What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v4.0

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's was so good today. Akira is always finding ways out of trouble.

 

[Dangard Ace]

Just binged 5 episodes of Tojima wants to be Kamen Rider.   Thought it’d be like Samurai Flamenco.   It’s s more like Season One of One Punch Man.   Rider PUNCH!!

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I am watching The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity. It has got to be one of the best anime I have watched in a long time.

[Dangard Ace]

Going back to 2007 to rewatch the current anime Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann!  

 

 

Looking forward to 2026 where at least some mecha anime is coming.   

PatlaborEZY.

Gundam: Hathaway

Magic Knight Rayearth 2026.  

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I finished watching The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity.  It was awesome.  I love the entire show.

[Big s]

4 hours ago, Dangard Ace said:

Magic Knight Rayearth 2026. 

Is that a remake or a sequel?

[Dangard Ace]

Supposed to be a remake

6 hours ago, Big s said:

Is that a remake or a sequel?

 

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Dangard Ace said:

Supposed to be a remake

 

Hopefully they don’t just do a cg heavy version. 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Today's My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's makes me laugh. Ameila was so beautiful in the contest.

[Dangard Ace]

Since mecha shows are slim pickings this season I finally started Alma-chan wants to be a family.  Surprisingly cute and mostly wholesome.  

Next up is this weeks episode of I'm gonna punch you in the face!  aka My I have a final wish.

[Scyla]

I finally had the courage to watch the rest of Moshoku Tensei season 2 after the trailer for season 3 dropped.

What a heart wrenching climax for the season. 

But it is very good. I watched the last four episodes till 2 am. Couldn’t stop watching.

[DewPoint]

So I normally get an anime calendar from CDJapan every year...  The selection this year is small and there is nothing that really interests me.  Oh well... Maybe next year.  

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Tales of Wedding Rings Season 2 finally something happened.  Way to go Satou Haruto.

[Seto Kaiba]

A lot of the titles I'm following continue to be pretty bloody tedious.

Mechanical Marie, Pass the Monster Meat, Milady!, and May I Ask for One Final Thing? are all still a lot of fun.

Bland-a-thon isekai shovelware series A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai decided now (its 9th episode) was the time to actually lock in and do something new and different.  What it did is something so far out of left field that it caught me completely flat-footed and I still have a little trouble believing they went there.

Spoiler

So... the generic protagonist whose name I cannot be arsed to remember and his party of generic hangers-on accompany their perpetually unkempt and olfactorily offensive elf friend Brolite back to the kingdom of the elves and learn that she is a high elf who broke a cultural taboo to leave the kingdom and look for her runaway sister.  We then learn that high elves are afflicted by a curse that is causing physical deformities, stillbirths, etc. among the elves.  They beseech the hero to figure out and break the curse.

And after asking a few pointed questions, the hero ungently points out that the high elves aren't cursed... they're catastrophically inbred.

That's right, this fantasy setting has the High Elves as a dying fantasy race.  Not because of any outside force, but because they're such incredible blueblood snobs they've spent untold centuries f***ing their own siblings and half-siblings and cousins to keep the High Elf bloodline "pure" that their gene pool's shallower than a parking lot puddle.

Of all the "the Elves are a dying race" fantasy takes I've heard over the years... that is a new one and not one I would ever have seen coming.  It's like something the dwarves would write.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

A lot of the titles I'm following continue to be pretty bloody tedious.

Mechanical Marie, Pass the Monster Meat, Milady!, and May I Ask for One Final Thing? are all still a lot of fun.

Bland-a-thon isekai shovelware series A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai decided now (its 9th episode) was the time to actually lock in and do something new and different.  What it did is something so far out of left field that it caught me completely flat-footed and I still have a little trouble believing they went there.

  Reveal hidden contents

So... the generic protagonist whose name I cannot be arsed to remember and his party of generic hangers-on accompany their perpetually unkempt and olfactorily offensive elf friend Brolite back to the kingdom of the elves and learn that she is a high elf who broke a cultural taboo to leave the kingdom and look for her runaway sister.  We then learn that high elves are afflicted by a curse that is causing physical deformities, stillbirths, etc. among the elves.  They beseech the hero to figure out and break the curse.

And after asking a few pointed questions, the hero ungently points out that the high elves aren't cursed... they're catastrophically inbred.

That's right, this fantasy setting has the High Elves as a dying fantasy race.  Not because of any outside force, but because they're such incredible blueblood snobs they've spent untold centuries f***ing their own siblings and half-siblings and cousins to keep the High Elf bloodline "pure" that their gene pool's shallower than a parking lot puddle.

Of all the "the Elves are a dying race" fantasy takes I've heard over the years... that is a new one and not one I would ever have seen coming.  It's like something the dwarves would write.

Blandathon is probably the nicest description to this season I could use.

Even One Punch Man S3 is a relative snooze fest.   

I've turned back to my personal collection,   I just re watched Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure.   Its probably been 20+ years since the last time I cracked these DVDs open.   Its pretty clear this was an Eva clone.    The nods to Eva are everywhere especially early on,  but from the same studio and staff that did Tenchi Muyo..  so Tenchgelion.     Not a bad show though overall,  very much a product of its time.   

Next up for me..   ToraDora..  another series I have not watched in many years. 

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill Season 2 was great again today. I just love Sui.

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Blandathon is probably the nicest description to this season I could use.

Even One Punch Man S3 is a relative snooze fest.   

I've heard it's rather more than a "relative snooze fest".  What I've been hearing is that the animation in One Punch Man S3 is so bad folks are calling it "One Frame Man" and talking about boycotting the studio.

Even One Piece is catching flak this season, though over accusations that the animation team are using generative AI.

 

10 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I've turned back to my personal collection,   I just re watched Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure.   Its probably been 20+ years since the last time I cracked these DVDs open.   Its pretty clear this was an Eva clone.    The nods to Eva are everywhere especially early on,  but from the same studio and staff that did Tenchi Muyo..  so Tenchgelion.     Not a bad show though overall,  very much a product of its time.   

Fun series.  Way more tied to Tenchi nowadays than it was when it was new.  I ended up having to explain that connection in part to my watch group while we were doing Tenchi OVAs 4 and 5.  Not just because Seina is the new/current owner of Zinv since GXP's last few episodes, but D is kicking around Tabletop Island during Paradise War and OVA 5 with a cabbit body.

[m0n5t3r]

17 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I've turned back to my personal collection,   I just re watched Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure.   Its probably been 20+ years since the last time I cracked these DVDs open.   Its pretty clear this was an Eva clone.    The nods to Eva are everywhere especially early on,  but from the same studio and staff that did Tenchi Muyo..  so Tenchgelion.     Not a bad show though overall,  very much a product of its time. 

I remember that... it's really been that long, 20++ years. I remember watching that back then along with other stuff like Vandread, GTO, Initial D, Shadow Skill etc. 😅

Edited December 3, 2025 by m0n5t3r

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Hero Without a Class: Who Even Needs Skills?!is ended next week. I am glad it is just getting worse and worse every episode.  

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

so back to this season I guess..

Nageki no Bourei wa Intai shitai -  Let this grieving soul retire.. or something like that.     This one isn't bad,  the MC has the whole Tyler from Irresponsible Capt Tylor vibe going.    Not sure how its gonna shake out,  but the last few episodes of S2 have been pretty amusing. 

Towa no Yugure - another not bad overall.   The last episode though pulled a Charlotte on us dumping an entire seasons worth of lore and plot in 1 episode.    The highly dubious choices made without ethical considerations was what had me.    I'll stick around till the end at this point.   

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Spy x Family Season 3 has been ok.  I like the show far more without the school stuff.

[Seto Kaiba]

Oof... this season has just been an absolute mess for me.

Mechanical Marie, Isekai Quartet, My Awkward Senpai, and Pass the Monster Meat, Milady! have remained pretty enjoyable.  

May I Ask for One Final Thing? is my stand-out for the season.  Scarlett is just a delight to behold.  It's not often in this sort of series that the main character actually takes direct action instead of working through proxies, and Scarlett is the type to say that she knows violence isn't the answer and that she got it wrong on purpose.  It's a huge breath of fresh air in the stale as hell villainess genre.

Tales of Wedding Rings, The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess, A Mangaka's Weirdly Wonderful Workplace, Lil' Miss Vampire Can't Suck Right, Let This Grieving Soul Retire, The Banished Court Magician Aims to Become the Strongest, My Friend's Little Sister Has It In For Me!, and Inexpressive Kashiwada and Expressive Oota are all just kind of white noise.  They aren't terrible but they are so underdeveloped and one-dimensional that it's hard to pay attention to them for any length of time because there's just nothing engaging going on.  (A truly ironic statement when that first title involves a man who gets superpowers from polygamy!)

 

 

Let's Play never stopped being an audiovisual trashfire in the key of "Ally McBeal but Anime".  This series is all bad, all the time, to the point that it's somewhat worrying.  It's one of those cases where someone's creative vision clearly needed corrective lenses, or maybe a cane and a seeing eye dog.

The only reason I'm still watching Solo Camping for Two is bile fascination.  It's like the Hindenburg disaster of hobby edutainment.  It is almost Springtime for H****r levels of Doing It Wrong when it comes to trying to present camping as a fun, interesting, and enriching hobby.  Its own author seems to be unable to conceptualize any aspect of "camping out" apart from pitching a tent and day drinking.  The picture it paints is that camping is a hobby for low-functioning alcoholics and misanthropic loners only, and the main girl seems to only be there so Gen has someone to dispense product placements to and so he won't feel so much like a future serial killer.

A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai apparently decided to engage in some Rian Johnson-esque "subvert expectations" partway into its run and is now being really obnoxious with it.  So not only did we have that amazing hot take on elves, the quest to find Brolite's sister that underpinned this entire story arc ends with the two of them brawling because... actually... why are they brawling?  I think it's just because the writer thought it'd be funny.  It's not, but bless 'em they're at least trying now.

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai ended today.  It was ok.  

 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

2 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai ended today.  It was ok.  

 

I think saying it was OK is kind.    Absolutely nothing about it stands out,  the resolution of the elf issues,  the random fighting cause reasons.   There was a hint of something with the village arc but it fizzled as quickly as it started.     The whole OP protagonist in an isekai has been beaten to death.. this series is just more of the same..  

Also wrapped up Let This Grieving Soul Retire S2..   I enjoyed it,  I think it stands out from the vast nothing that was this season.    There were some moments of this season where I was ready to hang it up,  but it managed to keep me coming back.     I'd say its worth a watch.

 

I wrapped Tora Dora..  I have the original NIS America release in the large book style boxset,  the artwork for its time stood out but the character designs now are showing their age.   I'd recommend this to  anyone who likes the Rom-Com style series,  it does dabble at the end with the Harem like setup but it resolves itself pretty well.      Not gonna lie I was rooting for Ami,  never understood the fascination with loli characters.  

Next on my list.. maybe Last Exile..  that is a series I haven't cracked open since the early 00's

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill Season 2 was hilarious again today.  The ocean battle was so one sided.

19 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I think saying it was OK is kind.    Absolutely nothing about it stands out,  the resolution of the elf issues,  the random fighting cause reasons.   There was a hint of something with the village arc but it fizzled as quickly as it started.     The whole OP protagonist in an isekai has been beaten to death.. this series is just more of the same..  

Also wrapped up Let This Grieving Soul Retire S2..   I enjoyed it,  I think it stands out from the vast nothing that was this season.    There were some moments of this season where I was ready to hang it up,  but it managed to keep me coming back.     I'd say its worth a watch.

 

I wrapped Tora Dora..  I have the original NIS America release in the large book style boxset,  the artwork for its time stood out but the character designs now are showing their age.   I'd recommend this to  anyone who likes the Rom-Com style series,  it does dabble at the end with the Harem like setup but it resolves itself pretty well.      Not gonna lie I was rooting for Ami,  never understood the fascination with loli characters.  

Next on my list.. maybe Last Exile..  that is a series I haven't cracked open since the early 00's

I just bring myself to hate any shows.  I find occasionally a real stinker but that is rare.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 12/15/2025 at 7:16 PM, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I think saying it was OK is kind.    Absolutely nothing about it stands out,  the resolution of the elf issues,  the random fighting cause reasons.   There was a hint of something with the village arc but it fizzled as quickly as it started.     The whole OP protagonist in an isekai has been beaten to death.. this series is just more of the same..  

Excessively kind.  Like so many other titles the last few seasons, A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai is a fairly lazy, uninspired, genre follower of an isekai series that makes zero effort to do something new with the genre or innovate on any of its usual tropes.  It's a low effort copycat series cynically trying to cash in on the genre's popularity while it lasts with a form letter setting and story.

Its one halfway original idea amounts to an outrageous hot take on the standard western fantasy slow decline of the Elves.

The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess is very similar to it, in the sense that the closest it gets to an original idea is having the protagonist acknowledge and then overreact to every form letter trope it dredges up like a YouTube reaction video.

 

 

Since the season's winding down, I decided to go back and give Clevatess a whirl.  It seemed like a promising work of dark fantasy for the first couple episodes... but it definitely feels like that promising start is being wasted past the halfway point.  After spending half a dozen episodes on the existential threat posed by Clevatess and the dark beasts and how all of the humanoid races are confined to one small corner of the world by unnatural apex predators they have no hope of defeating, abruptly changing gears from that to "generic evil wizards want the baby" is such a massive f***ing downgrade that it's hard not to feel disappointed.  There's no depth to them either.  They're just psychopaths.  Pretty boring fare.

Spoiler

It's not helped in the slightest that every evil wizard so far feels compelled to immediately destroy any tension they might created by accident or design by monologuing to all and sundry about how their respective unique magic works.  It's not even well done or situationally appropriate, like the braggadocio of a Jojo villain or Jujutsu Kaisen's cursed technique users getting a power boost from the implicit contract of explaining their technique to the enemy.  It's just the kind of pace-breaking soliloquy that makes you wish the protagonists would tell them to shut up or demand to know who f***ing asked.

 

Nearly as bad is how Clevatess's blood magic removes the stakes and tension from any confrontation with a Human or Humanoid.  For Alicia and Nelluru, death isn't merely cheap... it's a glorified revolving door.  Injuries still hurt, but as long as Clevatess's magic sustains them there's no way to make them stay down.  They both also seem to have superhuman strength from coming back from the dead too.  

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I am watching Digimon Beatbreak. I am really starting to hate tomoro and gekkomon,  I wish they would both stop whining so much. It is getting on my nerves.

[Focslain]

On 12/16/2025 at 8:32 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Since the season's winding down, I decided to go back and give Clevatess a whirl.  It seemed like a promising work of dark fantasy for the first couple episodes... but it definitely feels like that promising start is being wasted past the halfway point.  After spending half a dozen episodes on the existential threat posed by Clevatess and the dark beasts and how all of the humanoid races are confined to one small corner of the world by unnatural apex predators they have no hope of defeating, abruptly changing gears from that to "generic evil wizards want the baby" is such a massive f***ing downgrade that it's hard not to feel disappointed.  There's no depth to them either.  They're just psychopaths.  Pretty boring fare.

  Reveal hidden contents

It's not helped in the slightest that every evil wizard so far feels compelled to immediately destroy any tension they might created by accident or design by monologuing to all and sundry about how their respective unique magic works.  It's not even well done or situationally appropriate, like the braggadocio of a Jojo villain or Jujutsu Kaisen's cursed technique users getting a power boost from the implicit contract of explaining their technique to the enemy.  It's just the kind of pace-breaking soliloquy that makes you wish the protagonists would tell them to shut up or demand to know who f***ing asked.

 

Nearly as bad is how Clevatess's blood magic removes the stakes and tension from any confrontation with a Human or Humanoid.  For Alicia and Nelluru, death isn't merely cheap... it's a glorified revolving door.  Injuries still hurt, but as long as Clevatess's magic sustains them there's no way to make them stay down.  They both also seem to have superhuman strength from coming back from the dead too.  

 

I enjoyed Clevatess, was better then the other edgy fantasy slop we've have in recent years. The humaniods fighting each other is on par with human infighting even during an existential crisis. 

Spoiler

Nelluru got her super strength from being remade from parts of a troll as Clevatess explained when she woke up and again later during the siege.

Both Alicia and Nelluru are still living as long as Clevatess wish them to and lost of appendage is still a thing. What will be interesting is to see if Clevatess keeps Nelluru around for the events of S2, if we get one, as her role is now over. Though not really looking forward to S2 as it is falling into another trope I'm tried of, the magical school.

 

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

Towa no Yuugure ended today. This show started with such promise and did not live up to it.  

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

4 hours ago, Hikaru Ichijo SL said:

Towa no Yuugure ended today. This show started with such promise and did not live up to it.  

I'm not so sure about that..   

I think the ending kinda went off the rails in just one episode,  however it was the strongest title of this season.    It has its faults,  but compared to everything else this season...    

[Seto Kaiba]

Pass the Monster Meat, Milady! remained a pretty fun series to the end.  Not terribly substantial by any means, but it never failed to be entertaining in a cute sort of way.

My watch group finished up The Apothecary Diaries S2 last night.  They had a pretty good time with it, and the promise of a two-part Season 3 in October 26/April 27 and an original film around December 26 was definitely well-received.  

Solo Camping for Two also ended this week.  I won't miss it.  It's a terrible ambassador for the hobby it's meant to be promoting and its attempt to liven up what's basically a camping equipment infomercial starring a low-functioning alcoholic with a romance subplot founded on a threat of a false rape accusation lands exactly as poorly as you'd think.  The animation is unmistakably cheap start-to-finish, and it feels like they only made it to two cour by making most of the series pan-shots across static frames.

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, Focslain said:

I enjoyed Clevatess, was better then the other edgy fantasy slop we've have in recent years. The humaniods fighting each other is on par with human infighting even during an existential crisis. 

To be fair, I feel like the unusually low altitude of that particular bar owes a lot to the fact that most of the fantasy anime produced in the last couple years has been isekai.  Edginess doesn't really pay dividends when it's cringeworthy Godmode Sue MC power fantasy like That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Re:Monster, etc.

 

12 hours ago, Focslain said:

  Hide contents

Nelluru got her super strength from being remade from parts of a troll as Clevatess explained when she woke up and again later during the siege.

Both Alicia and Nelluru are still living as long as Clevatess wish them to and lost of appendage is still a thing. What will be interesting is to see if Clevatess keeps Nelluru around for the events of S2, if we get one, as her role is now over. Though not really looking forward to S2 as it is falling into another trope I'm tried of, the magical school.

Thanks for the heads up.  I have a feeling I'll probably decide to pass on Clevatess S2.  Clevatess S1 has already pretty much lost me.

As of episode 8, it really feels like the author of Clevatess didn't really know what to do with the story after the protagonist gets back to civilization.  The evil Human wizards would be an enormous downgrade from the dark beasts as a plot-driving antagonist even if they weren't all flat characters.  Bug Guy and Magneto from Wish.com somehow manage to be less intimidating than the bandits from a few episodes back, and the angry mob they find to do their bidding isn't even a patch on them.  

I genuinely had to stop for a minute almost right away because one nameless extra goes on this weirdly specific and emotionally charged rant about how the Heroes ain't sh*t because their weapons and armor were paid for with tax dollars and all they do is kill unstoppable man-eating monsters no-one else can fight instead of doing real work like tree farming, logging, and construction.  It's clearly meant to be a rousing speech in context, and he clearly intends it as a grievous insult to Alicia, but it's such a bizarre and nonsensical pronouncement from this random background character that it took me right out of the story and left me laughing and Alicia doesn't even acknowledge that someone is talking to her.

There are some good ideas here, and some good world building... but as strong as it started it wasn't able to keep it up more than a few episodes.

[Focslain]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Thanks for the heads up.  I have a feeling I'll probably decide to pass on Clevatess S2.  Clevatess S1 has already pretty much lost me.

Figured I save you some headache. I'd be more interested in a S2 if....

Spoiler

They went more into the beast that was powering Dorel and/or the politics of the Dark Beasts, but nope. Post credit scene (thankfully) show Clevatess and Alicia going to a magic school so he learn about this new power the humanoids seem to have gained.  

 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Solo Camping for Two also ended this week.  I won't miss it.  It's a terrible ambassador for the hobby it's meant to be promoting and its attempt to liven up what's basically a camping equipment infomercial starring a low-functioning alcoholic with a romance subplot founded on a threat of a false rape accusation lands exactly as poorly as you'd think.  The animation is unmistakably cheap start-to-finish, and it feels like they only made it to two cour by making most of the series pan-shots across static frames.

I am so far behind in this series..   its a advertisement for camping equipment with some take away value for camping tips..      If its as you say then I am just bailing on it now. 

 

Am I missing anything this season.. any sleepers?    

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

17 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I'm not so sure about that..   

I think the ending kinda went off the rails in just one episode,  however it was the strongest title of this season.    It has its faults,  but compared to everything else this season...    

You mean Mugen Gacha which has a crazy long title..  I enjoyed this series at least.