I like Shigure because she has nice hair.

Is it necessary to watch the first season of Kantai Collection before watching the current anime? No, but it turns out the answer is no for an atypical reason: Because it wouldn't help. This is to say that my ignorance of Kancolle as a franchise—despite having watched the first anime nearly EIGHT YEARS AGO still leaves me with an incomplete understanding about KanColle: Itsuka Ano Umi de (KanColle: Let's Meet at Sea). I've also watched the movie. That doesn't help, either.

I might have recognized you if you had more fan art.

Through three episodes (it started late), there's nothing I remember of the previous Kancolle anime that would assist me with the second season. What would really help is a greater understanding of the video game. I would probably also benefit from being more familiar with the actual ships and the naval battles they joined. As it is, I am less invested in the show and its events than I think it wants me to be.

Looks humid.

This is not to say that the anime is confusing or difficult to follow, though. The plot so far is straightforward and the characters' motivations are not unclear. What I'm missing are ties to the characters themselves, since I basically don't know any of them. Shigure, the lead, I only know because an old anime blogger used to post about her regularly. She seems okay, but I don't expect to be as moved as I might otherwise be if the season really does turn out to be about her survivor's guilt.

Are you going to die this season?

Of course, I don't genuinely know if an emotional connection with these boats is really going to be necessary to get the most out of the long-awaited second season of Kantai Collection. The opening episodes have had a much more serious tone and higher stakes than what I remember of the first season. This could change, but we're quite a distance away at the moment from curry battles and friends who poi all day and POI POI POI all night. Kongou did briefly appear in the most recent episode, though. Maybe her BURNING LOVE remains unquenched.

Nagomi is the main character, right?

Akiba Maid Sensou (Akiba Maid War) is fantastic. I initially had some reservations, but I gave it a try because it's an original anime and because I like the character designer. Maybe I didn't investigate the available information closely enough, or maybe the series was somewhat secretive about its content. Either way, I was mostly unprepared for what the show was actually going to be like.

I thought the show would be more like this most of the time.

As it turns out, Akiba Maid War is wild. Familiarity with the various stereotypes being smashed together probably would help to some degree, but it's likely not strictly necessary for one's enjoyment. It does seem this type of show is not for everyone, though, but at least curious viewers will probably be reasonably certain fairly quickly whether or not they are one of these people. At a minimum, any doubt will disappear by the end of the first episode.

This is a spoiler, but it's probably only a spoiler if I tell you it's a spoiler.
P.S. Spoilers.

Through three episodes, Akiba Maid Sensou has easily exceeded any expectations I may have had for it. It will be absolutely incredible if the series can continue doing all the things it has been doing right so far. This is turning out to be an excellent anime season with a lot of good shows. Amazingly, they are also all entertaining for unrelated reasons.

This fucker is too stupid to live. And yet....

I haven't checked if Overlord season four is adapting a proportionally greater amount of the source material than the previous seasons did, but it feels like it. The anime has covered a lot of ground at breakneck speed, and it appears the remaining episodes will bring us all the way to the end of volume 14 (at least based on the content in the OP). Notably, the anime has already skipped past the Holy Kingdom arc that will be covered by the upcoming movie.

GET HYPED

For anime-only viewers, this timeskip occurs without explanation. Unfortunately for anyone relying solely on in-show context to fill in the gaps when it comes to events and organizations not explicitly depicted in the TV anime thus far, there is a fairly significant error that appeared in the official subtitles for episode eight of season four. Specifically, the Holy Kingdom and the Slaine (Slane) Theocracy are treated as being one and the same. They are not. It's an understandable mistake if the translation team is working without the benefit of knowing what the movie will cover, since the Holy Kingdom hasn't been previously introduced in the anime at all, while the Theocracy has been a fixture since the first season.

This old dude.

To clarify, the Kingdom is the country that has featured most prominently in Overlord so far. It's called the Kingdom because, you know, it has a king (the old dude). Last season and this season, there's also the Empire. This is the country with (can you guess?) an Emperor (the young blond guy who is stressed out all the time). We don't know that much about the Theocracy, but they seem to be religious douchebags who deserve to get thrashed. The Holy Kingdom is the country receiving humanitarian aid (the grain that Philip steals) from our intrepid heroes.

This stressed-out guy.

The Crunchyroll's subtitles mistakenly refer to the Holy Kingdom as the Theocracy, which is incorrect and wildly confusing because Nazarick regards the Theocracy as an adversary and would have no reason to provide it with humanitarian aid. [Update: They fixed it.] It's spoilers for the upcoming movie, but I'll leave it up to your imagination to discern why the Holy Kingdom would need humanitarian aid. (Spoilers: Because it gets frickin' wrecked. This wouldn't have happened if y'all had more R.U.N.E.C.R.A.F.T.)

For a kid who's only in her 70s, Aura has a lot to deal with.

I assume nobody is trying to watch the fourth season of Overlord without watching the first three seasons first or reading the books. Without the foundational background, most of the events so far must be somewhat confusing. Since the first anime season came out seven years ago, there are surely potential viewers today who were too young to get in on it in 2015. If any of y'all are reading this, I don't know what to tell you. At least all of it is available on the Crunchyroll, so it's accessible, even for non-subscribers using the free, ad-supported tier. Get caught up.

It's all right, Shalltear. You can just kill them all later.

In my case, I'm pleased simply to get more Overlord anime at all, even if years of memes may have colored my expectations as to how certain scenes ought to transpire. I'm also relieved that the use of 3DCG has (at least so far), not suffered as it did during the third season. Man, some of that was dire. I'm also pretty stoked there's a movie in the works that will cover one of the best arcs from the books. If you've seen people going on and on about some pope, that will make sense after the movie. It's gonna rule.

They're like magic headphones.

Renmei Kuugun Koukuu Mahou Ongakutai: Luminous Witches (League of Nations Air Force Aviation Magic Band Luminous Witches) is a Strike Witches spinoff set in the greater World Witches universe with a key difference: Instead of fighting Neuroi invaders, they sing and dance to raise the spirits of the populace. At least that's the way it has been through the first five episodes. Maybe later on they will also fight along with and/or perform for combat units.

They're almost dressed normally.

We've come a long way from the original Strike Witches anime with its copious amounts of fan service and casual nudity. True, the Luminous Witches are still engaged in the War on Pants, but the series also relies on technicalities by cladding its characters in leggings, skirts, dresses, and shorts. In fact, some characters DO wear trousers, if you can believe it. Like I said, we've come a long way from the days when even the civilian girls in the franchise ran around without pants on for no clear reason. Actually, there was a reason: Because Fuck Pants. No peace in our time.

The original Strike Witches OVA also features animal familiars.

As far as the Luminous Witches anime itself goes, it's fine. I'm not exactly invested in any of the events or the characters. In fact, I definitely could not tell you all of their names or match most of the individual witches with their familiars. For that matter, I couldn't tell you the names of all the Brave Witches, either. (This might have more to do with the fact that Brave Witches ended more than five years ago.) I can still name all the characters from the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, though, even though they sometimes paraded around in the nude. I'm just saying.

Congratulations on not being dead.
P.S. Spoilers.

To tell you the truth, I sort of forgot 86 Eighty Six season 2 two had delayed its final 2 two episodes to March 2022 Two Thousand Twenty Two. I mean, things were sort of tense when we last saw our characters, but it totally could have just ended the season where it was. I would have accepted a cliffhanger-ish ending and an indefinite wait until the next cours, whenever that happens to be. I mean, I think it's reasonable to expect there will be another cours at some point. The anime seems pretty well-regarded, and I've warmed up to it as well, despite some initial misgivings.

Congratulations on not being dead.
P.S. Spoilers.

86 is at its best when it's exploring how its characters relate to each other and to their shared experiences with war. These aspects of the series are much more compelling than how it depicts the war itself or the dynamics of the societies involved. This is not necessarily because I find many of those elements unrealistic, but rather more because I'm not invested in their outcomes. I'm not particularly invested in most of the characters either, but the series has devoted enough time to developing them that I can at least appreciate their emotional resonance.

That's still in regs, right?

I'm going to go ahead and say that 86 Eighty Six manages to avoid being bad by being good. There is certainly a "people die when they are killed" logic to this statement, but I guess what I really mean is the series continues to overachieve in comparison with my expectations for it. Much of this is pessimism on my part, because I've heard from the beginning that the source material is good. However, those sorts of claims aren't very reassuring since "good" light novels typically seem to only be good for sufficiently generous definitions of good.

Ain't you Shinichi's dad from Detective Conan?

Fortunately, the execution in the case of 86 Eighty Six actually is good. There's basically always something in every episode that's done well enough to be noteworthy, and the story is also sound. The various twists remain unexpected (but are also not total ass pulls) and do keep the series interesting even though much of it sounds pretty cheesy if you're just describing it to someone. Notably, I was already spoiled about a resolution to the previous season's ending because I saw the cover to one of the later light novels, but even knowing that did not ruin the effect provided by the 1st First episode of the 2nd Second cours. I'm looking 4 forward 2 to watching more.

This blog was around at the time, but 9/11 predates its pivot to anime-only content.