Everything about this gave me Iruma vibes (very much a good thing), but it doesn’t live up to any of Iruma’s strengths and brings its own weird and bad elements to the table. The thing about Iruma as a character is that he’s a coward, but he’s good-hearted and compassionate, which makes him a flawed but likeable hero that you want to see grow. Sensei, on the other hand, has his cowardice balanced out by… a uniform fetish?? One that he claims is somehow not aimed at the students, even though he seems very focused on Zashiki wearing her uniform. Because of that, a lot of the comedy got tied up in him being creepy to his students (either on purpose or on accident), which felt way more uncomfortable than funny. The mandragoras were cute, though. 2/5.

Go watch Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun.

Finally, some slop for the shoujo fans. Even after just about every red flag possible, I’m worried that our heroine will end up falling in love with her terrible fake brother, but I’m ready for it to happen anyway. I’m hoping this has some tricks up its sleeves, especially with the flashforward at the beginning, but I’m ok if it turns out to be the kind of story where it’s no thoughts, just doki-doki. After so many “everyone thinks I’m weak, but what if I’m strong instead?” it’s nice to get some “what if I’m suddenly a princess?” even without the substance. I give the premiere a 3/5.

Going into this blind, I got a bit of whiplash, lol. I was expecting a bit of an “against all odds” romance where our leads fight for their relationship through yakuza power struggles, but instead we got more of a thriller where Yoshino has to learn to manipulate the men around her to survive, without getting herself on the wrong end of their violence. It has some strong josei smut vibes (though it’s apparently a seinen?) but hopefully it doesn’t try to redeem our unhinged leading man - if anything, I’d prefer to see Yoshino stoop down to his level and become a walking red flag herself. I’m definitely invested in the horrible mess this becomes, and give the premiere a 4/5.

The numbers comparison is a little skewed, I think because more tags get added as an anime goes on. Some of the shows that are included in those previous lists are a little dubious to me - from just the stuff I know, Delusional Monthly Magazine shouldn’t be there at all, and stuff like Tonari no Yokai-san, Windbreaker, and Mashle make the cut because they have a bi, trans, and non-binary supporting character respectively (Windbreaker’s having almost no screen time at all). I’d guess by the end of the season a few of the current shows will get that type of “there’s queer people in there somewhere” tag. We’re definitely short on anime about queerness, though.

A bit less exciting of a season this time, I think.

Eager to continue:

• Acro Trip - Lots of fun with good comedy that manages to also not fumble the action scenes. It does have a lot in common with Gushing Over Magical Girls, but I think it is making its own path and will continue to diverge as it goes forward. It also doesn’t have any sexualization of middle school girls.
• Dan Da Dan - Science Saru is going absolutely wild on this one and it’s amazing to watch them work. The characters also feel very expressive and real. The first episode does have a pretty brutal sexual assault / attempted rape scene that is sort of justified by the narrative and IMO isn’t made into a spectacle like you’d expect from some anime, but was nonetheless a little hard to get through. I’ve been told this is not the norm going forward, though, so I will trust.
• How I Attended an All-Guy’s Mixer - In an “LGBT+ themes” drought, this is the best I’ve got, and it’s cute. I like the pairings and it’s always nice to see men go through a bisexual crisis.
• 365 Days to the Wedding - Also a very cute romance. It’s just getting going, so we’ll see if it has follow-through.
• Let This Grieving Soul Retire - As I wait impatiently for the Eminence in Shadow movie, this is the best replacement I have. Not 100% sold on it just yet, but it’s got a very similar vibe.

I’m also watching (for now): Negative Positive Angler, Mecha-Ude, Magilumiere, and Ranma 1/2

And now for the garbage bin (things that weren’t good enough for me to make threads about)

Suggestion: It might be worth labeling the ones that have to be manually requested, but I’m not sure how much extra work that’d be to implement.

@wjs018@ani.social it looks like this is one that actually does air earlier in japan than everywhere else (5 days early).

There’s a lot more fanservice in this show than I’d prefer, but it’s not that bad when Krai seems to not even notice he’s being flirted with (much like Shadow-sama before him).

I’m interested in seeing what Krai has up his sleeves relics-wise. Being a relic nerd is an interesting angle that would give him some combat capabilities that he’d still write off as him not being that strong, and it’d explain his “Thousand Tricks” title.

I think this might be the first piece of media to make me feel old, lol.

This reminded me a lot of Onimai, in that it seems like an earnest and heartfelt story told in the creepiest way the author could come up with. I would like to see this family heal from the death of the woman who held them together, but I would not like to see this middle-aged man cling to a 10 year old girl and tell her she’s the love of his life. I’ve been told this is a very good story and the adaptation seems competent, but it goes way over my tolerance threshold for anime bullshit, so I’m out. I give the premiere a 2/5.

This one felt a bit off to me, as if the writer and director had a disagreement about what the tone should be. All the writing seemed to point to it being a wacky comedy, but the cinematography and score always seemed stuck on it being a serious drama. As a result, it felt to me like it kept undercutting its own jokes, while also not feeling realistic enough to get me invested in these two healing from their respective traumas. I think if it committed to one side or the other it would end up a pretty fun show, but I don’t think it weaves the two together skillfully enough to make it work (though it’s possible it will grow into something that works a bit better as the show goes on). As it is, I give the premiere a 3/5.

Not as good as I’d hoped, but probably still worth watching. I’d hoped they’d do a bit more to update the writing / pacing / etc to a more modern aesthetic, but it seems like that’s not really how these remakes want to do things. Thankfully, the source material I think still holds up for the most part (unlike Sailor Moon, which I thought suffered a lot from not being reworked to modern storytelling). There are parts of the story that we haven’t gotten to yet (mostly the gross sex creep dudes and the female-on-male violence as comedy) that were common at the time but I think very much did not age well that I’m worried we may end up keeping for the sake of faithfulness, but time will tell. Also, and it’s a small gripe, but I felt like some of the voices, particularly girl Ranma’s, seemed unnatural or out of place… maybe I’ll just get used to them. It did make me laugh, though - the quick gag with the sisters after the table gets stolen out from under them was excellent. Overall, unfortunately, I think I have to give the premiere a 3/5.

I really appreciate when an anime is upfront about what it is. I didn’t get too far before I had to go check if this level of torture and violence is what can be expected going forward, and it looks like yes, it’s an ongoing theme. I tend to be sensitive to that sort of thing, so I ended up closing out of the episode in the middle of the fingernail scene. I’m seeing good things about the source material and fans seem happy with the adaptation so far, so I’d expect people who are interested will enjoy(?) it, but personally I have to pass. No rating since I didn’t even come close to finishing the episode, lol.

I’m always a little wary about these shows with queer themes but het couples, since they can often fall into homophobic & transphobic tropes, and I still am a bit hesitant to fully invest in this one, but I am hopeful. The first episode was a lot of fun and I really like our three couples so far. I also think it works in the anime’s favor that the (cis) guys are fully incapable of reading the kings as anything but male when they’re in boymode - it gives the sense that even if the drag bar is truly just a job and none of the three kings are Doing A Gender, the (cis) boys are still probably going to come out of this experience realizing they’re at least a little bisexual.

Overall, I give it 4/5

I have mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, I like our leads and they have great chemistry, and that can make up for a lot of flaws. On the other hand, the action scenes felt a bit overly ambitious (the spinning shots especially felt poorly done), there never seemed to be any sense of urgency in them, and the tech elements seemed sort of overpowering and distracting when they have to shout their magic settings out loud in battle. On top of that, I’m also a little concerned that The Boss’s role in the story is going to largely be the butt of some very transphobic jokes (like, why would Kana be so fearful in that stinger if not “man in dress?? scary!!”). This one is another for the “maybe” pile. I’ll give it another episode to see how it settles in. 3/5.

I don’t really get it. It seems like we’re also meant to be drawn in by Haru’s charisma, but I just found him an insufferable asshole, which made Gaku look like a spineless rube. Maybe it’s just my hatred of corporate politics or the fact that I can’t see having a trillion dollars as a worthwhile goal (what, substantially, is even the difference between that and having a billion dollars, other than being top of the wealth leaderboard?) I couldn’t bring myself to watch the second episode. 1/5.

Not quite sold on this yet, but I’ll keep going for now. The animation looks excellent, though the arm designs I found a little too detailed to follow well during some of the action sequences. The characters and world feel thought out, but we haven’t really seen much of the substance yet. If it actually does give us little bits of that character- and world-building as we go forward, I think this will be a standout of the season, but it does currently also have the potential to play its cards way too close to the vest and end up a more frustrating watch. I give the premiere a 3/5 with room to grow.

Excellent! Thank you!

I barely remember Slow Loop at all (cgdct is very much not my genre) but I’d guess they don’t have a ton in common beyond being about fishing.

Left more in-depth thoughts in the other thread, but I’m giving this premiere a very mixed 3/5 - what would have been an easy 5/5 fumbled with a large focus on sexual assault. I’ll probably watch an episode or two more to see if it rights its course…