So many anime, so little time for me. Let's see what I've been up to and what's in the queue:
My absolute favorite this last Fall season:
That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime: Love, Love, !!LOVE!! this one! Yes, Rimuru Tempest is an overpowered son-of-a-b****, but that's the point. In my opinion, this show is making fun of, and relishing in, all the tropes that people bemoan with most other isekai-genre titles. I can understand why stuff like Overlord is big (as it flips the point-of-view to a rarely-seen antagonists side), but I'll take that lovable Slime any day. My escape anime.
I've also poked into RADIANT and Ulysses, but thinking of tossing those out of the queue. Black Clover is enough shonen action for me, the only reason Radiant got a huge push is because it's not a Japanese manga, but rather, a French fantasy comic series upon which the Japanese are doing an anime take for. I suppose that's a first.
Ulysses, which was supposedly to be a fantasized/fictional account of the whole 'Joan of Ark' history in 1800s France, could have been so good, but already out of the gate with its first episode, it stumbled, and by the 3rd episode, all bets were off to it being anything unique for me. *sigh* Oh well. I have enough other things to catch up on, like these:
Sakura Quest: This was sitting in my FunimationNOW queue for a good half-year now, and had the time over the holidays to take some of it in. Five young women all with different paths in their lives, converge onto a small town whose economy & tourism has gone South, and it follows their year-long attempt to prop the town's fortunes up. Not anything groundbreaking in terms of slice-of-life, and I'm sure some will find it downright boring, but I am enjoying it. Almost finished up with it.
I also picked these catalog titles recently as well, all of which I've wanted for years now:
All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku: This seemed quite popular in the mid/late 1990s, pre-Pokemon/DBZ/Toonami anime scene. I just remember seeing the title pop up a lot in chatroom discussions back then. Took me nearly 20 years, but Discotek made it possible for me to finally have it. It's just a fun slice of '90s nostalgia. They sure did a lot of off-beat things in the realm of video-only anime at the time.
Hana yori Dango: VIZ Media pushed this in tandem with their Maison Ikkoku DVDs, and then it quickly went OOP so I was unable to collect it. I finally got it with Discotek's reissue. Straight-up shojo highschool romance stuff they just don't make anymore. It's a bit of a shame to be honest.
Marmalade Boy: Ditto this one like the above title. Seems more and more, for classic shojo romance, one has to go back to the 1990s for it. It's a long one too, 70+ episodes.
Star Ocean EX: Yes, an incomplete anime take by DEEN (Fruits Basket '01, Ranma 1/2, etc) of the cult hit PS1 RPG. The animation shows its age too; that's to say, not-so-great 'digital painted' cels. I'm so glad they do it all on computers nowadays rather than sketch out keyframes onto cels and then scan them in for colorizing. That method of those early years really resulted in some shots/pans that age these anime horribly. Even the Fruits Basket (2001 series) Blurays made these imperfections rear their ugly head. I just got this one cause it was cheap, and I'm a completist
And finally got these as gifts this past Christmas:
Attack on Titan - Season 2: Time for a binge session with this one. This show just has a ton going on thanks to its large cast.
Your Name: FINALLY!! My turn to watch this film that everyone couldn't stop talking about in the general online anime-watching community. I skimmed a bit at the beginning, and I'll say with confidence; this is one gorgeous film in terms of animation.
Yona of the Dawn: I'm a sucker for this East Asian-themed fantasy stuff, and stories that have a female protag. that has her 'coming of age' moment from 'weak willed, inept, immature, whiny' to 'strong-willed and ready to defend her kingdom and right any wrongdoing', with a light romance sub-plot. Sadly Japan's anime watchers didn't take to it and it remains unfinished. T_T Always seems to happen with these stories. Still most likely going to enjoy this none the less.