I finished The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity today, and while I did like it I didn’t love it. It didn’t really feel like Waguri had a personality beyond being nice, smiling a lot, working hard, and liking Rintaro. It felt like a downgrade after enjoying personalities like Momo and Maomao. I loved Rintaro’s parents and friends though.

I discovered Goblin Slayer got a second season, so I have watched 5 episodes of it.

I like it so far, though I am not fond of it showing more of his face this time. If the show always showed his face I wouldn’t really have a problem with it, but by this point if they do it now, its weird. Hopefully they keep the helmet on.

Also glad the show doesn’t get so detailed as its first episode. It isn’t a bad thing, and it has its place, but I think having that first episode set up the show enough that it doesn’t need to do it again, and so far it hasn’t.

Excited to have Spy x Family and Ranma 1/2 back, looking forward to much silly action from them this season.

Of the new shows I’ve seen so far, I enjoyed My Awkward Senpai quite a bit, office romances can be hot or miss but this one’s off to a good start at least.

Inexpressive Kashiwada and Expressive Oota also had a decent first episode, though the episode was like 60% slideshow. Budget seems a bit low.

My Little Sister’s Friend Has It In For Me looks nice and is funny, but the premise seems a little problematic. We’ll see where it goes.

I gotta finish Pretty Derby S3 and catch up on Cinderella Gray too.

Unrelated to the new season, I am halfway through Kill la Kill, what a blast.

I’m almost done watching the 7th prince. I must say it’s been fabulous, the characters are so fun. It’s an classic OP isekai junk food anime, and I’m loving every bite.

This season’s premieres I’ve already checked out and gonna keep watching for now:

• Yano-kun’s Ordinary Days was on my radar and it’s a pretty looking show, but so far it lacks any charm. I’ll give it two more episodes to see how the romance develops.
• This Monster Wants to Eat Me - same thing.
• Towa no Yuugure - Episode 0 almost made me drop it, but the first one had an interesting worldbuilding. However, androids are not my thing, especially when the romance plotline is present, so I doubt I’ll finish the show.
• Pass the Monster Meat, Milady! - surprisingly fun due to both leads being enthusiastic about their special interests and having a great chemistry.
• Shabake - was looking forward to it, but found the premiere quite bland. Hope it improves further on.
• Sanda - Paru Itagaki, never stop being the woman that you are. The artstyle and Science Saru’s animation look super fun.
• May I Ask for One Final Thing? - while I can see the allure of a strong woman beating the shit out of bullies and aristocrats, I haven’t found the double episodes premiere particularly exciting.
• To Your Eternity Season 3 - I might be among those rare people, who enjoyed season 2 more than season 1, so I’m kinda excited to see what’s next. Also, “Fumetsu no Anata” by Perfume is the first OP of the season I liked (I feel like this season will be quite scarce in the theme department for me).
• Kakuriyo Season 2 and Kingdom Season 6 were among my most anticipated titles of fall 2025. The premiere wasn’t impressive, but both started strong. Same with the continuation of Ranma, Cinderella Gray and SxF.

Only two shows that I have checked out from this season so far:

• Dusk Beyond the End of the World - Episode 1 (actual episode 2) did a lot of worldbuilding and I am really impressed with the action animation they did. Really enjoying this so far.
• Touring After the Apocalypse - The first episode was…fine and about what I expected…until a sudden, action-y turn happened. I am really looking forward to more now to figure out what is going on with our main characters and the world they find themselves in.

Still not following anything this season, though May I Ask for One Final Thing? looks promising.

Watched two odd older series last week, each odd in their own way.

First was Girls Band Cry. Or more precisely, the first three episodes of it.

I almost dropped it part way through the first episode, just because the animation is so horrifically awful. And that’s something I’ve never done before. Unlike many, I have no particular issue with CGI, and can at least tolerate pretty much any animation for a good story and/or good characters. But this is something else entirely - it’s like Initial D race scenes levels of awful CGI, except made 25+ years later. I’m honestly not even sure how they managed it - I would’ve thought it would be impossible to make CGI that awful in 2024 - that they’d have had to invest extra time and labor into deliberately making it that bad.

But the thing is that I really liked the characters. So I gave it the “first three episodes” chance. But I just couldn’t get past how awful the animation is (I still can’t forgive them for what they did to that poor cat - it looked like something out of a Nintendo 64 game).

So then I wandered a bit, and ended up on something that’s sort of been on my horizon for a while now - Majo no Tabitabi. And it was… odd.

From the description, it seems like it would be sort of somewhere between Flying Witch and Kiki’s Delivery Service, with maybe a bit of Kino’s Journey mixed in. And that’s pretty much what it is. Part of the time.

But the thing is that it’s very episodic, and the individual episodes range anywhere from all bright and shiny and cute to some of the most horrifically soul-crushing tragedy I’ve ever seen, and back again. It’s beautifully animated and Elaina is adorable and the stories are generally well told, and there’s a bit of a background plot that one can catch glimpses of here and there that looks interesting, but the mood whiplash is sort of exhausting.

Then, because I couldn’t stop thinking about the characters, I went back to Girls Band Cry.

The animation was awful throughout (Rupa in particular is almost unwatchable - her sweater’s the worst, but even her hair and her face look like they were done by a novice following a Blender tutorial). And the performances were surprisingly lackluster - even beyond putting the awful animation on full display, the songs are nothing special and even Nina’s much-vaunted voice really isn’t all that (though admittedly my opinion might be colored by the fact that I just watched Zombieland Saga a couple of weeks ago, and those are some of the best anime music performances ever).

But damn I love the characters. They’re just so rich and so detailed and so realistically complex and emotional and stubborn and awkward and frustrating. And they almost made it worth the rest of it. Almost.

They deserved better.

I gave Gachiakuta a shot. It’s decent, but 6 episodes in, I don’t see how its story is different from most battle shounens. A predictable plot eventually becomes boring to me, so I dropped it before reaching the point of boredom.

I am still continuing my watchthrough of Mushishi. I have completed season 2.

There’s finally someone who can truly be considered a “villain” / criminal:

Also, I forgot to mention it last time, but it feels like Mushishi’s author got some inspiration from floaters for the primitive mushi.