Dude needs a haircut.

The Munou na Nana (Talentless Nana) anime is schlock, but I mean that in the best possible way. Whether or not the Death Note anime actively encourages its viewers to regard it in a serious light, its fans certainly have a tendency to embrace that perspective and hold it high regard. I acknowledge it's somewhat unfair to judge an anime based on its fans, but even after more than a decade, it remains difficult to sever Death Note from its fandom, so I think the association is at least sort of justified. Munou na Nana, on the other hand, I started watching basically on a whim after seeing this admonition on the Twitter. Immediately thereafter came warnings that the manga is rated relatively poorly and also still ongoing, suggesting the single-cours anime's conclusion is likely to be disappointing.

See, just like Jesus.

Whether or not that turns out to be the case, I'm at least enjoying Munou na Nana quite a bit for the time being. It's somewhat silly, and the juxtaposition between the internal monologues and the outward facades presented publicly is probably excessive, but that's also part of why I enjoy the show. I don't take Talentless Nana especially seriously, and I don't feel as if I'm expected to either. That was definitely not the case with Death Note, which was an all right show despite its serious tone, but not a great show because of it. Why am I even comparing Talentless Nana and Death Note at all? Because both shows concur on one of the great truths that transcend anime: Some people need killing.

Kasumi is a treasure trove of facial expressions.

In addition to Senyoku no Sigrdrifa and Assault Lily: BOUQUET, I've also dropped Tonikaku Kawaii (TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You), Love Live! Nijigasaki Gakuen School Idol Doukoukai (Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club), Guraburu! (Grand Blues!), and Kimi to Boku no Saigo no Senjou, Aruiwa Sekai ga Hajimaru Seisen (Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World). Damn, these are some long titles. Of this batch, only Last Crusade is legitimately bad. The rest of them I would watch during a duller season.

Dude's wife is a saint for putting up with this shit.

In the case of TONIKAWA, it's fine when Nasa isn't freaking out, but he freaks out a lot, and I don't see much benefit in putting up with this when I could just read the manga instead. These sorts of reactions are much more tolerable in print than as anime.

Love Live! Nijigasaki is probably really just on hold, and not actually dropped, since I've seen every other Love Live! thing that's out there. Then again, the franchise will probably continue to churn out new properties for some time, and I certainly don't feel obligated to watch those future installments. The characters are sort of dull, though. I probably would not be dropping Nijigasaki otherwise.

Guraburu! seems fine, and each episode is only a few minutes long, so it's not as if there would be much of a commitment to continue watching. However, it's clearly aimed at people who play the Granblue Fantasy game, so I'm wasn't getting much out of it.

Wide car.

Kimi to Boku no Saigo no Senjou, Aruiwa Sekai ga Hajimaru Seisen put more effort into the title than the show itself. Really, it's not even worth explaining. It's as unimpressive—if not worse—than the trailer suggested. I somehow still watched three episodes for Tenchan, though.

The Asuna and Alice Synthesis Thirty color schemes are purely coincidental.

The implication behind the saying "beware the man with one gun" is that such a person is more likely to have a higher degree of expertise with it thanks to narrowly focused specialization. In contrast, someone who pursues variety also ends up diluting proficiency. I was reminded of this maxim by this recent sequence of posts on the Twitter wherein a relatively prolific blogger peers into the world of mechanical keyboard acquisition, with mixed results. I mention this because it often seems the acquisition of mechanical keyboards mostly leads to further acquisitions for acquisition's sake.

I said it's a coincidence.

I do encourage the use of mechanical keyboards and believe they improve typing performance, but I concede the marginal benefits drop off quickly if one starts chasing perfection. Nevertheless, I'll admit I have "more than one gun," despite using an IBM Model M (specifically, a Part Number 1391401 built in 1991) as my primary keyboard for literally decades now. I also started exploring mechanical keyboard variations knowing I'll never find a keyboard I like nearly as much as a Model M, let alone one that provides any actual typing advantage, but somehow I've still acquired a probably unnecessary number of them. At least the switches and features in this collection are all different, so the pursuit is not entirely aesthetic. That's the next level which I can at least claim to have avoided.

That hair is bad, though.

Since I only update on a weekly basis now, the Autumn 2020 anime season hit its midpoint before I got around to commenting on all the shows I've followed this cours. I've already dropped Assault Lily: BOUQUET, for example. Additionally, I've probably also dropped Senyoku no Sigrdrifa (Warlords of Sigrdrifa). Both shows did things I liked, too. But in the case of Sigrdrifa, I still have not made time to watch the second episode, and I'm not sure when I actually will. It didn't seem bad, so I guess my excuse for dropping it will be how that one pilot's bangs hang in front of her right eye.

I can't believe y'all adopted the Sœur System.

In the case of Assault Lily: BOUQUET, it took me weeks to get around to watching the second episode, and I just wasn't very interested. I did find it amusing that this was Lillian Girls Academy from Marimite except with wild anime fights. Also, I was genuinely impressed by the animation. I would very likely be watching it still had this come out during a normal season, but there are just too many other shows to watch right now.

He had it coming.

Some of the shows I covered in previous posts (1st, 2nd, 3rd) included remakes and sequels or continuations. Well, there are more. Golden Kamuy also resumed this season. It's described as the third season, but really it's just the third cours of series. The anime remains as good as ever, thanks to the strength of the source material. In fact, the anime has improved by thus far avoiding the 3DCG pitfalls that unfortunately distracted from the first cours.

Daigo is short.

Major 2nd S2 remains consistently good as anyone who has ever followed the franchise would expect. The current arc again revisits events from the first season of Major 2nd, but it should still be accessible to new viewers. Well, they can be new to Major, but it probably helps to know at least a little about baseball. At a minimum, it will reinforce how relatively lucky the new girl has been so far despite making a lot of basic mistakes.

This is not actually a room.

One Room is also back for a third season. It's first-person-anime gimmick seems a bit lewder this time around than I remember from the previous installments. However, it's still fairly tame even though the first girl found an excuse to whip off her clothes by the second episode. I guess since the characters only gets three episodes for each arc they have to make the best of their opportunities.

Strike Witches is still Miyafuji's show.

Going the other way, Strike Witches: Dai-501 Tougou Sentou Koukuudan ROAD to BERLIN (the third "proper" season of Strike Witches) is definitely less lewd now compared to how it started out. The first season of Strike Witches featured uncensored casual nudity on a fairly regular basis. This season started with an appearance by Sakamoto Mio wearing pants, of all things. PANTS!

The childhood friend has good hair.

In addition to the shows described in the first and second installments, I am also following Kamisama ni Natta hi (The Day I Became a God). I find its comic timing better than the jokes themselves, but that already makes it better than most other anime comedies. This is also a Key anime, so some sort of trauma is assured by the show's end. It's probably not for everyone, but it's one of the better offerings this season so far.

Rena seems sort of upset about something.

I only watched the first episode of the 2006 Higurashi no Naku Koro ni anime, and basically know nothing about the franchise except that it involves lots of murder and possibly time loops? However, I am willing to give 2020's Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - Gou (Higurashi: When They Cry – Gou) a try even though its first three episodes haven't especially impressed me. I'm not even sure why the Gou part of the title needed to be hidden until after the second episode. In any case, it's an excuse for more Yukino Satsuki (see also YashaHime), and I'll presumably enjoy the show more as the mystery develops.

I still don't know why specifically a bear suit, though.

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear (localized as The Bears Bear a Bare Kuma in English because each Kuma is written differently in the original Japanese title) is a silly show. Events within the first two episodes occurred non-chronologically, but I think that made the first episode more interesting. It's not really fursuit One Punch Man, but I at least enjoy Yuna's unconcerned reactions to fairly absurd events. Incidentally, I'm also enjoying Kawase Maki as Yayoi in Major 2nd S2, so she could be a seiyuu to watch for in the future.

Chicks love handkerchiefs.

Kimi to Boku no Saigo no Senjou, Aruiwa Sekai ga Hajimaru Seisen (Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World) is sort of terrible. Like, I don't even feel motivated to point out the parts it really gets wrong. I will mention, though, that it cast Amamiya Sora in the sort of dignified princess roles she was initially known for (e.g., Asseylum from Aldnoah.Zero) before everyone realized Tenchan's true calling was loudmouthed shitbag roles (like Aqua from Konosuba). I'm pretty sure I'm only giving the anime a chance because someone on the Twitter said something nice about the light novels once, but there's also a good chance I've mixed it up with a completely different title.

The front of Nanao's uniform reminds me of a Heinz bottle.

Adding onto this post about shows airing during the Autumn 2020 cours, my early top show is Munou na Nana (Talentless Nana) which had a surprisingly solid first episode, albeit one that relied on breaking from expectations, so you're better off avoiding spoilers and watching the first episode blind. Unfortunately, it looks as if the source manga isn't rated highly, so potentially the story doesn't fare so well later on. More optimistically, perhaps the low scores are merely due to problems the anime adaptation can fix.

The horror of an anime bed made of concrete.

I'm more pessimistic about Maou-jou de Oyasumi (Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle) which is one of those shows with a neat idea that runs the risk of wearing out its welcome if it turns out to only offer one basic joke that it repeats ad infinitum. I think the source manga remains well liked, so maybe I should have more faith it its potential for creativity.

I don't even know why Inuyasha himself is a dog except that it's in his name.

Despite being almost entirely ignorant about InuYasha, I'm reasonably sure its sequel (spinoff?) will probably be at least sort of good thanks to having a respectable pedigree. Kyoukai no Rinne is actually the only Takahashi Rumiko thing I've ever seen, but that was pretty good. Her other works are popular, and I remember people being nuts for InuYasha back in the day, so Hanyou no Yashahime (Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon) at least has odds in its favor.

Mi casa es Tsukasa.

Tonikaku Kawaii (TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You) also has a pedigree, but not one quite as good. It has probably already referenced its creator's other works a few times by now unbeknownst to me, though. The first two episodes were fine, but not outstanding, and I'm already quite tired of Potato-kun's penchant for freaking out. It's one of those "comic" behaviors that isn't as objectionable in manga form, but doesn't translate well to anime. I'm also worried a bunch of wacky cockblockers will move in with the couple. In fact, I can probably think of a whole lot of different ways this could go wrong, even though I think the manga remains popular. There are a lot of shows this season, so I'm not going to be as patient with it as I might have been just a few months ago.

2D & 3DCG integration during the all-signing, all-dancing parts finally look right.

A new anime season is upon us again. Every quarter, I assess which shows I expect to watch during the upcoming season and add them to my animetrics table. However what actually seems to happen is that I just watch whatever comes out first, providing it's not shounen jive or something that looks super bad. In the past, I would write up a comprehensive post that summarizes every show that I sampled, but those days are long gone now.

Are you Best Girl? You sort of seem like you might be Best Girl.

What I can do, though, is draw your attention to a few of the bright spots from this first batch. Unexpectedly, the launch of a new Love Live installment caught me by surprise. I knew one was in the works, but somehow missed that it was starting in October. I don't actually regard myself as a Love Live fan, but I have seen all of it and I guess I'm going to watch Love Live! Nijigasaki Gakuen School Idol Doukoukai (Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club) too. The first episode was about what I would have expected from a new Love Live spinoff, but I can at least identify three highlights: (1) The somen joke was genuinely amusing. (2) The character who I expected to suffer from debilitating shyness seems to merely be kuudere. (3) The aggravated red-eyed girl at the end made faces I enjoyed.

Flan has a better hat, but she's been a witch longer than Elaina.

Majo no Tabitabi (Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina) had the best first episode of the shows I sampled. [Update: I wrote this before I watched Munou na Nana (Talentless Nana), the new champ. It's worth checking out, but I suggest going in blind to avoid spoilers.] The visuals look fantastic, and the episode itself did not go the way I expected, so I'm hopeful that the rest of the show will continue to remain interesting. I also like witches and big hats, and this show had witches AND big hats, so that's a bonus.

I don't think it's actually Claudia's fault everyone keeps dying.

Finally (for now), I'm going to mention that Senyoku no Sigrdrifa (Warlords of Sigrdrifa) has airplanes and tolerable lore. The dogfights are nice (albeit with handwaved physics), but they are not as spectacular as in The Magnificient KOTOBUKI. (Admittedly, that's a really high bar.) One serious potential problem is they're basically fighting the Neuroi from Strike Witches. Those types of adversaries are basically never interesting, so this could be a liability for Sigrdrifa too. One thing I am curious about, though, is why the anime appeared to cast Kayano Ai and Horie Yui in what seemed like unimportant bit parts. I can't tell if there's no meaning to it, or if it reveals these characters will actually take on much greater importance as the show develops. I guess I'm going to have to stick around to find out.