"Naofumi, what are we going to do inside the Shield Prison?"

Finding out that the cast of Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (The Rising of the Shield Hero) was joining Isekai Quartet did not exactly fill me with a lot of confidence about its second season (which inexplicably isn't called Isekai Quintet), but it's been okay so far. Then again, the Shield Hero cast hasn't been in the first four episodes very much. Most of my trepidation derives from my fairly negative impressions of Shield Hero as a show (I watched 13 episodes), my lack of interest in the characters, and the rather defensive attitude the franchise's more vocal supporters seem to adopt on the Twitter. These did not seem to be ideal additions to a comedy about characters being portrayed as dipshits.

Aqua is sort of racist, to tell you the truth.

Naturally, the Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! cast fits right in, because they're dipshits to begin with. Aqua is a delight—so much so that I want retcons of other Tenchan roles except portrayed as basically Aqua analogs. (For example, Asseylum Vers Allusia from Aldnoah.Zero except with Aqua's personality and intelligence. You can't tell me Slaine's tragic loyalty to Aqua Vers Allusia wouldn't have improved the second season.) Given a choice, I'll definitely take idiots like Aqua over sourpusses like Naofumi when it comes to wacky comedy crossovers.

There's also an epilogue again with the characters grown up.

I liked Star☆Twinkle Precure well enough, but never got particularly enthused about it. This might be a sign of general Pretty Cure burnout, since I feel this way about each Pretty Cure iteration now more often than not, but standouts like Go! Princess Precure and Hugtto! Precure still recapture my attention, so I don't think I'm necessarily tired of the franchise as a whole. In any case, Star☆Twinkle Precure was "fine" and had good parts, but overall will end up towards the bottom if I'm pressed to rank every Pretty Cure season from most-to-least favorite, alas.

The new Cure seems very normal.

The final episode of Star☆Twinkle Precure introduced Cure Grace, the lead Cure of its successor season, Healin' Good ♡ Precure, as the series is now wont to do. I don't actually know much about Healin' Good ♡ Precure, because I haven't been following the reports about its development or seeking out the usual buzz that precedes upcoming seasons of Pretty Cure. I don't even know what the Healin' Good ♡ part of the name references, although I'm sort of hoping it's about improving cardiovascular fitness. Maybe Cure Grace will be joined by Cure Fartlek and Cure Pain Is Just Weakness Leaving the Body. Well, I guess I do know that Cure Grace is voiced by Yuuki Aoi, but it seems she's not using her Youjo Senki voice. It's a huge missed opportunity, honestly.

This is some compositing.

I tried watching Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu (Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-) when it aired during the Spring 2016 anime season. I made it five episodes before dropping it because I found the show rather irritating. Fast forward to the Spring 2019 anime season, and somehow Isekai Quartet finished at the top of my rankings, edging out Kono Oto Tomare! I did, in fact, expect this to happen. (The watching part, not the ranking part, that is.) I've made it through the first cours of Re:Zero so far, and do have to admit it improves quite a bit after the initial episodes.

Partial eclipse.

I'm a little surprised how few spoilers I knew, and how many I had forgotten. That probably helped, by preserving the sense of mystery that pervades the second half of the first cours. I do 100-percent still remember the Rem and Emilia spoiler which is still to come, though. However, since I don't actually 'ship any of the characters, knowing this probably isn't going to matter much one way or another. In any case, my renewed curiosity in Re:Zero is probably a testament to the success of Isekai Quartet as a marketing ploy. Seeing as how Isekai Quartet is getting a second season, with the promise of unspecified newcomers, I suppose it's possible the premise will expand to include more than just four Kadokawa-affiliated isekai properties, although then maybe they'll need to call the sequel something like Isekai Octet or whatever. I think I'd be okay with that.

It's because Ainz can't close his eyes. He has no eyelids.

As far as gimmicks go, I find Isekai Quartet fairly effective because I'm a sucker for crossovers. Plus, I was already a fan of the Ple Ple Pleiades shorts accompanying the Overlord anime. Isekai Quartet essentially expands Ple Ple Pleiades by adding characters from Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu, Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!, and Youjo Senki for additionally high-wacky antics. I have watched all of these shows, and although I dropped Re:Zero after five episodes, I'm at least familiar enough with the franchise to understand the basic references and character dynamics.

Ram seems okay.

As far as the show itself goes, Isekai Quartet has half-length episodes and is not particularly ambitious. It seems to mostly trust that viewers will enjoy seeing the interactions among characters from different shows they already like. Nobody strays too far from their idiom, and the series is entertaining enough for what it is. Isekai Quartet is surely also an effort to encourage viewers to explore these shows further if they didn't catch them the first time around. Youjo Senki and Konosuba both have movies I want to watch, and Re:Zero recently announced a sequel. I have to admit that I'm amused enough by Ram's mistreatment of Subaru during each episode of Isekai Quartet that I'm considering giving the first season of Re:Zero another chance. If I do, maybe I'll be caught up before the sequel begins. Just as planned, I'm sure, eh, Kadokawa.

Emi has an epiphany.

Infini-T Force is my surprise of the season, not because it was necessarily better than I was expecting, but rather because it got me to understand the appeal of its related superhero series and sentai-type antics in general. I typically have a very low tolerance for nonsense which I characterize as shounen jive. In particular, characters described as having "a strong sense of justice" irritate the Bejesus out of me and I usually avoid any such shows if at all possible out of general principle.

Literally the only costume in this series I recognized.

I've heard Infini-T Force compared to the CG cut scenes in a video game, and I suppose it does have that quality to it, but I am a total sucker for crossovers, so here I am. It would actually help a great deal if I had any idea who any of these characters were aside from Ken from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman and Casshern from...whatever it is Casshern is from. Casshern I only know of—not know about. The rest of the characters? I have no idea. I understand that I'm supposed to recognize them, because they are all anime heroes with cultural and historical import. But, c'mon, it was a long time ago, okay.

I do like the polka-dot dresses Emi's school uses for uniforms

Through four episodes, the show is all right, with a suitable amount of action and CGI mugging by the various heroes slumming with a poor little rich girl. Speaking of which, I don't believe Emi has any corresponding analogue in any of the heroes' original shows (and it seems the villains might not either). I'm not fully convinced she has a good reason to be so nihilistic (basically suicidal, really), but I do like she caused the MacGuffin to take the form of a giant novelty pencil. I also like that she calls Ken ossan even though he's probably, like, 25, tops. (He was a teenager in the original Gatchaman anime.) I do hope more characters show up for additional crossover shenanigans, but that seems less and less likely the more they talk about all the original worlds being destroyed. It sure seems they ought to be more distraught at the death of billions, but at least Emi's house is really warm and contains plenty of avocados. Plus their host is very aerodynamic. You gotta focus on the positive side.

This is because of anti-dakimakura prejudice.

Love Lab was a fairly successful comedy despite not having a lot of depth to its jokes. The basic premise is interesting (provided you don't have violent aversions to male characters in your all-girls-all-the-time anime), although the characters did not do as much with it as I had hoped. I think diverting so much attention away from the main effort and focusing instead on Riko's inability to confess about her lies was a mistake. As a consequence, it made the ending somewhat weak, whereas if the resolution had occurred during the mid-season mark there would have been more opportunities for meeting-boys hijinks.

Mixed success at being more feminine.

Despite its flaws, Love Lab still had enough charm to be enjoyable each week, even with a deadweight character or two. Where it really succeeds, however, is in breaking conventions regarding anime hair. I did not diligently catalog all the changes and variations (but surely some obsessive fan somewhere on the Internet has), but it seems Riko changes her hair style and accessories every episode and sometimes once or twice during each episode as well. Oddly enough, I was able to recognize her even though her hair accessories cum charm points weren't fixed. It's frankly more daring than anime characters who don't wear the same clothes every single day. In fact, I'm nominating Riko for 2013 Girl of the Year just for her hair alone.

Riko's Doritos duvet is pretty awesome.

Additionally, I wasn't really a fan of Hibiki's speaking voice in The iDOLM@STER but Numakura Manami's delivery as Riko works well in Love Lab, even though it still feels to me that Riko is a character of an in-iM@S-universe television show starring Ganaha Hibiki, if that makes any sense.

The Nyan Nyan waitress uniform is downright dirty.

The Macross Frontier folks should have just squeezed Nanase into a Buster Machine. Clear that Vajra problem right up.

At least we'll still have Sheryl Nome and her ridiculous outfits.

Actually, I heard Nanase's character was retconned out of existence entirely for the first Frontier movie, The False Diva, alas. Does this mean the only character to wear the Neo Nyan Nyan waitress outfit is Ranka? That's no good.