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A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School! episode 14 Wall of deception.

Flower and Asura episode 2 Rival.

Dragon Ball Z: Cooler's Revenge (Film), Dragon Ball Z (Rewatch) episodes 101, 103-107, 118-123, 126-127
 
Unnamed Memory Season 2 - Episodes 13-14. (Loud throbbing heart sounds commence!) With the continuations of both this series and Apothecary Diaries, my two most favorite series from last year, along with looking forward to the very interesting Ameku MD: Doctor Detective this season, I will be in complete anime heaven all winter! I didn't realize Unnamed Memory was back this season already, or I probably wouldn't have changed my avatar to Maomao two days ago - I may have to change it back to Tinasha before the season is over. I've missed her so much! 🥰
 
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Red Baron - Episodes 18 - 25

Red Baron continues to be a very enjoyable series and has started to introduce the upgrades to RB teased many episodes ago. It could do with shifting up the story now TBH.

Gundress

I hadn't seen this for a while and wanted something short to watch on Sunday morning. It's a decent, if very by the numbers, mecha action film (with a very troubled production history) and chips along a good pace. The DVD cover has Masamune Shirow's name splashed all over it but he only contributed character and mechanical design work. I thought it was better this time round than my memory recalled it being.
 
Ranma 1/2 (2024) Complete

I’ve never read or seen any Ranma but I had a feeling I would enjoy the slapstick no holds barred comedy. It didn’t disappoint. Also the colour palette is amazing for this show.

Blue Box Everything that’s out until today…

I totally forgot the episode number as I caught up last week and my memory is trash. Anyway, I smashed through this and have thoroughly enjoyed it all so far. All the characters are so sweet and lovely and I love how ernest it is. I’m glad I checked it out as I was on the fence about watching it.

Your Lie in April Complete

Another series I’ve gone in completely blind on (other than hearing people enjoy it). I just wanted something similar if not the same as Blue Box, teens, romantic feelings and loads of angst. Yup, that was delivered with a a side helping of childhood trauma. Damn, I’m not crying, you’re crying. A brilliant series and now a burning regret I didn’t pick this up in the Christmas sales.

As much as I dislike Netflix, they have really been smashing it with the anime they have on the service right now.
 
I May Be a Guild Receptionist, but I’ll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time ep1: In the past, the joke of the title would have been turned into a single illustration or 4-koma strip, achieved its goal of amusing people and then we would all have moved on with our lives. These days, it's turned into a full television series. It's pretty much the same gag as used by the Grim Reapers in Black Butler and countless other shows, poking fun at corporate culture with an absurd backdrop; the lead will stop at nothing to minimise her overtime and if that means using her divine powers to smite monsters now and then, so be it. I enjoyed the (terrible) chemistry between the apathetic heroine and the motivated adventurer who is trying to uncover her secret, and the other side characters seemed slightly better fleshed out than usual; the creator of this series has successfully squeezed more potential out of a very limited concept than I was expecting. Despite its rock bottom aspirations this show isn't bad, though I question the lead's assertion that her role as an adventuring guild receptionist is a stable lifelong job. Every one of her colleagues is a hot, busty girl so I'm pretty sure she's getting fired and replaced by someone younger the moment that she gets too old to be the face of the guild.

Anyway, I’m Falling in Love with You. ep1: An interesting idea for a youth romance series: the lead's pivotal teenage years were messed up by the pandemic and she's now looking back nostalgically at a time when she had four hot male friends, all of whom she saw as brothers rather than potential love interests. Unfortunately, the actual show is strangely detached about it all which made it very difficult to figure out why I should care. One of the lead's friends has inevitably developed a crush on her and is being quite weird about it, while the lead is too busy wallowing in her own problems to even try to be a good friend to him (in this case, being a good friend might well require giving him a frank telling off, but at least that would have been something). The pandemic elements are also odd. Nobody seems all that bothered aside from moaning that swim competitions are cancelled, which is fine from the perspective of the impatient, hormonal teens but the lack of other background details robs the premise of any weight. Only one side character even actually cared about the swimming; everyone else is just distraught that their overcomplicated plans for confessing to one another relied on arbitrary external events taking place (because it's more romantic that way?) The female lead is oblivious to the point that it passes straight by sympathetic; she seems bewilderingly self-obsessed as she glides through life without ever thinking about anyone else's emotions or priorities. Ugh, I guess I like my romances to be messier, more emotionally intimate and feel earned. This is just a bunch of people doing their own thing in a way that's obviously going to cause hurt, and there's no hint of any real payoff to make me want to watch it all play out.

I Left My A-Rank Party to Help My Former Students Reach the Dungeon Depths! ep1: A more accurate title would be "I Left My A-Rank Party and Then Carried Three Cute Girls Through a Dungeon After They Took Pity on Me and Invited Me to Join Their Party". This game-inspired fantasy show really rubbed me up the wrong way. Our hero quits his high level party because they weren't taking him seriously enough and just saw him as the team member who handled the streaming tech (successful adventurers also stream their delves, enhancing the gamey feel a thousandfold). Fortunately, he's intercepted by three of his former students (he's only twenty) and all of them are now hot young women who want to go mining in the dungeon, so they're very happy to recruit a higher level player who they already know and like. What follows is a full episode of agonising, patronising condescension as the hero mansplains his way through simple game mechanics in a dumbed-down way for the (supposedly) trained adventurers he's with, who meekly thank him for sharing his great knowledge with them every time. Then at the end he talks them into fighting a boss they wanted to avoid (high level compared to them, low level compared to him), only to ignore the three of them entirely and solo it (on stream, of course) so that everyone can celebrate how fantastic he is. And they do. That's the show. It's a pure power fantasy about a guy showing off to new players, I mean adventurers, which is probably the MMORPG experience I least want to have presented to me as entertainment given how exasperating it is to suffer through in real life. It's worse because they're all girls, too; I think things are a lot better now but this was how every gamer with a female avatar experienced MMORPGs back in the noughties. The actual RPG world mechanics seem fairly clearly inspired by the Red Mage meta from Final Fantasy XI around two decades ago, an observation which provided the only entertainment value on offer.

Sakamoto Days ep1: A sitcom about a legendary retired hitman trying to live a peaceful life with his family while his past life threatens to catch up with him. It's a simple formula and part of a long term trend towards poking fun at edgy professions. The anime adaptation keeps things simple for the everyday life parts before switching to a more quick-paced style for the violence (when it's needed); it's engaging and commits fully to its premise. I don't dislike the show but it's not really compelling viewing. It's a nice change to have a shounen lead who actually has an ordinary (?) family right from the outset and a sweet side to go with his bloody past.

R
 
Rui said:
It's a nice change to have a shounen lead who actually has an ordinary (?) family right from the outset and a sweet side to go with his bloody past.
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True, this; and it made me reflect on Spy x Family which also makes us forget (most of the time) that the main couple are a ruthless spy and a ruthless assassin. These violent comedies only work, I guess, if we take on Hamlet's assurance to his Uncle Claudius when about to watch the actors in the play he's devised ("wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king"): "No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ the world." (Enuf Shakespeare for now! Ed.)
 
Haibane Renmei (dub) ep 13 (complete)
SoL with a bit more to it than others.
The art is quite nice, but suffers because of the period it was made.
8/10

Scott Pilgrim ep 3
Finally watched the next episode after the shock of the second episode. Seems what they've done is made Ramona the main character and she has to be the one to confront her own evil exes and solve the mystery of where Scott was taken to, that's right he's not dead!
Still annoying that we didn't get a straight adaptation. There was plenty the film had to cut out that we could have been put back in here!

Pantheon season 1
Not anime, but plenty of help from Dr Movie in the animation and they have lots of anime credits.
Anyway quite an interesting sci-fi about uploading the human consciousness to become a super computer.
Apparently there is a season 2 out there, but only available legally in Aus/NZ!
 
Honey Lemon Soda episode 2 Begun.

Ishura 2nd Season episode 2 Eyes open.

Dragon Ball Z (Rewatch) episodes 128-130, Dragon Ball Z: The Return of Cooler (Film), 131-138
 
I survived all of the first episodes! A total of nine shows have made the cut for now, though three were sequels to titles I was already watching anyway. Time to catch up on the ones where I've fallen behind (and tomorrow is Friday, which means more Mao Mao - yippee!)

AQUARION Myth of Emotions ep1: I'm not very knowledgeable about the wider Aquarion series so for me this was a fairly typical 'kids get forced to fight for the sake of humanity' robot show. The music is above average, especially since the original's incredibly famous opening gets reworked and repurposed for this new spin-off, and I quite like the distinctive, stylised designs. They work better for the kid characters than some of the adults but the exaggerated expressions help to convey the dramatic subject matter as seen through the eyes of school children. The stakes are already sky high in the first episode and there's also a bereavement (and associated mystery) to contend with, so given that 'emotion' is one of the themes of the series it's important that it all comes across. A lot of the action shots use CG though it's stylised enough to avoid looking too crummy, except that the 'launch' sequences made me mourn what could have been; there's something very beautiful about old school, hand-drawn robot shows. The art style in the ending credits is gorgeous. If I hear word that the show gets darker I might come back to it.

Farmagia ep1: A game-based series about a cheerful idiot who dreams of joining the elite ranks of the heroes of his world. His daily life involves working on the farm at his massive orphanage, where most of the other humanoids have pet beasts to perform farming-related tasks for them. The lead, Ten, is bonded to a fairy instead of a beast, and the fairy seems better at farming than anyone else but for some reason that's not important and everyone looks down on him for being beastless. Anyway, the series absolutely motors through a ton of setup and by the end of the episode everything is in flux and it looks as though Ten is (predictably) going to be stepping up to do battle with some new friends, along with an overwhelming crowd of familiar-looking side characters. My partner likes Mashima Hiro and helpfully explained that there are a ton of references to his previous works stuffed into this generic show, so if you just want a comfy farming/battle pet show with his usual designs then this will probably appeal more.

The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World ep1: An obvious parody where a hot-blooded sentai hero ends up as an adventurer-for-hire in a generic fantasy world. After spending his first half year acclimatising (blessedly, the show skips past all of the usual rites of passage), he meets an ambitious spellcaster in a silly outfit (a cropped wizard costume with a whole lot of cleavage). She initially thinks he's ridiculous but his earnest, friendly personality - and otherworldly sentai powers - end up winning her over and the two make a surprisingly good team, quipping their way through a dungeon until they're firm friends. The dialogue flows naturally and I enjoyed the affectionate jokes about the genre (the hero's theme song plays whenever he activates his powers, and there are lots of colourful explosions!) The CG is a little ropey but it's also kind of appropriate for the material, so I'll let it slide. My partner is definitely continuing with this one and I can easily see why: it's so nice to have a main character who is genuine and kind-hearted in this era of edgy cynicism.

R
 
Hana Saku Oroha episodes 1-13: Odd. A show starring a group of teenage girls working in a hot spring resort with barely a mention of hot springs or playful attacks on one anothers boobs. It's so refreshing!

Our protagonist, Ohana, has been deserted by her feckless mother and packed off to stay with grandma (who she has never met) at the family hot spring which mum ran away from as a youth. The first episode or two was a bit harsh on poor naive Ohana, but she has grown into the life (and work) at the inn and the odd people she is working with. She has certainly cried a river of tears at this point, and I hope the second half sees more joys than crises.
 
If you haven't checked out From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated! I highly recommend it. I went into expecting some typical isekai or otome thing, but it's actually really funny and entertaining due to the way it plays with the tropes of those video games.
 
Dr. Stone: Science Future episode 2 I’ll drink to that.

Momentary Lily episode 3 Classy cuisine.

Rurouni Kenshin -Kyoto Disturbance- episode 38 Incident.

Trillion Game episode 15 date.

Dragon Ball Z (Rewatch) episodes 139-146, Dragon Ball Z: Super Android 13! (Film)
 
Dr. STONE: Science Future Episode 2

Even Given the Worthless “Appraiser” Class, I’m Actually the Strongest Episode 2

The Daily Life of a Middle-Aged Online Shopper in Another World Episode 2
 
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