AOTS (Anime of the Season) A:UK Edition

[NoSurprises]

SPRING IS OVER, HOT SEASON START...

Once again ended up watching more in spring than I had planned to.

AOTS goes to wit... witch ha... nah it's Kamiina Botan for some reason. It's like Yuru Camp and Bocchi got drunk and had a baby, but Bocchi left during the pregnancy and the baby grew up to be kinda sad about it and rebelled a bit. The direction change ups between every episode really hooked me, it felt like they just let them do whatever they wanted. Characters are sharp and has a good helping of melancholy, just lots of elements I really like in a series.



Witch Hat Atelier - Was also stellar, I think it suffered the same fate as Apothecary Diaries for me where it was too good for it's own good, so I just kind of expected it to be good each week. Really looking forward to it's continuation though.

The Ramparts of Ice - Not quite is endearing as You and I are Polar Opposites, but the cast was interesting enough to keep me around until the end.

NIPPON SANGOKU - If Botan hadn't made number one, it honestly would've been a close run thing between this and Witch Hat. Everything about this was great, from the style, to the characters to the story beats.

Dorohedoro Season 2 - I'm reserving judgement, as not gotten around to starting this yet!

 

[Demelza]

There's been a lot of good shows, so once again it's tough for me to pick...

AOTS goes to Agents of the Four Seasons. Okay, look, I appreciate it's hard to watch, and I really worry they've messed up the pacing for this final episode because they moved things around earlier on to make it flow better. But I love this cast of characters so much that I can forgive the issues. >_>

Runners-up:

Witch Hat Atelier – Didn't expect to like this, having dropped the manga at volume 3 originally, but the visuals and Natsuki Hanae drew me in to watching it, and now I really like it.

Nippon Sangoku – Definitely the best show no one was watching because it's on Amazon. It was very visually striking, and I found the story interesting.

Pardon the Intrusion, I'm Home - Trashy romance series, but that's sometimes all you need.

Akane-banashi - I like the manga more overall, but this had some really great episodes, and it cannot be said enough that the seiyuu all did an absolutely fantastic job. I watched the documentary-style YouTube episodes that followed them learning Rakugo to prepare for the show. Sadly, those aren't subbed which is a shame as the larger viewerbase would have enjoyed I'm sure.

My Ribdiculous Reincarnation - I expected this to be isekai trash; it was, but it has been really inventive! Every time the MC gets reincarnated, the world is in a very different visual style (including but not limited to a live-action segment, clay models, paper crafts and so on). A lot of time and love went into it for sure.