Natterings From Nepantla

Out of 7 shows I was interested in checking out, 3 aren't licensed for streaming in the US. The buzz about Your Forma has been negative enough that I've lost interest in it, but I'd still like to have a look at Miru or The Mononoke Lecture Logs of Chuzenji-sensei if I get the chance.

As for the others, plus one where the reactions on my favorite anime Discord server convinced me to give it a chance:

Apocalypse Hotel: After episode 1, I was amused, because the punchline was easy to guess but the exact form it took was not. After episode 2, I was clearing a spot for it on my Hugo ballot next year. It's whimsical, melancholy, philosophical, absurd, and blessed with some excellent character animation in episode 2. If you thought the premise sounded even remotely interesting, you should absolutely try it.

Lazarus: Sure looks great, but the writing ranges from just plain dumb to complete nonsense. Also it turns out I still hate dubs.

Sword of the Demon Hunter: Sets its protagonist up with an origin story which is dark and edgy on paper, but avoids the gratuitous excesses that would normally go with it. Only the one person that needs to be horribly killed for plot reasons gets horribly killed, and it goes out its way to show its human characters having humanity, allowing the demons to look properly demonic in comparison. Although this was advertised as a time travel story, there's no going back and forth, it's just that a couple of characters are going to have very long lifespans.

ZatsuTabi: Yup, it's just low-key travelogues about journeys to obscure bits of Japan. It turns out that this is my kind of thing right now, but I understand if it isn't yours.

Kowloon Generic Romance: Sets up a fascinating mystery, but it's going to be a competition between my interest in that and my annoyance at how much time the camera spends ogling our heroine (although episode 3 was much better) and how the shortcut to showing us that the apparent villain is evil is to make him an effeminate gay man (episode 3 got much worse on this).

I also managed to stop watching The Apothecary Diaries in the middle of its first episode of the season, so you don't have to keep reading my complaints about it.

I seem to be getting back into the rhythm of anime viewing. Shows I have checked out so far:

Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective is about a genius medical professional who, you guessed it, also solves mysteries. The first one was weird enough to get me to stick around for episode 2, but all the writing around it was terrible and I don't like a single one of the characters, so that was enough.

Momentary Lily is the latest from GoHands, done in the distinctive GoHands style which doesn't bother me one bit, since I am largely immune to animation style (and actually, I thought the mysterious enemies looked kind of cool). But it is also a show assembled entirely from overused tropes and I stopped after episode 1.

Tasokare Hotel is another mystery show, set in a place between our world and the afterlife where spirits go to try to remember who they are and whether they're supposed to be alive or dead. I've seen some negative reviews of it which seem to start from the assumption that it must necessarily be a detective show, and it's terrible from that standpoint, because it isn't a detective show. The main character is there to serve more as a therapist, finding clues to prompt the spirits to tell their own story. I wouldn't normally expect to enjoy a show quite this chill, but I am.

Aquarion: Myth of Emotions is a mecha show trying to go big or go home. So far we've got a big ball of New Age stuff like ancient high-tech civilizations, past lives, and maybe a ghost; quantum weirdness; elemnts from the wilder end of the mecha spectrum including improbably technology, shouted attack names, and ludicrously complicated launch sequences; and all this wrapped up in a most un-anime-like look. Currently it's all what I believe the internet haters call Cal Arts style, but the trailers have promised substantial content with character animated in CGI.

I worry that this series has bitten off more than it can chew (and, apparently, previous Aquarion series have established a tradition of falling apart and disappointing) but man, this is sure not going to be boring.

The excellent if unfortunately named Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun is back for a second season at last, and it's good to see the old gang again, even if I did see the first episode's twist coming a mile away.

And The Apothecary Diaries is back and... I'm not sure if I'm going to keep watching it. I do like historical fantasy costume dramas, but I hate cozy mysteries because the mundane details of the characters' lives tend to start crowding out the parts I find interesting after a while, and the first episode of the new season is 100% slice-of-life hijinks. There are supposedly actual mysteries coming soon, so I don't know, I'll give it another couple episodes.

Since I have nothing better to do this morning, an attempt to make sense of the map in episode 2 of Train to the End of the World.



From episode 1, it was possible to deduce that the rail line is the Seibu Railway's Ikebukuro line.

( 31 stations )

Anime spring is coming! Tomorrow, in fact! If you're looking for an exhaustive list of what's coming, you can choose from ANN's sober list of upcoming releases, Scamp's always entertaining season preview, or this YouTube playlist of trailers which was assembled for a watch party at the Animoo Chat Discord server. (Skip to #2 for the first actual trailer.)

The thing I'm most excited about this time is Train to the End of the World, which combines three things I reliably like: trains, weird low-key post-apocalyptic stories, and Yokote Michiko as head writer.

Next up is Karasu wa Aruji o Erabanai (no English title yet because no English-language stream has been announced), about courtly maneuverings in a parallel Heian-era-like world of crow people.

Then there are a whole bunch of things which I think might be good and intend to check out: the Spice & Wolf remake; Wind Breaker, this season's winner for Most Unfortunate Title, which is actually some kind of shonen battler with high school delinquents; Astro Note, which involves an unemployed cook and some aliens undercover as the operators of a boarding house; Tonari no Yōkai-san, which looks like a slice-of-life about rural Japan and the mythological creatures living there; Go, Go, Loser Ranger!, a satire of tokusatsu superhero shows; and Mysterious Disappearances, a contemporary urban fantasy about guess what.

And I'll probably check out Touken Ranbu Kai, even though I don't expect it to be good, just for nostalgia's sake because I watched all of its predecessor back when I was doing the simulcast column for Amazing Stories.

I gave up watching Frieren at the halfway point when it tried to have a plotline justifying something that looks like genocide. I say "tried to" because, ironically, it ran into the same problem I was seeing early on, where the author's skills were not up to the task of fully executing their ideas. Turned out to be a good thing in this case, but still, attempting to justify genocide. Plus I didn't really care about any of the characters.

Bullbuster was a perfectly competent midlist effort and has already been forgotten by anime fandom at large.

The Apothecary Diaries and Undead Unluck both remained entertaining and both are continuing into the coming season. Undead Unluck felt like it really hit its stride when the main characters joined the central organization of the story, and I'm still appreciating its dedication to doing romance tropes in a shonen story.

Some late last-minute viewing included the movie wrap-up of Kana of the Great Snow Sea (available on Crunchyroll), and the Christmas Day drop of the last three episodes of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead which were supposed to have aired back in September.

Both were very good. I was apprehensive about the Zom 100 episodes since there was a lot of chatter about the griefer villans of the arc and how it didn't fit with the mood of the story, but they were fine. No shock deaths or grimdark misery porn.

Animoo Chat, my favorite anime Discord server, which I encourage any and all anime fans reading this to join, votes on "Anime of the Year" plus specialized awards every year. Everyone gets to pick one top anime and three runners up. Mine were the finale of Attack on Titan for the winner, and Oshi no Ko, Kaina, and Zom 100 for runners-up. If I'd had a fifth place, it would have gone to Hell's Paradise.

Animoo Chat's overall top pick was season 2 of Vinland Saga, which to be fair I've been hearing tons of good things about constantly. Oshi no Ko was #2, and Attack on Titan was #3.

The winners of the regular annual categories were:

• Best OP/ED: Oshi no Ko OP
• Hottest Mess: Zom 100
• Most Tolerable Isekai: Magical Revolution of the Reincarneted Princes and the Genius Young Lady
• It's Shocking This Anime is Good at All: Onii-chan wa Oshimai
• Most Anime Anime: The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You
• Best Anime Movie of 2022 (Animoo Chat votes on awards to movies of the previous year because it often takes so long for them to be released outside of Japan): Yuru Camp Movie
• Most Disappointing: Helck
• Best Anime Doomed to Be Forgotten: Overtake!

And the one-off categories for this year were:

• Best Ridiculously Long Premiere: Oshi no Ko
• Cast With the Most Rizz (in honor of the Oxford Word of the Year): The Apothecary Diaries
• Best CG Monstrosity: Those awful horned things with mouths full of molars from KamiKatsu which you'll find if you search on "kamikatsu cgi"

I've gotten over the urge to list all the new sfnal shows, but I still feel compelled to mention that this season has three shows about people getting sent 12-13 years back in time and two where the entire premise is "a guy plays a VR video game". None of which I am watching! But I have tried out:

Frieren: This is the Big Show of the season, the heavyweight that felt so confident about grabbing people's attention that it dropped the first four episodes all at once. It's... fine. I was really interested in the premise of an elf realizing how fast human lives go by and trying to engage with them more, and after watching two episodes I think I'll get back to it and keep watching. But boy, being set in Generic Fantasy Mishmash Land does it absolutely no favors. Half a century goes by in the first episode and you can't tell because there are no visible changes in dress, architecture, etc. Just a comment from the protagonist that the town seen earlier in the episode sure has changed.

Under Ninja: A deadpan action show about modern ninjas taking themselves way too seriously. The premiere wasn't funny often enough to keep me watching further.

Bullbuster: A small-scale mecha show which is also about a struggling small business and may be working up to some kind of statement about modern corporate Japan. It's got a likeable ensemble cast, and while the science side of things is already showing some holes I expect to keep watching it for the rest of the season.

Undead Unluck: The next adaptation from the pages of Shonen Jump trying to make it big. The buzz about this one was that the early parts of the manga are terrible but it gets better. After three episodes, yeah, it's not highly recommendable yet, but three things are grabbing my attention: the unusual heroine who I found endearing right from the get-go; its commitment to doing romance tropes in fight, shouty, over-the-top Shonen Jump style; and the offhand reveal in episode 3 that the world where this story is taking place has one huge difference from our Earth. This is the one I'm most eager to see new episodes of right now.

Migi & Dali: A horror-comedy-mystery featuring creepy twins masquerading as one kid to solve the mystery of their mother's death. The comedy part is that the twins are evil masterminds but unclear on how mainstream family life works, leading to a series of misunderstandings. This appears to be the only joke, and it is told very very slowly. I dropped it after two episodes.

The Apothecary Diaries: Another high-profile adaptation, which waited until today to premiere so it could drop three episodes at once. I like the setting, I like the mystery-solving, I wish it didn't feel a need to spend so much time belaboring how not interested the protagonist is in the only handsome guy around when he's obviously going to be the love interest eventually.

So it's a new season and there's not a lot of enthusiasm out there. In the sf world, we get to choose from:

History but not as you know it: Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, Undead Murder Farce
Contemporary supernatural: Dark Gathering, Ayaka: A Story of Bonds and Wounds
High-concept dark horse: The Gene of AI
Cat: The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today
Zombie apocalypse as an improvement on modern work: Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead
Video game tie-ins: Synduality: Noir, Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout
Magic school: Reign of the Seven Spellblades, Classroom For Heroes
Down and out in Demon Land: Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero, Helck
Standard isekai: My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1, Am I Actually the Strongest?
Isekai might be running out of ideas: Sweet Reincarnation, The Great Cleric, The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen, Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon

Ōoku would be at the absolute top of my viewing list, except it's on Netflix and this is currently a Hulu household. Zom 100 sounds really interesting even though I'm generally sick of zombies, and likewise Undead Murder Farce, whose original title incidentally is Undead Girl Murder Farce, and really, with a title like that, how can I not check it out.

I managed to watch a bunch of premieres this time.

Hell's Paradise: Easily the best premiere of the season, featuring striking art and some nice twists on action tropes. The apparent moodiness of the protagonist is just a front which is taken down quickly, his wife who would have been horribly killed to motivate him in most stories is alive and well, and oh, a married protagonist, very unusual in a shonen show. Also a competent female secondary character who isn't belittled or harassed by anyone. This was followed by by a really dumb turn in episode 2 to introduce the rest of the cast, but I'll stick with it for now.

Heavenly Delusion/Tengoku Daimakyo: A nice competent post-apocalyptic dystopia. Sticking with this one too.

Too Cute Crisis: Cute enough, although it does take a brief trip into animal neglect and abuse. I am somewhat offended that it couldn't stick with cats for an entire episode and has to start squeeing about cute dogs too.

OPUS.COLORs: Meh. If you like dramas full of teenage bishonen then I guess it's okay.

Magical Destroyers: It's terrible, please watch Rumble Garanndoll instead.

The Marginal Service: Well, this has excellent marketers at least. Everyone was hyped up about a show that turned out to be an exercise in finding a way to claim that police brutality is Good Actually.

Oshi no Ko: The 90-minute premiere is quite a ride that winds up in a far, far different story than the initial premise suggests. I don't want to spoil you all here, but you can find fuller descriptions out there if you want to know more before you make up your mind about checking it out. I'll just say that I'm going to keep watching this one too.

I wound up watching four series to their ends during winter season.

The Fire Hunter was absolutely the best in terms of story, characters, setting, etc. However it clearly is having production difficulties. The books it's based on are probably great but don't appear to be available in English.

Kaina of the Great Snow Sea is a solid work which did not have production problems. It only suffers by comparison to The Fire Hunter, because they're both works set in a post-apocalyptic, fundamentally changed world, with characters travelling around and slowly starting to uncover the truth of things, and the world of The Fire Hunter is much more complex and weird.

Giant Beasts of Ars was good right up until the last couple episodes, which should have been a whole extra season. The ending winds up severely rushed and winds up dropping loose ends everywhere.

High Card is a fun, stylish fighting show, except when it goes for drama cliches, because it doesn't do mopey drama well, and because they are really, really old cliches. Still, I'll check out season 2 since the rest was good enough, and my favorite character on the team is the only one who didn't get a focus episode in season 1.

I didn't wind up with a summer show that I want to encourage everyone to watch. Yurei Deco stayed enjoyable but not a masterpiece. Lycoris Recoil wound up doing a 180 from the idea that child soldiers were a bad idea. Shadows House season 2 was okay, but the main mystery of this arc was undercut by an end credits sequence clearly pointing out who was behind it all.

So, to the premieres:

My Master Has No Tail and Raven of the Inner Court are middling, but since I'm a sucker for fantastical costume dramas, as I said before, all they had to do was avoid being terrible to keep me watching, and they've managed that.

I gave Bibliophile Princess a chance, but generic fantasy world plus a sense that the author has no idea how any of it really works means it failed.

Chainsaw Man, the most-hyped show of the season, is a bunch of dystopian gore not balanced out by any redeeming qualities such as likeable characters or especially good writing. Oh, and the cute dog dies. It sure has a big production budget, though.

Mob Psycho 100 and Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun! are back and delivering exactly what you were hoping for if you've watched their previous seasons. (If you haven't watched the previous seasons, I enthusiastically endorse both.)

Spy×Family is more of the same too, which is to say that Anita is the best but too much of it is not about her.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury has decided to translate Revolutionary Girl Utena to the Gundam AU setting. If you are a big fan of either Utena or Gundam, presumably you will eat this up!

And then there's Human Crazy University, which I didn't have in my list because there was zero information about it at the time. But it's a scientific mystery, about a guy who should have died several times over but somehow stays alive. After surviving being executed for a double murder, he finds himself in the clutches of a scientist who would like to study this phenomenon.

Human Crazy University has extremely limited, low-budget animation, and the premiere consists almost entirely of talking. But it's one of the most interesting shows on offer this season. Also you will learn a ton about how the death penalty is carried out in Japan, which may be a pro or con, depending.