Your anime viewing journal
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Anne Shirley episode 14 Letter’s full.
My Dress-Up Darling Season 2 episode 13 Consideration.
Macross episodes 14-36, Macross: Do you Remember Love? (Film) (Complete. It was great to finally watch this and revisit the DYRL film after watching it years back and getting a proper look at it within the context of the main series.) 4/5, 4/5
My Dress-Up Darling Season 2 episode 13 Consideration.
Macross episodes 14-36, Macross: Do you Remember Love? (Film) (Complete. It was great to finally watch this and revisit the DYRL film after watching it years back and getting a proper look at it within the context of the main series.) 4/5, 4/5
Otomo
Pokémon Master
I haven't seen much but I enjoyed War on Geminar much more than the OVA collection. It's got a great opening song so that helped me get in the mood. I even liked the Mecha.
The OVAs do have a classic babysitting episode.
Lucky_Deity
Dragon Knight
I haven't seen much but I enjoyed War on Geminar much more than the OVA collection. It's got a great opening song so that helped me get in the mood. I even liked the Mecha.
The OVAs do have a classic babysitting episode.
The babysitting episode was one of my favourites tbh and thanks for the recommendation, War on Geminar was actually one I was considering.
Dragon Slayer
Flame Haze
My Dress-Up Darling Season 2 Episode 13
Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter Episode 2
Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus Episode 1
Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer! Episode 1
The Apothecary Diaries Season 2 Episode 46
The Shy Hero and the Assassin Princesses Episode 1
Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter Episode 2
Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus Episode 1
Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer! Episode 1
The Apothecary Diaries Season 2 Episode 46
The Shy Hero and the Assassin Princesses Episode 1
City The Animation episode 1 Horoscopes, abilities, noodles, and sniffing ink.
Gachiakuta episode 1 Pitted.
Nyaight of the Living Cat episode 1 Takashi Miike is directing this so I hope it’s as good as what I’ve seen of his other works.
One Piece episode 1135 Out to sea.
Ruri Rocks episode 1 Pushing the river.
To Be Hero X episode 14 Don’t forget.
Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun Season 2 Part 2 episode 13 Just a moment.
Witch Watch episode 14 Generational gap.
Macross II: Lovers Again OVAs 1-6 (Complete. I was rather underwhelmed by this after how good Macross was - I’ll likely revisit this in the future though to give it a second chance.) 2.5/5
Macross Plus OVA 1
Gachiakuta episode 1 Pitted.
Nyaight of the Living Cat episode 1 Takashi Miike is directing this so I hope it’s as good as what I’ve seen of his other works.
One Piece episode 1135 Out to sea.
Ruri Rocks episode 1 Pushing the river.
To Be Hero X episode 14 Don’t forget.
Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun Season 2 Part 2 episode 13 Just a moment.
Witch Watch episode 14 Generational gap.
Macross II: Lovers Again OVAs 1-6 (Complete. I was rather underwhelmed by this after how good Macross was - I’ll likely revisit this in the future though to give it a second chance.) 2.5/5
Macross Plus OVA 1
Dragon Slayer
Flame Haze
I Left My A-Rank Party to Help My Former Students Reach the Dungeon Depths! (English Dub) Episode 22
I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level Season 2 (English Dub) Episode 24 (Complete)
Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra Episode 1
Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl Episode 1
Ruri Rocks Episode 1
I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level Season 2 (English Dub) Episode 24 (Complete)
Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra Episode 1
Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl Episode 1
Ruri Rocks Episode 1
Lucky_Deity
Dragon Knight
Kaiju No. 8: Hoshina's Day Off (English) - Special (Complete)
This was a fun slice-of-life special, not much to say about it but was a good time.
My Dress-Up Darling (Season 2) (Japanese) - Episode 13
Gachiakuta (English) - Episode 1
This was a fun slice-of-life special, not much to say about it but was a good time.
My Dress-Up Darling (Season 2) (Japanese) - Episode 13
Gachiakuta (English) - Episode 1
Orgun
Combat Butler
Heavy Metal L-Gaim - Episodes 33 - 47
All the set up of various characters and factions pays off with the reappearance of Leccee in Episode 34 and starts an incredible run of episodes that grips me the same today as it did when I first watched L-Gaim over 20 years ago. There is also very noticeable improvement in the animation quality from around the midday point which has the benefit of making the action scenes very crisp and dynamic and characters stay on model a lot more now.
100% (A Hundred Percents)
A very 1990 OVA that I kinda equally liked and disliked at the same time whilst being very by the numbers in the way 100% told it's story.
For a long time I had a real dislike for Macross II having watched it a few times in the 00's but I re-watched it again a few years ago and had a very different viewing experience this time round and ended up actually quite enjoying it and I'm looking forward to the 4k disc from AnimEigo's kickstarter (whenever it finally gets finished).
All the set up of various characters and factions pays off with the reappearance of Leccee in Episode 34 and starts an incredible run of episodes that grips me the same today as it did when I first watched L-Gaim over 20 years ago. There is also very noticeable improvement in the animation quality from around the midday point which has the benefit of making the action scenes very crisp and dynamic and characters stay on model a lot more now.
100% (A Hundred Percents)
A very 1990 OVA that I kinda equally liked and disliked at the same time whilst being very by the numbers in the way 100% told it's story.
For a long time I had a real dislike for Macross II having watched it a few times in the 00's but I re-watched it again a few years ago and had a very different viewing experience this time round and ended up actually quite enjoying it and I'm looking forward to the 4k disc from AnimEigo's kickstarter (whenever it finally gets finished).
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Grand Blue Season 2 episode 1 Birth of a demon.
See You Tomorrow at the Food Court episode 1 Eating earthlings.
Macross Plus OVAs 2-4 (Complete. I technically watched MP years ago via the Manga entertainment DVD release but with the new BD it was great to properly experience this story as it’s well deserving of its praise.) 4.5/5
Macross 7 episodes 1-8
See You Tomorrow at the Food Court episode 1 Eating earthlings.
Macross Plus OVAs 2-4 (Complete. I technically watched MP years ago via the Manga entertainment DVD release but with the new BD it was great to properly experience this story as it’s well deserving of its praise.) 4.5/5
Macross 7 episodes 1-8
Dragon Slayer
Flame Haze
Aharen-san wa Hakarenai Season 2 (English Dub) Episode 22-23
See You Tomorrow at the Food Court Episode 1
Summer Pockets Episode 14 Promise.
There's No Freaking Way I'll be Your Lover! Unless... Episode 1
See You Tomorrow at the Food Court Episode 1
Summer Pockets Episode 14 Promise.
There's No Freaking Way I'll be Your Lover! Unless... Episode 1
Lucky_Deity
Dragon Knight
Grand Blue Dreaming (Season 2) (Japanese) - Episode 1
D1tchd1gger
Shinigami
Lazarus (dub) eps 9-13 (complete)
After the first half is mainly episodic stuff and 7 & 8 a two parter these episodes decide to get on with the plot progression a lot quicker. Been about 2 months since I watched the last episode, so I'm not sure if it came up in earlier episodes, but they also seem to add a b plot on top that brings more questions to the table. Why if Skinner was trying to expose the elements within the US government using his research for chemical weapons was he then allowed to walk free and then allowed to make and distribute Hopna!?
While I enjoyed a lot of it there's a bit too much coincidence going on, especially when the real reason the team gets put together is revealed (they were exposed to the gas version of the drug in an incident that happened when Skinner was trying to smuggle it into Europe. They just happened to be in Europe, when most are American, and at the same place. Not just that coincidence, but these highly capable people actually died from said exposure, but their DNA was special enough too, that the exposure changed it so they were immune!!!), some of the backstories are a bit weird too, especially Elaina (brought up in a tech hating cult, seems to have somehow become a world renowned hacker in only a few years after escaping!) and finally the ending was a bit of an anticlimax, as well some more unrealistic events including massive plot armour for one of our characters and making and distributing the antidote worldwide in a couple of days!
Art and animation were great and there were some epic action scenes on occasion, but I have to go with...
6/10
Probably could have done with either less episodic stuff early on or just more episodes in general. Most of the characters got there own episode, but some didn't, which was a bit weird.
After the first half is mainly episodic stuff and 7 & 8 a two parter these episodes decide to get on with the plot progression a lot quicker. Been about 2 months since I watched the last episode, so I'm not sure if it came up in earlier episodes, but they also seem to add a b plot on top that brings more questions to the table. Why if Skinner was trying to expose the elements within the US government using his research for chemical weapons was he then allowed to walk free and then allowed to make and distribute Hopna!?
While I enjoyed a lot of it there's a bit too much coincidence going on, especially when the real reason the team gets put together is revealed (they were exposed to the gas version of the drug in an incident that happened when Skinner was trying to smuggle it into Europe. They just happened to be in Europe, when most are American, and at the same place. Not just that coincidence, but these highly capable people actually died from said exposure, but their DNA was special enough too, that the exposure changed it so they were immune!!!), some of the backstories are a bit weird too, especially Elaina (brought up in a tech hating cult, seems to have somehow become a world renowned hacker in only a few years after escaping!) and finally the ending was a bit of an anticlimax, as well some more unrealistic events including massive plot armour for one of our characters and making and distributing the antidote worldwide in a couple of days!
Art and animation were great and there were some epic action scenes on occasion, but I have to go with...
6/10
Probably could have done with either less episodic stuff early on or just more episodes in general. Most of the characters got there own episode, but some didn't, which was a bit weird.
Herano
Dandy Guy, in Space
Just finished Land of the Lustrous and Gleipnir this week and I have to rant a bit. Not because they where bad, on the contrary. Land of the Lustrous showed me that there is an 3D anime style that I like, and the world was beautiful and really interesting. Gleipnir is messy, weird, beautiful character study, that could have been the ultimate bad shlock in the wrong hands, but it works really well.
And that is why I'm just so angry that they are unfinished. It's not that they were not worth watching, but the big finale and the big answers are not here. And knowing that there are so many series like this, actively influences how I watch new series. Around the half way point I begin to get nervous when they still introduce new characters and plot points, but I have hope that they can finish it. Every episode that passes and does not pick up the pacing makes me lose that hope. It makes it hard to concentrate on what is there.
Half a year ago I watched the anime Astra: lost in space. In a lot of ways it was good but not amazing, but what it did have was a wonderful pacing. Every episode the plot moved forward, but it never rushed. The climax was in the penultimate episode and then it even took a whole episode to see how everyone was doing afterwards. Everything i wanted to know was there. That made realise how often the pacing is off in the anime I've watched. Too slow and unfinished. Too rushed and unsatisfyingly finished. Still shouting plot points during the credits. It makes me sad, because I love anime... Okay, rant over. Thanks for letting me vent
!
And that is why I'm just so angry that they are unfinished. It's not that they were not worth watching, but the big finale and the big answers are not here. And knowing that there are so many series like this, actively influences how I watch new series. Around the half way point I begin to get nervous when they still introduce new characters and plot points, but I have hope that they can finish it. Every episode that passes and does not pick up the pacing makes me lose that hope. It makes it hard to concentrate on what is there.
Half a year ago I watched the anime Astra: lost in space. In a lot of ways it was good but not amazing, but what it did have was a wonderful pacing. Every episode the plot moved forward, but it never rushed. The climax was in the penultimate episode and then it even took a whole episode to see how everyone was doing afterwards. Everything i wanted to know was there. That made realise how often the pacing is off in the anime I've watched. Too slow and unfinished. Too rushed and unsatisfyingly finished. Still shouting plot points during the credits. It makes me sad, because I love anime... Okay, rant over. Thanks for letting me vent
!
I feel as though this season is going to be carried by the sequels and depressing shows. Unfortunately for me, my partner wants to go through all of the weaker-looking stuff first!
KAMITSUBAKI CITY UNDER CONSTRUCTION ep0: This whole episode had a dozy, lethargic feel. Which is weird because quite a lot happens: there's violence, monstrous otherworldly creatures, a timeskip and lots of singing. Unfortunately, while the designs look slick and attractive in the key art they're deliberately simple so that the whole show can be CGed in a cell-shaded style, which gives the aesthetic a clinical feel in motion. Everyone is sluggish and slow to react thanks to the frame rate, with lots of cost-saving slow pans over static scenery to minimise the amount of actual animation required. I hated the effect and the crummy animation took me out of the show. The plot has a lot going on already, with a mysterious stranger stalking the vapid lead girl and telling her that her songs have superpowers. This is subsequently proven in battle, setting the show up to collect more singing girls (presumably, going by the credits) and fight back against the monsters who are heaping fresh trauma on a population living in a futuristic city in the wake of a mysterious, world-changing event a few years earlier. The main thing that the show had going for it was that one of the (many) songs was pretty good.
New Saga ep1: I probably won't remember that I ever watched this in future. A jaded fantasy hero witnesses the end of the world as he knows it with everyone he cared about lost to him, and then he's suddenly hurled back in time to how things were before everything went wrong. For some reason he decides to keep his time travel a secret from all of his loved ones and goes around being a nuisance to all of them (not in a fun way, more in a mansplaining, butt-grabbing, gluttonous way). Presumably he's carrying a lot of trauma but his reactions felt extremely unnatural even taking that into account, especially the stilted conversation with his younger-than-him-looking mother who is supposed to be some kind of magical genius but didn't really come across very well. Anyway, he's probably going to try to change the future using the gizmo which sent him back in time in the first place, armed with future knowledge. It's another standard 'do over' show at heart, and while it's far from the worst of its type I just don't care any more unless someone really shakes the formula up. So far, New Saga has shown no signs of being capable of that.
Watari-kun's ****** Is About to Collapse ep1: I wanted to like this because its name was so enticing, but it turned out to be a fairly mediocre romantic comedy. Our school-age hero has dedicated his life to raising his younger sister - in a genuinely nice, non-creepy way - and the two of them live with their reclusive aunt who seems caring but emotionally aloof. At school he seems very popular in spite of spending all of his free time with his sister and there's a burgeoning relationship on the cards with one of the girls there, but everything changes when a crazy girl from the lead's past comes storming back into his life and begins stalking him. Misunderstandings abound and absolutely nothing is explained. The animation was quite weak (though I did like the ending credits) and the horny romantic escalations didn't feel earned - or especially make sense. It's slightly better than a lot of the other shows so far purely because the competition is so weak, but I think I can do better for romantic comedies this season.
Kaiju No. 8 OAV: A gentle reintroduction to the supporting cast of Kaiju No. 8 by way of a fluffy filler episode where everyone takes the day off work and keep running into colleagues in silly ways. I didn't bother seeing the film that this episode was originally attached to (it felt pointless to watch a recap) so I'm glad that it's reappeared in standalone form. It's not essential viewing and I don't think that I could stand to watch several episodes like this in a row, but Hoshina is my favourite character so it was good to see him again!
Welcome to the Outcast's Restaurant! ep1: It's the same show we've all seen a million times before: a high-level, compassionate guy who is his powerful RPG party's unappreciated hero is kicked out for no reason by the ugly, mean-spirited leader. It's ok, though, because the bikini girl still likes him and he's got his cooking skills to fall back on (he was one of the strongest party members and his class was 'cook', so he simply heads off to open his own restaurant). Cue decent-looking scenes of food preparation, interspersed with 'heart-warming' moments as the hero tenderly raises the cute little girl he impulsively bought from a slave trader while thinking about hiring some staff (yep). It's also a bit gross that the only non-'white' character is depicted as shady and awful; they could have made them a fantasy race but instead they're a plump, hairy, tan-skinned humanoid who embodies a lot of Japanese stereotypes of foreigners. Between that, the tropey wish-fulfilment and the uncomfortable 'pet girl' elements I feel that there are way better cosy cooking fantasies out there.
Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra: World Conquest Starts with the Civilization of Ruin ep1: A sick boy who repeatedly plays a strategy game from his hospital bed is transported into the game out of the blue, where his favourite character appears and announces that as he's the greatest player of her evil faction in the history of the game, he's going to conquer a new realm by her side. In person. What follows is both predictable and generic, but I liked that the show leaned into the strategy gaming aspects as a framework for the story instead of just blending them together in a sludge of convenient RPG plot devices - and the scenes showing how the happy-go-lucky gamer guy appears to other people in-world were a lot of fun to establish an interesting mood. Nothing about this is going to revolutionise the genre in any way, but as far as this kind of show goes I found it one of the better examples and I wouldn't be mad if I had to watch more.
Betrothed to My Sister's Ex ep1: Another disappointing title; I'd hoped for sauciness or emotional high drama but this is a run-of-the-mill show full of romantic misunderstandings, shallow villains and tragic wallowing. The heroine is (inexplicably) hated by her struggling noble family and forced, Cinderella-style, into running the household while they all pretend to be wealthier than they are. Her blonde sister is nice to her but powerless to challenge the abuses and ultimately nobody in the family matters; the parents are comically evil stereotypes with no redeeming features and the blonde daughter barely does anything before being conveniently dealt with off camera. Nobody seems especially upset about that, either, other than the Evil Parents who are worried that they'll be even more in debt without her. (Personally, I'll eat my hat if the blonde sister didn't fake her own death - she's off living her best life somewhere else dressed as a dashing male noble, and the author knows this so they haven't bothered to deal with any of the ramifications of a sudden bereavement in the story.)
The only emotional content in the show comes from the lead, who is constantly drowning in her own misery. Her situation does suck but the writing is so overtly manipulative that her suffering often comes across as more annoying than sympathetic. Anyway, the fiance of the title is a gentle noble who lives in a gigantic palace and only ended up betrothed to the blonde sister by mistake, so rather than being a fiance-swapping bodice ripper this is a simple tale where a miserable girl gets to escape her abusive home by accidentally making a rich guy fall in love with her. The lead's main hobby seems to be fangirling over the fiance's ancestral country - this comes across as mildly fetishistic given the way he's portrayed, but he's really into it - and while she's not keen on the betrothal at first, I'm guessing that it won't be long before they're navigating made-up high society together. The artwork isn't amazing and I didn't feel any real need to keep watching further after the first episode. On the bright side, it's cosy, broadly inoffensive and if you're looking for a cheaply-made alternative to My Happy Marriage then this should fit the bill perfectly.
Uglymug, Epicfighter ep1: Oh dear. A male fantasy about an ugly office worker who is obsessed with his looks and eventually gets falsely accused of groping a teenager on a train. He loses everything after inexplicably pleading guilty to the crime, only to find out, years later, that the girl who accused him was a serial accuser who exploited society's innate bias towards women to ruin countless men's lives (yeah...). Anyway, he then undergoes a ritual to be reborn as a teenager in a crummy RPG world where everyone has levels and pop-up stat screens, but in a fit of melodramatic self-pity he chooses to dump his attractiveness stat as well as giving himself a bunch of stupid, misogynistic penalties (like not being able to touch women without sustaining damage), which gives him a ludicrous boost to his stats and an (almost) immediate advantage in the party of reborn teenagers he's grouped with upon his rebirth. Who he refuses to speak openly with and immediately tries to ditch. I hate the main character and it's not because he's overweight and balding; it's because he's a self-obsessed whiner who keeps complaining that everyone is judging him for his looks while he struts around judging them for theirs! The girl he instantly dismissed as a snobby tsundere (then charmed) is probably going to be the false accuser or something and have a tragic past of her own, which will all come out once they get close. There's potential for exploring what drives people to choosing a new life but I have no confidence that the staff behind this self-indulgent, toxic rubbish can do so in a satisfying way.
Gachiakuta ep1: I went into this blind on purpose, having heard vaguely positive things, and after the run of cheaply-animated fantasy-lite copypasta it nearly came across as high art. Objectively speaking it's probably not actually that good - a lot of the story beats are typical shounen manga fare, to the point where the episode's climax was guessable very early on and I knew exactly when certain character archetypes would appear - but it's amazing what better production can do for a story. Our hero Rudo lives in a world divided into the elite, who live in a clinically-clean, wealthy town, and the people of the slums, who are supposedly descended from criminals and forced to live in squalor on the other side of a gigantic wall next to a chasm called the 'Pit'. The Pit is the city's rubbish tip and also where the unworthy are tossed to die, which serves as a recurring metaphor for a lot of the social commentary going on in the setting. Rudo is a youth who likes to illegally scavenge rubbish from the fancy side of town and upcycle it, until one day things go very wrong for him and his dirty, uncomfortable life becomes even worse in every conceivable way. There isn't much indication of the eventual direction of the story yet but as far as first episodes go, this one looked good and managed to make me curious. I'll check out the second episode to see whether it makes my list.
R
KAMITSUBAKI CITY UNDER CONSTRUCTION ep0: This whole episode had a dozy, lethargic feel. Which is weird because quite a lot happens: there's violence, monstrous otherworldly creatures, a timeskip and lots of singing. Unfortunately, while the designs look slick and attractive in the key art they're deliberately simple so that the whole show can be CGed in a cell-shaded style, which gives the aesthetic a clinical feel in motion. Everyone is sluggish and slow to react thanks to the frame rate, with lots of cost-saving slow pans over static scenery to minimise the amount of actual animation required. I hated the effect and the crummy animation took me out of the show. The plot has a lot going on already, with a mysterious stranger stalking the vapid lead girl and telling her that her songs have superpowers. This is subsequently proven in battle, setting the show up to collect more singing girls (presumably, going by the credits) and fight back against the monsters who are heaping fresh trauma on a population living in a futuristic city in the wake of a mysterious, world-changing event a few years earlier. The main thing that the show had going for it was that one of the (many) songs was pretty good.
New Saga ep1: I probably won't remember that I ever watched this in future. A jaded fantasy hero witnesses the end of the world as he knows it with everyone he cared about lost to him, and then he's suddenly hurled back in time to how things were before everything went wrong. For some reason he decides to keep his time travel a secret from all of his loved ones and goes around being a nuisance to all of them (not in a fun way, more in a mansplaining, butt-grabbing, gluttonous way). Presumably he's carrying a lot of trauma but his reactions felt extremely unnatural even taking that into account, especially the stilted conversation with his younger-than-him-looking mother who is supposed to be some kind of magical genius but didn't really come across very well. Anyway, he's probably going to try to change the future using the gizmo which sent him back in time in the first place, armed with future knowledge. It's another standard 'do over' show at heart, and while it's far from the worst of its type I just don't care any more unless someone really shakes the formula up. So far, New Saga has shown no signs of being capable of that.
Watari-kun's ****** Is About to Collapse ep1: I wanted to like this because its name was so enticing, but it turned out to be a fairly mediocre romantic comedy. Our school-age hero has dedicated his life to raising his younger sister - in a genuinely nice, non-creepy way - and the two of them live with their reclusive aunt who seems caring but emotionally aloof. At school he seems very popular in spite of spending all of his free time with his sister and there's a burgeoning relationship on the cards with one of the girls there, but everything changes when a crazy girl from the lead's past comes storming back into his life and begins stalking him. Misunderstandings abound and absolutely nothing is explained. The animation was quite weak (though I did like the ending credits) and the horny romantic escalations didn't feel earned - or especially make sense. It's slightly better than a lot of the other shows so far purely because the competition is so weak, but I think I can do better for romantic comedies this season.
Kaiju No. 8 OAV: A gentle reintroduction to the supporting cast of Kaiju No. 8 by way of a fluffy filler episode where everyone takes the day off work and keep running into colleagues in silly ways. I didn't bother seeing the film that this episode was originally attached to (it felt pointless to watch a recap) so I'm glad that it's reappeared in standalone form. It's not essential viewing and I don't think that I could stand to watch several episodes like this in a row, but Hoshina is my favourite character so it was good to see him again!
Welcome to the Outcast's Restaurant! ep1: It's the same show we've all seen a million times before: a high-level, compassionate guy who is his powerful RPG party's unappreciated hero is kicked out for no reason by the ugly, mean-spirited leader. It's ok, though, because the bikini girl still likes him and he's got his cooking skills to fall back on (he was one of the strongest party members and his class was 'cook', so he simply heads off to open his own restaurant). Cue decent-looking scenes of food preparation, interspersed with 'heart-warming' moments as the hero tenderly raises the cute little girl he impulsively bought from a slave trader while thinking about hiring some staff (yep). It's also a bit gross that the only non-'white' character is depicted as shady and awful; they could have made them a fantasy race but instead they're a plump, hairy, tan-skinned humanoid who embodies a lot of Japanese stereotypes of foreigners. Between that, the tropey wish-fulfilment and the uncomfortable 'pet girl' elements I feel that there are way better cosy cooking fantasies out there.
Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra: World Conquest Starts with the Civilization of Ruin ep1: A sick boy who repeatedly plays a strategy game from his hospital bed is transported into the game out of the blue, where his favourite character appears and announces that as he's the greatest player of her evil faction in the history of the game, he's going to conquer a new realm by her side. In person. What follows is both predictable and generic, but I liked that the show leaned into the strategy gaming aspects as a framework for the story instead of just blending them together in a sludge of convenient RPG plot devices - and the scenes showing how the happy-go-lucky gamer guy appears to other people in-world were a lot of fun to establish an interesting mood. Nothing about this is going to revolutionise the genre in any way, but as far as this kind of show goes I found it one of the better examples and I wouldn't be mad if I had to watch more.
Betrothed to My Sister's Ex ep1: Another disappointing title; I'd hoped for sauciness or emotional high drama but this is a run-of-the-mill show full of romantic misunderstandings, shallow villains and tragic wallowing. The heroine is (inexplicably) hated by her struggling noble family and forced, Cinderella-style, into running the household while they all pretend to be wealthier than they are. Her blonde sister is nice to her but powerless to challenge the abuses and ultimately nobody in the family matters; the parents are comically evil stereotypes with no redeeming features and the blonde daughter barely does anything before being conveniently dealt with off camera. Nobody seems especially upset about that, either, other than the Evil Parents who are worried that they'll be even more in debt without her. (Personally, I'll eat my hat if the blonde sister didn't fake her own death - she's off living her best life somewhere else dressed as a dashing male noble, and the author knows this so they haven't bothered to deal with any of the ramifications of a sudden bereavement in the story.)
The only emotional content in the show comes from the lead, who is constantly drowning in her own misery. Her situation does suck but the writing is so overtly manipulative that her suffering often comes across as more annoying than sympathetic. Anyway, the fiance of the title is a gentle noble who lives in a gigantic palace and only ended up betrothed to the blonde sister by mistake, so rather than being a fiance-swapping bodice ripper this is a simple tale where a miserable girl gets to escape her abusive home by accidentally making a rich guy fall in love with her. The lead's main hobby seems to be fangirling over the fiance's ancestral country - this comes across as mildly fetishistic given the way he's portrayed, but he's really into it - and while she's not keen on the betrothal at first, I'm guessing that it won't be long before they're navigating made-up high society together. The artwork isn't amazing and I didn't feel any real need to keep watching further after the first episode. On the bright side, it's cosy, broadly inoffensive and if you're looking for a cheaply-made alternative to My Happy Marriage then this should fit the bill perfectly.
Uglymug, Epicfighter ep1: Oh dear. A male fantasy about an ugly office worker who is obsessed with his looks and eventually gets falsely accused of groping a teenager on a train. He loses everything after inexplicably pleading guilty to the crime, only to find out, years later, that the girl who accused him was a serial accuser who exploited society's innate bias towards women to ruin countless men's lives (yeah...). Anyway, he then undergoes a ritual to be reborn as a teenager in a crummy RPG world where everyone has levels and pop-up stat screens, but in a fit of melodramatic self-pity he chooses to dump his attractiveness stat as well as giving himself a bunch of stupid, misogynistic penalties (like not being able to touch women without sustaining damage), which gives him a ludicrous boost to his stats and an (almost) immediate advantage in the party of reborn teenagers he's grouped with upon his rebirth. Who he refuses to speak openly with and immediately tries to ditch. I hate the main character and it's not because he's overweight and balding; it's because he's a self-obsessed whiner who keeps complaining that everyone is judging him for his looks while he struts around judging them for theirs! The girl he instantly dismissed as a snobby tsundere (then charmed) is probably going to be the false accuser or something and have a tragic past of her own, which will all come out once they get close. There's potential for exploring what drives people to choosing a new life but I have no confidence that the staff behind this self-indulgent, toxic rubbish can do so in a satisfying way.
Gachiakuta ep1: I went into this blind on purpose, having heard vaguely positive things, and after the run of cheaply-animated fantasy-lite copypasta it nearly came across as high art. Objectively speaking it's probably not actually that good - a lot of the story beats are typical shounen manga fare, to the point where the episode's climax was guessable very early on and I knew exactly when certain character archetypes would appear - but it's amazing what better production can do for a story. Our hero Rudo lives in a world divided into the elite, who live in a clinically-clean, wealthy town, and the people of the slums, who are supposedly descended from criminals and forced to live in squalor on the other side of a gigantic wall next to a chasm called the 'Pit'. The Pit is the city's rubbish tip and also where the unworthy are tossed to die, which serves as a recurring metaphor for a lot of the social commentary going on in the setting. Rudo is a youth who likes to illegally scavenge rubbish from the fancy side of town and upcycle it, until one day things go very wrong for him and his dirty, uncomfortable life becomes even worse in every conceivable way. There isn't much indication of the eventual direction of the story yet but as far as first episodes go, this one looked good and managed to make me curious. I'll check out the second episode to see whether it makes my list.
R