tl;dr:
If you had asked for my anime of the year prior to the Fall season, it would have unquestionably been Oshi no Ko. However, Frieren's adaptation has been so excellent over this past season that I am hard pressed not to give it my AOTY. I know Frieren is still airing for a second cour, but it has a full cour's worth of episodes to compare to other seasonal shows, so I think it is fair for now. I think that Oshi no Ko has definitely left a strong impression on me though and I will always remember the first episode and episode 6 as extremely impactful. Few anime have ever had me as invested in a character's story as episode 6 of Oshi no Ko did for Akane.
As for my worst anime of the year, this one is tough. I watch my fair share of bad anime so it is tough to pick. I think I will have to award it to "Am I Actually the Strongest?" The show was horribly paced and narratively confused. Large sections of important story were seemingly glossed over almost nothing was explained. Having watched 12 episodes of the anime, I still don't think I can give any kind of explanation for the MC's abilities. Just avoid this one, it isn't so bad it's good, it's just bad.
Finally, in my quest to pretend to still be young, I thought I would also give a mid award. This one goes to a show that was so bland and generic that it wasn't good, it wasn't bad, it just exists. That goes to Atelier Ryza for me. I have heard that the game series this show was based off of is actually quite good. I have a friend that has played a ton of them and was hyping up the show to me because of it. However, watching the show being unfamiliar with the source at all, it was extremely boring. Things happened extremely predictably. I actually felt that watching the show was like being stuck in an unskippable, long tutorial cutscene in a game. Things were overexplained, drawn out, and the game's quest -> reward structure was very obvious. There were never really any stakes it felt like. I don't know if the entire game was adapted or not, but I certainly hope there is more to the game. The show felt like it was adapting just the tutorial levels.
@ram@lemmy.ca or @N3DSdude@lemmy.ml if you could pin the new/unpin the old discussion posts, that would be greatly appreciated.
I think the Helck flashbacks wouldn't have been as bad if I was bingeing it, but watching week to week, it felt very drawn out. Since the flashbacks have ended, I have gotten more into it again.
As for Girlfriend, Girlfriend and 100GF, I have written before that I think I enjoyed the series more in manga form. I think that Shino is by far the best character in GF, GF though, so you have excellent taste in that department.
Yeah, I was reading the WN for Villainess Level 99 and dropped it shortly after the main arc. It reached a pretty satisfying conclusion and the story after that felt kind of forced, plus I just had too many other things competing for my time.
Rather than writing about what I have watched this past week, I decided to look ahead at the upcoming season of anime and check out shows that looked interesting. My first pass led me to some shows that I am debating watching, but I will likely need to cut this down due to time. I divided it into shows I am familiar with the source and those that I am not.
@ram@lemmy.ca if you would be so kind as to do the pinning/unpinning, it would be appreciated.
I love a good romance as well and this season is pretty sparse. Looking at anichart for Fall 2023, I only see three shows with the romance tag. The only one of those I am watching (100GF) is more comedy-focused than romance-focused. That's pretty light. For comparison, last season there were seven shows with the romance tag.
Oof, this one lands a bit close to home. Teachers can be amazing, but comments like these with the best of intentions can sometimes hurt given the context of a person's life.
That's a good point. When I am making okonomiyaki at my table, it is just for me. I am not making it for the person that sits at the table after I leave. At the very least, I don't think gyoza vouchers are an acceptable form of compensation in Japan (how do you pay taxes on gyoza?). It's fun to riff on, but overall I have been really enjoying this series so far.
As for random downvotes, it happens everywhere occasionally. I suspect it is people seeing things they might not like when they browse the "all" feed of their instance rather than "subscribed". They are just random internet points, they don't matter at the end of the day.
I think that is actually a totally fair way to look at the show. The moral implications of Kotaro's actions are immense and dark. Also, the way he more or less threatens them with society's reaction to zombies in order to become idols is extremely manipulative. I can totally understand why those aspects of the show would turn somebody off from watching.
For me, I have been enjoying the show after basically accepting those bits as the needed bits to establish the premise and then moving on. Namely, the premise of a group of zombie girls becoming idols. After the first couple episodes, they aren't really brought up any more and the girls are all acting of their own will. They are even capable of doing the makeup on their own without Kotaro by the time you reach season 2.
This series keeps showing us how to break workplace safety rules. I mentioned it elsewhere already, but this week it is touching things with gloved hands after handling uncooked meat. When will our protagonists learn proper procedure?
Edit: I had to think about having customers cook, but I don't think that would break any rules. There are plenty of hot pot places that give you trays of raw meat and let you cook it in the broth at your table. Similarly, I was at a restaurant in Tokyo that gave you raw batter for okonomiyaki and let you cook it on a griddle built into the table.
I don't have too much time to craft my usual tome of a comment this week, so I will keep it short. Quick hot-takes on a couple shows I watched during the past week:
@ram@lemmy.ca, if you would be so kind as to do the pin/unpin shuffle like normal, that would be much appreciated.
@wjs018
@lemmy.ml