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Dated 27 February 2024: Pretty Cure has gone to the dogs

Iroha and Komugi
The dog still likes being on a leash despite having human intelligence.

You might expect this post to be a lament about the apparent decision to eliminate fights from the current iteration of Pretty Cure. Through four episodes, there have been no blows or searing energy beams. I've complained in the past when the franchise has reduced its signature violent content, but I'm also cognizant that there have now been 20 solid years of Precure beatdowns, so I'm not hostile to exploring other approaches. Besides, this is but one of the ways Wonderful Precure! departs from established conventions.

Cure Friendy and Cure Wonderful
Go on, hug the shit out of it.

Specifically, the "pink" Cure and first to be called is a dog. And not an air-quotes dog the way Milky Rose is a rabbit, or Cure Beat is a cat, or Cure Wing is a bird. Cure Wonderful is an actual domesticated canine pet. (Well she at least also acquired a transitional human girl form at the same time.) She can also speak while in her original dog form now, too, although I discourage you from thinking too deeply about all the implications involved with a Cure who retains her original dog form and continues to do normal dog things, like go on walks. Does she still do other normal dog things? Like I said, we're probably best off not thinking about it. It's fine.

Mayu and Yuki
I think it's weird this cat's whiskers come out of her ears.

There's a cat, too, or will be one soon. So far, the only Cures are still the dog and her owner, but there's a cat and girl pair who are obviously due up next. There's also a rabbit and a boy who could potentially be mid-season additions as well, but I have not yet seen any confirmation that this is happening. Granted, I've not been looking either, but Pretty Cure as a franchise tends to be fairly poor at keeping future developments secret, and I'm adjacent to enough fans that I think I would have learned something by now if such plans were concrete.

Mayu
I like how you're such a downer.

So how is Wonderful Precure! itself as a series? I guess it's all right. It's still too early to tell, but I can at least say I'm not discouraged by the lack of gratuitous violence. Don't get me wrong, I love me some gratuitous mahou shoujo violence, but there's room for trying something different, even if that means I need to actively avoid wondering if Cure Cat will still poop in a box or if Cure Dog will still need to wear a cone of shame while in her human form after she's spayed.

Dated 2 January 2024: The End of 2023 ~Air/My Purest Heart for Tired Evangelion Jokes~

Suletta
I don't mention Witch Gundam until the end.

I started out thinking about doing a "Best Anime of 2023" summary, considered a "Favorite Anime of 2023" post would be better instead, then briefly contemplated an "Underrated Anime of 2023" write-up next before settling on just highlighting a few series I enjoyed without constraining myself to any particular category. And here we are. Don't be afraid of your freedom.

Yamada
This is the face Anna makes when she overhears people speaking from the heart.

Foremost is BokuYaba (Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu | The Dangers in My Heart), which I'm front-loading because its second season begins on January 7th. Get on it, if you haven't already. This has been a hard sell on occasion because summaries describing it are so misleading. The irony is not lost on me that a series I praise for its authenticity deceives the audience at the outset with misdirection. As I've previously advised, Kyoutarou is not an "edgelord," he's a cringelord. BokuYaba is about the mistakes that occur when people make bad assumptions about themselves and others. Likewise, it's a mistake to make assumptions about BokuYaba.

Soyo, Raana, and Taki
MVP.

Second, I got to BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! late, but better late than never, eh. I had initially written it off as some sort of Cute Girls Doing Cute Thing show cobbled together as a vehicle for yuri 'shipping, but it turns out to be about DRAMA. Probably, technically, it's melodrama, but that bit when Best Girl Rāna starts backing up the singer (whose pockets may still be filled with rolly pollies) while she's forcing herself to bleed out on stage instead of packing up so everyone can get the Hell out of there? And then Rāna seamlessly transitions to The Forbidden Song that causes the Begging Bassist to go completely mental as The Quitter quits the venue and nearly banishes herself from the hero's party by piling down some stairs? That is some Good Shit right there.

Ganta and Isaki
Especially if the entire story includes telescopic sex.

Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia (Insomniacs After School) was a lot better than I was expecting. It's not much of a stretch to imagine a couple of teenagers who spend a lot of time napping together might also fall in love, so, spoilers, I guess. Mostly I'm glad neither of them tragically dropped dead at the end of the anime or some bullshit like that. The manga did end recently, but the U.S. release is still 10 volumes behind, so I'm on the fence about reading it before it's caught up, considering how many other titles I'm still following. What they ought to do is make more of the anime and cover the entire story.

Umi
Not one Like!

The IDOLM@STER Million Live! was entirely too short considering how many idols it featured, but at least we got an Umi episode. If y'all ain't heard, I do love me some Umimi.

Frieren
I enjoyed how nonchalantly Frieren made this decision.

Beyond this list, there are a lot of really good shows that I watched in 2023 that you probably already know about. Like, is it necessary to say I'm enjoying Sousou no Frieren (Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End), or that Kidou Senshi Gundam: Suisei no Majo (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury) was fuckin' great? The former is hugely popular and is continuing into the Winter 2024 anime season, and the latter is frickin' Gundam, so it's not as if anyone is going to forget about it. I certainly won't. Honestly, there is entirely too much capital-G Good anime each year, and 2024 doesn't seem as if it will be any different.

Dated 31 October 2023: The IDOLM@STER Million Live! anime is finally here

Umi
I recognize this pose from clips I've seen of the game.

As part of the iM@S franchise, Million Live! has been around for more than 10 years. Considering how (relatively) quickly Cinderella Girls received an anime, I had been wondering when an adaptation for Million Live! might drop. There was a PV featuring the characters as superheroes, but that was more than six years ago now. Well, the anime-anime is finally here!

Chizuru, Tomoka, Shiho, Kana, Hibiki, Arisa, and Takane
Despite what fan art may lead you to believe, Takane has a lower BMI than Hibiki.

I am, at best, only a secondary or tertiary fan of the franchise. Meaning, I don't really know anything about the characters or the game, so I can't claim to be particularly invested it. Nevertheless, learning that the anime was going to use 3DCG animation didn't exactly inspire a lot of optimism. True, there have already been quite a few shows I've been okay with even though they were entirely 3DCG, but being "okay" with them isn't the same thing as "preferring." Thankfully, the 3D animation used in the Million Live! anime doesn't look bad at all. Well, I do think Takane's face looks odd, but that has more to do with how her character design changed than it does the animation format. Besides, she's not one of the leads here.

Miki
I didn't need a name thingy for Miki. I recognized her from the couch.

Speaking of which, THERE ARE SO MANY IDOLS. I knew this going in, but it's especially apparent since the series is really trying to give everyone some screen time. In fact, the anime provides onscreen name placards as characters appear, and it seems it will continue to do so for the entire show. [Update: They stopped appearing for established characters after episode four.] Even I already knew the characters well enough to recognize them on sight and not get them confused with each other, but displaying the names is still probably the right decision. I could do without the constant emphasis about each idol's characteristic quirks, though. I feel like those sorts of cues are generally unhelpful. Rather than flushing out their personalities, I think it's reductive.

Shizuka, Mirai, Producer, and Tsubasa
These are the four main characters.

Still, the Million Live! anime is not off to bad start. However, I do hope it gets more than one cours, if only to provide more time to better realize the characters who are most critical to the anime's plot. Both the original iM@S anime and main Cinderella Girls adaptation ran for two cours, so it would be a shame if Million Live! joined U149 in only getting one, particularly with such a large cast. Maybe it should have adopted the Love Live! Superstar!! approach by starting with only a core group and expanding during subsequent seasons. Or maybe I'm just being greedy now.

Dated 10 August 2023: Here we go again (Umimi 2023)

Million Live! CD, front
Oh my God, The Million Live! anime really happening.

Dated 1 August 2023: My Happy Marriage doesn't seem so happy yet

Kaya and Miyo
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.

Kiyoka
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.

Dated 13 June 2023: Dr. STONE is still good

Senku
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
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.

Dated 10 August 2022: Here we go again (Umimi 2022)

Million Live! CD, front
The Million Live! anime sure is taking its sweet time.

Dated 4 January 2022: Sorairo Utility needs a longer course

Minami
This is product placement, isn't it?

Sorairo Utility (Sky Blue Utility) is only a single 15-minute OVA? That's it? You're kidding me! Well, that leaves me with one less show than I was expecting to follow during the Winter 2022 anime season. That's unfortunate, because it was nicely done. There is no shortage of shows about girls who obsess over a particular hobby, but this felt much more natural and realistic than the typical fare.

Ayaka, Minami, and Haruka
It happens.

I learned of Sorairo Utility from one of the hundreds of artists I sort of follow on the Twitter. Specifically, the director, Saitou Kengo occasionally mused about wanting to make a girls-playing-golf anime, and then suddenly it became a reality. I have no idea if there is ever going to be any more, but I'd certainly be in favor of it.

Reines and Waver
I did appreciate Reines sassing Waver.

Sort of unrelated aside from also coming out on 31 December 2021 is Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note - Tokubetsu-hen (Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace note TV Anime's Special Edition), a short movie about magic shenanigans involving Waver's classmates from his pre-Fate/Zero days. I feel like I would have liked this more if I had a greater grasp on TYPE-MOON lore in general, but possibly not understanding is the normal and expected state.