Summer season is drawing to a close. Most shows have either wrapped up last week or are wrapping up this week. So, let’s talk about it! Did anything surprise you? disappoint you? exceed your expectations? Of course, more general topics are still welcome just like any week.
As always, remember to be mindful of spoilers. If you want to know more about how to handle spoilers in this community, check the guide here (also linked in the sidebar).
Season Wrap-up
Did anything surprise you?
I wasn’t planning on picking this series up because Too Many Losing Heroines is the antithesis of Zero Losing Heroines. But then I saw the endorsement given by Shinkai Makoto and decided to give it a shot.
And it became my dark horse of the season. It’s real good, and it certainly resembles Shinkai’s works. In fact, I won’t be surprised if some of the staff working on it used to work for Shinkai.
The humor, the art style, the characters and the story were all superb. It is now one of my potential top favorites.
disappoint you?
I thought it would be absurdly funny. I ended up absurdly bored. Dropped early-mid way through.
Rest of the shows
Completed / will be completing
Terminator 0 - Very good. It raised my expectation of adaptations of mainstream / non-anime shows. Looking forward to the Lord of the Rings anime now.
The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies - Would likely have dropped if not for its episodes being only 12 minutes long, ending before I get bored of it. More anime should learn from this IMO. It does have its entertaining moments, but that’s it. Upon completion, my rating for the Magical Girls theme on AniList would drop from 100%.
Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian - It should have kept comedy as its focus instead of drama. I was really close to dropping it, but ended up completing it because there’s only 1-2 episodes left (and even then, I fast-forwarded through some scenes). I would likely not pick up the second season.
Dropped early / mid
No Longer Allowed in Another World - I don’t vibe with this MC.
My Wife Has No Emotion - MC is wimpier than I remembered.
Quality Assurance in Another World - I don’t vibe with this MC.
Rick and Morty: The Anime - I don’t have the patience for the pay-off / reveal, and the earlier parts are not entertaining enough.
Dropped later / towards the end
Pseudo Harem - Got bored.
Senpai is an Otokonoko - Got bored.
From earlier seasons
A Place Further Than the Universe - It’s ok. Not too entertaining, but just enough for me to not be bored. 7 / 10
Final Thoughts
A rather laid-back season for me, which is good. It gave me time to finally watch some all-time popular shows, such as:
So, I have a clear favorite of what I have watched this season. The standout show for me was Oshi no Ko Season 2. There is one more episode to go, but it has been an absolutely stellar adaptation of an already good manga. The source manga is still ongoing, but it is heading into its final arc. I cannot wait to see the rest of the story in anime form if the quality was as good as this past season. Anyway, enough gushing, here are the shows I watched:
- Oshi no Ko - see above
- Dungeon People - My biggest surprise of the season. It was way better than I thought it was going to be based on what I saw before the season.
- Dahlia in Bloom - I feel like this story in interesting, but moves a bit too slow to make a good anime adaptation. I haven’t watched the finale yet though. I would probably recommend reading this one if it catches your interest.
- Love is Indivisible By Twins - A fun guilty pleasure. Lots of teenage drama born from an incredibly elaborate arrangement of people crushing on each other. I really enjoyed this one and look forward to the finale.
- My Deer Friend Nokotan - Lots of ups and downs. Like many sketch shows, some segments are going to connect and some aren’t. Overall, I still enjoyed it.
- Sometimes Alya Hides Her Feelings in Russian - I feel like this one is trying to do more than it needs to do. All I wanted was a cute romcom, instead we got a ton of political scheming and mind games. With season 2 announced, I hope we get more romcom going forward.
- Pseudo Harem - I have a couple episodes to catch up on, but this has been fun. It is a great manga, and the adaptation of the super short chapters to anime form has been done fairly well. Overall, it has been very cute.
- Quality Assurance in Another World - I am a couple episodes behind on this one, but I intend on finishing this season. I really like the art in this one and the world is interesting enough that I want to keep going.
- My Wife Has No Emotion - I only watched a couple episodes before dropping. I really like the manga, and I think I will stick with it. The anime adaptation just didn’t really do it for me.
- Plus-Sized Elf - I watched a couple episodes of this before dropping. They cranked the fan-service dial way past what the manga has. It just wasn’t really for me.
- Tower of God - This season has been a big change compared to the first, and not for the better. The second cour is still to come, so I will see where it goes from here.
I watched a whole show (shikanoko) this season. So yea banger season, almost never happens lol.
Favourite of the season: Oshi no Ko without competition, the animation quality and story were both amazing! There were some scenes that go so hard that I’m sure they’re still going to be talked about for years.
Biggest disappointment: Tower of God S2. I really looked forward to this, but the story didn’t pick up until the final two episodes of the first cour :/ The animation quality was also pretty mid. I’m still looking forward to the second half though…
Kinda meh: Elusive Samurai. At first, I got pulled in by the fantastic animation and interesting premise, but the follow-up didn’t really live up to the initial hype. It’s still entertaining to watch though, even if I think the way the protag is portrayed and treated by the cast is kinda…sus, sometimes
I watched a fair amount of shows this season. Despite not really having big names, it was a pretty solid season.
I loved:
- Makeine: the synopsis made it sound like it’d be a generic romcom with a slight twist, but so far it’s not generic at all and I’m not even sure it’s a romcom. The characters are great to watch, the animation is awesome and the setting feels lived in and unique, despite it being a school setting. The OP is great.
- NieR:Automata ver1.1a part 2: this blew me away. A massive improvement over the 1st part and a great adaptation, while adding interesting small twists to the original story to keep it interesting for people who played the games too. I adore the ED as well.
I liked:
- SHOSHIMIN: starts out like it’s going to be a very mundane version of Hyouka, until it’s not. Very interesting and curious to see how it continues in the 2nd season.
- Vtuber Legend: it got the vtuber vibes right and felt like it was made by people who liked vtubers themselves.
- 2.5D Seduction: whereas My Dressup Darling focuses more on the process of creating cosplay, this one focuses more on what cosplay means to people or on the community. It does it pretty well imo. Toning down the ecchi from the manga was a good idea imo, though I do like the manga more.
- Alya: decently fun. Masachika and Yuki are fun characters, but the Russian thing has not become more than a gimmick.
- Mayonaka Punch: a good ol’ PA Works anime.
- Senpai is an Otokonoko: did very well in dealing with sensitive subjects. Devolves a little bit into the simpler chibi artstyle too much, making it feel cheaper.
I moderately liked:
- Wistoria: good action and OST, but story, world and characters leave a lot to be desired. Also had a tendency to overexplain things and slow things down to a crawl at the wrong moments.
- QA In Another World: interesting take on the whole stuck in a game thing with it being the testers being stuck while testing. As a software tester though, I take slight issue to this anime calling them debuggers.
- Elusive Samurai: cool premise, with fun main characters. Sometimes gets overshadowed/undermined by strange and weirdly timed humor and way too wacky villains to take the gravity of things seriously.
Disliked:
- Dahlia in Bloom: just not very good. And again, what the fuck is going on with those shadows. Dropped it.
- My Deer Friend Nokotan: got old really fast. Dropped it.
- Suicide Squad Isekai: just not very good either. Nearly forgot about it already. Anime Harley Quinn kept me watching though.
- Plus-Sized Elf: just read the manga. They exaggerated everything and added scenes just to get more T&A, while not providing good visuals. Dropped.
Still need to catch up:
- Spice and Wolf
- Monogatari series
I think that was everything
