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This post is running well behind again with the new season solidly started. Of course, much of my viewing doesn’t notice anime air times, and I get to them when I can. As ever, the listing is from general best to worst, though it’s been a good three months with a very crowded top-end of the list.

Arcane — We’re currently 2/3rds of the way through the second season, and it is living up, and more, to the first season. Frankly, I don’t know that I can take another two or three episodes of this. My understanding is this will be it for the series, and I can believe it, we do seem to have a lot of personal character arcs headed for a conclusion.

Pluto — We finished this off shortly after the last post, and there were still some really big twists and developments to come. This is another top entry for ‘remakes done right’. This is action-drama with all the emphasis on the drama. There’s a lot going on, but the series takes its time with it all, and develops it all out.

Carol & Tuesday — We’ve been meaning to get this into the Thursday rotation for a while, and are now most of the way through. Like Cowboy Bebop (same creator), it pays a lot of attention to the music; I only know maybe a third of the references in episode titles. The first half kind of comes under ‘why Mars?’, with there being no real reason plot-wise other than general setting, and cutting loose from Earth institutions. The second half though makes it very important, and is surprisingly prescient and relevant on several current subjects.

Delicious in Dungeon — Smudge and I started showing the guys this a bit ago, and we’re a good part of the way through the second half. Dave has been unsure, but has warmed up to it over

Scott Pilgrim — The four of us are just about done with this. And it is a very wild ride. Not the same as the graphic novels or movie, and being very purposeful about it, and meta, and actually celebrating the movie at the same time. If you’ve seen the others, see this. If you haven’t, still see this, it is very good, and while… kind of a sequel, doesn’t require knowing anything about the originals at all.

Shangri-La Frontier — This is continuing to be good, and Smudge and I are basically caught up. I was a little annoyed by the diversion Nephilim Hollow, but it actually did not outstay its welcome (what I was afraid of), and made for a nice side arc. Meanwhile, we’ve had a real fight against Lycagon which was well done, and the latest episode developed Katzo, which I also appreciated.

Ranma 1/2 — Not a top entry for remakes done right, but at least a solid effort. Now, I know the start of Ranma pretty well, and there were a lot of disappointments. The main trouble is that in a lot of places Mappa seemed to be doing a shot-for-shot recreation of the manga, instead of translating it to TV. Frankly, the original anime series did a very good job of that in places (“Eternal Lost Boy” managed to be much funnier than the manga), and Mappa did not pick up on them and follow the lead of any ‘that was better’ moments (so much so, that I wonder if there’s a rights issue behind the problems). The English translation then loses a lot of good lines by ignoring the original Gerard Jones translation (“See, they’re like a couple already.” “He’s a couple by himself!”). The dub is fairly good, but has problems like Kuno sounding about a decade older than his actual 17. (Smudge is right though; while I’m not a great fan of male Ranma’s voice, his voice acting is spot on.) In some ways, the best thing about the new series is that it’s in HD, and the original shall be forever stuck in SD. But, while it doesn’t do as much with the story as it could of, it’s still a solid story at this part, and I hope there’s another season (especially as the production seemed like it was loosening up as it went).

Fairy Tail 100 Year Quest — So, the gang’s back together for one more really big job. In a way, there is a bit of sequelitis going on. So, the same characters doing largely the same things. On the other hand, it’s a good cast, it’s always been somewhat episodic (story-arcdic?) in format, and there were some decided dangling overall character threads left hanging. The central plot does not deal with them, but they are actually progressing along with the story, so it’s actually working out quite well. Smudge and I are early in the moon dragon arc, and we just got to se Aquarius summon herself. Because of course she did.

Pokemon: Horizons — Smudge and I are nearing the end of the first half of the series, and it is continuing to be very good. Roy (and Fuecoco) can be a bit annoying for me, and I was worried by Liko’s hesitant nature, but she especially has been growing past that nicely. The action is good, the characters are good, and I like that there’s a number of adults around as part of the main cast who both help and respect the kids.

Delico’s Nursery — This was an interesting one. I was really unsure when Smudge first tried it out, but it has a solid story. Unlike the next entry, it spends time and effort explaining much of how the world works naturally inside the plot, and keeps things moving. It’s a complete story in one season, and doesn’t feel at all rushed or padded. The production is certainly on the cheap end, but they spent their money well.

Bye Bye, Earth — The one show of the list I don’t recommend. It wasn’t bad, but it’s definitely on the cheaper side as a production, and you can tell that this is from a pair of novels (possibly squeezing too much into one season). The premise is not bad, but there’s practically more hints as to the background in the opening credits than in the story so far. But… well…. The real problem here is everything happens because the plot says so. A lot of actions and character bits come off feeling extremely forced, and not really rising out of the characters. Visually, I think the series also suffers a bit from the fact that they took Amano designs and worked them down into a somewhat stiff conventional style.

So it’s the end of another anime season (cour), and there a bunch of stuff I haven’t even started yet. But, plenty has been watched too. Here’s the general rundown, most recommended first, though everything here is actually very good:

Vinland Saga — We’re just finishing up the second season of this. It’s been a very interesting ride, with a lot of themes of Christian pacifism in a violent world working out. Presumably, the third arc will again be a very different story than the first two, which points up just how much the creator has to say through the life of one individual.

Frieren — And a bit late, we’ve finally finished this one up too. I have had the feeling for much of the series that a lot of the point is Frieren’s slow realization of just how important a ‘brief’ ten years has been to her, and dealing with coming to that point a bit late. At any rate much of the later part has gotten into the technical parts of magic as we deal with the first class mage certification (really, must humans change the criteria so often…?). It’s a great cast of characters, where all the major characters are very understated  instead of being psychotically over the top, which is really nice to see.

Delicious in Dungeon — The second act kind of suffers ‘middle of story’ syndrome, but carries through it very well, with some amazingly entertaining episodes. And of course, we end with a new solid goal in place. An extremely challenging meal.

Made in Abyss — Don’t binge this. There is a lot of body horror in this series, and it’s especially prevalent in the second part. That said, there is a lot going on, and it’s really good story, sadly undercut by bits in another language subtitled in Japanese, but not in English. Thankfully nothing big, but the series is already hard enough to understand.

Apothecary Diaries — Just finished up catching up on this too. The second part leans into the format of a series of mysteries, but of course they all tie together at the end for a satisfying story arc.

Jobless Reincarnation — This is one of the ones me and Smudge wanted to get to immediately, but we only started it partway through, though we’re nearly caught up now. The giant arc started by the mass teleport is now about resolved, and we have continued to see some good growth in Rudeus. Now there’s a whole other major plot still dangling over him….

Konosuba — Smudge and I watched the Explosion on This Wonderful World side/prequel and the movie. I wasn’t sure just how well a story just staring Megumin could do, but it actually worked. Certainly, she’s probably the only one who could support a prequel. At any rate, the movie (Legend of Crimson) also is helped by seeing the prequel first, and we just got around to seeing it. Both recommended for isekai hilarity.

To Your Eternity — And the group finished this off too. I think large sections of it dragged on longer than strictly needed, but the overall story is good.

The Fire Hunter — Sadly, the first season of this was a bit limited on the budget side, and it feels like this one got an even smaller budget. The production experiments with some interesting ideas to carry the smaller budget, and I think they did a better job this time, but the lack of budget elsewhere really told against it. Still, a great Japanese Shakespearean tragedy.

So, another season of anime is just getting going, and it’s time to take a look at what I’ve been watching lately. There was actually a good number of new things that Smudge and I watched this time, and I was pretty happy with most of them. As usual, this is presented in rough order of recommendation:

Vinland Saga: We’ve just started the second series. Was not expecting effectively a whole new start and change in focus. I’m sure we’ll get out of the current part soon, and find out what happened to Thorfinn, and start him on the road to recovery. That said, the climax of the first arc was… epic, and featured a lot of unexpected plot twists, really well done.

Frieren: I first heard of the manga about a year ago, and have been looking forward to the series ever since. It has not disappointed, and the entire household is liking it a lot. Very well done, fairly deep, and I can’t help thinking the unstated point is just how long it took Frieren to realize how important a ‘brief’ ten-year journey has been to her (in a life of thousands of years).

Ancient Magus Bride: Still working our way through the latest season after a late start on it. The alchemy school plot has just layered on levels of characters and plot points, and it has been getting better the more layers are added. Frankly, any of these top three could be the top slot, they’re all very good, and well liked by the entire group here.

To Your Eternity: We’re now into the second series. This involves a fairly significant time skip, and a mostly-new cast. The story is continuing to be good, though with new characters and new situation being introduced, we’re still finding out just where this part will take us.

Goblin Slayer: The latest season was basically three stories (as I recall it) with the major one in the middle. It was definitely interesting to see the homeland of the elves, and certainly interesting to see the focus events also having effects on the greater good/evil struggle that has been defined as happening off-screen. Priestess’ story to basically get her adventuring proficiency exam wasn’t as interesting, but important, and helped with her being a major focus again in the last story.

My Daughter Left the Nest and Came Back an S-Rank Adventurer: Yeah, with that title, you can’t expect much. But, was actually a series I enjoyed a lot, and the one I most looked forward to for Smudge and I’s anime nights; in other seasons it could easily have a higher slot. It is generally light-hearted, but the characters are all interesting, and the primary motive in the first arc is just that Angeline wants to get enough time off to visit her father. This grounds it a very human motivation as the plot gets going, and we see more and more pieces of the overall arc, and I hope we get more.

Rising of the Shield Hero: This was much better than the previous season, which was fairly disappointing. We’re between major events (with the world-turtle down, and phoenix not yet free), so the plot is mostly about… ‘cleaning house’. I suspect there’s still motivations we haven’t seen behind breaking up the Cardinal Heroes, and their still damaged goods. But the story has been good, though I’m a little concerned about the major side story/road trip that got introduced at the end.

Shangri-La Frontier: Okay, it’s fun, and it’s nice to see a series that definitely gets some of gaming culture. The main character is a fan of ‘so bad it’s good’ games, and gets sucked into the current top-rung AAA+ MMORPG. It’s also a fantasy on two sides. One, there’s adventuring inside the fantasy MMO. Two, this is far enough in the future for full-dive VR to be real, reliable, and at least a decade’s worth of games out—and you still have physical game stores (that apparently only sell games; there’s no signs of related merch). I can see why it was the main push of the season, but there was a lot better out there this time.

Dr. Stone: Smudge and I waited on the dub for this, so we’re still really getting start on the current season. In the main, it’s pretty much what you’d expect; more of the same kind of science hijinks, but it’s certainly got a lot going on important to the foundational plot. We’re close to seeing the device that caused world-wide petrification, we’ve gotten a much better idea of how that was supposed to work (on people just petrified, instead of thousands of years later). Things are working too well too easily, but it’s still good science-based ‘kids adventure’.

Daigo: Rescuer in Orange: This one is more Smudge, but it’s good enough. Drama-based adventure following the elite of the Tokyo fire department. They’ve established that there’ll be a big disaster later, but this is currently focused on training and initial incidents. So, take the typical manga/anime series that does a deep dive into a particular subject, and cross it with Emergency.