I can't see a green chav suit without thinking of Squid Game.

I can't identify anything I think the Mahoutsukai no Yome (The Ancient Magus Bride) anime is doing wrong necessarily, but I don't enjoy it as much as I like the manga. On the surface at least, the anime is great. It looks beautiful. The casting and voice acting are both spot on. The production values in general are high. And yet I mostly only find the overall experience simply okay. Does that mean the direction is at fault for not optimizing the presentation of all these elements? I dunno. I still like watching it, but it doesn't astound me, and maybe I'm just griping because I feel as if it ought to.

This is not Yuru Camp△.

As far as the currently airing second season goes, I suppose I'm naturally disinclined to be interested in its subject matter. Specifically, it is about Chise going to magic school. Aside from a few notable exceptions, I'm generally not enthused about magic schools as a setting. And taking someone out of an environment that was already interesting as a starting point, and then placing her in a magic school—well, that is objectively a step down. Nevertheless, I still find myself enjoying the corresponding manga arc despite my misgivings. In any case, the magic school setting is not exclusively why I'm never in a huge hurry to watch the latest episode of Mahoutsukai no Yome Season 2, but I can't rule it out as a contributing factor.

It helps that I like all the characters.

I enjoy the [Oshi No Ko] manga (localized as My Star, or My Favorite Idol, among other titles), so I'm pleased the anime adaptation is also going well. The manga is one of those stories that I happen to think is really good, but is constantly teetering on the verge of potentially going really poorly if it takes a couple of missteps. If anything, an anime adaptation for something like this is even more precarious, with additional opportunities to straight fuck it up.

Akane is a later arrival to the show, but also excellent.

Thankfully, it's getting everything right so far. It even took the unusual step of making its first episode 90 minutes long so that it could conclude with The Thing No One Will Talk About. It seems an odd spoiler to dance around, seeing as how important it is to shaping the rest of the (still ongoing) story, but I guess I'm doing it too, albeit mostly because everyone else has thus far. It's a conspiracy of silence!

It's not easy being a superstar.

Anyway, [Oshi No Ko] is about contemporary show business dynamics. I don't know how accurately it is depicting the production and public interactions side of things, but I at least enjoy feeling as if I'm getting an insider's perspective. It's the same sort of reason why I liked Shiorobako and Otaku no Video. Don't get me wrong—I'm also in it for the revenge plot that I guess I'm not talking about. I do love me some revenge.

Weird how your dad never mentioned murdering all those people.

The viewpoints I see about Kidou Senshi Gundam: Suisei no Majo (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury) in my sliver of the anime fandom uniformly vilify Prospera, differing only in the intensity of the condemnations. However, I still regard her as a protagonist. I also support her quest for revenge even though I'm uncertain as to the specifics of her plan. (Spoilers henceforth for the first 17 episodes.)

You're not young Bel, right?

A significant factor responsible for this (apparently minority) view is my unwillingness to minimize Delling Rembran's role orchestrating and initiating the mass murder depicted in the "PROLOGUE" episode. I don't believe there's been any meaningful attempt to justify the assault, so I'm mystified this doesn't come up more often. It's as if viewers collectively shrugged and concluded it was all right because we barely knew those people.1

You don't always recognize the last time you'll see a loved one when it happens.

Elnora Samaya, of course, did know those people. She escaped with four-year-old Ericht as the facility's sole survivors while cold-blooded killers butchered her husband, her mentor, and everyone at Fólkvangr. (I'm unsure how many died in total, but it seems like dozens.) Consequently, this factor shapes my perspective about everything Elnora has done (and has been accused of doing) in her Propsera guise. To be clear, I also do not perceive her purported transgressions as being especially egregious. The worst accusations I can levy involve emotional manipulation, but assigning blame exclusively to Prospera for the actions others take strips agency away from those victims and reduces them to mere instruments.

I guess she doesn't have a shitload of Suletta pictures decorating her desk.

Granted, I'm taking Prospera at her word when she offers explanations or insights.2 For example, I assume Ericht really was dying and that Elnora did not turn her into a child-Gundam chimera for Fullmetal Alchemist reasons. I'm also accepting Prospera's explanation to Miorine in episode 14 about enrolling Suletta to fulfill her wish of attending school while keeping her in a safe(r) environment as sincere. Likewise, I scrutinize her role as a mother through the same lens Suletta uses. Every on-screen interaction (and every historical one, according to Suletta's beaming admiration) appears authentic. Although, Prospera is possibly playing a long con, and has devoted considerable energy for decades to deceive and exploit her own daughter(s) in pursuit of a convoluted revenge plan.

See, Suletta trusts her.

Maybe Prospera's true face (as it were) will be revealed and she'll get her comeuppance when Suletta (and Ericht) turn on her, but I'm not sure I find this prospect convincing. This is partly because I don't know the particular specifics of her revenge plan. After all, Prospera has had at least some opportunities to stab Delling in the neck, so simply offing him doesn't seem to be the primary objective.3

I do find it odd they use portable data-storage devices.

Moreover, I'm increasingly cognizant that The Tempest ends with a wedding, not a bloodbath. I'm disinclined to believe G-Witch will end with Elnora in ruin, and Delling triumphant. However, I'm also skeptical the conclusion will adopt the forgiveness aspects from The Tempest, particularly since Prospero's betrayal involved a loss of authority, not the literal murder of everyone he cared about. I'm pro-revenge enough that I would find such a finale distasteful, almost as a matter of principle.

Note 1: E.g., "What Delling did to that lesbian couple was objectively terrible, but not subjectively so because they weren't 'our' lesbian couple."

Note 2: Maybe she's manipulating me.

Note 3: I have no idea how Quiet Zero fits into this.

Is cat.

I am watching two shows this season about cats. The second season of Yoru wa Neko to Issho (Nights with a Cat) is basically the same as the first season. Some dude and his kid sister make unremarkable observations about a house cat's behavior. The episodes are only a minute or two long, but it's a pleasant little show about a cat doing cat-type things. I've watched 39 episodes so far, and it could probably run indefinitely because the source material (i.e., cats doing cat-type things) is essentially inexhaustible. I like it.

Defeated.

On the other hand Kawaisugi Crisis (Too Cute Crisis) is sort of intense. The premise of this show involves alien invaders coming to Earth and discovering it is the only planet in the known universe that contains cute animals. Like, the cutest creature previously known to this spacefaring race is some doofy-looking thing that gets instantly blown out the competition by Earth's seemingly endless supply of cute animals. The series sort of only has one joke, but I haven't tired of it yet. It's basically the same sort of reaction gags that are more typical of food-related setups common to anime, only here it's aliens losing their minds about cats doing cat-type things. I dunno what to tell you, aliens. Brace yourselves. Cats are cute as fuck.

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.

Counterpoint: I always enjoy Nezuko kicking deadbeats.

I've enjoyed the Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) anime for most of its run, but I've certainly not been a fan of all of it. In particular, I only have so much patience of the shounen jive that's just part of the territory when it comes to these sorts of shows. People who actually like shounen anime and manga may appreciate those tropes and styles, but I could do without a lot of it. However, with regard to the current Katanakaji no Sato-hen (Swordsmith Village Arc) season, the actual problem is my disinterest in Tanjiro as a character. I mean, he's fine, but I mostly liked him before because he wasn't Zenitsu or Inosuke. He might not have the charisma to carry this season alone.

Wait, he has a gun. Are demon slayers allowed to use guns instead of swords?

This wouldn't be an issue if the other characters in Kimetsu no Yaiba: Katanakaji no Sato-hen had more going for them. So far, I don't give two shits about the swordsmiths, and the other demon slayers don't seem to have personalities at all, aside from just sort of being assholes in general, even if they're not especially malicious about it. And I guess unless you count Yelling as a personality. They've got that going for them, too, but that's true of a lot of Demon Slayer characters it general. (Specifically, WAY TOO MANY of them.) Honestly—and I say this with utmost sincerity—I'm praying for a lot of scenes with the weird-looking Hanakana-voiced girl with the fucked-up hair.

No pressure.

I don't know what her deal is, but the OP and ED to these Swordsmith Village Arc episodes clearly indicate Mitsuri is one of the three main focus characters. Through the first three episodes, she has done absolutely fuck all, but now that The Fighting has begun, I expect she'll start getting more scenes. Just to be clear, I'm rolling the dice here. All of my previous impressions of this character throughout her various appearances in the series thus far have been mostly negative, but Demon Slayer this season doesn't seem to have a lot going for it, so I'm hoping she'll save the show. She can still be weird. In fact, probably the weirder the better.

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.

You sure seem pleased about your incredibly ineffective attempt at hiding.

I don't remember how I first encountered Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu (The Dangers in My Heart), but summaries of the manga set it up for failure. First of all, it's a middle school romance depicted from the male protagonist's point of view, and he seems obsessed with murder fantasies? That ought to be three strikes right there. Nevertheless, I'm really glad I gave it a chance and trusted in the strength of its reputation. Appropriately, the series is about subverting expectations and not rushing to judgment based on one's superficial impressions of others. There's no small irony here that the anime may fall victim to this very practice among potential viewers who might turn away too quickly.

This turned to be a lot funnier than I was expecting.

BokuYaba is also about not letting insecurity limit one's own potential. As it turns out, the male lead is not some Potato-kun. Nor is he some sort of mental case. Rather, Kyoutarou pumps up his chuuni levels and tries to role play as a psycho. However, he does this internally. He tells himself these things as a defense mechanism to explain why he's a pariah at school. But he's not outwardly different enough to actually be an outcast. His classmates haven't rejected him; he's merely withdrawn from them. He's not an edgelord; he's a cringelord who's too self-critical. Anna's inadvertent intrusion into his self-described sanctuary away from other people is the catalyst for the changes in how he perceives himself and others.

I like how Yamada popped into this scene seemingly out of nowhere like an actual ghost.

Here, too, is where I was afraid Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu would stumble. There is no shortage of anime and manga involving some TOP FUEL GENKI beauty who, for no clear reason, takes an aggressive liking to a painfully introverted and cowardly schmuck who ends up being an incredibly irritating point-of-view character. Thankfully, The Dangers in My Heart is not one of this lot. The friendship that develops between Kyoutarou and Anna feels natural and relies heavily on interactions that are shown rather than described. The characters in this series are insightful and often intuit that what those around them say (or are unable to say) and what they mean don't always align. The series refreshingly avoids plots based on stupid misunderstandings.

Tiny pictures are the way of love.

I'm not sure how far the BokuYaba anime will advance, but I expect it would require a two-cours run to catch up to with the manga. After all, there are more than 100 chapters already. The first two episodes of the anime covered the first 11 of these, so maybe the anime will adapt about half or two-thirds of what's out so far? I suppose that's not a bad amount. It certainly includes a number of highlights where characters have revelations about things they suddenly see with more clarity. I'm consistently impressed by how good the manga is at depicting these types of moments. I also like the anime adaptation so far, so I'm hopeful it will prove adept in these specific areas as well.