The nephew's childhood friend is also great.

Originally a Summer 2022 show, Isekai Ojisan (Uncle from Another World) went on hiatus after its seventh episode due to, well, let's just say, "Circumstances," since I'm not confident the reasons I've seen expressed are necessarily complete. There may be some nuances or complexities on the production side that haven't been properly communicated to random-ass people like me.

I like the elf even though she doesn't bathe.

ANYWAY, Isekai Ojisan has returned for the remainder of the Autumn 2022 season, resuming where it left off. That's not a lot of content (I think the anime is going to be 13 episodes total), but I'll take what I can get. In any case, the gags remain fresh and funny, and expanding the cast of characters (read: increasing the harem's membership) has not diluted the purest fount of tsundere that I've encountered since basically ever. Haruka De Tomaso Pantera is SO GOOD in this show.

She's honestly taking this pretty well.

Have I not mentioned either Sekai no Owari ni Shiba Inu to (Doomsday with My Dog) or Yoru wa Neko to Issho (Nights with a Cat) yet? Both anime have been running since the Summer 2022 season and I have no idea when they're expected to end. They're both shorts, so the episodes are only a few minutes long at the most, and that includes the credits.

Is cat.

Doomsday with My Dog is about the last human on earth rolling around with her devoted dog. She's the last human, but at least she can talk to animals and there are various aliens and yokai who show up once in a while. Nights with a Cat is just a bunch of vignettes about a cat doing cat-type things that will feel familiar and relatable for anyone who has spent any amount of time around house cats at all.

Is cat.

There's not really anything outstanding about either series, but all the episodes are pleasant, and some of the gags are clever and funny. There are already more than two dozen Yoru wa Neko to Issho episodes, and more than 50 Sekai no Owari ni Shiba Inu episodes. I don't know how many cours these shows are going to run, but I am still interested in watching more.

Lum, you have no one but yourself to blame.

Despite how long I've been at least sort of aware of Urusei Yatsura as a property that exists, I've never really known anything about it. I knew it well enough to recognize Lum, but remained ignorant about essentially every other part of it.

Service.

In fact, I'm inclined to believe anything of substance that I did know about it came from a small mention in this blog post that SDS wrote a decade ago. Consequently, I didn't really know what to make of the news that the anime was returning for 2022, with Uesaka Sumire voicing Lum, no less.

The first time I saw this gag was in Love Hina, but I guess this must have come earlier.

Having watched the first episode now, the series seems sort of anachronistic. I don't mean that it's dated, but it does very much feel like a product of a different time. This is hardly surprising, considering the original manga began in 1978 and ended in 1987. The whole thing predates Heisei, let alone Reiwa. I don't know if the new anime is remaining true to the source material, but it feels as if it is, at least based on my aforementioned impressions that it's from a different time.

Y'know, your two species probably can't procreate together.

Thus, it's not clear to me who is actually watching the new Urusei Yatsura. Is it aimed at new fans who are unfamiliar with the original? Or is it for older fans who loved the original manga and/or the 1981 anime and are eager to recapture some of that ol' Showa magic? When it comes to nostalgia, I tend to believe fans are often better off not revisiting things they loved in their youth—at least without being emotionally prepared to confront the reality that can often sour the experience.

Land lines! Rotary phones!

It's not at all uncommon to discover that cartoons we loved as children were, in fact, really not all that good. This is not to say that Urusei Yatsura 2022 will produce the same sort of reactions. Hell, maybe it's better than ever. I haven't seen a lot of impressions of the first episode—good or bad—but probably that's just because I'm not adjacent to the sort of audiences that will either enthusiastically embrace (or violently reject) the new Urusei Yatsura anime.

If you were really pulling on her arms, those gloves would slip off and she would escape.

First of all, I don't even know if anyone is actually referring to Akuyaku Reijou nano de Last Boss wo Kattemimashita (I'm the Villainess so I'm Taming the Final Boss) as Akulas. Hell, probably as many viewers thought of Otome Game no Hametsu Flag Shika Nai Akuyaku Reijō ni Tensei Shiteshimatta... (My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!) as either Hamehura or Hamefura as they did Bakarina. These light novel titles are an absolute nightmare.

Lilia seems really boring and irrelevant, so I'm expecting some huge twist later.

ANYWAY, Akulas, like Bakarina, is an isekai about a girl who reincarnates as a villainess character from a video game that she's been playing. The series is about her efforts to avoid the unfortunate fate that she remembers her character ultimately suffering in the game. Then something-something "the friends we made along the way."

You can tell he's supposed to be the evil one because of the way he's dressed.

Consequently, comparisons between Akulas and Bakarina are natural, although the two series don't appear to have much else in common, at least not through the first three episodes of Akuyaku Reijou nano de Last Boss wo Kattemimashita. As far as differences go, the Akulas lead is trying to team up with the game world's end boss (who inadvertently kills her character in the game), whereas Bakarina herself concentrates primarily on reversing her inherited character's reputation for being a cunt.

Way to fuck it up, you stupid asshole. Now you're left with nothing. Nothing!
Nothing except for your wealth, power, and the girl who you wanted to marry.

Notably, Aileen from I'm the Villainess so I'm Taming the Final Boss seems much more intelligent than Catarina from My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! who—bless her heart—is dumb as all Hell. As far as the shows themselves go, I watched two seasons of Bakarina, and still like it enough that I guess I would still watch more. Thanks to its early start, I'm already a quarter of the way through Akulas. It seems all right, but I'm not especially interested in it. I don't really have any complaints about the series; it's just not my thing. But maybe Lilia will stab someone in the neck later.

What are you thinking about?

You might see Lycoris Recoil and Engage Kiss compared every so often (and I guess that's what I'm doing now), but they don't share much in common. Well, I guess they both have Aniplex and A1-Pictures behind them, and both anime air on Saturdays, but the shows themselves aren't similar. Also, both are headed towards a big finish this weekend, although I can see how Lycoris Recoil might earn itself a sequel, depending on how things go.

Look, there aren't even any bullet holes!

To be clear, Lycoris Recoil is a significantly better show than Engage Kiss. I like both, although for different reasons, but there's a good reason why fans of Lycoris Recoil are so enthused. It features a well-balanced mix of serious drama with genuine stakes, wacky high jinks, and significant amounts of entertaining (albeit unrealistic) gun play.

My opinions about SHARON HOLYGRAIL are wholly positive.

On the other hand, Engage Kiss has a combat nun sensibly named SHARON HOLYGRAIL who only takes off her habit's headpiece during sex. It also features a high school demon girl whose motivation for being so devoted to Potato-kun is somewhat unclear. She at least seems willing to accept she must have had a good reason. Maybe she found instructions scrawled on her hand telling her to be, and just assumed there was a good reason that she merely forgot.

Oh my God. These two are so good.

It turns out Isekai Ojisan (Uncle from Another World) is a lot funnier than I would have expected of an isekai parody. Actually, I guess it's not really even necessarily a parody. It just happens to subvert expectations by tackling all the stereotypical tropes the wrong way. There have only been five episodes so far due to a Covid-related two-week delay after the fourth episode, but every installment has been solid.

I want to know how her armor does that.

I've only read a few chapters of the manga, but this anime adaptation is outstanding. In particular, Koyasu Takehito as the Sega-obsessed uncle and Haruka DeTomaso Pantera as the elf girl from the other world are perfect. The anime also has a somewhat crude appearance to it (as does the original manga) that fits well with the gags, and the comic timing is right on. Seeing as how there are eight volumes of the ongoing manga so far, I have to assume there's more to the series than just non-stop anecdotes of the uncle's isekai misadventures, but I'd honestly be okay with it either way.

You can tell she's serious because she changed clothes.

I have to concede Engage Kiss is "bad" by the standards I'm probably supposed to apply when evaluating anime. It embodies a number of qualities I associate with juvenile shows that cater to teenage boys. For one thing, the protagonist is a schlub who starts the series with two women (well, one woman, and one high school girl who is actually a demon, so she's probably hundreds of years old, if conventions hold) who are interested in him romantically for no clear reason.

It's like Fruits Basket Face, except less sane.

However, the first two episodes do embrace a refreshingly carefree approach to old tropes that's sort of nostalgic in this modern era dominated instead by newer (but no less inane) clichés, and governed by sensibilities that are limiting without necessarily making things better. It's in this environment that Engage Kiss manages to shine, with some surprisingly satisfying gags that work well because the setting and premise are both absurd.

Durable dress.

It's the little things, like hiding Tupperware® under a dress, or perfecting just-in-time delivery without resorting to drones, or broke shitbags shamelessly bumming cigarettes that really sell me on this series. Or maybe I just like the idea of a yandere demon employee because I haven't actually watched very many shows featuring yandere characters, so the stereotype still feels fresh to me.

She seems nice.

Whatever the reason is, and I admit I'm not trying very hard to justify my affection for this bad (it's only mildly bad, okay!) show, I am rather enjoying it so far. It manages to feel both familiar and new at the same time, and it doesn't drag. I can't promise it will turn out to be capital-G Good at any point, but I've watched a lot worse.

Eat more carbs.

Through 17 episodes, Delicious Party♡Precure is fine, thanks to a well-understood formula that such a long-running franchise can reliable draw upon, but there's not much else going for it. It's starting to look like Delicious Party is going to end up closer to the HappinessCharge side of the scale than its predecessor, Tropical-Rouge! Precure, for example.

Take this job and shove it.

Still, 17 episodes isn't particularly far for a weekly series that runs all year, so perhaps the show will turn things around. There are a few aspects that reduce my optimism in this regard, though. Significantly, it turns out the adversary who eventually switches sides to become a Cure herself has been under some sort of mind control the whole time, so she never really did anything wrong. How they fucked this up, I have no idea.

Gentle's outfit is so good.

Enemies becoming friends has been a Pretty Cure staple from the beginning. But the cliché continues to work because viewers still care about character growth and redemption arcs. Taking this agency out of Amane's actions reduces her motivation for joining the Cures to one mostly predicated on undeserved guilt. It's not her fault she was stealing recipes. She wasn't even any good at it!

I don't know if it's better or worse that Black Pepper's battle costume looks silly.

I'm also not a huge fan of the male characters in Delicious Party♡Precure. This is an area where the franchise has not excelled. I'm sure there are viewers who enjoy Rosemary and Takumi and find their contributions to be important and satisfying, but I sure don't. It's not uncommon for Pretty Cure to include prominent male protagonists in various guises, but nothing about these two make me think they are necessary or valuable so far.