April 7th, 2024
Winter 2024 Season Retrospective
Anime Relations: Ore dake Level Up na Ken, Majo to Yajuu, Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san, Metallic Rouge, Yuuki Bakuhatsu Bang Bravern, Yubisaki to Renren, 30-sai made Doutei dato Mahoutsukai ni Nareru Rashii, Gekkan Mousou Kagaku, Meiji Gekken: 1874
DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional reviewer or writer in any way. These are all just my opinions, based on my personal tastes in anime. So if I didn’t enjoy something, that absolutely doesn’t mean I think it’s bad and no one should watch it - believe me, if I felt that way about something, I would just say it. Also, English is my second language, so apologies in advance if my writing is a little awkward or stilted.
After not really following seasonal anime for a while, I finally managed to get back into the swing of things this winter. I checked out 9 shows in total and ended up completing 5 of them.
Starting with the shows I dropped:
Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!
Dropped after 3 episodes
I’ve heard plenty of good things about the live action adaptation of this manga, but I still went into this apprehensively. I was into BL quite a bit when I was younger, but nowadays I feel the genre is a bit stuck in its conventions and I just prefer more “realistic” stories with LGBTQ+ characters.
My biggest problem with the show was how much it refused to actually, in words, acknowledge the characters’ orientations. It’s not that I wanted the whole “Wait, if I am a guy and I like a guy, does this mean I’m GAY??” spiel, I find that as stupid as anybody else, but I think it would’ve been nice for the show to address the elephant in the room so to speak. And maybe it did later on, but I just couldn’t get that far into it.
I also wasn’t the biggest fan of Kurosawa. Yes, in comparison to many other seme characters I have come across, he’s perfectly respectful, but I still found him to be a little bit… too much at times. Like saying that he wants to try and respect Adachi’s boundaries a little more and then proceeding to lean his whole body over him and put his hand over Adachi’s on the mouse while showing him something on the PC. Again, I am not saying he’s horrible, but I just didn’t gel with his character and honestly couldn’t really get into Adachi as a protagonist either.
That being said, I hope the people who are really into these types of stories had a good time with it.
Delusional Monthly Magazine
Dropped after 3 episodes
My hopes going into this weren’t exactly high, but I hoped it would be funny at least.
It wasn’t.
I do think what I’ve seen had some moments (the furry magical girl transformations were…. interesting…) but if you’re coming up with such a silly concept, your gags actually have to land and I am sorry, but the three episodes of this I have seen were absolutely unfunny (and looking at its score on MAL I am going to assume I wasn’t the only one who felt this way).
I would be really curious if anyone managed to finish this show and how they feel about that experience….
Meiji Gekken: 1874
Dropped after 3 episodes
Truth be told, I only decided to give this a try after I heard that Yuuichi Nakamura was voicing the main character. Unfortunately, he couldn’t really save this show either, at least for me.
I admit, it doesn’t help that I am not into historical fiction that much anyway, but I wasn’t exactly able to find anything else I liked in here either.
The story and characters felt quite bland and while I never actually got to the point of “Oh wow, this is bad and I should drop it”, I just never ended up feeling motivated to go and watch that next episode….
Metallic Rouge
Dropped after 5 episodes
This one I feel really sad about because I really wanted to like it, but in the end I just… couldn’t. Bones’ 25th anniversary project had some entertaining moments and cool fights in those 5 episodes I watched, but that didn’t save it from just not working for me. I felt no urgency in the storytelling, no reason why what was happening was important to the characters on more than surface level.
I really loved the character designs of Rouge and Naomi and their dynamic was really fun, which made it all the more jarring when the show forced them to fight for the sake of drama.
Overall, I feel they took a bit of a wrong approach. My favourite was actually the second episode, which had a much more adventurous and humorous tone than the rest of what I watched and I just personally felt it was more entertaining than the show’s usual contemplative and moody tone.
In the end, I just wasn’t invested at all in what was going on and lost the motivation to continue.
That brings us to all the shows I did manage to finish, starting from the lowest rating and going up to the highest.
Mr. Villain's Day Off
Final Rating: -
Before anyone gets the wrong idea: This show was NOT so bad that I couldn’t give it a rating. I ended up being so indecisive here because this show honestly did nothing wrong but I still was forcing myself to watch it in the second half.
Here’s the thing: I like slice-of-life anime. I find them cozy and comforting. However, as many of you are probably aware, they also have the tendency to go stale pretty quickly and this is what happened here as well.
At the start of the season, this was probably one of my favourite shows. I really loved the characters and the world we were in, but as time went on, I had just seen…. enough of it? And this is honestly were I went wrong, because I should’ve dropped this show when I noticed this, but at that point I was over halfway in and I didn’t want to give up on it.
So yeah, this was definitely an “it’s not you, it’s me” situation that I don’t blame this show for. It’s really cute and I would recommend it for anyone who enjoys the slice-of-life genre. I just realised while watching this that I need to be a bit more honest with myself when it comes to anime, because sometimes it’s not just the bad, unenjoyable shows that end up dropped or the ones who just can’t live up to their potential - it can also be a good show that is just not suitable for me (or my attention span).
The Witch and the Beast
Final Rating: 6
I overall enjoyed this show, but I felt it never really lived up to its potential. On the story front, I got really frustrated by the time we reached the end and got teased with some really interesting world building and a hook for a sequel that I don’t believe will ever come. I kinda wished we could’ve just gotten the story of Guideau and Ashaf meeting and then skipped straight ahead to The Fall and what happens there, because it sounded a lot more interesting to me than pretty much all of the stories we got throughout this first season.
Not that I thought they weren’t entertaining at all, but oftentimes I felt that the plot was moving along much slower than it could, the Helga story being the worst offender - that one could’ve easily been told in one episode less without losing any of its meaning.
The animation here was overall decent, but I think the fight choreography could’ve been more intense? Maybe I got too spoiled by one of the anime appearing later in this list, but the fight scenes felt a little directionless and uninspired at times, but this might have been due to budgetary constraints.
That being said, I don’t regret watching this show at all and if you do enjoy yourself some gothic fantasy/witchy stories, I would definitely recommend giving this one a watch because in spite of its flaws, there’s still a lot to be enjoyed here.
Brave Bang Bravern!
Final Rating: 7
Well, this was…. a lot. I didn’t have this on my watch list at the start of the season, but after hearing some rave reviews, I decided to give it a try and I’m really glad I did. It kind of feels like a show that could’ve come out 10 years ago, and this is by all means a compliment! In a sea of isekai (and shows that aren’t isekai on a technicality but use a lot of the same tropes and character types), this was certainly a breath of fresh air. I also kind of miss the times were we got multiple mecha shows a season… these days, the genre feels a bit extinct.
I am beating around the bush here because I find it hard to describe what exactly I liked about Bravern. Probably how it just lived its weirdness authentically from start to finish. That being said, I did feel like it lost a bit of steam in the middle, but oh boy did we get some crazy developments in the final third of show! I know plenty of viewers saw certain developments coming, but I didn’t and had a great time being shocked by them.
Obviously, this show is silly and if you want something serious… you’re not going to enjoy this. However if you aren’t afraid of a little (or a lot of) homoeroticism and enjoy weird little shows in the vein of Samurai Flamenco, you’re going to feel right at home here.
Solo Leveling
Final Rating: 7
This was honestly one of the biggest surprises of the season to me. Of course I knew how hyped this show was, that’s the main reason I ended up giving it a try, but truth be told, I am most certainly NOT the audience for this type of power fantasy story. I was honestly expecting to conk out a couple episodes in, but somehow Solo Leveling just worked for me?
I really appreciated the show’s brisk pacing - we never spent too much time on any part of the story, which I think really helped conceal the fact that the show’s writing just isn’t that good.
The same goes for the characters, but at this point I believe that Jinwoo was never actually intended to be a genuinely compelling character on his own - it’s much more about him powering up than about his actual story and I think the production crew behind this adaptation knew that and made the absolute best of it.
That being said, the show absolutely excelled in terms of animation and fight choreography and thanks to the aforementioned pacing, we got a lot of great fights. And of course Hiroyuki Sawano’s music was a perfect fit for this type of show.
But in spite of having a much better time here than anticipated, I just can’t give this show more than a 7 - the plot and characters are just way too lacking for more than this, and to me, that’s okay. I’ll definitely be back for season 2 and hope they’ll stick to what made this one work there as well.
A Sign of Affection
Final Rating: 9
Full disclosure: I did read quite a bit of the manga for this a while back, but I barely remembered anything of it, so I feel like I mostly watched this show with a fresh set of eyes.
And boy, did I love it. First of all, I am always ecstatic to see a show that has characters not be in high school - sure, at my big age I don’t necessarily relate to college kids that much anymore either, but I still think it’s a stage in life less explored by anime that I was glad to see a little more of here.
It was also really refreshing to see characters communicate their feelings as openly as they can - and when they weren’t able to, the show still never resorted to any kind of overdramatisation, which I really appreciated.
The cast of characters was really likeable too, Yuki and Itsuomi being a main couple that you truly enjoy rooting for. And this show certainly gave us plenty of heart-pounding moments - I was definitely squealing and kicking my feet in excitement pretty much every episode.
Visually, A Sign of Affection is also an extremely pleasing show. It has a soft colour palette that really suits its overall vibe and the animation as a whole was gorgeous throughout.
I feel like the only thing I didn’t enjoy was that the ending made me feel like this would not get a second season, which I would be really saddened by - I would love to see what’s next for Yuki, Itsuomi and their friends!
And this concludes my little season retrospective. Overall, I had a good time with what I watched, but also felt like there wasn’t that much to choose from (that suits my personal tastes). But I am really excited for what spring will bring and maybe I’ll be back with a little first impressions post soon.
After not really following seasonal anime for a while, I finally managed to get back into the swing of things this winter. I checked out 9 shows in total and ended up completing 5 of them.
Starting with the shows I dropped:
Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!
Dropped after 3 episodes
I’ve heard plenty of good things about the live action adaptation of this manga, but I still went into this apprehensively. I was into BL quite a bit when I was younger, but nowadays I feel the genre is a bit stuck in its conventions and I just prefer more “realistic” stories with LGBTQ+ characters.
My biggest problem with the show was how much it refused to actually, in words, acknowledge the characters’ orientations. It’s not that I wanted the whole “Wait, if I am a guy and I like a guy, does this mean I’m GAY??” spiel, I find that as stupid as anybody else, but I think it would’ve been nice for the show to address the elephant in the room so to speak. And maybe it did later on, but I just couldn’t get that far into it.
I also wasn’t the biggest fan of Kurosawa. Yes, in comparison to many other seme characters I have come across, he’s perfectly respectful, but I still found him to be a little bit… too much at times. Like saying that he wants to try and respect Adachi’s boundaries a little more and then proceeding to lean his whole body over him and put his hand over Adachi’s on the mouse while showing him something on the PC. Again, I am not saying he’s horrible, but I just didn’t gel with his character and honestly couldn’t really get into Adachi as a protagonist either.
That being said, I hope the people who are really into these types of stories had a good time with it.
Delusional Monthly Magazine
Dropped after 3 episodes
My hopes going into this weren’t exactly high, but I hoped it would be funny at least.
It wasn’t.
I do think what I’ve seen had some moments (the furry magical girl transformations were…. interesting…) but if you’re coming up with such a silly concept, your gags actually have to land and I am sorry, but the three episodes of this I have seen were absolutely unfunny (and looking at its score on MAL I am going to assume I wasn’t the only one who felt this way).
I would be really curious if anyone managed to finish this show and how they feel about that experience….
Meiji Gekken: 1874
Dropped after 3 episodes
Truth be told, I only decided to give this a try after I heard that Yuuichi Nakamura was voicing the main character. Unfortunately, he couldn’t really save this show either, at least for me.
I admit, it doesn’t help that I am not into historical fiction that much anyway, but I wasn’t exactly able to find anything else I liked in here either.
The story and characters felt quite bland and while I never actually got to the point of “Oh wow, this is bad and I should drop it”, I just never ended up feeling motivated to go and watch that next episode….
Metallic Rouge
Dropped after 5 episodes
This one I feel really sad about because I really wanted to like it, but in the end I just… couldn’t. Bones’ 25th anniversary project had some entertaining moments and cool fights in those 5 episodes I watched, but that didn’t save it from just not working for me. I felt no urgency in the storytelling, no reason why what was happening was important to the characters on more than surface level.
I really loved the character designs of Rouge and Naomi and their dynamic was really fun, which made it all the more jarring when the show forced them to fight for the sake of drama.
Overall, I feel they took a bit of a wrong approach. My favourite was actually the second episode, which had a much more adventurous and humorous tone than the rest of what I watched and I just personally felt it was more entertaining than the show’s usual contemplative and moody tone.
In the end, I just wasn’t invested at all in what was going on and lost the motivation to continue.
That brings us to all the shows I did manage to finish, starting from the lowest rating and going up to the highest.
Mr. Villain's Day Off
Final Rating: -
Before anyone gets the wrong idea: This show was NOT so bad that I couldn’t give it a rating. I ended up being so indecisive here because this show honestly did nothing wrong but I still was forcing myself to watch it in the second half.
Here’s the thing: I like slice-of-life anime. I find them cozy and comforting. However, as many of you are probably aware, they also have the tendency to go stale pretty quickly and this is what happened here as well.
At the start of the season, this was probably one of my favourite shows. I really loved the characters and the world we were in, but as time went on, I had just seen…. enough of it? And this is honestly were I went wrong, because I should’ve dropped this show when I noticed this, but at that point I was over halfway in and I didn’t want to give up on it.
So yeah, this was definitely an “it’s not you, it’s me” situation that I don’t blame this show for. It’s really cute and I would recommend it for anyone who enjoys the slice-of-life genre. I just realised while watching this that I need to be a bit more honest with myself when it comes to anime, because sometimes it’s not just the bad, unenjoyable shows that end up dropped or the ones who just can’t live up to their potential - it can also be a good show that is just not suitable for me (or my attention span).
The Witch and the Beast
Final Rating: 6
I overall enjoyed this show, but I felt it never really lived up to its potential. On the story front, I got really frustrated by the time we reached the end and got teased with some really interesting world building and a hook for a sequel that I don’t believe will ever come. I kinda wished we could’ve just gotten the story of Guideau and Ashaf meeting and then skipped straight ahead to The Fall and what happens there, because it sounded a lot more interesting to me than pretty much all of the stories we got throughout this first season.
Not that I thought they weren’t entertaining at all, but oftentimes I felt that the plot was moving along much slower than it could, the Helga story being the worst offender - that one could’ve easily been told in one episode less without losing any of its meaning.
The animation here was overall decent, but I think the fight choreography could’ve been more intense? Maybe I got too spoiled by one of the anime appearing later in this list, but the fight scenes felt a little directionless and uninspired at times, but this might have been due to budgetary constraints.
That being said, I don’t regret watching this show at all and if you do enjoy yourself some gothic fantasy/witchy stories, I would definitely recommend giving this one a watch because in spite of its flaws, there’s still a lot to be enjoyed here.
Brave Bang Bravern!
Final Rating: 7
Well, this was…. a lot. I didn’t have this on my watch list at the start of the season, but after hearing some rave reviews, I decided to give it a try and I’m really glad I did. It kind of feels like a show that could’ve come out 10 years ago, and this is by all means a compliment! In a sea of isekai (and shows that aren’t isekai on a technicality but use a lot of the same tropes and character types), this was certainly a breath of fresh air. I also kind of miss the times were we got multiple mecha shows a season… these days, the genre feels a bit extinct.
I am beating around the bush here because I find it hard to describe what exactly I liked about Bravern. Probably how it just lived its weirdness authentically from start to finish. That being said, I did feel like it lost a bit of steam in the middle, but oh boy did we get some crazy developments in the final third of show! I know plenty of viewers saw certain developments coming, but I didn’t and had a great time being shocked by them.
Obviously, this show is silly and if you want something serious… you’re not going to enjoy this. However if you aren’t afraid of a little (or a lot of) homoeroticism and enjoy weird little shows in the vein of Samurai Flamenco, you’re going to feel right at home here.
Solo Leveling
Final Rating: 7
This was honestly one of the biggest surprises of the season to me. Of course I knew how hyped this show was, that’s the main reason I ended up giving it a try, but truth be told, I am most certainly NOT the audience for this type of power fantasy story. I was honestly expecting to conk out a couple episodes in, but somehow Solo Leveling just worked for me?
I really appreciated the show’s brisk pacing - we never spent too much time on any part of the story, which I think really helped conceal the fact that the show’s writing just isn’t that good.
The same goes for the characters, but at this point I believe that Jinwoo was never actually intended to be a genuinely compelling character on his own - it’s much more about him powering up than about his actual story and I think the production crew behind this adaptation knew that and made the absolute best of it.
That being said, the show absolutely excelled in terms of animation and fight choreography and thanks to the aforementioned pacing, we got a lot of great fights. And of course Hiroyuki Sawano’s music was a perfect fit for this type of show.
But in spite of having a much better time here than anticipated, I just can’t give this show more than a 7 - the plot and characters are just way too lacking for more than this, and to me, that’s okay. I’ll definitely be back for season 2 and hope they’ll stick to what made this one work there as well.
A Sign of Affection
Final Rating: 9
Full disclosure: I did read quite a bit of the manga for this a while back, but I barely remembered anything of it, so I feel like I mostly watched this show with a fresh set of eyes.
And boy, did I love it. First of all, I am always ecstatic to see a show that has characters not be in high school - sure, at my big age I don’t necessarily relate to college kids that much anymore either, but I still think it’s a stage in life less explored by anime that I was glad to see a little more of here.
It was also really refreshing to see characters communicate their feelings as openly as they can - and when they weren’t able to, the show still never resorted to any kind of overdramatisation, which I really appreciated.
The cast of characters was really likeable too, Yuki and Itsuomi being a main couple that you truly enjoy rooting for. And this show certainly gave us plenty of heart-pounding moments - I was definitely squealing and kicking my feet in excitement pretty much every episode.
Visually, A Sign of Affection is also an extremely pleasing show. It has a soft colour palette that really suits its overall vibe and the animation as a whole was gorgeous throughout.
I feel like the only thing I didn’t enjoy was that the ending made me feel like this would not get a second season, which I would be really saddened by - I would love to see what’s next for Yuki, Itsuomi and their friends!
And this concludes my little season retrospective. Overall, I had a good time with what I watched, but also felt like there wasn’t that much to choose from (that suits my personal tastes). But I am really excited for what spring will bring and maybe I’ll be back with a little first impressions post soon.
Posted by pink-ouroboros | Apr 7, 5:29 AM | 0 comments