Anime

The only new series I watched last week was Agents of the Four Seasons: Dance of Spring, and I loved it. It's an odd combination of gritty realism and high fantasy, and seems to be very allegorical, and with a whole lot of mysteries and secrets and dark history that were only hinted at, so I'm looking forward to learning about this world. And the art design, animation, music and character designs were all gorgeous.

There's nothing that I'm absolutely going to watch this season (other than the second cour of Scum of the Brave), but lots of things that look interesting, so I'll just sample whatever catches my attention as they come along and see.

The only old-but-new-to-me series I tried last week was Heaven's Memo Pad, off of which I gently bounced. It's from the sub-genre of eccentric moe genius detectives that was briefly trendy some years ago, and it's not bad, but it just wasn't quite what I was in the mood for.

Other than that, I just watched the current (and in many cases last) episodes of the new releases, and a handful of first episodes, then on Saturday rewatched the entire run of You and I Are Polar Opposites so I could cap it off with the new and final episode Sunday.

Release That Witch - still going strong. It's not really groundbreaking, but it's solid all around and more than entertaining and interesting enough, which is especially nice to see for a donghua.

MF Ghost - the final episode, and they had the gall to end it with the announcer summing up the top four cars, saying that there was no way to guess who was going to win, and actually saying that everyone should stick around for the end of this race because it was going to be a good one. Then the studio announced the next season, and that it was going to be the last. Since in-universe they're only about halfway through the racing season, and only about halfway through the current race, they're going to have to piss away the beginning of the next season of the anime with the end of this race, then... I don't know what. Cram all the rest of the story into the rest of that season? Keep moving at this same glacial pace and end with nothing to show for it? Either way, I'm not looking forward to it.

Roll Over and Die - Quite possibly the worst final episode of an anime I've ever seen. They handwaved a bunch of exposition to rush through to a final showdown with the big villain, who was hamfistedly evil, presumably because they had to generate all the hatred the audience should've grown to feel for her over the course of a long story in about 3 minutes of run-time, then they actually had Flum sit down with a bunch of other characters and they all narrated the high points of the rest of the story. The end. And when I went in search of the original, I discovered that it started out as a webnovel, and that's the only version that's complete, and I can't find anything beyond the first chapter (of 180 total) in English. It was then adapted to a light novel, which stalled, and was licensed in the US by Seven Seas, and stalled even quicker. There's also a manga, which is also licensed by Seven Seas, so will also presumably stall. All of which really irritates me because early on, when the anime was moving at a good pace and taking care, I really liked the story and the characters and I still want to see more of them. But oh well...

Frieren - best episode of the season. And "Because that's what Ms. Frieren would do" was one of the greatest moments in the entire series.

Scum of the Brave - another good episode. I had just about given up on this series - it seemed to have a lot of potential early on, but then it ended up mostly just seemingly spinning its wheels. But it's really starting to come together now, and some of the bits that seemed oddly pointless earlier are even starting to reveal themselves as more important than they seemed. (And on a side note, I'm pretty sure I know Jogamine's secret).

In the Clear Moonlit Dusk - this was such an odd series. This last episode was pretty good, but it basically ended with Kohaku and Yoi finally seeming to connect a bit. It almost feels like this season should count as a prequel and if there's another season, that'll actually be a romance (and I suspect that that's more or less exactly the way the story unfolds in the manga - that it really did take them this long just to get to the point that they both have their walls down at the same time, for a little while).

You and I Are Polar Opposites - great episode, and Nisshi's really starting to show why she was my favorite character in the manga. The next season is going to be great.

Journal With Witch - I need to rewatch this one to really judge it fairly. There was a lot crammed into this episode, and I hit sensory overload before it ended. I loved everything I grasped (especially Asa's singing debut and her imaginary desert-turned-oasis), but I know there's a lot I didn't fully grasp. And I need another season of this - this series has been life-changing.

And finally, just last night, I gave in and went back and watched the first episode of Sentenced to be a Hero. I deliberately didn't follow it early on, just because it had that flashy but mindless action trash reek about it, but it ended up with a better reputation than I expected, so I figured it was worth a shot. And I liked it all in all, so that's probably next on my watch list. That and whatever episode 1s catch my eye.