Everyone loves this shark.

It's probably misleading to say I dropped seven shows this season, since I wasn't expecting to finish any of these when I started them. (There's a lot of other anime this season that I find much more compelling.) Anyway, I dropped two shows after a single episode: Hikikomari Kyuuketsuki no Monmon (The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess) and Kimi no Koto ga Dai Dai Dai Dai Daisuki na 100-nin no Kanojo (The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You). I understand Hikikomari has it's fans, but it really wasn't for me. Hyakkano, I've addressed already.

SHY has a Mamikore alcoholic.

I watched two episodes of Saihate no Paladin: Tetsusabi no Yama no Ou (The Faraway Paladin: The Lord of Rust Mountain) and three episodes of SHY and Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari: Dantoudai kara Hajimaru, Hime no Tensei Gyakuten Story (Tearmoon Empire). I didn't find anything objectionable about these three shows. I probably would have watched them during a duller season, or if I had more free time right now. I suppose it's worth noting Saihate no Paladin is the second cours of something I watched two years ago, but I did lose interest towards the end back then.

This is some beach episode.

Somehow, I watched five episodes of Ojou to Banken-kun (A Girl and Her Guard Dog) which is a very shoujo age-gap romance notable only because the would-be couple starts the series already into each other. I guess it's also notable for having a lot of plot contrivances, and for having a Kitou Akari lead who sounds extremely Kitou Akari, if that's important to you. I also watched six episodes of Boukensha ni Naritai to Miyako ni Deteitta Musume ga S Rank ni Natteta (My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer), which is sort of a lot of episodes for a show that I never found especially interesting. Mostly, I was motivated to continue watching because the source material has ended, so I was at least not concerned about getting a non-ending ending. Hayami Saori voices the lead, so S-Rank Mususme has that going for it if you're a Hayamin fan.

The stepsister is such a cunt that I'm starting to like her.

I started watching Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon (My Happy Marriage) because it features Ueda Reina in the lead role. The premise involves a girl who has been mistreated by her family ever since her mother died. She is arranged to be married to an infamously cold man who has reportedly frightened multiple previous fiancées into running away. Naturally, it turns out he's actually a good person who cares about her. She also thinks he's hot. Oh, and he has magic powers.

Dude's actually in the military. He's not LARPing.

Maybe this element of the setting was deliberately concealed, or maybe my casual perusal of the show's promotional material caused me to miss this detail, but yeah, people in this world have magic powers. Notably, the My Happy Marriage heroine lacks any supernatural powers (or at least appears to lack them), despite being part of a bloodline renown for magic ability. This is ostensibly the reason why everyone has been so cruel to her, but really it's just because they're all sadists. I dunno what to tell you. Sometimes people are assholes.

If you were really pulling on her arms, those gloves would slip off and she would escape.

First of all, I don't even know if anyone is actually referring to Akuyaku Reijou nano de Last Boss wo Kattemimashita (I'm the Villainess so I'm Taming the Final Boss) as Akulas. Hell, probably as many viewers thought of Otome Game no Hametsu Flag Shika Nai Akuyaku Reijō ni Tensei Shiteshimatta... (My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!) as either Hamehura or Hamefura as they did Bakarina. These light novel titles are an absolute nightmare.

Lilia seems really boring and irrelevant, so I'm expecting some huge twist later.

ANYWAY, Akulas, like Bakarina, is an isekai about a girl who reincarnates as a villainess character from a video game that she's been playing. The series is about her efforts to avoid the unfortunate fate that she remembers her character ultimately suffering in the game. Then something-something "the friends we made along the way."

You can tell he's supposed to be the evil one because of the way he's dressed.

Consequently, comparisons between Akulas and Bakarina are natural, although the two series don't appear to have much else in common, at least not through the first three episodes of Akuyaku Reijou nano de Last Boss wo Kattemimashita. As far as differences go, the Akulas lead is trying to team up with the game world's end boss (who inadvertently kills her character in the game), whereas Bakarina herself concentrates primarily on reversing her inherited character's reputation for being a cunt.

Way to fuck it up, you stupid asshole. Now you're left with nothing. Nothing!
Nothing except for your wealth, power, and the girl who you wanted to marry.

Notably, Aileen from I'm the Villainess so I'm Taming the Final Boss seems much more intelligent than Catarina from My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! who—bless her heart—is dumb as all Hell. As far as the shows themselves go, I watched two seasons of Bakarina, and still like it enough that I guess I would still watch more. Thanks to its early start, I'm already a quarter of the way through Akulas. It seems all right, but I'm not especially interested in it. I don't really have any complaints about the series; it's just not my thing. But maybe Lilia will stab someone in the neck later.

This is how everyone sees Honda Tohru and yet people
still manage to be assholes to her.

It's sort of difficult to talk about Fruits Basket: The Final because it's a 13-episode conclusion in a 63-episode adaptation of a well-regarded 23-volume manga. It's also a do-over succeeding a 26-episode series from 20 years ago which was also really good even though the source material hadn't ended yet. So, there's a lot going on.

Is cat.

I do wish I had paid closer attention when I started watching this iteration of Fruits Basket when it began in 2019. There are a lot of characters, and there is a lot of setup, and I'm certain I missed a lot of subtleties early on. I suppose that is an argument in favor of re-watching the series, even if it is 63 episodes long, but that isn't going to happen until I've finally gotten around to reading the source material. It's gonna be a while.

This bedroom is fantastic.

Probably everyone who has heard about Fruits Basket also knows opinions about it are almost universally favorable. Likewise, anyone thinking about getting into the series probably knows at least as much as I did concerning what it's ostensibly "about" before I watched the first anime (the 2001 one with Hocchan). One thing that surprised me as I got deeper into the plot is how monstrous the zodiac aspects are regarded in-universe. They're not set up that way at the start of the series at all.

Look, a rotary phone.

I don't really want to write about Fruits Basket, since it's basically one of those shows where you can just sort of say, "Look, everyone says it's good. It is good. Just watch it." I can also see how it might not be for everyone. You have to have to have an appetite for romance and a tolerance for assholes. So many assholes. Honda Tohru is, like, the nicest, sweetest, goodest girl in the entire world and she's constantly surrounded by bitches being bitches and assholes being assholes. Back the fuck away from Honda Tohru, people.

People are also assholes to Machi.

I guess viewers also have to be okay with "problematic" 'ships. I don't know if this heightened anxiety is an actual sign of the times, or if it's just localized sensitivity found on the Twitter. There are multiple age-gap pairings. There are people being mean to the people they love. Honda Tohru's mom dies. It's a whole thing. I guess the Fruits Basket 'ships are less "problematic" than the ones in Card Captor Sakura, but if these are the sorts of things that genuinely bother you, shoujo might not be for you.

Those of you who know who myco is likely remember her as the seiyuu and singer who voiced the lead character in Full Moon wo Sagashite, the best anime of all time. Apart from FMoS (which ended in 2003), myco has had very few other voice acting roles. However, she did release at least one solo album, my-collage, which you can still buy, And I think the album she released with Quintillion Quiz, Memento Mori, is also available, although I've only ever seen it offered on the iTunes; I've never found a physical copy of the album.

Fortunately, myco recently announced a new channel on the YouTube. Since then, she has covered a few songs and I'm hopeful that she will continue to update the channel regularly. I'd really like to see a new album someday. I was pretty disappointed Quintillion Quiz did not release more music. Memento Mori is different from myco's single album or the FMoS music she did with Changin' My Life, but it was fantastic.

Masami does not come across quite as lame in the anime as he does in the manga.

Right up front, you should know Koi wa Ameagari no You ni (Love Is Like After the Rain) is about a teenage girl who falls in love with her 45-year-old manager at the family restaurant where she works part-time. Nevertheless, it is not as—as the kids say—"problematic" as you might think, maybe because it is seinen instead of shoujo. (This last part is not a joke. If you've read a lot of shoujo, you know the genre revels in "problematic" developments.) Assuming the anime basically follows the manga, I think we can expect something much closer to Sweetness and Lightning than, uh...actually, I can't think of a show off the top of my head that follows through with this sort of pairing. (This assumes Tsumugi and her teacher did not started tearing each other's clothes off at some point in the Amaama to Inazuma manga.)

There is a lot of glaring in this show.

Rather, Koi wa Ameagari no You ni offers beautiful animation (assuming you're fine with the elongated character designs) with solid WIT STUDIO production values and the potential for the noitaminA block to potentially mean something again. That is, you don't necessarily need to dodge the show if the premise makes you uncomfortable. (Likewise, if you find the premise titillating, expect to be disappointed.) In a season chock full of so many good shows already, I can't claim After the Rain qualifies as a "must see" by any means, but it is at least worthy of more consideration by potential viewers who may have prematurely dismissed it based on preconceptions.

There's also a lot of this sort of thing.

Akatsuki no Yona is really good for sufficiently broad definitions of good. This is a backhanded compliment, but I do admit it's not for everyone. Now in its second cour, this anime adaptation remains true to the original shoujo fantasy manga. Fans of the manga will likely enjoy the anime a great deal, but neither the tonal shifts nor the reverse-harem cast will likely appeal to anime fans who may have expected a more typical princess-in-distress series of canned adventures. Viewers don't need to be primed for squealing, KYAA! BISHIES! in order to enjoy the show, but they'll be better off if they at least aren't put off when more and more spikey-haired boys with large hands keep joining the cast.

Back away from the princess and nobody gets hurt.

That cast does keep getting bigger, though. An entire cour has passed and Akatsuki no Yona still hasn't finished introducing characters. I hope the anime isn't set to conclude with this second cour, because it's just getting started in relation to the manga. It really is a good adaptation, though. Saito Chiwa is perfect as Yona, and the anime communicates all the emerging fire-hair staredowns perfectly. That's the real reason to watch Akatsuki no Yona. Yona's transformation from a spoiled helpless fugitive princess to a leader of warriors is quite satisfying. I just hope the anime runs long enough to cover it all.

It ain't easy being a princess these days.

I'm watching two shows this season with fairly similar basic plots. The teenage princesses in Akatsuki no Yona and Nanatsu no Taizai are both assembling teams of skillful warriors in order to defeat usurpers. That's about it with regard to their similarities, though. The remainder of this blog entry deals with themes and elements found in the source material for both anime. Although I'll avoid explicit spoilers, readers who wish to avoid learning anything in advance about either of these shows should probably just stop reading and watch both anime to develop their own comparisons. They've got princesses gettin' the band back together! Give 'em a shot!