I’m 6 episodes into Make Heroine ga Oosugiru!(makeine) and its quite a good surprise in every way. At this rate it is definitely one of the best of the year. Surprisngly top tier production and it doesn’t feel like it was wasted on “just another light novel”.

Anime

• Ghost in the Shell SAC S2 This shit sucks and I’ve totally stalled on it for months with like 10 eps left due to the non-stop copaganda (does it even count as copaganda if they’re mercenaries?). I WILL finish it eventually. Apparently everyone says S1 is better but I think they’re roughly comparable which is to say equally bad. Perhaps this is a thing of it being the first in the genre which means that I’ve seen other media that more thoroughly explored the ideas, but honestly none of this seems groundbreaking.
• The Girl Who Leapt Through Time A clear case of working backwards from a cool concept resulting in a weak story. Imo the first half of “fuckin’ around with time travel” is fun but the back half of drama/romance is boring.
• Castle in the Sky It’s fine. A kids movie that’s pretty solid. Watching it the main thing I noticed was just how different the types of conflict and sense of adventure were from most modern stuff I watch. I wish that they gave an example of… who the CIA wanted to actually go to war with? Perhaps that’s the point, that geopolitics is so removed from the average person’s life that they aren’t even aware of it, but I definitely lean more towards a “this is for kids” explanation.
• Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction About 2/3 through, pretty solid but weird. Very anti-american, which you love to see, and also critical of japanese nationalism. The art style is very different from typical cutesy anime characters, with all of the main girls being disproportioned blobs. Probably helps stuff like the student-teacher “romance” come off less creepy. Oran needs to read theory.
• Oshi no Ko The only seasonal I’m watching, a solid season that’s very character-driven with not much happening with the main plot. Last episode in 2 days I think, and I’m looking forward to it. Ruby needs to learn basic math.

Manga

• Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint The sloppiest of korean slop. What if the superpower of the main character was that he read too many webnovels? There’re some fun character intereaction bits, but the action scenes are mostly unreadable garbage, and as seems to be the way in this subgenre of power fantasy, at some point the power-scaling gets so out there that the numbers cease to mean anything.
• Chainsaw Man and One Piece Still keeping up. CSM continues to be good.

Recently finished with mom

• Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan: funny, sometimes low budget, sometimes cringe (mainly because of Anko), it was neat getting to follow along on this show week by week since I haven’t done that in a long time.
• Library War: very strong recommendation, the cliffhanger in the penultimate episode was so good that we had to watch the last episode right after.

Continuing from previous months with mom

• Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water: this is an absolute classic, it’s cartoony but it still tells a very captivating story.
• Samurai Champloo: top class, not much more I can say.
• The Boondocks: also top class, we’re nearly done with season 2 and I’ve heard that it kinda starts to drop off after that point…

Recently started with mom

• Cells at Work: Code Black: it’s not as good as previous seasons of Cells at Work, the “grittiness” rubs me the wrong way, and the new red and white blood cell duo aren’t as charming as the duo from the first two seasons. I still appreciate that they did a boner and cum episode though.
• Hitoribocchi no Marumaruseikatsu: we started watching this one because it has the same original creator as Mitsuboshi Colors. We have really enjoyed these first two episodes but I wouldn’t say it yet stands out as better than Mitsuboshi.

Brought back from years on the paused list with mom

• Barakamon: Mijikamon: these are short chibi-style videos promoting each episode of Barakamon. They’re silly, simple fun.
• Minami-ke: Okawari: the first season of Minami-ke was better, and that was itself fairly middle tier slice of life. Still, we’ve been enjoying the second season, even if we sometimes have to interpret or ad lib new lines when the subtitles randomly decide to cut out.

Anime I’ve been watching by myself

• Dinosaur King: this is a nostalgia watch, I’m only one episode in so far. It was decently entertaining but it’s a 4kids dub of a kids’ anime so y’know only so much.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card: I’m only two episodes in, and I love seeing these characters again, but all the changes subtle or otherwise might take some getting used to. I wish it had Norwegian subs, though, since that’s how I watched the OG Cardcaptor.
• Toradora: I’ve stalled out on this one because I feel like I’ve reached a point where my feelings towards it are like a combination of my feelings towards Stardust Telepath and Gurren Lagann as I was watching those, i.e. “this character has some big feelings, and now this character has some big feelings, yawn” + “I want to finish this show but I don’t actually want to watch it”. But at least those shows had things about them that made me finish them despite me feeling kind of bored with them. I absolutely will finish Toradora but I just feel like it’s gonna take a while between each time I’ll actually say to myself, “hey, I feel like watching Toradora right now”.

I am mainly watching my watchlist at the moment, since I already finished all good anime ever released. So now I just stare at the list of anime I could maybe watch, alongside the list of anime that would be a total waste to watch if I’m not in the right mood for them (I never am).

I’m still stuck on Deer Friend Nokotan and the Suicide Squad anime. Both are okay, nothing too special. I’m going to cut back in the future on watching stuff that doesn’t blow me away. I will say Nokotan is quite cute and random which I do like.

I just don’t have the time to watch stuff that’s only okay these days.

Haven’t been watching/reading much.

Working thru:

Anime:

Oshi No Ko season 2 is good, but I’ve been reading the manga, so I’m not rushed.

Shikanoko is alright, though in small doses. I’m like 5 or 6 episodes in? It is sadly not kino at the level of Zetsubou Sensei (glad others are experiencing the greatness!)

Western Animation

I am once again asking you to watch Over the Garden Wall. Trying to savor it this year, so I’m only on episode 2/10 of my rewatch

Dragon ball super: its to formative to my childhood to rate fairly

The Fable just finished airing, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Only thing of note lately is the anime-original Hoshiai no Sora (Stars Align). Feels like an absolute unicorn of an anime and I’m really enjoying it–unfortunate that it never got a second season. Still got four episodes to go so I don’t know if it’ll shit the bed or something, but I’m honestly not too fussed about endings and it’s absolutely been worth the price of admission already.

Never finished attack on Titan so started watching it again recently. Just got to season 3. Not sure where the politics of the show are cause I’ve got a couple of mixed signals, but there are some parts that come off as unfathomably based.

Anime:

Patlabor on TV and Patlabor: the New Files: Putting these together since they’re more or less part of the same show. This is probably one of my favorite anime of all time. There’s a primary plot about a private security company, but it really shines in the one-off episodes. There’s all sorts of fun shit - Totoro, spy capers, Wizardry/dungeon crawlers. A+

The Princess and the Pilot: I heard this described as “chick flick for plane otaku” and that’s accurate. Very fun! A

Gundam: Reconguista in G movies: I’m normally not huge on compilation movies, but this is a 5 movie adaptation of a 25 episode show, so it’s roughly equivalent. There’s some new stuff in here, but it’s still kinda hard to recommend one over the other. Must watch for Tomino brained sickos, but maybe not for newer Gundam fans. B

Dominion (tank police): “We’ve got Patlabor at home” before Patlabor existed. Eehhhhh. C-

All manga atm right now:

Crossbone Gundam (1994): It’s written by Tomino so it has some good plot beats but so far it feels very “anime-y” if that makes sense. It doesn’t really carry the same weight a traditional Gundam show would have when it comes to war. B

Dragon Ball (1984): Love it so far, I’ve read up to the first tournament arc when I used to get comics through Viz so it’s cool seeing it uncensored. The gags are pretty charming (even if Bulma is underage ). A

Area 88 (1979): Surprised Mangadex had this, picked it up today and so far so good. I like the idea of mercenaries with fighter jets. I can see where Ace Combat got it’s inspiration from. B