Oh, I forgot to mention. I watched Blue Miburo, but it was bad in a pretty boring way, 1/5, but I got a little bit distracted while watching it and wanted to share.

The main character’s voice sounded familiar, so I looked it up and found out he’s played by Umeda Shuuichirou, and there’s a reason I recognize his voice. He’s been around for a few years, but during the summer season he played the main (or one of two main) characters in three different shows: Sempai is an Otokonoko’s Makoto, Shoushimin’s Jougorou, and Makeine’s Kazuhiko. Then, this season the same: Loner Life’s Haruka, Puniru’s Kotarou, and Blue Miburo’s Nio. I’m not too familiar with voice acting, but that seems like a lot of work two season in a row?? lol

Makoto did also say that in the same scene, but I largely take the “I’m a boy” comments with a grain of salt, since much of that often reads as “I’m amab” or “I’m supposed to be a boy”. I’m also not sure the egg prime directive applies to fictional characters*, though I’d definitely be using he/him if Makoto were a real person, yes, lol.

*There are a bunch of reasons for this but one of them is that the nature of storytelling is that each person’s understanding of a story is a little different because no medium perfectly relays what’s in the author’s mind into our minds, so we each get our own personal Makoto in our own heads. Mine is definitely a girl (egg) but I don’t really fault anyone for coming to different conclusions (unless they’re for transphobic reasons, lol)

I haven’t read the manga, but in the anime the only time I remember Makoto saying they don’t want to be a girl is when they say something along the lines of “I don’t want to live as a boy or a girl, I want to live as me”. They read to me as pretty obviously someone not done with their gender journey, with a lot of internalized transphobia. And judging from their reactions from people reading them as a girl, I’d guess they’ll end up transfem (whether girl or nb).

My new season has sort of settled in. I think I’ve cut down to things I’m pretty likely to finish, and I’ve decided on the anime I’ll be showing to my friends (every season I pick out around 6 for them and they choose 3 of them to watch together). The tasting menu this time is 365 Days to the Wedding, Acro Trip, Dan Da Dan, How I Attended an All-Guys Mixer, Let This Grieving Soul Retire, and Yakuza Fiance, with a bonus option to rewatch Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun, since the new season (this winter) is coming out after five years and we don’t remember what happened, lol. I’ll also be recommending Orb: On the Movements of the Earth, which, like Chainsaw Man before it, would absolutely be on the agenda if I had the stomach for it, but I’m much too squeamish.

I’m also personally following Nina the Starry Bride and The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor for some shoujo trash, and Ranma 1/2 for some tsundere nostalgia.

Meanwhile, my friends and I finally finished our shows from last season! Here are my thoughts:

It’s clear why Takahashi was the queen of romcoms for so long. It’s easy to make a couple who bicker all the time but ultimately end up together anyway, but it’s a lot harder to nail that type of relationship where you can tell that they bicker because it’s an easy and comfortable dynamic that doesn’t require any emotional risk from either side.

@wjs018@ani.social did rikka post this automatically? From the timing it looks like yes, which probably means there’s a bug in her manual-only posting.

It seems like this show plans to really dig into what marriage is and the different meanings people give to it. Is this more birthrate propaganda?

The romance between our leads is progressing faster than I expected it to, which is weird to say when the premise is that they are already engaged, lol.

We finally see our first glimpse (outside of the OP) of girlmode this time, but not for long, lol, as it seems Suo prefers to flirt as The Prince. I understand that the premise sort of requires it, but it’s hard not to read into the kings boymoding at every opportunity as them Doing Gender. For Kohaku, especially, the masculinity people expect from them seems so at odds with who they are and what they like, I would expect them to girlmode whenever possible if they don’t have some gender stuff going on.

@rikka@ani.social

(yes)

Hana has the attitude you really need for fishing: happy to be there, happy when anything is happening, eager to eat whatever you happen to find. Fishing is not a hobby that goes well for sore losers, lol. Also, I’m curious what that setup the one loan shark was using to catch the crab - it sounds like it’s for catching shellfish, which I always find to be cool little guys whenever I happen across them.

After 3 episodes, this one hasn’t really grabbed me, for whatever reason. At this point I could see the storytelling quality going either way (and as an original, no one has the answer to that yet), so I think this is where I depart, but I’ll probably poke my head back in later in the season to see if that’s a decision I will regret (though that kind of mistake is easily fixed, lol).

How the hell did Grandpa get so strong?

did you stick around for the after-credits scene?

They really know their audience with that bait and switch on the training arc. I was fully ready for them to spend all season getting into different kinds of trouble while practicing for their big race, since that’s the Jump formula, but I guess we don’t have time for that. I think it bodes well for how much escalation we’ll get by the end, lol.

Also, I’m wondering if Granny’s hairdo has a practical purpose. When I saw it I couldn’t help but remember the thing about focusing your spiritual power out of the top of your head and I wonder if her hair helps her do that or if there’s even something hidden in there.

I believe the status is that the new bot (rikka) was set up here temporarily and then users decided it’d be better to keep discussions here than to try and migrate back. So technically yes, the episode discussion community is still broken, but the functionality is back, just over here instead.

I would like to be friends with the kuma kaijin

It’s weird because it seems to me like they’re not doing the normal pandering stuff associated with the creepy age gap genre - she seems specifically dressed to make her appear a bit older, she never even attempts to act her age, and while Hadis remarks on her being young, he never treats her like a child. It almost feels to me like the adaptation is aware of how weird it is but for whatever reason are unable or unwilling to change the lore of the source material.

Or maybe that’s wishful thinking…

I’m liking this one so far, but it does take some willful ignoring of the age stuff. Knowing what I know about why the emperor’s wife’s age is important, I can see that they’re trying to build it up into a mystery that we will slowly unravel, but without that knowledge it definitely seems like just a running gag that one of our main protagonists is (or at least appears to be) a literal pedophile, which is not a great look. And like, they wouldn’t even have this problem if they’d picked a better age numbers all around…

When putting the age stuff out of mind, though, I’m really able to get invested in our main couple. Hadis is so affection starved and eager to please that it makes sense he’d latch himself onto someone willing to protect his happiness. Meanwhile, Jill seems to have the strength of will (and strength of strength, lol) to face down whatever the curse brings, and her characterization seems locked in on being written as her mental age, rather than falling back into treating her like a child like most of these “redo” stories do. I’m enjoying their dynamic so far and I look forward to them growing closer as they face their challenges together. (They also end up treating each other pretty much as equals, which is the most important piece of trying to ignore the age stuff)

Also, for those who don’t know, “thieving cat” is the Japanese equivalent of “homewrecker” (which Sphere added “-chan” onto). The translators were in a bit of a bind because the visuals were so literal, so I don’t think it came across quite the way it would to a Japanese audience.

Sometimes I feel a bit silly rambling into the empty threads, but I’m glad that my little reviews are being useful to someone!

P.S. If you only watched the first ep of Ranma before bouncing off, I’d suggest taking a peak at ep 2, where I think MAPPA tried a bit more to make the anime their own. I felt sort of similarly about ep 1 (like, “oh, it’s just the manga but on screen”), but the ep 2 made a much better impression.

I think you’re mixing up Wajutsushi / Talker with Nageki no Bourei / Grieving Soul, probably? There’s a lot of adventuring party anime, lol.

I like the idea of more diversity in length, especially since short clips would be a good way to bring new people into the anime world, and I’m hopeful that this means there will be more short-form anime that have decent budgets and some real animation talent behind them. I know that shorter anime can really shine when work is put into them (I’m going to take this moment to plug Kenka Banchou Otome, a favorite of mine that does a lot with its 8 minutes) but so many short-form anime are just a couple frames of character animation in front of a static background.

I keep worrying they’re going to try to redeem this guy, but it seems less and less like that’s in the cards, lol. My prediction is that each and every person who appears “normal” will either become or be revealed to already be unhinged, and I am here for it.

It’s almost like Azure is two different people between last episode and this one with how fast they’re playing “no, really, he’s actually a nice person deep down!” card, lol. It seems like he’s got a lot of his own baggage, but it’s still some real quick turnaround after he was so scary last time. It’s also sort of funny to me that Nina had a moment of “sure, being a starving orphan isn’t great, but royalty has problems too” when like, no, the level of hardship is very much not comparable - you definitely would have died on the street if you hadn’t been kidnapped.

I noticed this time that the storybook in the ED appears to have a page for every episode that they’re filling in with colors and details as we get through them. I think that’s really neat.