Caught up with My Friend’s Little Sister Has It In for Me!, which is okay. The gimmick of a necessarily sort of backhanded competition between two different tsunderes is sort of amusing, but that’s about the extent of it. It’s all mild enough that it’s an acceptable time-waster. And still following May I Ask For One Final Thing?, which is still entertaining. Scarlet’s funny (I think the cracking sound her rage stickers make is actually audible in-universe), and Julius is especially good.

For whatever reason, ended up binging four different older series last week:

First up was Ben-to!, which was okay all in all, but a bit disappointing. It’s essentially a shounen action spoof, centered around ritualized battles royale that happen nightly at various supermarkets in pursuit of half-price bentos. It started out engaging enough, but lost steam about halfway through and never really recovered.

Next was Sabagebu! -Survival Game Club!-, which was… okay. It’s an over-the-top gag comedy about an insane survival game club (combat with Airsoft guns). I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into when they broke the fourth wall about five seconds into the first episode, and yeah - it’s that sort of series. It was just a barrage of gags and meta-humor, and made me laugh out loud regularly. But it was oddly numbing after a while - it didn’t really go anywhere. It just kept up the gags and meta-humor. I enjoyed it all in all, but it would’ve been better with something more - some character development of some sort of overarching plot or… something.

Next was Narue no Sekai(The World of Narue), which was a gem. It’s a 2003 romcom/slice of life centered around a human boy/alien girl couple and their friends and family, and it’s pure iyashikei - wholesome, uplifting and kindhearted. I swear I could feel my soul being cleansed just watching it. It’s not high art by any means, but I enjoyed it.

Then finally was Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai (My Sister, My Writer), which was pretty bad really. It’s a decent concept - an aspiring light novelist whose tsundere imouto writes a wildly successful light novel about a brocon imouto, then convinces him to pretend that he wrote it because she’s not allowed to have a job, which then leads to him developing a harem, much to her dismay - but was ultimately ruined by the fact that the brother is one of the most maddeningly awful harem protagonists ever. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he remains completely oblivious to his sister’s real feelings, in spite of the fact that she wrote an entire light novel about it and by the end of the series is pretty much pure dere, he’s an hysterical prude - one of those intensely irritating protags who goes into a blind, stammering panic every time any of the girls approaches him at all affectionately, much less sexually. And really, the girls aren’t a whole lot better. They start out interesting enough, but by the end are mostly reduced to cliches.

Not sure what’s next - after all of that, I’m sort of in the mood for a high quality sure thing, and there are a bunch to choose from on my TBW, but none of them are really grabbing me yet…

Alright, I didn’t get a chance to watch more Haruhi this week, so I am not quite to the movie yet. I think I have just 2-3 more episodes to go until then. In the meantime, some thoughts on the seasonals so far:

• Dusk Beyond the End of the World - Ugh…I think this show forgot it only has 12 episodes to wrap things up. We are getting caught up in romcom shenanigans while the super interesting android/AI post-apocalypse plot has taken a backseat.
• Touring After the Apocalypse - Still liking this series. I think better versions of this show exist elsewhere, but it hits pretty squarely in my cute things in a post-apocalypse strike zone, so I am on board.
• Campfire Cooking Season 2 - This show continues to deliver exactly what I expect from it. Little to no stakes, lots of steaks, and shockingly good cooking animation.

Past Seasons

Zombieland Saga

I gave Zombieland Saga 4 episodes before dropping it. I thought the show is going expand upon the cast’s backstories (e.g. how and why they became zombies). Instead, all it did is have them dance and sing as idols - which I have no interest in. 6 / 10

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Summer Time Rendering

I binged Summer Time Rendering over the weekend. I can see why The Summer Hikaru Died is getting compared to this. It felt more like a thriller than suspense anime though.

With the clues given, and a standard plot, the development of the plot is predictable.

e.g.

Summer Time Rendering spoiler

I was able to guess that the head priest is the real antagonist / Shide. tbf he was giving off typical villain vibes.

I was also able to predict this one since it is such a cliche: upon resolving the issue, the MC looped right back to the beginning of the show.

I found the way the story developed infuriating at times though. I can’t help but feel that if Shinpei made better decisions (or at least the decisions I would make), or is straight-up replaced by a smarter protagonist, he would not have needed so many loops.

I’d say the real MVP is Ushio. In fact, I noticed this trend of many time travel stories: the male protagonist can go so far only because of a female character.

e.g.

meta spoiler

Subaru has Rem in Re:Zero Rintarou has Kurisu in Steins;Gate

Regardless, this show is able to keep me hooked, and I’m sufficiently satisfied with the ending. 9 / 10

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Steins;Gate

I have now watched up to the movie Load Region of Déjà Vu.

Honestly, this is more of a romance anime than time travel / suspense / thriller.

I think it made for a decent epilogue to the main series though. 8 / 10

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The Promised Neverland

Haven’t start on this yet. I’ve heard that season 2 is notoriously bad.

Can season 1 be watched as a self-contained story though? If it can be, I’m going to start on it.