Welp, here we are. After basically a single weekend, I’m pretty much done with my premiers. Unfortunately, the season is just that thin. But it’s not like there’s not anything good… So, hit the jump and let’s dive in.
The shows that I’m watching are in bold, shows my wife and I are watching together are in bold italics, strikethrough marks dropped shows.
My Hero Academia FINAL SEASON
Eight seasons in, and it comes down to this. And by this, I mean a clip show. MHA is (was?) infamous for a meaningless character intro episode to get things rolling… And I guess a clip show is better than that. Barely. And there was a few bits of intriguing new footage. Invisible Girl – what was that?
Though, if you do have to do a clip show, Armored All Might’s fight against All For One is hardly the worst choice they could have made.
Status: Keeper
SPY X FAMILY
Lightweight, low key, and doesn’t stray far from the serie’s well established formula. Not bad per se, but I’d have rather the plot actually advanced… But hey, Anya steals the show as usual and honestly she’s 99% of why we’re all watching, right?
I mean, there’s a reason why she’s the headline shot for this post.
The second, despite the presence of Fiona Frost, was actually the better part of the show. I’m solidly in the More Franky Shenanigans camp, and we got a lot better look at him than we have previously.
Status: Keeper.
Touring After the Apocalypse
Despite straight up stealing a scene from Girls’ Last Tour and not quite getting the serial number filed completely off… Apocalypse puttered along pleasantly enough. And I particularly enjoyed the work they put in on the scenery and the slice of life moment
s.
Then comes a bit of action, meh, something weird always pops up after the apocalypse, right? And all the sudden, out of nowhere, what the effing heck just happened?
OK Touring, *now* you officially have my attention.
But not my untempered praise. Despite the beauty of the background, the saturation was often turned up to dern near eye bleeding levels. Plus the character animation was wonky, sometimes rendered in really questionable CGI. And for much of the runtime, the scenes (foreground and background) seemed ‘fuzzy’. Out of focus or weirdly low resolution.
Status: Somewhere between keeper and three episode rule. There’s a lot going on, and some inconsistencies in the apparent timeline… They need to start addressing/hinting at some of those sooner rather than later.
Umamusume Cinderella Grey Part II
Some interesting choices here… The first half revisited and caught us up on Fujimasa March. Which I enjoyed, she never was quite a 2D villain, but this helped even more in rounding out her character. Just not sure why they put it in there given how crowded the trailer implies this cour may be.
Are they hinting the finale may be a rematch-for-the-ages between Oguri and Fujimasa? Sign me up! She’s a much more interesting character than Tamano Cross anyhow.
The second half theoretically centered on the Ashen Beast herself. But it was mostly a somewhat scattered reset and setup for future episodes that took a wide look across our cast of horse girls.
Status: Keeper.
SI-VIS: The Sound of Heroes
I have to say, my feelings towards SI-VIS are complicated. I grew up on 70’s Saturday Morning cartoons, and this felt oddly… Familiar? I can’t put my fingers on it exactly. The animation was above average, the characters hinted at being interesting, and the music was actually decent.
I mean, tell me that doesn’t rock! (I won’t listen, but you can tell me.)
But the setup gives me pause. I’m not too fond of the “country bumpkin is actually sooper talented” trope to begin with. But the Noble Sacrifice and the Country Bumpkin Saving The Day is a particularly distasteful pairing. Are they fixing to play Destined One card? Please, please, no. That would be just too much.
Status: Best described as “a keeper – for now”. I’m invested enough to keep an eye on it, but wary of the path it may take. I’m hoping it surprises me.
A Mangaka’s Weirdly Wonderful Workplace
This series’ greatest problem is that it introduces a character with severe social anxieties… Right on the heels of the middlin’ good Silent Witch, and with Bocchi The Rock having set a very high bar.
And after ten minutes straight of watching MC-chan whine, cry, and moan… I’d had the eff’ enough. There was absolutely no reason given to be sympathetic and her assistant (who took none of her sh*t) was actually the more interesting character.
Status: Dropped, contemplated having a drink to erase my memory of the show.
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And there we have it – with the exception of Wandance, which premieres tomorrow, everything I watched this past week. I haven’t updated my seasonal viewing chart in a long time… Maybe I should do that and see how this season stacks up.
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I was going to write about Crunchy’s multiple screwups over the last week, but I’m just going to mention them and move on.
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The weather has definitely turned Fall-ish here in the last couple of weeks. Still warm during the day, but the heater is running at night. Soon, we’ll get our first cold gray weekend and I’ll make my big annual batch of vegetable soup. And it’s also cool enough to put curry rice back on the menu! Yay! I’ve been wanting some for a couple of months now.
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What are your thought’s on the season so far? How is the weather in your neck of the woods? Have any traditional cold(er) weather foods that you’re looking forward to? Drop a comment and let’s chat!
Apprentice Mages Lounge. 
Spy X Family: I almost entirely forgot already what happened in this episode, but I’m fine with that. These lightweight episodes serve as good refreshers, without a need to get into this-happened-territory. I wasn’t bored, and that mostly covers what I remember…
Touring after the Apocalypse: Other than the overall concept, this has very little in common with Girl’s Last Tour for me. Completely different mood. GLT was a melancholy mono-no-aware show. This feels more like a thing sponsored-by-tourism travelogue married (weirdly) with gear fetish? I was fine with the colours, didn’t find it overly bad, and oddly I don’t remember the CGI (I either missed it – unlikely, or my auto-filter didn’t let it get stored in the long term memory – more likely). It’s okay.
Si-Vis: Again, it’s okay. The one thing that’s unusual in the musical fighter genre is that we have a gender-mixed cast, with a good balance at types. This is particularly surprising, as it plays squarely in the Symphogear ballpark (with the noble sacrife mirroring that first episode, too), but the aesthetic falling more into the male-idol anime. All in all, that creates a unique aesthetic for me, which I like. And, yeah, the music’s good (though marred by the currently ubiquitous snap-to-pitch-and-beat production method; I’ll have to get used to this, I suppose). Plotwise I’m indifferent (but plot is rarely a priority). Characterwise no-one stands out (wait and see). The new guy feels so… shonen-fighter-protagonist – true to type with no charm (but not much worse or better than, say, the recent Red Ranger – except that show was built around him and this seems to be set up as ensemble piece, so he might be more jarring in context – again wait-and-see).
Mangaka wasn’t that bad for me, but yeah even in this season Let’s Play is more subtle and credible about social anxiety (it gets a “not too bad with potential” from me), and that’s also not quite the best show on the block. For me, mangaka is mostly forgettable, and for that very reason I have little to say.
I haven’t watched Wandance either, yet, but my excitement level is mostly low due to awkward CGI performances in the trailer. Some shows do rise above this (looking at Medalist, here), but many don’t. We’ll see.
A few shows of note:
May I Ask for One Final Thing was quite fun. There’s been quite a lot of shows with cancelled engagements recently, some better than others, but this one… was quite a surprise. Our protagonist is beating people up for catharisis, much to the amusement of the first prince – who seems to use her for his goal to clean up corrupt nobility, but you’re never quite sure whether he just doesn’t enjoy the ensueing chaos and sees doing what he thinks is his job as a positive side-effect. The second prince also annoys here (gets many anime burst arteries), but she never beats him up, which – in the context of the show – is actually consistent with her characterisation. I don’t really think this is up your alley, but I just had to mention it, because what I got was so much more fun than what I expected.
Yano-kun’s Ordinary Days is primed to be my rom-com of the season. It’s got its own look, and a nice dory pair, with the typical supportive chorus in the background. Won’t do anything you haven’t seen before, but what it does it does well. Also, my impression is that I’ve seen way more clumsy girls than clumsy boys as rom-com protagonists. Not sure about that, though.
This Monster Wants to Eat Me has a first episode that could go either way – it’s core is aestheticized depression, but it beneath the melodrama it feels genuine. Aestheticised depression has done very well (March Comes in Like a Lion comes to mind), but the good shows tend to convince me immediately. I’ve heard it called yuri Black Butler, and I can see where this comes from, but it feels like the show takes itself too seriously for the comparison to transition into a recommendation (of the if-you-like-x-you’ll-like-y type). That said, there are no obvious faults, the characters feel distinct (and seem to have plot-functions), the yokai stuff seems at least competent… There’s potential here (to go in both directions). Definitely the most prominent wait-and-see show on the menue.
There are quite a few interesting shows around, too (like shounen-fighter Santa Claus madness in Sanda, or Mechanical Marie – definitely the weirdest rom-com this season) but they’re all lesser wait-and-see material.
There are extremely cheap shows that substitute charm for substance and it works for me (a potions isekai at 13 minutes an episode, and a talking-cat future show at 3 minutes). Nothing special either of them, but more watchable than many of the more expensive stuff.
Then there are a few shows that surprised me with a single element but otherwise remain entirely middle of the road – for example, can you remember ever seeing a reincarnation isekai who made the isekai father the protagonist of the first episode? I fully expect that to be the lead in, but that’s actually something that has me curious (while there also being a comedy entitled noble that makes me want to run for the hills – so it goes).
Finally, I’m not seeing Alma-chan either as an impression or a mention anywhere, and it was in the previews. Seen it? Forgotten about it? Not sure I should talk about it.
So far the season is… okay. Let’s just say, if I made a top 10 of the year list, I expect this season to be under-represented, but it’s still got a decent backbone of entertainment coming.
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I’ve seen Wandance by now, and while the CG is indeed ass – the characters and the plot show a lot of promise. I’m not going to make a seperate post for a single show, but it’s a keeper (at least for now).
We watched about ten minutes of Yano-Kun, and that’s about all we could stand.
Re: Alma-chan. Yes, it was one I planned on checking out… But the early reviews were not good so I went ahead and skipped it.
Re: Si-Vis: You hit the nail on the head of my dilemma. There’s so much good about it, I’m dreading the very real possibility of it falling off the cliff. That’s always a huge risk with original series, I’ve seen more than one that just plain executed poorly. I think it’s pretty easy to write a decent set up, it’s what comes after that’s the problem.
Your mentioning rom-coms sparks an observation – there’s not a single romance or rom-com on my list this season. Which is very odd for me.
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I’ve watched Wandance now, too, and I agree. The characters carry the show. Was surprised to see so much focus on Scatman (whom I remember well and didn’t miss), but it would make sense for that song to inspire the show. Must have been important if they pay the royalties (which I assume they must). Also wondering about the use of “dance”. I think they used “odori” exactly once in the episode. (Always been interested in linguistics, so I’m going to pay attention to that, if I remember. See if I can figure out a regularity.)
As for romance… your best bet is probably Awkward Sempai, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. It’s just not a great genre this season. (Well, unlike you, I’ve got Yano-kun, at least.)
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Not just Scatman, all the music was contemporary… I thought it was impressive that they chose to ground the series so thoroughly. I’ll be curious to hear your insights as to their terminology.
My wife watched the first two eps of Awkward Sempai and dropped it, and recommended I just don’t even try. (She knows my tastes better than anyone else…) What little I saw of it over her shoulder didn’t make me think she was wrong.
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