I like this power-up, but I admit I was hoping for another Gungnir jacking.

I'm going to start out by insisting it's not just preschool girls who enjoy shows about mahou shoujo punching things. It's okay for boys to like them too. I've been on board with this concept since at least 2004 with My-HiME, First Pretty Cure, and their subsequent sequels. In 2012, Senki Zesshou Symphogear took this idea, expanded it to include singing while punching things, and raised both the intensity and absurdity levels. From my seat in the stands, this was an anime game-breaking home run. Amazingly, the popularity of Symphogear has proven sufficient enough that we gotten five seasons of it, all five of which are currently streaming on the Crunchyroll. Moreover, Discotek has even licensed it for a U.S. Blu-ray release next year.

Somehow, despite all the shit they've seen, it's still
possible for them to stare at something in disbelief.

Urgings on the Twitter for followers to "watch Symphogear" has turned into a meme of sorts, but I assure you the sentiment behind these admonitions is genuine. Granted, the appeal of magikal girls singing while punching things isn't always immediately apparent to every anime fan, but there's an old graph that accurately captures the trajectory of impressions by initially skeptical viewers. It's not easy ramping up the stakes continuously, but Symphogear has kept its intensity up through all five seasons. Now on the verge of its series finale, expectations are pretty high, but Symphogear has never let me down before.

Despite being a light novel, JK Haru is not illustrated.

JK Haru wa Isekai de Shoufu ni Natta (JK Haru Is a Sex Worker in Another World) gained some notoriety last year when a licensed version became digitally available. Hard copies are now in print as well. Being an isekai light novel, the book is somewhat tongue-in-cheek despite the subject matter. However, I believe the tone it adopts appropriately approximates the sort of setup readers might expect in an isekai light novel about prostitution, thereby facilitating its ability to get them interested in the story before confronting them with the uncomfortable realities that correspond with sex work in general and the vulnerability of prostitutes specifically.

That said, JK Haru Is a Sex Worker in Another World is not a grim book, despite a number of unsettling scenes and events. Moreover, the misogyny and violence encountered in the fantasy world setting are not exactly out of line with the sorts of hazards women face in many sectors of our real world. It's a difficult balancing act for the text, contrasting amusing adventures with these threats. And while there is plenty of sex in JK Haru—as you might expect—the scenes are typically presented matter-of-factly and not written to titilate. Sex work in JK Haru is not glamorous, and the book keeps the attention on the work part, not the sex part.

Notably, I never felt as if JK Haru Is a Sex Worker in Another World was deliberately prurient the way that, frankly, so many light novels seems justifiably accused of being. I've seen enough comments on the Twitter to know many readers will disagree with me on this point, but I think this may have to do with one's initial expectations of the book and what sort of demands are placed on it. JK Haru is presented from Haru's first-person point of view, which I think makes it more effective at conveying the bleakness of her world and the impact of the events around her. Likewise, it also better communicates the joy she finds when she pursues various recreational diversions or actually has sex she enjoys. It also avoids presenting the violence in her world or the sadism she encounters as elements the reader is expected to like (unlike the corresponding scenes in some other light novels I might name). There are surely readers who do prefer that sort of content and wish JK Haru had more of it, but I'm inclined to regard that as an indictment against those readers themselves and not the text for obstensibly failing to omit it.

Incidentally, the various twists and reveals in JK Haru Is a Sex Worker in Another World are good enough that I recommend a spoiler-avoidance posture if you expect to read it.

Don't let rabbit shit go to waste.

Sounan desu ka? (English title, Are You Lost?) has turned out to be reliably amusing thanks almost entirely to Homare, without whom the rest of the girls would be as fucked on that island as they would be on the moon. For perfectly valid anime reasons, Homare spent a considerable part of her childhood getting stranded over and over with her hyper-competent survivalist father. This provided her with the knowledge and experience to keep herself and the other girls who are stranded with her on a deserted island alive through an otherwise harrowing situation. Every other girl with her is basically dead weight, but Homare has managed to provide substinance and shelter with relative ease, so she's already advanced from survival basics to quality-of-life considerations.

Look at how happy she is to have metal.

In this respect, there are some similarities with Dr. STONE in that both shows are about pursuing makeshift improvements in a primitive environment, and applying science and cunning against the various threats posed by nature. Dr. STONE is significantly more ambitious in this regard as it also involves threats posed by man, whereas Sounan desu ka? takes a more matter-of-fact approach toward its concerns, many of which are inspired by whining teenage girls. Lucky for them, Homare is a treasure, and incredibly patient and accommodating. It is abundantly clear to me that she would be perfectly happy being stranded apparently indefinitely. Really, if you are going to be lost in the middle of nowhere, being lost with Homare is basically your best-case scenario.

Yuuko is pretty lucky that Momo goes so easy on her.

One of the best surprises of the Summer 2019 anime season is how good Machikado Mazoku (The Demon Girl Next Door) turned out to be. Shadow Mistress Yuuko is the hapless opponent of Chiyoda Momo, a veteran magikal girl who grossly outclasses "Shamiko" in basically every way imaginable. In the grand tradition of overpowered pink mahou shoujo, Momo quickly subdues Yuuko with the power of friendship, which works out pretty well in Yuuko's favor, since I'm guessing the only other option is a humiliating and pointless death. Viewers who liked Gabriel DropOut will probably find a lot to enjoy here as well, in that both shows regard the struggle between good and evil as a bit of a farce.

You're only flying because you're short, aren't you?

I instantly took a liking to Momo, because she's freakishly strong and constantly droll. She's not an emotionless kuudere stereotype, but rather apparently just not easily excited. I think that's understandable for a veteran mahou shoujo who has probably seen some shit in her day and just does what she wants now. I haven't read the original Machikado Mazoku 4-koma comic, but the anime adaptation is consistently funny and peppered with amusing gags. After seven episodes, The Demon Girl Next Door is right up there with an Okada sex disaster and a fantastic fifth season of Symphogear in a three-way tie as this season's top three shows.

Guess who gets to be Eve and Adam? Go on, guess.

I wasn't really planning on watching Dr. STONE, but its premise involving mankind (and one particular species of bird, for some reason) being petrified for eons before re-emerging in a new primitive society sounded too weird to completely dismiss. Then I kept seeing reports that it was legitimately good, so that's basically how I got myself into this mess. It turns out the anime is pretty good (I have no idea about the original manga), despite my general loathing of shounen jive. Unfortunately, one of the lead characters shouts all of his lines (which, it seems from the Twitter, is a trait some people actually enjoy?!) because he's constantly excited or agitated about something. God, just chill out a little bit, okay? At least he's not as bad as Zenitsu from Kimetsu no Yaiba, since at least Taiju isn't a shithead. I swear to Haruhi, these two are the evil opposites of Momo from Machikado Mazoku who is wonderfully chill all the time. Maybe there is a Law of Conservation of Indoor Voice that I don't know about.

Senku pretends he's not trying to impress the
first blonde girl he's met in the new world.

Despite this, Dr. STONE manages to be interesting, if absurd. This is very much a cartoon, but it doesn't ignore the fundamental questions a viewer will likely come to ask. For example, why did everyone turn to stone? Why was Senku the first one revived? If you start drawing the girls with Key eyes, does it increase the likelihood one of them will contract Key AIDS? These are the sorts of things a sophisticated anime audience demands to know of its shounen anime. Dr. STONE doesn't actually answer all of these questions right away, but it acknowledges they exist. It seems I can expect to be watching this show for at least two cours, and it is paced accordingly. After seven episodes, the anime is only just now starting to introduce outside characters. Thankfully, they don't seem to be shouting literally all of their lines. One of them does appear to be totally dying of Key AIDS, though. P.S. Spoilers.

Is it racist to refer to those aliens as bananafish?

Actually, probably the real reason I haven't written about Star☆Twinkle Precure yet is because it's fine. I've watched every episode of Pretty Cure. It's been running non-stop for more than 15 years now. That is, quite frankly, a LOT of Pretty Cure. Most of the seasons are reasonably good. Some are great. And even the ones on the bottom of the list aren't actually bad. So it's not as if Star☆Twinkle Precure isn't good, it's just that I don't have much to say about it. What I should have done was provide a end-of-series write-up for Hugtto! Precure, because that was bananas. No promises, but maybe I'll go back and eventually give Hugtto! Precure a proper sendoff. At a minimum, I've got to say that Hugtto! Precure ended in a totally unique way that differed dramatically from how every other series in the franchise dealt with its main antagonist.

Bonus secondary transformation in episode 27.

Seeing as how Star☆Twinkle Precure is only a little past its halfway mark, there are plenty of opportunities left for it to go off the rails. I mean, its squad of legendary warriors already includes actual space aliens, one of which has so many different personas that I'm losing track of which one is her "real" one. It's arguably the embodiment of the idea SDS applies to Cure Sword. At a minimum, it has a lot of diversity and no shortage of new ideas. However, through 27 episodes, I'm still waiting for Star☆Twinkle Precure to do something dramatic enough that I'll want to revisit it in the years to come. That's surely not a fair demand to place on the latest installment of a show intended for small children—one that's been running since 2004, but that's at least where I'm at in 2019.

Well, it's been another year.

Sure are a lot of TYPE-MOON characters with crazy eyes.

There's a non-zero chance I started watching Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo {Rail Zeppelin} Grace note (The Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II) because I dropped Tsuujou Kougeki ga Zentai Kougeki de Ni-kai Kougeki no Okaasan wa Suki desu ka? (Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?) and Uchi no Ko no Tame Naraba, Ore wa Moshikashitara Maou mo Taoseru Kamo Shirenai. (For My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat a Demon Lord), leaving my queue empty of shows with super-long titles (unless you count Symphogear). Besides, The Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II features Ueda Reina in the voice cast, production by TROYCA, and I'm basically too far down TYPE-MOON's Fate-franchise rabbit hole to not at least give new installments a chance. Speaking of which, I'm going to go ahead and say newcomers can forget about trying to get up to speed on all the Fate mumbo jumbo before watching this. Someone going in blind with no prior knowledge of the Fate universe can get by well enough. Although it would probably help to at least watch Fate/Zero, I don't think it's strictly necessary, based on how I'm faring despite having forgotten a lot about Fate/Zero by now. Frankly, there's just entirely too much Fate canon to explore, and it goes back so far that it's not really reasonable to expect new viewers to have seen all the previous installments before starting Rail Zeppelin.

Hey, it's that guy.

Thankfully, the first six episodes (this includes the episode 0 special prequel) of Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo {Rail Zeppelin} Grace note have been fairly episodic, and free of the wall-to-wall nonsense that saturates all things Fate. (E.g., the series does explain eventually what the fuck a "Rail Zeppelin" is.) So far, The Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II has been about, well, the case files of Lord El-Melloi II. It's a detective show featuring mages set a little before the start of the Holy Grail War from the original Fate/stay night game and its direct anime adaptations. I get the feeling this isn't necessarily going to remain the case for much longer, because surely a show set in the Fate universe isn't going to go too long without piling on more convoluted, interconnected plot threads, right? Even Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya wasn't able to resist lore's allure. Frankly, I'd be content if Lord El-Melloi II Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note remained mostly an excuse for TYPE-MOON cameos, but I'm fine with it either way.