They’re making another Madoka Magica sequel movie. In the year of our lord Madoka 2024. Honestly? Fine, I’ll take it. Yeah Magia Rising didn’t work for me, but it failed because the writing and story were too busy and unfocused. The visual style and themes still worked. It showed to me that another Madoka anime can still be special if done right.
What’s that? An early season preview? Yes! It’s Day with The Cart Driver’s oh so famous Anime Season Preview, this time for the winter 2024 season. It’s early because I’m travelling for Christmas and won’t have a good place to bitch about how anime going downhill and it’s infested with moecrap and….wait, sorry, that’s my script from 13 years ago, let me find the one for 2024….here it is. Yes, anime is going downhill and it’s infested with isekai crap. Or as I like to call it: Isekrap! God I’m a genius. Let’s begin.
Metallic Rouge
Studio: Bones
Metallic Rouge takes place in a a world where humans and androids coexist. The story follows Rouge, an android girl, who is on a mission on Mars with her partner Naomi. The mission is to murder nine artificial humans who are hostile to the government.
Boy do I ever want this one to be good. It’s an anime original property by studio Bones with mechs. OK they’re mecha musume rather than big phat mechanical mechs, but it’s still mecha in my book. You get surprisingly few of these types of anime nowadays, and certainly not one that appears to be as ambitious as this one. I just wish I could get excited for the show itself. The director’s main roles in the past have been Carole and Tuesday and Super Crooks. I haven’t seen Super Crooks, but it got fairly mediocre reviews, although it did create that amazing meme of the guy dancing. Meanwhile Carole and Tuesday I watched the entire thing and have incredibly large issues with, especially with the ending. I won’t spoil, but you know the bit during the Covid lockdown where all the celebrities sang Imagine and the worldwide reaction was “shut up you fucks”? Well it was basically that. It also has the creator of RahXephon on it, which was another ambitious anime-original property from way back that didn’t quite do it for me.
In other words, I’m setting myself up for failure by being excited for this. But goddamnit let me have this one!
Bucchigiri!?!
Studio: Mappa
The story of BUCCHIGIRI?!! follows Aladdin Tomobishi, a young man who becomes embroiled in a battle to see who is strongest after he reunites with his former best friend, Matakara Asamine. Meanwhile, the shadow of a giant genie looms over them…?!
I originally had this towards the bottom of the season preview because I thought it was an adaptation of an ancient delinquent manga, since there is a delinquent manga from ages ago with the same name. But no, this is an anime original property by Mappa, by the director of Free, Banana Fish, and Sk8 the Infinity. It even has a very good script writer too with the person who worked on Haikyuu, Blue Lock, Burn the Witch, Ranking of Kings, and a lot more. Mappa are a good studio too, even if the intro of Zom 100 might as well have been an autobiography depicting their infamously terrible working conditions due to overworking their animators (the fact Zom 100 got delayed because they couldn’t get it all done in time is such a cruel irony). I’m not sure if will actually like Bucchigiri. It’s clearly going for yaoi shipping fangirl audience, and I haven’t liked the director’s previous anime. But it’s a shockingly stacked staff list and an anime original project, so I do have to give it a go.
A Sign of Affection
Studio: Ajiado
With these hands, I want to tell you that I love you… Yuki, a deaf college student, is struggling one day when an upperclassman from her school, Itsuomi, helps her out. Itsuomi isn’t put off at all by her lack of hearing and interacts with her naturally. As he gradually opens up a new world to her, Yuki begins to develop feelings for Itsuomi… Thus begins the pure love story of Yuki, a deaf college girl, and Itsuomi, her upperclassman who travels the world with her.
A rare shoujo manga adaptation, and it’s not a generic highschool romance! Instead it’s a generic college students romance. Except not really, because the twist is the main girl is deaf – or at the very least mostly deaf since she wears an earpiece. I thought the manga was quite sweet when I read it, with the main character’s deafness being enough to set it apart from the rest. I’d probably get bored of it within 5-6 episodes as usually happens, but if it passes my first chapter test, then it will undoubtedly be a big hit amongst people who normally do like these sorts of anime. That’s how its been in the past: If I liked the first episodes, then it will be a big hit amongst regular shoujo anime fans regardless of how I feel about the anime towards the end.
Ajiado are a decent enough studio, and it’s got some regulars from that studio working on it. Nothing stellar, but the likes of Revenger, Kakushigoto and Kemono Jihen were all well made for what they were (Ascendance of a Bookworm, despite being my favourite anime they’ve made, isn’t actually well animated at all, but we’ll skip over it for now). Trailer makes it look very standard fluffy flower bishie shoujo so I’m probably not going to stick with it long term, but I can recognise when something is fulfilling what its audience wants.
The Witch and the Beast
Studio: Yokohama Animation Lab
It all started with the 17 “Origins,” whose powers were passed down to individuals who still exist around the world today. A man carrying a coffin and a girl with the eyes of a beast appear in a town. The girl was once cursed by a witch and now searches for her in order to undo the curse. Is the witch who appears before them the quarry they’ve been searching for? And how can the curse be undone? This quest for revenge against an evil witch begins rolling when the beast captures the witch. This magnificent and intense dark fantasy begins now!
I was going to make comparisons to Witch Hunter Robin, but then I realised it’s almost 2024 and nobody has talked about Witch Hunter Robin in at least 10 years, and nobody has watched Witch Hunter Robin in 15 years. So instead I’ll just say it’s a gritty semi-modern or at least mid 20th century series about goths hunting witches. It’s quite stylish but it was hard to get much of a grasp on the story or writing from what I read. Generally I do have a soft spot for gothic urban fantasy, but it has to hard commit to the bit. It’s all in the execution, like Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust goddamnit why are all my reference points 20 years old? Look, go watch Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust, it’s fantastic. Unfortunately the trailer looked a bit drab and Yokohama Animation Lab are uninspiring to say the least. I can’t wait to see what the studio behind Miru Tights does with an urban fantasy setting!
Solo Leveling
Studio: A1-Pictures
It’s been over a decade since the sudden appearance of the “gates”—the paths that connect our world with a different dimension. Since then, certain humans have awakened to supernatural powers. We call these individuals “hunters.” Hunters make their living by using their powers to conquer dungeons inside the gates. In this world of tough customers, the low-ranked hunter Shun Mizushino is known as “the weakest hunter of all mankind.” One day, Shun gets fatally injured when he runs into high-rank double dungeons hidden within a low-rank dungeon. Just then, a mysterious quest window appears in front of him. On the verge of death, Shun decides to accept the quest and starts leveling up… while the others aren’t.
There’s perhaps no phrase that triggers an instant skepticism more than “popular Korean webtoon”. I’ve certainly tried my fair share, but they’re all so bland with boring art, lackluster writing, and more than anything else, unoriginal. It feels odd to look back at Tower of God, a series I ultimately didn’t think was that good, and realise its more unique setting and art made it the highpoint of webtoon adaptations. Solo Levelling is one of the blandest ones I’ve read, and that’s saying something. It’s a power fantasy with video game dungeon rules in which a weak person gets a cheat skill to become stupidly powerful. The characters are bland, the setting is boring. I went to read reviews to try figure out what people liked about this, and I kept seeing people praise the art. Like…yeah, sure, if all you read are webtoons? It doesn’t have the same literal stock images that other webtoons use, so it’s good in the same way someone who has eaten nothing but literal mud all their lives would love a soggy day-old McDonalds burger.
I’m sure there are better webtoons with more original ideas, settings, with better writing and actually charismatic characters, but the ones that rise to the top feel like I’m reading someone’s self-insert fanfiction for a series I haven’t read before. No, it’s worse. It’s someone’s self-insert fanfiction for a video game I haven’t played before. An MMORPG video game at that. Frustratingly the trailer has some good animation in it, and it even has Sawano doing the music. I’m just tired of all these anime set in RPG worlds using video game logic. That’s the real thing dragging down so many modern anime for me. It’s not even the isekai stuff. You can have an isekai setup but in an interesting world. I’m tired of talking about them too. In fact, let’s just slap them all together into one big category I’m calling…
Anime Set in a Medieval Fantasy RPG World That is Probably an Isekai but Doesn’t Have to Be
Let’s go through these one by one:
- The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic has a funny idea at its core. Using healing magic not to heal your teammates, but to constantly heal yourself through pain. But then it slaps that idea in the blandest isekai story and I fall asleep.
- The Unwanted Undead Adventurer isn’t actually an isekai, but one of those where if someone told you it was an isekai, you would believe them instantly. Medieval RPG world with adventurers taking quests to go to dungeons to fight increasingly strong monsters from slimes to skeletons and eventually to dragons. The “twist” is that he becomes a skeleton, but as far as I can tell it’s just a “cheat skill” story, making it a less interesting I’m a Spider So What. At least in that being a spider was kinda unique, and her character was fun.
- The Strongest Tank’s Labyrinth Raids -A Tank with a Rare 9999 Resistance Skill Got Kicked from the Hero’s Party- is also not an isekai, but again with the adventurers forming parties to take quests from taverns to fight monsters in dungeons and argh argh please no. This one gets bonus points for being literally just Shield Hero, right down to the incongruity between acting like someone’s specialisation is weak and shit because it involves shields but is actually some overpowered cheat skill.
- My Instant Death Ability Is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me at least gets that it’s a comedy to get a cheat skill, much like One Punch Man did. But from what I read, the comedy was awful, as was the writing. Or to bring up another example from the same author, you know how in Mob Psycho the tension is not from whether Mob can win a fight, but from whether he has the self-confidence to get over how nervous he is? In this story meanwhile, the tension appears to be whether the main character can be arsed.
- Fluffy Paradise is an isekai about being reborn into a fantasy RPG world with magical monsters, with the twist being that the monsters are fluffy and you get to cuddle them. Which I guess is enough for a lot of people. It’s just another Slow Life In Another World story, where they go farming or whatever, except instead of a big titty slave girl next to you, it’s a fluffy hippogriff or whatever.
- Tales of Wedding Rings technically ticks all the right boxes. It’s an isekai in which a guy goes to another world and it’s a medieval fantasy world where he gets a harem of hot fantasy babes. Yet it feels tonally different, like it’s from another era before isekai fantasy became the dominant genre. Possibly because the manga started in 2014 so it doesn’t feel like it knows its treading a well-worn path so does the same things without the glossing over of details. Which ironically makes it more interesting. I’m not saying it’s good. Absolutely not. But the girls look hot so like how bad could it be.
- Sasaki and Peeps also feels like a slightly odd fit at first. Salaryman buys budgie. Budgie turns out to be mystical princess from another realm. Can now travel back and forth from his world to that one. It’s just another story about guy in depressing low-wage salary job getting whisked to another world, akin to that one about saving gold in one world to transport to another, which is exactly what he plans to do in this one. The budgie part did make me laugh though, so it’s got something.
- The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash is another isekai transported to medieval fantasy world with magic and monsters and blah de blah. It wasn’t as bad as many of the others I read. The first chapter was all misery porn of everyone being mean to the main girl as she is forced to run away from home to prevent being killed, but she starts to pick herself up by chapter 2. It shows that there’s something to be said for making your lead character genuinely weak to get us to root for them, sorta like Ascendance of a Bookworm. Watch them really work themselves up from the bottom. Don’t give them a cheat skill and oh did this slime she befriended turn out to have some mysterious cheat skill? I don’t actually know if it does, I just read the first two chapters, but I’m going out on a limb and saying yes it probably does.
- Delicious in Dungeon belongs here too. I don’t care that it’s your favourite manga. It’s a story about adventurers taking quests to go to a dungeon with a party including a mage, an elf, a dwarf, a knight, etc, where they fight monsters like slimes and dragons. It’s an incredibly popular manga and the adaptation is being done by Trigger so I’m definitely going to watch it (although it’s not Imaishi doing the directing so I’m not getting too excited). But I wanted to include it here too to make a point about it having a boring world.
I recognise I’m fighting a losing battle here. But I continue to be frustrated that so many stories take the design of their world for granted. Like if they can just slap in fantasy shorthand, they can gloss over world design. It means that every moment the story spends on the world itself is boring, because it’s the world-building equivalent of stock footage. Delicious in Dungeon doesn’t have to be a RPG dungeon for the story to work. If they set it in their own unique world, something akin to Made in Abyss, I’d find every moment they spend discussing the world itself that much more interesting. Same with Frieren. I struggle to get into the character’s journey because they use fantasy shorthand.
Yes these stories are about their characters, but the world itself is a character – and arguably the most important one. How a character interacts with the world, their reactions to things, is as much part of their character as anything else. If what they’re reacting to is fantasy shorthand RPG world, it’s not as interesting. The sheer popularity of these stories shows it’s a battle I’ve lost, but I shall continue to rail against these RPG fantasy worlds as long as they keep making nine of them per season.
Tis Time for “Torture” Princess
Studio: Pine Jam
The princess who’s been held captive by the Demon Lord’s army is scheduled to be executed by the Demon Lord’s relentless torture!
Enough bitching, time to get excited about something: Demon ladies in office clothing! Tis Time for Torture Princess is pretty silly as a premise. Princess gets tortured for secrets about the king’s realm by the demon lord’s servants (I can’t escape the trappings of copypaste fantasy worlds even here), with the twist being the torture in question is tempting her with delicious food. It’s a silly premise that works, but I doubt its long term capabilities as a premise. It has 12 volumes so they kept it running somehow, but plenty of series have continued running long past the point where they ran out of good ideas. Sometimes within the first volume. It’s got weirdly decent staff with the director of Ancient Magus Bride and some Attack on Titan episodes working on it, and Pine Jam, while not exactly an amazing studio, have been looking up a little after some creative work on stuff like Do It Yourself.
I also know I will inevitably watch far more of this than I should because it has a demon lady in office wear. Because I am hopeless like that.
The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil
Studio: Children’s Playground Entertainment
Masatora Akutsu, a demon on a recruitment mission in a human high school, is drafting allies for Hell against the heavenly angels. But when seated beside the captivating Lily Amane, he’s in for a devilishly hilarious celestial surprise!
I can’t believe the trailer did this. So that shot at the end of the trailer of her with a sparkler and him lying on the floor? In the manga I read, that was her sitting on the side of a bed smoking a cigarette while he lay in the bed with his top off. It was a follow-on from him, a devil, being forced by the angel into a subservient contract, followed by some very obvious BDSM roleplay. It was a sex joke, and they ruined the sex joke! Which ties into a second trailer that showed they were trying to take this sex comedy and turn it into a romance. No! Goddamnit don’t do this! I thought the manga at least had good degenerate comedy energy. Staff isn’t great and the studio is the terribly named Children’s Playground Entertainment who have made practically nothing in the past. Oh right, they did The Fruit of Evolution. Yay!
Sengoku Youko
Studio: White Fox
The world is divided into two factions: humans and monsters called katawara. Despite being a katawara, Tama loves humans and vows to protect them from evil, even if it means fighting her own kind. Her brother Jinka, however, hates humans, despite mostly being one. The siblings are joined by a cowardly swordsman named Shinsuke, who wants to learn how to become strong. When the group uncovers a plot to experiment on humans and transform them into monsters, they vow to defeat whoever is behind it… Even if it means battling an entire army of warriors.
Never let it be said that I hold grudges. Wait, I said that wrong. Let it be said that I hold grudges against every piece of entertainment that has ever wronged me. I am a being that lives off spite. If you haven’t realised that this far into the season preview, then allow me to continue to disappoint you. I was decently interested in Sengoku Youko. It gets points for not just being a fantasy isekai RPG world naturally, but I found the characters interesting based off the one chapter I read. White Fox are an OK studio and the trailer looked all right, plus it’s already confirmed for three cours. However then I spot the author is the same guy who wrote Biscuit Hammer.
Now some of you reading this might go “he’s got the wrong impression based off the awful Biscuit Hammer anime from a few years ago”. Nope, I read Biscuit Hammer about 10 years ago. It might be the biggest disconnect between the way people talk about a series versus my experience reading it that I’ve ever had. I legitimately thought I had accidentally read the wrong manga. Surely this bland magical girlfriend manga with a potato lead and pantyshots galore was not the one people were calling their favourite manga of all time? I’ve held that grudge for years. But as I said, it’s been 10 years. Maybe I’m able to look past those indiscretions and be ready to love once more.
Chained Soldier
Studio: Seven Arcs
The demon-filled dimension known as “Mato” has opened to threaten humanity, and a type of “peach” tree that grows there yields fruit that confers special powers to those who eat it, giving humanity a fighting chance, but this only works for women. As such, as protectors of humanity, women rise in social status while men are relegated to second-class citizens scraping for basic occupation and acknowledgment. Cue Yuuki Wakura, a domestically crafty and laborious high school senior whose older sister was taken during a Mato event 5 years before; while lamenting the hardships of the life ahead of him, an event opens before him, and while being rescued from demons by Captain Kyouka of the Anti-Demon Corps, she confers his powers as her “slave” and turns him into a mighty beast mount that mows down the demons. However, there is a surprising price to pay for being her “slave”… and it’s not him who has to pay it.
This one is incredibly trashy. It’s by the author of Akame ga Kill, but this one is more trashy in the porny way than the edgy way. The entire setup is basically an excuse for dominatrix fetish. The title in English might say Chained Soldier, but the original title was Mato Seihei no Slave. I think the English publisher passed on the word that the word “slave” in the title wouldn’t go over well. Now as I always say, let he who is without a dominatrix fetish cast the first stone, yes that is what I always say haven’t you been paying attention. But Seven Arcs are a pretty garbage studio. Tonikawa, their best known anime, isn’t well animated at all. Meanwhile I watched and enjoyed all of Blue Period in spite of its terrible animation. If you have a dominatrix fetish, but it’s because you want to be the dominatrix, then boy do I have the anime for you.
Gushing Over Magical Girls
Studio: Asahi Production
Hi, I’m Hiiragi Utena. I’m a normal magical-girl-loving middle school girl—or at least I was, but then some talking mascot showed up out of the blue and cast a spell on me! Now’s my chance to join my beloved magical girls as…a villain? Hang on, something’s wrong with my outfit! This can’t be happening!
On the one hand, Gushing Over Magical Girls is a coming of age story. It’s about discovering your sexuality, especially your own homosexuality, and being confused, scared, and yet excited about these new discoveries you make about yourself. You wonder why these feelings you have over the characters you see on TV make you feel so weird. You are scared of the sex beast that lives inside you that you feel you have no control over, and worry about your place in society if you ever admit to these feelings.
On the other hand, it’s an anime made for folks to perv over middle school anime girls getting molested. Does this qualify as a villainess anime? Well, no because villainess anime in our modern understanding require reincarnation and to be set in a vaguely European 18th Century upper class society. I wonder if there are many of those this season?
Anime About Reincarnated Villainesses Set in Vaguely European 18th Century Upper Class Society
It’s not quite at the same level of isekai fantasy RPG worlds, but the number of reincarnated villainess in an otome-game world anime has risen to the point of being a problem.
- Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I’m Not the Demon Lord is the blandest of them all. I believe she’s literally in an otome game rather than just a world that is indistinguishable from an otome game. Anyway blah de blah overpowered protagonist blah de blah.
- Doctor Elise: The Royal Lady with the Lamp is a double reincarnation isekai. She’s a villainess who gets reincarnated into IRL, then gets reincarnated once again back into the fantasy world as a doctor. This isn’t quite as generic, but it’s also a webtoon which means bad art and terrible writing, as I have long since come to expect from webtoons.
- 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy was the most interesting of the ones I read. Which isn’t saying much, but 7 time loops where she lives a new exciting life each time is at least a more unique setup. Except instead on focusing on the timeline where she’s an adventurer disguised as a male knight, they instead go for the timeline where she gets married to a sexy villain. It’s like they specifically grabbed the timeline that was the least interesting! I know this is missing the point of the story, like complaining about Frieren being about after the epic adventure happened. On the other hand, what they chose to focus on is so goddamn samey villainess romance shite that urgh.
Unlike isekai, I’ve yet to find the version of this villainess story that I actually enjoy. I’m sure there’s a court drama that I could enjoy, or perhaps one about overthrowing royalty, but they all tend to get bogged down in genre trappings with bad writing.
Mr. Villain’s Day Off
Studio: Shin-Ei Animation
An Evil Organization from another planet is trying to take over Earth. An extraterrestrial from that organization named the “General” tirelessly fights against Earth’s defenders every single day in a battle of life and death! However, today is his day off.
Enough villainesses, time to go to villains! Villains are sexy after all, and this villain is being cute on his day off, so obviously it’s perfect content. I was going to mock the studio for exclusively doing children’s anime about talking ice creams, but then I actually looked into them and realised they did stuff like Takagi-san and Dangers in My Heart which are decently well animated and directed so I take it back. They even did peak anime that was Pui Pui Molcar so honestly maybe this is anime of the season.
Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable
Studio: Blade, Silver Link
High school boy Tsubasa moves to Kitami City up in Hokkaido, where he meets a “gal” at a bus stop. The sight of her standing alone against the white snowscape, bare-legged despite the freezing cold, captures his heart.
As much as I rail against the fantasy RPG isekai and reincarnated villainesses, there is not a moment of my life where I wish we went back 15 years during the height of the moeboom. Thank you universe for alligning itself in such a way that the new hotness are kogals. If I was conspiracy minded, I’d say the rise of romance stories for dudes involving female love interests who are sexually active and more confident and commanding a presence, over the infantalised moeblobs of years past, are actually a government plot to increase the birth rate. You see, if teen boys are taught that the ideal woman is not some infantalised 8 year old or submissive traditional housewife, but instead a lady who wants the fuck, Japanese men of the future may be more open to older more confident women with their own jobs and lives. Now we just need more seinen harem romances about immigrants from places like Thailand and Vietnam who struggle with the language but are excited to meet new people and learn more about Japanese culture. Then truly Japan’s population timebomb will be solved!
Ishura
Studio: Passione
In a world where the Demon King has died, a host of demigods capable of felling him have inherited the world: a master fencer who can figure out how to take out their opponent with a single glance; a lancer so swift they can break the sound barrier; a wyvern rogue who fights with three legendary weapons at once; an all-powerful wizard who can speak thoughts into being; and an angelic assassin who deals instant death. Eager to attain the title of “One True Hero,” these champions each pursue challenges against formidable foes and spark conflicts themselves. The battle to determine the mightiest of the mighty begins.
This is your token Dark Fantasy of the season. I could have tossed it in with the other medieval fantasies from earlier, what with the Demon King and Heroes and all that nonsense, but it doesn’t have that same RPG rules that makes so many other anime so bland. I am pretty sure it’s an isekai though, judging by the first chapter had a guy talking about Japanese and wearing a t-shirt. Once again I had to catch myself from mocking the studio. Yes Passione have mostly done porn-adjacent stuff in the past, like Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World (which had an actual porn OVA), and Interspecies Reviewers, which skirts the line of what is porn so close that it feels like it should be in a separate category of its own. At the same time, Interspecies Reviewers is supposedly quite good for what it is, being well-animated and sex-positive in a way that’s weirdly refreshing. Yuri is My Job, another Passione anime that’s pretty trashy, is well animated too. I want Passione to be good because they’ve got their hands on the Spice and Wolf remake and I will cry if they don’t do Holo justice. Anyway, Ishura. I didn’t really like what I read of the manga, but I’m curious at least.
Pon no Michi
Studio: OLM
The anime is set in Hiroshima Prefecture’s Onomichi City, where a high school student Nashiko Jippensha was kicked out of her house. Without a place to play with her friends, she learns that the mahjong parlor that her father used to run is now vacant. She fixes the mahjong parlor and turns it into a place where she and her friends can have fun, cook, have tea, and sometimes play mahjong.
This is your designated “cute girls do hobby” anime of the season, for there must always be one. This time it’s the exciting new hobby of…
*spins wheel
Mahjong? Pah, we’ve done Mahjong many times before. This is boring. It has annoyingly good staff with the director of Fire Force (bad anime, well directed) and Wave Listen to Me (well I thought it was good, even if nobody else watched it). OLM are a surprisingly good studio too ever since they started branching out from doing more than just every season of Pokemon. Despite the character designs looking like they’re from a harem anime where they ripped out the harem protagonist, it actually runs in a shoujo manga of all things. Well sorta, it’s an original anime that is getting a manga version as well. I couldn’t find a translated version but I did find the Japanese version and boy did they make them way bustier for the anime. So who’s your audience for this? I find this all a bit odd and confused altogether. Now watch it be the Bocchi the Rock of the season and be the shock hit.
The Demon Prince of Momochi House
Studio: Drive
On her sixteenth birthday, orphan Himari Momochi inherits her ancestral estate that she’s never seen. Momochi House exists on the barrier between the human and spiritual realms, and Himari is meant to act as guardian between the two worlds. But on the day she moves in, she finds three handsome squatters already living in the house, and one seems to have already taken over her role!
I always find the reverse harem versions of regular harem setups way funnier than I should due to how much they mirror the original then slap on the standard bishie archetypes. This is just Love Hina. She even walks in on the dude naked.
Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!
Studio: Satelight
Adachi, a thirty-year-old virgin, has developed the power to read people’s minds by touching them. After a brush with his very handsome colleague, Adachi realizes the guy has a raging crush on none other than Adachi himself!
Finally, some good yaoi. Yes I’m never going to watch this. But Satelight studio with some genuinely good staff working on it, like folks who worked on Nodame Cantabile, Haikyuu and Durarara? Fuck me, I wish the anime I wanted to be good had this staff on it.
Delusional Monthly Magazine
Studio: OLM
The story takes place in the town of Most City in a certain country. On the second floor of an old building is a publishing company that puts out a periodical called Delusional Monthly Magazine, a science magazine featuring articles about shocking, bizarre events and inexplicable phenomena that make even scientists throw up their hands in defeat. Its staff consists only of a beautiful editor-in-chief and her one editor, Tarou J. Suzuki, who are joined by grade-school-aged assistant Jirou Tanaka and his dog, Saburou. The editorial department is always empty, and Tarou, Jirou, and Saburou are usually hanging out in Rock, a coffee shop on the first floor. One day, the scientist Gorou Satou visits them for a consultation, and therein lies the beginning of an outlandish new story…
What are you doing OLM? I find your choices this season a bit odd. From Odd Taxi, Apothecary Diaries, Dark Gathering, Komi Can’t Communicate, Summer Time Rendering, and now to this and Pon no Michi? Maybe they know something I don’t. Anime of the season incoming.
Sequels
Sequel time. There’s not as many as previous seasons, and unfortunately the two I’m personally interested in are movies so know who knows when they’re going to be available. Covering sequels is pretty boring since you already know if you’re interested in them, so here they all are in a big phat list.
- Classroom of the Elite Season 3
- Tsukimichi -Moonlit Fantasy- Season 2
- Haikyuu!! Battle at the Garbage Dump (I think they’re just doing movies for the rest of the Haikyuu series? That might be better honestly, since sometimes shounens can get a little bogged down with pacing)
- Mashle: Magic and Muscle 2
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie -Walpurgisnacht: Rising- (How in the name of fuck have I gone this long without watching the first Madoka movie? It got mixed reactions when it came out originally, but enough people like it that I really should have checked it out given what a huge fan of the original I am)
- Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki 2nd Stage
- The Dangers in My Heart Season 2 (The Animoo Chat discord server I run seemed to think this show was a real highlight of the season it came out, so I’ve been considering going back to it. Join the discord if you haven’t already!)
- Urusei Yatsura (2022) 2nd Season
- Fire Hunter 2nd Season (what a trainwreck of an anime this ended up being)
- SYNDUALITY Noir Part 2
- Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED Freedom (Quick! We’ve managed to get a newer generation of anime fans into fandom thanks to Witch from Mercury. Let’s fart out some SEED sequel to capitalise off its success oh no my brain fell out again I’m a Sunrise executive)
I think that’s it for the season…
Wait, what’s that? A savior of anime is incoming?
BURN THE WITCH #0.8
Peak anime is back! More of the best named characters in anime history. More Bruno Bangknife. More Ninny Spankhole. Yes I know it’s going to be nothing more than a single episode special. But that original OVA from a few years back was cool and stylish as hell and I’ve been wanting a full series ever since. This isn’t that, but maybe it’s better to get these random one-shots every few years. Bleach taught me that Kubo Tite might have the eye for style but can’t write a story for shit. But I shall continue to dream nevertheless.
