Domesticity Is Unbreakable.

I am enjoying Diamond Is Unbreakable quite a bit more than I enjoyed Stardust Crusaders. This is not to say Stardust Crusaders wasn't good, but rather its strengths involved a lot of shounen jive. I got my fill of that pretty quickly. On the other hand, Diamond Is Unbreakable does not seem to involve inflated power levels or a bunch of stalling with mini-bosses. Rather, it seems to be more about the Bizarre than it is about the Adventure or even the JoJo.

The OVA epilogue is also pretty good even though it's not wall-to-wall tank battles.

If you watched the GIRLS und PANZER television series, then you've probably been anxiously waiting to watch GIRLS und PANZER der FILM. Since its release in November 2015, this movie continues to print money for Japanese theaters even though the Blu-ray came out at the end of May 2016. Now that I've finally gotten to see it, the reasons for the film's success and unflagging popularity are obvious.

Monster Perfect Edition volumes compared to standard Full Moon wo Sagashite volume.

Monster is one of my favorite anime, but its DVD release was doomed to fail. If I remember right, the R1 release was a Viz license. Viz at the time already had a reputation for abandoning shows partway (e.g., Full Moon wo Sagashite) and even optimists didn't like the odds of a full Monster release. With replacement music for the ED and rumors of interlaced video, fans of the series were trapped by a Catch-22: They had to buy enough of the early discs to ensure a successful full 74-episode release, but the likelihood of that happening was so low that these fans would almost certainly suffer the same fate as FMoS fans. As you may have guessed, the DVD release as a whole did not go especially well.

Not quite as big as the Cardcaptor Sakura omnibus volumes.

Thankfully, the manga release appears to be in much better shape. Although also a Viz release, all 18 volumes did get releases. The last of these volumes came out in 2008, and I'm pretty sure they're out of print now, but Viz currently publishes the Monster manga in large double-length compendiums with the final (ninth) volume due out in July 2016. I haven't actually started reading these yet, thanks to my ever-prodigious backlog, but picking these up is a no-brainer, even if the manga lacks the anime's MAMIKORE voice acting.

Get pumped, witches.

As you can see from my per-episode chart, it took a while for Dagashi Kashi to secure the top spot I predicted, but it's in good company. Konosuba is my current number four show, but its rating is higher than what I gave my top show, One Punch Man, autumn 2015. I certainly disagree with people who claim this is not a very good season. Besides, there are at least three "NOT KID'S STUFF" serious shows worth watching1 in addition to some entertaining lighter fare, so I'm pretty deaf to most complaints.

Coconuts and Saya are pretty lucky You is looking out for them.

Dagashi Kashi is an uncomplicated show, but it succeeds because it's easy to enjoy the characters and their candy-related shenanigans. Hotaru and Saya are the real stars of the series, but it helps a lot that Coconuts is not a potato, if you get my meaning. Sure, he's a little dense when it comes to Saya, but his observation that Hotaru is "pretty cute when she doesn't talk" is fairly astute for an anime male lead. Likewise, his buddy Tou is totally all right. I like how he's always slumming in a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses. The dude is leagues above the usual shitheads male anime leads tend to surround themselves with. TYPE-MOON, I'm looking in your direction.

Fast cars and polite, well-dressed robots.

I'm probably enjoying Dimension W more than most people thanks to my growing appreciation of Ueda Reina. Still, her role in the show isn't nearly as large as I would have expected, so maybe I just enjoy the mysteries and the pacing more than most viewers. There's enough detail in each episode for me to follow the story, but not so much that it becomes predictable. I've read some of the manga, and there's actually a lot more background and world building in the source material that is absent from the anime. This is probably a wise decision, as it keeps things moving along and none of the omitted bits seem critical to the main story.

Yeah, I'm not watching the Toonami dub either, Mira.

The Toonami broadcast dub started airing recently, but I'm not sure Dimension W is really going to draw a large general audience. I don't think it's nearly episodic enough to engage anyone who isn't on board from the beginning. I'm totally with it, though. Depending on how the final arc shakes out, Dimension W could easily end up being my favorite show from this season.

Paper fans are a lot more durable than I'd imagined.

Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū turned out to be much different than what I was expecting. First episode aside, Rakugo devotes all of its time to an extended flashback covering the rakugo master's youth and his relationship with the now-deceased father of the surly lady from the first episode. There are homosexual overtones, but it's starting to look like the climax of the series may involve fighting over a woman. I'm doing Rakugo a disservice by commenting on it so lightly, as it is an excellent and serious show. We don't get anime this good very often, so anyone who complains about anime being all moé shit these days had best be watching it lest he be disregarded as a hypocritical crank hereafter. In other news, there's an amusing amount of Evangelion alumni in the cast. Voice actors for Kaworu, Kaji, Rei, and Touji all have important roles.

I bet that thing dies.

Like Rakugo, Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! is a Studio Deen production, giving this oft-maligned studio two series in this season's best four shows. Crunchyroll described Konosuba as a pastoral. I agree with this view and would like to add that Konosuba comes across overall as the best case scenario for a NEET reincarnated in a fantasy world. Yeah, Aqua is a sloppy and generally horrid person, and Darkness' one shtick can get pretty tiresome rather quickly, but...you know, this don't seem so bad. I'd sleep in that stable. The show itself is quite funny and very refreshing considering the over-saturated Fantasy and Reincarnation genres we're stuck with. Even though Konosuba is my number four show of winter 2016, I feel as if it ought to be higher.

I want to read a 4-koma comic strip about Kayo's shitty life.

If you look at initial impressions from the first couple weeks of the season, you'll find near unanimous agreement claiming Boku dake ga Inai Machi (ERASED) is the best show of the season. I can't agree with this at all, but I also can't disagree too vehemently. ERASED is very good when it's good, but it's also the sort of show that really hurts itself when it's bad. It's probably unfair to hold a time travel show to such a high standard that even minor plot holes become damning, but the plot holes (and contrivances) do bother me. I went over this already, though, and don't feel the need to revisit those criticisms at this time.

The rising sun was a bit much. P.S. Spoilers.

I should probably say a few words about the second season of Gate, particularly since I seem to enjoy it much more than most viewers. However, it's one of those shows that has so much baggage and requires so much context that it's just too much work to address at this time. At a minimum, it requires a lot more explanation than is appropriate for one of these little blog updates. Maybe I'll get around to it someday (just as maybe I'll get around to writing down all those Aldnoah.Zero thoughts. I will at least say anyone on the fence about starting the series should disregard the criticisms of opponents who are hostile towards military force projection as a matter of principle.

Meanwhile, Ojou helps you find her nipples.

Oshiete! Galko-chan probably deserves to be at the top of this list, especially considering I've given it a perfect score through eight episodes. However, it's an episodic short series with eight-minute episodes and essentially no continuity. Galko-chan is mostly deft observational humor and gags about Galko herself behaving differently than one might stereotypically expect, but it's fun to watch. Additionally, Noto Mamiko is really making the most of her role as the show's narrator.

This was a pretty good catch, especially since it doesn't have opposable thumbs.

I only intended to highlight three or four shows from this season, but there are just too many gems currently airing. I haven't even mentioned the latest Pretty Cure or any of the bad shows with good ideas. Back in the day, I'd probably have gotten a lot more mileage out of the current crop. Before the dark times. Before the Twitter. Well, that platform does seem intent on self-destructing, so maybe good ol' anime blogging will return one day.

Note 1: Rakugo, ERASED, and Ajin (which I dropped after one episode).

Hey, Alex owns more than one dress.

I started watching Gangsta. because of Noto Mamiko. The "hooker with a heart of gold" is an old trope in American television and film, but somewhat rare in Japanese anime. Mamikore heart-of-gold hookers are even less common. Through four episodes, Mamiko's character, Alex, hasn't had a lot to do and unfortunately isn't particularly interesting. Making matters worse, I don't find the two lead characters interesting either. Frankly, my eyes glazed over when the show started explaining the power levels and the dog tags used to identify skilled fighters.

Maybe they're actually like blood-type fortunes.

Really, Gangsta. strikes me as something cobbled together to appeal to anime fans who are desperate for any shows that don't contain "moé shit." I've seen a couple of comparisons to Samurai Champloo, and I suppose they are similar in the sense both shows are about two men and one woman, but that's really about as far as it goes. Besides, Samurai Champloo is vastly superior in terms of entertainment value. Gangsta. unfortunately doesn't have much in its favor; well, except that it's not "moé shit."

Raising Heart gets to be in the show, but Bardiche didn't have a single line.

As long as they keep making more Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha anime I'll keep watching them, providing the shows are not complete shite. I'll even keep watching even if Nanoha and Fate aren't in the show anymore, even if it barely qualifies as mahou shoujo anymore, and even if it stops being lyrical. Once a franchise I'm following gets enough momentum, I'll pretty much keep watching new installments. Well, providing the anime continues to hit above the Cosprayers Line, that is.

Nanoha doesn't always tell Fate everything.

This is pretty much how I ended up watching all of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid. It's not good by any means, but it's particularly bad either. Every episode of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid seems content to underachieve with bloop singles, never swinging for the fences like its early predecessors. Unfortunately, I can remember approximately fuck all from the previous installment, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS (it's been eight years!) and I don't read any of the Nanoha manga, so I didn't know hardly any of the ViVid characters at all.

"I said, I, I, ah ah ah, I, I want the knife."

It turns out it's not actually necessary to know any of the Nanoha ViVid characters, because there's also no plot and the anime doesn't have an ending. In fact, the anime didn't even try to fake a non-ending ending; it just drops off where I presume it left off in the manga and follows up with a low-effort clip show summarizing most of the Einhart (Einhard, whatever) moments from the 12-episode run, pretty much for no reason.

Ass shot.

Speaking of whom, Einhart starts the show as the putative villain. She uses ANCIENT BELKA magic and picks fights with random people. With the potential for DARK MAMIKO in the wings, so far so good. But then she's hit with the most powerful attack in the Nanoha universe, Friendship, and the series decides to coast from there and cruise through the Onsen Episode, Training Sequence, and Tournament Arc checkpoints.

The Chantez Series? They've been completed?

Training sequences were the bane of StrikerS, and aren't much better in ViVid, but at least they don't seem to drag out endlessly. Unfortunately, essentially none of the tournament battles in Nanoha ViVid save the Corona v. Einhart bout mattered to me because I didn't know any of the characters and thus didn't care who won or lost. But the ViVid tournament arc doesn't even finish during the course of the season. I suppose if and when someone scrapes together some more dirty Nanoha money, perhaps we'll see the end of the tournament in a split cour. We'll still need some sort of plot for the show, though. Is it too late for Einhart to start ripping people's heads off? What if someone kills her kitten?

Vivio's heterochromia is excessive.

The first 10 episodes of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid essentially went by as background noise because I "watched" them without actually paying much attention. For example, when underboob nun appeared in her red cropped habit last episode, I didn't realize she was the nun from the previous episode because her habit in that episode was blue instead of red. Oh, and it didn't leave her half-naked. I'm barely following Nanoha ViVid because I don't know any of the characters (sort of a Catch-22, that), I can't remember anything from the previous series (StrikerS), and I think this whole tournament thing is rather pointless.

I wonder if this is the same church Ciel goes to?

You see, I'm one of those jokers who thinks the best season of Nanoha was First Nanoha (technically I think the best "season" was the second half of the first season and the first half of A's). StrikerS was a complete drag because it seemed to consist mostly of tensionless training sessions in a conveniently deserted urban ghost town occasionally interrupted by fights with pregnant clones. Then years went by, so don't expect me to remember who all the Numbers are after all this time. Hell, I've spent most of ViVid wondering if Bardiche is going to talk or if something happened to the voice actor. My highlight thus far was seeing FATE TESTAROSSA drive a minivan.

Never bring a knife to a starlight breaker fight.

But all this changes next episode because Corona is fighting Einhart. Or more accurately, Corona is going to get fuckin' WORKED by Einhart. Hell, I give it a 50/50 chance that Einhart overboosts some attack, momentarily unleashes DARK MAMIKO, and puts Corona into a coma so the cour can come to a close with at least a little drama. I'm pretty sure extensive ViVid spoilers ought to be readily available. The anime is based on a manga, isn't it? Anyway, Corona is the shrimpy kid who pulled a cake knife on her opponent in an alley during an intermurals match. It was a funny enough image to distinguish her from the other more boringer characters.

Yes, Einhart's magical jobbie is a kitten.

Anyway, Corona's tournament fight against Einhart continues in the upcoming episode. Einhart was set up early on as the evil so-and-so reincarnated as a little girl who smokes the dog shit out of honorable decent characters not named Nanoha or Fate. But then everyone ganged up on Einhart and befriended the Hell out her so she (just like everybody else in the series) has done fuck all since. I don't know how many more episodes of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid are left, and I don't know any of the manga spoilers, so I get to at least anticipate one episode of this otherwise boring series because it'll probably feature a MAMIKORE beat down as Einhart loses her cool, lets a little Old Evil leak out, and drags Corona up and down the Thunderdone, maybe forcing all the other characters to pile on in order to take her down. Don't worry, I'm sure Corona will be fine after some mild convalescing, and Einhart will be sorry for what she did.

Maria's orbs are huge.

Junketsu no Maria (Maria the Virgin Witch) is quite different from what I was expecting. It's turning out to be semi-serious fare with actual stories and sub-plots about different factions involved in Maria's little war instead of a lurid fan service comedy. (Maria does seem to spend a lot of time on screen being very blonde, very aerodynamic, and mostly nude, though.) Thankfully, her hatred of war and entirely emotional approach to it, though idealistic and childish, manages to not annoy the shit out of me like the other occasions when obtuse anime pacifists carry on about some sort of nonsense or other. Oh, hi, Cagalli. I didn't see you standing there.

Somehow not a potato.

The witch part of Maria the Virgin Witch is interesting enough, I suppose, except that none of them appear to be evil. I guess from the point of view of the show's religious leaders, many of the witches are bad—oh, so bad—but from a modern anime viewer's perspective, I have to say they're pretty good. Especially the Noto Mamiko witch. The virgin part hasn't gotten annoying yet either. Where it goes from here will depend on how it handles its "Stop Using Sex as a Weapon" plot. Like My-Otome, nearly 10 years ago before it, characters in Maria the Virgin Witch have figured out that you can rape away an uppity girl's magic powers. (P.S. Spoilers.) I get the feeling Junketsu no Maria won't simply shrug this off the way My-Otome did, but I hope it also doesn't suddenly turn into a morality play about the Otaku Virtues.