I live in a small town. But when I say that it’s a small town, that’s not giving away a whole lot. The town I live in has around 12.000 people living in it. Depending on your perspective that can be a lot or very little. For comparison, Amsterdam has around 800.000 people living in it. So from that perspective I think our town is pretty small. I did once do an internship in the eastern part of the country. This is much more rural than where I live and I think if I were to ask someone on the train there if 12.000 people was a lot for a town, they’d probably say yes. Some of the villages we went through might not even have had a thousand people living there. In a world that’s quickly modernizing and has ever growing metropolises, how do you keep a small town from disappearing? This isn’t a problem in my country, but it’s been a problem in Japan for a while now. The 2017 anime Sakura Quest tackles this concept and it does so wonderfully. This review will contain some spoilers for the story, but as it’s a slice of life anime, none of that matters all too much. Still, if you want to go in blind, skip this review and go straight to watching the show.
This is why you pay attention during English class, if this is the best you can do when talking to a foreigner, you’re going to have a bad time.
When I first watched an episode of Sakura Quest, I recognized that this was an anime I would like, but it was also during a time where I wasn’t in the mood for slower anime. At this point it’s almost seven years ago and back then my interests still leaned a lot more towards shonen anime. So I put it on hold for a little while. That little while ended up turning into years until I finally found the time to sit down and watched the remaining 16 or so episodes earlier this month. What I watched was an extremely pleasant, thought provoking window into the Japanese countryside, seen through the lens of both old people and young people.
It’s little Yoshino! She’s adorable and apparently she’s been here before.
Yoshino Koharu takes a job as the Queen of Chupacabra kingdom. This is a made up kingdom for tourism that’s in the small town of Manoyama. For a year, she’s part of a government of ministers that try to revitalize the small town and bring back some of the culture it lost as time went on and the town shrunk. The story follows Yoshino alongside four other young women who all have their own reasons for working in Manoyama. Some grew up there and wanted to see it shine, others came to escape the big city or to come back home after the big city didn’t turn out to be what they wanted. These five women are now tasked with creating events, promoting them online, convincing the board of merchants and working hard for a year to make sure the town stays relevant.
No context need for this one I reckon.
The first half of the show is a little bit slow as we take our time to get to know some of the characters. As the show picks up steam, we start to see more and more about what makes Manoyama interesting. Sure, it’s a small town like any other, but they have their own festivals, their own history and many of the older people living there still remember a time before things started getting quiet. We run into problems with a filming crew that doesn’t quite make the footage they wanted, the head of the merchants board and the chief of the cultural board are old friends who don’t like each other at all right now, there’s a professor of anthropology who’s studied the town for decades. My favorite little bit of information is that the people who live a bit further out from Manoyama all hang certain lanterns outside their house at night. If one of the houses is missing a lantern, that signals that something has gone wrong. It’s a very practical system in a place where technology feels alien and out of place. As we progress through the story we see more and more of these interesting cultural touchstones. The local police officer, book seller and bus driver once hid a dragon toy in the local playground. The daughter of the local restaurant wants to move to Tokyo, the bus line isn’t profitable, the old school is going to be bulldozed if they don’t find a use for it.
Tradition is what keeps us special. Just don’t consider it to be more important than progress.
All of this culminates in a festival where the entire town comes together after differences have been settled. Everyone celebrates the uniqueness that their village has and with the future secured thanks to the help of some kind outsiders things look like they’re going to be okay. Speaking of outsiders, a man named Sandal moved to the city and seems to be an all around oddball throughout the story. He’s an artist and a bit of a poet at times but he comes to be fully accepted by the Manoyama residents and ends up just as much a part of their village as anyone else. Also, his voice actor has one of the most pleasant voices I’ve ever heard. After everything is solved, we move on from the project. The year of being a queen is over and Yoshino and the others need to decide what they want to do next. I won’t spoil what she decides but I think the decision she ends up making was better than anything I could have predicted. Although it took me almost 7 years to finally finish this show, I think it’s a very good slice of anime that should get more recognition than it does. If you like shows like Yuru Camp, Non Non Biyori and Barakamon, this one will be perfect to watch next. Thanks for reading!
Paint those sights you want to remember for a long time.
A few weeks before Christmas I got very sick with covid. I had to spend the week and a half leading up to Christmas mostly cooped up in my room. Once the worst symptoms had gone away, I needed something to take my mind off of how bad I was feeling so I decided to read some manga. I first reread most of Jujutsu Kaisen before finally giving Chainsaw Man a shot. It was better than I expected, I’m kind of looking forward to the continuation of the anime now. After finishing those two I wasn’t quite sure what to read. Suddenly I got the urge to re-read The Promised Neverland. I remember really liking the manga even though a lot of people seemed to dislike the ending. After reading the entire manga I got a much worse idea. What if I finally sat down and watched the second half of season 2. I dropped it after five episodes because it skipped one of my favorite arcs in the manga but I figured if I were to review the series I should finish it. So now that I’ve read the manga again and watched the entire anime, let’s talk about both. As you might have guessed by now, this post will include major spoilers for the Promised Neverland manga and anime, so beware of that.
This is the moment where things really kick off, when Emma finds a seemingly abandoned village in the middle of a forest, instead of a clue to their escape.
First, let’s take a moment to talk about everything the manga did right in my opinion, to kind of get an idea for what I was expecting when the anime announced its second season. After escaping from Grace Field, the children managed to find a hideout that William Minerva prepared for them. There they found another escapee who is much older than them. It turns out he’s lived there for a while already and has slowly gone crazy. After that, Emma convinces him to bring her and Ray to Goldy Pond, where the next clue leads them. Goldy Pond was completely skipped in the anime, which is a shame. Goldy Pond is the name of a secret hunting ground where several noble demons hunt children for sport. Emma is whisked away to this place where she teams up with some of the surviving children there to fight back against the demons. We also learn that the crazy guy, whose name is Yugo, was part of a big group of escapees who found Goldy Pond and were subsequently all slaughtered.
The terrifying villain known as Archduke Lewis.
Unbeknownst to Yugo, his good friend Lucas was still alive at Goldy Pond. After an intense battle between humans and demons, which culminates in the humans defeating Lewis, a very powerful demon, Lucas and Yugo team up and everyone goes back to the shelter to regroup. During their time at the shelter, Peter Ratri sends a squad of soldiers to kill the escapees, which turns into a bloodbath during which a few of the young children as well as Yugo and Lucas unfortunately die. The gang then goes on a journey to reforge the promise with a demon deity so that humans and demons can live freely.
After encountering this deity once and figuring out many clues to their current predicament, the children encounter Jin and Hayato. They are other escapees and they’re working directly for William Minerva. This can’t be, since Minerva is supposed to be dead, but the children go with them anyway, after retrieving some medicine from a nearby plant. When they get to the village, they find out that their friend Norman is still alive, and he’s grown considerably. We finally learn what happened to Adam, who is a strong child that was with the Goldy Pond group. The reason he kept saying Norman’s number is because they were both at the Lambda research facility, where Peter Ratri is trying to create the ultimate cattle. Norman and the other Lambda escapees want to kill all the demons but Emma and Ray want to save the demons as well, recognizing that there isn’t really a racial divide, there’s a socio-economic divide that’s being sold as a racial divide. Or I’m looking into things too much, don’t mind me. Either way, Emma’s plan is to use Musica’s blood to help the demons become immune to the degeneration that happens when they stop eating humans and then reforging the promise with their deity so all children are allowed to be free.
Aishe and the demon that raised her. They’re a happy family, despite their difference.
To make sure it’s clear that demons come in all shapes and sizes we meet Aishe. She doesn’t speak human language but is loyal to Norman. She, as well as some others, are sent by Norman to kill Musica instead of helping the kids. As they kids travel, they learn that Aishe isn’t actually loyal to Norman, but instead is angry that they killed the demon that cared for her. Her demon was kind and raised her well, and she harbors anger about his death. With some trickery and help, they manage to overwhelm the attackers and reunite with Musica and Sonju. At this point we get to the end of the story and if you’ve read it, I won’t summarize all of it since we’ll be here all day. But to make a long story short, the demons are saved while the nobility is slaughtered with the help of an exiled clan. The populace is given the special blood that Musica has and Sonju turned out to be the brother of the former queen, who is killed by our heroes. They find a strange ally in Lewis, who managed to survive the fight at Goldy Pond due to having a second core, and the promise is reforged, leading to the children and their (farm) mothers being allowed to leave to the human world. Isabella and Peter Ratri die in the process and the system is overturned completely, separating the demon and the human world for good.
This reunion feels completely undeserved and meaningless. Norman hasn’t changed at all, and his later desperation to be violent feels much more out of character.
This brings me to the unfortunate reality that is the second season of The Promised Neverland Anime. In the anime we skip all of Goldy Pond as well as meeting those escapee children and Yugo and Lucas. Instead we go from the escape almost immediately to reuniting with Norman. Norman’s gone through the same process as in the manga, except on a much smaller scale. He’s just a guy with a few escapees here, not the leader of a massive group of refugees. Jin, Hayato and Aishe are completely absent from the story and instead of trying to kill Musica, Norman straight up lies to his friends purely to get vengeance. A lot of Norman’s goals are the same as in the manga, but without any of the buildup you get when reading the much longer story. The nobles are completely forgotten except for a small mention towards the end, making it seem like there was no real power structure in the demon world, but it was just Peter Ratri farming kids for clout. The promise is forgone as well, making the entire system hinge on pure trust on equal sides, which would never work when you look at the nature of some of the demons. A lot of the anime’s ending ends up not being very sensible. It wants to conclude the story in the same way as in the manga, but we go from narrowly escaping one woman and a farm to torching half the demon army in the span of three episodes. Emma’s naive character is also turned up to 11 and although she’s not a particularly realistic character to begin with, the manga makes sure to properly build her up, making her consistent within the logic set for her character. In the anime she just kind of doesn’t want to kill all demons. The farms mainly get liberated offscreen in what is a throwaway after credits scene and we’re left feeling hollow about what we just watched.
Because the season lacks any clear direction and plan, they kept in the fact that Emma had to make a sacrifice for their freedom, but instead of the already shaky one they had in the manga, she just kind of goes offscreen and fixes the entire problem with the demons. It feels unrewarding and kind of lame.
I know many manga readers had umbridge with the ending of the story and I can’t say I absolutely loved every choice the author made. I do commend the author for making a very interesting story that stayed consistent throughout and although it took some suspense of disbelief, I quite liked how everything got resolved nicely, but not without strife. In the anime there are no stakes. Everyone survived, no one got hurt, they defeated the entire demon world in a few days without any sacrifices. How big of a threat were these guys really? The storytelling in the anime doesn’t respect the viewers intelligence and that’s a real shame. This could have been a great anime, running for an extra two or three cours and properly developing its characters. It had a lot to say about society, consumption and reaching across the aisle to those who seem like strangers. Instead it abandons all of that for a terribly rushed season of anime with no stakes, no logic and quite frankly nothing really going for it. I would recommend the manga for anyone who watched the anime and felt disappointed. Even with the spoilers in this review, I still think it’s worth reading it to see for yourself. But that’s me and my opinion. Of course anyone creating an anime is trying to write the best story they can, and sometimes you don’t reach your goals. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel bad about it, but I do want to put into words what I didn’t like about it. Thanks for reading.
Have I been too harsh on Mania? I’ve been a fan of Fall Out Boy for a very long time, getting – admittedly casually – into their music around the time that Infinity on High came out. That’s already 14 years ago, I was 17 back then. From that point on I listened to their music regularly, enjoying the albums that came after as well as some of the songs that came before. Mainly the classics like Dance, Dance and Sugar We’re Goin Down. I like Folie à Deux now for what it is, but wasn’t into it when it was released. I did however, quite enjoy both Save Rock and Roll and American Beauty/American Psycho. I kind of fell out of their music for a while, mainly listening to Jpop and Jrock for a good while, before falling in love with the Pop Punk genre again in the late 2010s. This is right around the time when their album Mania was released. I listened to it, didn’t like it at all, and spent years writing it off as a bad album. This had me worried when their 2023 album was released, but that one I vibed with immediately. So now that almost 6 years have passed since Mania, let’s see if Mania really deserves the hate I – and many others – gave it.
This is my second review of a Fall Out Boy album. If you’re interested in my opinion on So Much (for) Stardust you can find it here. Let’s move to Mania. First song on the album is Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea. It reminds me a little bit of their song Phoenix, but only of the parts of that song that I don’t like. Patrick’s voice is stellar as it always is, but that’s not the problem with this album. These guys are incredibly talented and always have been. This song gets decent when it quiets down, but when it’s bombastic it just sounds… bad? It’s hard for me to put into words, I don’t want to be too negative because art isn’t for everyone, but when the song gets loud I feel irritated by it. It’s not a pleasant sound at least. I give Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea a failing grade.
Let’s move on to the second song, The Last Of The Real Ones, which is the song on this album that has the most plays on Spotify, more than doubling the other songs. Right off the bat I like the piano in the background. But it has some of the same issues that Stay Frosty had. The music feels messy at times. This was quite the experimental album for Fall Out Boy and I think that in their enthusiasm they went a bit overboard with some of these songs. This song is far from terrible, but when I compare it to their other work it doesn’t hold up. I like some of the lyrics. “I am a collapsing star with tunnel vision, but only for you” has nice poetry to it. But to be perfectly blunt, this song just barely passes.
Alright, I started off this post by saying I was going to defend this album, so let’s get to that point of the review. HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T (the title is capitalized on Spotify like this, so I think that’s on purpose, don’t ask me why) is good. It’s bombastic but not in a grating way like Stay Frosty is. Patrick’s “nananana” is a pleasant sing along moment and although I mainly listen to music on my phone, with headphones in or at my PC without the video on, I would be remiss not to mention the gorgeous music video for this song. Check it out if you haven’t, it’s hauntingly beautiful.
Speaking of good music videos, let’s move on to Wilson (Expensive Mistakes). Have you ever wanted to own your very own Fall out boy? Well now’s your chance, you even get a free plastic hand included. Lucky you. The music video for this one is shot like an infomercial which is fun. The song itself is alright? It doesn’t blow me away but I don’t mind it either. It does have the line “I’ll stop wearing black when they make a darker color,” which I have to admit goes hard. Not much to say about Wilson, I’ll put it on from time to time and it gets a passing grade. If you a church, I’d get on my knees. Confess my love, I know where to be. My sanctuary, you’re holy to me. Church is cool. Conceptually. The choir in the background is great, the way Patrick yells pain. I love that when Patrick sings “If death is the last appointment then we’re all sitting in the waiting room.” a lady in the background goes. “Mr. Stump.” to signal it’s his turn. Is this a song I can jam out to every day? Probably not. Just like Wilson, it gets a passing grade but doesn’t excite me.
Are you still with me? I perfectly understand if you’re not, I’m aware I’m primarily writing this one for myself. If you are still with me, you’ve earned my thanks. We’re at the halfway point of the album and the best is yet to come. Let’s speed things up a little bit, as I don’t feel particularly strongly about some of the upcoming songs. I like Heaven’s Gate. It’s a nice and slower song that’s well sung and the instrumentals are a great accompaniment to Patrick’s soulfull voice. Very decent song. Champion is in the same boat. It’s a perfectly serviceable song that fills up the album nicely but doesn’t amaze me. I don’t think Sunshine Riptide is a bad song, but I don’t remember the last time I chose to put it on. It just isn’t for me. There we go, I can be concise when I want to be, we did three songs in quick succession. Now let’s slow down a little bit again. There’s two songs left and I have opinions.
I like the first minute of Young and a Menace. The little “oops, I did it again” reference is cute and Patrick’s quieter voice is just as pleasant as his bombastic or soulful singing in other songs of this album. And then the dubstep sets in and I want to set my headphones on fire. This song has aged incredibly poorly. I do not recommend it at all. That’s a shame, because parts of the song are really well done but then you get to the chorus and you want to slam your head into a wall. I’m sorry Fall Out Boy, I love you, you’re my favorite western band by a large lead, but I personally find this song terrible.
But you know what they say, save the best for last. There’s one song on this album I kept listening to, even after I wrote the album off as terrible. Bishops Knife Trick is great.. I feel like this song is an accompaniment to “The Last Of The Real Ones” although I am no music expert so what do I know. It’s just much better and less grating to the ears. The way Patrick enunciates some of the words in this song just resonates with me. The clicking sounds when he sings “eternal heatstroke” is like ASMR to me, even though I don’t generally like ASMR. This song is good. It’s still definitely far from timeless, it follows the rest of this more experimental album into the realm of “remnant of it’s time,” but in a fun look back kind of way.
And that’s all songs reviewed, let me give a quick recap for you. Great: Hold me tight or don’t, Bishop’s Knife Trick.
Decent: Wilson, Church, Heaven’s Gate, The Last Of The Real Ones
Uninteresting: Sunshine Riptide, Champion
Terrible: Young and a Menace, Stay Frosty Milk Tea
This isn’t as negative of a list as I expected going into writing this post, but it still shows why it’s one of the albums I spent less time with. There’s some good songs on here and more importantly there are some great ideas on this album. I don’t hate when bands go in a different direction. I like Linkin Park’s later stuff, I like Green Day’s American Idiot and I really started vibing with Paramore’s 2023 album that is very different from their early stuff. For that reason I respect Mania a lot. Patrick’s voice is incredible and fits into all sorts of styles, so it only makes sense that they experiment with their sound. Having said that, I still find Mania to be one of their weaker albums. I hope I didn’t bore you too much but this is an extra upload so at least it doesn’t take the spot of anything else. I’ll likely review the older albums at some point as well. It’s good practice for me to see what I like and dislike about songs, so perhaps I can learn something. More importantly though, it’s a good excuse for me to listen to Fall Out Boy’s entire discography. Thanks for reading!
I didn’t watch as many anime this year as I did in previous years. I ended up watching only a little over 50 new shows in 2023. That’s not a lot at all, but this was a year of high quality so there was no need to watch a lot of shows. Having said that, there’s definitely shows that I missed so if I don’t mention your favorite show in this list, please let me know in the comments down below. I might just not talk about it but I also might not have watched it. With that out of the way, here are the 2023 anime that are most memorable to me, in no particular order.
Vinland Saga Season 2
This show has so many memorable moments that it was hard to pick one, but Einar speaking his mind was a good choice.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I didn’t enjoy Vinland Saga all that much when it first came out. As a matter of fact, I ended up dropping it during the first half. I heard from manga readers that the second season would slow down a bit and change the pace and that definitely piqued my curiosity. So I finished the first season and to my surprise I enjoyed the second half of season 1 more than the first half. Then when season 2 came around, I watched it every week and I was fully invested. The slower, more human storytelling of this season was a stark contrast to the violence of season 1. The focus was much more on the quiet moments, on healing and on becoming the person you should be. We follow Thorfinn on his journey of self discovery and by the end of the season he is a much wiser person. If the story itself didn’t do enough convincing, then the opening and ending themes would definitely do the trick. LMYK’s song Without Love haunts my dreams in how beautiful it is and Anonymouz’ River is also a very good track. If you haven’t seen Vinland Saga yet, or you stopped after the first season I do think this is a great one to check out, it definitely switches things up but in my opinion it does so in a good way. And at its core it’s just vikings beating the crap out of each other, so at least there’s that.
Attack on Titan
The end of one of the most influential anime of the last ten years.
It’s been a hell of a journey, hasn’t it? From the very first time the titans breached the walls and turned our lives upside down until now, when the story has finally come to a conclusion. If you haven’t heard of this anime by now I honestly don’t know what to tell you. There is a lot to love here. From the music to the intrigue to the action to the world shattering events coming into a thrilling conclusion in this final season. Although I do think the show was hurt by some of the weird release schedules it had, I still found myself really enjoying this show. The ending sort of confused me, but I didn’t hate it either. I’ll miss these characters and there’s a good chance I’ll watch this show again in the future, just to get everything refreshed in my memory. If you love action and intrigue, this is one of the most memorable anime of the last decade so don’t miss out on it if you somehow have.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2
When he looks at you like that, you know it’s Gojover
The second season of one of Shonen Jump’s most popular manga has concluded and with it my favorite part of the story has also come to an end. Jujutsu Kaisen is a darker take on the shonen genre where the story is much less linear and things seem to happen more at a whim compared to other big shonen shows. THe animation is great and the action is solid. There’s a lot to love about this show but it’s also polarizing as the author often makes decisions that I don’t like. Obviously that’s an objective thing, others might really like the direction the story takes. Right after finishing the anime I did go back and reread the manga to refresh my memory on what happens after Shibuya finishes. What’s more interesting to look at when it comes to Jujutsu Kaisen is the production. Several of the people working on this season have come out and called out the inhumane working conditions at MAPPA and in the industry in general. Although I hope something changes in the near future, these problems have been around for ages and I have very little hope that good changes will come. I for one would rather wait longer between seasons to allow the people who create these wonderful series some more dignity, but that’s not how you make more profit. Support artists and the people that work hard, and don’t be harsh on them when the quality is low.
Zom100: Bucket List of the Dead
I want to dancing, dancing, rolling, rolling
Speaking of production issues and poor working conditions, let’s talk about Zom100 next. I was considering writing a separate review on this series, but after writing it I figured I could just include it in this post, so I’m doing that instead. Zom100 follows Akira as he’s stuck in a dead-end job. He’s miserable and finds no joy in life until one day he wakes up and realizes there’s a zombie apocalypse. Instead of despair, Akira feels immense freedom. He doesn’t have to go back to work now. The rest of the story follows Akira as well as several people he encounters on the way, as they try to make the most of life after this disaster. Akira has a bucket list of things he wants to do and a lot of them are very silly. This show is very silly at its core. There’s some heartfelt moments but personally I think they can be a little bit shallow or rigid at times. I much prefer the more comedic moments which is why the final three episodes felt a little bit like a letdown compared to what came before. It did have a very hard to watch depiction of abuse and fear of someone that was pretty well done. This is studio Bug Films’ first anime ever and unfortunately they couldn’t finish most of the episodes on time. This led to a few delays and eventually the final three episodes were delayed for a few months. Luckily the final product was of decent quality, but I hope they get a better schedule for their next project, so they can work on it with less stress.
Otaku Elf
The elf deity and her shrine maiden
I’ve already talked about this show on my blog before so I’ll make sure to keep this short. Otaku Elf tells the story of an elf that’s being revered as a god. The people know she’s an ancient elf, but they still uphold the traditions nonetheless. The core of the story focuses on Elda’s relationship with the young shrine maiden and how both of them care for each other but also need to keep each other in check. If Elda is left to her own devices she’ll never do her duties as a god, and will just play video games all day. This show has a lot of heart and I really like the dynamic between the different characters. I also find Elda to be very beautifully drawn when the show wants her to look beautiful. She does have that ephemeral quality that you’d expect from a deity. That or I just have a thing for elves. Don’t judge me. If you like slice of life shows with some fantastical elements to them, I highly recommend this one. If you need more convincing, give the opening song a listen. It’s probably my favorite song to come out of anime this past year, and that’s in a year where both Yoasobi and Yorushika have been prevalent in the anime scene, so that’s saying a lot.
Skip & Loafer
I love the unexpected bond that these two have. Both awkward in their own way, but Nao is great at being support here.
Sometimes you come across a show that feels like it was made for you personally. Skip and Loafer was made for me. Slice of life and romance have been my favorite genres for many years now and the combination of the two is just pure bliss to me on days I’m tired. Mitsumi moved from the countryside to the big city to become an important politician and really do something meaningful with her life. Here in the big city, she realizes life moves at a very different pace. Luckily for her, she quickly meets some great friends that help her get settled and before we know it she’s right at home in Tokyo. She also quickly becomes friends with Shima, who reminds her of her family dog in how kind he is and how fluffy his hair is. When she accidentally reveals this to Shima he doesn’t get angry at all, instead he thinks it’s really funny. What makes this story so unique is that the drama that does happen is never drawn out. The children communicate when they need to, but not so much that it’s not believable. Mitsumi and her classmates run into problems and then talk it out. Sometimes this requires an adult to push them in the right direction, but you never feel like things drag on just for the sake of keeping some drama going. A lot of this show feels peaceful and I found myself fully immersed from start to finish. I liked this show so much that I bought the manga, which I will admit I have yet to read, but you can’t blame me, my backlog is crazy. If you like Slice of Life shows, this one should be at the top of your list. This isn’t a best of 2023 list, but this show is definitely in my top 3.
Mononogatari
One thing every good action show needs is having the heroes show up at just the right moment. I think they nailed it.
This one is for the people who like a show that is a little bit slower in its buildup but gets going after the characters are fully set up. Mononogatari follows Kunato Hyoma as he moves into a household of Tsukumogami. This is set up by his grandfather so he can get over his intense hatred for them. A Tsukumogami killed his brother and sister in front of him and Hyoma never fully got over that. At the Nagatsuki household, where Nagatsuki Botan lives alongside her Bridal Trousseau, a group of Tsukumogami, he slowly learns to understand the differences between the different Tsukumogami and his hatred for them slowly wanes. Of course, there’s more going on as Botan is the vessel for an ancient Tsukumogami god and many of the people around her want that power for their own. It’s up to Hyoma to make sure she stays protected. This story has a really nice pacing to it in which things are progressing slowly, but constantly. We got two seasons in a year for this, which was a good decision because otherwise it would have felt a bit bare. The second season really complemented the first one and built upon what it had already set up. If you like a good action show with some more depth than your average shonen, this one should be near the top of your list.
The Ancient Magus Bride
He’s gotten much wiser than he thinks he has. Although he still has a lot to learn.
One of my favorite manga of all time finally got its second season. Divided into two cours, this season covered most of the manga, all the way up until volume 19. This is coincidentally also everything that has been translated to English, so I ended up reading volume 19 the day before I watched the final episodes, to make sure I read the manga first. Chise is a Sleigh Beggy, a human with almost infinite magic power that’s slowly eating away at her. She has a miserable youth which results in her selling herself into slavery. An ancient magus named Elias Ainsworth buys her for a very high amount and asks her to be his bride. Although the alarm bells should start ringing here, a lot of it also comes from the fact that Elias does not understand human culture all that well. What he really wants is a companion that he can teach magic to while his companion teaches him how humans work. That’s the strange teacher-student relationship the two of them end up having. Season 2 covers the college arc, which sees Chise and Elias at the sorcerer college where they meet a ton of new people and get involved in a dangerous mystery where a magic book gets stolen and people start getting their magic drained. The Ancient Magus Bride season 2 is also a contender for anime of the year, if you haven’t seen it at all yet, I highly, highly recommend both seasons. Some of the best fantasy anime I’ve ever watched.
Honorable Mentions
Who doesn’t like a smug elf?
I would be remiss not to bring up a few other shows. Most of these were popular in their own right, but I didn’t think they were as good as the other shows listed here. Hell’s Paradise and Heavenly Delusion each stand out in a season with many good shows. Hell’s Paradise is a fun shonen that reminds me of early Attack on Titan at times with its suspense and how high the stakes are. Heavenly Delusion is a mystery that really explores human emotion. It does have some difficult to watch scenes which include sexual assault, so keep that in mind if you’re uncomfortable with that. Bungo Stray Dogs had another season this year, which really amped up the stakes once again. I really enjoyed it, and recapped it every single week when it was airing, but it definitely requires some suspense of disbelief. A lot of it is people outsmarting each other repeatedly, and if that’s not your thing, then maybe skip this one. I really enjoyed it though. Lastly, I want to mention a show that hasn’t finished airing yet. It’ll likely be my anime of the year for 2024 once it’s completely finished airing, but I can’t really count it yet as it’s not done. I’m talking about Frieren of course. Frieren follows… well… Frieren. She’s an elf that’s lived a very long time by human standards but not all that long for elves. She traveled with the hero’s party to the end of the world to defeat the demon lord and they saved the world. That was more than 50 years ago. The rest of the hero’s party is now old and dies shortly after the show starts. It’s now up to Frieren to reconcile the fact that she didn’t spend more time with her friends, even though their time together was “a mere 10 year journey.” Accompanied by Heiter’s adopted daughter and Eisen’s apprentice, she travels the same route once more, running into adventure on the way. It’s gorgeous, it’s emotional, it’s funny, it’s through provoking and it’s well on its way to becoming my favorite anime of all time. I even bought the manga right after I watched the first episode. That’s all it took to convince me.
And I think that covers everything. I know that The Apothecary Diaries is supposed to be really good as well, but the reason it’s not on here is because I haven’t watched it yet. It’s one of the few shows I still want to watch at some point though. I hope you got some ideas on what to watch from this list and if there’s a show you’ve watched that isn’t on here, please let me know and I might check it out if I haven’t yet. Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!
We’re nearing the end of the year and with that we’re also nearing the end of Thriller Bark. I was originally hoping to finish this story arc in 2023, but it seems like the final fight will be left to next year. I know that the next volume also includes some material outside of the ghost island, so look forward to that. For now, let’s have a look at some of the more interesting parts of this arc.
First and foremost, let’s talk about Enel. Remember the guy? Ruined Skypiea, claimed to be a god, only really lost because Luffy is his natural counter due to being rubber. Anyway, after the events of the Skypiea arc, Enel made his way to the moon and actually managed to reach it. There he ended up in the middle of a fight between robots (automata) and dangerous space pirates. Using his lightning powers, he manages to power up the automata and their city and they now treat him as their god. That is where we leave the lighting man. Fans of One Piece have speculated for over a decade that Enel will return to the story at some point and considering the fact that many cover stories end up being important to the world of One Piece, this is not unlikely. But for now, we’ll have to wait and see.
Going back to the problem at hand, the crew still needs to deal with Oars and Moria. We get a great compilation of the entire crew minus Nami and Luffy fighting Oars. After a while, even Nami – who is fresh off of defeating a weakened Absalom – and Brook join the fight and they do serious damage to Oars. Unfortunately for them, Moria built a piloting room in Oars stomach and with the intellect of the warlord the giant zombie is much more of a threat. Most of the crew gets wiped out and things are looking fair dire.
Separate from this and before joining up with the rest of the crew, Nami went looking for Moria’s treasure. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t the first person who had this idea and Perona (the ghost princess) has already taken the contents of the vault to a nearby ship, ready to abandon the crew. There she comes face to face with another member of the seven warlords, Bartholomew Kuma. After a short talk he asks her where she would like to go on vacation and after listening to her answer he taps her and she vanishes from sight. Nami is rightfully shocked by this, but after asking her a few questions, Kuma leaves her alone. A lot of Kuma’s actions throughout this arc are a bit odd and these set the tone for things to come.
Back at the big fight, Luffy comes in to save the day. It turns out that the people hiding out in the forest, who have lost their shadows to Moria, had a trick up their sleeve. Lola as well as her crew have captured about a hundred shadows and are now feeding them to Luffy in an attempt to power him up. This works wonders and with the help of Luffy, the straw hats finally manage to defeat Oars. Moria is now all that’s left and with the shadowy warlord absorbing every single shadow on the island into his own body as dawn creeps on the horizon, things are still looking scary for the straw hat crew. But to see the conclusion, we’ll have to wait until the next volume.
Thanks for reading, I hope you’re enjoying this series, even though I’ve been a little bit inconsistent lately. I won’t make any false promises but I do plan to be more consistent in the near future.
We continue our adventure on Thriller Bark this week and things get a bit more interesting. After the crew lost their shadows and was mostly defeated we get to see some pushback in this volume. A few things happen in this volume and just like with the last volume, I want to go through them rather quickly. Again, Thriller Bark isn’t my favorite arc and a lot of what happens during this arc is ultimately not very important for the overarching plot. Some of what happens definitely is important, but we’re not quite there yet.
Sanji fights with Absalom and we learn that as a child he was able to read a book about devil fruits. So he was probably from a somewhat affluent family back in North Blue. He wanted to get the invisibility fruit but someone else got it and unfortunately there’s only one of each. This does establish the notion that besides invisibility, Sanji doesn’t have a lot of interest in ever getting a devil fruit power. He’s perfectly happy with just kicking the crap out of his opponents. Speaking of this, that’s exactly what he does with Absalom. Unfortunately he doesn’t quite finish the job and while they’re regrouping it seems like Nami gets taken from him again.
Zoro meanwhile fights with Ryuma, the samurai from the land of Wano. The two are pretty equally matched but Zoro gets the upper hand. It’s kind of mean to Brook, but Zoro pointing out that Ryuma was being held back by Brook’s shadow shows us that Ryuma in his prime was a force to be reckoned with. This is where Zoro gets his next cool sword, Shusui. He was in need of a new sword after his last one was rusted away during the Enies Lobby fights. With this, Brook finally gets his shadow back, which is a big moment for the skeleton.
Usopp is the one that ends up dealing with Perona. Her ghosts allow her to make people extremely negative which makes for one of the memorable gags in this manga where Usopp is already so negative that the power has no real effect on him. Poor Perona, she’s fighting the one pirate that is immune to her power. Lucky for her, she has more tricks on her sleeve and she does a decent job fighting against Usopp until he figures out that she’s only a ghost and her real body is hidden elsewhere. He frees the bear’s shadow and then scares Perona with fake cockroaches and a hammer until she passes out. That’s three out of four important fighters down, which leaves only one.
The last one is of course Dr. Hogback, the man that Chopper respected until he met him. This is why you should never meet your heroes, they are always inevitably disappointing. Chopper lectures Hogback on the values of life but Hogback doesn’t seem all that interested. The two fight for a bit, with Robin fighting his assistant Cindry and they seem to be about to win the fight when Oars comes falling through the ceiling, allowing for Hogback to get out of there alive. Now the crew has to deal with this new problem, a giant zombie with Luffy’s fighting power, that’s going to be an issue. And that assessment is not wrong, when most of them get beaten into a pulp almost immediately by the giant zombie while Luffy is off chasing after Moria unsuccessfully. Things aren’t looking great for the crew at the end of this volume. Luckily there are still two volumes left in this arc so there is still time to turn things around.
That was my recap for volume 48. I’ll do my best to upload these posts more frequently and to not forget them every week. I’ve been too busy lately so I appreciate all of you who still check in to read these. Thanks for reading!
Yohohoho, I am one day late with this post due to *gestures at my life being a mess*. I would cry about this but I am just bones and don’t have eyes. Yohohoho. Enjoy this recap of volume 46, posts will become somewhat more regular in December as we ramp up towards the end of the year. Thanks for your patience people ❤
Now that we’ve made it through one of the best arcs of One Piece, let’s take it slow and move into one of the weaker arcs of the story. I’ve said that, but this arc is still very good, especially towards the end. It’s just that some of the pacing is pretty weak, but I wonder how I’ll like this arc in hindsight. There’s been quite a lot of story after this that has its roots in this arc, so perhaps looking at it with all that in mind changes my perspective on it. I hope you enjoyed our little break last week, which gave me time to catch up on other writing, and let’s dive into Thriller Bark. Yohohoho!
But before we head to Thriller Bark, we first need to finish up business between Ace and Blackbeard on Banaro Island. The two former crewmates face off in a battle between fire and darkness. Blackbeard’s darkness powers allow him to damage and grab onto other logia users, nullifying their powers upon contact, which is an incredible ability to have. The downside to this is that his darkness attracts everything like a gravity well which means he doesn’t have the normal logia benefit of being able to nullify attacks that aren’t coated by haki. He destroys a town with ease and after Ace rejects his offer to join the Blackbeard crew for a final time, the battle comes to a conclusion in a clash between their powers.
We then head into Thriller Bark. First we meet Brook, a gentleman skeleton who is immediately invited to join the crew. It turns out Brook was once alive and through a devil fruit he ate while he was alive was granted a second chance at life after he died alongside his crew. Unfortunately his soul couldn’t find his body in the thick fog and by the time he finally found his way back, he was nothing but bones. He’s also a musician, so he’s prime material for the crew who is still lacking a musician. They get spooked by a ghost during dinner and find themselves inside the premises of Thriller Bark. Brook is glad to have been able to talk to people, but now he must find the person who stole his shadow, who is on Thriller Bark. He advises the Straw Hats to leave while they still can and of course they listen to him, right?
Nami, Usopp and Chopper are the first trio to make it to land. This more by accident than by plan. They set out in the mini Merry, a cool addition that Franky made for the ship in honor of their old friend. It’s a nice gesture and a convenient way to send a few people to shore. That’s exactly what ends up happening here. They run from a strange cerberus and encounter a bunch of zombies in the forest before being picked up by Hildon, who brings them to Hogback’s mansion. Hogback is a famous doctor who disappeared years ago. Chopper is apparently a big fan of his. Hogback also has an eccentric assistant called Cindry who hates plates. They get invited into the mansion but quickly figure out things aren’t as nice as they seem when Nami gets sexually assaulted by an invisible man. They try to get out of there and find out that Cindry is actually the corpse of a famous actress who died a decade ago. Things keep getting scarier and they find themselves in Hogback’s operating room with an enemy right behind them.
Meanwhile Luffy and the rest of the Straw Hats have also made landfall in search of Brook’s shadow and their lost friends. They come across a bunch of zombies and we get one of my favorite gags in the entire manga where Luffy encounters a zombie crawling out from a grave and he simply pushes the zombie back into the ground. The first time I watched that scene back in the day it caught me so off guard I couldn’t stop laughing. After encountering both zombies and wounded old people, they make their way to the mansion as well.
We learn that in Thriller Bark, the sailing island in the Florian Triangle, are four dangerous people. The first one is Hogback, the zombie creating doctor. The second one is Absalom, the leader of the zombies who can turn invisible. The third one is Perona, the ghost princess who employs negative ghosts to demoralize her enemies. Finally there’s Gecko Moria, one of the seven warlords (just like Crocodile and Mihawk) and the leader of the entire group. Things are looking scary for the crew, in more ways than one.
Last but not least we have all the extra touches from this volume. A big part of the question corner has been replaced with sketches of the interior of the Thousand Sunny. There’s all sorts of rooms and it’s incredibly detailed. The second extra we get from this volume is a continuation of Enel’s story on the moon. It seems like there’s native people on the moon, the ones that Enel encounters first, but also space pirates that seem to want to colonize the moon. Keep in mind that all of this is canon to the main story and thus might become important one day. I’m curious to see where it goes from here. That sums up this volume though, I hope you enjoyed reading along, and this brings us to the end of the second box set. Time for the third one, we’re far from done. Thanks for reading!
Volume 44 covers a whopping 11 chapters. I’m pretty confident that’s above average and at this point in time Oda’s chapters were still longer than they sometimes tend to be now. Let’s ignore how unhealthy that work ethic was and appreciate what we’re about to read. The conclusion on what is probably Oda’s best arc ever written. Let’s not waste any time and dive into it.
It’s been a very long time since I last consumed this part of the story. I knew very well that it was an incredible arc and some of Oda’s best work, but I wasn’t ready for how emotional it would keep making me. I think it’s absolutely incredible how well written this story is. We start off with the fight between Luffy and Rob Lucci. They battle for a while with Lucci coming out on top initially. We then learn a little bit about Lucci’s backstory. When he was just a child, he killed 500 hostages so that a standoff between the navy and some pirates would finally come to an end. That’s a crazy way to go about it and makes absolutely no sense, but it hammers home how much the navy prioritizes control and power over actually doing what’s right. We’ll dive into this a lot more as we get into later arcs, especially the things that are happening in both the anime and the manga right now, but it’s visible early on. Those who question the actions of the navy usually get sidelined by them. It’s almost like a few bad apples spoil the bunch.
While Luffy and Lucci are fighting, the Buster Call nears Enies Lobby and starts attacking the judicial island. Nothing is left standing and the remaining Franky Family members, Galley-La men and giants struggle to get out alive, but through some trickery and cleverness they manage to make it. This is another early sign of Oda’s philosophy when it comes to killing characters. It’s not that Oda never kills a character, but he does so very sparingly. He doesn’t like it and although it definitely feels like a flaw at some points, it makes for great storylines as well when it does happen. I am still mad about Pell in Alabasta though, that one straight up doesn’t make sense.
After everyone makes it to the bridge and Robin and Franky have sufficiently beaten up Spandam, all that is left to do is wait for Luffy to win his fight. But when Usopp looks over at the tower where Luffy is fighting he sees his former captain down and out. He takes off his mask and pleads with Luffy to get back up, threatening to fight Lucci himself if Luffy doesn’t get back up. Usopp may be a coward, but he is certainly not a cowardly man. Fortunately for Usopp, Luffy does get back up and with one final barrage he beats the crap out of Lucci. I’ve always found the actual fight to be one of the less interesting parts of this arc, if not for this moment at the end where the entire crew is awaiting his victory. Maybe it’s because fights aren’t what I enjoy the most in manga, but I live for the emotional moments much more than the action. I think that’s also why One Piece is such a popular show despite its sometimes lacking fights. Maybe I’m alone in this, but the fights have just as many asspulls as some other shows (like Fairy Tail) that get flack for doing so. One Piece gets this treatment a lot less due to its incredible narrative. Either way, CP9 is defeated in its entirety and the crew is about to escape on a navy warship. Where did Sanji go?
Speak of the devil, but Sanji returns from who knows where, just barely saving Kokoro, Chimney and Gonbe from being killed in an explosion. It turns out the warship they were about to escape on was blown to shreds, leaving the one hope for escape burning and collapsing. What are they going to do now? Well, not every crewmate was present yet, there’s still someone we all forgot about and when I tell you I cried more at the appearance of a freaking boat than I have at the emotional peak of 99% of shows I’ve watched I’d still be underselling how incredible this entire sequence is. Usopp and Luffy hear a voice and then jump into the ocean. Everyone follows only for them to land on the Going Merry. I cannot put into words how much even writing this here is making me cry again. We get two of these incredible moments in one arc. First Robin’s cry for help at the tower of justice and now the Going Merry’s final wishes. It turns out that during the Aqua Laguna there was a Klabautermann repairing her. The soul of a ship, as it was called on Skypiea. Through the mess of whirlpools they somehow make it out safely, to be found shortly after by Iceberg who was responsible for fixing up the Going Merry.
I want to sail one more time.
The final sendoff of one of their own crewmates is heartbreakingly beautiful. Merry gets given a viking funeral as the crew watches on in tears and she thanks them for caring about her so much. If only Usopp was here to witness this moment. And that brings us to the emotional finish line of this arc. There’s more story to be told in the next volume before we move onwards to spooky island in the next arc, but things have severely slowed down now. They’ve defeated CP9 and we’ll never have to worry about those goons ever again. There’s also an ongoing cover story about the citizens of Skypiea living in peace and Enel making it to the moon on his flying ship. This will continue into the next volume though, so we’ll take some time to talk about it then. For now, I’ve got to catch up on sleep as I’ve been pretty unwell lately. Stress sucks, as you probably know. So as usual, thanks for reading!
Volume 40 is aptly titled ‘gear.’ If this is your first journey through One Piece, the meaning of this volume title will get clear as we continue, but if you’ve been here before, you know all about the gears. We also continue the baroque works escape cover story this volume but the real meat and potatoes of this arc is about to start, so let’s not waste too much time on this stuff and let’s continue straight into the story, shall we? No wait, before we continue onward, we get a quick view of Bon Kurei (Mr 2) out of his make-up and in a suit and oh no, he’s hot.
The charge on the judicial island of Enies Lobby started last volume and continues in this volume. With Luffy rampaging around, there’s less guards on the main gate. This works out well for the rest of the attack force as they charge on the two giants. They get taken out mostly by the Franky Family and the Galley La forces, who split off from the rest of the party here, but they get a little bit of help from the rocketman which rockets over the gate and into the back of Oimo, knocking him out once more. The straw hats disembark and bicker a little bit before taking one of the King Bulls. We also get a fun moment where Kokoro pretends to be a hostage so the navy hesitates a bit before attacking.
Completely unrelated, but remember when Oda wanted to make power levels a thing because many other shonen did the same thing? Yeah, I didn’t remember, and for good reason. It’s such a bad and uninspired way to do power scaling. Especially because in most storytelling they give super high power levels to enemies and then still end up defeating them, making the numeric value of their powers ultimately irrelevant. It’s much cooler to make your villains imposing by making them scary in other ways. Like Lucci saying he wants to murder people. What a psycho. We get a bit more of Spandam, whose power level is lower than that of ‘man with gun’. That’s pretty funny and makes a lot of sense. He’s a nepo baby for sure and he’s only in power because his arrogance matches his lineage. He’s planning to send Nico Robin to the headquarters and Franky to Impel Down. We also get shown two devil fruits that Spandam has, and there’s several CP9 agents that do not have devil fruit powers yet. But before any of that, we finally get to the first big fight between CP9 and a straw hat. Blueno descends from the high tower to face Luffy head on.
While Luffy is fighting Blueno, the rest of the crew continue their march. We get a little bit of backstory for Sodomu and Gomorah, which means they’re about to be taken out in true shonen storytelling fashion. And of course, both of them get taken down in the next chapters. It’s honestly pretty sad and puts into perspective how much these people are willing to sacrifice for their friends. It’s not a mathematical equation of how many friends they can save, it’s purely the thought that one of their friends needs saving and that’s all that matters. That’s a core part of One Piece that’s always made the story so great. Lots of shonen deal with scheming characters that want to balance their options and then it’s up to the main characters to defy their orders and go save their friends. Think of the Kage in Naruto or someone like Yamamoto or Urahara in Bleach. The greater good is the priority. One Piece doesn’t have those shackles which is why to me it’ll always be a step above the others. There’s someone in danger? Okay, we’ll drop literally everything to go and save them. That’s all there is to it and damn it, if it isn’t the most powerful storytelling tool. We also get a lovely scene of Usopp converting the giants to their team after telling them about his meeting with Dorry and Broggy back on Little Garden.
Everyone converges on the drawbridge that will allow the crew to move to the main island where Robin and Franky are being held. Meanwhile, Kaku and Kalifa each eat a devil fruit and we get some lore about the fruits as well. Some claim that there’s actual devils in the fruits, but Lucci dismissed this claim pretty quickly. It has been confirmed that a person’s body cannot handle two fruits at once, so that’s good to keep in mind. No asking for second breakfast, hobbitses. While the crew marches through Enies Lobby at breakneck speed, Luffy admits he can’t beat Blueno. At least not without powering up his body with this new skill he’s learned after losing to Aokiji. We finally get the reveal of Gear Two or Gear Second. Through using his rubber legs he pumps his blood through his body much faster allowing him to speed up tremendously. He uses this power to absolutely body Blueno and take out the CP9 agent with relative ease. The blowback of using such draining attacks is more severe than any of the damage that Blueno himself did. With that out of the way, Luffy challenges the rest of CP9, yelling for Robin to come out. We end the volume with Kokoro talking to Chimney.
Watch, Chimney. Whether they live or die, they have done what no one in the past 100 years could. This moment will impress the whole world. When the fight is over the world will ring with the sound of that straw hat boy’s name.
And that brings us to the end of volume 40. We’re about 33% done with the manga now, although I don’t fully believe Oda’s claims about the impending ending of the story. On one hand, he probably knows best, but on the other hand I can’t see this story reaching a satisfying conclusion within the next 3 or 4 years. I hope it lasts for a while longer but not at the cost of Oda’s health or creativity of course. It’s hard to imagine what it feels like to create a story that’s so ridiculously popular and influential. It has to be an amazing feeling but I can also imagine it weighing heavily on you after a while. Anyway, things are continuing to ramp up fast and the next volume has one of my favorite moments in the entire series, so you’d best prepare. I hope you enjoyed this volume as much as I have and as always, thanks for reading!
I’ve been consuming and creating stories for over 20 years now. Don’t make fun of my age, I’m sensitive. Either way, there’s one thing that has been consistent throughout the good stories I’ve consumed. The best stories have good character writing. It’s very simple. Your worldbuilding can be amazing, your action scenes can be cool, your music and animation quality can be the best in the business but nothing will top a fascinating character. A likable character that you just want to root for. Someone who is well written and has their flaws but that’s okay because they’re perfect and they can do nothing wrong. So needless to say, Skip and Loafer is in the mix for anime of the year for me.
Look at this dreamy boy.
So what’s this story about? Iwakura Mitsumi moves from a small town in the countryside to the bustling city of Tokyo. There she moves in with her aunt Nao and starts her life at a prestigious Tokyo High School. Her goal in life is to become an important politician and make a big impact on the world. Obviously to do so, you need to start off well on the first day of school. Mitsumi is very smart and driven but she’s not particularly in tune with the city. So on her very first day she arrives late. In a panic, she encounters Sousuke Shima who is also late for his entrance ceremony at the same school but is much less bothered by it all. He helps her find her way towards school and the two become fast friends from that point onwards. After throwing up on the homeroom teacher and messing up a few more times, Mitsumi slowly starts getting used to life in Tokyo as she makes more and more friends due to her likable personality.
I’m getting emotional just clicking through the episodes, but mabye that’s just the lack of sleep.
The first season of this show – and I’m saying first season because I want to live in a world where there are more seasons coming – focuses mostly on our main duo but also takes the time to develop some of the important side cast. We learn about Mika and her insecurities and how she slowly comes to terms with who she is and that she wants to change part of who she is. We spend some time with Kanechika who is living his best life being an actor and being extremely outgoing. We also spend some time with Mitsumi’s aunt, Nao, who is a trans woman. This is handled very well – and I’m saying this as a cisgender man with zero authority on the subject – in my opinion. It’s not a point of contention, that’s just who she is. I really liked her character and how endlessly supportive she is of Mitsumi’s antics but also the unexpected advice she ends up giving to Mika when she needs it most.
not so dreamy now.
Last but not least, I think part of what makes this show so good is the vibes. The animation and artstyle are great and it seems like they took a lot of inspiration from the source material since it feels like a very faithful adaptation. The character designs are great and the music makes you really relaxed while watching it. The entire package just works and delivers a great show. After watching the anime I got into the manga, and from what I’ve read so far – which isn’t a lot, I’ve been busy – it’s also very solid. Check out either of them if you love a good slow burn romance without too much annoying drama. I’m keeping this short since I have a bunch of tests to grade and some sleep to catch up. Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 