At this point in time, the Summer seasonal shows have either wrapped up or are airing their finale this week. So, I wanted to hear your thoughts on shows you watched this season. Shows you liked, disliked, were surprised by, disappointed by? Let those opinions rip!
Please feel free to use this thread as a normal weekly discussion thread as well! Anything that would normally be in the weekly discussion thread any other week is welcome here.
As always, remember to be mindful of spoilers. If you want to know more about how to handle spoilers in this community, check the guide here (also linked in the sidebar).
This Season
Completed
Top Tier (>= 9 / 10)
The Summer Hikaru Died - This is easily my anime-of-the-season. This is the kind of suspense anime that I’m looking for, where bits and pieces of clues are presented to us so that we can play detective, but enough information is withheld to create the mystery. 10 / 10
There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless… - I enjoy entertaining cheap drama like this. The middle was kind of weak, but the start and end left a strong impression. I believe this is the second harem (read: polyamorous) anime that I would consider top-tier in entertainment value, the other one being 100 Girlfriends. I also like how relatable Renako’s thought process can be. 9 / 10
Great (8 / 10)
Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus - The first half was honestly pretty weak; I was on the verge of dropping it. But when the second half starts, that’s when it drew me back in. I am glad I did not abandon it. It is definitely a drop from previous seasons and is not as strong a suspense anime as The Summer Hikaru Died.
Grand Blue Dreaming season 2 - This is good ol’ turn-your-brain-off dumb fun. Just like in season 1, despite acting “dumb” most of the time, the characters are not braindead. There is in fact character development and progress in relationships.
bâan: The Boundary of Adulthood - I enjoyed it quite a bit. I like the concept of cultural exchange with residents of a different world. I think the story / world has the potential be expanded upon and be turned into a full season of anime. I can’t help but think the setting is unrealistic though. If humans discover another world and is able to establish a reliable connection to it, I bet it won’t used for cultural exchange, but for an invasion to seize their resources - like in Avatar (the blue alien one).
Milky☆Subway: The Galactic Limited Express - It’s a fun watch. The way the characters speak made them feel so real. Just like bâan, I think it has the potential to be turned into a proper season of anime with full 24-minutes episodes.
Good Enough (7 / 10)
My Dress-Up Darling season 2 - It was pretty good until the very last part of the last episode. There was essentially no progress made in this season. However, I still enjoyed how educational the show was when it comes to cosplaying. Also, I suspect a significant number of the animators cosplay, or can at least relate to this show. I can see that this anime was produced with the utmost love.
Dropped
A few hot takes in here. (i.e. popular series dropped) Don’t read it if you don’t want to see your favourite anime get dissed.
dropped anime
Uglymug, Epicfighter - It has a fun premise, but it looks like the plot would just be the main cast adventuring around, like in many other fantasy adventures. Nothing significant happened enough to get me hooked, so I got bored. 7 / 10
Dan Da Dan season 2 - It was alright. Just a bunch of fights against supernatural beings, but nothing else going on. I got bored so I dropped it. 7 / 10
The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity - A few episodes in, it looks like it is going to follow the same formula as 90% of romance series - which I have already gotten bored of. 6 / 10
Bad Girl - Got bored in the first episode; nothing much to say. 5 / 10
City The Animation - I don’t find it funny, and with the comedy not hitting, the slice-of-life has got nothing going for it. 4 / 10
Turkey! Time to Strike - I dislike the mental gymnastics used to justify the existence / usage of bowling in that anime’s context. 3 / 10
Lord of Mysteries - This is one of the most chuunibyou bullshit I have seen in a while. I gave it a few episodes since I have heard high praises of it, but the plot is just too dumb for me. I think edgy teenage boys would enjoy it though. 2 / 10
Past Seasons
Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works
I heard that UBW is one of the better entries in the Fate series so I chose it as my gateway into the series.
I enjoyed the first 6 episodes sufficiently. The show was slowly revealing information about the death game, building up the world in the process.
I can see myself rooting for the protagonist, Emiya Shiro, who seemed like a good-hearted, albeit naive young man.
Episode 7 was when the cracks started to appear, when Shiro started saying stupid shit. Perhaps there’s a deeper thought process in his head, but the anime was certainly not showing it. I was chalking up the dumb things he said earlier to naivety, but it was getting hard to ignore.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was the start of episode 8,
Fate UBW spoiler
when Rin came looking for Shiro. Shiro started behaving like one of those dense, wimpy protagonist. Like, of course Rin is there to look for you!!
This is clearly some form of wish-fulfillment, where one gets their ego stoked when a hot partner comes looking for them and in the process give them the attention they crave.
It was getting too stupid that I dropped it right then and there.
Mushishi
I am about two-thirds of the way through season 1 of Mushishi at the moment.
It is certainly an intriguing world, enough to keep me hooked.
I do have some criticisms of it though:
1 - The pace is kind of slow. Granted, this is an episodic, slice-of-life anime, but I’d rather it be faster or show some form of progress
2 - I feel like some of the problems could have been avoided had Ginko have some common sense or communicated more clearly. Like, he never seemed to tell his patients / clients clearly about the mushi or the situation they are in, leading the bad outcomes later on.
3 - The people in Mushishi’s world are too good-natured and peaceful, which is unrealistic. Like, there is no evidence of thuggery / robbery / rape, let alone warfare. People are so trusting that they can just go following random strangers.
People don’t even seem wary of scammers. I’d expect at least some people make use of mushi to cheat others of their money.
Again, this isn’t really a valid criticism since this is set in fantasy world. If I want a more realistic setting, I should watch more anime like Vinland Saga.
4 - Ginko kept saying that the mushi are just living their lives, so they are neutral: neither malevolent nor benevolent. Guess what: so are the rest of the organisms around. That doesn’t mean humans can’t / shouldn’t take preventive action against some of them.
For example, we have vaccines to help us combat certain germs, or carry out eradication of certain species of mosquitoes that carry deadly diseases.
I’m pretty sure the same concept can be applied to some mushi. Ginko’s line of thinking here feels too naive to me.
Otherwise, I have been enjoying it a lot. I wish there are some pure happy-ending episodes though. Pretty much all episodes that I have watched so far have bittersweet endings.
Yeah, you can definitely tell Shiro’s an early 2000s VN protagonist. Unfortunate to see it be a dealbreaker for you in the end, but fair. I think ufotable did what they could if you compare it to the Deen adaptation. If the world interested you, maybe Fate/Zero is a good one for you. That was my gateway into Fate.
About Mushishi - I will preface this by saying that I love the heck out of the show. I actually agree with your point #2. I think Gingko feels like the average person wouldn’t understand mushi or would just be frightened of something they couldn’t see, even if they understood it better. However, I agree with you that he could have at least tried more.
Related to that, I think your fourth point is related to something that I found interesting in that the preventative measures in the setting of Mushishi often took the form of superstition or local myth. Things like don’t cross this mountain after dark or don’t store food in this building that are just common knowledge among the locals, but they don’t really understand why. Well, it turns out that the actual why is often because otherwise you will interact with mushi in a bad way. It reminds me of how religions basically created supernatural origins and explanations for physical phenomena that were not understood at the time.
I think your points 1 and 3 are intentional elements of the setting. I think the author just wanted to slowly wander around through this world and take it in. To a large degree, that is all that Gingko is doing through the story. There are some episodes where he is traveling to a place for a stated purpose, but more often than not, he just happens to be passing through for no particular reason that we know of.
Exactly my thoughts, though I forgot to mention it in my original comment. Thanks for pointing it out / reminding me.