New season! Let's see how it goes!
My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer ep1: The hero is a retired adventurer who finds a baby in the wilderness, raises her as his own and then sends her off to become an adventurer. The title contains the entire plot of the series, as usual, though to string things out a little this one doesn't actually tell the truth because as of the first episode the people-pleasing daughter is still trying and failing to return to see her dad while her useless adventuring guild (however did it survive without her?!) constantly needs her to chip in and help instead of getting her planned break. There are obvious parallels to Japanese workplace culture and there are hints that the dad is an important person in his own right, but the result is a boring episode about never getting to the point. And even if it had, the point would probably have been boring, so I think I'm out. It's just not entertaining for me to watch people going "Oh well, I guess I'll cancel my holiday again" when there are at least a dozen alternative arrangements that could have been made in any reasonable setting. I also think this would have been a million times more appealing for me if she was actually his daughter and the obvious secret to her great strength had more interesting social/narrative implications than "I just happened to find a super-strong baby", because at least then the dad might have had something worthwhile to do in the first episode.
Berserk of Gluttony ep1: I utterly hated every second of this, it's just the usual copy-paste embarrassment with stupid world building, pop-up menus, preordained RPG skills, impractical high fashion thigh highs on female guards and generic, weak-willed, internal monologuing characters who simultaneously know nothing about their own setting and yet blather endlessly like know-it-alls. My partner was hopeful when reading the blurb, saying that we might get a straight fantasy show as it didn't seem to be isekai. "Don't count on it," I said, looking at the copy-paste main character on the splash artwork, and lo, we both laughed bitterly when the usual tropes all came rolling out in the same pattern as always. A complete waste of time.
Shangri-La Frontier ep1: I expected to hate this one too because it's yet another daft VRMMO pseudo-isekai with a smug lead, except with the gimmick that the main character looks goofier. However, it was surprisingly decent. The lead doesn't look like a 1:1 clone of Kirito (SAO) even in the real world, the animation is way better than usual and - heaven forbid - the lead actually smiles in a genuine way now and then, grounding the series in something other than hatred and envy and all of the other nonsense that has stifled the genre for the last few years. I don't know whether I'll watch any more but my partner is definitely going to continue with it. It's nice to be surprised in a positive way now and then.
A Girl and Her Guard Dog ep1: It's another one of those recently-popular 'goofy yakuza' setups where a schoolgirl is trying to lead a normal life while her background in a yakuza family constantly gets in the way. This has a lot of elements which I normally like - silliness, thugs, dodgy relationship dynamics - but it played it so safe that I didn't feel much impact from anything that happened; I can't even work out what genre it's meant to be. It's not funny enough to be a comedy, it's not romantic enough to be a romance, it's not dramatic enough to be a drama. It just kind of exists, so I guess it's lighthearted slice of life in a silly setting?
Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions ep1: A typical detective show where a young detective ends up working with a cynical weirdo with a rather serious flaw. I generally like episodic murder/crime shows because even if the setup is tired, the actual crimes are usually varied enough to keep things fresh, so I'll probably stick with this one weekly.
Paradox Live the Animation ep1: I know this is just Avex's big budget rip-off of Hypnosis Mic (that's all I'll offer as a description because they're the same show) but did they have to also copy the horrible CG concert scenes? They look so expensive yet also completely fail to engage me as much as even the crummiest of non-CG or live action concert excerpts. The show was overall 'ok' and if the concerts were animated properly I might keep watching, but they completely took me out of the moment every time. I feel that strongly about it. Weirdly, Paradox Live made me remember the existence of Visual Prison - but it's locked away in Funimation hell, so I guess I can't go back and finish it to scratch that itch.
Frieren ep1: I love drowning myself in themes of regret and grief; even though I hate those feelings in real life they provide very powerful motivations for characters in stories. Having heard all of the hype over Frieren about how it explores that kind of content I decided to check it out. Perhaps its own fanbase have thus let it down by setting my expectations too high; so far I feel that Maquia's treatment of this kind of content was much better. Still, the show about the melancholy, unexpressive elf can have a second episode to see whether it's something worth me continuing (probably not, if it's mostly a heartwarming look at her using the new character introduced near the end to process the detached sadness she feels - I like my drama to be more melodramatic).
Shy ep1: While the splash art made this a hard sell and the heroine's wimpy bleating really didn't help, this show seems to be more than the sum of its irritating-sounding parts. It's a simple story: Shy is a superhero who is also cripplingly shy. So becoming the national heroine of Japan (I presume she didn't apply for the position!), wearing a skimpy superhero outfit and making important decisions has been hard on her, especially because she's only a teenager and seems to have no real friends. She has a setback and - kind of - works through it. That last part is important, because a lot of details about the superhero content still need to be explained and that side of things is far more interesting! I don't know where the series is going from here and so far, that's all it needed to keep me watching.
I'm Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness ep1: What if someone remade My Happy Marriage yet made it stupider? That question has been answered (nobody gets married, but the similarity still stands)! I went in hoping that even if the show was boring there would be plenty of naughtiness on offer, but the only cheeky thing that happened in the first episode was that the lead bought a girl some cake and affectionately watched her eating it. I don't really like 'pet girl' dynamics and I feel a little put out that neither the titular disgrace and naughtiness are particularly meaningful, so there's not much reason to keep watching unless you like know-it-all male leads or cutesy girls (of which there will apparently be several). It's slightly disconcerting to have Sugita Tomokazu in the lead role because the character is very similar to Gintoki already, and having his deep voice behind the lead's young-looking face makes me confused about how annoyed to be about the character's obvious foolishness.
R