2cat

21 Nov 2024

Replying to @clairdeliv.bsky.social

Me: I want something sweet, but not a candy bar… The reliable box of Nerds:

Seasonal Anime™ big colorful explosion edition Dandivine ep1-3: I'm a fan of robots and mecha shows! Shit every flat surface in the room I'm in right now is covered in gundam models. Still, this show isn't really hitting for me for extremely dumb reasons.

I watched Power Rangers as a kid, but it wasn't a gateway into true Sentai shows for me, so whenever an anime is a Super Sentai homage it's not really something that activates my almonds. So far, the show is fun and also a good balance of fights and character development. I'm just not hyped on it.

Seasonal Anime™ foot in mouth edition Laid Off Cheat Granting Mage ep3: Wow after writing all that about how good the first two episodes of this show was it sure would be bad if the main character immediately got ANNOYING AS SHIT... whoops.

the other 2 characters are a suicidal woman who blames herself for the death of her adventuring party and the younger sister of one of the party members who is waiting for a chance to murder her. There's a LOT going on, but the main character is yackety smackety comic relief? Cmon dude!

I'm still on board with the show and the current plot is that once he gets weapons and armor strong enough that he can enchant them to maximum power without them crumbling to dust he'll be unstoppable, so there's SOME hope but if he stays THIS annoying? Urgh.

I was a little worried about his innocence and enthusiasm getting grating since I bitch all the time about making every anime protagonist into Goku, but this guy isn't a fight-idiot, he's just a regular idiot. There's SO much going on with the other characters and this guy just sucks (for now)

I... uh... I don't think that's how a front paw works. Also that wolf looks kinda happy. I don't think you need to rescue this damsel this is an ambush if I've ever seen one.

Yeah I'm still thinking that either this artist has only ever seen horses and not dogs, or this wolf was trying to dap the girl up and this guy just rushed in

Seasonal Anime™ doki doki edition Hello, I am a Witch and my Crush Wants me to Make a Love Potion! eps 1-3: I've enjoyed this show cautiously so far, as the premise didn't seem like it would stretch long enough, despite enjoying the first episode. They finally started getting the wheels turning!

However, they actually made them interact and talk, which was REALLY going to start getting on my nerves if they hadn't. The bit with her sending him off on pointless errands one at a time is done- the potion is brewing and it's just going to take time, so now he shows up to hang out on his breaks!

It's not completely got its hooks in me, but I'm for sure sticking around for a few episodes!

I was a little disappointed that they wiped out the mystery around why the knight wants the love potion- episode 3 has a conversation between him and the noble he guards that pretty much spells out that she's wanting it for a bad arranged marriage or something similar. I liked the mystery more.

Seasonal Anime™ little guy edition So What's Wrong with Getting Reborn as a Goblin? eps 1-4: This show is fun, surprisingly thoughtful, and unique enough that I can't really predict where it's going next. I don't know if it can live up to the first two episodes, but here's hoping.

I do wish the plot felt like it was moving along a little more, but we're getting a good foundation for the characters, and that is making even little things more impactful. The knight woman being ordered to kill the main character MEANS something, and his brushing it off ALSO means something.

I was worrying that the MC snowballing into crazy powers immediately would ruin the feel of the show, but for the moment the stakes of the plot aren't based around fighting so it doesn't really matter that he's strong because that's not what he cares about- it's nice!

Channeling my inner BDG to say: if it took an Uma Musume concert cancellation and bonkers international shipping costs for anime merch for you to notice that America’s foreign policy is a floundering confused mess of personal grievances masquerading as law… well I’m glad you noticed that!

Seasonal Anime™ sweaty edition Overgeared eps1-4: Certainly the easiest anime title to write this season. Also refreshing that this isn't an isekai and the fantasy world that is exactly like a video game IS actually just a video game that the MC plays in his off time. It's refreshing.

There's some interesting dynamics with players vs npcs that might get interesting as the season goes on and Grid the main character actually has a pretty fun personality compared to the usual bland isekai mc.

One weird thing I saw being talked about, the MC is Korean in the original manga but the anime says that he's Japanese? His real-world name is definitely korean-sounding, so maybe they'll just say that he's living in japan or it was a mistranslation? Apparently it's a plot point later in the story.

MC somehow managed to blunder into an incredible class-change item that makes him a legendary blacksmith, and he looks for ways to improve his skills and learn his craft while dealing with scheming players and npc quests

Seasonal Anime™ kawaii edition Uncle's Obsession with Cute Things eps 1-3: Yeah no idea why this show spoke to me could be anything. A guy who is old enough to know better secretly loves cute stuff, particularly yellow dog character Pugtaro. He is ashamed of this and always terrified of being caught

Fireworks kick off at the end of episode 3 when he bumps into his ex-wife. His weird secrecy and excuses around his obsession with Pugtaro merch caused a rift that caused their divorce, and he actually manages to tell her. Damn, you go guy! Turns out she WOULD have dumped him if she'd known. Oops.

see, I KNEW this worked!!!

Shows where characters struggle internally with inner hangups can be frustrating, since they're mostly their own antagonist, and his anxiety over being found out might get old over the season, but it's still funny now at least. They've even managed to introduce other cute-loving characters.

His feelings of everyone constantly mocking and judging him can get a little too real, and the show often doesn't explicitly state if the things he thinks he's seeing are real or just in his head.

Seasonal Anime™ yo ho ho edition Reborn as a Space Mercenary: I woke up piloting the strongest starship! ep 1-3 Another classic isekai premise, but this time it's spacefaring adventure! Once again some dork's knowledge of a video game is gonna finally get him laid and all it takes is a new universe

(by the way this happens again in episode 3, but this time with the veteran mercenary space-elf who is suddenly saddled with a massive debt for crashing her ship into a military cruiser during a mission. The MC pays it off and she joins his crew and sleeps with him)

I hope they start having space adventures soon because despite my issues with how the plot has been making things happen, I like the characters and if the concentration of good moments jokes and action starts rising, this show will be fun.

In the character's mind, he just wants to be helpful but even in an anime it can't not look weird to shoot four people and then declare "HEY I WANT YOU TO WORK ON MY SPACESHIP." The show tries to make a joke about how he must only want her for her body because she doesn't know how to fly a ship?

This joke doesn't work because it's not a joke that's literally what happened and the girl in fact DOES sleep with him because she feels insecure about her situation. But it's okay because I guess he does sex good and she likes him so this is all totally not weird. Hope this doesn't happen again!

The plot is so far pretty intentionally thin. Dude just wakes up on this ship with a hold full of precious metals and proceeds to wipe the floor with a series of pirates who thought he was derelict. Suddenly he has money and a mercenary license and it's time to travel the stars! Except it isn't

Instead we meet an abrasive space-elf veteran who shows him around town so he can do the anime equivalent of "save the cat," the "stop a sexual assault by a gang of generic thugs in broad daylight in a very public place". He then just kinda... takes this girl he saved around with him.

This show is mid, but not in the way that a lot of shows are mid because everything is just bleh. This show is mid because it's almost evenly split between super cool and pretty lame. The art is sometimes really good. The jokes are sometimes funny. It's just that isn't always the case.

Seasonal Anime™ wait didn't we just- The Laid-Off Cheat-Granting Mage Enjoys a Second Lease on Life ep1-2: A show with an almost identical plot to Magic Repo Man, but this time it doesn't suck ass! I was going to wait to talk about this until a third episode dropped, but anger has forced my hand.

Episode 2 gets a bit dark, dealing mostly with his new friend's trauma over failing to meet everyone's high expectations and almost getting herself killed in the process, AND the revelation that the adventurers from the MC's prior guild are merciless thugs that have been terrorizing the populace

I'm actually pretty interested in where the show goes from here, and honestly even if it slows way down the characters it's introduced are interesting enough to carry it for a while.

There's also some interesting neon stripes in the skybox that I originally thought were some kind of magic boundary or something but nope, just fun pastel accents to liven up the sky. It's neat! What's also neat? The MC absolutely hates his former employers, but he is more interested in the future

In 2 episodes he finds a new guild, tries to make friends with another adventurer, and sets out to have an adventure of his own. It's FUN! He's still mad about his past, but the show doesn't have to valorize a petulant viper who is having a tantrum. Especially when it becomes clear more is happening

This isn't something anyone notices at first, so he walks off with a shitty bronze dagger and peasant rags and a few coins... and a massive cloud of now unused enchantment points. He dumps them all into his crappy gear, turning his ragged clothes and shitty dagger into legendary gear, and heads off

Things I really enjoy about this show: the art has STYLE. Background buildings that you aren't supposed to dwell on are drawn hyper-stylized at weird angles in a way that is very fun, and his enchantments are friendly little puffballs with big numbers on them- it's unlike anything else this season.

MC of THIS show is ALSO an unappreciated support mage, an enchanter who has spent 5 years at the area's biggest guild enchanting all of their gear to incredibly high levels. Because everything is already enchanted, they fire him and make fun of him to his face. So? He un-enchants all their gear.

Seasonal Anime™ Magic Repo Man ep1-3: There are shows that I watch and say "yeah that's not for me, but I get it" and there's shows where I say "there is no person this could be for." I was SO fucking bored- this show took TWO EPISODES to establish the PREMISE.

So episode 3 he strikes out on his own... to be a generic adventurer. Because his MP loan shark skill obviously ALSO lets him learn ANY SKILL. So we're on track for ANOTHER boilerplate cookie cutter fantasy mmorpg anime about an aggrieved former codependent who has ultimate power dropped in his lap.

Speaking of dropping, I was absolutely ready to drop this show, but I want to see if it does ANYTHING interesting in another 2 or so episodes. I'm not even mad I'm mostly CURIOUS at this point if they have ANY interesting ideas.

That two posts worth of plot is an hour of show. SO MUCH TIME is spend with this pissy goober gormlessly staring at an imaginary menu screen reading skill descriptions while his fairy chews the scenery doing a yakuza impression as delivered by the first enemy you see in a touhou game.

At this point I was SO bored, as stated. The idea of this guy taking mp back from his former party seemed interesting but in practice it's all just invisible. Numbers go up on his jarvis mind-palace computer screen- he doesn't need to even be near them. Then the real bad news hit.

So yeah mc has a skill that gives him a massive MP pool and lets him share his MP with others. After years of taking advantage of him his party gets MP-regen bracelets and kicks him out. He flips the switch from codependent doormat to pissy edgelord and declares he wants all the mp he gave them back

This causes a big magic light show and a fairy appears to tell him his skill now lets him basically operate as a loan shark for MP. He formally requests his former party repay his MP and they beat his ass, so the fairy curses them with magically garnished wages where their MP regen goes to him.

The full title of this show is "Magic Repo Man: Dumped by My Party, I'll Cash In With a Cute Support Fairy to Become the Strongest!" and to get to the point in the story where the plot in the TITLE happens takes 2 FULL episodes. Until then it's all setup that is SO stock and boring there is no point