It has been 1 year and 4 months since the last time I updated this blog. And in the time since then, a LOT of things have happened. A global pandemic, rampant police brutality, hurricanes, wildfires, political corruption, impeachment...and that's just the United States alone! I'm not saying my blog was holding back the apocalypse or anything, I'm just saying that things weren't this bad when I was making bad jokes about Fruits Basket and Demon Slayer. And for that, I cannot apologize enough.
All kidding aside, while the sheer madness that is 2020 has played no small part in my unplanned hiatus, it wasn't the only reason. My personal life has been through a MAJOR shakeup these past two years. I moved twice, transitioned to working from home, grappled with depression, and learned more about my gender identity than I thought possible. While a lot of it is very personal, I am comfortable in sharing that I am NOT actually a cisgender male like I thought I was all my life and I'm actually nonbinary and gender fluid. While I'm still using male pronouns as of now, that may change in the future.
Anyway, you don't come here to listen to me talk about my feelings or whatever. You want to talk about anime. And, well, I'm back, so let's talk about anime. 2020 has been a weird year for anime. Having multiple productions be put on hold or delayed will do that. Summer especially has been barren. But now, in the fall, the anime scene has exploded with the same quantity of new shows that we've come to expect, to the point where I'm currently watching NINETEEN anime. Not all of them are good, and I'm probably gonna be dropping a few soon, two of them are sequels (Golden Kamuy and Haikyu), and two of them are One Piece and Black Clover, so those don't really count, but there we are. That still leaves 15 anime to talk about, so let's get right into sharing first impressions and such.
Summer Leftovers
Oh my God! Major 2nd actually came back! YOOOOOO!!!
For real, Major 2nd was the unexpected surprise of 2018, being an unassuming baseball anime for kids that was so well-written and so good at pushing my buttons that it made it's way to my top ten anime of that year. When no sequel was announced for 2019, I was fearful that there would be no continuation and I would have to seek out the manga, which would have been a crime because I knew Daigo and Sakura had more stories to tell.
And boy did they! Season 2 has somehow done the impossible in writing my favorite character Hikaru out of the show and somehow being better than Season 1. Making Daigo the unwitting captain trying to rebuild a team that has nothing was a great touch, especially with the first several episodes viewing him from the perspective of other characters, really showing how much he has grown into the role of a leader. Especially when 2/3 of the team is girls, which causes everyone to underestimate their chances (including several members of the team themselves), but they continue to surprise everyone in a very believable way while never becoming unbelievably overpowered. The rematch against Michiru was a particular highlight, with even a rival team built around a female ace pitcher still grappling with internalized misogyny and underestimating Daigo and the girls.
And the girls! In many sports anime I struggle to remember every team member as it feels like only a couple of players actually matter at the end of the day. No matter how much I love those shows, I still struggle to remember the second stringers in Kuroko's Basketball or Haikyu for example. But Sakura, Anita, Chiyo, Chisato, Tao, Yayoi, and Kandori all instantly endeared themselves to me and stood out with their own unique talents and roles. Not that the boys (Daigo, Nishina, and Tanba) are just standing back and giving up the spotlight to them either. Well, Tanba is, but that's kinda the point.
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Seriously, I love this boy so much in a very platonic way.
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Okay, Fire Force is a weird beast. What should be a very simple concept of anime firefighters turns into a convoluted mess of religious conspiracies, human experimentation, talking moles, spontaneous combustion-inducing insects, and whatever the hell makes Arthur so goddamn stupid. Season 1 aired in 2019, and I thought it was...okay. It had a rough start with shaky writing and inconsistent characters, but the art and sound direction was so good and the gimmick that all the shonen superpowers are fire-based is so novel that I kept watching all the way through and it really did start to pick up near the end, so I decided to give season 2 a shot.
And I am so glad I did. This is easily one of the most improved transitions from season 1 to season 2 I have ever seen. Fire Force season 2 has truly embraced the weird factor in its world design and the current arc's bonkers 3 way faction battles are so damn fun as a result. While I still have ABSOLUTELY no clue what the hell is going on, I think that David Production is in on the joke, and I'm having a blast as a result.
New Fall Series
Adachi and Shimamura is a yuri romance from Tezuka Productions based on a novel by Hitoma Iruma. The titular characters, Sakura Adachi and Hougetsu Shimamura, are delinquents who cut class to hang out together on the second floor of their school's gymnasium. They play ping pong together, eat bread together, and chat about being different from everybody else together. When Adachi starts having TOTALLY innocent and TOTALLY platonic dreams about kissing her best friend, the two of them unwittingly begin a journey to adulthood together. Oh, and there's also a random kid in a space suit who shows up and takes up screen time and I have no idea why she's there.
This is a pretty okay show so far, but it's kinda weird. It seems to be simultaneously moving at a snail's pace, where there is no external conflict and everything is purely character motivated so far, and also moving incredibly fast, where we've already had hand holding, lap sitting, and almost kissing in only two episodes. It's looking like the main driving question here is less "Will Shimamura reciprocate Adachi's feelings?" and more "Will Adachi learn to let go of her possessive instincts and create a healthy relationship with Shimamura while also acknowledging that she has other friends?", and so far, I'm here for it.
Akudama Drive is an original sci-fi action series from Studio Pierrot and director Tomohisa Taguchi. In a world with very little exposition explaining its backstory so far -- as far as I can tell, Kanto has conquered Kansai and the train to Kanto is now revered as some sort of deity -- an Ordinary Person (seriously, that's what she's credited as) is drawn into the world of super criminals known as Akudama. Posing as an unlisted Akudama known as Swindler in order to save her skin, she gets forced into a dramatic heist against the Kanto government on the orders of a robot cat, caught between a group of amoral murderers and the fascistic-looking police force.
This show is just plain rad. The bright neon colors belie the sinister underbelly of this society in a way that only the best cyberpunk stories can. While the characters are so far very bland and archetypal, their designs are very nice, and any show that opens with a guy riding a motorcycle up a building at least gets the 3 episode rule, and so far, it's been quite fun.
Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle - Rhyme Anima is a very bad title. It's also the latest in a multimedia project from King Records "Evil Line" label as an animated adaptation of the lore behind the albums from the fictional rap trios Buster Bros, Mad Trigger Crew, Fling Posse, and Matenro. In a world where women dominate the government, the creation and use of weapons has been completely prohibited and all conflicts are now settled with magic microphones that basically summon Stands by having better rhymes than your opponents.
This is just as stupid as it sounds and I LOVE IT! The characters are stupid, the raps are cheesy as hell, and everything is so over the top I can't take my eyes off the screen. I wouldn't call it good by any stretch of the word, but if it keeps up its current levels of silliness I'll keep watching it. Here's hoping that this is less of a Dimension High School so bad it's awful and more of a Kampfer so bad it's hilarious romp all the way through.
Ikebukuro West Gate Park is listed on My Anime List as a mystery, drama, and romance anime, but I don't see it. Based on a series of novels by Ira Ishida and animated by Doga Kobo, it tells the story of Makoto Majima, Takashi Andou, and the G Boys, a gang of street punks who help the helpless navigate the city of Ikebukuro and get back at rival gangs and exploitative corporations alike.
This is just plain mediocre. So far we've had 3 self contained stories about drugs being bad, fast food being bad, and YouTube beef being bad, and none of them have really wowed me so far. The blurb on MAL promises Makoto dealing with the death of a loved one, but we're a quarter of the way through the series with no such inciting incident having occurred yet. This is near the top of my chopping block, and unless it turns itself around soon it's probably gonna be dropped.
Oh, big surprise, Patrick's watching a sports anime and liking it more than it probably deserves. Haven't seen that one before. Iwa Kakeru! Sport Climbing Girls is a rock climbing anime by Studio Blade based on a web manga by Ryuudai Ishizaka. It tells the story of former puzzle game addict Konomi Kasahara, who finds herself drawn to the complexities of competitive rock climbing by viewing the whole thing as one big puzzle to find the most efficient route to the top of the wall.
Speaking entirely objectively, this show is just fine. Aside from some decent character development from Konomi and her tsundere rival/teammate Jun Uehara, not much has happened yet. The show's 3 episodes at time of writing have been focused on teaching Konomi the intricacies of proper rock climbing technique, having her build up her lacking strength and stamina, and the insecurities that naturally crop up when Konomi compares her beginner skill level to her more experienced and physically fit teammates. Which is entirely par for the course and important groundwork that is common for the genre in its early game. What's important is that I think that this show does a much better job at balancing moe and sports elements than other disappointments like Anima Yell or Cinderella Nine. If anything, I'm getting a Harukana Receive vibe here. And I liked Harukana Receive quite a bit for what it was. I'm probably gonna end up finishing this one.
Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear (or Bear Bear Bear Bear if you literally translate it to English) may be the best anime title of all time. It's also our isekai anime for the season because we can't have an anime season without one apparently. We actually have four new isekai airing right now but this is the one I chose to watch because I Stand on a Million Lives was so boring I fell asleep in the middle of the first episode, Yasahime: Princess Half Demon is a sequel to Inuyasha (a show I couldn't get into), and By the Grace of the Gods had a boring blurb, so here we are.
Anyway, the story of Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is about a teenage genius named Yuna who is a self made millionaire thanks to effortlessly playing the stock market who spends all her time playing the creatively named VRMMO World Art Online. After receiving the overpowered special event bear suit item, she suddenly finds herself dragged into the game world with only the bear suit equipped to her and unable to remove it. When she realizes that she is basically invincible with the bear suit equipped, Yuna basically decides that since she found the real world boring anyway, she's just gonna hang out in the virtual world and carve a new life for herself.
I don't know what it is with isekai anime being all slice of life lately, but this is the first one that really seems to make it work. Yuna is a fun character, with her understated confidence and lack of giving a shit about any of the fantasy stuff happening around her reminding me of a cocky shonen sports protagonist from the early 2000s. She's basically an isekai Ryoma Echizen, only instead of kicking your ass at tennis, she kicks your ass with bear-themed magic spells. What's not to like?
Magatsu Wahrheit: Zuerst is, of all things, a mobile game adaptation animated by Yokohama Animation Laboratory, a studio best known for an anime about girls in tights getting soaking wet. I'm not even
kidding. The story follows two characters on opposite sides of the conflict. Leocadio Weller is a bright-eyed optimistic youth who's very excited about joining the Imperial Army. He's in such a good mood that he decides to stop and help a stranger named Innumael Groener load his delivery truck so he can leave for his route on time. But when Leo accidentally loads a package that was actually illegal weapons in disguise, Innumael gets blamed and is now suspected of being part of an illegal smuggling operation. Feeling guilty, the smugglers bust Innumael out of jail when they arrive to retrieve the package and now he's stuck with them as he tries to escape the Leo's squad, who have been assigned to capture them.
There's a lot happening in that first episode and this is the shortest summary I can think of. This story is much more ambitious than I expected a mobile game story to be, and so far it's actually doing a pretty good job at pulling it off. I'm not saying that it's high art or anything, but this pulp magitech fantasy setting really does something for me, and the morally ambiguous story pitting two groups of likable characters (Leo's sadistic commander aside) against each other in a war that was started for reasons that none of them seem to understand really reminds me of the better parts of The Price of Smiles. And, as inconsistent as it was, I liked The Price of Smiles. I like this one, too. Even if I have no idea how to pronounce that title.
Do you want a cute witch girl who's actually 18? Do you like good animation, episodic stories, and interesting world building? If so, Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina is the anime for you! Based on a light novel series by Jougi Shiraishi, we follow the titular witch as she travels from place to place and observes other people's stories unfolding in front of her.
This is a very simple show that has some good execution but not a whole lot of substance. I'm enjoying it quite a bit simply because Elaina is a good character, being an interesting blend of immature brat and wise mentor figure, but the thing that really pushed this up from a 6 to a 7 for me was the most recent episode (at time of writing). After two saccharine episodes that only hinted at a darker world under the surface, we get two stories that end on a very dark note as Elaina just goes "Well, that sucks" and flies away. That's such a fascinating reaction to me that I want to see if anything will actually motivate her to stick around and fix things, since she is an incredibly powerful witch who at the very least could have saved a lot of lives and just chose not to get involved.
Talentless Nana would have been good regardless of when it came out, but let me tell you, it came out at exactly the right time. Now to tell you why would involve a spoiler on the level of the first episode of Promised Neverland, so let me say it right now: MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING! IF YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE A GENUINELY WELL DONE PLOT TWIST WITHOUT ANY PRIOR KNOWLEDGE (THAT NOT EVEN THE MAL PAGE REALLY SPOILS) SCROLL TO THE NEXT PICTURE WITHOUT READING ANYTHING ELSE BEFORE IT!
I'm assuming if you're still reading this part, you're okay with spoilers, so let's go. In the world of Talentless Nana, there are strange monsters known as Enemies of Humanity (real creative name there, guys) hiding in the shadows, and a group of super powered teenagers are gathered together at a training academy to prepare to fight against them. Nanao Nakajima is a natural leader, but he doesn't seem to have any other powers beyond that, planning to defeat the Enemies of Humanity through sheer strategy and tactics alone.
So, one would think that Nanao is the Talentless Nana of our title, but that's actually not true. The real Talentless Nana is the new transfer student Nana Hiiragi, who claims she can read minds but is actually an unpowered assassin sent to murder the students because, it turns out, there are no Enemies of Humanity and the goal of the academy is to eliminate super humans before they destroy the world. Nana is relying on just her incredible manipulation and observation skills to kill everyone without being discovered by the kids who could easily kill her without a second thought if they know what she's up to.
So, it's basically X-Men mixed with Among Us from the Impostor's perspective. And it's every bit as awesome as it sounds. There's an excellent Light vs L level of psychological warfare going on and the kill in episode 2 in particular was very creative. Definitely one to watch.
Rail Romanesque is a bad anime. I have no idea why I'm still watching it at this point. It's a short form series with 3 minute episodes from Studio Saetta where a bunch of girls talk about marketing trains or something but nothing happens and the characters aren't even cute.
If that sounds familiar to you, it's because the same applies to the legendarily mediocre Jingai-san no Yome, another short form series from Saetta that I covered way back in the first season of the Weekly Roundup. And I gave that show a bit of a pass cause it was Saetta's first ever production. But now they have a few series under their belts and there is no improvement here. I'm just assuming that nobody at the studio actually cares about promoting a visual novel that nobody's heard of, because otherwise I'd have to assume that they have no idea what they're doing, and that's not fair to anybody.
Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You is the name that Crunchyroll gives this anime, but the logo says Tonikawa: Fly Me to the Moon, so I have no idea what the official name is. I just call it Adorable. Nasa Yuzaki hates his parents for giving him a name that makes people ask him every damn day if he's gonna be an astronaut. As such, he's determined to make something of his life so impressive that when you hear the name Nasa, you think of him rather than those space weirdos. And he's on track as well, at the top of his class and heading to an elite high school, all until he sees her. The most beautiful girl he's ever seen. He's so head over heels in love with her that he doesn't notice the truck until it hits him. But instead of being sent to another world, Truck-kun just changes his world as the accident draws her attention, and he fights through the pain and asks her out. And she says yes, on one condition: they get married. To which Nasa instantly agrees, because of course he does. Three years pass, and Nasa drops out of school to try to find her. But the girl, named Tsukasa, comes to him, and the two get married at the courthouse and prepare to navigate newlywed life together.
I really like this a lot. Nasa and Tsukasa are so innocently into each other that even though they're married, they haven't done anything besides hold hands and go shopping together so far. I'm not sure what Tsukasa's deal is, but my gut says she's either an alien or secretly terminally ill. I really hope it's not the latter, because we need a light hearted cute anime right now and not a feels trip, thank you very much.
Production IG must really like Sherlock Holmes. Last year we had Kabukichou Sherlock and now we have Moriarty the Patriot, reimagining the detectives arch-rival as a vigilante crime consultant who helps the downtrodden working class get justice against the nobles who may exploit them. For example, episode 1 features Moriarty helping to take down a noble who kidnaps, tortures, and murders the sons of tailors and jewelers who serve the nobility.
This is alright, I suppose. I like the interpretation of Moriarty as a rebel against capitalism, but the whole thing seems kinda wishy-washy so far. Like, instead of wanting to abolish the nobility altogether, something that this interpretation of the character would probably want, his only goal seems to be killing bad nobles. Which is fine, I guess, but it just feels off. Either way, the animation is good, the voice acting is good, the mystery in episode 1 was solid, and the origin story that's currently being shown is still holding my attention, so overall, I like it.
I saved the best for last (not counting Haikyu and Golden Kamuy). Jujustu Kaisen is the latest Shonen Jump adaptation from MAPPA based on the manga by Gege Akutami. Yuji Itadori is an average high school student who'd rather blow off the athletics clubs trying to recruit him and hang out with his friends at the occult research club. But when his friends break the seal on an actually cursed object, Yuji is forced to allow the demon Sukuna Ryoumen to possess him in order to rescue them from the demons that are attracted to the object. This attracts the attention of the sorcerers of Jujutsu Tech, who plan to execute Yuji for being the vessel of one of the most evil demons in history. But once Yuji demonstrates that he control Sukuna and keep him at bay, he gets a plea deal with the sorcerers: find and consume the rest of the cursed fingers that can restore Sukuna to full power, and THEN die so as to kill Sukuna once and for all. And with his only living family having died of natural causes earlier that day, he really doesn't have any objections to this arrangement.
This is a really strong start from an anime that I was very much anticipating ever since I heard it was basically a spiritual successor to Bleach (never mind Burn the Witch, the actual new manga from Bleach creator Tite Kubo). And, yeah, I can totally see it, and it goes beyond just being a shonen battle manga with a paranormal theme and a punk aesthestic. Yuji is SO much a modern interpretation of Ichigo Kurosaki that it's honestly shocking. Both are shonen good boys who reject what society expects of them and forge their own path, valuing family above everything else and with a singular goal of protecting people from harm. Ichigo is motivated by his younger sisters, deciding to fight Hollows in order to make sure they are safe. Meanwhile, Yuji is motivated by the memory of his late grandfather, wanting to honor his last request to do some good and help people. However, there's a real sadness to Yuji in that, with his grandfather dead and his normal friends forever out of reach, and it seems like he just wants to make sure he does something good before his inevitable execution. It makes for a very sympathetic character for the show to fall back on whenever it isn't doing one of it's amazing action scenes.
And let me be clear, those action scenes are AMAZING. Director Seong-Hu Park has a very accomplished resume when it comes to action animation, having previous worked previously on shows like Fairy Tail, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, and The God of High School, and that experience definitely shows. The body movement is incredibly fluid and the choreography is simultaneously fast paced, easy to follow, incredibly visceral, and full of so much character. 2020 has been a pretty great year for action anime all around, with hits like Dorohedoro, BNA, and The God of High School, but this one may top them all if it continues to produce at this level.
Either way, that's everything I'm watching right now. Next week, we'll maybe talk about something with a bit more of a focused topic.
