With the Chainsaw Man movie still haunting me from last week, I caught up with Gachiakuta and May I Ask For One Final thing. The former I’m starting to care less about, the latter is great. Just as enjoyable as the manga.

Just finished The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity. I was so, so happy with how it ended. I started watching it a little concerned about cut corners with its animation, but it stuck the landing so well it exceeded my expectations from the moment I saw its announcement visual.

Summer 2025 is a season to never forget, and I doubt there could be anything like this for a long time.

My top #11, #12, and #13 anime are all romance anime, all liked and loved for different reasons. My personal ranking of these are very close together.

#11: Your Lie in April (Drama)

#12: The Dangers in My Heart (MC Chemistry and Actual Romance)

#13: The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity (Art, general story tone, and the iyashikei aspect)

I hope someday Evan Call, Handa Jukki, and Kuroki Miyuki collaborate together in a single work.

Current :

May I Ask For One Final Thing is still entertaining me, and the story’s still moving along at a nice clip. I like everything about it.

Gnosia last week was weird, and not in the way that it normally is. It was some sort of otaku shoutout filler episode, with these bizarre science fictional characters acting out a whole assortment of standard anime tropes. It was entertaining, but… strange.

Past seasons:

Mostly I spent last week watching all three seasons of Kimi ni Todoke, which was mostly good, occasionally excellent and a bit too often frustrating.

Sawako was an excellent character all the way through, but unfortunately Shota not so much so. The first season was solid if a bit slow and the second season was very engaging. The third season though got bogged down with Shota being awkward and avoiding Sawako, and that even after he was explicitly told in the second season that Sawako was sensitive to being avoided, so that’s the one thing that he should never do to her. At the time, that made a big impact on him and served to spur him to action, but apparently a few months later, at the time of the third season, he had already forgotten it and nobody saw fit to remind him. They finally ended up sort of reconciled, but only after Sawako was reduced to bawling her eyes out (which led finally to a first kiss that was apparently supposed to be romantic but just struck me as unfortunate and sorr of cringey).

I ended up with the impression that they were doomed (I’m sure that’s not the way it played out in the manga, but still). I just think that realistically Shota could never provide what Sawako needs and they’d end up growing apart. Still though, I enjoyed it all in all.

A curious sidelight to that though - I originally looked into it because I really liked Honey Lemon Soda, and I kept seeing people say that it was a copy of Kimi ni Todoke.

And after watching Kimi ni Todoke I’m inclined to say that it actually is, sort of, but with one vital difference - Kai in Honey Lemon Soda is a much better character than Shota, and is a much better match for Uka than Shota is for Sawako. And I tend to think that’s not an accident.

And at the moment, I think I’m about to embark on Dandadan. I read enough of the manga early on to know that I didn’t want to try to keep up with it one episode at a time and would rather binge it, and I think now’s the time.

I completed two great anime last week.

The first was Tatsuki Fujimoto 17-26. This kind of anime is perfect for me: short, episodic, self-contained and bizarre. It has a bit of everything, from comedy and wholesome moments to action-filled sequences and emotional scenes.

I enjoyed it a lot, enough to give it at least a 9 / 10.

The second one that I checked out is My Hero Academia: Vigilantes. Season 2 is coming out next anime season, so I thought I’d give season 1 a shot. And boy was I pleasantly surprised.

If we ever get some side story where we follow some random C-class heroes from One Punch Man, this is it. This differentiation from the usual formula of following some big shot superhuman, and instead focusing on the not-so-glorious but still heroic moments of your everyday dude, makes for a story that stood out.

Another comparison that I can draw it to is Spiderman. I believe one aspect of Spiderman that everyone loves is that “friendly, neighbourhood” part. You don’t need to save the day like Superman; just small acts of kindness to make everyone’s day better. The MC embodies this and IMO this is what makes him endearing.

Speaking of Western comic superheroes, I like how the animation / art-style used at times is inspired by comics, something we hardly see in anime. It reminds me of the Spiderverse movies (though Spiderverse’s production value is on another level).

All in all, this is a heartfelt superhero anime. I like the characters and I like where the story is going. I would definitely be checking season 2 out when it gets released. Minimum 8 / 10.