First of two comments for me this week is a meta comment. I would like to welcome @1Fuji2Taka3Nasubi@piefed.zip to the moderation team of the community! I have been busier and busier at work lately, so the additional set of eyes on things is greatly appreciated.

I’m sort of craving something that’ll let me just switch off my brain and coast…

My go-to for this state of mind is Nichijou and, more recently, City The Animation. I often pop on a random episode here and there. Scrolling through my library for some other ideas, I found a couple others I have watched that are in the same vein of a SOL I don’t need to pay too much attention to, but are still good shows:

• Azumanga Daioh (a classic if you haven’t seen it)
• Bartender (I’ve just seen the remake)
• Dungeon People (a great SOL that flew under the radar I think)
• How Heavy are the Dumbbells You Lift?
• I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years
• Negative Positive Angler (some story in this one, but mostly just fishing vibes)

Just a quick meta head-up that next week’s thread will be the Winter Preview Thread! So, @rikka@ani.social will be monitoring that thread to enable show discussion threads for the upcoming season. I do just want to mention one show that is starting ~2 weeks early, Ao no Miburo: Serizawa Ansatsu-hen. So, let me know thlis week if you want discussion threads for that show. You can also just request threads by private message if you want.

I am a couple chapters behind on this series. This is one of those that I somehow missed migrating after Comick shut down.

This series is absolutely wild. If you think you know what is going to happen next…you are wrong. The only constant is a constant drive for yuri. Lots of fun.

I just caught up on this show and I agree that the meat looked really, really good this week.

I have used this salt baking method once before to cook a large roast, and it works really well. In my case, we did it on an open fire, so the salt casing helps protect the meat from the variable temperatures of the open fire as flames/coals ebb and flow through the hours it takes to bake. The salt really does harden into a shell as it bakes thanks to mixing in the moisture (egg whites). This traps in the moisture from the meat as it cooks, essentially steaming it. It takes a lot of salt to do this well, so I imagine you would only see this in the traditional food of maritime locales where salt would have been readily available. The salt is not reusable afterwards.

In a restaurant setting, I would imagine they could achieve much of the same effect through commercial steam ovens. This lets them bake a roast while injecting steam into the oven, keeping it just as moist (and cooking it faster without having to heat the meat through the shell). They might wrap it in something else that helps keep the juices in while also allowing better heat conduction.

Translation:

Glad you liked the show!

It’s one of my favorites. I love me a good chuuni character and Rikka is one of the best out there. Rikka somehow is able to be an utterly ridiculous chuuni character while also having a really compelling and touching story that is exceedingly human and grounded in reality.

I am ready at a moment’s notice to spread the good word of the Mystery Research Club!

Big fan of Ika Musume (I read the manga before watching the anime). I look forward to the day that the author’s other big work, Assemble! Mysterious Research Club, is granted an anime adaptation. I prefer it to Ika Musume in manga form, but they are both great.

It’s more that the West has just recently discovered Uma Musume. The show and the game it is based on has been enormously popular in Japan since its inception. I guess it just takes some time for a general audience to acclimate to the idea of racing horse girls.

As for the show itself, I haven’t watched it. However, I have seen it praised highly and seen some really, really well animated clips. They really put that gacha game money to use when they are animating this. @Endmaker@ani.social has had really great things to say about the story as well, and I have seen elsewhere that it is a great example of a sports anime (if that’s your thing).

Despite it being a short, holiday week this past week here in the US, I have been absolutely slammed with work. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to watch any anime for the past two weeks now. So, I thought I might as well provide a bit of a meta update here in the comments.

Year End Awards

I think that for this year I am going to move the 2025 Anime and Manga year-end awards into January (probably late Jan). One of the main points of feedback I got from that process last year is that it felt weird to vote on the awards while the Fall season was still airing. So, we can fix that! I think late January might work better since the beginning of a new season is always busy, so let’s give it a couple weeks to settle down first.

I commute to work on the MBTA commuter rail. I can confirm that all the trains look like this.

I am going to remove this as this is the anime community, but feel free to repost to !manga@ani.social instead.

This series had a couple of manga chapters translated and I liked it a lot. However, the SL dropped the series, so it has been a year or so since the last chapter was translated. I’m looking forward to more of the story.

Code Geass is one of those series that I haven’t watched yet, but I have only heard great things about. So, it’s interesting to see a different take on it. From what I do know from clips and discussions is that Lelouch is meant to be that way, an over the top character. I can see how that can be polarizing though (I don’t have a lot of love for Light either tbh).

I have been super busy irl with work, so I haven’t really gotten a chance to watch anything this past week. I think that is partly because of how busy I have been and partly because nothing this season has really grabbed me. I have enjoyed some series, but nothing has made me try to absolutely jam it into a packed schedule. As an example, Campfire Cooking is one that I continue to enjoy, but I have already read past season 2 content in the manga. So, I know what is going to happen, and it will always be there for me in the future. Touring After the Apocalypse is the one I am probably most engaged with this season, but it’s not the kind of show that makes me really prioritize it when I am busy.

This season is going to stand in stark contrast to next season though. Winter 2026 looks crazy stacked. I just did a quick scroll through the Anichart page and there are at least 6 that I am way more excited about than anything this season.

This is the only series in the history of running the episode discussion bot that has hit the lemmy character limit in titles. An infamous distinction.

I haven’t been watching it, but from what I understand about it, perhaps Gachiakuta has absorbed all the edge this season. Its second cour is airing right now.

I haven’t watched Land of the Lustrous, but I have seen plenty of clips. I think that is the show that really helped Studio Orange find their style which then carried into Beastars, Trigun, etc. It’s very distinctive and I think it serves the lighting effects of Land of the Lustrous very well.

I don’t really have many shows I am watching this season, so basically my whole list is from shows I am not watching. Overall, nothing really jumped out at me as the OP/ED of the season, but there were still some fun ones mixed in:

Shows that I will watch eventually…

• One Punch Man Season 3 OP - Get No Satisfied! by BABYMETAL and JAM Project - I’ll watch this season at some point (my wife wants to watch it together). Despite the overall negative views of the season I have seen elsewhere, I do like the OP.

Shows I am not watching

• Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle OP - Liar by Kucci - Some really pretty animation is the real standout while the music does enough to keep up with the visuals on display. For whatever reason this show took its animation super seriously as the ED is gorgeous as well.
• Ninja Vs. Gokudo OP - Sweet Disaster by MIYAVI - This one was a lot of fun. I have no idea if the show lives up to the OP, but it looks just the right amount of absurd.
• Ranma 1/2 OP - Wo Ai Ni by Suiyoubi no Campanella - Really enjoyed this OP. Lots of energy.
• My Friend’s Little Sister Has It In for Me! OP - Uza Kawaikute Nani ga Warui! by Karubi Akami - This is so full of memes and references that it was a lot of fun to watch. Also, the song is super hyper to go along with it.
• Solo Camping for Two OP2 - Futari de Iyou ka by HOKUTO - This song is one of those vibes that can’t help but make you feel a little bit better.

Honorable Mentions

• Best use of Barrier-grid Animation - Ao no Orchestra Season 2 ED - Ao no Mahou by ChoQMay - Really neat animation effects through the use of one of the oldest forms of animation there was.
• Least Appealing Food - Style of Hiroshi Nohara’s Lunch OP - Gohan Tabe yo by Mega Shinnosuke - The CG in this OP did not really make this food look good. They would have been better served with just the live-action footage of food they used in the ED.
• Most Appealing Food - Tojima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider ED - One More Time by Ryoji Tokito and TeddyLoid - This takoyaki looks delicious. And you know that it is putting in the work to be the best takoyaki it can be. I would totally start an evil organization with the goal of defeating it so that I can eat it. I really liked the OP as well.
• I can’t believe it’s not Disney! - May I Ask for One Final Thing ED - Inferior by Shiyui - This ED is just packed full of Disney costumes from beginning to end. It’s a good song too!
• She’s Back! - This Monster Wants to Eat Me ED2 - Taiyou, Natte Age Yokka? ♡ by Miko Yashiro - This one is sung by one of my favorite seiyuu, Fairouz Ai, and is even partly illustrated by her! She is just recently back after a bit of a hiatus due to her health, so I am just happy she is back.

Yeah, I think that’s the thing that kills me about this pivot to a romance story. The romantic chemistry just isn’t there. The Towa/Akira relationship was by far the most compelling romantic plot they have had so far, everything else just isn’t satisfying and it just makes you want to push Akira to find Towa faster. You know…instead of getting sidetracked constantly.