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.

It truly would be an apocalypse if the whole world became Alabama…

This show is becoming more and more of a romance series first, anything else second. I think the main issue is that the leads just don’t have great romance chemistry. Akira is constantly telling them and everybody else that will listen that he doesn’t want to be in a romantic relationship with them. Meanwhile, Yugure basically just ignores him while demanding they get married…but then gets super shy if anything actually happens with Akira. Then Amoru acts like and is treated like a child that is a younger sister of Akira.

Like…what kind of romance are they even trying to build between these characters? Episode 0 had a much more compelling romance narrative than anything they have put together since. At this point, my expectations for this show have basically evaporated into nothing. It has basically become a better animated version of My Wife Has No Emotion in a different setting.

For the record, operating rooms are far from sterile, it’s more like they are just really clean. They lack a lot of the controls and mechanisms in place to maintain a truly sterile space (also humans are your biggest source of contaminants in any kind of cleanroom). If you want to look at spaces that are maintained to be truly sterile, you would want to look at Grade A GMP Cleanrooms. I work in pharmaceutical manufacturing, and things like vials and syringes need to be filled in a Grade A space to ensure it is sterile before it is opened by the patient/clinic.

There are a range of classifications of clean areas, and the Grade A space is usually just within a sealed chamber inside a lower class room. Specifically, usually the Grade A space is inside a piece of equipment called an Isolator (picture here). The way that materials and supplies move in and out of the isolator is very well controlled. As an example, something might be packaged with multiple layers of packaging and each layer is shed as it moves from one Grade of cleanliness to another through a specific port. For liquids, they are passed through a sterilizing filter before being allowed into the Grade A space. To sterilize the interior, the interior of the isolator is inundated with vaporized hydrogen peroxide for a set amount of time and flow rate (it depends on the specific geometry of the isolator, these are usually custom builds).

If you are interested in sanitizing your dishware (not sterilizing, that is different), then a much cheaper method would be to use a sanitizing cleaner like Star San. Just spray it on your dishes, let it sit a minute or so and your dish is now sanitized (though it is now wet).

I did! I actually didn’t find it as grueling as I had heard it made out to be. That is most likely because I was able to watch all eight episodes over the course of maybe two weeks at most instead of waiting for each episode to release over the course of two months. I was honestly amazed at how they put so much effort into animating the same episode (roughly) eight times. They put way more effort into them than I thought since they were doing stuff like changing angles/compositions/lines/outfits, meaning there wasn’t that much they could just copy/paste from week to week.

To start things off, the shows I am looking forward to week to week has dwindled down to two at this point (but I will probably keep watching the third just because I am watching so few shows this season):

• Dusk Beyond the End of the World - I mentioned in this thread last week that I was worried that it was heading into the direction of Metallic Rouge. Well, my fears are coming to fruition. I have been really disappointed by the most recent couple episodes. Fingers crossed that it gets back on track.
• Touring After the Apocalypse - This show has been delivering exactly what I wanted. It is a great example of a lighthearted slice of life trek through the apocalypse with just enough touch of melancholy that hits just right. I’ve been enjoying it a lot.
• Campfire Cooking Season 2 - Stable performance again this week. Elrand is great, and I am looking forward to dungeon diving in the future.

Now…I was able to finish Haruhi this past week, including watching the movie. Some spoiler-free thoughts…it was fine. I do think that the movie was the best that Haruhi had to offer, but the whole show never really connected with me.

What the hell is happening? The first couple episodes promised a sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, travel series in search of Towasa. Instead we have taken a hard turn into some kind of love/mafia/incest plot? I don’t know man…I have no idea what this show is actually trying to accomplish with its story.

Yeah, as much as I like Zombie Land Saga, if you aren’t vibing with the idol storyline, then it isn’t for you. The show is an idol show first, everything else second. They do get into backstories of other characters from time to time, but it is always secondary.

Alright, I didn’t get a chance to watch more Haruhi this week, so I am not quite to the movie yet. I think I have just 2-3 more episodes to go until then. In the meantime, some thoughts on the seasonals so far:

• Dusk Beyond the End of the World - Ugh…I think this show forgot it only has 12 episodes to wrap things up. We are getting caught up in romcom shenanigans while the super interesting android/AI post-apocalypse plot has taken a backseat.
• Touring After the Apocalypse - Still liking this series. I think better versions of this show exist elsewhere, but it hits pretty squarely in my cute things in a post-apocalypse strike zone, so I am on board.
• Campfire Cooking Season 2 - This show continues to deliver exactly what I expect from it. Little to no stakes, lots of steaks, and shockingly good cooking animation.