Decided to give this one a shot, so I watched the first episode, plus about half of this one, and that was all I could take.

It’s all paint-by-numbers - the setup is silly and forced, he’s an empty shell to whom cliches are assigned as needed by whatever tropish scene is currently playing out, and she’s just pointlessly awful.

I’m pleased and not a little relieved.

And yeah - it’s a shame that there almost certainly won’t be more and that we got so little detail.

From the references in episode 2, it seems that they can travel more or less freely between the worlds, and were in the process of returning to Terminal when they got snowbound. I would assume that the original plan was to reveal some more details about Terminal and Albert, and likely some more of their own history, then shift back to our world for more interactions, and so on, and all the while maintaining that episodic structure.

If done well, it could’ve been pretty much the ultimate expression of iyashikei, since the specific thing that happens - the way in which Escha and Chron help people - is simply by seeing the value in them and in what they’re doing, and that’s apparently something that they’re not only especially well-suited for, since that value stands in such sharp contrast to Terminal, but something that actually materially benefits them and Terminal as well.

But oh well…

Sort of, but not really.

She’s desperately insecure, inexperienced and naive, and surprisingly sweet, and the whole narcissistic school idol thing is a front that’s going to come crashing down.

First up last week was the rest of season 2 of Non Non Biyori - Non Non Biyori Repeat. It was fine - not quite as good as season 1 IMO, but still fine. And I still like the manga better.

Next I cast about for something loud and frenetic as a complete change of pace, and boy did I find it. Dead Leaves (2004) It’s gloriously cel-shaded non-stop action. I could pull a lifetime’s supply of desktop wallpapers from its 50 minute runtime, and I have no doubt that it provided at least partial inspiration for a number of later works - most notably Kill La Kill and Redline. It has a semblance of a plot, but mostly it’s just an art design orgy.

Still in the mood for something unusual but looking for more plot, I gave a long-time resident of my TBW a shot Sonny Boy (2021). I only made it three episodes before I had to walk away. It’s an interesting premise (though famously already done by Drifting Classroom), but it has a flaw that particularly bothers me - aside from the three main characters and one other notable side character, every single character in it is an asshole of one sort or another. They aren’t even terribly plot-relevant assholes or assholes moving toward a redemption arc - they’re just assholes, for no particular reason other than to provide conflict.

So I went looking for something else and ended up clicking on MF Ghost. I didn’t even know it existed until relatively recently, and I didn’t expect a whole lot from it, but I liked Initial D back in the day and I’m a sucker for racing anime in general, so I had to do it. And I just started with the beginning of season 1 and binged it all the way through to the end of season 2.

It was fine all in all, but sort of odd. The animation is much, much better than Initial D, and the basic setup is different, but it somehow managed to follow pretty much the exact same formula, all the way down to the vague but earnest and unaccountably pretty MMC, his gonk best friend, constant droning commentary going into excruciating detail about cars and racing, lots of teeth-gritting declarations of a racer’s pride and recurring cries of “but my car is a 6.2 liter v10 with 900 horsepower, so he shouldn’t be able to beat me!” as the challengers inevitably get beaten. It was just the mindless entertainment I expected it to be, though at the pace the story is unfolding, it seems like it’s going to take at least a dozen seasons to really get anywhere, which is a bit off-putting.

Then I went back and finished Sonny Boy, which was okay all in all. More than anything else, most of the assholes were moved out of the story and the focus narrowed to the main characters who on their own were actually fairly compelling. The end was sort of vague and handwavey, but it was okay.

Then, to cap off the week, I went in search of something completely different and happened on a gem And @wjs018@ani.social - take note - you should go watch this ASAP. I guarantee you’ll love it. And anyone else with a liking for fluffy post-apocalyptic slice of life should check it out.

Escha Chron

It’s listed as an OVA, but I’m near certain that what it actually is is a planned full season anime that was inexplicably cancelled while still in production, so they just released the existing two episodes on their own. It only really hints at the background story, just as if more was set to be revealed in later episodes, but then there were no later episodes. So what we got was two helpings of episodic iyashikei/slice of life, sort of reminiscent of Mushishi, with a dash of a Girls Last Tour sort of background (the difference being that the girls are time travelers and the stories are set in our era, with a few flashbacks to their previous and apparently post-apocalyptic life). And it’s sweet and charming and soothing, and well worth seeing, and it’s a shame there wasn’t more.

And I don’t really know what’s next, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to delve into my TBW.

Ah.

Well, at least it wasn’t the cynical attempt to establish a franchise that I took it to be. It really felt to me like the entire point of that season in the long run was simply to create a demand for season 2.

I might have to look into the LN, because I liked the story well enough until I figured out that we weren’t getting any sort of resolution of anything, and the petty contrarian in me kicked in.

Nothing in this coming season catches my attention.

So, first up last week was the KonoSuba movie, Legend of Crimson. And it was every bit as awesome as wjs18 led me to expect it to be.

Lots of great moments, but my favorite had to be Komekko completely stealing Kazuma’s spotlight, then unveiling her own Crimson Demon chuuni-style intro. I’m even laughing right now, remembering it.

Next up was an oddity: VTuber Nandaga Haishin Kiri Wasuretara Densetsu ni Natteta (aka VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral after Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream). My little brother’s a bit of a weeb too, so we spend much of holidays sharing interesting things we’ve seen/played since the last time we talked, and that was one of the ones he mentioned. It was better than it seems like it should have any reason to be - not high art by any means, but not a cynical cash grab either, which is what I would’ve expected. I know nothing at all about vtuber culture, so that was all lost on me, but it was enjoyable enough anyway.

Followed that up with another he mentioned Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (The Unwanted Undead Adventurer). It was really quite good all in all, and then completely fell apart in the end when it was revealed that it wasn’t really an anime season in any meaningful sense, but was pretty much just a 12 episode prologue. Nothing at all was resolved - it spent all of that time, and all it managed to do was establish the setting and what presumably is meant to be the main cast and some of the background, and it was cynically obviously done just to serve as a foundation for a hoped-for franchise. There’s apparently a season 2 coming, but I’m not sure if I’ll watch it. I liked it well enough, but to be honest, the cynicism of so blatantly trying to create a franchise with the only possible payoff relegated to the future rather than telling a story with its own payoff pisses me off.

And at the moment, I’m finally watching the second season of Non Non Biyori - Non Non Biyori Repeat.

I have a complex history with NNB. At the time the first series came out, the manga was my absolute favorite, no competition, and it still ranks as one of my all-time favorites. And the anime was certainly gorgeous, and it has a couple of stellar episodes (the New Years episode with Candy Store and Renge is on the short list for my all-time favorite anime episodes period), but I was still disappointed all in all - it just never quite caught the magic of the manga. So when the second season came out, I was interested, but I just couldn’t quite get myself to watch it - I didn’t want to be disappointed again. But it is NNB, and its reputation is even better than the first season’s so… I was going to end up watching it sooner or later. And now’s the time.

And so far, so good. It’s sort of odd that it’s essentially a reboot, but I’m hoping that that’ll be to its advantage, since a lot of what disappointed me with the first season was seeing inferior versions of great gags from the manga, and this one has only touched on a couple of those moments in passing and is mostly telling other parts of the story. We’ll see.

Mm… yes and no.

Yes - the animation style is sort of simplistic and imprecise, and that’s presumably a deliberate stylistic choice.

But I was talking about season 2 specifically, which goes beyond that, and is notably different from the rest of the series.

Yeah - the movie’s next up on my list. At the moment, I’m wading through season 5 of Star Trek Lower Decks.

The thing with season 2 of KonoSuba - in retrospect, I can’t even quite pin down what made it so much better than season 1. There were some notable bits (like the introduction of Yunyun, who makes me laugh pretty much without fail), but really it seems that it’s just that every part of it was kicked up a notch. Or at least everything other than the embarrassingly awful animation, but I stopped noticing that for the most part.

And yeah - the Monogataris. At some point, I’m going to watch Nekomonogatari Kuro, since it’s a prequel and fills in the part of the story that’s repeatedly flashed back to in Bakemonogatari, and then I suspect I’ll be done with the series. I don’t really dislike it - it’s just sort of tedious and pointless.

Since I’m not watching anything this season and instead browsing through the past:

First up last week was Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo (2019), which was… not good. At all. It was sort of promising at first - the initial setup was intriguing if a bit derivative - but it fell flat almost immediately and never recovered. The biggest problem - I don’t know if it traces back to the LN or was just part of the adaptation - is that the writer(s) appear to have understood the idea that it’s good to have characters who grow and change, but didn’t get the bit about the changes having context and following a recognizable progression. So what we get are characters who are seemingly arbitrarily assigned traits, then at some later point, they’re essentially arbitrarily assigned different traits.

Next was Nisemonogatari (2012), which was… kind of dull really. It’s all the same gimmicks as Bakemonogatari, but at this point, they’re wearing a bit thin for me. And try as I might, I just detest Senjougahara.

Then came a surprising gem - season 2 of KonoSuba (2017). I liked season 1 well enough, but it just didn’t quite come together entirely for me. And season 2 didn’t look promising, since the first thing I noticed was that it has just about the worst art I’ve ever seen. It looks like it was done cheap and fast by amateurs. But then I discovered (the surprising bit) that pretty much every other aspect of the season was stellar - great stories, great characterization (most notably, they took the edge off of Kazuma’s assholery - in the first season there were too many times when it was unwarranted and too extreme, but in the second season, it was better timed and proportioned), and more genuine laugh out loud moments. And both the opening and closing themes are terrific.

And finally, after bouncing off of a few things, I ended up rewatching Akudama Drive (2020). The first time through I was initially intrigued but not particularly impressed, then slowly came to enjoy it more and more and was very impressed by the end. I wanted to see if it held up to a rewatch though, since I wasn’t sure if it was genuinely that good or if I was just swayed by the contrast between my initial reaction and expectations and what it turned out to be. And I’d say it really is genuinely that good. It’s not flawless by any means - it has some plot holes and some notably forced bits, but all in all, it just really is very good. And Swindler - the main character - is plain awesome.

I’m still not watching any current anime, but Negative Positive Angler is on my TBW.

I finished up Boogiepop wa Warawanai (2019). It was pretty good all in all. As I noted last week, I watched the original series - Boogiepop Phantom (2000) - years ago, and while it was intriguing, it was a bit too buried in the surrealistic visual imagery of the era, which made its already subtle plot pretty much indecipherable. This one was much more straightforward in style and presentation, which is a much better approach, since part of the overarching theme is bizarre mysteries and horror taking place right under our noses and virtually everyone failing to even notice. And with a more straightforward style, I was better able to follow the recurring characters and appreciate their certainly not coincidental growth, and piece together hints about the mysterious Towa Organization that’s lurking in the shadows behind many of the crises that Boogiepop and friends face. And now the light novel series is on my TBR, which is presumably the intent.

Then, casting about for an entirely different tone, I thought back to series adapted from manga I particularly enjoyed, and suddenly remembered Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san (2013), so that was next, and it was wonderful. It’s a slice of life gag series centered on a notably staid high school student/tsukkomi who spends his spare time fishing, and the childish, self-absorbed, seemingly immortal mermaid/boke whose attention he catches after he literally catches her (more than once - one of the many running gags is that no matter how many times she ends up with a hook in her mouth, she just can’t resist a fishing lure). It expands out to an entire cast of legendary creature bokes, and has more laugh-out-loud moments stuffed into its 13 minute episodes than anything I’ve watched in quite a while.

Then most recently I watched an oddity called NieA Under 7 (2000). I just happened on it listed in a stack and thought it looked interesting, and I ended up quite liking it. It’s a sort of melancholy slice of life about a distressingly poor ronin (in the modern sense of the term - someone who’s out of high school and studying for, but hasn’t yet passed, college entrance exams) who lives above a quaint old bathhouse in Enohana with a brash, selfish, free-wheeling alien freeloader (in their timeline, aliens crash-landed on the Earth about 20 years previously, and have since just sort of blithely blended in with human society). The art style is rough and simple, but it fits the setting of a broken down bathhouse in a broken down town, and the overall feel of it is satisfying - mostly melancholy but with bits of hope shining through, and with a pleasantly well-developed cast.

And I have no idea yet what’s next. I’ve been sort of considering catching up with either DanMachi (which I burnt out on with the second season) or Re-Zero (which I dropped after the first season because I hate Subaru with every fiber of my being), but I just can’t quite get myself inspired. We’ll see - something will present itself, one way or another.

Huh… I didn’t expect that.

I’m actually excited. I think the last time that happened was the first season of Non Non Biyori.

I love this manga, and as a general rule, the manga I love don’t get adaptations, and when they do, they’re mediocre at best. And it’s not just that they’re mediocre at best, but that I can predict accurately that that’s what they’re going to be, because there’s no way an anime studio is going to capture the magic of the manga (Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku is a perfect example).

But this… they might just pull it off. In fact, if it’s done right, it could be one of those exceedingly rare cases - like Lucky Star or K-On - in which the adaptation is actually better than the original.

If nothing else, it’s pretty much guaranteed that it’ll be worth it just to see and hear the full rollercoaster effect of a Wada monologue.

I love the idea of awards, but with only a few notable exceptions, I don’t watch currently airing anime, so…

And on that note, the first thing I watched this past week was the rest of Katanagatari, which I started last week. And I loved almost everything about it. The artstyle and character design particularly stood out, but it was all notably high quality. Though I still have to say I loved almost everything about it, because there was one part I really did not like at all:

…

So… I needed to decompress a bit from that, and I already had an obvious choice lined up - a series that I knew I wanted to watch, but hadn’t gotten around to because I hadn’t quite been in the mood for the particular sort of stupidity I knew it was going to offer - KonoSuba. And it was pretty much just what I expected - shallow, goofy, egregiously ecchi mindless fun. The only thing I didn’t like about it is that Kazuma is, not to put too fine a point on it, a petulant, bitchy, self-absorbed asshole, and I really wanted to punch him in the face. Repeatedly.

And now I’m in the middle of something completely different - Boogiepop wa Warawanai. I watched the original version - Boogiepop Phantom - years ago and mostly enjoyed it, though I also mostly had no clue what was going on. The story is strange and complex and mysterious, and it’s told non-linearly through multiple viewpoints, so it’s opaque at best. The biggest problem with the original though is that it came in the wake of the success of things like Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain, so it took what was already a complex and mysterious story and buried it in surreal symbolism. This one is still complex and non-linear, but at least it sheds a bit of the surreal symbolism in favor of more straightforward storytelling, and to its benefit. I have a lot of episodes left, but it’s shaping up well.