What Have You Watched This Past Week That is NOT a Currently Airing Show? [January 25th, 2026]
Title says it all - talk about the anime you watched this past week that are not a part of this Winter 2026 season (like **Shibou Yuugi de Meshi wo Kuu** or **Tamon-kun Ima Docchi!**), or a show that's continuing from previous seasons (like **Tojima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider**).
With regards to Fall 2025 shows, however, it would be fine to write about them as long as you only began them after they finished airing. For example, it's fine to talk about watching **One Punch Man 3** or **Chitose-kun wa Ramune Bin no Naka** if you started them after the final episode aired. Obviously, use your best judgement on this.
**Please use spoiler tags**; it's super simple stuff. An example below:
[KonoSuba Ep 9] >!"THIS WAS A VERY BAD EPISODE, DARKNESS DID NOT DESERVE THAT!<
comes out to be [KonoSuba Ep 9] >!"THIS WAS A VERY BAD EPISODE, DARKNESS DID NOT DESERVE THAT!<
[Last week's thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1qgh3bg/what_have_you_watched_this_past_week_that_is_not) | [All threads](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/search?q=author%3Ametathpr4h+What+Have+You+Watched+This+Past+Week+That+is+NOT+&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all)
With regards to Fall 2025 shows, however, it would be fine to write about them as long as you only began them after they finished airing. For example, it's fine to talk about watching **One Punch Man 3** or **Chitose-kun wa Ramune Bin no Naka** if you started them after the final episode aired. Obviously, use your best judgement on this.
**Please use spoiler tags**; it's super simple stuff. An example below:
[KonoSuba Ep 9] >!"THIS WAS A VERY BAD EPISODE, DARKNESS DID NOT DESERVE THAT!<
comes out to be [KonoSuba Ep 9] >!"THIS WAS A VERY BAD EPISODE, DARKNESS DID NOT DESERVE THAT!<
[Last week's thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1qgh3bg/what_have_you_watched_this_past_week_that_is_not) | [All threads](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/search?q=author%3Ametathpr4h+What+Have+You+Watched+This+Past+Week+That+is+NOT+&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all)
Commentaires
**Minami-ke Omatase (OVA)** Kinda missed an OVA lol. But this was a cute one. They all dressed up for Halloween
**ONGOING**
**Mono Rewatch (7-10/12)** A fun weekend with this silly group of girls. Not that I’m complaining, but watching this back, what exactly were the girls doing ? Lol weren’t they supposed to be a cinephoto club. They’re just following a mangaka and going on trips lmao.
Also, did the mangaka for this wanted to write a horror manga or something. There’s been more than a few legit scary supernatural occurrences in this show
**THIS WEEK**
Haven’t had the time to start S4 of **Minami-ke**. Hope to start it this week. Not planning to start any other thing yet
And of course probably gonna finish my **Mono** rewatch this weekend too
Yeah so I had a surprise binge with my friend this week too. [](#teehee)
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**Yu-Gi-Oh! GX**, episodes 66-68
It’s honestly hilarious how long this show managed to sideline Judai for just by [GX] >!having him get horrifically lost on an island that isn’t even that large!<, like you wouldn’t see *that* in a modern series haha. [](#azusalaugh)
**D.Gray-man Hallow**, episodes 3-10
[](#overwhelmed)[](#overwhelmed)[](#overwhelmed)
Holy *shit* this season escalated quickly. I’m still iffy on the total voice cast change, but *man* is the plot content for this one something else.
**One Piece**, episodes 19-24
Mihawk’s kinda hot.
[](#assman)
**Earth Maiden Arjuna**, episodes 11-13
[5/10.](#surefam)
Yeah unfortunately I came out with negative feelings on this show in the end. It does have interesting *ideas* (plus the soundtrack is godtier), but it goes about telling them in the most obnoxious way possible at nearly every point, and that’s just not fun to watch.
**Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun**, episodes 14-23 (dubbed) + episodes 1-7 (subbed) + **Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun Season 2**, episodes 1-2 (dubbed)
[So much Iruma-kun!](#delighted)
The rewatch is small but very fun so far.
**Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2**, episodes 6-17
So yeah this was the surprise binge I was talking about. Since the last two shows I watched with my friend were both *her* picks that she wanted *me* to watch for the first time, it was finally time for *me* to pick what we watched, and I’ve wanted to see her react to season 2 ever since we saw the Hidden Inventory/Premature Death movie together last year (that’s why we started on episode 6).
…only problem now is [JJK S2]>!we stopped right before the episode that [landed the show on my vomit list](https://i.imgur.com/VMVh5Mz.png) so now I kinda don’t want to watch more? It’s why we stopped the binge after episode 17, at any rate.!< [](#crazedlaugh)
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[That’s all for this week~](#michaelwink)
[Tune in next time for most likely]>!the rest of D.Gray-man Hallow, more Iruma-kun/One Piece/YGO GX, and probably starting up FLAG?!<
[Kinda?](#nosebleed)
---
- [Prefectural Earth Defense Force](https://myanimelist.net/anime/2422/Kenritsu_Chikyuu_Boueigun) **(1/1)** 6/10
Discount **Project A-ko**. Seriously, that's basically what this is. I would highly recommend it to any **Project A-ko** fan.
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- [Hurricane Polymar](https://myanimelist.net/anime/4808/Hurricane_Polymar) **(26/26)** 5/10
Fairly run of the mill villain of the week tokusatsu series. The one way in which it stands out is that it leans more so towards its comedic aspect rather than taking itself seriously. It's a nice palate cleanser in that regard, other than that, it's very average as far as the genre goes.
I'd say watch it if you want to watch a toku that's on the lighter side and that can still be fun despite having nothing that leads to long term interest going for it. Otherwise, don't bother.
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- [Maps: Legendary Space Wanderers](https://myanimelist.net/anime/3183/MAPS__Densetsu_no_Samayoeru_Seijin-tachi) **(1/1)** 5/10
Space adventure short film about a space android being tasked with finding a mcguffin somewhere in space. Yadi Yada, it's an alright little movie.
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- [Fantasia](https://myanimelist.net/anime/3597/Fantasia) **(1/1)** 5/10
Discount **Urusei Yatsura**, except, replace the sci-fi bits with fantasy instead. It's pretty much the exact same thing otherwise.
---
- [Devilman Lady](https://myanimelist.net/anime/1629/Devilman_Lady) **(26/26)** 4/10
Spin-off story based off of **Devilman** that somehow manages to be inferior in every conceivable way, yes, even worse than the heavily watered down version from 1972.
The entire premise centers around "demons" being the next step in human evolution and the government trying to find a cure, whilst in the meantime, using some of those said "demons" that still have their instincts under control (our MC) in order to hunt those that do not. Despite being ripped for potential, **Devilman Lady** craps the bed due to its terrible execution.
Writing wise, it's pretty bad. Characters are one note and have no agency, character interaction comes off as forced, themes are presented only to never be explored, the plot is an unfocused jumbled mess, the series jumps the shark towards the end, the world building is awful, a bunch of plotlines end up going nowhere, the ending doesn't bring conclusion to most things and leaves the audience with a bunch of questions regarding things that happened, etc...
Then there's the production side of things, and sadly, that part sucks too. Visually, the character art is super inconsistent, action scenes are mired in black shadows making things hard to see (which I assume is done to not have to draw a good part of what's on screen), there's low amount of keyframes, plenty of stills, and the action is bad to the point of being worse than the 1972 tokusatsu adaptation of its parent series. The one good thing I can give it is the fact that the kaiju models are for the most part pretty cool, so thumbs up for that.
Then there's the sound design. Overall it's fine, except for the voice action. Oh boy, the voice acting. There essentially is none seeing as 90% of the scenes feels like the VAs are doing line reads, and that somehow, that's what made it in.
Overall, there is no appeal to this show. It's dramatic elements aren't delved into enough to be captivating. The action is a bore. The character drama is lackluster and poorly done. It's theme exploration is basically nonexistent. The plot is all over the place. It's not visually stimulating, and the voice acting will make you wish you were listening to literally anything else. Unless you're *really* a fan of Go Nagai and wish to experience all of his work, do yourself a favor, skip this one.
---
- [UFO Senshi Dai Apolon](https://myanimelist.net/anime/3361/UFO_Senshi_Dai_Apolon) **(26/26)** 4/10
Subpar episodic super robot series with crappy gimmicks, plot convenience out the wazoo from beginning to end (which even by toku standards ends up being way too much), a bloated runtime like all the other toku series of that decade, characters that are nothing more than archetypes, bad worldbuilding, a multitude of gimmicks that are poorly utilized or even not utilized for 80% of the runtime, a literal deus ex-machina ending, etc...
It also has an at best average production value, so forget watching it just for the action alone. Even if you're the biggest tokusatsu fan, save yourself some time, don't watch this.
---
- [UFO Senshi Dai Apolon 2](https://myanimelist.net/anime/10815/UFO_Senshi_Dai_Apolon_2) **(21/21)** 4/10
Second season, except, not really. For reasons which I assume are due to contractual obligations, this franchise ran for another 21 episodes past its ending. Did it do so by retconning events or by introducing brand new villains, which is normally what tokusatsus would do to extend their natural ending point? No. You see, this "second season" is actually just a re-airing of season 1, albeit, re-edited, some of unnecessary fat trimmed out, on top of touched up and redone scenes in order to make them look nicer. And that's it, that's all this is. A marginally less crappy version of the same thing.
With all that said, I would honestly recommend watching "season 2" over season 1, despite both being the same, if only for the fact that the runtime is shorter and that some of the visuals end up looking a bit better.
One downside of "season 2" though, there are no available subs for it. So either generate AI subs, watch it raw, or watch the more bloated and slightly worse looking first season.
---
Have a great week.
And now for something completely different, I have picked up **Skip to Loafer**. I have been reading the manga since 2022 and have pretty much forgotten the early bits so it is a nice refresher.
You're in for a treat!
>I had originally skipped it going straight to UBW and I now think that was a mistake. Story wise it is probably my favourite of the three
OMG hardly ever we got to hear this. As someone who came to the Fate franchise late and made a deliberate choice to watch the anime adaptation in order of the VN route instead of following the "general advise" of starting with the more modern UFOtable works, I absolutely loved the Saber end arcs, and [FSN ending spoiler]>!the bittersweet anime ending, despite the production value wasn't as spectacular -but it was perfectly adequate- was still what I think as the best ending of the story!< Especially because it connects to Realta Nua which to me is the perfect full ending [FSN RN ending]>!(much later past everything and anything the franchise had written and any future it could/would bring)!<.
**My Dress Up Darling Episodes 13 - 19** - This show continues to be quite good, granted with hardly any stakes (perhaps in part because I'm already spoiled on the fact that [Dress Up manga]>!Gojo and Marin will get married!<). I'm glad to see that Gojo is coming out of his shell and becoming more formally a part of Marin's collective friend group.
**Revisions Episodes 1 - 5** - This mecha anime directed by Goro Taniguchi (behind Code Geass) somehow slipped below my radar for years. Combining robots with time travel and oddly enough... furries. lol. The animation in this reminds me much of what I'd expect from Studio Orange anime (ex. Land of the Lustrous, Trigun Stampede) or Girls Band Cry (the Toei anime that looks like an Orange anime) and is probably the highlight. Oh and unlike most mecha anime I'm used to where the protagonist is rather milquetoast, the one here is kind of a jerk!
**Laputa Castle in the Sky** - One of several Ghibli films I have never gotten around to seeing and will be checking off a few of them from my list this year. This was a fairly good movie that always looked good and had a likable main cast and hateable villain. Quite possibly the most unique anime haircut I've seen [Laputa]>!Villain shoots off her pigtails with a gun.!< It didn't rise to the heights of some of my favorite Miyazaki stuff like Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa. Watched the dub for this, which as I think is the norm for Ghibli films has more well known actors voicing the characters instead of dub veterans. James Van Der Beek as the male lead (whom I'll always be fond of for not Dawson's Creek but rather his hilarious role in the short lived Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23) and Mark Hamill as the villain! Mandy Patinkin who I've always been a fan of as well.
ETA: Oops, somehow forgot to include **Mobile Fighter G Gundam Episode 1 (Rewatch)**. A Gundam podcast I listen to, Mobile Suit Breakdown just recently returned from a long hiatus to start covering this. I will be watching this subbed for the first time. For me G Gundam takes a while to get going outside of an early backstory episode. I can't say the first episode is all that amazing but I recall it being better than the next several episodes coming after it.
Of the three "super dimensional" unrelated series era, story-wise I actually prefer Orguss the most, if we consider all aired contents of each show - Macross was great up to ep27, but the "extended" continuation only had a few episodes I feel is a good follow on from the "mid season" climax. Orguss for me the latter half considerably raised it's standing for me, from me really didn't like the "womaniser" MC back in my much younger days, to understand and accept what happened and then him making the best of what turned out. The extended cast, especially the [Mid Orguss spoiler]>!faux/pseudo antagonist which turned out to be the MC's own home side after time skip!< and then [mid to late Orguss spoilers]>!Robots faction being a simple antagonist side yet had representatives that's stayed in the main cast that actually showed really good character development and growth!< we're significant high points for me as being atypical of drama plot lines of that era.
Landed on the series **Mugen no Juunin** aka **Blade of the Immortal** a random. Well, the 13 episode one not the 24 episode one that I found out existed after I finished this. Well whatever, it's basically just Wolverine (from the X-Men) Samurai. It filled time decently enough.
And lastly I landed on some movie called **Blue Thermal**. Freshman college girl wants the average college life. Club, boyfriend, etc. Ends up kinda getting shanghai'd into the school's aviation club flying glider planes. Things go from there. Nothing spectacular but it's there if one is in the market for bit of college club SoL to fill just under two hours with I guess.
Also watching Re:Zero for the first time. Almost done the directors cut of season 1. It’s okay. I understand more why Subaru is the way he is, but it’s still difficult for me to like him or wanna root for him. I’ll finish the series because ai am invested enough in it to do so. But I don’t think I’ll ever actually like his character.
___
**Turn A Gundam**: (ep 1 - 5)
I missed the Tomino writing and what an amazing start for Turn A! Finally a slow beginning for a Gundam series where we don’t throw the Kid into the cockpit immediately at episode 1. Actually got some time to get to know Loran and the Heim family before the *** hits the fan. The weird coming of age ceremony though & Loran constantly getting hit in the nuts, just Tomino things.
I love the look of Mustache Gundam, after all the bulky mobile suits from previous 90s shows, it’s nice to get a sleek design again. It moves so gracefully too. The art style has never looked better, sorta an evolution from Victory’s character models but with even more animation.
[Turn A Gundam (ep 1-5)]>!The idea of Mobile Suits invading a lower tech civilization is really cool. Like the Moon Moon colony idea from Zeta but taken seriously now. And 1000s of years have passed to the point that UC lore is the Dark History whoa. Also invested in Loran being a double agent torn between the Earth side or Moon side. I'm sure Tomino didn’t create this plot set up but he had to have been one of the first adopters to do the *advance Moon civilization invades Earth*. I mean Aldnoah Zero completely ripped this off.!<
___
Indubitably. I felt the exact same way when I saw that one forever ago.
A lot of 90s OVAs seem to fall into the trap of not only being ugly, not only having zero characterization, not only having zero comprehensible plot, but also manage to be boring.
The first hour was probably some of my favorite anime ever which I didn't expect. CSM was an enjoyable watch but it was never at the very top of my list, but the movie blew my expectations away. The direction, OST and animation have been burned into my brain. The action and spectacle were on point and credit to the animators who did an amazing job but honestly I kind of wish the action was shorter and we got more of the quieter moments; that was where the movie truly shined for me. It reached such a high that I'm struggling for motivation to watch anything else because I know it's not going to be as good and I haven't had that feeling in a really long time.
It was so close to being a 10 (which I rarely give out - only 4 in 300 shows), but it's a **9.5**.
**Summertime Rendering EP13-25:**
Objectively it was a good show but I *really* had to force myself to finish it out of sunk cost. It wasn't egregiously bad and I liked pretty much every character but what I appeciated about the show switched up and after the initial reveal of the main mystery on episode 5, it just didn't grab me anymore and I gradually lost all interest. **6 / 10.**
**Koi to Uso:**
I picked it up on a whim despite its less favorable score on MAL. It started off way better than expected, a drama/romance anime where they aren't beating around the bush? Perfect. For the first few episodes it was going well, there was actual development and the drama wasn't cringe melodrama based on complete unreality. And just when you think it's really going somewhere, the development just stops...right up until the finale in what was possibly the most annoying finale I've ever seen. I now see why it's not rated that highly. **4 / 10.**
**Earth Maiden Arjuna** (eps 11-13, completed) — quite unique and interesting anime with environmentalist agenda plus some Evangelion vibes to it, and also one of the *least* recommendable shows I’ve ever watched. Can recommend only if you’re looking for something arthouse-y. Also, an example of CGI-heavy early-2000s anime that doesn’t look all that bad, although that uncanny feeling is still present.
**Space Dandy** (S2 E5-13, completed) — now that was a ride! It’s only January but I already have a strong candidate for the best anime I’ve watched in 2026. This show doesn’t have that much of a plot, the ending was satisfying and did provide answers to some of the things I was wondering about, but not all of them. But it has hella lots of style!
This retro city-pop aesthetic in futuristic setting is something I didn’t know I totally craved until I watched this! And now I’m mildly depressed knowing that I’m surely not going to see anything like this ever again. Quality-wise the visuals are top-notch too.
To summarize: artstyle — one of my favorites of all time; Dandy — one of my favorite protagonists of all time; and also, if I happen to come across "best anime eyes" contest, I’ll be sure to nominate [Honey](https://imgchest.com/p/bp45632nn75) — these star-shaped reflections are super charming and stylish!
Oh, and another super stylish detail I loved the moment I saw it — the [nose art](https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/8d52884dd913.png) on Dandy’s spaceship. [Nose arts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nose_art) in general were pretty common in air forces around the world, but sporting scantily clad women is so bold, stereotypically American thing that fits Dandy and this anime so well. (I used to be a WWII aviation nerd once)
Also started Dress Up Darling s2, damn they really elevated the source material. Truly a 10/10 so far.
I did not know the actual premise. I have jumped to so many incorrect conclusions. Adding to the backlog.
Back when I first watched it many years ago I remember thinking the protagonist was badass. She still is, but seeing how overly bad the lighting in the animation was done was well, too much. Got me to finish the manga now fully, since it was still ongoing back when I first watched it.
It was one of those movies that was unquestionably great, yet I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Like a lot of the best creative decisions, especially towards the end, were not necessarily the ones that worked the best for me, it was a weird experience with that in mind, though never not a great one nonetheless. And any movie that even gets me even close to crying, and several times at that, has more done its job.
It is really funny how not subtle it is about being based on the author's life experiences. Which y'know, I'd obviously assume for a mangaka writing about people making manga anyway.
based on what I've watched so far I don't understand how so many people can say this show is as good as people claim.
I expect it to keep cooking and get better as the series goes on but the chimera episode was really not as dark as I was expecting. I was expecting [Fmab]>!an Eldritch horror begging for death akin to the abomination he summoned in the 2nd episode. Instead of that I got something that was still sad but really lacked the shock factor for me.!<
It gets better. I still have FMAB as my #1, and I have such a hard time at the start of rewatches because of this problem. You must be right around 10? Sounds like you don't have the '03 baseline to know they diverge, but the story will improve now that it feels it should take the time.
If you ever want to, you can try the '03 path and see if that sparks the same reaction everyone else has. But I know exactly why you didn't get it, it's not you, and if you're willing to trust an Internet rando it'll get better from here.
The story isn't _bad_ as such, it just feels like the story is thus far targeted at a more immature, younger audience than I personally like. I often overlook that compared to many people online, I'm basically a fossil at this point.
Idk if it's taken for granted, or you'd like to take issue with it, but try to appreciate the world building every now and then. It always seems so unintrusive when I rewatch, because in my opinion it's so natural. It's not "just" a steam-punk or generic European country in 19th century. It's a well crafted world where alchemy was the basis of research and advancement instead of natural science. I'll ding her for some lazy Western naming (Roy Mustang, c'mon) but not everyone can be Tolkien.
Mobile Suit Gundam Destiny. Seed was my first entry to the Gundam universe and i loved it. Destiny continues on the same tempo. I'm on episode 10 and things are getting quite hectic with war about to start once again. Some things never change.
Fruit's Basket. I always pick a romance/slice of life show for the rotation and i chose Fruit's Basket. I'm on episode 11 and I'm also really liking it so far. The characters are very endearing and well written so far. I do sense that drama will come soon with Shigure and Akito so I'm looking forward to it.
Fairy Tail. I know people criticise Fairy Tail often but it's so comforting to me. I watched the final Tenrou Island episode and also went through the X791 arc the other day and man the final episode of Tenrou Island when they all hold hands together made me tear up a little. I love the Guild and it feels like kind of a second family to me in a way.
***
**Digimon Adventure 2** episodes 1-4 (rewatch) - It's nice to see this sequel series again after so many years. I like the new characters and the concept of armor digivolve. Having the threat to the digiworld be another kid like them is a neat twist too.
***
**Bâan: The Boundary of Adulthood** - Finally got around to watching this short film. It was a little confusing at the start with the two timelines being shown in parallel, but I really liked the concept of an isekai where people can easily travel back and forth to visit/live/work in one world or the other. The fantasy vibe of the other world was neat and I would have liked to see a little more detail about what was going on during that festival, especially since I read that this was supposed to be based on a real world mythology. The story was very sweet though with some nice found family themes between the two main characters and the friends they made in both worlds. Also, the English ending song was beautiful. *Rating: 8/10*
***
**Bullet/Bullet** episodes 6-12 - There was some interesting worldbuilding in the second half, and the [twist] >!that the characters from the wasteland who appeared elderly were actually in their thirties, but their lives were being shortened to extend the lives of the people in the capital!< was genuinely surprising. Gear and Noah had some nice moments together too. However, many of the other characters seemed defined by their (often unfunny) quirks. The assassins and the "final boss" were just so ridiculous that it was hard to take the plot seriously, and [the way the masses were portrayed] >!as not even caring at first that their lives were being shortened!< just felt too dumbed down to be realistic. The [car chase towards the end] >!between Gear and Road, and their team-up for the final battle!< was cool though. *Rating: 6/10*
***
Next up, more **Full Metal Panic** and **Digimon Adventure 2**, plus some 2025 catch-up with **Wandance** and **Disney Twisted Wonderland**.
>Enjoy
This show is suffering, are you a masochist?
Show is quite the slow burn huh. There was a good chunk in the end of the first cour about Albert and his issues with his arranged fiancee that were a bit snooze but eps 13-15 have been ramping up the tension and the slow build up from the first cour starting to brew. A friend described this shows a telenovela and I can just say that I see that lmao.
Looking forward to more.
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**Cosmic Princess Kaguya (Movie)**
Another retelling of the Princess Kaguya story, now in a futuristic setting.
Starting in bangers only mode, in the first hour of this movie I was already calling one of the best movies in years, that hour is really, really fun. Iroha is this grindset student that lives along, is permanently sleep deprived, works like two jobs and constantly exhausted. Then she meets Kaguya, the alien from the moon who becomes this hyper-genki girl and together become a streaming pair with Kaguya as the star. Their chemistry is great, and I was constantly laughing my ass this first hour, great duo. And my god, the character animation man, its incredible. Its the most expressive anime I have seen in years. I usually like to take screenshots of funny faces and got to the point where I had to pause and use my frame-by-frame tool to get as many as I could but that would have tripled the runtime of the movie so I just had to stop. But it looks so, so good along with great voice acting. With the great comedy and animation I was already seeing myself in awards 2026 shilling this, but there is still more to this.
There's the setting that did throw me and my friends offguard because we went into this pretty blind, we didn't know this was the future and didn't give much thought to the first scene. So its 2030, which is not very far into the future so ofc the world looks pretty much the same. But then they also have deep-dive VR contacts which like, feels like a gigantic technology leap?? Dunno why we got so fixated on this but it was really funny to joke about how the world looks the exact same but someone poured a bajillion dollars to research VR contacts. There was also a really quick scene of this guy holding RBG chopsticks and we just popped off saying this is what the future looks like lmao. Err, but anyways, this is just a world where deep-dive games like SAO are a thing and we see the girls play Fortnite and League of Legends, very cool.
Then there's the plot. I haven't touched on the duration, but this is almost two hours and a half, that's a chonky movie. As I said, the first hour was great, but then I looked at the timer and was like "there's no way it keeps this up, what do they even want to do with 90 more minutes". I mean, did we *reaaally* need the 15 minute LoL fight? It looked great but I kinda spaced out from how long it was dragging. I don't know if it is my brain being tired at 2am but the movie felt slowed down considerably from that first half into the second, I just wasn't feeling it the same.
Then it got to the climax of every Kaguya story, with its own tweaks ofc. [So]>!Kaguya is leaving so we have the whole drama of her leaving. There's also this weird time-travel thing going on about Yachiyo arriving 8000 years in the past and became the slug that is in her shoulder, so its like, all of Kaguya, Yachiyo and the slug are Kaguya. Also, Yachiyo is actually bamboo shoot connected to a machine.!< Uhhh, I may need to rewatch those last 30 minutes, it got a bit convoluted especially watching this at 2am.
So, I historically do poorly with non-franchise movies, I have only like 5 movies above a 7/10 that don't belong to franchises. I thought this could be another exception given how much fun I had in the first hour but it started to falter from there. I will probably rewatch, its worth of it for its great animation, humor and fun characters.
**Final rating: 7/10**
God damn. What a show. It was one of the first anime I watched and it still hits me just like it did back then. For some reason I gave it a 7 back in the day? This is a clear 9 for me, bordering on a 10.
One thing that I think works so well about this show's premise is that both its setting and presentation is so absurd yet it treats it with absolute seriousness. This applies to the school aspect, how the head of the gardening club introduces himself with a full-screen title card and people swear life-or death fealty to the student council president, but it also applies to the nudity aspect. This show looks you straight in the eye and says "yes, fighting with your tits out is absolutely ESSENTIAL to the plot".
And for some reason it just works. Like, to me this isn't really a fanservice show. I'm not gonna pretend I don't rewind several times during the Symphony Regalia Finale transformation but for the most part the nudity is just part of how this absurd setting functions.
Anyway, soundtrack is still goated. Blumenkranz rightly gets most of the praise but I'm actually gonna nominate [Sanbika*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apby9aHwTpU) as my favorite. Every moment it plays in the show is transcendent, but episode 3 especially.
*I can't actually find the original on youtube but Sapphire's cover stands toe-to-toe with the original in my opinion, similar to how this show has maybe my favorite dub of all time
You are right, 99% of the "fanservice" moments are essential to the plot and in line with the overall asthetic of the show, which makes it non disruptive fanservice in nature. (The 1% beeing the peep shots at home)
I really wish Trigger would make a show like that again. Rebellion, aliens, just make it epic.
Kill La Kill is one of my all time favourites and you can just rewatch it again and again without it getting boring.
Honestly what I think happened was I still believed in objectivity in rating back then, and felt pressured (despite no one watching) to put higher praise on stuff more "serious" or "artistic". So I gave Evangelion a 10 basically because I subconsciously felt I had to and gave KLK a 7 because it felt more goofy and trashy and I felt obligated to ding it for the moments of janky animation (which I now appreciate for their intended effect)
I watched Madoka Magica now since I've heard it'd get a new movie next month, but it got delayed again the day after I saw Rebellion. Hard to believe people are waiting 13 years for the sequel, but I've no doubt it'd be worth it.
**[Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: A Lonely Dragon Wants to Be Loved (Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon: Samishigariya no Ryū)](https://myanimelist.net/anime/59897/Kobayashi-san_Chi_no_Maid_Dragon__Samishigariya_no_Ryuu)**
The sequel movie to the *Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid* series.
Featuring nice animation and sound as expected from a typical Kyoto Animation work, this film focuses on a single story about one of the main characters, so there are more action, drama, and heartwarming moments while much fewer comedy and slice-of-life portions compared to the regular TV show. The main plot is very straightforward with the runtime seeming just right, though things in the end were wrapping up a bit too easily.
Overall, this is a very solid sequel film that should be watched by all fans of the popular series.
8/10
---
Ongoing:
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (S3 9/11 Episodes)
- Prison School (8/12 Episodes, 0/1 OVA)
---
Started:
- Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun (S1 8/23 Episodes) – this one's been a riot so far
Konosuba: rewatching.
The Twelve Kingdoms: rewatching. I bought the bluray since it came out recently to my great surprise after all this time. The books do some things better and the anime adaptation isn't perfect, but it does add to the series in other ways so it's really hard to say which is better.
Magic Kaito: watching.
From where? The most recent western release that I'm familiar with is from Discotek which I think camw out in 2019.
The sequel though... saying 2202 drops the ball would be an understatement.
You know the demon core experiments? Lets say the writer dropped the screwdriver. Its just not good, at all. So much melodrama, so little setup, the episodes feel like you missed half of them with how sudden the scenes change. Worst of all though the characters have 0 developement, if anything they regress. Its the same amount of episodes as S2, 26. Enough for whatever you could want, and they do absolutely nothing with it. Even the animation gets worse, especially later on there are just some questionable close up and facial expressions. And there isnt even good fanservice to keep you on board while the characters keep yapping about nonsense.
Still trying to find time to catch up with 3199 after the first 2 movies though.
Definitely never going to watch this shit again.
Started **Clevatess**. It is good and interesting but I feel a bit cheated because ever since ep 3 I felt the great animation just disappeared.
Started **Hyouka**. I can feel the animators love for their job and it has such good production values. Looking forward to this one.
* Plastic Memories - i knew it was a tear jerker. I did not understand the full context. Someone else please tell me there are obvious parallels to the loss of a pet, because I refuse to believe I projected *all* of that outta nowhere. Like, I know the Giftia aren't dogs, but... c'mon.
Instead there have been multiple episodes so far devoted to their colleagues forcing shitting romcom tropes and it's awful. I hate every single side character in this show and these off-plot episodes almost make me want to stop watching. It's yoyoing between 8/10 and 4/10 every episode
And this is a minor complaint, but as robot scifi I'm disappointed. These "androids" have absolutely zero mechanical traits other than the contrived lifespan premise. They breath, they bleed, even the "virus gun" they used to take down the rogue android was nothing but a big taser. I just want them to use the gimmick somehow
First time hearing/watching it tbh, and had no expectations but it certainly surpass what I expected. It's not perfect and can be better obviously but decent in general, story also seems engaging.
Is it me or is the beginning very slow and jumping into way to many things without it being explained yet.