I Parry Everything ep1: Noor is a weak orphan who hasn't made it as an adventurer because he can only learn the most basic techniques - and of them, the one he loves the most is parrying, which is kind of useless on its own. So he doggedly continues to train in it anyway, forgoing making friends, falling in love or living his life in favour of endlessly swinging a stick at other sticks for years, until he's buff, amazing at parrying - and still functionally unemployable. The animation quality is pretty good but the writing is weird; it starts off well, establishing Noor's lifestyle and walking us through his entire backstory in a way that would pass muster as classic fantasy, but at some point it freaks out and changes tone entirely, introducing strict adventuring guild rules, secret adventurer ranks that 'nobody would ever sign up for, of course' and clunky videogame-style skill acquisition. Why?! In any case, some of the jokes are ok and the dialogue mostly (but not entirely) avoids falling into the usual traps, but it's very much a series of two halves where the creator plainly had some good ideas and then filled all of the rest in with nonsense. It's a show I'd recommend to my friend who happily laps up all of these gimmicky series, because in that context it's above average, but it's not something I can bring myself to watch.
Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin ep1: An extremely bratty, pint-sized goddess is sent off to do penance with a bunch of humans after screwing up and causing a ruckus in the divine world where she lives. I've never played the original game but the plot wasn't complicated so this adaptation will hopefully help the series to find a broader audience. While the CG is kind of distracting, the designs are lovely and the game's eye-catching art style is fully preserved. So far, so good. My partner is going to keep watching it.
@Rui always good to read your new season overviews for shows, but what will you be sticking with this season?
My fairly certain list of watches:
- Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian
- Bye Bye, Earth
- Days With My Stepsister
- The Elusive Samurai
- Failure Frame
- Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!
- SHOSHIMIN: How to Become Ordinary
- Suicide Squad Isekai
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword
I will be continuing with Oshi No Ko S2 as well as checking out the new Monogatari, being a big fan of the main line series.
Thank you! Oshi No Ko is definitely my season highlight so far but these are the others which have survived the culling:
No Longer Allowed In Another World
The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies
Oshi No Ko s2
Twilight Out of Focus
Bye Bye, Earth
NieR:Automata Ver1.1a
Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!
MONOGATARI: OFF & MONSTER Season
SHOSHIMIN: How to Become Ordinary
The Elusive Samurai
With these ones still ongoing too:
Spice and Wolf
My Hero Academia
Yatagarasu: Karasu wa Aruji wo Erabanai
I find it useful to know what everything's like as I recommend a lot of the stuff I end up hating to my friends, all of whom have completely different taste to me.
R
