Surprise, a bonus upload!
I didn’t watch a lot of anime during the winter season. I say that, but I still kept up with more than a dozen of shows at all times. I guess it’s just not as much compared to the unhealthy amount I watched in the past. Of the shows I watched, most of them were quite good. Today I want to talk about several of them. I’ve already talked about Frieren in a separate post and I’m not going to talk about Mashle anymore than I already have since I think it’s a terrible show. Alright, let’s move on.
Apothecary Diaries
I only started watching this anime when most of it had already finished airing. I didn’t get into it initially but I heard nothing but good things about it and I ended up being very impressed with what I saw. Maomao is the daughter of a local apothecarist and often works at the nearby Verdigris House, a famous brothel in town. On her way home from delivering medicine she is kidnapped and then promptly sold off to the emperor’s rear palace to be a servant girl. Being much more educated than most of the other women present in the palace she quickly stands out, much to her own dismay. The manager of the rear palace, a young and handsome eunuch named Jinshi, figures out that she’s not only literate but also knowledgeable about medicine. She quickly gets caught up in a bunch of drama and trouble as it comes to light that she was responsible for saving concubine Gyokuyo’s child from dying. We follow Maomao and her life in the rear palace where much is afoot that we don’t know until the story progresses. The music is stellar, the story is gripping and Maomao is a fun character to follow. Literally being named “catcat” she’s quite the capricious young woman although her wisdom comes through when it has to. If you want to treat yourself right, this show would be the stand out of any season that doesn’t have Frieren in it. But for now it’ll have to sit in a very comfortable second place for me. And don’t worry, I’m not ranking the other shows, there were just a very clear top two for me personally when it comes to this past season.
Banished from the hero’s party, I decided to live a quiet life in the countryside
Just by typing out the title I’ve already reached my word cap for the day I think. Obviously we’re all intimately familiar with the trend of light novels trying to cram in as much information as possible into the title to get more eyes on them. This one does a pretty good job of telling you exactly what it is about, but there is also definitely more to it. Gideon (Red) is the guide for the hero Ruti, his sister. Each person has a blessing in this world, which dictates what they are “destined” to do and affects their personality. Gideon isn’t seen as useful enough by some of his party members and is thus kicked out of the hero’s party by Ares, a fellow member. Not deterred by this setback, Gideon changes his name to Red and start a quaint little apothecary in the quiet town of Zoltan. Of course his old life eventually catches back up with him as the hero’s party is slowly fracturing and things are going increasingly poorly on their front. Red is soon joined by Rit, a princess and fellow adventurer and the two hit it off pretty well. As the series continues they eventually meet up with Ruti as well, who retires from being the hero, although doing so is not easy and causes many problems I won’t spoil here.
Now we’re in the second season and there’s an interesting twist here. Because Ruti stopped being the hero, a new hero’s blessing was given out by the god of this world to a young man named Van. Much more zealous than Ruti, this new hero sets out to save the world, quickly making enemies everywhere through his zealotry. He ends up having to visit Zoltan and gets into some fights there which result in Ruti beating the snot out of him. Things escalate from here but Red, Ruti and the gang end up resolving the entire problem of season 2 in a complex but efficient way. This show does a great job at delivering you on the action and the highlights you would want, but it also knows that big action scenes aren’t what its main priority is. I liked season 1 quite a bit, but season 2 impressed me much more. If this sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend you check out this show.
A sign of affection
Yuki is deaf. She’s been deaf since she was just a young girl. One day she bumps into a handsome guy from her college called Itsuomi. He realizes she is deaf and unable to hear the messages over the train’s intercom and tries to help her. His kindness impresses her and she wants to meet up with him again, doing so through her friend at college who knows him. They go to a bar where he works and quickly hit it off. Yuki and Itsuomi soon realize there’s something between them and an interesting romance quickly starts. Itsuomi invests time in learning sign language and their romance takes off without much issue, while some of their friends go through their own turmoil. This show is a lovely romance that doesn’t overstay its welcome, is gorgeously drawn and if anything happens to Yuki I will kill everyone in this room. Not much more needs to be said here.
Sasaki and Peeps
Where A sign of affection often says very little, relying on subtlety and sign language, Sasaki and Peeps might say too much. Sasaki is a lonely office worker who overhears a co-worker talk about their pet one day. Jealous of the idea, he goes to a pet store and gets himself a cute little bird he calls Peeps. It turns out pretty quickly that there’s more to Peeps than just being a bird. He’s actually a powerful sorcerer from another world. Sasaki and Peeps become quick friends and partners as he learns that he can now travel to this other world. When you think things have picked up in pace we’re also introduced to psychics in the “normal” world. Sasaki gets caught up in their shenanigans as well as they mistake him for a psychic instead of being able to use magic from another world. Pretty chaotic right? Would be a bit overkill to also add in magical girls, right? Well that’s exactly what happens next. Things just keep escalating and although I am enjoying myself whenever I watch this show, it seems to be very confused about what it wants to be and what story it is trying to tell. It feels very much like the author wants to try and do far too much at once. None of the conflicts really get resolved except the one in the fantasy world that already felt a bit contrived and forced. I liked this show, but I don’t think I would recommend it all that quickly. If you want something different you should give it a watch, but most shows on this list today are probably better in my opinion.
High Card
With two full seasons out now and the story concluded, let’s finally talk about High Card. With an interesting concept of using cards for superpowers and an eclectic bunch of weirdos leading the charge, High Card was an interesting concept. During the first half of the second season it hit some pretty good highs. There was a bunch of plotting happening below the surface of the first season that came to light and things were looking pretty good. Unfortunately I don’t think it quite managed to stick the landing as the last few episodes were a little bit much in my opinion. I won’t go into spoilers but I feel like some of the twists were not that good and it caused me to lose interest a little bit. Having said that, for a majority of this show I found myself much more invested than I expected. Finn and Chris work well together and Ban Klondike makes for an interesting antagonist. I think that if the underlying story had been worked out a bit better this could have been a very memorable show. As it stands, no real lessons were learned, nothing was solved and the big mystery stayed hidden below the surface for most people. I would have liked to see more of Chelsea as well, especially since she was such a great support character. We saw her for a moment at the very end, but I would have liked more of an epilogue with her.
Solo Leveling
I wonder if many people ended up being disappointed with the first season of Solo Leveling. I read the webtoon last year after trying to get into it once before but failing to get hooked. When I first read the webtoon I got to about the point where the current anime ended, only a little bit before the conclusion of that fight. I was the guy in the meme where he gives up right before finding diamonds in the mine. I’ll link the meme below for those unfamiliar. I think the first few arcs of Solo Leveling are incredibly generic. Up until he gets his job change in the last episode of this season, Sung Jinwoo is a pretty boring protagonist in a pretty forgettable story. Because this first season of the anime only covers that part, I found myself not super interested at times. Having said that, I know what’s coming next and with how often they’ve already mentioned Jeju Island it seems like the creators of the anime also know what fans are waiting for. If you are on the fence about Solo Leveling I would honestly wait with watching this show until the second season has started. If you then binge through the first season of character growth you can hop on the hype train right as it departs from the station.
I believe that’s all I really wanted to talk about this season. Outside of shows that finished airing I have also been keeping up with Moonlit Fantasy season 2 which has been a fun watch. I also watched The Twelve Kingdoms, an Isekai from the early 2000s. A friend recommended it to me and after persistent nagging I finally gave in. It’s very good. It starts off slow and you really need to give it a handful of episodes before you get hooked – at least I had to – but Rakushun is an incredible character so once you meet him you’ll have a great time. It’s a very different take on the Isekai genre, unburdened by the tropes we see these days, which makes it feel very unique. It’s also 45 episodes and although those include some recaps, it definitely makes for a show that gets to spend some time with you and doesn’t need to rush you through the plot in 12 episodes. That’s been me for this season again, I’m excited for all the hype sequels and reboots in the upcoming season and I hope you are too. Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 