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Well, life happened indeed, and I can't complain. Hope you're doing better by the day, man, and the best for your finals. As for me, nothing out of the routine (besides the end of the semester inexorably creeping in), so I'm doing fairly fine :) Manga's been awesome, and MAL still has a problem on my end where I can't send longer messages for the past week, so, yea, feel free to add me on discord, where I can reply to what's left to you there. Tho, don't expect constructed thoughts, lol.

Lol, understandable

Hmm, honestly, I'm not very active in the online anime community (saves for MAL, and that's only in small scope), so I don't see them being praised as much. I suppose it's Twitter? Lol. Anything that is slightly above most seasonals in looks tends to gain attraction I feel like, even if it goes only so far as 'looks.'


Yea, it's a private server, lol

> The show is more delightful in the way of "I can't believe they put that in the show,"
That's a nice way to put it. I didn't really get Bocchi's hype beyond being relatively unique art direction-wise for a CGDCT. Though I suppose the visual gags and its out-of-the-box presentation are also one of its strongest charms, especially for newcomers, even if I didn't find it to be all that funny. About Sangatsu's title translation, copy-pasting from a post online: It literally translates to "The Lion of March," [...] The title "March Comes in Like a Lion" was chosen by the author as the official English title (not necessarily a translation of the original Japanese), apparently pulling from the English idiom, "In like a lion, out like a lamb." So... yea. Enjoy your rewatch :)

Lmao. I had the (dis)pleasure of witnessing the hacking live; unquestionably problematic, but it was kinda funny, ngl. Dunno if you know this already, but you could import your MAL list data to AL along with its tags (it will mess up commas by changing it to #, but hey, it works). Not sure about notes, though.


> Part of the reason I mostly only browse tiny indie games is their length, to find something I can finish in one sitting
I can somewhat relate to this. Either I finish it in one sitting or go through it in a snail-pace and complete what most would take only a few days in months. That's why I tend to pick short games or ones that are easy to get back to after not touching them for long, aka games that don't require much commitment. I've heard of Disco Elysium before; in fact, I'm in a Discord server where virtually everyone is praising it. I've also been keeping an eye on it for a long time but always hesitant to try it because I'm not certain I'll enjoy the text-based gameplay, though with nothing but a constant shower of praise for it, now adds one from you, my hesitation is fading away. What's more, I always love story/character-focused games.


Added it to my wishlist, though apparently, there's a drama of the original creators receiving no more profit from the publisher; maybe it's time for me to (justifiably) pirate a game after so long, haha.

That's great to hear! Hope you enjoy it through the end. The thing with K-On that sets it apart from other titles in the same vein is KyoAni's touch and Naoko Yamada's magic; every scene is jam-packed with little, easily missable details that add to the characterization of each cast - how they move, subtle shade in facial expressions, the nuanced, different ways in how they interact with one another - expressive storyboarding, vivid yet pleasant colors and background on top of fluid animation. My praise is highly biased and might sound like an exaggeration, but, scrolling through its online community, it's crazy just how much stuff I missed below its humble appearance, evidence of the amount of love and effort that were put into crafting what is but cute girls doing cute things in the end. Can't wait to revisit it and discovers a whole new layer of it :) This is what Bocchi's missing. While its presentation is nowhere near bad and is pretty creative with its uses of visual gags, it doesn't have the nuance and genuineness K-On has, and Bocchi's cast, their interactions, and visual presentation are simply not as appealing, imo.

Sangatsu (especially 2nd season) and Shoujo Shuumatsu are some of the best experiences I've had in anime; take your time with them :) Sangatsu's second season is somehow even better than the first; you're in for an unbelievably poignant yet simultaneously heartwarming ride.

That just means you have a life, lol. And, once again, I don't mind the late reply; in fact, never feel obliged to respond to my comment immediately; I like it better if there's a time gap between comment and reply on MAL, given how the feature works and especially for longer replies which I also like to take my time on writing (like now).


Itch.io, huh. I played one game from there when I was still in my quirky 2D-story-driven-indie-RPG phase (it was a pretty good start for an ongoing project; I might come back to it). Never used the site outside of that, but what you said interests me. I agree; indie game always has a certain charm to them, albeit wearing the 'indie' tag, and unique but not fully-polished ideas are usually their main and only selling point, though I like their personalness and passion still. Now I remember that my favorite game of all time is quirky, and is an indie, and a 2D RPG, and is story-driven, lmao. It's OneShot, in case you're wondering. Man, I miss that time; nowadays, I don't think I have the commitment to finish even one game, let alone explore more of them. But, hey, there's still a chance of my interest coming back.

Haha. Casual watchers are usually going by recommendations from anime streaming websites, from what I can see, so the range of shows they watch is oddly niche. I have this one IRL friend - who has a MAL but is not really using it and don't follow any anime circle online - who watches pretty much every romcom that the name passed by his ears, and he's got Taishou Otome Otogibanashi on his fav; a show I wouldn't know the existence, for nobody I've come across ever talks about it, if not for one fellow mentioning it in SingleH's comments that got me to read their review of it.

> or they're the type with 1200 CGDCT shows under their belt and counting - still touting Lucky Star as literally the Bible
Lmao. Now that you mentioned it, there do exist people like that here. I might be undergoing the process of becoming such myself :p

> SingleH is almost a microcosm of that it seems.
Yeah. It's sad to see. Likely the reason why SH almost completely stopped responding to comments, since a majority of theirs isn't worth responding to.

Good luck with Texh in the future :) Well, I haven't gotten deep into psychological stuff myself; have only dabbled in a bit of Oshii, ABe, and then some, with a very mixed reception to them. It's not the type of entertainment I'm actively seeking, so I only jump into the ones that are acclaimed and have very little chance to suck.

I've seen only Oshii's OG GitS and Innocence, and Kamiyama's Stand Alone Complex, which I bet are the only ones worth checking out; can't confirm this, though, but in my opinion, these two virtuosi and their tight-knit teams were what made GitS, GitS, and I doubt anyone can come near to, let alone surpass their level. My recommendation and watching order will be GitS (1995) > Stand Alone Complex > Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG > Innocence. You could check out other entries by yourself and ask someone more familiar with the franchise - I heard SAC_2045 is decent - though I'll likely won't.

> Ah, I just realised my long ass messages are probably drowning your comment section.
It doesn't take long to scroll through the comments section, so it doesn't bother me. Though if it helps with your concern, there's always the spoiler button that you can use to shorten a message; along with marking spoilers, which our convo is filled with lol. Actually, imma use it now.


> is there anything especially interesting you've been going through?
Unfortunately, I'm currently not interested in video games. Been like this since around two years ago and haven't properly played any games ever since. Wonder when my interest would come back since my Steam is full of back-logs and untouched titles :') But talk about something interesting; I recently finished Texh, so there's that. My MAL social circle has nothing but sky-high praise for it, and they're right; it was a great watch, even if my experience wasn't as profound as I hoped, though it's mainly a fault of my ridiculous expectations, and a rewatch would likely strengthen my admiration for it. A grey nihilistic heart in Konaka's cryptic script and Himasaki's unnerving directing made for a punishing and thrilling ride and a visceral denouement of the death of humanity and ambitions. While I couldn't like it on its whole, Texh's attempt at conveying themes through its every fiber, from its deliberately dull outside presentation to its usages of repetitive sound design and structure, is ultimately commendable. Honestly surprised to see it nowhere on your list; I highly recommend you check it out.

It's the same to me as well, and, yes, I think it's a mix of both. Seasonals have always been throwing stuff to the wall and hoping for some to stick; otherwise, we wouldn't get a sea of indistinguishable Isekai with gimmicks as their only selling point, along with other poorly made and presented shows coming out every season. In the end, it's all just business, and as the field grows larger and larger, the factory must churn out more products as soon and as fast as possible. It's completely fine to not be excited about every new shiny stuff in the catalog. But of course, some actually try, like Oshi no Ko, which I can respect for its effort, or Tengoku Daimakyou, which I haven't watched but hear only good things about it. Rather than "attempt," I think it's the result of the MAL community growth, as I mentioned earlier. While I can't be confident about whether or not the collective acceptance of a mainly Western community would have a direct effect on the anime industry at large, I believe it does something to the quality standard in a vacuum, more so now with the ease of selling the product overseas through streaming services.
*
> I try my best to not come off as a grouchy elitist veteran or something
Any elitist would wear a grimace seeing two CGDCTs in your favs ;) Jokes aside, don't worry about it. People here like to plaster the elitist tag to anyone who gives the show they like a low score, it seems, and so-called elitists here would go out of their way to shit on any and every seasonals just because; the word hardly means anything, and you are far from the description of it; just a guy expressing his justifiable dissatisfaction with the way of the industry.

Well, given the amount of manpower required to craft an anime, it's a worthwhile effort (in the artistic sense) from a mangaka that mainly works alone. While a manga might be unable to compare to a well-made adaptation in terms of 'experience,' a work with love and effort put into it always has a certain charm that can't be translated into a screen, and Shoujo Shuumatsu is one such case. Be it the detailed, unique artwork, creative paneling, etc., can only be experienced in its original manga form if you ask me.

> Media discussions are consistently the pastime that I indulge in most in my free time
Same here :) Sometimes, I get more fun out of discussing rather than consuming said discussed media (like this very case lol).

Oshi no Ko spoiler
I haven't read the manga, so assuming that it started the same, I can understand why Akasaka wrote Ai that way, and I get why the screenwriter chose to keep it as is. With such a core idea, the narrative cause - the trigger - being a fanatical fan with suspicious knowledge stalking Ai leading to Gorou's death and the effect is him being reincarnated as Ai's son, it sets the base that the story is about 'oshi no ko,' child of a star (my handsfree translation lol) and that the stalker will inevitably return with a blow; Ai's character was always written with her as a cornerstone in mind, you know, like "anime moms with a side plait hair," and so beautiful heroine and perfect image with just the right amount of gloom underneath is the way to go; a tried-and-true method to make the audience roots, and it's proven effective once again here - Akasaka wrote Ai as a plot device, engineered to be likeable and sympathetic in a short time span while Kana is written as a character with further development in mind. So it's not that they out-sympathized her with Kana; it's just that they shone all the spotlight on her in the premiere and the gust of her death is persistent in the following episodes because she's essentially the backbone of the story. Now there's no problem with that kind of character, but my issue with OnK is that they uh, oversold (overblown? Nah, doesn't sound about right) her death after spending a good four episodes duration of her present completely missing out on the chance of fleshing her character to be so much more. Man, I don't think this paragraph makes sense, and I feel like I'm just repeating myself here. Sorry if that's the case.

> I wonder if the show's shot itself in the foot given how much emphasis the premiere had on the crime mystery aspect of the show
Personally, I don't think it does. Like, Aqua's whole motivation is so centered around revenge, unveiling the curtain of the man behind the mystery, and so far, this aspect has been utilized fairly well to drive the narrative forward while also adding another layer of intrigue aside from the commentary. Another thing, the murder that left him even more cynical about the entertainment industry could be utilized to create an interesting dynamic clashing with Ruby's pure passion for it, along with hopefully dynamics with other upcoming characters as well. So yeah, while the mystery is not the main focus now, it directly affects the flow still.

> It might end up like another To Your Eternity
I wouldn't be surprised if it does lol. Though at least in Oshi no Ko's case, they still have a card to play in hand, that being the gradual reveal of the mystery and its resolve (even if it's extremely unlikely that the latter will happen in this cours), whereas, in Fumetsu's case, it really seemed to me that it peaked at the first episode, forever unable to pick up.

Yea, the stricter moderation sure is sucks. I really only follow SingleH for the most part, and while I can't say so from my own experience, it's sad to see lots of their more expressive reviews got taken down; those are the ones that usually caught my (and mods) attention and admiration.

Hmm, I personally went with the adaptation first, and that's what I'd recommend; the soundtrack created such a potent melancholic yet relaxing atmosphere that, coupled with top-notch visuals, voice-acting and anime-only tidbits, time and time again surpassed the manga. It's a great adaptation with evident love and care poured into it. Though for that exact reason, you might also want to read the manga first. Not to say that the manga is worse since as you said, the art is amazing, and it is all-around an unfiltered, direct canvas for tkmiz's vision, but imo, the 'iyashikei experience' simply can't compete with an excellently made anime with motion and sound, understandably so. So anyway, I'm not sure which is better to experience first, but I'm sure that volumes five and six should be read after you watch the anime; to put a proper closure to the story.

EDIT: update on Oshi no Ko. You probably don't care about my thoughts on it, so don't feel obliged to read this. I just feel the need and require a place to pour them.
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Ok so, episodes two and three actually did better than I thought. The reason why I didn't enjoy the premiere is that it was "a blunt commentary on the idol industry orbited around a two-dimensional plot device from perspectives of obsessive, annoying, two-dimensional stans constantly throwing bland humor that ended in shock factor." I didn't have too much of a problem with the commentary part, but the execution pushed me out of the narrative and left a lot to be desired.

If they were to make us care about Ai whilst giving an insight into the idol industry, it would've been better to use her point of view instead of outsiders (Aqua and Ruby), which allows an intimate dive into her mental toll, the whole "lie is an act of love" ideology, what it meant to be a mother to someone in her position (this is the most important imo, and yes, I'm 'borrowing' your point here :p), and, overall, her true character behind the entertainer facade; this would've made the scene hold so much more impact, killing the supposed main character right in the first episode and let the silhouette of her legacy and mystery behind her demise colors the entire narrative forward - the silhouette of a main character that gained the viewers' sympathy through an hour and some of careful buildup and study. But what we got instead was 'cheap writing.' Well, I guess this choice was due to the narrative's core idea of being reincarnated as a child of an idol, but I'm sure the writer could've found a way to work around it.

Now while episodes two and three have the same humor still, they toned it down, thankfully, and the POV works better now, turning the show into "an overt commentary on the entertainment industry from the perspectives of an easily likeable cast with a brush of crime mystery." Though that's not to say that it finally grabbed me since the backbone of the show still centers around the grave over Ai's death - which I didn't buy into - and not much has been done to flesh out the characters. But eh, it's already slightly better than the premiere, plus they can, and should, now expand and hone on the new elements to make the mystery, characters and commentary more compelling. I hope my stances about it were wrong again.

I'm planning on re-watching the anime soon and give it another chance. Who knows? might be better this time around.

I don't mind the late reply :) Now that you mentioned it, yeah, I don't seem to see that many people who shit on it online either, or, at least not as much as it was with Bleach TYBW and CSM a while back; wonder why. Guessing it has something to do with anime and, by extension, MAL, growing insanely popular this year alone. Newcomers usually just sail with the wave, and their influx probably overshadows the opposing community, idk.

> the type of show that the characters, as they are, definitely CANNOT carry
Lol, that worries me. Given that I didn't enjoy the premiere, I put it as dropped once, but due to the sheer praise it got, I considered giving it a second chance hoping it has something saved in store. I'm waiting for the 3rd episode to air before catching up with it, and if what you said is true, then high chances are I'm dropping it for good :')

I also gave Id:Invaded a fairly high score(8 or 9) for the first few episodes, and my expectations became so high for that series, but in the end it honestly disappointed me. Don't go in with the highest expectations as I previously did.
I don't remember much, but I ended up being disappointed and having mixed feelings about the whole series.

Oh, what I refer to as "spoilers bit flying here and there" was the discussion of it in forums and social media and whatnot that I haphazardly read, so it's not your writing in particular that spoiled it to me; no need to be sorry. Though yea, I suppose it's better to mark them next time :p

No problem, and thanks! It's the result of me wasting spending so much time on this website lol. Most will find it enough to log in their watched/read stuff with scores; it's just me who takes the ridiculous extra steps.

Hmm, I think it still deserves credit for its tremendous success in, to quote someone, "engineering the perfect crowd-pleaser." It perfected the formula and achieved traction, and to reach such status requires real effort and skill. Oshi no Ko's premiere is a good one: well-produced, well-handled, and competently written in how the beats flow and in what it wants to accomplish. It might be emotional manipulation, but it wasn't done carelessly; your friend was right, "if it works, it works," though there's a bit of a "how" - formula, effort - behind it, where the depth lies in the effective camera angles and compositions, intricately evocative imagery that sells the big scene. You might call it cheap writing, but it's not a cheap trick, if that makes sense. This is Kimetsu no Yaiba all over again. I don't think it's wrong for people to laud the first episode this much, though I can't lie that I'm slightly annoyed to stumble upon an endless stream of praises of it everywhere online when I personally couldn't get the same enjoyment out of it as most do lol.

Some actually interesting first insight of Oshi no Ko that isn't just echoing it as the next big, hype thing. While I haven't got myself to start it, your write-up (coupled with spoiler bits flying here and there) gave me a good grasp of what to expect from it; thanks :)

Also, damn, it is long, alright; I feel the need to tell you that BBCode, including the spoiler button, works on Notes - this might help you (and visitors) to navigate your list better, as I saw that this isn't the first and likely won't be the last lengthy bit of yours.

sorry for the late reply, i saw your comment a while ago but kept putting off a response. definitely a bad habit of mine.

That LycoReco review was one of my more emotional reviews, so I'm glad someone else shared my sentiment, even if only for that particular show.

I'm watching a few shows this season; along with Bocchi, I'm watching SxF part 2, DIY, MP100 III, Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, and Raven of the Inner Palace.
I feel like SxF Part 2 is very different from it's first half, focusing on SoL over action. However, I don't think SxF does SoL that well; episodes 5 and the first half of episode 7 seemed like a corporate adaptation of the manga rather than trying to instill any overarching mood. SoL is a fickle and very subjective genre though, so maybe I'm just on the pessimistic side. (I did like some parts of the show though, namely the second half of episode 7)
I was more skeptical of Do It Yourself than most when it came out, but I think it turned out fine. It's more driven by a simple love for DIY than trying to tell a story, and that's honestly not a bad thing. While the tropey characters irk me (especially the cat girl), if the show relaxes the character archetypes, I could really get used with the vibe.
I don't really know how to explain Mob to someone who hasn't watched Mob. There's a really unique atmosphere to it that is very different than other anime (though I haven't watched that many). It focuses more on slice-of-life than most shounen, although it does still have the core attributes of most battle-shounens. While I can't guarantee it will be a satisfying watch, it does have the potential to be something you'd like.
The Gundam show isn't good. There are a lot of crazy logic-bending and other shit in it, along with a very shallow set of characters. It's newcomer-friendly, so if you really want to take a look, you can.
Raven of the Inner Palace is a really niche anime made for a niche community. It's an episodic historical mystery set in Ancient China, so I don't really blame you if that's not your thing.

It's normal to feel like that, no matter how detailed your review might be, you'll always find something else that you can add or something that you feel is missing sooner or later after you posted it. Also, thanks again!

Thanks for accepting! You have a fascinating list (also nice Tomodachi Game review)