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Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest episode 13 True self.

Mission: Yozakura Family episode 26 A reason to fight.

Tower of God Season 2 episode 13 Technically speaking, this isn’t complete as the next arc starts next week, but for MAL purposes this sits at a 6/10 or 3/5 so far.

Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror episode 1 I ended up watching this on Adult Swim’s website with ads and was quite impressed - will see how the other three episodes pan out.

Treasure Island episodes 11-26 (Complete. I might have liked this more as a child but as is this wasn’t bad, though the first half was very dull.) 3/5

True Tears episode 1
 
As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World 2nd Season Episode 1

Fairy Tail: 100 Year's Quest Episode 13

Mission: Yozakura Family Episode 26

Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 12 (Complete)
 
Delicious in Dungeon (dub) eps 22-24 (complete)
Origin story, changing places and dinner plans.
Hmm, don't particularly see the hype! Didn't particularly like the characters, apart from Senshi. Halfling was too shouty, and although they got a bit better the VAs for the Elf and the Human were a bit raw. And whilst we're on the VAs they decided to use a male voice for a female side character! Luckily not in it too much. Had a listen to the Japanese and they had a female VA do a deep voice, probably because the character was a dwarf. They story was them doing more or less the same thing every episode, meet some monster, kill it and eat it! There were a few interesting bits of lore here and there, but not enough for me. Seen it put on the same level as Frieren, but it not even close for me.
Art and animation wise, it's Trigger! Guess it wasn't Imaishi, some scenes reminded me of LWA or BNA more.
7/10

Uzumaki (dub) ep 1
Spiralling.
Not scary, but creepy and got increasingly so throughout.
 
Loner Life in Another World ep1: First new episode of the season and I'm already going to describe this as 'painfully generic'. It's 20 minutes of an entitled, snobbish, misanthropic loner reacting to the usual RPG nonsense in an endless monologue with no attempt at entertainment value. The lead is transported to another world with his school class, gets separated from them because he's an arrogant idiot, yells at a god, picks up some 'trash' skills, items and stats (which are, of course, actually good) and then does absolutely nothing of interest for the rest of the episode. He's a know-it-all but there's no growth because he has no actual setbacks that aren't of his own making; everything somehow works out for him no matter how many assumptions he makes. I can't see anything worthwhile about this series unless you're a genre superfan and love isekai shows so much that you want to watch every single one of them. This one looked sort of ok and the designs were glossy, it was just uninspired in every aspect of its existence. Its main gimmick is already tired and I'm pretty sure I will never remember having watched it at all if I ever come across it again. Argh!

As an aside, while I was reevaluating my life choices during this chore of an episode, which felt as though it lasted for hours even though it didn't, I suddenly realised why shows like this bother me so much. They're effectively Twitch streams of cynical teenagers playing PlayStation 1 RPGs, thinly disguised as anime. I know that a lot of people enjoy that kind of thing but it's really not to my taste; I can handle these shows when there's a strong central sense of identity even if they're goofy (No Longer Allowed in Another World from last season was perfectly fine despite not being especially original). This had nothing. I don't even remember whether the lead had a name.

Let This Grieving Soul Retire ep1: The cool-sounding title might have set my hopes a little high. A fantasy series rather than an RPG-lite isekai, this show is about a young, work-shy guildmaster who is in charge of famous adventuring parties despite being kind of incompetent himself. He seems to be winging it through life due to his skill at making friends with just about anyone, which means that even though he's objectively kind of a loser he's presumed to be fairly charismatic. The storytelling style is odd, and a fairly simple premise was made nearly impossible to understand by the unnecessarily overcomplicated script, but compared to the rubbish I watched earlier this was a thousand times better. I'm not going to keep watching this either but the world felt at least somewhat lived-in, the animation was better and the character dynamics actually felt as though they had potential to deliver interesting stories as the series continues; I felt that Let This Grieving Soul Retire respected my time and attempted to provide genuine entertainment. The next episode preview was cute too. Decent but not really for me.

R
 
Umineko no Naku Koro ni or Agatha Christie's And Then There Were Boobs: Episodes 1-8

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Eighteen characters introduced in the first episode? Eighteen? How am I meant to remember... Oh, that's made things easier, thanks. From the artwork for this show I thought it would take place in the Edwardian era or something, imagine my surprise when it actually takes place in 1986 and the Ushiromiyas just happen to dress like a family of half-assed Code Geass cosplayers twenty years too early. As it stands, there are two major obstacles to me enjoying Umineko as much as I enjoyed Higurashi.

Firstly, the setting. The village of Hinamizawa was almost a character in itself, something Umineko's island (the name of which entirely escapes me) is not currently living up to. A story like this, set almost entirely within the confines of a murder mystery mansion, should feel dark and oppressive and claustrophobic but instead everywhere feels quite open and bright and frankly, a bit bland. I feel like I want to turn the brightness down and the contrast up on my monitor to actually give the show some atmosphere. The near constant brightly lit rooms of Umineko are certainly a long way from Hinamizawa's shadowy golden evenings, moonlit nights and dingy interiors.

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Secondly, most of the characters are not (yet) particularly interesting or likeable. The horror in Higurashi felt impactful because I cared about the characters who were being made to suffer. And not only them, but often even the ones who were inflicting the suffering as well. So far, the only character in Umineko I really don't like seeing come to harm is Maria, but as Beatrice's chosen messenger it seems like she's mostly safe from that. Her mother can absolutely have her face ripped off in the murder shed as many times as necessary though for how viciously she beats her seemingly autistic daughter (and that's not a term I throw around, it really does feel like Maria was intentionally written that way through both her own behaviour and other characters' remarks). The thing about Christie's And Then There Were None, from which Umineko clearly takes no small amount of inspiration, is that all the victims did actually deserve it. Unlike Higurashi, where I found myself wanting the characters to get their happy ending because I liked them, I'm not particularly bothered if a bunch of avaricious aristos, their dull as dishwater kids and doormat servants get offed. And given that most of the female characters' "personalities" so far appear to be BIG TITS I'm not hugely hopeful of improvement.

So all things considered, if I'm supposed to dislike Beatrice or hope for her defeat the show is really not doing a very good job on that front. She seems to like Maria, the only character really worth saving, and Battler just seems like an idiot. "Sure, time might be repeating itself, I might be stood outside of frozen time observing another version of myself who exists in a parallel universe while talking to the person with the power to make all this possible (who I have also seen teleport and disintegrate people with a snap of her fingers) but you're definitely not a witch and I refuse to believe in magic!" Given that the audience knows witches and magic definitely do exist in this world, and at this point have even been privy to Beatrice committing some of the murders using actual magic, it seems like it's going to require an incredible ass-pull to prove Battler right. Yet that appears to be the direction things are heading. But go on then show, surprise me, I'm willing to eat my words.

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True Tears episodes 2-13 (Complete. Whilst I wouldn’t say I was bored to tears by this series, I did find it to be a very middling watch despite having its moments.) 2.5/5

Twilight of the Dark Master OVA A blind watch for a forgettable OVA, though it had some nice atmosphere here and there. 2.5/5

Typhoon Noruda (Film) Not a bad short but could have made for a better feature-length project. 3/5
 
Lightspeed Electroid Albegas - Episodes 11 - 16

Grendizer U - Episode 13 [Final]

It finished as it started, dull and ugly. The post credits scene suggests more is on the way, let's hope not!, Sometimes you need to watch the odd bad anime to appreciate how good the good stuff really is.

Yume Kara, Samenai

A typically 80's boy meets girl teen fantasy OVA. It wasn't bad just unremarkable.
 
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The Fable ep23-25 [end]

While I was never blown away by The Fable, it was a refreshing break from the usual fare (a show with a cast exclusively made of adults!) that kept me entertained pretty consistently all the way through, and it definitely filled a gap for me in giving us an anime equivalent of the cheap-but-quirky crime movies Japan used to do in the 90s and 2000s. The animation is certainly limited, but not visibly so, or at least not so much that I found it distracting. As HWR mentioned, the strength of the writing, particularly for the characters, carries the show well enough that I was never overly conscious of how much of it boils down to ‘two people talking in an ordinary looking room’.

If I was really picking at it, I think there is a hint of ‘Grumpy Bubble-Economy Uncle tells you it’s all the kids’ fault’ (2025, spring, JC Staff) about some of the plot developments I’d have liked if grubby wastrel Kainuma could have found some kind of redemption, for example, although him pratfalling to his own doom was admittedly very funny, but I suppose again it’s at least a change to have a show that tells you to work hard to better yourself, instead of hoping Truck-kun is going to be your ticket to that elf harem...
 
The Most Notorious "Talker" Runs the World's Greatest Clan ep1: I thought this might be like the other clan-leading show, but it's just another mish-mash of tropes and arrogant, monologuing leads who smirk a lot and constantly regurgitate the mechanics of their RPG-ish world to people who already know them for the benefit of their imaginary audience. Noel is a 'talker' (anyone who has ever played an RPG before would recognise them as a bard and shot-caller) who mentions that it's the weakest class at least a dozen times in the first ten minutes of the episode. Talkers depend on a party instead of being solo heroes, but Noel wants to be the King of the Adventurers to fulfil a promise made to his dead hero grandpa, so he's unbearably smug about everything in a way that is utterly charmless to watch. I kind of hate him, and I also hate the way that the script keeps patronisingly explaining pointlessly generic details of the pointlessly generic setting instead of actually telling a story. I'm out.

I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History ep1: Everyone in this show is dumb. It's a typical villainess isekai written by someone who incorrectly thinks they know all about otome games because they pillaged from other terrible villainess isekai stories, so they create a world with no internal logic to it then throw in a few decorative 'dashing' nobles as a distraction. There's no real point in it even being an isekai because all that it adds to the story is motivation for the preteen lead to obsess about becoming a wicked villainess by doing irrationally evil things - which actually come across as cute or empathetic. She's too clueless to notice, though, and she's so obsessed with metagaming based on her memories of the game her world is based on that she's barely mentally present at all. The show doesn't look that good and it isn't very fun. Maybe these shows are more fun for people who don't actually like otome games; it always feels as though the writers are laughing at us rather than laughing with us, which is the cringiest (and cheapest) form of parody.

R
 
Rui said:
I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History
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I confess I bailed out just over halfway through. Can only agree with you on this one. (I haven't tried the other one yet - and as I trust your opinions implicitly - I don't think I'll bother.) Not a great start to the Autumn Season so far - but hopefully there's better fare to follow at the weekend.

S
 
That's Wazamonogatari completed with Shinobu's long due backstory revealed. Next up MONSTER SEASON starting off with Shinobumonogatari

With that, the return of ma boi Arararararararara.... gi?
My bad, I flubbed it 😋

 
My Deer Friend Nokotan Episodes 1-11

Saw this on Amazon Prime as an included title, very random for a high school based show, random indeed.

Need to download the 12th & final episode as that got released after I had downloaded the series,
 
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Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Episodes 9-16

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THANK YOU. Unfortunately Battler's change of heart doesn't last long, I really don't know where this whole plot of "I'm going to prove the murders weren't committed by magic" is going. For a moment there it appeared to just be a red herring, yet Battler is still persisting with this line of thinking even though he's now spent enough time in the land of the time witches outside of existence that he's probably eligible for a residency permit. And from there, he has been watching magic happen while continuing to deny its existence. Unless he and even we in the audience are not supposed to trust what we're being shown in which case I don't know how any of us are supposed to work anything out at all.

I swear to Satan after that conversation with Virgilia if Battler ultimately wins his wager with the argument "What you're referring to as "Magic" is in fact GNU/Linux following scientific principles, ergo it can't be considered magic, checkmate," my left hand will have to hold back my right from punching out the monitor.

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I have enjoyed these episodes more than the first batch however, seeing the murders committed in different orders and by different methods so there are different combinations of people left alive to try and solve them is probably the most interesting thing the show is doing from a narrative point of view. It might possibly have been more compelling if it had just been that without Battler's whole Ace Attorney act, it would certainly have been a lot more mysterious. We would have missed out on a lot of fun witchy shenanigans I suppose and with Beatrice being the most entertaining part of the show (for now, please don't go all pathetic on me Beato) I can't necessarily say it would have been better. Also if it got to the end without actually showing any magic and then presented "It's magic, I ain't gotta explain sh*t" as the solution, that might only have made things even worse.

I think my preferred outcome for the show is still that Beatrice just kills everybody and takes Maria as a protégé. I do like that we now (I think) have a pretty solid explanation for witches as being created from part of a person's psyche as their own entity, which explains the whole Rika/Bernkastel situation as well as what looks very much like Satoko/Lambdadelta(!) which may have VERY interesting implications for Higurashi Gō/Sotsu, here's hoping. WILD speculation for the entire Higurashi universe follows: I'm presuming Maria is not suffering from low-level Hinamizawa syndrome when she goes full creepy, but Beatrice seems to think she does have the potential to be a witch and Maria also blames her mother's abusive behaviour not on her but on "the bad witch" could we in these moments be seeing the parts of them that have the potential to break off and become witches? Could Hinamizawa syndrome itself even be a form of this?

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Yes please.
 
Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister ep1: A very conventional romantic comedy setup, this time with a shrine maiden theme. The hero, who is notably unusually handsome for the point of view character in this kind of show, moves into a shrine so that he can study (he doesn't actually care for the gods at all). He quickly meets the three hot granddaughters of the head priest - and accidentally ends up in compromising positions with all of them, only to learn at the last minute that their grandfather expects him to end up marrying one of the girls one day. Cue situational comedy tropes and, I would wager, lots of saucy boob-grabbing accidents as the hero slowly endears himself to his three attractive housemates. It's a throwback to an era where Love Hina and Ah! My Goddess were considered instant classics so fans of that kind of show should find a lot to like here. I'm not sure that it's going to convert anyone who isn't already hooked in shounen romantic hijinks, however, and it feels very much as though the middle girl (a massive tsundere) is the animators' favourite even though there are hints that it might be a harem ending. It was ok. Not the worst show of the season but not something I'm going to keep watching.

Acro Trip ep1: This was funny; easily the best premiere so far this season (admittedly that isn't especially difficult). It's yet another magical girl parody show, but this time our heroine - whose life revolves around trying to get a glimpse of the local magical girl - ends up crossing paths with the local villain instead. He's completely rubbish and makes me laugh, and his flamboyant personality immediately clashes with the cynical school girl lead. The other positive is that everything is designed to be bright and colourful which makes for a much more visually interesting experience than the tired copy-paste designs of Loner Life in Another World. I'll give the second episode a watch later tonight.

R
 
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