I like to watch seasonal anime, and posting about it. Instead of just posting a giant Mastodon thread, I’m going to try something new this season: Writing an aniblogger season preview post about the shows that I decided to give a try!

Lets start with the highly anticipated show featuring steppe nomads:

The Frontier Lord begins with Zero Subjects

Episodes watched: One

Oh, you thought it was going to be the mongolian witch show? Sike, we’re starting with the other one.

Dias, a highly distinguished veteran soldier, having stopped being useful to his king and being not of noble birth, get fobbed off to go rule over a bunch of marginal grassland with nothing in it. Nothing, that is, except (unbeknownst to him) a bunch of demihuman horned oni steppe nomads who have been in conflict with the kingdom over the use of these lands for generations. The kings hidden plan, I assume, is for our guy to either drive them off, or die trying and stop being a potential problem. Instead, he immediately makes friends with them and gets a government assigned oni wife and helps out and builds himself a thing, through hard work.

The whole show looks, and feels, very middle of the road light novel Dad Anime. Here’s just a guy, doing his best. Orphaned at a young age, he is a charmingly simple semi-retired man of violence. He doesn’t want to hurt people for no good reason. He just wants to be useful. He is strong, he is manly, a reliable protector (this is pointed out many times, it is very important to the show), the women want him, the men want to be him.

It’s a low cholesterol, low stakes, not quite slice of life but not really action show for when you want to drop everything and get into woodworking instead. Maybe I will continue to watch it, on days where I have particularly useless meetings.

Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia

Episodes watched: Two

If I had a dollar for ever anime this season involving steppe nomads &c &c.

Anyways, this is the show involving Steppe Nomads that you should be excited about. It’s Naoko Yamada1 directing a semi-historical account of the story of a girl captured and enslaved by the Mongols plotting revenge against the empire. The progagonist is a real historical woman - witch in the “learned woman” sense not the “supernatural powers” sense - though the source manga takes as far as I understand great amounts of poetic license and fills in a lot of blanks.

Given the director and that it’s produced by Science Saru, I had high expectations, and fortunately, the show delivers, in spades. The art and animation and overall vibe are just straight up beautiful. The story itself is interesting, though, given the subject matter, expectedly grim. Ghengis Khan and his sons are not known historically for being particularly pleasant fellows. I am looking forward to seeing where the story goes, whether it sticks very closely to what happened historically, or changes it up a little. I am glad they did a two episode premiere, and I cannot wait for the third one.

Yani Neko

Episodes watched: One

I’ve been meaning to read the manga this is based on for a long time, but I never got around to it. All the better - now I get to enjoy the show with no preconceptions.

The setup is simple enough and the English version of the title - Chainsmoker Cat - already explains it fully: Yani is an absolute disaster loser dipshit catgirl who smokes as many packs a day as she can afford with the money she makes off of occassional part time work and othewise mostly rots in her room and causes trouble for her environment. I assume we will learn a bit more about her, but least after episode 1, Yani is pretty much Kaiji if Kaiji had fewer redeeming qualities. Some evil billionaire should probably offer he money to play a death game.

If you wanted to watch a show about a girl who smokes that does not glorify smoking, well, good news for you. If you just want to watch a show about a catastrophe catgirlfailure, as I do, it also definitely works as that. I will certainly continue watching it.

Smoking behind the Supermarket with You

Episodes watched: It was gonna be two, in the form of four mini-episodes, but actually I ended up binging everything that was available2

Oh you did want something that glorifies smoking cigarettes? Why, we have that covered too this season.

Smoking behind the supermarket with you is an adult romance series. Mr. Sasaki, 45, is a tired salaryman working a boring shitty office job at at a boring shitty company. After a particularly stressful and useless meeting runs late3, he and Mrs. Yamada / Tayama, the cashier working at the supermarket where be buys his Feierabendbier that he has had a crush on for a long time increasingly fall for each other after they start smoking behind the supermarket together. The added twist is that our guy is extremely slow on the uptake and does not realize that the cashier and the woman he is smoking with behind the supermarket are the same person, just acting and dressed up differently.

It’s an ultra slow burn not-exactly manic pixie dream girl adults-with-a-slightly-problematic-age-gap iyashikei romance show for people whose knees hurt. The guy is kind, tired, and lonely. The girl is a bit teasy and wears a leather jacket and has pierced ears and is like 20 years his junior, but also is an adult who has her own problems. It’s a very relaxing watch, there is really only one point of tension, being whether the Worlds Densest Mother Fucker eventually figures out that the two women he is into are the same person4. I am extremely weak to this specific character type. I have already taken immense psychic damage. If they ever make one where they smoke hookah it’s over for me.

The Cat and the Dragon

Episodes watched: Two

A baby dragon loses his mother to dragon hunters, and is raised by a cat. The cat (a cait sith, in reality) also raises a bunch of other magical creatures and then later after mom has disappeared through a summoning circle the dragon gets really angry after humans hunt a bunch of cats for EXP and threatens to burn the humans city to the ground so the humans ban hurting cats5 but then one of the cats actual-cat children becomes friends with the cities kings son and teaches magic to him and it becomes a tradition and meanwhile the mother cait sith has been summoned by a baby witch and teaches magic to her and gives the old scholar who is her teacher some interviews about magic creatures and isn’t that nice?

I’m still not sure this show is strictly about anything except wanting to see magical cats go on adventures. The first episode is half origin story, half The History Of The Kingdom, then the second is Cait Sith Goes To Magic University. Everything is just sort of loosely strung together. But that’s fine, because yes I would absolutely like to see a series of loosely connected vignettes about magical cats who go on adventures and have a good time. Luv magical cats, hate cat hurters, simple as.

Kaiju Girl Caramelise

Episodes watched: One

On the more high school romantic comedy side, we have this show, wherein the lead girl has a rare medical condition that causes her to turn increasingly more into a 5 stories tall ugly bastard of a fire breathing lizard monster whenever she experiences romantic emotions6. Having to hide this has lead to her being a bit of an outcast at school.

As it turns out, though, her classes surprisingly-kind, works-as-a-model popular guy, whose terrible secret is that he was a bit of a loner himself when he was still in middle school and chubby, might actually have a crush on her. After all, she is very much definitely not like all the other girls. The Kaiju part is played weirdly seriously - when she fully turns Godzilla standing in the Tokyo Bay after getting a bit too much attention from him, the JSDF shows up with helicopters and starts shooting at her.

I found the show surprisingly cute, and weirdly genuine. I’m much more invested into the romance between the two main characters than I thought I would be, and that the titular girl actually fully turns into a full size kaiju, with people panicking in the streets and news reports the next day, is interesting. I think I’ll stick with it.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEED: Gun Blaze Vengeance

Episodes watched: One, but double length

In the postapocalyptic future, our girl Kuza Shiina hunts the monsters for bounty, and after disaster strikes the fancy home on a small island that she used to live on with her adoptive daughter, for REVENGE.

This is a very excited title with many components, and so, we can go word by word to check if everything promised is indeed present. Back to front:

  • Vengeance: Absolutely. ✅️
  • Blaze: Everything is on fire constantly. ✅️
  • Gun: Absolutely. So many guns, of all kinds. At one point, our girl dual wields shotguns before dispatching an enemy with an anti-materiel rifle. ✅️
  • EXCEED: Various things and activities certainly seemed excessive. ✅️
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: Nanoha shows up towards the very end and unceremoniously lasers a big worm monster. There isn’t any yuri pvp laser into friendship action, though. So I guess partial credit maybe? ❌

This double length episode 1 felt uneccesary to me and I got super distracted a few times while watching. Everything up to the moment Nanoha actual shows up was a bit, “why do I care about this” - a bunch of solid, but nothing beyond solid, action scenes, that didn’t feel all that much like a Nanoha series7. But then Nanoha dpes show up at the end and I am not immune to propaganda and so maybe I will watch one more episode.

BanG Dream! YUME∞MITA

Episodes watched: Three

what

okay no really what exactly is going on here. The previous BangDream series, MyGO and Ave Mujica went less idol and more drama and that ended up being… really good actually. This series has the new band be some kind of vtuber idol band that’s a bit quirky but at the same time there’s also a similar setup to Ave Mujica where the main character and designated singer was previously in some kind of influencer group and has some kind of trauma response that makes it hard for her to sing8. That previous group went apart because a video of main girl shit-talking people got leaked online, apparently by the leader of that previous group, who feels like the closest thing to actually evil BangDream has been willing to go.

The whole show has a very strange energy. It feels like the studio could not decide whether to make Normal BangDream or Drama BangDream this time and so decided to do both. I’m not fully sold on the result, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

A Livid Lady’s Guide to Getting Even: How I Crushed My Homeland with My Mighty Grimoires

Episodes watched: One*

It’s a villainess series (somehow, not Isekai!) based on a light novel, and the setup is about as standard as it comes: Elizabeth, our main girl, is of noble birth, and engaged to the Prince and future ruler of the kingdom. She is smart, wise, beloved by all, and the one running the show behind the scenes. Half because he is a moron and half because he is being led on by a different noble lady9 scheming, Prince Charming breaks it off with Elizabeth and has her sent to prison on trumped up charges of having committed various crimes. Unhappy about the situation, she decides to defect to a rival empire, and now intends to have her revenge.

The reason I wanted to watch this series is that, from the trailer, it looked like for once we’d get a villainess series where the supposed villainess actually does evil things for fun. Despite the genres name, the main character is usually just misunderstood and actually really nice and wouldn’t hurt a fly. This now sounded more like it would go into the direction of May I Ask For One Final Thing. So far… there isn’t much. The first episode is all setup, with not much happening, and her full Joker We Live In A Society turn, with everybody suddenly abandoning her as well, is almost weirdly out of nowhere. I hope that there is a bit more crushing with mighty grimoires soon, but so far, it was unfortunately more boring than not, and I got distracted a bunch of times while watching, which is not a good sign.

Heroine? Saint? No, I’m an All-Works Maid

Episodes watched: Two

For the rest of this post, you are welcome. Welcome to… the Isekai Zone.

In this first entry, Ritsuko Mizunami, our main girl, is a child genius and overachiever with the worlds most supportive parents, who was tired with the world until she discovers a new dream: Becoming a maid. Unfortunately, she is isekai’d when her plane crashes on her trip to become a maid in the UK. After she is reborn in a new, vaguely medieval world, which is almost suspiciously in tune with what she wants, she turns all her overpowed heroine level magic to work to become the worlds best maid.

I’m not too sure what to make of this, yet. It’s a cute, relaxing show, and maybe it wants to have some overarching plot as well, and maybe I would prefer if it did not? Anyways, I’ll probably keep watching it, at least for a bit. Ritsuko is fun to watch, and so is her surroundings reactions to her monomaniacal dedication to Maid Activities at all costs. But if I’m feeling like doing something else other than watching anime, this is probably one of my drop candidates.

The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows how to Game the System

Episodes watched: One

Our main guy, Elmyas, has been isekai’d in a not further elaborated on way into the JIS/ISO Standard Litrpg Floating Stat Window Isekai World. He gets assigned a class, and everyone, including his nobleman father, is shocked and appalled: He is a heavy knight, the weakest (because it os overly defense focussed) class. Being egged on by a vaguely evil10 from the branch family (who got the class everyone considers the strongest), he immediately exiles our guy - who is the only one that knows (because this world is similar to a video game he played before The Event) that the class he got is actually the stro- wait shit is this just Shield Hero again?

While the plot setup is at a glance very similar, there are some differences: * Elmyas is much more unbothered about the whole situation. * Malice is much more of a side character and really only taking advantage of the situation (though also much more outwardly sadistic 11). * The actual female lead is some kind of combat clown that we haven’t really seen much of set, but most importantly: * It is made by GoHands.

GoHands is a very special studio. Most studios have a House Style, some more distinct, some less. GoHands is more, much more. Their shows are all CG. There are tons of hair. Everything, especially that hair, is overanimated to the point it’s ridiculous. The camera just flies wherever the hell it wants for absolutely no reason. In the first episode, when Malice walks into the room, they have the camera clip below the floor so they can get a better shot of her butt. This is a generational achievement in fanservice. Gooner 9/11 is permanently averted.

As a Momentary Lily Truther12, I feel compelled to watch more of this. It’ll probably be shlock. But it’ll be shlock in GoHands style, and in a weird, “can’t wait to see what outrageous nonsense they do this week” way, that makes it compelling to me.

  1. Who directed, among other things, K-ON and A Silent Voice at KyoAni and then The Heike Story at Science Saru. This is “altered the language of the medium forever” type stuff. ↩

  2. The release schedule for this show is weird. They dropped episodes 1 through 6 but split into 12 “mini-episodes” of varying length, each of which is maybe half an episode proper. They’ll then release the same things again but as full length episodes, and then episodes 7 through 12 actual will air as normal. The depths of streaming site executives minds are truly indecipherable to us regular folk. ↩

  3. Maybe he should watch The Frontier Lord begins with Zero Subjects and get into woodworking. ↩

  4. Signs point to no. ↩

  5. Big fan of this law. Every city real or imagined should have this law. Maybe even go a bit further, adopt the constitution of the Republic of Uzupis. ↩

  6. It’s more difficult than not to not read the whole thing as a metaphor for puberty and body self image issues. ↩

  7. Full disclosure: I have watched only the first season. So maybe the series has since evolved in ways unknown to me. ↩

  8. It is unclear why she then applied to be a singer. But I am sure she will push past. ↩

  9. Let me interject for a moment here. Why is it that the Other Woman in these vilainess series is disproportionately (putting on the face of) the excitable, energetic Cure Pink, often even with actual pink hair? Does that just work well? Are we working through the authors unaddressed issues here? What is the deal? ↩

  10. Her first name, at least in english, is literally “Malice”. We are leaving nothing to chance here, I think. ↩

  11. if evil why hot ↩

  12. Please do not ask me what Momentary Lily was about. I don’t know either. But god that OP tho. ↩

tagged: anime media preview
filed under: look mom I'm an aniblogger now