It helps that I like all the characters.

I enjoy the [Oshi No Ko] manga (localized as My Star, or My Favorite Idol, among other titles), so I'm pleased the anime adaptation is also going well. The manga is one of those stories that I happen to think is really good, but is constantly teetering on the verge of potentially going really poorly if it takes a couple of missteps. If anything, an anime adaptation for something like this is even more precarious, with additional opportunities to straight fuck it up.

Akane is a later arrival to the show, but also excellent.

Thankfully, it's getting everything right so far. It even took the unusual step of making its first episode 90 minutes long so that it could conclude with The Thing No One Will Talk About. It seems an odd spoiler to dance around, seeing as how important it is to shaping the rest of the (still ongoing) story, but I guess I'm doing it too, albeit mostly because everyone else has thus far. It's a conspiracy of silence!

It's not easy being a superstar.

Anyway, [Oshi No Ko] is about contemporary show business dynamics. I don't know how accurately it is depicting the production and public interactions side of things, but I at least enjoy feeling as if I'm getting an insider's perspective. It's the same sort of reason why I liked Shiorobako and Otaku no Video. Don't get me wrong—I'm also in it for the revenge plot that I guess I'm not talking about. I do love me some revenge.

Weird how your dad never mentioned murdering all those people.

The viewpoints I see about Kidou Senshi Gundam: Suisei no Majo (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury) in my sliver of the anime fandom uniformly vilify Prospera, differing only in the intensity of the condemnations. However, I still regard her as a protagonist. I also support her quest for revenge even though I'm uncertain as to the specifics of her plan. (Spoilers henceforth for the first 17 episodes.)

You're not young Bel, right?

A significant factor responsible for this (apparently minority) view is my unwillingness to minimize Delling Rembran's role orchestrating and initiating the mass murder depicted in the "PROLOGUE" episode. I don't believe there's been any meaningful attempt to justify the assault, so I'm mystified this doesn't come up more often. It's as if viewers collectively shrugged and concluded it was all right because we barely knew those people.1

You don't always recognize the last time you'll see a loved one when it happens.

Elnora Samaya, of course, did know those people. She escaped with four-year-old Ericht as the facility's sole survivors while cold-blooded killers butchered her husband, her mentor, and everyone at Fólkvangr. (I'm unsure how many died in total, but it seems like dozens.) Consequently, this factor shapes my perspective about everything Elnora has done (and has been accused of doing) in her Propsera guise. To be clear, I also do not perceive her purported transgressions as being especially egregious. The worst accusations I can levy involve emotional manipulation, but assigning blame exclusively to Prospera for the actions others take strips agency away from those victims and reduces them to mere instruments.

I guess she doesn't have a shitload of Suletta pictures decorating her desk.

Granted, I'm taking Prospera at her word when she offers explanations or insights.2 For example, I assume Ericht really was dying and that Elnora did not turn her into a child-Gundam chimera for Fullmetal Alchemist reasons. I'm also accepting Prospera's explanation to Miorine in episode 14 about enrolling Suletta to fulfill her wish of attending school while keeping her in a safe(r) environment as sincere. Likewise, I scrutinize her role as a mother through the same lens Suletta uses. Every on-screen interaction (and every historical one, according to Suletta's beaming admiration) appears authentic. Although, Prospera is possibly playing a long con, and has devoted considerable energy for decades to deceive and exploit her own daughter(s) in pursuit of a convoluted revenge plan.

See, Suletta trusts her.

Maybe Prospera's true face (as it were) will be revealed and she'll get her comeuppance when Suletta (and Ericht) turn on her, but I'm not sure I find this prospect convincing. This is partly because I don't know the particular specifics of her revenge plan. After all, Prospera has had at least some opportunities to stab Delling in the neck, so simply offing him doesn't seem to be the primary objective.3

I do find it odd they use portable data-storage devices.

Moreover, I'm increasingly cognizant that The Tempest ends with a wedding, not a bloodbath. I'm disinclined to believe G-Witch will end with Elnora in ruin, and Delling triumphant. However, I'm also skeptical the conclusion will adopt the forgiveness aspects from The Tempest, particularly since Prospero's betrayal involved a loss of authority, not the literal murder of everyone he cared about. I'm pro-revenge enough that I would find such a finale distasteful, almost as a matter of principle.

Note 1: E.g., "What Delling did to that lesbian couple was objectively terrible, but not subjectively so because they weren't 'our' lesbian couple."

Note 2: Maybe she's manipulating me.

Note 3: I have no idea how Quiet Zero fits into this.

The presence of Chomusuke is also underexplained.

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Bakuen wo! (Konosuba: An Explosion on This Wonderful World!) is a prequel about Megumin's magic school days before she met Kazuma and the rest of the regular Konosuba! cast. There is a lot of good stuff in it, and I enjoy watching it, but it's not really a great show on its own. Specifically, there doesn't seem to much of a narrative, and the various plot lines come across as sort of disjointed. Basically, random events happen, sometimes centering on side characters with no meaningful ties to Megumin, and it's all "fine," but it doesn't result in an especially satisfying anime.

It's weird more Crimson Demons don't adhere to Megumin's views on Explosion Magic.

Now, I did say there's good stuff in Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Bakuen wo! that I like. Megumin herself is great. She's an overachiever in a society that not only sincerely values style over substance, it encourages its members to engage in the deepest chuuni bullshit. I love me some Megumin. However, the closest thing An Explosion on This Wonderful World! has to character arcs involve her relationship with the Yunyun. Within Konosuba! proper, Yunyun mostly serves as the punchline to cruel jokes about her lack of friends. However the deeper the prequel establishes Yunyun's ties with Megumin, the less funny her poor treatment becomes.

If you humanize Yunyun, we'll feel bad for her.

In fact, I'm starting to feel as if Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Bakuen wo! would have been better off pulling a bait-and-switch on the audience. Get all of us on board by making us think that it's going to be a Megumin anime, but then portray the entire series from Yunyun's point of view while minimizing their interactions. That's obviously not practical for a number of reasons, not least of which is because Explosion Magic Is Best Magic ~The Animation~ is an adaptation of a spin-off light novel and presumably adheres to established source material. I don't know how straightforward the adaptation is, but it would explain the structural issues I have with the anime if it turns out it's skipping beats from the books.

Ship girls as a concept still seems weird if I think about it.

After multiple production delays, the eighth and final episode of KanColle: Itsuka Ano Umi de (KanColle: Someday in that Sea, alternatively, KanColle: Let's Meet at Sea) aired on 25 March 2023. Being an outsider who is unfamiliar with the game, the second season of the Kantai Collection anime made me wonder whether its tone is reflected in the gameplay. It's been a while since I watched the first season and the movie, but I don't remember either of them being so consistently serious throughout. It would be easy to say the tonal shift is because so many ships "die," but at the same time it feels as if the series tries to soften the loss the way a parent might lie to small children by saying beloved pets have gone off to live happily on a faraway farm. Unless they really did go to a farm?

Ship girls sure age well.

Ultimately, I can't claim the second season of Kantai Collection was a good anime for anyone other than viewers who really wanted lingering shots of Shigure doing Shigure-type things. I don't mean to imply that the show is full of cheesecake and fan service. It's not—not at all. Rather, I mean that this short series felt like I was flipping through a photo album that captured memories of her experiences during the war.

Shigure DIES. P.S. Spoilers.

Incidentally, I suppose I should acknowledge Kancolle's ties to World War II. Naturally, since the adversaries in its world are fictional "Abyssals" instead of the Allied powers, key events were re-imagined so that certain outcomes differed from their real-world counterparts. (It also allowed for the sort of cameos you might expect under these conditions.) Does this make the montages at the end of the final episode more or less poignant? Once again, as an outsider, it's not clear to me at all. Nevertheless, I appreciate the franchise for what it is, and I'm curious what the future has in store for it.

He can't be that hurt. His bandages aren't even bloody.

I decided to watch REVENGER because it was characterized as a Urobuchi Gen anime. The stereotypes and baggage associated with Urobuchi-type anime is frequently negative, but I generally find those complaints either overblown or incorrectly attributed. I don't like everything that has his name attached, but REVENGER seemed like a safe bet. Well, it's not great. I didn't care about any of the lead characters, and I wasn't exactly moved by the plights of their clients. Even the prospect of watching deadbeats getting assassinated in unnecessarily complicated ways each week didn't seem interesting enough for me to continue watching, alas.

Nice chair.

I did not have high expectation for Spy Kyoushitsu (Spy Classroom). However, I did like the promotional art, and the cast includes a lot of seiyuu who I enjoy, so I thought it would at least be worth a chance, even if it turned out to be a forgettable, mediocre affair. Well, the first episode wasn't awful, but it did make me dread watching more. That's a pretty quick drop for a season in which I'm following relatively few shows, but maybe I'll give it another try if I encounter reliable reports later about the anime turning itself around.

I wonder if she has her eyes open.

I look forward to Bocchi the Rock! each week because it's excellent, not because I'm anticipating big surprises or anxiously awaiting the resolution of cliffhangers. If I thought about it some more, I could probably reasonably chart out how the rest of the season is going to go, but it doesn't matter. The key to Bocchi's tremendous appeal is its impeccable execution. This is a great show, top to bottom, back to front.

Despite what you might think, this gesture is definitely threatening.

I'm not quite prepared to call Kidou Senshi Gundam: Suisei no Majo (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury) a great show even though it's also doing everything well so far. Nevertheless, I do look forward to each episode even more than I look forward to Bocchi the Rock! each week. I think the biggest contributing factor is that Witch Gundam has greater potential for unpredictable (and unsettling) developments. Even though it's been good so far, basically anything can happen because it's Gundam and because there aren't really any constraints on the possible directions the story may take.

Chu-squared is one of the good people, okay.

In light of this distinction, is it worth pointing out Bocchi the Rock! is about a character with anxiety, whereas Witch Gundam is about generating anxiety in the viewer? I suppose it's not really about generating anxiety, but I don't think I'm alone in experiencing some apprehension as to how the series will play out. I do mean this in a good way, though. Consequently, on some level, this means I look forward to Bocchi the Rock! each week because I'm eager to see good things to happen to good people, while I look forward to Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury because I'm concerned bad things might happen to good people.

He'll be fine.

I haven't seen much discussion of Summertime Render during its two-cours run. This is understandable due to, ah, let's just say, "a variety of reasons," but it is sort of a shame because it's one of the better anime I've watched during 2022 so far. It's not the best one, but it's at least in good company, even if I can't quite figure out whether it's supposed to be Summertime Render, Summer Time Render, Summertime Rendering, or Summer Time Rendering. What a mess.

Ushio spends much of the show only wearing a swimsuit, but she gets by.

I started watching it because I figured it was going to be an anime about a ghost girlfriend haunting Potato-kun. It turns out it's more about time loops and the challenges faced when confronted by an adversary who is also able to exploit time loops. The events and where they fit in the timeline start to get somewhat complex, and does require a fair amount of attention if the viewer hopes to keep track of who knows what at each particular point in time. Fortunately, the characters have ways of copying and transfering memories quickly, so the show doesn't get bogged down with constant exposition to bewildered accomplices.

I like Mio's SAKANA shirt.

There is still one episode left in the Summertime Render anime, and I have no idea whether this will be mostly an epilogue, or whether it's going to be a high-intensity scramble to wring out the best-possible outcome from one last opportunity. Hell, I haven't even ruled out the chance that it's going to conclude the series on a cliffhanger. This is a cliffhanger-heavy show in general, so it would be in keeping with the tone of many of the previous episodes. Expect some griping on my part if that happens, though. Still, the source manga has concluded, so things will probably be fine for the final episode. Probably. Maybe.

This fucker is too stupid to live. And yet....

I haven't checked if Overlord season four is adapting a proportionally greater amount of the source material than the previous seasons did, but it feels like it. The anime has covered a lot of ground at breakneck speed, and it appears the remaining episodes will bring us all the way to the end of volume 14 (at least based on the content in the OP). Notably, the anime has already skipped past the Holy Kingdom arc that will be covered by the upcoming movie.

GET HYPED

For anime-only viewers, this timeskip occurs without explanation. Unfortunately for anyone relying solely on in-show context to fill in the gaps when it comes to events and organizations not explicitly depicted in the TV anime thus far, there is a fairly significant error that appeared in the official subtitles for episode eight of season four. Specifically, the Holy Kingdom and the Slaine (Slane) Theocracy are treated as being one and the same. They are not. It's an understandable mistake if the translation team is working without the benefit of knowing what the movie will cover, since the Holy Kingdom hasn't been previously introduced in the anime at all, while the Theocracy has been a fixture since the first season.

This old dude.

To clarify, the Kingdom is the country that has featured most prominently in Overlord so far. It's called the Kingdom because, you know, it has a king (the old dude). Last season and this season, there's also the Empire. This is the country with (can you guess?) an Emperor (the young blond guy who is stressed out all the time). We don't know that much about the Theocracy, but they seem to be religious douchebags who deserve to get thrashed. The Holy Kingdom is the country receiving humanitarian aid (the grain that Philip steals) from our intrepid heroes.

This stressed-out guy.

The Crunchyroll's subtitles mistakenly refer to the Holy Kingdom as the Theocracy, which is incorrect and wildly confusing because Nazarick regards the Theocracy as an adversary and would have no reason to provide it with humanitarian aid. [Update: They fixed it.] It's spoilers for the upcoming movie, but I'll leave it up to your imagination to discern why the Holy Kingdom would need humanitarian aid. (Spoilers: Because it gets frickin' wrecked. This wouldn't have happened if y'all had more R.U.N.E.C.R.A.F.T.)