I’m assuming so - even beyond their nascent romance and our expectations, think of how hurt Chihiro would be. I can’t imagine the author doing that to her.

In fact, I’m assuming that the whole thing is going to turn out to be a false alarm - that, for instance, they’re planning on moving but then they don’t.

I sure hope so.

No - I understood all of that, and went into it fully aware of it. It just doesn’t matter, because who they are right now is, for me, so completely and thoroughly unpleasant that I have no more desire to sit in front of a screen and subject myself to them that I would to punch myself in the face.

I know it’s not uncommon on anime forums to treat this as some sort of personal failure, but that’s just the way it goes - I cannot tolerate asshole protagonists. I have no sympathy for them and no interest in them. They just fill me with anger and the desire to see them suffer (or as I’ve often phrased it, they make me want to somehow reach into the screen and kick the shit out of them) and that is, for me, an entirely unpleasant experience that I will not willingly subject myself to.

I can handle a character like that if their awful qualities are sufficiently balanced by good ones, and not at some tentative point in the future, but pretty much from the start. A great example of that, and particularly appropriate, is Kana in Oshi no Ko. She’s only really awful in flashback - by the time we meet her again, she’s already gone through a lot of torment and soul searching and already made significant headway towards being a decent person, and is in fact probably my favorite character in the series.

But if there was a side story about that process - following Kana from the point at which she was awful and self-absorbed and cruel and through the period during which she started to change - I wouldn’t watch it because even knowing who she becomes and liking her as much as I do, I’d have an immediate and visceral and entirely unpleasant emotional response to her then.

And that’s just the way it is. Think of it as something akin to an allergy.

This season:

I dropped My Friend’s Sister - not deliberately - I just realized somewhere along the way that I hadn’t seen the latest episode, and realized that I didn’t care. I might try it again after it’s finished.

May I Ask for One Final Thing is still entertaining me. The characters are especially good - I’d watch it just for the dynamic between Scarlet and Julius, but luckily, it’s much more than that.

And since it looked intriguing, I caught up with Gnosia, which is… odd. It’s very stylish - a bit too self-consciously so for my tastes - but it’s fascinating. The way the story is unfolding is strange though - it’s a mystery at heart, and it seems that every time the main starts to get a handle on what’s going on, an additional element is added, effectively moving the goal posts. If that ends up having some logical context, then it could make the whole series that much more interesting. If not though, it’s going to just make it stupid and contrived. We’ll see.

Past seasons:

Finished watching Bokurano, which was excellent. It’s a tough watch - as I noted last week, not only is the overarching story tragic - each of the individual episodes deals with a different person, and their stories also tend to be tragic, or at least bittersweet at best. But still, it was well worth it all in all.

And along the way - every time it started to overwhelm me and I needed a break, I switched to Sono Bisque Doll, which was also excellent. The mains have tremendous chemistry and the whole thing is just vibrant and uplifting and very enjoyable. And a perfect antidote to the bleakness of Bokurano.

I finished both up at more or less the same time, then went on to Sono Bisque Doll season 2, which was a disappointment. The biggest problem I had with it was that they Flanderized the characters. What had been interesting individuals who happened to have some tropish traits morphed into basically nothing but those traits, repeated endlessly (and generally in chibified form), so it was just a constant stream of chibi Marin being loud and excited and chibi Gojou being tediously self-conscious and panicking at the proximity/sight of any exposed flesh. I watched 3 1/2 episodes, then gave up and skipped ahead to the end of the last episode to see if they at least made some romantic progress.

Then I had a strange experience. After that disappointment, I was in the mood for a sure thing, so I went with a series that has been on my TBW for quite a while, and that has a great reputation - Kaguya-sama. And I hated it. I don’t recall the last time I bounced so hard off of a series. I loathed both of the smug, insufferable, manipulative asshole mains, and I just could not possibly care less what happens to either one of them.

In order for a romance to work, I have to be able to cheer for the people involved - I have to want to see them happy. And with these two, I just don’t. I don’t want to have anything to do with them at all.

So… since I needed something fairly radically different from that, I started just browsing MAL stacks and following suggestions and the like, and watching lots of episode 1s, just trying to find something interesting and comfy and upbeat and low key. And I ended up on Henjin no Salad Bowl (A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics), which was a near-perfect fit. It’s about a magic-using princess and her superhumanly skilled knight/retainer who escape the destruction of their kingdom on an alternate Earth through a portal that takes them to our Earth, where they end up in Gifu, separated, but adapting fairly well, if oddly, to extremely different lives from anything they were accustomed to. It’s bright and upbeat and pleasant and it leans heavily into the “eccentric.” Nearly everyone they meet and everything they end up doing is odd, goofy and/or bizarre, but it all manages to work out one way or another in the long run, mostly because they’re genuinely good people.

Then I happened into a movie - Hotarubi no Mori e (Into the Forest of Fireflies’ Light) - and it was beautiful and highly recommended. It’s easily one of the most touching and heartfelt things I’ve seen in months.

And I’m currently about two thirds of the way through Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, which is pretty good all in all. It’s a Shaft, so it has a certain amount of that “trite comment accompanied by a head tilt so it seems more profound than it actually is” thing that annoys me about Shaft, but it’s nowhere near as overbearing about it as Monogatari or Mekacucity Actors, so it’s okay. And I quite like the characters.

Caught up with this one last night, and it definitely has my attention. I’m not sure how it’s going to work out overall though - every time that Yuri starts to get a handle on things, they add a new variable or an additional rule, effectively moving the mystery goal posts, which might be subtly sinister or might just be poor writing. We’ll see.

Another great episode - Scarlet’s scene in the Palmian church was awesome, Julius showed up right on time too late to do anything but appreciate the aftermath (and do his noble part to help the terrorists’ victims), and Diana and Leo make for an adorable couple. And the Nanaka cameo was well played.

And we know now who the traitor is, which should prove interesting. It’s obviously setting the stage for a battle with Scarlet, and it should be a satisfying one.

What a cliffhanger!

I’m only watching two series this season - May I Ask For One Final Thing? (which is still entertaining) and My Friend’s Little Sister Has It In for Me (which hasn’t quite reached the level at which I’ll drop it). They both have good if not great OPs, and the ED for May I Ask is completely different from the OP, but equally good.

Of past seasons…

I’m in the middle of doing something I haven’t done for years - watching an anime that’s so good but so tragic that I can’t watch more than an episode or two before needing to take a break with something else

The anime is Bokurano, and it’s very good and very difficult. It’s not just broadly tragic - it’s a fairly episodic story and every episode is bittersweet at best in and of itself. So I can’t make it more than an episode or two before I need a counter. Which has been kind of interesting actually.

The first anime I turned to as a counter ended up taking over, and I watched it all the way through in two sittings. Asobi Asobase is without a doubt the funniest anime I’ve ever seen. I mean - right this moment, all I have to do is think of the words “butt laser” and I start laughing again.

Then I spent a while watching an assortment of episode 1s in between episodes of Bokurano before getting hooked into Ao-chan Can’t Study, which is a good example of one of my favorite niche genres - wholesome ecchi. It’s essentially a romcom between two awkward people, with the gimmick that the FMC - Ao-chan - is awkward because she’s the only child of a famous erotica author who has no filter at all, so she has a very vivid imagination that leaves her alternately defensive and embarrassed, much to the dismay of the well-meaning MMC.

Then I knocked around for a bit more (in between episodes of Bokurano) before settling into Sono Bisque Doll, which has been on my TBW for a while now, and is low key and amusing and surprisingly cute.

And I’m about ready for another episode of Bokurano.

Mmm… yeah. That was very good. Probably the most complete and focused of Oshimi’s works. Predictably, it wasn’t an easy read at all, but it was worth it.

Eh… that was okay all in all, but very contrived. I knew they had to somehow make the jump to Iroha doing voice acting, but that was a sort of cheesy way of doing it.

Presumably that’s it for the flashbacks though, so we can get back to the current timeline and dueling tsunderes.

Another great episode, and we’re getting into the larger plot now. I’m guessing there’s going to be some connection between Terenezza and the Palmians and/or the demon realm.

And I was reminded again and keep forgetting to mention - both the OP and the ED are excellent.

Enshittification isn’t just a problem for social media.

Hajime’s an oddly appealing MMC.

Initially, he’s often even more oblivious than the normal frustratingly dense protagonists, but he pays close attention and figures things out, then doesn’t hesitate, so he ends up sort of backing into doing the right thing more dependably than most.

Probably Hanayamata all in all, though most CGDCTs would qualify, and that’s one of my favorite genres, so I have a long list of them.

Oooh… I remember this.

I read the first few chapters when it was being released, but then decided I didn’t want to try to follow it and would rather wait until it was done, then binge it. Then I forgot that it even existed until just now.

Off I go…

Scrapped Princess is the best example I know of. It’s a near perfectly told story, moving as it goes along from a small and simple story of three people traveling together to literal world-spanning drama, and ending with all of the threads neatly tied up.

Others that come to mind:

Cowboy Bebop

ODDTAXI

Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song

Akudama Drive

Heike Monogatari

Kokkoku

Well…

Actually, thinking about it, just taken on their own, they were some of the best filler episodes I recall seeing. And to their credit, they did fit into the timeline too - they neatly filled in the gap between the cops getting fired and settling into their new roles.

But it still felt to me like the overall pacing unfortunately lagged there.

I’m going to undoubtedly watch the series again - maybe my opinion will improve. And either way, the series as a whole was quite good.

I think it’s pretty safe to assume that she’s currently inhabiting her twin sister’s body, and her twin sister is currently inhabiting hers.

And that yes - they will meet.

Current season:

My Friend’s Little Sister Has It In For Me is okay all in all, but the MMC is starting to grate on me, the rest of the characters are drably cliched and the story hasn’t engaged me.

May I Ask for One Final Thing?, on the other hand is excellent, and at this rate I’m not going to be surprised if it ends up the hit of the season. Scarlet is a tremendous character, and Julius is every bit her match, the fight scenes are both glorious and hilarious (Scarlet spinning a corrupt noble around by his heel with a chamber orchestra playing in the background was a highlight, as was Scarlet punching out a dragon then making it her pet), and the plot looks poised to take off. I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

The only other thing of note I watched last week - because it happened to remind me that it existed at a moment when I had nothing else grabbing my attention and the time seemed right, I dipped back 20 or so years into my TBW and watched Paranoia Agent. And it was worth it. It was very early-2000s, with lots of symbolism and an only tenuous connection to reality, and it lagged a bit with a couple of filler episodes at about the 2/3 mark, but was otherwise engaging and stylish, and it ended strong.

Right, but that’s not quite the “why” I’m asking.

I could make those characters look 1,000 times better in about two seconds just by very slightly altering the cheek/jaw lines, so that they had faces more in keeping with classic bishoujo style and more appropriate for an action series, and I’m wondering why apparently nobody in an entire production company managed to figure that out.

It’s as if puni plush is the default setting on their Art-a-Tron 2000, and they lost the manual and nobody knows how to change it.

Why do they have puni plush faces on classic bishoujo bodies?