We get a new view of Gluttony’s ability from Beatrice’s perspective, like being disassembled and reassembled/rewound.

The announcement voice announcing that everything was OK was quite strange, are we supposed to accept it plainly? None of the characters seem to find it strange. They make the announcement immediately, and the announcement systems looks to be in very bad shape.

The show has hinted hard as to what’s up with Al with a few of these recent episodes. I wonder if that’s going somewhere, or if it’s going to be a slow burn.

I’m quite surprised that they want to keep Wrath alive, I guess they’re that desperate to get any edge they can against the Witch Cult.

And that ending scene with the happy-carefree music, lol. Poor dude.

why didn’t Natsuko draw Mighty Greatsword Luke to begin with?

Natsuko drew the Luke she’s drawn all her life. Throughout the show she’s been drawing existing animations. In the dark she comes to accept that drawing that Luke isn’t enough. In the end, with the emotional support of QJ, she realizes that she should draw her own Luke, the one she’s come to know and fall in love with. It’s her coming to terms with her feelings towards Luke, which is emphasized by what she says after she draws him. Or so I say. A line from Natsuko about what sparked the change would’ve been better than listening to QJ moan. Really anything probably would’ve been better than listening to QJ moan. “I know, I should’ve drawn him shirtless!”, whatever, anything else, please.

I was hoping that Natsuko would take more agency over a new ending for Tale Of Perishing after this point.

I was definitely hoping to see Natsuko draw an entire new in-canon ending for Horobiku Monogatari. Do a complete revision! That’s literally the title of the show!

Title drop! Zenshuu is easily my favorite anime of the Winter 2025 season. This is partially because the Winter 2025 season on a whole may have been weak and I’ve delayed watching a few shows that I know I will like, but Zenshuu itself is a delightful experience.

That PV got me excited, I like the vibe. Action fantasy with pretty good animation? Count me in.

The Spirit Tortoise arc, part of season 2, was particularly painful to watch. So it does get better after the tortoise, but it does not get good.

I watched Sonny Boy over the last week or two. I quite enjoyed it overall, it’s interesting on multiple levels. The ending was a little bit melancholic and upsetting, but that’s consistent with the rest of the show. I didn’t think too deeply about the philosophy and metaphors that the show put forward; it might’ve been good to reflect on and write about each episode.

I was a bit unenthusiastic going into this episode, thinking that it might be some drawn-out flashback. While the flashbacks were long, I found the whole episode to be a fun trek through Natsuko’s inadvertent romcom maneater adolescence.

Each flashback had little surprises, while also emphasizing how Natsuko is 200% dedicated to her craft.

Fukushima’s (the animation studio’s president) perspective was also interesting. Drawing a parallel between Natsuko and the director of A Tale of Perishing (who, unlike the bird, is smiling in Fukushima’s recollection), and challenging Natsuko to surpass her current limitations.

The PV linked above is from 3 years ago and is for the first novel. Here’s a PV from 10 hours ago for the anime. The new PV is mostly just review quotes.

We get some, uh, character development with Destiny, we get introduced to Justice (and actual character development), and we have a brief encounter with lady-bird.

It was a bit hard to watch the end with all the foreshadowing that Natsuko was going to mess things up.

Also, I like how the village chief’s attire serves as an excuse for Destiny’s clothing, but they don’t force feed you this excuse.

Also,

The only one who could make Luke smile from the bottom of his heart was Destiny.

Hm, at the end it looks like Natsuko is noticing some of the suspicious behavior, which might not have been in the original story. Or maybe it was in the story and Natsuko is just playing it cool.

@[email protected]

Lupa, you almost died from blood loss. Please do not stand up.

It was nice to see Alicia actually acting like an antagonist.

Also the timing at the end got a laugh from me:

“No, Alicia said all that for my benefit.”

😮 … 😟 … 😠 “Alicia Williams!”

Knowing what I know about why the emperor’s wife’s age is important, I can see that they’re trying to build it up into a mystery that we will slowly unravel, but without that knowledge it definitely seems like just a running gag

I have no knowledge outside what’s been shown in the episodes, but I think it’s fairly obvious that the age is some specific condition from his curse (or similar thing). At the same time, the age gap is definitely pandering to a specific audience. The author knows exactly what they’re doing, it doesn’t matter if there is some in-story pretense. For better or worse, this is the story they wanted to tell.

Jill did establish that their relationship should be platonic, which is nice. Hopefully that’s not just a front. The fact that the Jill is mentally older does help make it a little less gross (but at the same time, it feels like the author is trying to make an excuse for degeneracy).

Huh, I set my expectations pretty low after the first episode, but this episode was interesting. The emperor is hiding some aspect of his curse, which sets up some intrigue that probably isn’t going to be resolved right away.

I wasn’t expecting the FMC to be able to throw a ship. This show seems like it’s going to be a FMC power fantasy (both with physical power and intellectual prowess), which I think I’ll quite enjoy.

Yep, the age gap passes the realm of strange and lands in incredulous. I’m not actually sure how much older Duke is, 5 years? Most of the comments on MAL are saying that Duke is way out of line.

Episode 1 dropped heavy hints, so it’s not so surprising. Reincarnation romance is almost always going to be a little hairy, just not usually in this way.

Makeine is more like Alya in that they romantic comedies. Makeine is heavier on the comedy, with a heavy reliance on failed-romance to drive the comedy/plot forward. Alya has a more prominent non-romantic drama plot that runs alongside the romance/flirting. Both feed a bit into a basic male sexual fantasy (Alya more so, but episode 2 of Makeine had a pretty unnecessarily spicy scene).

Days with my Stepsister is more of a romance / coming-of-age story without much comedy and I feel like it doesn’t excessively feed into a sexual fantasy. There’s like 1 exception early-ish in the season, but even that kinda felt like the main purpose was to shake up the story, rather than getting the viewers horny.

but if you believe AC

Every time I see an AC ranking with shows I’ve watched I’m reminded that I shouldn’t trust AC.

An 86 minute start to the season. You gotta love it. There was a lot of setup, a half-dozen story threads started (or maybe a full-dozen), but they got to a very impactful scene at the end and left us with a good hook.

Absolute banger, highlight of the summer 2024 season.