It's not a date.

Mato Seihei no Slave (localized as Chained Soldier instead of as Slave of the Magic Capital's Elite Troops) is a new anime based on the manga by the same author who wrote Akame ga Kill!. Consequently, you might expect it to be edgy nonsense (I mean that in a good way, okay), but it's more of a gratuitous fan service romp. I suppose I could characterize the manga as a guilty pleasure except I don't feel guilty about enjoying it. It's great, actually.

You're in the sort of anime where this happens, Himari. Deal with it.

Through three episodes, the anime isn't quite as good, mostly because (I suspect) this is the sort of thing that works better as manga than as anime. For one thing, there's something not right about seeing it in color—or at least in these colors. There is, also, the fan service, which does honestly come across differently animated than in manga form. Still, I'm generally in favor of gratuitous content, even if a show is forced to prepare a censored version for the delicate to go along with the uncensored version for general audiences.

See, just like Fullmetal Alchemist.

Oh, am I going to need to describe the premise? Fiiine. Chained Soldier is about women (well, teenage girls, mostly) with superpowers defending the world (well, Japan, mostly) against inhuman monsters. The leader of one of these groups has the ability to enslave these beasts, but it turns out her power works on humans, too (well, on one male human in particular, anyway). Naturally, payment is required in exchange for using this power. In principle, it's like Darker than Black (where a price is paid for using one's powers) or, uh, Fullmetal Alchemist (where, uh, you know, equivalent exchange). Same thing, honestly, except lewd.

This anime bed is made of concrete.

I've been reading Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari (Tales of Wedding Rings) since it first came out a decade ago. It's honestly not an especially compelling story, but I got in at the ground floor because I like Maybe, the manga duo who also gave us Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e (To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts) and Tasogare Otome x Amnesia (Dusk Maiden of Amnesia). Wedding Rings is a fairly straightforward Hero v. Evil Menace fantasy story. It's also one of those deals where the hero's strength is bolstered by the power of polygamy. There are plenty of stories where magic abilities correspond with boner status (e.g., Dakara Boku wa, Ecchi ga Dekinai and Dokyuu Hentai HxEros, among others), but that's not quite what's going on here.

There sure has been a a lot of polygamy anime lately.

Still, the whole going-on-wife-collection-adventures thing sets the tone for what you can expect. I don't think the anime will attempt to cover the entire manga in a single cours, but I also have my doubts about the likelihood of this getting multiple seasons. Through two episodes, it's mostly just fine, although I'm less enthusiastic about it since most of what I liked about the manga is how it looks. In comparison, the Tales of Wedding Rings anime simply looks like, well, just another anime. I'm sticking with it, but I can see how anyone coming to the series with a blank slate may be somewhat unimpressed.

I don't know what sort of voice I expected instead, but it wasn't that.

I started watching Sasaki to Pii-chan (Sasaki and Peeps) despite knowing basically nothing about it. Well, I knew Yuuki Aoi voiced a talking bird, and that was reason enough for me. And I guess I also knew someone convinced Frog-kun that it got better later. It turns out it's about a salaryman who is not at all phased that his newly acquired pet bird is a wizard from a different world. Oh, and magic also works in Japan. I guess there's no reason why it wouldn't.

You may remember me from such anime as 80,000 Gold, Etc.

Anyway, it feels as if I'm being pranked largely because of how the two leads are voiced. I'm at the point where I can't hear Tomokazu Sugita voice any character without, well, without it sounding as if it's just Tomokazu Sugita voicing a character. Additionally, Yuuki Aoi has given the bird an unexpectedly deep voice. You know how the cat in Machikado Mazoku (The Demon Girl Next Door) has a deep voice that's played for laughs? It's a similar effect, except played straight. The first episode is double-length, which is enough time to bring in the psychics who are part Japan's secret psychic government agency, and, it's like...are you putting me on?

How long have you been sitting there?

Anyway, I'm going to keep watching, and hope its focus on arbitrage diminishes a bit. I also don't want it to devolve into magic v. psychics battling. Okay, but then what do I want from Sasaki and Peeps? I suppose I want talking-bird adventures. And I suppose I'm also curious to find out how out-of-place the subplots involving the neighbor feel. I've seen people claim on the social-type media that she was an editorial addition glomming onto some sort of wayward teen girl trend, possibly inspired by HigeHiro. I see the source material (a light novel) is still ongoing, so I'm not expecting much from this anime. Maybe being elaborately pranked by it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

There was a time when I would have been so stoked to see this.

Until I watched Suisei no Majo (The Witch from Mercury), Kidou Senshi Gundam SEED (Mobile Suit Gundam SEED) and its sequel Gundam SEED Destiny were the only two series from that venerable franchise I had ever watched. I did enjoy Gundam SEED and thought it was good enough to buy the giant DVD box, but I probably enjoyed blogging about Destiny more because it's easier to get more mileage out of deeply flawed shows. I wrote most of those posts before adopting WordPress, and never got around to properly migrating all of them. I keep meaning to, though, someday.

Kira looks normal.

At the time, I thought a third season of Gundam SEED would not be too far away. As it turned out, ah, a variety of reasons prevented that from happening. I won't go into it since I don't have a complete understanding of the relevant facts (or at least not a confident understanding). In any case, a 20-year-anniversary movie project is expected in early 2024 now. The details I've been seeing about it do not exactly inspire much enthusiasm, though, at least in my case.

You ARE the villain, right?

At a minimum, the way the already distinctive character designs have evolved appear distractingly silly. Maybe I'll get used to them, but I can't take any of the promotional materials that I've seen so far seriously. More importantly, I'm skeptical a movie project can cram in all the things I'm expecting it to include in any sort of coherent way. I suppose it doesn't need to necessarily wrap everything up as a single movie. I had my doubts when I first heard the GIRLS und PANZER follow-up would consist of six movies, and that is working out well so far. They sure are taking a long time, though. Perhaps, if the FREEDOM movie is popular enough, Sunrise will make more.