dropped that. Also I think the relationship with Kaede is just fraught - it's hard to want to support him when you know he's slacking off as a father even though he wants to do his best. I do think the general plot with the twins could have been streamlined a bit better instead of the sort of half assed last minute reveal to say they were only doing all the insane shit for their dad-uncle despite their general crazy, unhinged insane demeanours, but like, compared to the villain set ups in the first season, I feel like that was a bit more interesting to watch. I also liked the Origami Cyclone backstory, and Miyano and Ono for the twins was super fun. At one point though, when Kat had another little crying fit, I audibly said to the screen, oh my god, stop crying, shut up. 

I'll hold off on the extra thoughts until the second part comes out but I'll say, if you enjoyed S1, you'll find this equally charming. It's consistent with the feel and pacing and story of S1, and although the animation dips in certain places, I would definitely say I preferred watching S2 over S1, and it's a solid continuation of the story. 

Yuusha, Yamemasu

This is honestly one of the best fantasy setting OP MC anime I've ever watched. i don't really want to give too much of a spoiler due to some things not being super clear, but adds to the story, but it's great. The slow reveal of the backstory and giving the MC a really compelling personality and story while getting us all really invested in the main 5 characters is just... man. There are so many really heartfelt moments in this show about people just connecting and all the nice parts of humanity and all I can say is I really enjoyed the fuck out of this. Also I love Mernes. the OVA is also super cute! 

They really did a good job with this and im really hoping to see a second season of this because I loved it. 

Unfinished 

Shijou Saikyou no Daimaou, Murabito A ni Tensei suru

This was... painful to get through. OP MC gets reborn into the future, gets himself a harem. Not much of note, also not technically an isekai, more like a OP fantasy thing, so I don't think I'll be finishing this any time soon. 

Gaikotsu Kishi-sama, Tadaima Isekai e Odekakechuu

Okay this IS an isekai, which I would like to finish at some point. From what I watched, it's a bit more of an isekai comedy, but it seems generally... generic. I will try to finish this at some point for the isekai point, but the fanservice is... Well it's there. 

Aharen-san wa Hakarenai

This is kinda like a show if you took Tanaka kun is always Listless but made it into a romance. I love that the characters are super lovable and sweet and they get up to silly things, but I honestly resent the romance part and genuinely could not bring myself to finish this. 

Paripi Koumei

Liked the idea. Didn't like this in practice. 

Koi wa Sekai Seifuku no Ato de

This was actually very cute! I would like to go back and finish it although I feel like the premise of the show is pretty much a one and done type romcom deal. 

Deaimon

I liked the kyoto-ben, and i feel like the show is probably a heartwarming solid show. I just could not be bothered to finish it. 

Mahoutsukai Reimeiki

Fantasy set up. Nothing really stood out, but it has a more adult/serious vibe to this show. Not sure I'll finish this. 

Healer san Mendokusai 

You know, the thing I think that sucks the most about this show for me is that I genuinely think I would have really enjoyed it if not for the fucking healer. I know the point of the show is that the dark elf is a fucking crackhead and that she's there to piss everyone off (which makes for the most of the comedic set ups) but fuck me I can't get over how genuinely unlikeable she is. I love the MC and all of his idiocy and his people ripping into his character, but her mere existence is like a grater straight on my eyes.  

Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Ultra Romantic

I actually weirdly do not enjoy this show very much - especially after the second season. For me, the second season lost a lot of the comedy (which takes a backseat to let the romance drive), and frankly, I'm a little too old to be charmed by high school romances.