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.

Enjoy your life.

I was impressed by the energy and style of the first episode of Zom 100: Zombie ni Naru Made ni Shitai 100 no Koto (Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead), but it was probably inevitable that I would lose interest so fast. I don't have much enthusiasm for zombie-type shows most of the time. In fact, I'll even go so far as to say I dislike zombie-related media in general. In that sense, it's a testament to the first episode that I liked it enough for me to watch three more.

Do more cardio.

I suppose part of why I kept with it even that far can also be attributed to the arrival of a mysterious, cool survivalist voiced by Kusunoki Tomori. I was hoping she'd stick around, but she disappeared entirely as the show turned its attention to expanding the cast. I presume she'll be featured prominently again soon enough once all the introductions are complete, but I don't feel like watching all of that. The source manga is still ongoing, so I'm taking that to mean I'll only have a non-ending ending to look forward to even if I do stick with the anime. For viewers who enjoy zombie stories, it's probably still an entertaining series, but I'm out.

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 girl you like is a mental case, Potato-kun.

I am going to go ahead and claim Suki na Ko ga Megane wo Wasureta is good, actually. Or rather, it's good for sufficiently unclear definitions of good. I probably can't reasonably claim that The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses is objectively good, but it is the Summer 2023 series that I am looking forward to the most each week. Notably, the jarring visual flair associated with GoHands in recent years is toned down considerably compared to something like 2017's Hand Shakers, for example. In fact, I'm going to claim the visuals are my favorite part of Sukimega.

Look at how pissed off she looks while casually greeting her friends. This is the best.

Specifically, I thoroughly enjoy how Potato-kun's love interest spends nearly all of her screen time squinting. It makes her appear constantly cross. (This is an actual plot point.) That's it. That's the entire reason and 100-percent of the show's appeal to me. (It's good squinting, Brent!) I do wish the series had more going for it. At least Potato-kun doesn't actively irritate me all the time anymore. Ai being helplessly blind without her glasses is a repetitive joke that mostly makes her appear, ah, not very smart, unfortunately. The romance angle is fine, I guess. It's neither good nor bad in my view. The wall-to-wall angry squinting, however, is world class. Good job, GoHands.

What you really need to do is advertise.

The Summer 2023 anime season has barely started, but we have two episode of Genjitsu no Yohane: SUNSHINE in the MIRROR (YOHANE THE PARHELION -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR-) already. This is a spin-off of Love Live! Sunshine! based on an April Fool's gag. The basic premise is sort of interesting. Take the chuuni character and build a magical reality around her. Well, that is what this anime seems to have done, but I probably don't care enough about Love Live! Sunshine to fully appreciate it.

Don't wear your boots in the bath.

As a standalone anime, it seems good enough to be a pleasant show for viewers looking for this sort of light fantasy. I don't think familiarity with the specific characters or of Love Live! in general is necessary to appreciate SUNSHINE IN THE MIRROR. However, I also think we're meant to derive some satisfaction in seeing familiar faces re-imagined in this way. Hence, I don't doubt there are true fans who are ecstatic about this series. For now, I'm ambivalent at best. What I really want is a Saint Snow appearance, mostly because that increases the likelihood of new Saint Snow songs, and I do love me some Saint Snow songs.

Asirpa is short.

The fourth season of Golden Kamuy was supposed to finish at the end of 2022. A staff member's death delayed production, and the cours restarted as a Spring 2023 show. As with other long-running anime (well, longer-running, relatively speaking), there's not much I can tell you about this series if you're not watching it already. Read the manga. It's great. I would tell you to start watching the anime, but that's probably a harder sell now that there are nearly 50 episodes (more, if you count the OVAs). You should have started already.

Don't stare. It's impolite.

This is one of those series that does everything well. There's comedy, there's drama, it's wacky, and it's serious. There are a lot of characters, and most of them are mental cases, but you'll also spend enough time with them (well, the ones who don't suddenly die) to appreciate what they've got going on and what motivates them. We already know the anime will cover the entire manga, so it's at least something newcomers can start without worrying about it being incomplete. There are honestly still some rough parts where the scenes or action are clearly difficult to animate, but we're at least well past the immersion-breaking 3DCG bears and fire from the first season.

I appreciate the focus on photography.

I decided to watch Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia (Insomniacs After School) on a whim this season purely because its anichart/anilist synopsis described the series as being about two insomniacs who secretly sleep together in their school's abandoned observatory. [Note: Sleeping together as in both literally napping, not sleeping together as in sleeping together, okay?]

Maybe I'm just nostalgic for life without light polution.

As it turns out, there's not very much napping in the show. I guess that would make for a boring series if the leads are conked out all the time. Although it occurs to me there is at least one anime that's literally just a girl sleeping, ain't there? Anyway, what Insomniacs After School is really about is two people who are clearly into each other taking their sweet ass time figuring it out. It's a pleasant show despite the typical arms-length romance. I find the leads engaging, and the characters in the supporting cast are personable.

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

I do think Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia focuses too much on the male lead's point of view. Ganta has significant hangups that shape his path through the story, but Isaki is a more interesting character. Initially, it appeared she might be one of those tragic love interests who dies of some sad anime disease, but this prospect seems less and less likely the more we learn about her. I mean, she still could drop dead, I suppose—I don't know how the manga is playing out so far—but it's not as if this is a Key visual novel, so I think she'll be fine.

Figure it out, you two.

Isaki and Ganta totally should be sleeping together more, though. Even if it's purely platonic, Insomniacs After School has them literally acknowledge that crashing together gave the two of them some of the best sleep they've ever had. I guess the series needs to stall to prevent the story from turning into documentary about making star babies in the observatory.

It's a good thing you made it to the shuttle on time.

The manga is currently 13 volumes long and still ongoing, so maybe this is one of those shows that really needs a second cours in order to really get going. I don't encounter a lot of discussion about the series, though, so I'm not exactly optimistic about the likelihood of getting more later. I definitely do want more, though.

Being confident helps.

No one who has been following the previous installments of Dr.STONE NEW WORLD (Dr. Stone 3rd Season) should be surprised it's still entertaining for basically all the same reasons. If there are criticisms to levy against it, they'll probably relate to how fast science is advancing. Or, I suppose more accurately, how fast production is advancing. There are no quality control problems or time constraints in the story that prevent the characters from designing and constructing whatever marvel is necessary to overcome the latest predicament. Everything just works. And that's okay! This is not a series about the 99-percent perspiration part. It's also consistent with the other feats regularly displayed.

Kohaku knows what she's doing.

Frequent readers of this blog (and of my grousing on the Twitter) may recall I regularly complain about tropes and storytelling conventions that I broadly describe using the pejorative "shounen jive." I don't have strong opinions about this from a taxonomic perspective, but my general sense is I'm perfectly fine with it (if what Dr.STONE does even qualifies as being shounen jive) providing that it's done in this way. I guess what I'm saying is I'm unsure if I regard Dr. Stone as the exception to a style of anime that I typically don't like, or if I like it because it does not adopt the elements I disfavor. In any case, the anime is still good, and the story seems to moving along well, and you should start watching it (from the beginning!) if you ain't started already.