Anime

It's been an interesting Winter season for me. There are several continuing shows out for me to follow. Log Horizon, about a bunch of gamers who have been pulled into an MMO, Dr. Stone, about trying to rebuild society 4000 years after a mysterious green light turn the entire human race to stone, Attack on Titan: The Final Season, Tensei Shittara Slime data Ken, about a 30-something office worker who gets killed defending a co-worker in a knife attack and reincarnates as a slime in a cavern in a fantasy setting universe, Hanyou no Yasahime, the sequel to Rumiko Takahashi's classic InuYasha a generation later.

There's one new anime I am watching. Back Arrow. The name makes no sense unless you know that it is a homophone for "Bakero", meaning "Idiot". The setting is a world surrounded by a massive wall, indestructible and several thousand meters tall. There are two competing nations, who which is reliant upon sheer combat ability and another which prizes learning and science, such as it is. The people regard the wall as a god, the source of blessings and life itself. It also sends them care packages containing armbands which allow a user to assume a mecha-like form and the abilities one gains are based on their greatest resolve. The stronger this resolve is the more power one gains.

Into this realm comes one package containing a person with no memories aside from the fact that he, quite heretically, came from outside the wall. He lands in a small village in the mountains, is captured by the villagers, who don't believe him, calling him an idiot. His response is to accede to being an idiot and taking the name Back Arrow. He also has one of these armbands but has no resolve whatever. He just wants to get back to the world outside the wall. How this is not "resolve" is unknowable, but his lack of resolve somehow grants him the ability to have a very powerful "mecha". (It's not actually a mecha but it functions similar to one so close enough)

The jury is still out on this one. Sometimes it's pretty good, other times it's just average, but at least it does not stink up the place or be loaded with cardboard cut-out characters like most of the current crop of animes.

I've been pretty busy IRL and haven't watched much anime until this last month or so. I tried to go back and watch Tensei Shittara Slime data Ken and Love is War but couldn't get into either. I'm not sure I can even give an example of why, but it just didn't click for me.

Dr Stone is excellent.

Mushoku Tensei (Jobless Reincarnation) is beyond excellent. Maybe the best Isekai I've seen.

OreGairu - I fell in love with this one. The student council corporate doublespeak rap battle was amazing.

Rent-A-Girlfriend - Pretty good but the MC gets kind of tiresome by the end.

Digashi Kashi - animation and characters are good, but not much of a storyline. However, I found the history of types of candy in Japan fascinating.

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai - Sort of a mix of Lost and high school slice of life, I really enjoyed this one.

O Maidens in Your Savage Season - Coming of age story from the female perspective. Follows a high school girls literature club and their struggle with sexuality. Pretty good.

**Hinamatsure** - Omgosh! I have no idea how this one slipped by me a few years ago. I could not stop laughing and I didn't want it to end. Story of a young mysterious ESPer girl with a dry personality who crash lands into a Yakuza boss's home. She uses her powers to blackmail him into letting her stay with him and this mob boss w/ no experience in family or kids has to suddenly start to care for her. Hilarity ensues.

ETA: Forgot about RE:Zero - I really liked this one as well and then it moved further up the ranks when the MC was forced to look at the mess left behind from his multiple deaths in other timelines.

Great list. Some I have seen, some read the manga. Others I either missed or avoided.

OreGaru is on that latter list.

I read the mangas for both Hinamatsure and Konojo Okrishimatsu (Rent-a-Girlfriend). Hinamatsure was great, Konojo was an interesting premise ruined by a feeble milquetoast MC.

Rascal and Maidens were both excellent for different reasons. Rascal suffered a lot of negative comparisons to Bakemonogatari, mostly for that show's die-hard fans, but in fairness Bakemonogatari was made just as animation was shifting to drawing the art and composing the cells on computer (This is NOT CGI. Totally different concept.). OMFG. You now have 50K colors to pick for the palette and you chose the 40 most hideous ones on it. Rascal doesn't have that flaw.

Dagashi Kashi was WTMFI about Japanese candy.

I watched the first season of Re:Zero and loved it. When the second started I was tired of the premise so I didn't go back to it.

Mushoku Tensei is not bad. Not that great, it entertains well enough, and for the record it is much better than most of the Isekai out there...but that's a pretty low bar.

There's a manga I am reading that kills 99% of the isekai. It is, however, somewhat adult. Well, it's from the writer of Saikon no Qwaser and it shared the feature of the hero powering up with boobs. It's a slow read as new chapters are released monthly. Guy who works odd jobs gets hit by a truck and finds himself summoned to another world by a princess and her champion. What makes it work is that the world setting is choc-full of action, intrigue, and oh yeah, he's far from the first human summoned there. In fact, the world has your basic medieval tech level boosted in spots by innovations from other humans. It's a very intelligent manga. With boobs.

ETA: The title of the manga is Shinju no Nectar.