Only one more chapter to go…
For the penultimate chapter we get a bit of a speedrun through university entrance exams and graduation prep. My favorite part was how they were literally running to each other for a celebratory hug.
Looks like the final chapter will be graduation speeches by both of them.
A quick search turned up a game for the Sega Saturn. I have heard of the series before, but didn’t know about the game until now.
Aoi is out here causing misunderstandings with her students. Turns out she also wants to eat the rich:
Hopefully that is what the news is going to be. I have enjoyed this one. The dad suddenly appearing like a jump scare was pretty good.
I don’t think doing anything like that is what she has in mind…
I have grown to like the Ruri/Maeda dynamic. It’s kind of nice to have a character that isn’t afraid to throw around cutting remarks, but…out of love, to keep the others grounded.
Really love that they stuck erasers on her horns. It’s such a little thing, but totally feels like something you would do to tease your friend if they had horns.
I was wondering why Akira wasn’t there during the training. Seems like she will be the final boss instead. Both Sumika and Kanae were great this chapter. Kanae knows exactly what she wants and isn’t afraid to be a bit shameless about it.
Yeah, this only adapts the first chapter of the manga and Takuma kinda sucks here. I had kind of forgotten that this is how we are introduced to his character because it feels so different than how he acts in the rest of the story. Like, the obsessing over Mina is always there, but the drinking and overall patheticness are dialed back going forward and it is much more of just a romance.
What are your thoughts on Mina’s voice? Unlike Mina, I have mixed feelings about it. I am hoping that I get more used to it as time goes on.
Yeah…I was excited for this one since I really like the manga. However, my excitement has dropped a bit after the first episode. I am not sure if I am going to get used to the Mina voice or not. I hadn’t watched any of the PVs before diving in since I knew this was one I was going to check out already, but…yeah…will take some getting used to. This might be one of those things that is done better in the manga format, where the dialog boxes are shaped differently to denote that Mina is speaking:
Otherwise, this episode only adapts the first manga chapter, establishing the premise. Now that we got Takuma’s pathetic phase out of the way, we can focus on the actual fun part of the story. Reading into the OP and ED, it looks like we are going to get a pretty full cast of characters. However, some notable absences from the characters we see that I welcome:
The robot research club students don’t seem to appear in the OP/ED which I find great because I think their part of the story is the weakest.
Looking forward to see where this goes and I am hoping that the Mina voice won’t bother me as much going forward.
Have you read the source for this one? I haven’t really looked at the Fall season too much yet to see what’s coming. The only show I know is airing this Fall I am definitely watching is Natsume. So, likely plenty of room to squeeze in a good otome story.
Their teaser visual is basically just a lightly edited version of the LN Vol. 1 cover. However, the date announcement I thought was worth posting. The series was originally announced back in 2023 with no updates since.
I am trying to think of demographics that wouldn’t really be represented here and I came up with a couple ideas, but the biggest is probably kids. So, I wonder if a show like Tonbo! did well enough with a young audience to get a second season, but it just isn’t showing up here.
It’s pretty safe to say that Astro Note bombed pretty hard based on the staff apologizing about the show.
So, a bit of a different type of post from me this week. Instead of highlighting interesting series I found this past week, I wanted to talk about a couple series I have come across recently that all seem to have a similar premise. See if you can spot a theme!
In no particular order:
This series begins with the MC’s childhood friend turning down his confession because she is dating somebody else. We then see him declare himself as a gloomy character on the first day of school and profess that he is going to drop out. As the story goes on, we see that he has a history with several other female characters in which he thinks they loathe him and he tries to push them away while living his best life without them. However, is loathing what they really feel towards our MC?
This story starts with the MC in a relationship. However, his girlfriend breaks up with him for being too nice and accommodating, allowing others to take advantage of him. We later meet two other characters; a kouhai that mercilessly teases him, and a maid at a local cafe that berates him (and the other guests). Eventually, the MC gets fed up with this treatment and decides to cut all three out of his life altogether. However, after doing so, they approach him completely differently. What could their true feelings towards the MC be?
This one starts with the MC dumping his girlfriend. Then, he gives himself a bit of a makeover and makes a debut in school as a hottie (I guess bangs make the man?). As the story goes, we see the MC get to know his classmates (something his overbearing girlfriend never let him do) and his ex scheme her way back into his life. For somebody that treated the MC like crap, she sure is trying hard to get his attention…
All three of these series are wish fullfilment in its purest form. Enormous mountains of drama that don’t hold any punches in dialing up the absurdity. It is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine to read stuff like this that is just full angst and manufactured drama (I blame DomeKano for starting me down this path). If that is what you are looking for, then these series are decent passes at it. Don’t expect logic, likeable characters, character growth, or any of that. Just turn your brain off and strap in. If you like fantasy/isekai stories that are “I got kicked out of the hero’s party and my life is awesome while theirs sucks now” then you would like this high school equivalent genre of “I dumped the toxic people out of my life and my life is awesome now.”
Weekly ranking roundup:
Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma.
In the final week of the year, Kaiju and Demon Slayer made some gains on the charts. As the new shows pop up on the charts this coming week, it will be interesting to see how things shake out.
So, I usually try to quickly binge a show in the slow week between seasons. I had been planning for that show this season to be Patlabor. However, with the discussions around the upcoming summer season, I kept seeing people talking about Tower of God. When the show first came out, it didn’t really pique my interest and I pretty successfully just ignored it.
However, for the sake of community involvement, I thought it would be fun to quickly get caught up to try to be active in the threads this upcoming season. So, I started watching it the other day…and then just didn’t stop…at all…until I finished it. I went back and tried to capture the thoughts that were running through my head as I was watching. So, spoilers galore below the tags. Suffice to say, I will be right there with everybody when season 2 airs. Not sure how I will handle waiting week to week though.
What the hell is going on? Where are we? Who are these people? Why in the Hunger Games are there this many people (creatures?) fighting each other? Lots of unanswered questions here. I feel like I was just thrown into the ocean having never been taught how to swim.
We seem to be putting together a main cast during this game. Also, Rachel is back, and she is in her hooded phase. I still can’t claim to have much of an understanding of this world we are in or most of the characters in it. I will say that one of my favorites almost immediately is Lero-Ro because it is so instantly recognizable as the voice of Shiki from Tsukimichi.
Lots of lore on the tower and the characters during this training period. Also, some shady stuff happening with the test administrators. It is pretty clear already that this is the type of show where everybody is always acting with an agenda of some type or another. Any character might just be acting out a scheme and no character is safe (I should have suspected something like episode 12 at this point).
Schemes upon schemes upon schemes. Turns out Khun is one of the better schemers out there. Also, metagaming is totally a thing through the use of stuff like that note. Some battles might be won before they are ever fought. All the betraying and (literal) backstabbing in this sequence should have been more hints at what was to come.
I literally, physically gasped at the conclusion of episode 12. For whatever reason, bingeing through this season at a breakneck pace, I never stopped to consider the possibility that Rachel was anything other than what Yoru had presented to us. I happened to watch this episode right before bed as well, so I was forced to sit with it and ponder it for a whole day before I could watch the finale. Rachel’s turn in this episode really, really makes me want to know more about Yoru and Rachel, about their time before the tower and before each other.
The way this season ends makes it feel like the story up until now was really the prologue to the actual meat of the story. I still think that there has not been enough establishment of the setting overall, but the show is cool enough that it doesn’t bother me too much.
If you think about this season as a prologue, then there is still a lot of story left to tell in which those gaps can be filled in over time. You get the sense also, that sometimes it just doesn’t matter. The Tower is a place where rule of cool wins…always. Screw your rules, power systems, logic, schemes, none of that matters unless you do it in a cool enough and interesting enough way.
Also, totally digging the new rurouni-version of Lero-Ro. Safe travels!
Overall, I can’t say that it is one of the best shows I have ever seen. However, it was certainly gripping and can’t help but ooze a cool vibe between its animation, characters, and the fantastic OST. Very much looking forward to the discussions coming this season.
I had kept up with this show but just didn’t really have time to keep the threads alive on my own. I have been really pleased with it overall. I would put on an episode before bed and just vibe (another reason I didn’t want to spend the time with the threads and instead I just crashed). I think my favorite little vignette of story was the one about trying to identify the liquor bottle that Miwa broke as a child. Just the thought of the chief having a nice bottle of liquor with his departed son kind of hit me out of nowhere. Runner-up was the romance that bloomed over a pack of cigars.
It’s been a while since I read a chunk of the manga, and I couldn’t remember, so I pulled up the mangadex page to check. It is listed as suggestive, but it has chapters labeled as (Uncensored). Flipping through a couple, it would indeed need censoring to be broadcast.
I heard good things about that one. However, if I remember correctly, it was only licensed partway through the season after my watch schedule was mostly filled up.
Wonder how many of these Aster stories we are getting. They are still introducing new characters like this new wizard master.
I do like how she has learned enough about herself through this process to realize she could have been happy without going to such extreme lengths.