Tiny pictures are the way of love.

I don't know what I expected. Nine child idols do kid-type things. At least that's what THE IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls: U149 has been like for its first couple of episodes. This was especially true for the second episode because its focal point was one of the two nine-year-olds in the cast. Ostensibly, the U149 title refers to how all of the idols in this troupe are under 149 centimeters (4'11") in height. This is accurate, but they're all quite a bit under. The tallest is 145 centimeters (4'9") and the shortest is 128 centimeters (4'2"). And they are all kids. Five of the nine are 12, but none are older. Meaning, there are no token short adults in the cast (well, I guess their Producer). I.e., there is no equivalent to Baba Konomi from the Million Live! set.

The U149 office really does look like a daycare center.

I enjoy iDOLM@STER as a secondary (really, probably tertiary) fan, but I'm unsure I'll have a good reason to keep watching this. At least the focus episode for one of the two youngest characters is out of the way. Maybe I'll find the subsequent episodes more entertaining. Promising to have a steady stream of cameos from other Cinderella Girls characters is probably enough to keep me watching, but I'll appreciate U149 itself a lot more if it makes an effort to offer something more compelling. I hope there's more to this anime than predictable canned scenes. Will the sporty one get to talk about subjects that aren't purely intended to remind us she's the sporty one? Is Risa going to contribute anything to the series that does not involve lolicons? If U149 doesn't deliver actual content, then the show is going to drag.

I'm so disappointed you did not turn out to be a total cunt.

I would not still be watching SELECTION PROJECT if it did not share so many similarities with IDOLY PRIDE. (Spoilers throughout. Avert your eyes if you care.) Straight away, both shows feature troupes of newbie idols trying to make it big. Both shows have ALL CAPS titles. Both shows feature idols who die in a car accidents. Both shows feature idols who turn out to be the younger sisters of the dead idols. Both shows feature plot points about the sisters' complicated feelings of inferiority, guilt, and grief. Both shows feature idols who were transplant recipients of hearts donated from the dead idols. It's a whole thing. One notable difference: The dead idol from IDOLY PRIDE continues to hang around as a ghost, while the Hayamin-voiced idol from SELECTION PROJECT fucks off entirely after dying.

The OP is easily the best part of SELECTION PROJECT.

The big difference between the two shows, though, is that IDOLY PRIDE is surprisingly good, while SELECTION PROJECT sort of sucks. It is just not a good series, mostly because it is neither upbeat enough to enjoy for wacky idol activities nor downbeat enough to take seriously. It has camp elements, but none of them are amusing. It probably should have pared down its cast by at least half instead of filling the series with a lot of entirely undeveloped placeholders. The idol from Hokkaido is the worst offender. The poor girl literally has no scenes that do not involve food in some way.

Episode 11's epilogue ends on a mildly ominous note.

A smaller cast would have given SELECTION PROJECT more opportunities to develop the characters critical to its dramatic sequences. That it failed to do so stands in stark contrast to Love Live! Superstar!! which benefited significantly from its tighter-knit group. There is still one episode left in SELECTION PROJECT, so I suppose it might still manage to turn it around, but it seems almost certain SELECTION PROJECT will end up as just another uninspired, lackluster, below-average series that I'm not going to remember well later except for curiously sharing a lot of plot points with IDOLY PRIDE.

Don't ask the cat. The cat won't tell you.

I decided to watch Sonny Boy because it's an original anime and the promotional art featured a girl holding a cat in a weird way. Then it turned out there wasn't really much else from the Summer 2021 anime season that interested me aside from some sequels and continuations. I don't like to characterize anime seasons as being bad, but this season is much less good than most of its predecessors.

I can't believe so many of the boys are still wearing their ties.

Thankfully, Sonny Boy turned out to offer just the right amount of weirdness to keep me interested. I'm not sure if it will all come together at the end, but it's intriguing in the sort of way that should work if there's an actual planned conclusion. I'm at least confident it won't get dragged out for years like, uh, some American television shows I could name.

Asakaze got over this way faster than I would have.

After four episodes, I don't honestly know what's going on. Maybe today's episode will clear things up, but I'm not counting on it. On the plus side, I don't really feel the need for the series to explain what it's doing. Even if there aren't actually any clues I'm supposed to be stringing together, it's nice just to have something a little surreal every once in a while.

I'm a big fan of lying down doing nothing, but ya gotta get up sometimes.

Really, the only genuine issue I have is that I'm approaching my limit with regard to Potato-kun being a fucking dishrag with no motivation, no interests or desires, and no charisma. I don't know why anime dudes have gotta always be this way (if they're not overly intense spazzes who shout all their lines), but it's not great. On the plus side, the girl who was holding a cat weird in the promo art is fantastic.

It's hard work, but at least you get to smell like fish all the time now.

I'm guessing Shiroi Suna no Aquatope (Aquatope of White Sand) is pronounced "aqua taupe," but I suppose it's possibly "aqua toe pay." In any case, the show is fine, and looks really nice, but I lost interest in it pretty much just as I did with Sakura Quest, another P.A. Works series about working girls (not those sorts of working girls, okay). Objectively, I guess there's nothing Aquatope really did wrong. (I guess it would have helped had I been invested in the childbirth sequence in some way.) It's just not really my sort of thing.

Shiho may or may not have kicked a giant mouse in the butt.

I admit I was more interested in Aquatope's nefarious internal idol politics (as I was with Wake Up, Girls!) than I was in failing-aquarium moé. Presumably, that aspect will re-appear at some point, since it's a two-cours series, but it's not enough to keep me watching it week-to-week, either. This does mean I'm currently down to five and two-thirds shows to watch this season. That's low enough that I watched all of last season's Odd Taxi in, like, 48 hours. It turns out it's really good. And it totally has nefarious internal idol politics. And how.

This is how everyone sees Honda Tohru and yet people
still manage to be assholes to her.

It's sort of difficult to talk about Fruits Basket: The Final because it's a 13-episode conclusion in a 63-episode adaptation of a well-regarded 23-volume manga. It's also a do-over succeeding a 26-episode series from 20 years ago which was also really good even though the source material hadn't ended yet. So, there's a lot going on.

Is cat.

I do wish I had paid closer attention when I started watching this iteration of Fruits Basket when it began in 2019. There are a lot of characters, and there is a lot of setup, and I'm certain I missed a lot of subtleties early on. I suppose that is an argument in favor of re-watching the series, even if it is 63 episodes long, but that isn't going to happen until I've finally gotten around to reading the source material. It's gonna be a while.

This bedroom is fantastic.

Probably everyone who has heard about Fruits Basket also knows opinions about it are almost universally favorable. Likewise, anyone thinking about getting into the series probably knows at least as much as I did concerning what it's ostensibly "about" before I watched the first anime (the 2001 one with Hocchan). One thing that surprised me as I got deeper into the plot is how monstrous the zodiac aspects are regarded in-universe. They're not set up that way at the start of the series at all.

Look, a rotary phone.

I don't really want to write about Fruits Basket, since it's basically one of those shows where you can just sort of say, "Look, everyone says it's good. It is good. Just watch it." I can also see how it might not be for everyone. You have to have to have an appetite for romance and a tolerance for assholes. So many assholes. Honda Tohru is, like, the nicest, sweetest, goodest girl in the entire world and she's constantly surrounded by bitches being bitches and assholes being assholes. Back the fuck away from Honda Tohru, people.

People are also assholes to Machi.

I guess viewers also have to be okay with "problematic" 'ships. I don't know if this heightened anxiety is an actual sign of the times, or if it's just localized sensitivity found on the Twitter. There are multiple age-gap pairings. There are people being mean to the people they love. Honda Tohru's mom dies. It's a whole thing. I guess the Fruits Basket 'ships are less "problematic" than the ones in Card Captor Sakura, but if these are the sorts of things that genuinely bother you, shoujo might not be for you.

I don't dislike Miyafuji anymore, but these two still aren't exactly favorites.

It's been a while since I've watched the first two Strike Witches seasons, but I felt this third season seemed better overall than those previous installments. I also liked it better than the Brave Witches spinoff. Despite this, I'm still not at all prepared to call Strike Witches: Road to Berlin the best season yet even though it sort of has to be by definition. The problem is Road to Berlin still relied on the Neuroi as the primary advesary. This is an unavoidable component of the World Witches canon, but these alien invaders have never been compelling enemies. The witches need to fight somebody, but the battles still feel hollow and the stakes haven't grown as the war has progressed, despite a fair amount of dialogue trying to convince viewers that they have.

That sure is a lot of witches.

Thankfully, Strike Witches 3 at least avoided some of the even less convincing drama that dragged down parts of the first two seasons. Frankly, I rather enjoy the characters more when they're doing silly things in garrison such as in the Strike Witches: 501 Butai Hasshin Shimasu! (Strike Witches: 501st JOINT FIGHTER WING Take Off!) gag anime. This bodes well for next season's World Witches Hasshin Shimasu! (World Witches Take Off!) installment, although I think I would still prefer it use the standard superlovely character designs than the simpler comedy-friendly ones.

Ami's hair is probably shorter due to a bad breakup.

With nearly a full cour of The IDOLM@STER TV completed, I've decided to revise my iM@S baseball lineup. The most important change is Yukiho is no longer a narcoleptic like she was in Xenoglossia, but rather a cringing, terrified girl. If you think I'm starting someone like that on the mound, you're crazy. Yukiho rides the pine and possibly pinch runs. Cowards can run fast.

No pressure, Kotori.

Thankfully, we now have Kotori on the roster. Kotori is my new pitcher, and hopefully she and Ritsuko work together well enough to form an effective battery. I also hereby reaffirm my decision to name Miki as the relief pitcher. She's made a habit of coming to the rescue in the current series, so I'm confident she can put out fires and pull the 765PROs out of trouble if Kotori gets into a jam.

Hibiki and Takane join the team.

I also reaffirm my decision to place Mami and Ami in the middle infield. I'm pleased they are no longer shrimpy kids. Although they aren't exactly freakish giants, they are a lot taller than I expected. I'm staying with Mami at shortstop and Ami at second base because I'm hoping Mami's side-tail will stabilize her head as she pivots while throwing to second or first. [Update¹.] I've also decided that Mami > Ami because she has better hair and because she sort of holds underdog status now that Ami's popularity is ascendant as part of Ryuuguu Komachi.

Sit your ass down, Yayoi. You're dead weight.

The inclusion of Hibiki and Takane also means I no longer have to start Yayoi in right. Iori moves from left field to right field, and Hibiki takes left field while batting in Yayoi's old spot in the lineup. Takane goes into the bullpen as a relief pitcher. She'll mostly be in the set-up role with Miki as the closer, although all three will start if games are frequent enough to require a rotation.

Producer also does not look like Tommy Lasorda.

The IDOLM@STER TV has been mostly positive with regard to refining the iM@S baseball team, but there is one downside: We now know Producer looks nothing at all like Earl Weaver. No one is more disappointed than I.

[Note 1: Now that I think about it, a long sidetail on her left could easily get in Mami's field of vision as she pivots, but hopefully it won't matter under a baseball cap. If it turns out to be a problem, I may need to go with the dangerous hair-down Mami or swap her and Ami's fielding positions.]

Even the genki fall into despair sometimes.

Baccano! ran for an unconventional 16 episodes. Through the equivalent number of Durarara!! episodes, I give Baccano! the clear edge with the deciding factor being its superior characters. (As both shows have large ensemble casts, I'll address relatively few of them herein.)

Besides, Baccano! has much snappier dressers than Durarara!!

This is not to say the characters in Durarara!! are lousy, just that I don't care about any of them. I do enjoy the crazy antics of stalker girl extraordinaire Mika (seriously, she's Cocoa Puffs), but that's about it. I thought I'd like Celty more, but as I mentioned earlier, I don't like how she's so easily flustered. She's also not very smart, but I guess that's not a nice thing to say about a girl who does not have any brains.

Takashi tries to sweet talk Anri.

Okay, I do actively dislike Mikado, Masaomi, and Anri. Even Mikado's big moment suffered from two huge Angel Beats!-level flaws that pretty much sapped any coolness out of the triumph. He's lucky it worked out, I guess. Actually, Anri is a special case. Through 15 episodes, Anri's biggest problem was a complete lack of charisma (unless you measure charisma in cup sizes). I was left hoping she'd give in to her predatory teacher's obvious efforts at grooming her for sex. Really, what did she have to lose? But after episode 16 you have to be curious what else she has hidden under her clothes. Anri's school must get its uniforms from the same company as Iriya's. [P.S. Spoilers.]

These two have the dirtiest pillow talk.

Baccano! is superior to Durarara!! because it has Isaac and TOP FUEL GENKI Miria. [Yes, more spoilers, I know.] Despite Miria's horrifying voice, every scene those two are in is pure gold. Baccano! also has Chane doing wonders as a girl who doesn't talk. Durarara!! also has a girl who doesn't talk, but it's just not the same. Chane far surpasses Celty even if Chane probably spends most of her free time honing her knife fighting abilities instead of chatting idling on a computer. If she's going to spend so much time screwing off on her computer, Celty should at least check eBay once in a while for her head. Make a token effort, sweetie.