Your anime viewing journal

That Time I Got..... Scarlet Bond, the Movie: it was entertaining, but I didn't really feel it advanced the story much.

Bluey season 3 complete: Shed a tear or two at the beautiful little tales of the Heeler family. Made me feel a little homesick, too.

The Demon Girl Next Door episodes 1-6: Very silly but entertaining story. I can see a serious romance developing here. My disc kept stopping at the end of episode 3. Took it out and found some dirty fingerprints on my brand new MVM disc! Luckily, they cleaned off OK.
Did Scarlet Bond have some action?
 
ARIFURETA: From Common Place to World's Strongest Season 3 Episode 1

Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest Episode 14

Love Live! Superstar!! 3rd Season Episode 26

Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles Season 2 Episode 14

Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister Episode 3
 
Cop Craft Episodes 1-12 COMPLETE (English dubbed) - I found this far better than it's MAL score would suggest, and the English dub was great I loved the "last time, on Cop Craft" guy, solidly entertaining cop show with a good central pairing (of an Earthling cop guy an and an "alien" girl adjusting to life in a different world/dimension), and some worthwhile things to say about prejudice :)

Rewatch of Is the Order a Rabbit? S1 still ongoing (just watched Episode 6 today) :)

EDIT: Just started the Giant Robo OVA Series The Day the Earth Stood Still (with the Animaze dub) :)
 
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Good Bye, Dragon Life ep1: A stultifying, average plod through the reincarnation of a dead dragon whose sole character trait was giving unbearable monologues about how shocking it was for him to be dying. Fortunately, he's much less overbearing after going through the process of growing up as a human. Instead he kind of passively spectates his own life, leaving home in his mid-teens and living humbly on his own while sidestepping the hints about finding a wife that are being dropped by his human parents. It was all so dull that I kept getting distracted by chores in real life, which is never a good sign. Things picked up a little when the sexy lamia girl appeared and the hero got to smugly drop hints about already being somewhat familiar with her people, due to his past life, but while there's plenty of potential for a friendship there (and possibly much more) I just couldn't make myself care about her clumsy, blushing approach and bizarre RPG-style dialogue. The show objectively isn't bad but I think I might fall asleep if I have to watch any more of it. Even the stuff at the beginning with the dragon being slain was too relaxed for me!

Magi-Lumière Magical Girls Inc ep1: Almost nobody is going to watch this series legitimately this season, which is a shame because once I'd wrestled with the Prime Video app enough to actually find it (heaven forbid that Amazon actually promote something they bought), the show was ok. It's a slightly silly take on magical girls in a mainstream, formal setting, where becoming a magical girl is a viable profession with interviews, sponsorships, marketing budgets and deadlines. So kind of like Tiger and Bunny and the like, except with techno-brooms and young women in office attire. I found both leads quite annoying when they first showed up but they vastly improved over the course of the episode, especially when they started working together because they were both a bit one-note on their own. The show ended up being perfectly watchable for what it was and my partner said that the manga is good too. Not really my cup of tea but it definitely deserves an audience.

BLUE LOCK s2 ep1-2: I'm already invested in this show so I'm obviously going to keep watching, even though I have no interest in football and don't know anything about it (perhaps that's advantageous, given how crazy the plot of this 'striker only' football show can be). This season kicks off (sorry, I'll stop) with preparation for an important match with professionals outside of the closed BLUE LOCK environment, so of course everyone has to scramble to win a place on the team. This show never did get as edgy as I was expecting from its dramatic opener but it's stupid in a charming way so I find it good fun. What's less fun is the actual football this season, though, because while the character stuff still looks great the animation in episode two completely fell apart as soon as the match began. The staff used just about every shortcut in the book to try to hide it - bad CG (nothing new for the show, but it felt ropey even compared to season one), repeated shots, still frames with frantically jiggling outlines, weird texture overlays, distortion effects - but nothing could disguise the fact that most of the second episode was a bunch of still pictures with an occasional animated ball bouncing around. I really hope that Bachira's match looks better than this.

R
 
Cop Craft Episodes 1-12 COMPLETE (English dubbed) - I found this far better than it's MAL score would suggest, and the English dub was great I loved the "last time, on Cop Craft" guy, solidly entertaining cop show with a good central pairing (of an Earthling cop guy an and an "alien" girl adjusting to life in a different world/dimension), and some worthwhile things to say about prejudice :)

Rewatch of Is the Order a Rabbit? S1 still ongoing (just watched Episode 6 today) :)

EDIT: Just started the Giant Robo OVA Series The Day the Earth Stood Still (with the Animaze dub) :)
I didn't like Cop Craft as much as I hoped. Fortunately, the Cop is one of my favourite Japanese VAs. Good gravely smokers voice.
 
Re:ZERO - Starting Life in Another World - Season 3 episode 53 Broadcast.

Sengoku Youko 2nd Season episode 25 Eight years.

The Prince of Tennis: U-17 World Cup Semifinal episode 3 Glint.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day XVI: Bubba Ho-Tep (Film)

Urusei Yatsura
episodes 111-117
 
The Demon Girl Next Door episodes 7-12: good fun but still silly story. Couple of big plot revelations in the last couple of episodes. Good thing it's only two weeks until series 2 is released (good marketing MVM, having this as your DOTW). It won't tax your brain, there are no big battles (though they keep claiming the city is in danger from something), the most fan service is a big of cleavage. Umm, I just realised it's practically all female. Except for the announcer (and the cat).
 
Come with me once more on a journey to a place where youngsters commit terrible acts of violence and depravity. That's right, its...

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Mitsudomoe: Episodes 1-8

I'm in no great hurry to finish Higurashi (particularly now there's so little left) so I thought I'd take a little diversion into something more light-hearted. The best way I can describe Mitsudomoe is an "uncute girls doing terrible things" show. Have you ever watched a CGDCT show and found yourself thinking "This is okay, but wouldn't it be better if all the girls were angry/violent/stupid/creepy?" I know I have. Mitsudomoe is the answer to that question, and the answer is yes. I suppose ymmv depending on your penchant for particularly crude humour (episode 2's scatological shenanigans were probably the low point for me, less for the subject matter and more for the overuse of the same joke) but for the most part I've been uproariously entertained and the Nipples the hamster jokes are still not getting old. The show also trades quite heavily in misunderstandings for its comedy, some of which are quite cleverly constructed given its general low-brow nature.

That said, while I may be looking at this from the perspective of someone who barely even notices things other people might find offensive, I don't think Mitsudomoe seems all that likely to offend. The kids certainly do (and know) some very age inappropriate things but it doesn't feel like they themselves are ever really being sexualised. Whenever there's a hint of anything lolicit it's always the result of a misunderstanding and adults and kids alike react with horror at the idea. Even Futaba's boob fixation isn't ever really framed as sexual and rather just a childish fascination, as is most talk of panties, boobs and bras. Perhaps it helps in this regard that Mitsudomoe's source manga has a female creator, which probably does also imbue the girls (over the top as they are) with a certain level of believability in their behaviour, or at least their internal thought processes.

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Mitsudomoe is a gag show, as such there's not a whole lot of plot besides the basic premise that newly qualified teacher Yabe ("Yabecchi" to his entire irreverant class) has his naive dream of teaching shattered on his first day in the job when he is assigned the class of the Marui triplets, "the worst children in Japan" who proceed to ruin all his well meaning gestures (and relationships with the other teaching staff) with a mixture of cynicism, violence and perversion. Not that they don't have a lot of help from the rest of the class, who while not quite as out of control are still a bunch of oddballs who also seem to celebrate these traits.

As for the triplets themselves, they are all dialled up to eleven. In any other show even one of these girls in the cast of characters would probably be considered enough comic relief. Futaba is both dumb and hard hitting as a brick but possessed of an innocence and infectious joy for life that makes her utterly loveable. Hitoha just can't help being a total creep around other people and would rather wallow in her own alienation than admit to liking the normal and popular things she enjoys alone, which attracts the wrong sort of attention. Each is highly entertaining in their own way but personally, I can't get enough Mitsuba. Whether it's solidarity with a fellow winner of the race to be born first (and the sense of both unearned superiority and begrudging responsibility that comes with that), her casual sadism or just her perpetually psychotic eyes (drawn deliberately so in contrast to everyone else). Parents, siblings, teachers, other kids, she has absolutely no respect for anyone else whatsoever. She's like Miu Matsuoka on crack (and is either unwilling or unable to display many emotions besides incandescent rage and schadenfreude, relatable) and I love her, particularly when she's putting poor little rich girl Sugisaki in her place.

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DAN DA DAN episode 3 Sealed.

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? V episode 3 Fight dining.

Negative Postive Angler episode 3 Borrow.

Rurouni Kenshin -Kyoto Disturbance- episode 27 Outsiders.

Trillion Game episode 4 Flowers.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day XVII: The Little Shop of Horrors, Meatcleaver Massacre (Films)

Urusei Yatsura
episodes 119-120
 
Dragon Ball Daima episode 2 Honey, I shrunk the Saiyans.

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II episode 3 Now this is fun.

The iDOLM@STER Shiny Colors 2nd Season episode 15 Ideas.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day XVIII: Jaws 2, Jaws 3-D, Jaws: The Revenge (Films)

Urusei Yatsura
episodes 121-125, 127-132
 
Dan Da Dan [English Audio] - Episode 3

Ranma 1/2 (2024) [English Audio] - Episode 3

Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance [Original English Audio] - Episode 1

For something thats supposed to be an English Language production, you'd be forgiven to think it was instead a really slapdash localised project. It was mocapped and performed by those same actors (mostly Japan based English speakers, along with a few Australians), yet the lip sync and direction is often disconnected to whats going on? Weird. Dropped.

NieR Automata Ver1.1a [English Audio] - Episodes 16-24
With this done, the show ended up as a interesting remix of the game. While I wouldn't be super sure about recommending it instead of the game, its certainly a nice pseudo companion piece to it, along with the rest of these games.
Also pleased with Aniplex of America handling it, if CR handled it directly, inevitiably at least 2 (if not more) of the English cast from the game would have to be recast, and pleased all major characters are reprised here. A few quibbles here and there but some of those were likely unavoidable, with some interesting (and entertaining) new takes from these same folks.
Will have to hold up my end of the bargain when the time comes. All $239.98 of it, + Taxes & Shipping
 
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