Anime

Have you heard of the Takarazuka Revue? It's a real all women's stage troupe in Japan that apparently has the whole 'top star' thing going on, it's quite famous so sorry if you have heard of it. I didn't look too deep into it but I know the series is supposed to be some form of critique on that system, the Giraffe iirc (big spoils)

Spoiler - click to showis supposed to represent us, our desire to see the girls perform is the cause of the revues and desire for everyone to be number one….or something like that it's been a long time tbh! The winner of the whole thing gets to make a wish and Nana Daiba actually won it once and her wish was to keep doing a loop of the year they did the play, if you watch it back there's a few hints where she knows what is coming before she should even. (except for Hikari's return, which is why she's like 'what') Maybe we're the villains :^)

So there is some more stuff in there, but it's like Metal Gear Solid 2 (very unsubtle namedrop but I can't think of a better one atm). It's a very deep game with tons of hidden meanings but if you don't like the characters it probably won't matter to you. I think bringing up MGS2 is because maybe this stuff is seen as pretentious horsehit as well, but I don't care since I enjoy the surface level product. T_T

Magatsu Wahrheit Zuerst is another mobage adaptation, in a pre-WWI-but-magic setting (with just a hint of post-apocalypse). It's setting itself up, so far, as a kind of a slow-burn political thriller – the plot follows two people on opposite sides of a rebellion (both involved, kind of, by accident), though the key art heavily implies an imminent timeskip of at least a decade. I'm not sure the magic element is necessary so far, but a quick youtubelol at the game suggests it may become more important later on.

I'm interested to see where it goes; it's a pretty serious show with a grounded aesthetic, and handily has the fewest jokes of anything else on my list at the moment. There's something about it that reminds me of Rage of Bahamut: Genesis from 2014, which had similar mobage origins and managed to be much, much better than it ever had any right to be.

I'll probably get back to Revue Starlight at some point, Al – I'm almost halfway through it and I am curious to see more, but it's just not done enough to leap above other stuff at the moment.

New Adachi and Shimamura dropping tomorrow, though!

You've mentioned Rage of the Bahamut before and just as then you reminded me that I should probably actually watch Manaria/Mysteria Friends. Apparently it's set in the same world BUT it gets a bit confusing for me because I know Grea (the half dragon girl) is also a character in Granblue Fantasy because I actually rolled her recently, I'm not 100% sure how RoB and GBF are connected but maybe I should look into it.

I could just watch the two series adaptations for Granblue Fantasy but other than seeing the legendary potato herself, Charlotta (and my fave gbf char, Vira), animated I don't see much reason to, I…did kinda do the story in the gacha, Manaria Friends is…just SoL I think? Though in the first ep magic is used, also Grea can obviously fight, it's just prob not the focus. If it's something that expands the universe I might end up really liking it.

I'll probably get back to Revue Starlight at some point, Al

I doubt you'll change your mind too much…but maybe you'll like the thing in it's entirety.

New Adachi and Shimamura dropping tomorrow, though!

Big hype, I was actually annoyed when I saw how far away the episode was when I finished Ep2. >_>

Warlords of Sigrdrifa is about teenage girls granted superpowers by Odin so they can fly magic propeller planes to defeat an alien invasion in preparation for Ragnarök. It's broadly modern technology, though, so they're flying alongside F-18s.

Based on the first episode, it's… pretty good? The fight scenes make liberal use of the Itano Circus (always a positive), but kinda lack any real threat. The characters are likeable, if maybe a little heavy on the moe. I'm not sure how the plot will progress past this opening (which sees a Valkyrie pilot nicknamed the "Grim Reaper", thanks to the 99.9% casualty rate of her squadmates, transfer to a new airbase), and the second episode kicks off with something a little closer to a slice of life, but hopefully that's just to build attachment to characters before they start getting killed off.

I finished all 50 episodes of Iron Blooded Orphans, I can kinda' see why everyone was so mad but I don't really share the general sentiment. It wasn't the ending people wanted but it fit the entire rest of the show if you ask me.

Spoiler - click to show I get it, it's a massive downer that almost everyone died, but it's not like everything Tekkaden did was useless. The system that created child soldiers like them was abolished, Mars colonies got their independence and some of them did survive and live a life of peace. Even Rustal, who was the 'bad guy' actually ended up spearheading the reforms within Gjallarhorn that McGillis' had sacrificed so much for. That the ones who didn't survive died is just a fact of war no? Orga was in way over his head getting Tekkaden involved in a war an when the people who usually reined him in died there was no one to stop him.

Next Gundam series will be Unicorn because it's the only fucking one on Netflix, but something is telling me (and by something I mean almost everyone I know -_-) to watch Made in Abyss next…

I've ordered a 1/144 figure of Bael from IBO already and I might order another, I'm scared I'm about to dive headfirst down a slippery slope here but god damn Gundam mechs are so cool.

Made in Abyss would be a reasonably quick chaser in between Gundams.

Sounds like a plan. Good job I'm also in between Cold Steel games and thus have absolutely nothing else of value to do at all until the next one I GUESS.

I've been rewatching Shin Sekai Yori/From the New World over the last few days, but I'm disappointed to discover that there's a mastering problem with the second disc (of four) of MVM's blu-ray release that renders the entire thing unplayable on both my PS3 and Series X.

I think I've got access to it on at least one streaming service (HiDive?) but it's frustrating that the physical discs are completely borked.

I've still not got round to Made in Abyss but I finished Gundam: Unicorn and barely understood any of it so I wouldn't recommend it as your first foray into the franchise…but damn some of those fight scenes are real nice! Instead I'm going on to the very original first series, Mobile Suit Gundam: it looks nowhere near as outdated as I'm led to believe, in fact it looks fine and the action is still pretty good for how old it is IMO, we got Amuro slicing mobile suits in half and everything, I think it's pretty cool actually.

One thing I DO really like too is that Amuro Ray and Char Aznable are really good so far, I thought Amuro might be more whiny but so far he's had just one instance of being fed up with having to pilot the Gundam and kill the enemy, every other time has him being a competent pilot but obviously preferring he'd not have to do it at all, he's not Mikazuki from IBO who was a true soldier, and he's not a true civillian like Link in Unicorn. Char is…Char, he's obviously super popular, if you haven't heard of him you MIGHT have seen him and his distinctive silver face mask and red garb in a meme or some such. He's such a wonderful bastard

Spoiler - click to showThe way he laughs as he sets up his own friend, someone on his own team mind, to be killed in a Federation attack is brilliant. "If you can hear me, blame this on the misfortune of your birth! Hahahahahaha!"

and him being able to take on Amuro's Gundam with just his Red Zaku and get the upper hand is super cool, really makes you think how much of a badass he is. I know what his deal is, but I like that he's not just a simple antagonist, he has his own motivations beyond fighting for Zeon against the Federation that aren't super obvious at first. And his and Amuro's Rivalry as a thing is so good specifically, they've fought quite a lot so far but each conflict just feels significant somehow, like one or the other comes closer to finally winning or they learn something about each or or whatever.

New anime season is here!

Maybe a bit early to make breathless recommendations, but if Wonder Egg Priority isn't show of the season I'll be amazed, after that opener. It's visually stunning, bounces around from melancholy to exciting to heartbroken to optimistic effortlessly. I'm getting shades of Penguindrum, Serial Experiments Lain and The Tatami Galaxy, wrapped up in a KyoAni aesthetic, and an anime original story to boot as far as I can tell (which means we should get an actual ending rather than a manga-promoting cliffhanger after one cour).

I'm also watching Hinomiya, a high school romance show that managed to pack more character development into its first episode then most of the genre can do in five; Otherside Picnic, an intriguing but unevenly executed urban fantasy with a Noragami vibe; and Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki, which is more interesting than I expected but it's still a prime candidate for getting dropped if it sticks to its current 7/10 guns.

From last season I'm still finishing off DECA-DENCE and Higurashi Gou, as well as trying to catch up on The Promised Neverland in time to follow some of the new season as it releases.

Since Adachi and Shimamura ended (not bad, but definitely left me wanting more) I've not watched anything, I still need to finish Gundam. It's almost time for the annual White Album 2 rewatch though, so time to steel myself.

(which means we should get an actual ending rather than a manga-promoting cliffhanger after one cour).

Some of my favourite recent series are in this sentence, damn.

A friend has started watching Revolutionary Girl Utena, so I've been following along with them – my first full-series rewatch. It's messier than I remembered in a lot of ways; the plots are incoherent and the characters inconsistent despite never really getting much in the way of personal development, but God the thematic and emotional core of the thing is solid as a rock.

Four weeks into the season, I'm pretty close to dropping Otherside Picnic, as it's not yet made good on any of the inter-character promises it started with. It's not selling the slice-of-life stuff, and Sorawo's constant back-and-forth about going to the eponymous other side is wearing thin. When it gets over there, it often fails to lay the necessary groundwork to sell the payoffs it's going for, but some of the body horror stuff and weirdness is great. I just wish it was a bit more consistent.

Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki is also on the chopping block. Like Otherside Picnic, it started out suggesting one direction, but seems to be making its way back to much more familiar, boring territory with every episode. The main character's thinly-veiled audience surrogate personality and exhausting "real gamer" rants are pretty draining.

On the plus side, Horimiya continues to be adorable, and its breakneck pacing doesn't seem to be slowing down or affecting its ability to tell a coherent, emotionally-resonant story. I don't know that I'll ever be able to watch a drawn-out will-they-won't-they romance show again, given the amount of ground they've covered in four episodes. It honestly makes me pretty anxious that something's going to go horribly wrong before the season wraps up.

And Wonder Egg Priority hasn't put a foot wrong yet. Last week introduced a new character whose emotional armour gradually peels away over the course of the episode; at the end she's recognisably the same selfish, arrogant asshole she was at the start, but there's such depth and pain to the front she's hiding behind that I couldn't help but empathise with her. I'm so excited to see where it goes from here.

One show I want to start but….ah this is bad but I just can't get in the mood for it right now but the show is the second season of Yuru Camp and the reason I can't get into it right now is that I feel such a disconnect with what it's all about (assuming it's not changed from season 1) and that is…Camping. The first show was about girls who form a camping club and just fucking…CAMP the shit out of Japan.

It's a VERY comfy slice of life where you basically watched these friends enjoy the shit out of life through camping together, cooking warm ass meals and enjoying a hot drink under a blanket as they stare at constellations in the night sky infront of a warm fire. FUCK.

How am I supposed to watch a show like that while we're living through this bullshit, I can't even do my once-a-week trip to the Starbucks in town where I got out of the house and read something with a big cup of Hot Chocolate. BLEH. I dunno about Season 2 but I definitely recommend people check the first season, I dunno if it's required but it's a good intro to everything (including the dynamic duo that is the genki girl Nadeshiko and the deadpan genius, Rin) and the INTRO IS SO FUCKING GOOD.

SHINY DAYS

This ^ was a great suggestion, thanks!

This is the best anime stuff. Friends camping and cooking > giant robots punching really hard.

Awesome! I'm so glad someone else likes it! I STILL haven't started the second series, now I'm on a break maybe I should. Although, if it has more incredibly alluring scenes of camping and camp food instructions…

Well, while Wonder Egg Priority didn't completely shit the bed or anything, I'm overall fairly disappointed with the direction it took in the end. A few too many handwavey sci-fi explanations for stuff that didn't need to be explained, an entire episode infodump about a backstory we'd not heard before (let alone cared about), and a complete reversal of one of the core relationships of the show (as established in the first episode) without putting the groundwork in to sell it.

It's still a visually stunning show, and with time and a rewatch I might come around on some of the decisions it made – especially after the proper final episode actually airs in June – but for now I'm just a bit deflated.

New season! New anime! I've struggled to find stuff to follow this season, but two shows are sticking around so far.

ODDTAXI is set in a world of cute anthropomorphic animals, and follows a sarcastic, middle-aged walrus taxi driver and his friends. It looks and sounds, from that description, like it'll be a fluffy slice-of-life comedy, but it's got a dark edge that really elevates things. With subplots including runaway teenagers, videogame addiction, police corruption and inter-generational dating, there's a whole lot of threads which will hopefully tie up eventually but for now just make everything intriguingly messy.

VIVY -Flourite Eye's Song- is misleading in its promo material, to a degree - I'd thought it was another one of the current raft of tedious pop idol shows but with an isekai twist. In fact it's a sci-fi action drama about an AI singer's attempts to prevent an upcoming human-AI war, by intervening at key points, when instructed by a time-travelling teddy bear. It's a bit of a mixed bag, visually, but it does some really interesting things with editing and time-skips even in the opening two-parter; I'm also picking up a strong vibe that not everything's what it appears to be with the bear, so I'm excited to see where things go.

I'll be keeping an eye out for the buzz around anything else as the season continues; if there's anything anybody here (I'm looking at you, @Alastor ) is willing to vouch for, I've got loads of room on my schedule.

Not seen anything anime related in a while besides the Demon Slayer movie a few days ago, but I'll keep an eye out! As for the Demon Slayer movie itself, if you like the series (it's a good shonen imo) you'll at least like the fight scene at the end, I thought the bit on the train was pretty stupid.

Ending

Spoiler - click to showThe crying from the three young lads at the end of the film at being forced to watch Rengoku die protecting them from Akaza was so fucking…raw, man I felt sorry for them. And RIP Rengoku for that matter. Had a hole punched through his solar plexus and he still almost won. T_T

This reminded me that I need to watch the second Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feels movies, more Ufotable shonen fight scene goodness.

86 EIGHTY SIX falls into a couple of common anime tropes – most notably the implausibly-designed "military uniform" worn by the female lead – but I blitzed the first five episodes in a row tonight so it's doing something right.

The broad strokes: the Republic of San Magnolia is under siege by the Legion, automated spider-tank drones from a neighbouring Imperial army that have wiped out their own command structure and are now on a rampage. With military intelligence suggesting that the Legion's central processor will fail within a few years, the government of the Republic has developed unmanned spider-tanks of its own, resulting in a defensive war without any casualties… or so they claim. In reality, these "Juggernaut" drones are piloted by former citizens of the Republic, stripped of their human rights and forced into military service.

The show follows a new handler for a squad of Juggernauts, and the pilots on the ground. It touches on PTSD, racial profiling and discrimination, military propaganda and systemic prejudice, with the handler – Major Lena Milizé – trying to highlight the plight of her soldiers within a military society that doesn't care about its abuses (while forced to face her own internal biases). The front-line pilots are all still fairly broad archetypes so far, but the show is doing a reasonable job at humanising them with snippets of their non-combat life, which throw the battles into pretty stark relief.

While most of Lena's scenes are in her plush apartment and high-tech research facilities, her combat workstation is a tiny, dark box filled with minimalist data screens. Likewise, the drone pilots mostly exist in a run-down but comfortable operating base surrounded by greenery; but when the fighting starts they're cast into claustrophobic urban environments, hemmed in by partly-ruined buildings and Legion mechs.

The fights suffer a little from Main Character Badass Syndrome, with "Undertaker" (the curt, tactical-genius nihilist who leads the unit on the ground) flipping his spider-tank over buildings and enemies with precision and preternatural speed, 360 no-scoping dozens of enemies without taking a scratch. The geography is often unclear, particularly when things get vertical, but the fights are exciting to watch and I love the design of the 86's drones – picture one of Stand Alone Complex's Tachikoma tanks, but looking more like a Half Life 2 ant-lion, and with a howitzer mounted on top.

The show has covered quite a bit of emotional ground in the first five episodes, but has only just started dropping hints for what's to come; likewise, we're just starting to get into the details of the main characters' backstories, to fill out their pretty slight archetypes (though I don't foresee any major surprises here). Overall its visuals aren't a whole lot to write home about, but there are some very effective directing choices and the use of match cuts is top-notch.

It's streaming on Crunchyroll (the first four episodes are available to free accounts), so if you feel like your life is missing a sci-fi war drama anime, then I'd highly recommend taking a look.

So Castlevania Season 4 happened and I'm really disappointed, I dunno if it's better or worse than Season 3 yet I just know both seasons are bad and not half of the entire series is bad and I'm not sure if I can say if it's overall good in that case (well I guess it'll tell you if I'm a glass half full/half empty kind of person based on which one I answer with?).

Animation is as great as ever, the writing after S2 fell of a cliff though and here's no exception. Characters feel like different people to the ones they were in Season 3, namely Carmilla and her Vampire sisters, one good guy in Season 3 has a very badly written heel turn in Season 4 and just dies, okay. At least Alucard got to go full Symphony of the Night mode with his sword and shield this time, his fight scenes are a real highlight of the season although Sypha and her continually inventive ways of magical vampire genocide still reign supreme. They really made up for the terrible botch job they did to him in Season 3.

I still really recommend the first two seasons though…

3 episodes in and I can safely say I'm going to eat up every last bit of Oregairu because I can already tell it's going to be really good. It's not that I think Yukino carries it, Hachiman and Yui are really good too and I actually really feel for Hachiman under all the comedic dressing…but holy shit Yukino the , I really like it when characters shatter my preconceived opinions of them (Like Sachiko in MariMite!) and Yukino's personality is nothing what I expected and she doesn't feel like a character I see a lot, So I'm down to see her do her thing more. Again, only 3 episodes in so not a whole lot more to add other than the bit where Yukino completely destroyed that Chuuni guy's script was amazing.

Yukino… doesn't feel like a character I see a lot

Yeah, she's great.

This is one instance where I'd urge you not to give in to your light novel habit, though - they're pretty spoilery, insofar as the way characters are described, basically from page one, gives a very strong indication of how things are going to end up…

Yeah, don't worry. I've somewhat had my fill of LN for a bit with the second huge volume of 'I'm in love with the Villainess' which isn't anime but I highly reccomend it as the best isekai thing I've seen…

It's not really got a high bar to clear for "best isekai", to be fair…

Okay that's fair, there's a reason I don't watch those anymore. I didn't even finish Re:Zero…

I'm pretty sure I'm up to date with Re:Zero, but it got very tedious in places – though it's also much bleaker and more complicated than I'd expected, and it attempts (not entirely successfully) to criticise Subaru's bordering-on-creepy fixation with Emilia in a way I hadn't expected.

I've grabbed the first Villainess LN and so far I'm finding it pretty exhausting, though. The rapid dialogue and scattershot worldbuilding are leaning heavily into the least appealing aspects of light novels, but that's a problem you kind of have to accept with the format – it might work better as an anime where they can shorten or combine scenes. The protagonist is kind of insufferable in first person, though.

It reminds me quite a lot of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom, which also has an otome game fan reincarnated into her favourite dating sim – but as its antagonist, rather than the heroine. It's not without its problems (primarily the main character's active refusal to participate in the central dramatic conflict), but it was a pretty fun if fluffy reverse harem show.

I thought the world building aspect of it was the best part! I feel like I know almost exactly how the game 'Revolution' works as a game and as world in its own right, I think it's pretty well detailed and consistent with it. Also, I like that it uses the setting it created to talk about stuff like social inequality, taking a character like Claire who is supposed to be an unlikable Noble born npc and slowly humanises her whilst still pointing out she's part of the problem was really good. Even if people think it didn't land so well I appreciate the attempt.

Rei's pursuit of Claire is pretty relentless (which I'm not saying was what you were saying even if it's a part of it), but underneath all that teasing she really does love her, I don't know what that trope is called but I like it.

Also yes, I think I saw that other Villainess LN, I haven't seen it. It's usually described exactly as you said so I have no doubt it's a fun show.

underneath all that teasing she really does love her

I have no doubt that's the intent, but they really don't do much to sell the idea. Repeatedly stating it as a fact without any supporting evidence just made me question the honesty of it. There's no significant difference between how the narrator describes Claire versus any other character.

Hmm, yeah I see how it comes off that way. She does eventually do things here and there for her to look out for her, but mostly she tries to stick to the whole 'I just want to be by her side' thing. ..mostly.

Not much point in you checking it out atm but the only other big Yuri LN series I enjoyed nearly as much was the 'Regarding Sayaka Saeki' series which is of course the spin off from Bloom into You with the best character in the show. They'll spoil the bits the anime didn't show, so I don't think much use to you and I'm starting to feel bad for hyping these all up and raising expectations a lot maybe. T_T

A friend got me a copy of Hidamari Sketch, a fluffy slice of life show about art students that – thanks to its presentation – has me completely on edge waiting for the grisly murders to start.

This is, if I'm honest, a me problem; most of the shows I've seen with these kind of chunky pastel character designs use them as a thin veneer, misdirection on top of something much darker. But there's also more than character designs at work here: the shot composition and editing are a rung or two higher than you'd normally get from this genre, and makes the thing feel almost like a Shaft psychodrama.

Which, it turns out, is because this was animated by Shaft, and co-directed by one of the guys that did Bakemonogatari, one of the most aggressively ambitious and off-kilter anime series of the last fifteen years.

Hidamari Sketch doesn't quite reach that same level of weirdness – the characters and setup wouldn't support Bakemonogatari's intensity, for one – but the use of quick detail shots, cuts as ellipses, and flat perspective shot composition has helped turn what would otherwise be a pretty forgettable cute-girls-doing-cute-things show into something that's extremely interesting to watch.

Also, the season is starting to wrap up - both 86 EIGHTY SIX and VIVY: Fluorite Eye's Song ended over the weekend, with fairly devastating but entirely satisfying final episodes. I'd expected both of them, in different ways, to try and sugar-coat what had been fundamental thematic elements, but in a pleasant surprise they both stuck to their guns.

86 EIGHTY SIX is based on a light novel series, which means it may get a second season – which would be fascinating to see given how this one ended – but there's also a Special Episode due later this year. I'm expecting it to be a side story or prequel, rather than a follow-up. That could just be wishful thinking on my part, hoping for that full series two treatment.

VIVY, on the other hand, was an original series that wrapped up everything it needed to, so the odds of getting more later seem pretty slim. Its time-travelling concept would be difficult to repeat in any case, so I reckon that's a one-and-done.

There's just one finale left on my list, and it's going to be a tricky landing: ODDTAXI has been consistently brilliant, piling on characters and plotlines even as it's approached the end, and with two episodes left to wrap everything up it's tough to see how they'll get every thread to a satisfying conclusion. I've never been so sure that a show would manage it, though; even though this is the director's first work – he doesn't have writing, design, production or directing credits on anything else – I can't remember a show that's exuded the kind of confidence and craft from minute one that ODDTAXI has. Unless they fuck up the finale in a major way, it's going to be an all-timer.

Apparently the next cour of 86 EIGHTY SIX is due to start in October, which is going to be fascinating to see. Maybe it's the combination of animation studio (A-1 Pictures) and composer (Hiroyuki Sawano) that's got me worried, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't go the way of Aldnoah Zero's disappointing second season.

He did it. That crazy son of a bitch, he actually did it. Baku Kinoshita, the greenhorn writer, character designer and director of ODDTAXI, somehow pulled off an emotionally, dramatically and visually satisfying conclusion to one of the most nuanced, complex shows I've seen from the last decade – and, in keeping with the confidence on show throughout the season, made it look effortless.

I'm going to be rewatching the whole thing as soon as I get the chance. I think it might be an all-timer.

There's a new Godzilla anime on Netflix, Godzilla: Singular Point. Which, I mean, of course I watched it. How could I not?

It's… good?

It falls headlong into a bunch of the common problems with sci-fi anime (mainly the dense, nonsensical technobabble exposition), which makes the back half a frequently-difficult slog, but it does some really interesting stuff with the "canon", so much as one exists for the franchise. I loved the Rodan redesign in particular, and I'm curious to see where the second season (teased in a post-credit stinger) goes with the obvious Mothra nods. It makes me wish more of the movies would lean into weirder territory; hopefully their shorter running time would help keep focus.

I cannot imagine this would be of interest to anyone not already invested in Godzilla, though. The Big G doesn't appear for most of the show, but so much of what kept me going was based in the references, nods and fake-outs that took cues from other Godzilla movies – though I think it maybe took too much from Shin Godzilla in particular, and the classic theme was definitely overused by the end.

I finished Oregairu after basically binging the last two seasons, I think that's one of my favourite romance anime confessions of all time. As a whole I think it's one of the best romance anime I've seen/read in a while. It was nice to see Hachiman change a lot from Season 1 to Season 3, everyone did but it was him I felt the most strongly for because man I felt so sorry for him. I have no idea how Yui is going to cope having to see them together every day…

+1 the relationship between Hachiman and his sister was cute
+1 Iroha had the funniest running joke in the series and she really grew on me
+1 Hiratsuka-senseiiiii :pleading_face:

Now we start again…

New season has started. Anime marches on.

I'm watching five shows at the moment, though at least one is a strong contender for the chopping block if they don't buck up their ideas in the next episode or two. In descending order of how likely I am to stick with them:

Sonny Boy is looking extremely promising. There's only one episode out yet, which is a weird, aimless thing that sets up a handful of character dynamics which I'm not certain are going to survive past this opener, but its simple art style – reminiscent of Tatami Galaxy, Ping Pong The Animation and the work of Satoshi Kon – is very striking, and the character movement in places is gorgeous. It's about a class of high school students who happened to be in the school when it was transported into an endless void, and how they cope with that and the superpowers some of them have gained while here. I have no clue where it's going from here, but I'm very interested to find out.

Kageki Shoujo!! is the second-strongest contender of the season for me; it looks gorgeous, for one thing, but it's also a relatively rare shoujo series that isn't a romance (at this stage anyway). It's about the incoming class at a Kyoto acting school (it's the Takarazuka Revue with the serial numbers filed off), and their efforts to become the top stars of its prestigious shows.

How A Realist Hero Rebuilt The Kingdom is another isekai – there's honestly no fucking escaping these things – about a normal guy summoned into a fantasy world to be a hero in the war against the encroaching Demon Empire. This one, thankfully, isn't a straight-up power fantasy, as the "hero" in this case (training to be a civil servant in his own world) is rapidly installed as the nation's monarch and sets about… sorting out their finances. And their agricultural policies. It's more along the lines of the excellent Log Horizon than Re:Zero, so I'm curious to see how it progresses (although I can already detect the whiff of lazy harem tropes).

My Life as a Villainess is back for its second season with the further adventures of dumb-as-a-bag-of-rocks otome game villain-turned-heroine Katarina Claes. I'm considering putting this on hold until the season finishes (and the dub comes out) as it's not the sort of thing that's really holding my attention week-to-week.

The Detective Is Already Dead is… well, it's pretty bad. She's a Manic Pixie Dream Girl! He's an everyday loser with bad luck! Together, they solve crimes! Until she dies off-screen, between episodes, anyway. Then he meets another quirky girl, who happens to have received the MPDG's heart in a transplant, and now she's fixated on Mr. Boring, and they go on to solve crimes? There's also an utterly what-the-fuck subplot about evil androids with telescoping tentacle ears (no, really). I'm sticking with it out of sheer fascination to see what the hell it pulls out next, but it lacks the confidence and style of something like Symphogear or Valvrave that would make it a must-watch.

It's not anime, but it's about anime: NHK have released a documentary following Hideaki Anno during the production of the final Rebuild of Evangelion movie, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time. It's maybe a little more of a hagiography than I'd've liked (and skips over quite a lot of his projects in the recap of his career), but there's some really interesting insight into his mentality – both towards his work generally, and Evangelion in particular.

I'd kind of assumed, given the often combative nature of his films to the fan expectation, that he was much more certain about the direction he wanted to take, but for 3.0+1.0 there's a definite sense of panic underneath all the decisions he makes – or rather, doesn't, as most of the documentary (and 3.0+1.0's production) is spent with Anno refusing to commit to decisions, often to the bewilderment of his staff.

Anno seems constantly paralysed by the expectation placed on him by his co-workers, subordinates and fans, but maybe most of all by himself. He rips up and rewrites foundational aspects of the film just because he feels the ideas he's having are too pedestrian or too "normal". And all the while he's working himself to the bone.

There's not much indication of the toll this all takes on the other staff at Studio Xhara (the documentary was produced as promotional material for the film), but several interviews with animators and producers at the studio talk about how Anno takes all the pressure personally so maybe they were just left twiddling their thumbs for most of the film's thirteen year production schedule.

I found it fascinating in a lot of places, disappointingly shallow in others, but it gave me a new angle of appreciation for what Evangelion represents as a personal statement from Anno himself.

And of course, it's made me want to rewatch the series again.

I still haven't seen 3.0…

There's only so long I can wait and keep interest, I'll (try to) watch it before the last film comes out, but whilst the first two films were cool, they weren't exactly worth this long wait, am I jumping the gun two films in?

Also, I dunno why but I'm watching You're Under Arrest! and yes I know it's like 50 million episodes, but it's just really light hearted and something to watch here and there before bed after that heavy Oregairu watch through. It's about' perhaps not too surprisingly' a Police Department in Japan and the cast is (mostly) all female. So far I'd say it's a mix of light drama and comedy.

I like Miyuki and Natsumi.

I still haven't seen 3.0…

There's only so long I can wait and keep interest, I'll (try to) watch it before the last film comes out, but whilst the first two films were cool, they weren't exactly worth this long wait, am I jumping the gun two films in?

The first two films made the (arguable) mistake of hewing very close to the TV series' events, which left them feeling pretty flat and uninteresting. However, when fans online started guessing at what would happen in the third, based on the preview at the end of 2.0, Anno scrapped the entire thing and started over – with a fourteen-year timeskip in the story.

As a result, You Can (Not) Redo feels something like a massive middle finger to the online fans, as it takes a hard left away from seemingly every "safe" idea it might have. But with the hindsight of that documentary, I wonder if it was just Anno's depression/anxiety kicking his urge to create something "new" into overdrive – he seems half-terrified of producing something that could be seen as derivative.

Alright, well I'll watch the first two again before the third still, if nothing else I remember them being super nice to look at, especially the new Ramiel effects.

Also Mari was very entertaining.

I remember them being super nice to look at

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one…

Personally I think the Rebuilds look really technical and clinical, in the way that a lot of digital anime is, partly due to the CGI mecha stuff. It doesn't have the personality of a Trigger or KyoAni project, or even the original cel-drawn Eva.

Against all odds, despite the fact that it makes little to no sense logically, narratively or thematically, I really liked Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time. Yes, that is the real title of an actual movie that exists.

There's some truly, all-timer bad CGI as it approaches the end, and even the good stuff is clinically technical, geographically indistinct and over-detailed; there's too much horny otaku nonsense in the costume designs; it's overly long and stuffed with dense technobabble exposition that is neither necessary or explanatory. There's an extended sequence towards the end that heavily references a making-of documentary about itself.

But it does what both of the previous Evangelion endings have done before it, and somehow nails the landing on the characters' emotional arcs.

I cannot in good faith recommend that anyone watches it.

Watched 1.11 earlier in the week and have just this minute finished 2.22.

I hope Anno pulls it all together because quite frankly Ive got no clue what's happening now.

Is there a tidy viewing order for the whole thing?

Is there a tidy viewing order for the whole thing?

Including the original series?

Original series

Then there's alot of discussion on if you should watch Death/Rebirth and whether that should be before or after End of Evangelion (it's kind of a condensed version of the series but the endings different), I'd say watch it before EoE and then try and make sense of it all.

Those are all on Netflix

Then you watch the Rebuild movies: 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 then 3.0+1.0, there's the documentary that aniki mentions too and I'm not sure when you're supposed to watch that one.

Be warned though, the fan service gets worse the longer it goes on

Wait, I also re-watched 1.11 and will continue 2.22 tonight! Very excited as after that I've not seen the last two films. First is basically a HD condension of the first few series episodes, then it starts to veer off massively and I'm super interested to see it all.

Neon Genesis' haunting sounds are next level to me, really feel the fear going through Shinji's head the first time he fights an Angel and it fucks him up. Also the theme during Operation Yashima…and Ramiel's screams, just so good.

1.11 is a few years old but by god does it look great imo, and Eva Unit 01 just has a damn habit of making iconic images of itself just by being there in the midst.

Evangelion is still the King. (Other than WA2 maaaaaybe)

I've got Misato shouting Launch and Asuka's "Idiot" (both in Japanese) permanently engrained on my mind, mostly because a friend set them as some of the sound effects on my Windows XP desktop many (fly me to the) moons ago

So er, I forget but did you do the Weeping City of Mhach raid in XIV yet? Because Ramiel's new liquid crystal shit would definitely feel familiar to you a bit….

I think I've only played that once(?) So probably don't remember, but I was very much going "wtf!?" during the Ramiel battle because, well, it didn't do any of that stuff before!?