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Blue Exorcist -Beyond the Snow Saga- ep1: I'm nowhere near as excited about Blue Exorcist as I was back when the anime first came out but I've watched enough that I feel invested, so here we are again! There's not much to say about this episode; the first half is mostly setup and then the rest focuses on Bon, who has had so much to deal with lately that he latches on to an annoying new mentor figure. There's a lot of groundwork going on for what I'm expecting will be the main plot of the season, given its subtitle, so I'll keep watching to find out how the story unfolds.

Puniru is a Kawaii Slime ep1: An energetic comedy about a boy and the friendly slime that he somehow created as a child. He's now a little older and the slime has grown up into a cutesy, human-looking girl with a gooey body and the ability to shapeshift through the lengthiest transformation sequence in the universe. It's all very brightly coloured and cute, with a lot of energy, but I'm still confused about a lot of the rules of the world since the first episode was mostly (ludicrous) boob jokes and schoolboy awkwardness. None of Kotarou's friends initially seem to know about Puniru; do his parents know? Are slimes a thing in their world? Is the plot going to remain stuck on 'Puniru wants people to tell her she's cute' forever? I have no idea what's actually going on. It probably doesn't matter; if you like adorable things then this is probably worth watching for the cheerful designs alone, and if not then this will be utterly unwatchable.

A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School! ep1: The main character of this show is probably the wimpiest that I've seen in a while: a young teacher who ran away from his previous school because he was too frightened of the kids, only to accidentally find himself working in a faraway school for youkai. He cowers, grovels and shrieks his way through a parade of introductions to his new class with his only real character trait being his denial that his passion for school uniforms is rooted in anything horny. Fortunately, the kids he's teaching are a lot more interesting, setting things up for a fairly typical experience of exploring Japanese legends through the lens of helping teens through comical everyday problems. It's too silly to approach any of the top tier youkai-centric shows that we've had in recent years while the comedy is only middling, but there's enough creativity in the modern day references to traditional culture that it might scratch an itch for genre fans. Unfortunately, airing in the same season as more Natsume Yuujinchou is probably not going to do this many favours.

Orb: On the Movements of the Earth ep1: I quite liked this semi-historical (it references a lot of actual culture and history, yet avoids explicitly naming names) take on the early days of heliocentrism in Europe. It's not the most beautiful show of the season, with its rugged designs and grey/brown palette, but it makes up for that with an excellent voice cast, detailed depictions of stars and equipment and a genuinely interesting story. The hero loves the stars but since he lives in a time where a certain church has a stranglehold on what people are allowed to know and teach, he's learned to suppress every aspect of himself in order to appear to be a model citizen who says exactly what people want to hear. That all changes when he meets a scholar who was tortured for his (more correct) views of astronomy than the prevailing story taught by the church, and of course the hero soon ends up gaining a new understanding.

I like that the church's relentless dogma is treated empathetically; we know that it's wrong, both factually and morally, but it's presented as plausible within the setting of the show, which makes the world feel more lived-in and the characters on both sides of the debate more worthy of respect, even if one side is literally rounding the other up and executing them. It's the opposite of all of those tedious 'revenge' shows where everyone is just cartoonishly evil for no rational reason, and this bleak tale of oppressed thinkers sharing knowledge as though it's contraband is thus a much more compelling watch. It's a shame that the English title is a bit weak without context and that it's on Netflix, where a lot of people might overlook it.

The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor ep1: A 'second chance' reincarnation story, featuring a feisty heroine betrayed by her freaky incestuous fiancé who suddenly finds herself back in the past with the opportunity to avert her former fate. She impulsively latches onto an enemy emperor as an ally and finds herself betrothed to someone her old fiancé despises, which kind of works for the heroine even if her new partner turns out to be nothing like she'd expected. The 'dragon emperor' is quite sweet and innocent, in spite of his questionable murmured preference for even younger girls (when the lead is already a kid after her trip backwards through time). He also has a dragon companion which automatically makes him cooler than everyone else. I didn't especially love this show but at least the lead has a vaguely rational internal monologue, and it's one of the more watchable examples of its genre so far.

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Decided to check out Acro Trip, so far the highlight of the season for me. It's just so much fun and found myself actually laughing out loud, which I rarely do. Unfortunately it appears to be really flying under the radar so far, I definitely recommend checking it out.
 
Heck, I've barely started watching any of the Summer season yet, I've only seen 1 or 2 episodes of a few of the series, and have only liked 3 of those enough to complete:

Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian
The Strongest Magician in the Demon Lord's Army Was a Human
Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything with Low-Level Spells


I hope I don't fall too far behind with Fall. I was somewhat disappointed with many of the anime offerings in the Summer season. I didn't even bother with selecting a Waifu of the Summer Season at all.
 
Re:ZERO - Starting Life in Another World - Season 3 episode 52 Home-wrecker.

Sengoku Youko 2nd Season episode 24 Compatible.

The Prince of Tennis: U-17 World Cup Semifinal episode 2 Getting exciting.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day IX: Visible Secret (Film)

Urusei Yatsura Movie 1: Only You (Film)
This was solid fun, and felt like a natural extension of the TV series up to this point. 3.5/5

Urusei Yatsura
episodes 59-62
 
Uzumaki (English dub) ep1-2

Well, that was a journey. Not having read the manga, my suspicion is that they’re rattling through the material at a much faster pace than they should be, to the point where it feels a little unintentionally (?) camp, but the first episode is really quite an achievement; it’s wonderfully weird to look at and, even in the slightly questionable dub, still conveys a great sense of the uncanny.

The second episode though, oh boy. It’s not as unwatchable as I’d feared from all the attention it’s been attracting online, but it really is a huge step down. Only a couple of cuts struck me as distractingly bad (the walking didn’t bother me as much as the punch with no weight behind it), but all nice little incidental details like moving crosshatching in the backgrounds and rotoscoped movement are gone and it’s just mediocre at best.

At just four episodes, I’ll see it through, but despite some vague speculation that the last episode may be an improvement, I’m not holding out a lot of hope.

Ninja Kamui ep1

I’d actually forgotten this existed until it came up in conversation about the other things Uzumaki’s producer had worked on. On the strength of one episode, it seems like an impressively slick throwback to the kind of gory action films Yoshiaki Kawajiri was making back in the day (even the character designs resemble his as we get towards the end) but as I think Otomo commented, it does feel a bit soulless. Thus far it’s less Ninja Scroll, more Highlander: Search for Vengeance. I’ll give it a few episodes at least.
 
Lightspeed Electroid Albegas - Episodes 17 - 21

Genocyber - Episodes 1 - 5 [Final]


While I had the 'Mecha Masters' boxset out I thought I'd give this another watch as it's been a decade at least since I last watched it. I've always quite liked Genocyber (having first seen it in the 90's on VHS, but I wouldn't see episodes 4 & 5 until I bought this boxset in the mid 00's), yes it's a bit of a mess plot wise in a number of places throughout but it's entertaining with some fantastic action scenes and I still think the first episode is actually pretty good after all these years and a reminder that they certainly don't make OVA's like this anymore !

Ranma 1/2 (2024) - Episode 1

After seeing how Urusei Yatsura was remade a lot of the trepidation I would have had for the Ranma 1/2 remake was tempered and I enjoyed this first episode, it seemed to capture a lot of the feel of the original so I'm keen to see how the show progresses.

Thunderbolt Fantasy: Sword Seekers 4 - Episode 1

I am so happy to see the return of Thunderbolt Fantasy and also sad that this is going to the last TV series before a final film. This episode puts a lot of pieces into place and I think I can see where the story is going and can't wait to see it unfold.


Heavy Metal L-Gaim OVA - Episodes 1, 2 & 3: Full Metal Soldier [Final]

L-Gaim is one of my favourite mecha shows and I'm itching to watch it again but I've been holding out for a Blu-ray

And my wish has been granted with the announcement of an L-Gaim blu-ray box set the other week.

Totally agree with you on Grendizer,i could,nt stick with it,i dropped it after the first few episodes,

I nearly dropped it as well after a few episodes but I like to give shows a chance and saw it through, although that's a few hours of my life I'm never going to get back!

Now watching Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury :)

I think you'll like it, it was a really good show.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day VI: The Lawnmower Man, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (Films)

Is Lawnmower Man 2 still a terrible film 😂
 
Villainess Level 99
I'm rather sad I'm finished this.
Yumiella is a hoot.
Her expressions and inner voice made me laugh so much.
There's a nice simple plot and each episode rattled along quickly.
The monster-calling flute.🤣
I can see a rewatch in the future.

I also decided to watch the last couple of episodes of The Eminence in Shadow S2 partly to check it plays okay. As I'm reading volume 4 of the light novel, I thought it might be interesting to see what differences there might be.

I visited my Mum and Dad and watched the first 3 episodes of Tulsa King S2. As good as the first.
Netflix has a show called The Brothers Sun. It's a Triad action show. The always lovely Michelle Yeoh plays the Mother.
I wish my Mum would cut up a body for me.
 
DAN DA DAN episode 2 Losing the plot.

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? V episode 2 Date preparation.

Negative Postive Angler episode 2 Beginner’s luck.

Rurouni Kenshin -Kyoto Disturbance- episode 26 Theft of a thief.

Trillion Game episode 3 Hacking it.

31 Days of Halloween 2024! Day X: Messiah of Evil (Film)

Urusei Yatsura
episodes 63-67
 
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gō: Episodes 9-17

Oh ho ho ho~ To quote Keiichi, now this is cooking. Advice updated and fully rescinded, absolutely do not watch Gō unless you have seen the original series and Kai. It's relatively easy for anyone to follow up until Episode 13, but after that anyone who hasn't seen the earlier episodes is going to be completely lost because it starts referring back to prior events without further explanation. Easily the most horrific Higurashi has ever been and possibly the most enthralling, I stopped here for a break because it coincides with the end of an arc but I really don't wanna. Episode 15 was particularly great/awful, those cuts were brutal (no pun intended) and I think Rika herself says it best:

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These episodes right here are compelling writing. They hit the right notes in terms of making me wonder what the hell is really happening while still giving me enough information to allow me to formulate theories, unlike in Umineko where I felt like I didn't have nearly enough to go on and what I thought I knew I turned out to be untrustworthy. The fact it's Satoko who is looping now and not Rika was foreshadowed enough to see coming, especially when coupled with the revelation from Umineko that she also has a witch counterpart. I might not know why or how that's happening but then neither does Rika. As was the case in Kai, I expect the audience will be figuring that out along with her. That's fun. That's exciting in a way watching Battler flail around with his theories (and coming to conclusions I don't even know how the audience could be expected to draw, given the information provided) never was for me.

And the questions that need answering now are really interesting ones. Hanyū was the one who enabled Rika to loop, what otherworldly being is playing that role for Satoko? Rika's reason for looping was to try and prevent her own death, what is Satoko's? It appears to be to stop Rika from ever leaving Hinamizawa, but why is it important to Satoko to prevent that? Simply for her own sake, for Rika's, or for a larger reason? It seems like this new loop was set off several years after the conclusion of Kai, so why has it returned to the same point in the past as Rika's old loop? Presumably whatever Satoko needs to do, there's a reason it needs to be done then. That or it was a deliberate attempt to hide Satoko's involvement from Rika and make her believe she was still the one looping. Whatever the answers to these many questions, I am hype to find out.

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As for the content of these episodes, 9-13 is a retread of an arc from the first series but following that I think it's safe to say Gō becomes completely its own thing, and what a thing it is; a triumphant return to the horror of the first season in particularly gut-wrenching ways. The original series might have its gory moments but Gō is really not a show for the weak of stomach, I think it might have just as much trouble getting past the BBFC uncut as Kira, but for rather different reasons. Oddly enough though, the ratcheting up of the horror seems to have coincided with an increase in (believable) emotional intensity from the characters. Moments in these episodes have almost had me tearing up which is new for Higurashi, this is all very agreeable to me. Love and hate, joy and despair, the deeper the troughs the higher the peaks, or something. And I'm not talking about Mion's boobs this time, her strange t-shirt cleavage (the real mystery of Hinamizawa) seems to have long been banished.

In smaller observations, I can't tell if I'm getting used to these new character designs, if there's a new storyboarder who just happens to be drawing the characters more like the original designs or if they're intentionally being drawn more like that again, Keiichi's sharper jawline seems to be gradually making a comeback and Rika's hair is looking decidedly less helmet-like as time goes by. Oh, and there's also a bit of incidental music in Gō that sounds suspiciously like the opening bars of the Proclaimers' I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) which may yet prove quite fitting, I can't say I'm against Higurashi turning into a blood and tear-soaked doomed love story mentally and physically ruinous for everybody involved, those are the best kinds of love stories. But I would loop 500 times and I would loop 500 more...

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