Relax, he's fine.

I don't regard myself as part of the Sword Art Online fandom, a demographic I associate with "newer" anime fans (newer than me, okay), but at the same time I think I'm much less critical of the franchise than most "old ass" anime fans. Pretty much all of the major criticisms of the anime and its source material are accurate, but I also take the position—somewhat—that it doesn't really matter. Not exactly high praise, indeed, but perhaps sufficient to establish that I am happy to watch Sword Art Online: Alicization, yet not particularly enthused that it is reportedly going to be about 50 episodes long.

Asuna is the best-dressed guest at this hosptial.

I think I've already been spoiled on most of the major Alicization plot developments. At least nothing in first five scene-setting episodes seemed unexpected. This does make me wonder what it is about the show that I'm even anticipating, though. Potentially, I'm only watching because Sword Art Online is a big property and I'm motivated to stay up to date since I've seen all of the anime thus far already. That could be it, but there are plenty of big shows that I've simply abandoned or ignored completely.

If you didn't watch the SAO: Ordinal Scale movie, you may be confused why Yui is here.

I can't even claim to be watching it for the characters, since I'm only modestly fond of Asuna and Yui and basically ambivalent about everyone else, at best. All those jokes about MORE DEBAN? Yeah, I don't really care if y'all get more deban or not. Oh, I also like the character who died of AIDS, but I'm not expecting her to make an appearance in SAO: Alicization. You know, because she already died of AIDS. At least I think Kajiura Yuki is still doing the music, so there you go; that'll be my motivation for dragging myself through this show for the next year.

She'll make point five past lightspeed.

If you've been paying attention to the anime Twitter, you've probably noticed the flood of Takarada Rikka pictures. Rikka is a character from SSSS.GRIDMAN who is notable for having unusually large thighs for a tiny anime girl, and also for wearing a long sweater that makes it appear as if she is not wearing any pants. It seems The Fandom deemed this to be a noteworthy combination, and fan artists took note. P.S. Fuck pants.

You know, I should probably get some blue-light-filtering glasses.

With regard to SSSS.GRIDMAN itself, there is also a bit of buzz about the show since it is a Studio Trigger production that adapts the '90s television series Denkou Choujin Gridman (Gridman the Hyper Agent). I'm not familiar with this series, but I am familiar with Studio Trigger staff's penchant for moments of occasional greatness. (Likewise, I'm also familiar with their penchant for disappointing overly optimistic fans.) Through four episodes, I am enjoying it more than I liked DARLING in the FRANXX from spring and summer 2018, at least.

This railroad apartment was the perfect place.

The highlight of SSSS.GRIDMAN for me, as you might expect, is the Ueda Reina-voiced Shinjo Akane. I am 100% Team Akane, although she does occasionally kill innocent anime girls. Even more concerning, she's a bit of a slob and inexplicably seems to never take out her garbage. I guess at least it's all bagged, but sheesh. To tell you the truth, I'm not entirely certain whether I find Akane appealing because she's voiced by Ueda Reina or if it's because she's a psychopath, but I suppose there isn't any reason why it can't be both.

Man, what is it with anime girls and libraries?

I started watching Seishun Buta Yarō wa Bunny Girl-senpai no Yume wo Minai (The Young Pig-Rascal Isn't Dreaming of a Bunny Girl Upperclassman or Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai) because it had a bunny girl. True story. Also because its description sounded chuuni as fuck. It turns out it does have a bunny girl and it is, in fact, chuuni as fuck. There are also straightfaced explanations about Schrödinger's cat early on in the show, but I guess that's all right, since everyone heard about it for the first time in some venue or another. I suppose there's no harm in young viewers learning about it for the first time through this anime.

Bionic-JK. pic.twitter.com/pelo332G3G

— 深井涼介 (@fpworks) December 2, 2017

There's this artist on the Twitter and the Pixiv who, over the span of several years, has published numerous illustrations of "Girls with Guns" doing fan-friendly type things. The artist does draw other things as well, including a fair amount of TYPE-MOON stuff, but the "Bionic Joshi Kosei" seems to be one of the more successful original characters in FP Works' ARMS NOTE portfolio. So much so that there's already a Figma of the character, and now pre-orders are available for a 1/7th scale figurine scheduled for release later in October 2018.

Nice shoes.

The Bionic JK figurine is listing for ¥17,900 (something like $170), which seems sort of incredible to me, but possibly (probably) I'm just completely out of touch when it comes to how much these sort of things cost in general. In any case, I'm all in favor of supporting artists who promote their original works, particularly when they're delivering GAME-BREAKING HOME RUNS, so I encourage all y'all to get in on this if girls with guns and collecting anime figures both intersect with your particular interests. It's only $170. What else were you gonna do with that money anyway?

I can't claim these are the most memorable Cures of the franchise.

Hugtto! Precure is about a quarter of the way through its (presumably) year-long run, so we should have a pretty good sense as to what sort of Pretty Cure it is. In contrast with its predecessor, Kirakira☆Pretty Cure à la Mode, Hugtto! is notably more violent. At least there is significantly more melee in the fights again. This was immediately apparent in its first appearance during the crossover cameo at the end of the Kirakira run, as that series quite obviously avoided direct punching and kicking—probably more so than any other Precure generation thus far. (Kirakira sure was happy to lean way into the emotional trauma side of things, though.) In any case, the return of fancy beatdowns is a welcome development.

Drills are a girl's romance.

Adult Swim aired the first episode of FLCL Alternative in Japanese with English subtitles five months early as an April Fool's prank. That is, the first episode of the third season before any of the second season episodes had aired. Those anxious about potential spoilers can probably rest easy knowing nothing depicted or revealed in this episode struck me as potentially volatile spoiler material, although I can't rule out the possibility that it contained huge spoilers for the yet unaired second season, FLCL Progressive. Although no longer a Gainax property (as I understand it anyway) the tone and themes of this leaked (technically not leaked) episode fit the character and qualities I associate with the original OVA series from 2000 and 2001, albeit toned down to be a bit less high-test wacky.

ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!

Speaking of the original FLCL I also had the opportunity to re-watch this series via its inexpensive Blu-ray set. (The whole set cost me less than what I paid for each of the original three Synch-Point DVDs, and I didn't even have to journey out to GAMERS in Westwood to buy it.) The original FLCL absolutely holds up, and remains as good as I remember. If anything, it's even better now, since there were a number of references I didn't recognize originally, and I'm able to contextualize many of the scenes better nowadays. In any case, I highly encourage all y'all to re-watch the original at some point before starting with FLCL Progressive when it begins in June. Those of you who have never seen it obviously should rectify that as well.