Everyone loves this shark.

It's probably misleading to say I dropped seven shows this season, since I wasn't expecting to finish any of these when I started them. (There's a lot of other anime this season that I find much more compelling.) Anyway, I dropped two shows after a single episode: Hikikomari Kyuuketsuki no Monmon (The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess) and Kimi no Koto ga Dai Dai Dai Dai Daisuki na 100-nin no Kanojo (The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You). I understand Hikikomari has it's fans, but it really wasn't for me. Hyakkano, I've addressed already.

SHY has a Mamikore alcoholic.

I watched two episodes of Saihate no Paladin: Tetsusabi no Yama no Ou (The Faraway Paladin: The Lord of Rust Mountain) and three episodes of SHY and Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari: Dantoudai kara Hajimaru, Hime no Tensei Gyakuten Story (Tearmoon Empire). I didn't find anything objectionable about these three shows. I probably would have watched them during a duller season, or if I had more free time right now. I suppose it's worth noting Saihate no Paladin is the second cours of something I watched two years ago, but I did lose interest towards the end back then.

This is some beach episode.

Somehow, I watched five episodes of Ojou to Banken-kun (A Girl and Her Guard Dog) which is a very shoujo age-gap romance notable only because the would-be couple starts the series already into each other. I guess it's also notable for having a lot of plot contrivances, and for having a Kitou Akari lead who sounds extremely Kitou Akari, if that's important to you. I also watched six episodes of Boukensha ni Naritai to Miyako ni Deteitta Musume ga S Rank ni Natteta (My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer), which is sort of a lot of episodes for a show that I never found especially interesting. Mostly, I was motivated to continue watching because the source material has ended, so I was at least not concerned about getting a non-ending ending. Hayami Saori voices the lead, so S-Rank Mususme has that going for it if you're a Hayamin fan.

Delicious poison.

I started watching Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) because I've heard its source material is good. It turns out the anime is good, too—good enough that I watched all three of its simultaneously released episodes (yeah, it's another one of those shows) in a row instead of spacing them out as I originally intended. It seems this is also going to be a two-cours series as well, although I haven't worked out if that means 24 episodes straight or if they'll be split.

This is a terrible hobby.

Not knowing anything about the source material, I sort of wonder if this is going to turn into a medical drama where various plants and herbs will offer marvelous healing properties (like the sort found in fantasy stories such as Akatsuki no Yona because they allow characters to get fucked up without being removed from the narrative for months as they recuperate). Through the first three episodes, The Apothecary Diaries instead seems to be a period piece that's more about identifying and avoiding poison than about finding cures for ailments.

I don't know where she can spend any of this.

Hopefully, regardless of the path the plot takes, the execution will remain good. I'm particularly pleased with the way Yuuki Aoi (this same Yuuki Aoi) is voicing the role. I'm enjoying the anime as a whole, so it's not as if she's carrying this series on her own, but her work as the lead is a significant factor in how much I'm liking it. While I'm on the subject, I did also notice that the narrator is credited as Shimamoto Sumi, Nausicaä's own bad self. That's mostly just a bit of trivia, but it is good to see she's still active.

These are cute pajamas.

I've been meaning to say this for a long time, and I might even have said it on the Twitter at some point, but I stand by this claim: Azaka is the only character in Kara no Kyoukai (Garden of Sinners) who has any charisma. Now, don't get me wrong. I like Shiki and Touko, but I wouldn't describe what their personalities have going for them as charisma. I like Mikiya too, but that dude definitely ain't got charisma. Anyway, Azaka is the reason why I find "Oblivion Recording" (the sixth installment of the OVA series) retains so much more re-watching value to me. And I'm not just saying that because Azaka kicks a vagina flower in the nads.

Locks are only good for keeping out honest people.

In the interest of heading off foreseeable objections, I suppose I should concede it's been a long time since I've watched most of these movies, and I should probably reconsider such a broad statement without at least giving the "Mirai Fukuin" ("Future Gospel") characters more attention. However, the reality is I've been thinking about making this claim since before that even came out (10 years ago), and I needed a blog post for this week. It was either going to be this or something about more anime guns again.

Maybe Budoko gets more pleasant as the show progresses.

I started watched Akikan! (Empty Can!) as it aired during the Winter 2009 anime season, but I quit because I thought it was WORSE THAN COSPRAYERS. However, the irritating voice of a character introduced in the third episode did influence my decision to drop it then. As it turns out, this character's seiyuu was Yuuki Aoi, who has since gone on to have a successful career. She's rather popular, and I enjoy her work too, so I started second-guessing my 2009 self's opinions. Could it have really been that bad?

I admit Budoko's character design is amusing when she doesn't talk.

As it turns out, yes, it really was that bad. Budoko is a bratty, child-sized grape soda who speaks in a deliberately annoying voice. I think Yuuki Aoi was only 16 years old herself when she recorded the role, but I don't think being less experienced necessarily impaired her voice acting ability. If anything, she was probably too good at bringing a loathsome soda can to, err, life.

This scene is about erections.

I did actually try to watch further this time around, but I still only made it to episode four. Noto Mamiko voices a new can (a sports drink), but it's just not worth it. I don't know if the type of humor and tropes that saturate Akikan! are especially dated now. It's not as if I enjoyed humor of this variety in 2009 either. However, it also doesn't seem like the comedy styles found here are common in anime anymore. Possibly this is because I simply don't watch as many shows like this now, or maybe they're less common in general now that anime lineups are all isekai all the time. In any case, I suspect nobody besides boys discovering anime for the first time ever found the jokes in Akikan! funny either.

The stepsister is such a cunt that I'm starting to like her.

I started watching Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon (My Happy Marriage) because it features Ueda Reina in the lead role. The premise involves a girl who has been mistreated by her family ever since her mother died. She is arranged to be married to an infamously cold man who has reportedly frightened multiple previous fiancées into running away. Naturally, it turns out he's actually a good person who cares about her. She also thinks he's hot. Oh, and he has magic powers.

Dude's actually in the military. He's not LARPing.

Maybe this element of the setting was deliberately concealed, or maybe my casual perusal of the show's promotional material caused me to miss this detail, but yeah, people in this world have magic powers. Notably, the My Happy Marriage heroine lacks any supernatural powers (or at least appears to lack them), despite being part of a bloodline renown for magic ability. This is ostensibly the reason why everyone has been so cruel to her, but really it's just because they're all sadists. I dunno what to tell you. Sometimes people are assholes.

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.

Of course she has mystic eyes.

I don't have a compelling reason to still be watching Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha: Shijou Saikyou no Maou no Shiso, Tensei shite Shison-tachi no Gakkou e Kayou II (The Misfit of Demon King Academy 2nd Season), but I also don't have a reason to stop. There's not exactly a shortage of shows about overpowered characters easily crushing those who oppose them, but I don't feel as though I watch a lot of those, and I'm pretty sure I watch even fewer where the lead is so smug about it. (Overlord fits the former, but Momonga's anxiety rules out the latter.)

Eleanor and Sasha both have good hair.

I liked the first season well enough. There were a number of twists I enjoyed, and the story focused on developing a manageable number of characters in interesting ways. Here in the second season, a lot of episodes seem to include strap hangers who are mostly just serving as an entourage following Anos (Maou-kun) around as he continues untangling the various mysteries surrounding the two thousand years he's been out of action, but it's still okay. I would personally prefer more Sasha stories, or an arc or two centered around Maou-kun's parents, but it's fine either way.

[Update: I forgot to mention Anos was re-cast between seasons.]

Is it normal to strip naked in a general store?

I'm still watching Rougo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-manmai no Kinka wo Tamemasu (Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement), sometimes abbreviated as Roukin, but I'm not getting much out of it. It's one of those isekai fantasy shows where primitive locals marvel at modern conveniences that we take for granted. Boil-in-a-bag fish entrées?! Vegetable peelers?! Shampoo?! AMAZING!! This is also a world that is ignorant of crop rotation and fertilizer, so yeah, one of those sorts of shows. Maybe the king will eat a Dorito and instantly drop dead from the intense nacho cheesiness.

I guess you do what you gotta do to experience "Rediance."

It's fine. I wasn't expecting much from it, and I'm not especially impressed by any of it so far, but it's not really objectionable. Well, there are A LOT of plot elements that would not hold up to even the slightest bit of scrutiny, not least of which is Mitsuha's severely underutilized teleportation ability, but don't worry about it. This is an anime adaptation of a light novel written by the author of Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne! (Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!) which got an anime release in the Autumn 2019 season. I guess the difference is I dropped Noukin after a single episode, rating it WORSE THAN COSPRAYERS, but I'm still watching Roukin after four episodes. It's got that going for it.