Current season:

May I Ask for One Final Thing is still going strong. It feels like the story’s a bit compressed, but since it’s a light novel series adaptation, it’s pretty much either that or the story is told in detail but can’t reach a resolution before the anime run is over, and of the two, I much prefer compressed.

And after a week off for a filler episode that was basically just a grab bag of venerable old anime tropes translated into surreal science fiction, Gnosia is back to adding new layers of mystery to the ever-growing pile without actually resolving anything. The clock is ticking…

Past seasons:

The highlight of the week was definitely Kyoukai no Kanata, which I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish (the series plus both movies). I liked everything about it, and particularly Mirai and Akihito.

Then I knocked around a bit and ended up stumbling across one of the most awesomely bizarre and goofy things I’ve seen - Henkei Shoujo. It’s a set of five one minute shorts, each of which has the same unnamed girl finding herself in some situation in which she encounters another girl who then transforms into a vehicle. That’s it, and it’s great. The situations are funny and the transformations are epic, satirically fan-servicey and ultimately entirely pointless, all at the same time. It’s just good stupid fun.

Then I started SSSS.Gridman. It’s okay, but it just didn’t quite grab me, and over the holiday, I wasn’t willing to invest enough effort to get into it, and instead just looked for something familiar and comfy with which to wind down, and ended up rewatching Honey Lemon Soda. This was my fourth time through the series now and I still couldn’t say exactly what it is that I like so much about it - I just do. Even with its flaws.

And I think I’m going to go back to SSSS.Gridman. At least for another episode or two.

So at this point, I’m just hoping that this series pulls a Mappa (even though it’s not a Mappa), and after 10 or so episodes of adding ever more complexity and mystery, it somehow manages to tie it all together in the last episode or two.

Almost a filler episode - just a bit of comedy getting the monsters out of the way so things can move on to the more central threats.

That said, it was still good. I expected that Scarlet and Rex were going to get a chance to do their thing, and that’s just what they did. And Alflame is an oddly appealing character. He’s actually very earnest and sincere and thus admirable - it’s just that he’s also a gung-ho moron who doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, but that’s okay, since everyone knows it, including him. And he and Scarlet are actually sort of well-matched, since he shares her pure love for battle. And the fact that he can’t keep his mouth shut and ends up irritating her keeps him at arm’s length, so while they connect in some senses, he’s not really in contention for her heart, which makes him a good secondary male character - someone for whom Scarlet can feel some (grudging) affection without introducing the threat of a love triangle.

The story’s still moving along at a good clip. I presume what we’re getting is a condensed version of the light novels, which is fine. Adapting a light novel series generally requires either condensing the events of a story to fit them into 12 episodes or going into more detail but not managing to tell a complete story, and of the two, I much prefer condensation.

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.

Oooh… that’s the first I’ve heard of this.

I really like the original movie, and wonder what they’re going to do for a sequel.

Here’s hoping for an Angela cameo at least.

This felt like a sort of surreal otaku shoutout/filler episode - a dolphin named Otome who squees at romance, an animated fighting game complete with poses and shouted attacks, a confession scene in a classroom at sunset and a sort of hybrid chuunibyou/yanqui/hikikomori (I was sort of surprised to not see futuristic cup ramens scattered around his room). All it needed was a beach scene or an onsen.

Still an engaging series - still don’t know if it’s going to be worth it in the long run.

Nice to get some backstory for Sanya/Saint Diana.

Dios managed to become more sympathetic and more creepy at the same time.

Scarlet was awesome as always.

I assume the dragoons are going to ally with Pallistan, mostly at Alflame’s urging.

Good episode all in all - not as dramatic as some of the previous ones - just solid storytelling and plothole-filling.

I was pretty sure that one way or another, Marietta was going to end up sympathizing with and trying to save the witch - that’s just the kind of person she is.

And now we have all the context to not only make that likely, but clearly the right thing to do.

I’m looking forward to it. I expect it’ll be fairly tropish, but will also be done well.

Current season:

May I Ask For One Final Thing? is still going strong, and last week’s episode was one of the best yet. We’re coming into the meat of the story. And meanwhile, Gnosia, in what has become a worryingly predictable move, just added more characters and more game mechanics in lieu of any sort of actual plot progress. I’m still holding out hope that this constant moving of the mystery goalposts has some in-universe meaning, but I suspect more strongly all the time that it’s just crappy writing.

Past seasons:

Finished up Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, which I really enjoyed all in all. It never quite came together into a satisfying whole, but it was a pleasant journey with some very odd but surprisingly well-rendered characters.

Then I watched Kokoro Connect, which was sort of the opposite in a way - an immediately interesting plot hook, but only so-so execution, and specifically because the characters were disappointing. They didn’t feel organic and fully fleshed out, but more like sort of hasty and disjointed contrivances - like the writers just filled each role in the story with a set of somewhat arbitrary characteristics - “insert manipulative nice guy poseur here” or “insert genki girl with a dark secret here,” and then never quite managed to bring them to life.

Then next was a long-time TBW resident - Anohana - which hooked me so hard that I ended up watching it all the way through in one sitting, which is something I haven’t done for quite a while. It was mesmerizing - so rich and so sad and so raw, and the story unfolded so relentlessly, yet somehow gracefully. I’m not sure I’d say I “enjoyed” it, but it was very, very good, and it’ll definitely stick with me.

And I’m not sure what’s next - some sort of change of pace. I gave Soul Eater a shot - I love the art style and have long wanted to finally watch it, but coming off of the storytelling of Anohana, that tedious shounen action story loop just didn’t work at all. I think I want something that’s relatively well plotted, but with a minimum of drama and tragedy, and nothing’s really grabbed me yet.

And once again, instead of resolving anything it just added more stuff and effectively moved the mystery goalposts.

At this point, I’m just curious to see if that constant addition of new mechanics and new characters has some in-universe justification or if it’s just a cheap gimmick the writers used to try to pad the story out without making it too repetitive.

Renge’s a hero.

That was plain awesome from start to finish, and now we’re really getting into the meat of the story.

This is a great series.

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.