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A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School! episode 4 Doting.

Love Live! Superstar!! 3rd Season episode 4 Chasing dreams.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day XXIX: Alligator, Alligator II: The Mutation (Films)

Urusei Yatsura
episodes 193-195, OVAs VI, XI, III, V
 
No Longer Allowed in Another World
A bit different to my usual relentlessly upbeat main character. In this case, I'm enjoying the mix of seriousness, comedy and fanservice.
Episodes 1-3

Plus Sized Elf
Crikey, it's been a while since I've seen anime boobs bouncing and jiggling. It's probably just the right length of episode and it stopped me from thinking about double suicide but not about chips.
Episode 1.

Looks like my quiet weekend will be lots of fun with these and Failure Frame.
 
My Instant Death Ability is so Overpowered
Episodes 1-3
I don't think I'm supposed to take this seriously. Isekai trifecta this week.
The 2 MCs banter is funny.

Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple
Episodes 1-3
Interesting watching a Japanese version.
I can understand why they've renamed Inspector Japp. Hastings is too young, Hugh Fraser for me.
Anime episodes are a perfect length for a Poirot short story.
20 year old animation is like an old comfy pair of slippers.
 
Re:ZERO - Starting Life in Another World - Season 3 episode 55 Flies and flood.

Sengoku Youko 2nd Season episode 27 Someone who saves.

The Prince of Tennis: U-17 World Cup Semifinal episode 5 Coming together.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day XXX: Trick R’ Treat (Film)

Urusei Yatsura
OVAs X, VIII, VII, IX

Urusei Yatsura Movie 6: Always My Darling (Film) This is probably the weakest of the UY films, and spends time on another new character instead of the wealth of supporting characters on offer, feeling again like an extended episode of the main series but one of the weaker ones. 2.5/5
 
Bleach (English) - Episode 1 - 3 (re-watch)

Though I'm yet to finish Bleach (I'm upto Episode 151), now I've started collecting the series on blu-ray I felt I should really watch them (watching a blu-ray, crazy I know).

The first three seasons of Bleach I'm very nostalgic for anyway so will be good to revisit, was the first long-running Shounen Jump series I ever watched actually.

I know re-visiting season four and five will be a slog though, really didn't enjoy those seasons.
 
Tsurikichi Sanpei eps 66-70
Akuma-kun ep 15
Cat-Eyed Boy eps 4-6

(non anime)
Yakuza Ladies Revisited-Love is Hell (movie)
Yakuza Ladies-Blood Ties (movie)
 
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu: Episodes 1-6

"I do in fact have time to teach you how to operate a Colt" Edition

Good a night as any to make a start. As I suspected from the final episodes of Gō, Sotsu is going to be quite difficult to discuss without spoilers so I'll continue to make use of them for most of my comments, but I will say these new(er) seasons are very well constructed indeed. And intense, I definitely stand by my earlier comments regarding emotional impact. Not to diminish original flavour Higurashi and Kai, which still made me feel for the characters, but these seasons really know how to hit hard, perhaps due to showing scenes the audience wasn't privy to before. Oh, and Happy Halloween.

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Everything was not okay.

Some of the cuts in these new seasons are so damn good. The Keiichi arc from Gō and Rena arc from Sotsu, the way they have been re-worked from those in the original series and tied together so they make sense as one loop (where it's Rena who is experiencing Hinamizawa syndrome not Keiichi, he's not being paranoid and Rena really is out to get him because she's already succumbed and her murder of Rina has already taken place) was fantastically well done. Likewise the retake of the Mion/Shion arc, which might the first piece of media I've ever seen that has subverted expectations by unsubverting expectations. Yet everything still tied up and made sense. That's what I like to see.

I was initially uncertain about the development of previously antagonistic characters thwarting Satoko's plans due being so haunted by their past misdeeds in innumerable loops that they change their ways, but I think that's paid off and proved interesting now with Satoko's use of Teppei (hang on a sec... Events don't always play out the same in each loop, how did she manage to Biff Tannen the horse race? Maybe she had to try that one a few times) and I think Rina seemed more sympathetic this time as well, which made her and Rena's interactions more emotionally charged.

Further thoughts: Satoko's a lot more competent with a knife than Rika, I will say. You'd think Rika would have had more practice at getting it right first time by now. Though quite how Satoko managed to stick a fully concious Mion with a needle without her noticing I don't know, that's skills. I also would have thought that a toilet you can fit an entire body down would probably have had this glaring safety risk pointed out during the design stage. How warped am I for laughing at Mion stomping Rika down the toilet? That definitely felt more funny to me than horrible. And on the one hand, I feel like Satoko has been made a bit too sadistic now BUT at the same time I'm wondering if this could be the Lambdadelta origin story, since it seems witches are born from the negative part of the psyche and if that happens, perhaps she can find some peace again. Witches, as we know, do not obey time-lines.

Further Rampant Speculation: I suppose if I had stopped to consider it, it's obvious Hanyū was still around at the same time as "Eua" though we still don't know why she stopped being able to appear to Rika (and possibly even ceased to exist entirely). I had wondered previously about the possibility of Hanyū being the witch of the artist formerly known as Oyashiro-sama, but now it seems more likely that's what "Eua" is, and Hanyū is something else entirely. A counter-force to witches perhaps, a positive being that splits off from someone rather than a negative one? Could Hanyū be Oyashiro-sama's good side and "Eua" her bad side?

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DAN DA DAN episode 5 Lost and found.

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? V episode 5 Wonderland.

Negative Postive Angler episode 5 Expensive hobby.

Rurouni Kenshin -Kyoto Disturbance- episode 29 Broken.

Trillion Game episode 6 Nothing to lose.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day XXXI: The Exorcist III (Film)

Urusei Yatsura Urusei Yatsura Movie 5: The Final Chapter (Film)
Though a stronger finale than the film that would follow, it was the last half hour or so that made it memorable. 3.5/5

And with that, the original UY run is now (Complete. This made for an enduring and enjoyable franchise with a mostly solid run of episodes, OVAs and films despite some lesser films and stories here and there. I slightly preferred Oshii’s run as director, though the latter half still had some highlights. I’ll be watching the remake series next to kick off November.) 4/5, 3.5/5
 
365 Days to the Wedding Episode 5

Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? V Episode 5

Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Season 3 Episode 55

Transformers One (Film)
 
Tsurikichi Sanpei eps 71-75
Kinnikuman ep 131

(non anime)
Watched Kenji Misumi’s awesome Satan’s Sword trilogy(Satan’s Sword,Satan’s Sword-The Dragon God,Satan’s Sword 3-The Final Chapter) based on Kaizan Nakazato’s Dai-bosatsu tōge an unfinished long series of novels (41 books,written from 1913 to 1941).
Other notable adaptions are Tomu Uchida’s spectacular Souls in the Moonlight trilogy and Kihachi Okamoto’s 1966 masterpiece The Sword of Doom.
 
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Dragon Ball Daima episode 4 Demon woes.

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II episode 5 Following a lead.

The iDOLM@STER Shiny Colors 2nd Season episode 17 Broken promises.

Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks

Doctor Who: the Happiness Patrol

Urusei Yatsura (2022)
episodes 1-15
 
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Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu: Episodes 7-11

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I'm glad this chapter ended as well as it did, because it was starting to give me Endless Eight fatigue at times and I was beginning to become concerned over the rapidly diminishing number of episodes left. It's one thing when you're seeing the same story from a different angle (which is kind of Higurashi's thing and is usually fine) but I'm not sure quite so much time needed to be spent here showing me things I'd already seen again, especially given that a lot of this stuff could simply be inferred at this point. The pay-off was good enough that I can forgive it, just please make these final four episodes count.

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Yeeeah, I get to feel clever, even if I'm not. It was probably worth watching Umineko just for that. Original Satoko is surely not gone for good, unless they're going for the darkest of all possible endings. Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall, and "Eua" is doing altogether too much gloating over Hanyū than is good for her health. It's funny, isn't it, the difference character development makes? "Eua" is probably not any worse than Beatrice but because Higurashi made me care about Rika, Satoko and friends I don't want her to win and I am hoping Hanyū, Satoko, Rika or all of them together do kick her arse. These are characters I've seen struggle time and again with pain, loss and psychosis which wasn't their fault but revealed their innermost fears and frustrations. I'm aware of all the terrible sh*t they've been through. That's the kind of thing I never got for the Ushiromiyas. It's not enough to just say that well, they're human so they must have those thoughts and feelings, it needs to be shown. There's not much point in serious storytelling if it doesn't make you feel things.

Once again, new things were very cleverly worked into the original arc here. Having Satoko's classroom breakdown happen as a result of her inner conflict with her "witch" rather than PTSD from her uncle's abuse as in the original was quite brilliant. Satoko manipulating Teppei into thinking social services targeting him was just a continuation of the village's harassment of their family was perfectly believable. Much as I like detective Ōishi, watching him come down with Hinamizawa syndrome was a particular highlight because there's something appealing about seeing the good cop become the absolute worst cop. Sotsu continues Gō's brutality in showing in pretty graphic detail things that earlier seasons didn't, that brutality is good because it also makes me feel things. Mostly horror and sympathy, but occasionally humour, which is also good. Now I'm just really hoping it ends with some closure, because it's been three years and as far as I'm aware there's no more Higurashi in sight.

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