Fall 2022
3. Spy x Family: A little weaker than the first season with more meandering episodes and setups that didn’t always land, but we’re talking a drop from 95 to 80% hits, so this was still a big winner. The character dynamics and misunderstandings continue to make me grin each episode. Soon, SxF will need to begin exploring larger arcs or start making some more headway with the main plot to avoid feeling like a full on sit-com.
1/18/2023 edit: Oops, it is now obvious that Blue Lock is not over yet, so shuffle Spy x Family to #2, and Do it Yourself to #3.
2. Blue Lock: So now that I have convinced myself I have some standards when it comes to hot blooded shounen sports anime, I am comfortable saying this was really a treat. Even though the intro-hook went with a death-game vibe and was a bit misleading, it did successfully set the stakes and introduce the spirit of competition we would be marinating in for the rest of the season. The matches were fun and dysfunctional, not focusing on traditional Soccer strategy too much, but on the fantastical and flashy techniques (weapons) each character polished to compete. The twists kept coming and never broke tone, and this adaptation had the cajones to full stop mid-arc, possibly in service to the manga, but I still like that there was no compromise or anime original ending. It’s a good sign when one of the most boring-to me-sports is one of the most entertaining shows this season.
1. Chainsaw Man: Well, looking back at my prediction:
I can safely say that broadly covers the appeal; this was effortlessly entertaining to watch each week with some stellar production, and the thing I looked forward to most.Originally Posted by neflight86
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But that's not all that's worth mentioning... Perhaps special awards are in order?
Both Noumin Kanren no Skill Bakka Agetetara Naze ka Tsuyoku Natta/ Yuusha Party o Tsuihou Sareta Beast Tamer, Saikyoushu no Nekomimi Shoujo to Deau get the ‘pubescent acne swab’ in their bathrooms. Low effort escapism isekai/fantasy is difficult to like. Not only because the stories are vapid and formulaic to anyone with a functioning frontal lobe, but because, with a little self awareness, you begin to realize what it means… what it says about you… to enjoy this sort of story unironically. It could mean you crave an escape from a world you cannot control into one where magic is an incantation away, where girls are easily impressed, and where the bad guys stand on their side of the line, presenting you with something to fight. It suggests a gaping hole in your life where true fulfillment has never (yet) rested. It casts light upon a childlike desire to keep things as they were- straightforward, detached from society, and fiscally carefree. I’m just too old (and fat) to sustain myself on a meager happy meal… I need tension, character flaws, actual drama… protein!
Kidou Senshi Gundam: Suisei no Majo gets the ‘yuri-bait’ hook placard: I was hoping for some modern Gundam to get into ever sice Thunderbolt (even if I had to settle for the high school setting), but three episodes in, we have some thinly veiled yuri shenanigans and a tropey cast of supporting characters looking lined up to inject their respective arcs into the story as time passes. Good animation, but the lackluster fight choreography and ‘pew-pew’ lasers glazed my eyes over pretty quickly, not to mention the main character has the kind of social awkwardness that can be hard to watch for long periods. Impressive, but unimpressed. I couldn’t make it through Iron Blooded Orphans, and it’s story was much better than this had been when I dropped it.
Shinmai Renkinjutsushi no Tenpo Keiei gets the ‘first dollar of profit’ award to hang on her wall: While I didn’t finish this one out, what I did watch was fun and interestingly never veered too far off of exploring business concepts like the obligation of professionals to charge for services rendered, supply chains, and other introductory economic elements that gave me just the slightest Spice and Wolf tingles. This might be one to go back to.
Do It Yourself!! Made its own award out of reclaimed isekai light novel charcoal: Pine Jam may never be a top tier studio, if the rough look of their fourth main work (this) is anything to go by, but I would argue most of their stuff is worth checking out. This quirky HGTV animated spin off barely missed top 3 for me and always captured the frilly mood just right as if it were plucking clouds from its water-colored sky and resting its episodes upon them. Nothing deep or personal is explored here, but the feelings of companionship, pride in a job well (self) done, and even longing (with a side of spicy tsun) are captured expertly by our group of cute girls doing this particular niche hobby-thing. Recommended. Also wins the best OP of the season, setting its own tone before each episode.
The latest veiled ‘shame’ award is regretfully given to Mob Psycho 100 S3: While the tension in the ‘Dimple as a god arc’ was interesting, the following episodes spent time with some characters who got some nice development, but I never formed any kind of bond with… It was awkward to be plunged into more feel-good stick figure sakuga, and I lost interest. To be clear, this kind of restful, uneventful post climax content to wrap the series up is exactly in concert with the tone of the show…. It just didn’t hit me like I hoped it would. I’ll surely circle back around sometime.
I must present Akiba Maid Sensou with both the “Best Ending” buttress and the “paper bag of disguise”; you’re not fooling anyone: Seriously, swap ‘maid’ for ‘yakuza’ and this is a serious drama, but because it never drops the silly maid culture tropes like lovey-dovey cafe names and plays the entire story pretty much serious, you get to experience a weird shift where you go from laughing at the murder dancing to being somewhat invested in the crime drama about a little girl out of her element in a big way. Coarse, sometimes funny, and always entertaining, Maid Wars brought it hard… hard boiled! Another solid series from PA works.
Akuyaku Reijou nano de Last Boss o Katte Mimashita gets a simple plushy: I kept watching this for more episodes than I had any right to due to how well it was written and how cute to ingest. Shoujo fantasy isekai where the emphasis is on winning the male lead’s heart is really not my genre, but the arcs I watched managed to keep my interest until the mid-season fatigue had me drifting away.
JoJo Stone Ocean Part 3 gets the ‘DMV’ trophy immortalizing what a massive waste of time it was. Jojo has certainly been stretched thin over the last part or two in that the stand powers are just getting more and more ridiculous and esoteric in their premises. Being supernatural is the only justification there is for how nonsensical these things have wound up being. Out of the prison, the cast finally tries to settle the score with the big bad at Cape Canaveral while battling more goons of the week. I’ve said it before and it has finally become true here: you can be weird, crass, juvenile, and disjointed, but you can’t be boring. The confrontations themselves had been passable on spectacle alone until now, but the powers were mostly meta conceptual in nature and I can’t even follow what is going on anymore because the story is so strained to escalate. Why is a spoon in a hole transporting Joylene into the memory of an airplane? What does gravity have to do with reaching heaven? Cap it off with a eons heat-death time loop joke from Futurama? Thanks, but I’m good.
Bocchi the Rock! Gets a cute little pudding jar for being so cute: What a well produced little show! ‘Cute girls doing a band’ is familiar enough to write this off at a glance, but there is actual craftsmanship all over here that’s worth a watch, especially in the little animation flourishes that pepper each episode. Crippling social awkwardness is getting harder to relate to- even theoretically- as I get older and more comfortable around people, but Bocchi stops just shy of being grating in her fear. The rest of the cast bounces off of her great as well, and the music is enjoyable enough. Not my genre as of late, but I don’t regret a single second of what I watched of this.
The ‘just add water’ packet is for Shinobi no Ittoki: This show will rock nobody’s world, but credit where it is due, Ittoki manages to tell a competent, full, self contained story in twelve episodes without being a spinoff, teasing another season, and maintaining a core narrative and definitive ending (plus a post time skip epilogue). Is that even legal in modern anime? It's a grey area... Ittoki is squarely a self contained mini series of adequate quality. Story of a non-ninja being forced to suddenly become the hokag… er chief of his hidden ninja village and navigate some twisty intrigue with rival ninja factions. We have world building, meaningful character deaths and an overall positive tone (and some character designs that grew on me) all in one bowl of twelve episodes. I also like that Ittoki never actually gained any amazing ninja powers from his superior bloodline/talent or whatever, and had to solve the majority of his issues with the strength of his character. Yeah, the broth’s a little thin, but dig in!
Fuufu Ijou, Koibito Miman gets prescription psychotropic drugs: Essentially a fanservice and innuendo vehicle that may as well been adapted from the source manga by an AI, as it has a very noticeable level of clumsiness when switching between tones and moods. You’ll get uber jarring, schizophrenic transitions to and from salacious and everything else often enough that it becomes funny if you start to track it intentionally. The colors were pretty, and the manga was a nice read, but as anime, it didn’t provide enough entertainment to justify the time.
Renai Flops may well have gotten a (passive aggressive) award for the few episodes I perused if I could remember a single flippin’ thing about it!
Yama no Susume: Next Summit tests out the ‘too big an appetizer’ mix plate for being too fulfilling in its first arc. I felt I had the entire breadth of its experience by the time it was over. A mere two episodes in, the first mountain had been ‘climbed’ and the experience bitterly flavored by the main character’s failure and resolution to do better next time after grappling with the futility of this sport/hobby. It was great… so great I didn’t fathom it becoming any more entertaining from there and dropped off watching. I was full before the meal arrived!
4-nin wa Sorezore Uso o Tsuku gets the ‘marco! polo!’ award for being so… blindingly… close: As a comedy series, the setup is standard as Anime gets: 4 Girls, one is an alien militant with no common sense, one a girly ninja, one a psychic, and the last actually a dude. The work done with this setup itself is good… some of the time, great rarely, and poor a fair amount of time as well. Probably the show I hoped to like the most this season, “The lies we tell” is good enough most of the time. It is funny enough most of the time, but treading water like that means a single poor scene can sink the whole thing. Sadly, as early as episode 2, segments with little humor payoff drag on and kill the little momentum this show has. Give it a try, but be prepared for peaks and valleys.
Another fine season to end the year with.
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