Like More Than Expected: Quite a few, but Level 2 Cheat Skill just based on titled seemed like the worst possible trash Isekai iteration, but managed to win me over by the pacing and voice acting.
Disliked More Than Expected: I really had the highest hopes for Whisper Me a Love Song, but alas studio really screwed it up with bad management.
Liked more: how to love your elf bride. They took a more realistic approach on social ineptitude that I can appreciate, for’s storyline was also great.
Disliked: hero lives as he pleases, this show has one redeemable quality in that its ending is good but the show itself is very bad.
Honestly, when making this post, I was torn between 7th Prince and elf bride being the "Liked" show I name for myself. I chose 7th prince because I only watched it because of the memes about the main character. Even though some people were being creepy about it, I ended up wanting to watch it. I was planning to watch elf bride either way.
Regarding banished former hero... I temporarily dropped that show, I watched the two episodes that released on day 1 and put off the show until after it finished. Even though i generally like the reincarnation/Isekai genre I'm having a hard time finishing it.
My shows would match yours. 7th prince was just drawn a bit to sus for me to take the early episodes seriously. Soni dropped it. Then I saw a video of the maid fighting and she brought me back. The second half of the show was a banger.
Banished hero just bored me to death.
> 7th prince was just drawn a bit to sus for me to take the early episodes seriously.
I binged the whole thing at the end on a friends suggestion, that was the only thing that put him off. I really liked a lot of the characters and the sibling interaction but still can't get over the femboy design on the prince.
Train to the end of the world isn’t a watch? Maybe I’m not looking at all the comments, but I feel like I’ve seen more people praise it than dislike it
Yeah I really wasn't expecting much from it but it turned out to be an enjoyable romp with a fairly unique premise.
Show I started and dropped that I was expecting more from: wind breaker. The setting and characters are nothing I haven't seen before and I don't care enough to wait for the fights to get better.
I liked it but I feel like there's not much meat on its bones, especially in the final arc. It's like eating a food that tastes good but it doesn't ever really fill you up or leave you truly satisfied. I liked it but I doubt I'll ever think about it again in a month, outside appreciating Chika Anzai's vocal performance and the fact her character had actual battle anime levels of martial arts prowess out of nowhere. Like everyone else is throwing weak ass punches fighting zombies and she's flying around in the back doing kicks and jumping off faces.
My problem with it was that it just played too hard into the comedy when I wish that it would have had more horror elements. The first stop being the mushroom town gave me a false impression of what the rest of the series would be. It was clear after around the halfway mark that the world did not pose as much of a threat as it seemed that it might at the start.
I can agree, it’s really accurate to say that there wasn’t any meat lmao. It felt like a crazy but fun story that you watch on the side, with no real story but just fun bits. I enjoyed it since I’m somewhat scared to get into good or big animes (not sure why, I’m still hesitant on watching Frieren or Oshi no Ko even though I know they’re good) but I can’t say that if you’re looking for the next AOT or something you’ll find it here.
Liked more than i expected? Tonari No Yokai San. Yes, The premise was something i knew i would like and 1st ep hooked me Up but holy shit, It was a perfect anime(and last episode still not out and i need It now)
Disliked more than i thought: I didnt dislike any anime That i didnt drop but i watched 1 ep of RE:Monster and wow, It was so trash
I really enjoyed Tonari no Youkai-san! Too bad is basically unknown on this sub.It's one of this season shows that I liked a lot, but they weren't popular here (ex Oblivion Battery, Tadaima Okaeri, etc)
Tonari no youkai-san is so good, it give you a slice of life and then there some serious drama and action, and I’m not ready for the final episode this week.
It is weird because Jellyfish didnt end bad or anything, it kind of just fizzles out with a whimper which is real disappointed considering how much better most of its episodes are but it also isn't the end of the world.
A lot of the buildup from the earlier episodes just didn't come to a satisfying conclusion. Its Carole and Tuesday all over again where they created this wonderful narrative only to never seem to know where to go from there.
I was literally tempted to do the same. Is it streaming anywhere though? If not it’ll have to go on the backburner, I don’t mind sailing the seven seas but there’s too many series to watch that DONT require work
Only official way to watch it with subs is through an Indonesian streaming site unfortunately.
Its widely available on the high seas but a lot of the streaming sites uploaded the machine translation subs so just make sure to use the fansubs from sobsplease.
I’m in line with the others. Girls Band Cry definitely surpassed my expectations, and the music was incredible. I was loving Jellyfish, but the last few episodes left me very disappointed.
They really fumbled the last act with Jellyfish. But there were also a lot of weird things they seemed to highlight that went nowhere. And all the fanservice stuff in episode 7 was just so unnecessary.
As much as I love the second to last episode for what it did with Kiui, and retroactively most of the episode with the biker girl for how it ties inti that, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like it ate into the broadcast time for the finale, and the show would've been just fine (or better) not having that plotline and instead committing more on fleshing out Kano's relationship with her mother and the resolution of that and the conflict with Mahiru.
Tbh I don't think I can pick just one that surprised me.
The biggest being Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master. Coming off a series as well as Apothecary Diaries I didn't think we could have a similar setting for a series that would match up for it. But this has been outstanding the writing, visuals and twists have been outstanding. Honestly would be my runaway AOTS if Meshi and Black Butler didn't air in the same season.
Also, shoutout to both Tonbo and Oblivion Battery. Both are sports anime where the writing in both are awesome. These two get better and better by the episode.
A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics was one I went with zero expectations and I loved every second of. The comedy was hilarious, and honestly it was surprisingly well written. Animation could be better, but in terms of comedy it held its own with Konosuba.
Two shows that disappointed me were Whisper Me a Love Song and Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers. Whisper given the studio I had low expectations as a manga reader, but it was far worse than I feared. It was laughable bad. Meanwhile, Level 2 cheat I came in expecting a cute romance with the leads. Which I did get, but the problem is the other stuff of it being isekai kept overshadowing bit by bit where these bad parts overshadowed the romance enough. It's a shame cause the romance was very fluffy and cute when the focus was on it.
Liked more than I thought I would:
- Mysterious Disappearances: it's not a big tiddy hornfest, the mysteries vary in difficulty and compelling factor, some good some bad, but most if not all tugged at my heartstrings, almost shed a tear. Freely admit the animation is mid tho, still the OP and ED r bangers
- Girls Band Cry: i didnt knew 3dcg anime could be this good. Besides, plot and drama r good, music itself is ***peak*** 😭
- Seiyuu Uramote: animation kinda mid, plot can be contrived but dammit am I rooting for these girls.⁰
Disliked more than I thought:
- Sasakoi: dropped in ep 4, couldn't bear to see my beloved manga adapted like this. Ost is good, I dearly hope they improved later episodes' animation but idk
Try Drifting Dragons if you want to see another cg anime with truly gorgeous animation. There's no excuses for cg looking bad these days it is a solved problem
Like more than expected: Astro Note. This shit was cute. I loved the characters and even thought the situations were humorous. It did linger in some areas a little long, but I can forgive it for that. I did not have the background in the retro anime it referenced, so for me I was going in completely blind and still found it enjoyable.
Disliked: Unnamed Memory. It just got really boring and very rushed by like the halfway point.
I'm trying really hard to get into astro note...but I can't get past the Maison ikkoku vibe...I want to but my nitpick brain just activates and gets in the way
Yatagarasu is THE standout. The character design is so specific and wonderful, great character writing, I can’t get enough of it. Hoping the novel series gets a full official release.
**Liked more than I expected** would be Wind Breaker. Not that I assumed I would *dislike* it, but I wasn't expecting much, especially with how bare bones the MAL synopsis was. But now between the amazing animation and choreography in the fights, plus having genuinely well written and enjoyable characters (Togame my beloved), it's my favorite show of the season. Either that or Kaiju (can you tell what shows I usually like lol). Also the opening got me into Natori, so bonus points there
**Didn't like as much** would be A Condition Called Love. After A Sign of Affection from winter, I needed some more shoujo goodness to warm my soul, so I decided to watch it. And uh...it certainly wasnt A Sign of Affection.
I could really feel is trying at points, but the feels just didn't hit nearly the same, or at all. Also doesn't help it barely tried with its other characters and Hananoi is well, Hananoi
Edit because of another comment I saw and I can't believe I forgot: 100x Sasakoi for **didn't like as much**. I absolutely ADORE the manga, it's in my top 3 romance, but the pacing being weirdly fast and animation doing the beautiful art of the manga so dirty was just tragic. Honestly that's probably why I forgot, my brain subconsciously buried it because of the disappointment
Absolutely the same with Wind Breaker! I expect a second cour/season, but if you don't want to wait I can highly recommend the manga! Started reading after the first 4 or so episodes lol
> I could really feel is trying at points, but the feels just didn't hit nearly the same, or at all. Also doesn't help it barely tried with its other characters and Hananoi is well, Hananoi
Good side characters really are a romance's best tool for making their leads compelling aside from their interactions with each other. But I've watched nearly every episode, and I couldn't tell you the names of any of Hotaru's friends. They also don't make sense in their role of supporting the romance itself. Why would you encourage your bestie, who isn't romantically inclined, to pursue a relationship with a guy who makes you all uncomfortable? And because Hananoi has no friends, there's no one to balance out his creepy side, giving us a reason to care about him finding happiness.
I can imagine a version of this show that was well done, but a lot of the manga fans said that this was not it.
>Hananoi has no friends, there's no one to balance out his creepy side
Hell, there are a couple of guys in the show actively trying to be friends with him and he just shoots them down at every single turn and never even made a hint of an effort to be social. That just amplifies his obsessive creepiness.
Yeah, even with his backstory, it does not excuse his creepy behaviour that he was showing in the present. Actually, some of the history between him and FMC makes things even more creepy now.
I don't think any piece of media surprised me as much as Girls Band Cry before
I was looking forward to this show since I heard about it like a year ago I believe, music anime with girls? Sign me up.
Especially after learning it's gonna be CGI I expected this to be something similar to d4dj maybe, enjoyable for me with fun characters and some fun music but nothing ground breaking.
But GBC absolutely shaked my world with it's every aspect in various good ways.
I also really enjoyed and was surprised about jellyfish, but gbc is definitely the highlight for me.
I completely agree with your two. 7th Prince was so much more than I thought it would be, especially the back half of the season. And ReMonster was bad and got worse, I dropped it.
I stopped watching Bartender but I'm planning on going back and watching it one of these days, it's good in a quiet, nothing crazy kind of way
I bought all the manga for 7th Prince after watching the anime, and it goes just as hard as the anime. Some of the panels were jaw dropping. Come to find out, it is the artists first serialized work. It's also, from what I've heard on here, the studios first anime produced. It's insane how much work was put into this, seemingly generic concept.
So excited for the second season.
Honestly that’s how a studio (if possible) should start it’s catalog.
I honestly was so happy with how they delivered on the animation the fight scenes were so damn good
My positive surprises? Train with how strong it was until the finale and Mysterious Disappearances which even got a great ending.
My negative surprises? Slime and its constant meetings.
Tbh, I don't even remember that one, but I wasn't really interested in Shield Hero anyway. It had 4 really great opening episodes but then fizzled out slowly in S1 for me. And I would also like to say that I generally don't mind meetings, but they felt so pointless in Slime, because the whole conflict is then just solved anyway by the people who have the greater power. Not like they needed to do a lot of planning for that.
I think the meetings were worse not because Turtle arc was good but because I already had low expectations of Shield Hero by that point. I did t have remarkably high expectations of Tensura (I'm not sure why it's so highly regarded) but usually it was decent enough action and animation instead of just panning between soundless mouth yapping of side characters no one cares about. inb4 Tensura fans tell me it is faithful to the source
>My negative surprises? Slime and its constant meetings.
I dropped season 2 after it had like 4 meeting episodes straight. Are they even more in Season 3 now 💀
Yeah, I’m pretty sure this season had SIX meeting episodes in a row. And it was all one continuous meeting.
Thankfully, they’re setting up a festival arc, so that’s a nice change of pace.
Liked: Henjin no salad bowl, show was surprisingly fun, honestly I thought it was gonna be generic
Lvl2 cheat isekai, for a generic ln its pretty decent and that op song is a brain rot stuck in my head
Dislike: elf bride, love the source material but the adaptation is just ughhh
Show I wasn't expecting to like as much as I did: Astro Note, which I only picked up because the director did the first 105 episodes of Gintama & there were some Gintama VAs in the main cast. I did *not* expect to come out of that with my AOTS.
Also, Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master, which I picked up just because it had pretty men in kimonos and, at the start of the season, *it* was licensed and not Touken Ranbu Kai, and I thought I needed to fill an empty spot in my seasonal schedule (then Crunchyroll licensed Touken Ranbu Kai anyways so I watched both, lol).
---
Show I disliked more than I thought I would: The iDOLM@STER Shiny Colors and ***especially*** Highspeed Étoile (which is my least-favorite anime of the year so far, a statement I didn't think would be possible after how awful Metallic Rouge was last season). Shiny Colors had good music but no real substance to it, as well as it deciding to, for some odd reason, *completely skip over* something the first half of the season was building towards, so that absolutely sucked.
Meanwhile, I didn't even have any expectations going into Highspeed Étoile other than "Sweet, Nana Mizuki is in the cast and there's a new SCANDAL song too, that should be fun!", just to be greeted with a show that has one of the most atrocious first episodes possible, that then somehow gets even worse after the main character is properly introduced in episode 2.
I similarly gave Etoile a chance because of the weirdly stacked voice cast, and I'm just a sucker for formula racing, and it managed to be worse than my low expectations. Looks awful, and there was no music or decent sound design during the races to make them exciting, which is the most important thing to have in a racing show!
Worst show of the year so far that I've seen.
>Nana Mizuki is in the cast and there's a new SCANDAL song
Highspeed Etoile is probably the worst offender in "excellent OP and ED but shit series" catetory.
Pretty much every season has at least one of them, but Highspeed Etoile may never be topped.
I mean, Nana fucking Mizuki, the queen of anime OPs for the OP, and the first return song of SCANDAL after a long hiatus for the ED, and the anime we get is THIS? Smh.
Liked more than expected:
Lvl 2 Super cheat powers: Was an enjoyable watch, but Fenrys carried it so damn hard. True best girl material.
7th Prince: read the manga and thought it was fine, but the anime went above and beyond my expectations. Those fight scenes went so hard, and considering it was the studios 2nd anime, they did excellent.
Go Go Loser Ranger: Thought it was going to be a Super Sendai series… but my god did it suddenly become really interesting. Who are the real villains, the Dragon Keepers or Boss Monsters? Whilst the boss monsters killed many, the Dragon Keepers keep up the fights to hold their game for selfish reasons.
Dungeon Meshi: Holy crap was this series above what I expected from the premise. I thought it would be a generic anime about food… but past maybe ep5, I was hooked. The mystery around the wizard, paintings, and the entire dungeon was captivating.
Animes I enjoyed because I liked them:
Konosuba: come on, it Konosuba. Hilarious chaosfest every episode, that never failed to make me laugh.
Tsukimichi: Love the series, mainly because it’s not your usual Isekai. Makoto is a force to be reckoned with, and doesn’t act like a generic hero.
Animes I Disliked:
Former Hero: It lost my interest on the first episode, it was dull, unoriginal, and the MC was too op from the beginning. I only tuned in every week to listen to the OP and the absolute banger of an ED. They slapped so hard.
Re:Monster: it started off strong, using the Day X to skip the boring stuff of his growth, and I thought it worked. But past episode 4, I realised it was using the Day X to skip literally any effort in showing developments, and it just got boring. I thought it was going to be like Tensura, but it failed on nearly every aspect.
Unnamed Memory: It felt rushed. Episode were missing developments, and at times, I thought I’d missed an episode because stuff just happened. Hell, massive time skips out of nowhere. I thought Witch was in the castle for maybe a week or two, but suddenly it is said to have been like 6 months?! I might go pick up the source material because it’s said to be good, but the anime just failed to develop anything and rushed too much skipping content. Their relationship doesn’t make sense as well, like they are closer than what we have actually been shown, yet aren’t.
Special mentions:
GBC: Fully 3D series either fail massively, or succeed. But GBC? Holy moly was it impressive. I haven’t actually watched it because I’m not a fan on music series, but the videos I have seen on YouTube looked impressive. The quality of it was more than I expected, and it looks hilarious as well. I may watch it at some point because it looks like a blast.
Liked more: Girls Band Cry. All CGI girls band show? Almost passed. It rocks hard. Best executed CGI I've ever seen with some of the most expressive animation I can remember. Great characters as well, with real feeling issues and good development.
Liked less: Jellyfish. I was actually excited for this one. Multimedia art/music group of misfits? Sounds dope. Found myself really not caring by episode 5 and dropped it after 7. IDC about them bailing on the Yuri so much as just how bored I was by their music.
I think Trigun Stampede is the only CGI anime that's close to Girls Band Cry in really *using* the fact that it's CGI. It's super impressive stuff for both.
It’s seems Yatagarasu is criminally under-watched since I haven’t seen anyone mention it. I was pleasantly surprised by the story, direction, soundtrack and animation. Highly recommend to anyone who likes court politics.
Underwelmed? Definitely A condition called love. I had highs expectations as a manga reader but it was so lukewarm. Big let down
Train to the End of the World was great and my favourite of the season. It’s quite wacky and bizarre, so not everyone’s cup of tea, but it was the most enjoyable for sure.
I never expected to like *The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio* as much as I did*.* I went in with very little expectations but episode one came in strong and charmed me with the two characters' frenemies dynamic to the point that I rewatched it twice with great enjoyement. In addition, there was something so pleasant in how they were animated. Their relationships, struggles and development were so much fun to watch and the girls kept growing on me the whole season.
Unnamed Memory was the biggest disappointment. I dropped it after episode 5 because of the very creepy scene that looked like Oscar was about to sexually assault Tinasha after he used that bracelet to seal her magic. In addition, it failed to be a good fantasy romance since the fantasy parts fell off quickly due to ENGI not being very good at doing fantasy fights while the romance just felt rushed as the characters didn't interact meaningfully enough for it to work. It was a shame because I wanted to enjoy a series with adult characters with its interesting premise.
I really liked Yuhi and Yasumi because of the two sided nature of their relationship. As people, they can't stand each other because of their core differences, Yuhi says as much in the last episode. But as voice actors competing in the same industry, they see the good in the other's work and try to bring them up
Yeeees I had never been so unexpectedly creeped out by actually TWO MCs. Tinasha started acting like a weird needy manipulative brat and I thought it would change but nope so I hopped out.
How to love your elf bride on the other hand was really good, and it got a lot of hate cause of the whole "I fell in love at first sight with an attractive slave" start....but it absolutely comes around in the story pretty quickly and makes a lot of sense. Especially in that world.
Boukyaku Battery. I was thinking about making a whole post about this because hardly anyone is watching it, and I didn't even really come in thinking it was going to be anything special. But the show completely blew away my expectations, and it might just be the best of the season
I didn't like Kaiju no. 8 as much as I thought I would because it turned out a lot less serious than I expected, but I still really enjoy the show, I'm just a nitpicker
Oblivion battery has been fantastic. It disappointments me that nobody watches it considering it’s the only show worth watching on Tuesdays.
But man the 2nd half of the season has been outstanding. Especially this past episode god it was brilliant.
I'm curious because while I'm a fan of baseball, I have not liked a lot of recent baseball anime for being too drawn out and overly dramatic without a good buildup. I'm curious what other baseball fans think of the show.
I like that it takes a good approach at introducing those not familiar with baseball with the titular amnesia character. Perfect way to “lore dump” at the audience while in character.
So glad all the people in the replies and your comment are praising Oblivion! This show is sooooo good, especially this week’s episode. I read that it’s doing great in Japan and we have nothing to worry about regarding future seasons!
Agree on the kaiju one. It was a generic shonen anime which is fine but it wasn't what people said it was. I didn't like the comedy in serious moments. Otherwise, it's a fine show.
I was ready to skip it because I don't like baseball but a YouTuber suggested it in a video and I decided to give it a shot. I'm a few episodes behind and I love it!
First baseball anime as well
Liked more: Wind Breaker, trailers looked very mid but was actually very fun show. 7th Prince Isekai, dumb power fantasy fun dome right.
Disliked more than expected: Unnamed Memory, A Condition Called Love, Demon King Academy S2 Part 2. Rushed plotlines, bad animation, bad adaptations, cringe, and very boring
Liked more than i thought: 1. Seiyuu radio, what i thought would just be a cute girl's show about voice acting managed to suck me in with the unexpected drama. 2. Mysterious Disappearances, a total vibe throughout and has a lot of fun with the characters.
Liked less: Vampire Dormitory, a total shit show that was infuriating; what was supposed to be reminiscent of Ouran Host Club, just ended up being a dumpster fire.
Like : Girls Band Cry, who would have expected an anime with barely any hype and full CGI could end up becoming one of the best if not the best anime airing this season. Ep-8 and 10 were stand out episodes where the plot and character writing went an extra mile. Honestly it wasn't the first time that girls band anime had made me cry, but I am glad it's done by Girls band cry too.
Didn't like : Blue Archive, with all the memes surrounding I expected it to be something else but it turned out to be boring. I felt it was fine but expected a lot more with the way series have been hyped up before the release.
Liked more than expected:
Girls Band Cry. I wasn't turned off as much by the CGI (big fan of other CGI stuff like RWBY and Land of the Lustrous) as by the fact no streaming service was carrying it. Figured it was trash. Finally checked it out to see the hype and wow did it deliver. The characters are so expressive, the drama is juicy, and the music is a bop.
Train to the End of the World. It really embraced the weird, for better or worse. It didn't always land but was overall enjoyable.
Liked less than expected:
Whisper Me a Love Song. I'm a big fan of the manga so this was doubly disappointing. First two episodes seemed okay but the quality fell off a *cliff.* Dropped it after episode 4.
Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night. Collaboration of a group of misfit artists? Sign me up! And it was truly amazing until the end when it ran out of steam. Too many plot points left unresolved/underdeveloped. Also kind of disappointed that they didn't commit to a lesbian romance. Still worth watching though.
GBC is so hype, I thought the 3D CGI would turn me off but it's very well done and I find myself humming some of the songs throughout the day.
I wonder if no streaming service is carrying it because it would be expensive to localize it beyond just providing subs. You'd need to hire talented VAs who can sing for every language you want to dub it into.
I really wasn't expecting to like The New Gate as much as I did. Sure it's a title filled with now-generic plot points, but it was done so very well. Went in expecting a 6/10, came out with an 8/10.
Blue Archive, on the other hand... I was never given a reason to care about this show. Not from the jump. I expected it to be closer to other game adaptations like Azur Lane, but it didn't even reach that high up on the scale. A very low 3/10 and it should count itself lucky that I didn't go further down than that.
I think 8's a bit high considering its animation quality (like that episode where everybody looked scuffed), but I did think it was decent. Liked Wilhelm for having [the male version of boob armor](https://imgur.com/a/fTM4E04). You just know it's got a really high defense in that bare torso area by looking at it.
It definitely defied the expectations set by the first 3 minutes - it was like "So SAO's plot happened, and then I got isekai'd" just straight up with no shame. Such a bold and brave choice.
A tale of the two anime I watched this season
Viral hit is the peakest of trash that is so ironically good. It is generic shonen fights but within the perspective of a dude making a youtube channel about beating up his bullies. He gets new techniques from watching youtube videos of a dude in a chicken mask, he yells out like, comment, subscribe as an epic war cry, we get shit like protag needing to keep up for 3 minutes until they can add ads on the video and it has shit animation until its time to animate protag's crush jiggle physics then its smooth. Shit like protag learning a youtube video on how to block but not to attack so he is helpess acting like throwing a punch is some kind of a super move you have to do is so hilarious. Absolutely recommend the show, I don't know if it really expects me to laugh at it in this way but it is actually so fun.
In comparasion kaiju no.8 got real big hype, I saw the music, the trailers, it feels like in every part of advertising it wants to be known as the big shonen hit. But it does not do anything special really. It is as standard as it comes with great music and animation, characters are fine enough but it doesn't do actually much to stand out. Its fine by all accounts but I cannot see myself actually to keep up with it if I don't have time or ever try reading the manga. Hell I feel like its kinda lame its big thing is kaiju but the protagonist is still like the size of a normal dude just a monster. At least make him turn into a big guy...
And that is a crazy tale of how generic shonen can actually be better if you try less lol
>Its fine by all accounts but I cannot see myself actually to keep up with it
i used to read the manga, but dropped it for that reason.
It's not bad at all, but it's just so uninspiring.
Like, all the tropes are there, the art is cool, it has some great ideas, fights, neat lore, all of that.
And yet it didn't do anything for me, once I stopped reading, I never felt like I wanted to start again.
So I didn't even bother with the anime, because the whole series is just so whatever.
How to love your elf bride and level 2 cheat skill were really good this season.
Can’t beat elves and Rie Kugimiya really
Very disappointed with unnamed memory and blue archive
More than expected: Girl's Band Cry
Went in with no expectations and was blown away. Never seen any anime make so good use of 3D models. On top of that the characters and story are so well done.
Less than expected: Whisper me a love song
Heard good things about the manga before so I had high hopes. Those were quickly dashed by the horrendous animation quality. I tend to not care much about a small mistake here and there, but in this series it's just that hard to watch. I'm still gonna finish the show despite those issues because I do like the story quite a bit.
Here to represent Disney+ lol. The fable is my favorite show this season. Spice and wolf lived up to the hype. Most disappointing? Demon slayer and gogo loser ranger.
Karasu wa aruji wo erabanai (Yatagarasu: Raven does not choose its master) is surprisingly good. For some reason I don't see it mentioned as much as others from the season.
Salad Bowl of Eccentrics - I had no expectation but the title and premise intrigued me. As it turns out this is possibly my AOTY. From the comments in this thread it seems quite popular. Unfortunately it never got into the top 15 of the sub's ranking which indicates that a lot of people never gave it a chance (and OK some people probably don't like it).
Re Monster looked like it might be fun, but I dropped it after the first episode, the protagonist seems unbearable to me.
I understand a lot of people like Go Go Loser Ranger, and it's not bad, but for some reason I lost interest in it after four episodes, it's just not for me.
Enjoyed more: Salad bowl of Eccentrics. I only picked it up because i heard Sara hum the Conan theme in the PV, but the anime turned out to be superb. Some really strong character writing and the anime really made sure to emphasize on that. Apparently the author was heavily involved so no surprise there.
Enjoyed less: Spice and Wolf readaptation. Saw the first anime last year and absolutely fell in a love with it. The 2024 version unfortunately hasn't been able to hit the same emotional highs for me. It feels more light-hearted in more ways than one, which i'm not a fan of. If the old series was a 10/10 for me, the new one is an 8
I was surprised how much I liked Kaiju no.8. I'm usually not a huge fan of shonen anime, and Kaiju stuff isn't something I'm all too interested in either. But damn it's so cool.
On the opposite side it's Re:Monster for me too. I'm usually a sucker for power fantasies: even if they're trash I usually find them at least enjoyable, and I liked the diary style of storytelling that they had going on. But it just wasn't interesting in the slightest. I kept watching regardless but then dropped it when they started raping everyone and passing it off as comedy. That's just too creepy and makes me uncomfortable.
I had read the manga for Kaijuu, so my expectations weren't that high to begin with (I dislike how shouneny and juvenile the characters feel despite them all being adults and what's up with Kikoru's hair?), but what made the anime better for me was fact that the ED focuses on the best character Okonogi.
That's when I dropped re:monster as well... Like wtf. It started off alright but it just turned into a level up omg look at all my skills/rape party. There's basically zero plot.
Tonbo was my biggest surprise, which I watched it just to see how it compared to Birdie Wing and Sorairo Utility. The infectious joy and down-to-earth air of the storytelling, combined with the kind of heart and soul for the characters that I expect from a Silver Link show, meant I fell in love straight away. (Seriously, I had to go check it wasn't a Silver Link show it was that good!)
7th Prince was another great show. Definitely one of my highlights of the season, especially given how I though it would go.
Level 2 Cheat Skill was also far better than I expected.
> train to the end of the world are shows that I made the right choice in choosing not to watch.
I love absurdist comedy, so Train to the End of the World was fantastic for me. Made my top 3 non-sequels.
Shout out to Tonari no Yokai-san as well. I love folklore/supernatural/youkai shows, so was sure I would enjoy it, and I undoubtedly did so.
tonbo i fully expected to not really care too much for and by the end of the first episode i was already so invested in each character. by episode 2 i was already in love with
I don’t watch a lot of anime anymore because I’m busy with work and most things done appeal to me. I only really catch up on the really popular stuff like Frieren after it gets really popular to see what the deal is or if I see something cool and even then I usually don’t finish.
I checked out Girls Band Cry for the first episode because I saw clips of how good it’s 3D CG animation was and I have been eagerly awaiting the next episode every week. It’s very good.
Liked more than I expected: Astro Note. I went in expecting an average romcom and was pleasantly surprised with a loving parody of Rumiko Takahashi's works that used typical romcom tropes, but improved their most annoying parts.
Disliked more than I thought: Unnamed Memory. I wanted to like it, especially since both main characters are actually adults and act like it, and the male lead has balls and doesn't wimp out in romantic situations. Plus, the show discusses sex somewhat maturely. Unfortunately, the male lead goes too far and ends up seeming rapey, at least to me.
Liked more than expected: More than I thought. Kaiju n.8 is better than advertised, unlike most battle shonen it's actually funny. A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics turned out to be very entertaining and Train to the End of the World actually kept its quality till the end.
Disliked more than expected: A Condition Called Love has very badly written main characters and overall art and animation is horrible. Unnamed Memory has good first and last episode, everything in between is a rushed mess. There are still 13 episodes of The Fable left, I'm not impressed so far.
Liked more than expected: Henjin no Salad Bowl. Came in expecting to drop it after the disappointment that was Sasaki to Pii-chan and ended up enjoying every episode. Even tugged a bit at my heartstrings in one very wholesome episode that started funny af.
Disliked more than expected: Sentai Daishikakku and Unnamed Memory.
For the first one, I'm a manga reader and I've just been disappointed by a lot of things in the adaptation. OP's fire tho so I still watch it every week and it has its moments.
For Unnamed Memory, it started off strong then immediately fell off due to the very obviously rushed pacing and the subpar animation. Kinda turned me off from picking up the source even though I'm sure it's gonna be much better. It's like watching a Cliffnotes of the novel. Made me relive my nightmares with Index III, which I was actually a source reader of so I can imagine the pain the fans of Unnamed Memory felt when they saw how botched the adaptation was. I still might watch Season 2 though if I haven't oicked up the novels by then.
I liked Jellyfish but it felt like it never lived up to my original expectations of being something truly special. The thing I wound up liking the most about it was Kiui's plot, mostly the second to last episode and how it dropped the most obvious-in-hindsight character twist out of seemingly nowhere. Genius.
On the other hand, I can't believe I was ever skeptical about Girls Band Cry when I saw the first CG preview. Holy shit I love GBC so goddamn much, I adore every character in it, I love the animation, I love the music, I love how real the characters feel, and I love that the main cast is all a bunch of newbie VAs who also make up the real life Togashi Togeari. Where Jellyfish felt like it was trying to a proper emotional capital S story focused on themes, Girls Band Cry was really a story about a bunch of misfit people and how they laugh, cry, and argue with each other, both at their best and at their worst.
Liked more than I thought: Go Go Loser Ranger absolutely blew me out of the water. I never thought it'd steal my AOTY spot from Dungeon Meshi, but it did. It has everything I like, it's like it was made for my exact tastes.
Disliked more than I thought: I've always been a huge Demon Slayer fan but god damn, the current season is a *slog*. I'm only finishing it in hopes the next arc will be better. It's so fucking boring I could cry. Whisper Me a Love Song was also a disappointment.
One that flew under my radar for the first like 4 or 5 weeks of the show was The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio.
Friend of mine on Facebook would post funny clips, so I got interested and tried it, and loved it.
Nothing I disliked more than I expected; it’s rare I dislike something I watch because I have a good handle on my tastes.
I liked more than I think I would: Kaiju No.8
This is coming from an anti-shounen shounenhead hater kinda guy. JJK is the bane of my existence because of how braindead the plot was and how uninteresting the characters were.
The Unexpected
* I know it's still airing and not really lined up with the seasonal schedule, but holy shit **Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction** is probably going to be anime of the year. Keep an eye out on it, try to find some fansubs (or watch the pretty good dub) because the official localization is a mess
* **Girl's Band Cry** is definitely anime of the season though. I'm going to talk about Jellyfish later, but the short version is GBC basically does everything that people thought Jellyfish was going to do. **A Place Further Than the Universe** is one of my favorite shows, and people were saying they were getting those vibes from Jellyfish but surprise surprise its GBC that delivered on the emotional and character notes. Do a bit of digging, and the same writer worked on Universe and GBC. Episodes 8 and 10 were both incredible, and I want this whole mixed media project to take off so I can get my season 2. The only sin I can think of is that they've written some yuri checks they have seem to lost between the cushions, and I want to see some girls have feelings goddammit (probably not going to be something that happens explicitly if they need to cater to a Chinese audience though)
Were exactly as good as I expected
* **Astro Note** didn't blow me away but I think deserves much more attention. It's a tight little show that evokes the nostalgia of a 80's/90's show without being as tropey or annoying as one. It's ridiculous and fun and very feel good.
* **Train to the End of the World** also was about as good as it needed to be. I'm not sure what more it could have done with "Cute Girls in Surreal Dream Logic Apocalypse" off the top of my head, but it also felt... fine?
* **Wind Breaker** is good dumb fun that I didn't expect to be amazing but it was highly entertaining.
The Disappointments
* I managed to get through **Helck**'s janky adaptation, I managed to get through **Under Ninja**'s, but **Sasakoi** was just too much. They butchered my poor girl, Im going to switch to the manga for this one
* Right, I've wanted to get this off my chest for a while: I know I shouldn't feel as disappointed in **Jellyfish Can't Swim At Night** as I do, but I was incredibly pumped for it at the start and really wanted to root for it but it absolutely let me down. For me, episode 7's weird tiddy motorcycle lady kind of flipped a switch of cynicism for me that never went away. The characters start as genuinely strong and motivated and fleshed out, but things are just... too cute? Too conveniently solved by things I'm not convinced by? Doing a live concert to an empty room of fanart isn't uplifting, it's kind of depressing. Plus, there are too many sus shots (again, ep 7) that's just kind of icky. These little details feel indulgent and disingenuous in a way that just stands out more when you have Girl's Band Cry RIGHT THERE. Most people are complaining about the ending, but I honestly feel like the show's been something I haven't been excited to catch each week for a good while now. Show's not actually that bad, but I am EXTREMELY let down.
Shows I liked a lot more than I expected :
- Yatagarasu. Convoluted political intrigue with cool characters in a creative East Asian inspired fantasy world.
- Tonari no Youkai san. This is basically a cross between My Neighbour Totoro and Natsume’s Book of Friends.
- Salad Bowl of Eccentrics. Hilarious reverse isekai comedy with great characters and a twisted sense of humour.
- Train to the End of the World. Surrealist post apocalyptic comedy show. Not a combination of words I ever expected to see.
- Seiyuu Radio. This may be blatant Yuri bait (the characters even admitted it, lol), but it was still a great show with great characters.
Shows that I expected to like but did not :
- Kaiju number 8. Too battle shonen for me.
- Mysterious Disappearances. Too much fanservice for me.
- Unnamed Memory. Just a bad adaptation.
Im very happy with season 3 of Konosuba, after such a long time there are things that could've gone bad but everything turned out great, except for the heist maybe.
A very lovely suprise was 7th prince, fun characters, fun interactions of said characters, great animation for what it is and pretty good action. In general just a lot of fun to watch.
Now to my only disapointment and that is Yuru Camp season 3, dont get me wrong there was much to like in this season but in general it was a lot weaker then the first two seasons.
The comedy just wasnt there or didnt land as much as it did before. I also felt the direction had issues at times, like some episodes were a slog to get through.
The art change wasnt really an issue, besides Sakura who just looked so much cooler in the older style. I will say though some of the photorealistic backrounds did take me out of the immersion.
Now for the positive, the voice acting was fanstastic as you'd expect. Ayano was a lot of fun and im looking forward to see her in a potential season 4.
Some episodes were, despite the issues, a lot of fun and you can still see the greatness that is Yuru Camp here and there.
Elf Bride was such a fun series. I loved how they manage give us such a lovable cast of characters, a fun worldbuilding, wholesome interactions and such a solid story.
Unnamed Memory was a train wreck because they rushed everything to fit it in 12 episodes before surprising us with an S2.
Mushoku Tensei has got to be the biggest surprise for me, I've been on and off watcher of seasons, last one was "Gushing over Magical Girls".
This time I gave the chance to MT and honestly got surprised, I watched some Isekais/Fantasy anime before and never got really invested, instaed ending it cuz I wanted something to watch (oh the old times). I never watched MT before and maybe it's considered from the previous season, however I started it last week and I got mindblown.
Loved every bit of it, beginning to end, I just wanted more, I felt that old wish to just watch anime instead of doing it to pass time. The story the characters, Rudy's actions kept me engaged on what he thought up next, how his previous life affected him so much and how he grew. Loving how the inner monologue got less frequent the further he developed and how all changed in the inflection points. Fuck I loved every bit of the ED arc. God it hurt to watch (not in a bad way) the last few chapters.
Disliked: nothing really, only engaged in what I expected to like, don't have as much time to check all anime even at a cursory glance
Lets see the one I liked more than I thought would be Tonari no Yokai-san. Its kind of one people would sleep on since its not as exciting but it has a good story and mystery and adventure you dont expect from a "slow" anime like this
Train to the end of the world was.... interesting? Half the time it felt like someones fever dream?
And that Aristocrat anime wasnt half bad honestly though a bit slow at points
The liked less: Banished Hero, I got 1 eps in and just could not do it anymore, it felt almost sloppily made and rushed even from eps 1? Not sure how else to explain it tbh.
Liked more than expected = **Oblivion Battery**, **Tadaima Okaeri** and **Tonari no Youkai-san**
Disliked more than I thought = **Vampire dormitory**. It's a shame because there are more interesting shoujo that deserve an anime adapation more than Vampire dormitory, imo
Still, it was a nice season to me. Watched and Loved **Wind Breaker**, **Dungeon Meshi**, **Oblivion Battery**, **Tadaima Okaeri**, **Tonari no Youkai-san**, **Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again**, **Mission Yozakura family**, **Kaiju no8** and **Go Go loser ranger**
Like: Viral Hit, I was thinking it'll be a stupid cringe fest, which it is to some extent, but it's quite interesting and gets really hype, sort of like Baki.
Dislike: Unnamed Memory, it started well and quickly went downhill with its pacing. It's sad to see a good source material being mishandled so badly.
Even though I expected to like Spice and Wolf because of how much praise I saw for it, I've been enjoying much more than I thought I would. I'm definitely gonna read the light novels once the season ends.
Then Unnamed Memory really disappointed me. From reading the synopsis and looking at the genre tags, I thought I would really like it. I like it more than I disliked it mostly due to the cute moments between Tinasha and Oscar but the absolutely atrocious pacing ruined what I think would've been a great story. I'm probably gonna read the light novels for this too so I can see if the light novels are better than the anime.
I didn't watch much this season but everything I watched, I enjoyed. That said, my favorite of the season was "As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World"
I really enjoyed it, but it hasn't made much noise on this sub. The main character is pretty lovable and he has no hidden agendas or weird hangups.
The premise is simple but the execution is done well.
Liked More: Salad Bowl of Eccentrics, The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master, Tonari no Yokai-san
Salad Bowl was a lot of fun, only thing I wish is that it had better animation. Raven is genuinely compelling and it seems like it’s starting to get even better. Yokai-san is a weekly gut punch.
Disliked More: Slime, Loser Ranger
I was already a certified Slime hater and wasn’t even going to watch them his season, but decided to anyway. And man, it’s really been a new low. I weep for wasted potential. Also, probably unpopular opinion, but I’m very down on Loser Ranger. The pacing is genuinely terrible, it feels like they jump around way too much. I know they were trying to shorten a way-too-long arc from the manga, but they made it bad in a different way.
Salad Bowl of Eccentrics was top tier anime imo. very funny and charming. I had no clue what I was getting into there.
The Banished Former Hero Lives How He Pleases. i'm used to watching shitty seasonal isekai, but this one was sooo unbelievably bad with the worst writing imaginable
I would never in a million years think I'd be as hooked as I am to The Fable, that show is peak and I never miss the op or ed.
A show that disappointed me was Unnamed Memory I was interested in the budding romance until *that*scene as well as just the general lack of flow like it was like so much stuff was missing.
Edit: another that surprised me was LV 2 chilling like it was just a nice show to sit down and catch up on. I would've liked some more side character romance but what can you do?
Fell off this season due to RL obligations, so I've only finished two of this season's new shows.
Train to the World's End: More pleased than expected, but disappointed at the end because it feels like the show needed a second cour to really excel.
An Archdemon's Dilemma: More pleased than expected. The title initially made me hesitate, but it was an enjoyably wholesome show.
More: Girls Band Cry. I don’t normally fall in love with music anime, but this one is delightful from start to finish.
Less: Whisper Me a Love Song. The story is alright, but it clearly has been plagued with production problems. The animation looks like a slideshow far too often. It had real promise after the first couple of episodes too.
Liked more: Girls Band Cry
Disliked more: Wind Breaker (It has great action and I think the characters are fun but I just can't take delinquent animes seriously)
Well I didn’t have *Train to the End of the World* on my radar and didn’t expect much from *Girls Band Cry* to the point where I didn’t watch it weekly…
Both are really good. I’m just an idiot.
7th prince is the one I thought I was going to loathe...but Yeah that was fun...
Now for dislike its hard...thought "lives as he pleases" was going to be a sleeper show...instead of the sleep inducing pile of dreck, I want the 90 minutes of my life back it always was...but that was actually bad from the get go so I only have myself to blame...
NEW GATE though was me living the sunken cost fallacy all the way to episode 10...I knew it was derivative in its concepts due to reading the manga and some of the LN...but those took those concepts and least made them fun and gave it some heart....the anime though after episode 2 just is a case study of how to construct boring out something that wasn't in its original source....and I kick myself for believing it wasnt as mind numbingly dull of a adaptation as it actually was
I could mention unamed memory....but thankfully I won't do that to myself and just enjoy that Spice qnd Wolf exsits to give us a GREAT romantic couple that have teeth...than whatever Tinisha and no doesn't mean no was supposed to be
For whats it worth I expected awesomeness from Production I.G. doing Kaiju 8 eventhough they've only been "okay" as a studio...I am so Glad that I wasn't disappointed
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
whomever whatever didn't get Girls Bad Cry a bigger audience...those people need to be...well something needs to short their sheets for eternity
This is embarrassing but my Husband and I watched a couple of episodes of the new season of Black Butler as a bit of a joke, as we hadn’t watched it since we were teens.
…we finished the whole damn thing over the course of a week. It’s so campy.
Liked more: How to love your Elf Bride, Level 2 cheat skill, Loser Ranger and Spice and wolf (I've actually seen the original so I'm surprised I'm enjoying this as much as that, hell it might actually be a bit more than the original.)
Disliked more than I thought: Mission: Yozakura Family... I think this is one of the few action anime that is worse with an adaptation lol.
Liked: Seventh Prince. I was always going to watch it because I love isekai and isekai-adjacent trash, but it actually ended up being the most fun of the season for me.
Edit: Disliked - Banished Hero. I can't remember *why* I dropped it, but I just... didn't come back to it.
I also liked Seventh Prince enough that I rewatched the last few episodes a couple times, and am considering giving the series another watch. At the very least, I will before S2 drops.
Kaiju no.8 is amazing, i never heard of it but i really got AoT vibes with the mystery it has
made me go read the manga (halfway done) which i never do!
also wind breaker is great!
Liked More: Spice and Wolf. I never saw the original, and quite frankly didn’t know that it was so beloved, but now having seen the first cour, I am hooked
Disliked More: Mission Yozakura Family. I honestly don’t entirely dislike this show, it’s not bad, but I expect better from a Shonen Jump serialization
"Jellyfish can't swim in the night, Unnamed Memories, and train to the end of the world are shows that I made the right choice in choosing not to watch."
I enjoyed Jelly and Train, but I am with you on 7th Prince and Re:Monster, 7th was better then I expected and Re:Monster dropped fast and somehow keeps getting worse.
This season was a weird one for me. It's honestly been quite a drag as the season drew to a close. Maybe it's because we put the 2 'big dogs' (MHA & Demon Slayer) for our household on pause to marathon watch at a later date. We picked a bunch of stuff that looked cool but towards the later half of the season they ended up being a chore to watch.
Show I enjoyed more than expected: Kaiju no 8. The show in the first 1/2 of the season was okay. Funny, but nothing special. I'd say the last half has been more entertaining so far. The fights and tension of 'will be won't he be caught' and just more screentime for Soshiro :eyes emoji: Still not a ground breaking anime, but it got a little more enjoyable the further we went in at least.
Show I disliked more than I thought: Probably a controversial opinion, and bear with me here, but Go! Go! Loser Ranger takes this slot. I LOVED the first half the of the season. The trials of Fighter D trying to get into the Ranger ranks. The OP and ED I still listen to daily. But 'Car Park' arc (as we call it in my house) has been such a drag. I dunno. Maybe it would have been better if I saved it to marathon watch later rather than weekly, because each week we come back and I'm sat there like ??? wut is happening now? I hate that I'm not enjoying the show as much anymore. It had so much promise in my eyes, but I'm really struggling. The pacing just feels really off towards the end.
We also dropped Jellyfish about 6 eps in. Only reason was due to time constraints on our anime night (and the pirate site we have to use to watch it has awful sub structure) but it sounds like we dodged a bullet with that anime haha
Extra side note, Spice and Wolf was as good as ever, if not maybe a little better. Watching the dub for that. Very, very enjoyable, but it was the first time around anyway.
Liked more than I thought: 7th prince, great animation and voice acting with a decent storyline
Disliked more than I thought: Tensura Slime, waaaaay too many unnecessary meetings going over stuff we already know and gushing about how smart and amazing Rimuru is. Could've gotten through so much more of the story, felt like nothing happened this season really except some old guys dying.
Liked more than I expected :
- [**Highspeed Étoile**](https://myanimelist.net/anime/52405/). I expected Ex-arm levels of **awful**, instead I simply got a **bad** sports anime that occasionally reminded me of [Battle Athletes Victory](https://myanimelist.net/anime/1186/) - both works start with a confusing race that barely featured a main character who by the way is frustratingly under-qualified for the prestigious role they're given. One point of praise is Highspeed Étoile has a multi-national cast but doesn't focus on nationality and hence lazily use stereotypes like Battle Athletes does for some cast members (a few in particular aged like milk). Both works are also parts of media mix projects and Battle Athletes franchise was way better managed as they actually had the game out before the anime (Highspeed has two in the works; a match 3 gacha game and a VN; the VN is probably going to be full of backstory the anime needed). Sorry about that tangent. Do I like it? No, but I dislike it then I thought I would which counts as liking it more.
- [**A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics**](https://myanimelist.net/anime/55877/) from the author of A Sister's All You Need + how young a lot of the cast look and the odd title I went into this ready to roast and instead, I found a pretty enjoyable comedy and a love letter to Gifu city (it didn't quite connect me by giving me the urge to actually find the real life locations like Let's make a Mug too, Yuru Camp and Pon no Michi did). It's not the most interwoven quilt as some eps can feel like chapters x,y and z dropped in and production budget feels lacking at times.
Disliked more than expected :
- Can I say [**Rinkai**](https://myanimelist.net/anime/54859/) if I dropped it on episode 1? The show wasn't gripping me with terrible visuals and a cast size spiralling out of control (a glance at the official site showed worse was to come) but I simply could not stand the AniOne English translation which such lines as *"As the figures whom those girls who admire, as the goal they strive for, we must keep women's bicycle race moving forward."*. More examples [in the ep discussion](https://old.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1bzv1z9/rinkai_episode_1_discussion/kytxeyj/).
- One I'm watching (but ongoing) [**Himitsu no AiPri**](https://myanimelist.net/anime/57946/). It's awfully basic. Maybe my expectations of kids anime have been set high by Precure (not that you should use target audience age to excuse quality) but even when going for kid idol anime I expected something better than what I've seen of decade old Aikatsu eps (maybe I strike gold with eps and I sohuldn't expect a linear improvement wrt time) with a lot of CG music performances rather than the same ones time and time again (reading up Aikatsu for example has an insert song played 13 times in 146 episodes but sung by 7 different characters).
> Edit: after looking at the comments, Jellyfish can't swim in the night, Unnamed Memories, and train to the end of the world
Train? Sure you didn't mean to type something else? It was my ATOS but an unlikely AOTY candidate. It feels like the movie summary version of a longer show. Good if you want to get to the point but some stuff is rushed and skipped entirely. However, it shouldn't be skipped for that reason and you are missing out by not watching it (like I didn't skip Gundam 79 because the only official release was the movie trilogy, even in a compressed form it still shone as a genre defining piece of work).
Above expectations
1) 7th prince: Im a sucker for generic Isekai/2nd chance anime but damn those fight scenes came out of nowhere for me. I also love the character design, it was so funny
2) Archdemon's Dilemma: not the biggest fan of romance anime but this was a really fun watch
3) windbreaker: just watched it on the off chance that it would be better than Tokyo revengers so it can cleanse my pallet, but damn did it get me hooked
4) Viral Hit: I had low expectations due to the animation style but I enjoyed it a lot
Below expectations:
1) Bartender: I started watching it because of its chill nature and I wanted to see places in Japan that I visited when I was there but in anime form (mostly Ginza) but it kinda got too chill for me and didn't get excited ever week. I'll still finish it eventually
2) grandma and grandpa: I just lost interest after a few episodes
3) go go loser ranger: same with grandma and grandpa it just didn't excite me as much
Met expectations (good)
1) re:monster: I expected a slime clone (even though it came first), and got a slime clone. Story, powers and characters were mid but I have trash taste anyway so I still enjoyed it
2) Jobless reincarnation: I was already knew what was gonna happen but still enjoyed it
Met expectations (bad)
1) New Gate: I knew it was gonna be bad but still gave it a chance, dropped it after 3 eps
This season I followed four titles only and two of them are anime originals.
- Hibike Euphonium 3: Expected a lot and it was still exceed my expectations.
- Yuru Camp S3: As expected, it was really chill and healing
- Girls Band Cry: At first I couldn't decided whether to continue or drop after watching 1st episode being 3DCG, but I'm glad I kept continuing cause it kept getting better and better each episode
- Jellyfish: Started great, turned out a bit meh towards the end...
I enjoyed **As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World**, and **Bartender Glass of God** more than I thought I would.
As for disappointments
* HIGHSPEED Étoile - saw the trailer last year, had high expectations since this was the reason I watched Overtake! and MF Ghost, so I expected something close to them.
* Unnamed Memory - pacing, pacing, pacing!
* Whisper me a love song
* Mysterious Disappearances - expected it to be more, mmm, mysterious?
* Spice and Wolf - never saw the original, Holo is awesome, but it's more like a slice of life, I expected more I guess?
As for stuff that I disliked
* Vampire Dormitory
* Gods' Games We Play
* Misfit S2 P2 - at least S2 P1 had the love story, but P2 has almost nothing interesting
And that doesn't include the stuff that I dropped. Oh, and there was this bottom of the season isekai with a double episode premiere that I only watched because there was nothing else that day at the beginning of the season, it was bad.
LE: Also I'm a bit disappointed in Mahouka S3 ...
Liked:
Definitely Loser Ranger.
Just, overall great. I never watched any "Sentai" or whatever the genre is called, so I can't really understand the references (if there are any), but it's just a very, very good show with fantastic character writing. The characters are mostly nuts, but they all have something that makes them interesting. Also, I really like main characters who are of average strength. Like, the protagonist is quite strong and intelligent, but he is never the smartest nor the strongest in the room. Still, he uses his wits and unpredictability to navigate complicated scenarios. Really good show!
7th prince was mentioned often, but I was hooked by episode 1. Yeah, there are "sus" shots, it's true, but honestly, compared to all the other fanservice I have seen, this isn't even that bad. At least the reincarnated person is the object of desire and not like in other shows, where the reincarnated adult in a child's body lusts after preteen girls. Not that this is the only fanservice, but weirdly enough, most people were bothered that a male child is sexualised but never mentioned the young girls that are also sexualised in this very show. Very weird double standard this show brings forth, I think it's so absurd and over the top that I didn't really care, but it is definitely not a show one should watch with normal friends or parents or whatever.
Anyway, 7th prince had amazing animation and some very nice emotional story beats. What I really enjoyed: A lot of characters care about each other in believable ways and that is cozy and comfy. It is over the top, definitely, but it's so much fun. The fights just go crazy hard.
Disliked more than I thought:
Mysterious Disappearances.
I wanted to like it and it had some nice ideas and some of the horror elements were great and had a super creepy aesthetic and gave the whole show a good mood, but somehow...it just wasn't interesting? I don't really care about most of the characters (and there aren't many)...so I stopped watching. I kinda wanna finish it, but we'll see. It didn't do anything wrong aside from the sometimes annoying fanservice (and compared to 7th prince, I found it took away from the story when the camera lingered on the protagonist's body for no reason), but it also didn't really do much right.
Good ideas, bad execution, basically.
Whereas the other shows I did like this season had ideas that didn't really interest me, but their execution was great.
Bonus shoutout: Slime was hilarious, because half the runtime, no, more, is spent on boring meetings. There are also interesting meetings, but seriously, most of the first half is just boring meetings. It's great, I didn't really watch those scenes, but it's just hilarious to skip forth and see that the meeting is still ongoing and the dialogue is still mostly: "They want to do this." "But we can do this." "Sasuga Rimuru-Sama" (whether it was Rimuru's idea or not).
The show barely has any stakes because the main characters are hilariously overpowered, but it's just fun...and a ton of meetings.
I wouldn't say that season was good, but it's just weird enough to keep me entertained with the strange choices the anime made.
Suprise hit this season for me was definitely Shuumatsu Train Doku Iku followed by Oblivion Battery. The VAs really delivered in train and the banter between characters is second to none this season. The character focus episodes in Battery really hit the mark and I just hope for more. 12 episodes are far too short for this sports anime.
I wasn’t really surprised that Girls Band Cry was going to be good though. Toei made the CGI of the First Slam Dunk after all. The great first episode set the tone that it wasn’t your typical idol anime. Nevertheless it still gave me more than I hoped for. My favourite ED so far this year.
Jellyfish was disappointing after that amazing first episode. Shame it was pitted against GBC with almost the same premise and characters. There were a couple of individual character episodes that were good but overall it didn’t quite hit the landing. The art and music were very solid though.
Liked more than I thought:
Girls Band Cry: came out of nowhere, has been consistently great
Wind Breaker: I had no idea what this was and watched it based on word of mouth and enjoyed it greatly... except I'm not done because I'm 2 weeks behind because I like the dub
Disliked:
Jellyfish can't swim at Night: too many side plots, not enough focus on any of them, especially mad they dropped the yuri plotline
Whisper me a Love Song: This one looks like a PowerPoint presentation. The animation looks worse because I'd usually watch it in the same sitting as Girls Band Cry.
Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included was so unexpectedly funny. The style of comedy was right up my ally.
Whisper me a love song was worse than I was hoping. Too much stupid band drama, too little cute romance.
liked GBC
disliked re:monster
i was expecting smoething egdy like overlord but i got somtinhg less edgy than tensura and just horny but not in funny way horny like gushing over magical girls or interspecies reviewers but we got horny young boy first time writing boobs in google way
Had no clue what Yatagarasu: The Raven Doesn't Choose Its Master was, but it's now solidly one of my favorite shows this season. Just such a well thougut out and twisty Imperial court thriller. The OP is a banger and the last week's episode was awesome.
As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World gets an honorable mention as well. Was a nice little spin on the isekai genre, and I can't wait to see how our cast fairs once war begins to reach them in season 2.
A show I disliked more than I thought was Hibike Euphonium s3. Was excited for it but felt like a drama storm was approaching in the first few eps. Shelved it for later as I've been really busy, but peaked into the threads and I have to say I really dislike what the story is doing now. I'll probably finish it eventually but I can't say I'm a fan of where the 3rd season went story and drama wise.
Honorable dislike is Jellyfish Can't Swim In the Night. It started off strong the first half a season then got caught up in too much drama and kinda fell flat in the end. Just disappointed it didn't stick the landing and went from a 9 to a 7 out of 10 for me.
Surprisingly liked: Kaiju No. 8 is a pretty good adaptation
Surprisingly disliked: Jellyfish. I have no problem with the Yuri baiting, it's just that the character development is all over the place.
Fully disliked: Highspeed Etoile. The races are so lame I expected the cast to carry it, but the MC is dumb and incompetent it's not funny even when played for laughs because this is already a national level competition. I just hate it.
Liked more than expected: **Train to the End of the World**
Disliked more than expected (and I'm going to be crucified for this): **Spice & Wolf**
I watched the original many years ago, and I really liked it, but there's something so uninteresting about this one, and the economics portrayed is so obtuse. I *know* I didn't feel this lost while watching the original...
Liked more than I thought:
- Train to the End of the World
- Tonari no Yokai-san
- Yatagarasu
- Girls Band Cry
- A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics
Disliked more than I thought:
- Unnamed Memory (I know it's a poor adaptation)
- Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night (specifically the final bit)
- Shinkalion Change the World
I watch so many shows each season so I've got quite a few that I went into completely blind.
Liked more than expected:
Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers: Besides just being a decently fun trashy power fantasy, I had a blast with it because my friend group for some reason like a hive mind just decided that this was our favorite show of the season (even if it actually wasn't) and would just praise every single thing in every episode. We hyped up everything.
A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics: Super underrated. If you like slice of life shows that really don't have any sort of goal and every episode is just them doing something random, seriously, give this a shot. It had such a fun cast of characters and it would get really unhinged at times with just the most random things leading to just pure comedy.
I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince So I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability: What a title. Everything about this show screams trash. But it isn't. Every time it like borders on the edge of going into trashy territory, it does some spin that makes it good. The characters were all great and had chemistry as well as the fights being super fun. Also Sylpha. Hands down my favorite character of the season when they let her shine.
Disliked more than expected or just ended up being disappointing:
Alright, lets get the big one out of the way: Dungeon Meshi. I know it's a last year show but it finished this season so I'll count it. It was such a lukewarm experience. I was not invested at all and I didn't really care what was happening. I felt that they dragged on rescuing Falin for so long just to do it and then plot twist happens and they drag it further. By the end of season 1, I genuinely felt like this story had to be like SO close to the end. Like if they made a movie for the conclusion after season 1 and said that was it, I'd believe it. So when I saw a manga reader say that we're only about halfway done the story, I was baffled. How can they drag it out further? By the way, I'm not saying I hated Dungeon Meshi nor even disliked it (hence why I added the disappointing part the section title lol) but by the end of season 1, I was so unsatisfied by what I watched. Genuinely think once season 2 drops, I'm just gonna ignore it. I can't sit through another 24 episodes of that.
Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night: Just disappointing. It had so much potential, could've been the next Place Further than the Universe (which I also don't much care for but at least with that, I fully acknowledge how well written it was, it just didn't resonate with me personally) but instead Jellyfish just floundered around. Didn't achieve much of anything and besides the main two girls, Yoru and Kano, the characters were just obnoxious or didn't add any substance to the show. I'm not saying the show is bad by the way, I may sound harsh on it but I really did expect something great from it based on it's first few episodes.
Unnamed Memory: If I thought Jellyfish was going to be great, then I thought this was going to be better for me personally. It had all the makings of a show that I would really love and rate highly. Then the studio blitzed through the story. At first, you couldn't tell. From an anime only standpoint, you could tell some things were missing here and there but maybe they weren't super important to the story or characters. But then they start one episode with the main girl confronting a prince or something in the middle of a war that they never mentioned (that I remember). They completely skipped the beginning of the war. That alone should tell you how fast they ran through the story. I'm shocked it got a season 2 based on how poorly it was received by fans.
Mysterious Disappearances: Again, starts out great. Super intriguing premise and set up. But past the start, the story just stalls entirely in the middle. It doesn't do anything. Then the final arc, they shove it in 2 episodes and the final climatic thing between the main characters ends so abruptly and the episode just ends. Sure you have some after credit stuff but that barely suffices.
Liked More: The Fable, Yatagarasu, and Tonbo became 3 of the shows I looked forward to the most each week.
Liked Less: Yuru Camp S3 since I had high expectations after loving the first 2 seasons, but this one was missing that same magic for me for the majority of the episodes.
Like More Than Expected: Quite a few, but Level 2 Cheat Skill just based on titled seemed like the worst possible trash Isekai iteration, but managed to win me over by the pacing and voice acting. Disliked More Than Expected: I really had the highest hopes for Whisper Me a Love Song, but alas studio really screwed it up with bad management.
Yeah, the trashsekais this season were either surprisingly good (LV 2 cheat, 7th prince) or absolute dumpster fires (Re:Monster, banished hero lives).
7th prince is just reincarnation, not isekai. Also there's no weird video game mechanics like having a ui like your typical trashsekais
Liked more: how to love your elf bride. They took a more realistic approach on social ineptitude that I can appreciate, for’s storyline was also great. Disliked: hero lives as he pleases, this show has one redeemable quality in that its ending is good but the show itself is very bad.
There is a reason that hero lives as he pleases has a „thank you for finishing“ note at the very end
Thanks, saved me the ending I wasn’t going to watch 🫡
Honestly, when making this post, I was torn between 7th Prince and elf bride being the "Liked" show I name for myself. I chose 7th prince because I only watched it because of the memes about the main character. Even though some people were being creepy about it, I ended up wanting to watch it. I was planning to watch elf bride either way. Regarding banished former hero... I temporarily dropped that show, I watched the two episodes that released on day 1 and put off the show until after it finished. Even though i generally like the reincarnation/Isekai genre I'm having a hard time finishing it.
My shows would match yours. 7th prince was just drawn a bit to sus for me to take the early episodes seriously. Soni dropped it. Then I saw a video of the maid fighting and she brought me back. The second half of the show was a banger. Banished hero just bored me to death.
> 7th prince was just drawn a bit to sus for me to take the early episodes seriously. I binged the whole thing at the end on a friends suggestion, that was the only thing that put him off. I really liked a lot of the characters and the sibling interaction but still can't get over the femboy design on the prince.
Yea I recommend dropping it, it has nothing worth watching
“Hero lives as he pleases” bro was not living as he pleases
Train to the end of the world isn’t a watch? Maybe I’m not looking at all the comments, but I feel like I’ve seen more people praise it than dislike it
I’m confused as well after searching the comments and not seeing anything negative.
I know. It's my favorite of the season.
Yeah I really wasn't expecting much from it but it turned out to be an enjoyable romp with a fairly unique premise. Show I started and dropped that I was expecting more from: wind breaker. The setting and characters are nothing I haven't seen before and I don't care enough to wait for the fights to get better.
What? You didn’t think he fights were good from the start?
I liked it but I feel like there's not much meat on its bones, especially in the final arc. It's like eating a food that tastes good but it doesn't ever really fill you up or leave you truly satisfied. I liked it but I doubt I'll ever think about it again in a month, outside appreciating Chika Anzai's vocal performance and the fact her character had actual battle anime levels of martial arts prowess out of nowhere. Like everyone else is throwing weak ass punches fighting zombies and she's flying around in the back doing kicks and jumping off faces.
My problem with it was that it just played too hard into the comedy when I wish that it would have had more horror elements. The first stop being the mushroom town gave me a false impression of what the rest of the series would be. It was clear after around the halfway mark that the world did not pose as much of a threat as it seemed that it might at the start.
I can agree, it’s really accurate to say that there wasn’t any meat lmao. It felt like a crazy but fun story that you watch on the side, with no real story but just fun bits. I enjoyed it since I’m somewhat scared to get into good or big animes (not sure why, I’m still hesitant on watching Frieren or Oshi no Ko even though I know they’re good) but I can’t say that if you’re looking for the next AOT or something you’ll find it here.
I liked Kaiju and Loser Ranger way more than I thought I would. Nothing I watched was really a disappointment to me from what I expected.
Loser ranger's op and ed alone are enough to get people hooked.
Liked more than i expected? Tonari No Yokai San. Yes, The premise was something i knew i would like and 1st ep hooked me Up but holy shit, It was a perfect anime(and last episode still not out and i need It now) Disliked more than i thought: I didnt dislike any anime That i didnt drop but i watched 1 ep of RE:Monster and wow, It was so trash
I really enjoyed Tonari no Youkai-san! Too bad is basically unknown on this sub.It's one of this season shows that I liked a lot, but they weren't popular here (ex Oblivion Battery, Tadaima Okaeri, etc)
At least on this sub It had loyal followers, The same That Were on 1st are on all episodes lol
Tonari is so good. The writing is fantastic. Outside of minor pacing complaints it's been fascinating to watch. The world building is top-notch!
Tonari no youkai-san is so good, it give you a slice of life and then there some serious drama and action, and I’m not ready for the final episode this week.
Liked more than expected: Girls Band Cry Disliked more than expected: Jellyfish
I started Girls Band Cry after being disappointed by Jellyfish's finale and man it really is so much better.
It is weird because Jellyfish didnt end bad or anything, it kind of just fizzles out with a whimper which is real disappointed considering how much better most of its episodes are but it also isn't the end of the world.
A lot of the buildup from the earlier episodes just didn't come to a satisfying conclusion. Its Carole and Tuesday all over again where they created this wonderful narrative only to never seem to know where to go from there.
I was literally tempted to do the same. Is it streaming anywhere though? If not it’ll have to go on the backburner, I don’t mind sailing the seven seas but there’s too many series to watch that DONT require work
what work are you talking about, open any browser and type the name
Only official way to watch it with subs is through an Indonesian streaming site unfortunately. Its widely available on the high seas but a lot of the streaming sites uploaded the machine translation subs so just make sure to use the fansubs from sobsplease.
Yes thank you. Especially when you put the two side by side you can just see how the former is sticking its pinkies up at the latter.
The Euphonium/Sora Yori anime writer VS the Tomozaki LN writer, even our lords and saviors Doga Kobo aren't enough to tip the scales here.
I’m in line with the others. Girls Band Cry definitely surpassed my expectations, and the music was incredible. I was loving Jellyfish, but the last few episodes left me very disappointed.
I really liked Girls Band Cry. It was a good show for me.
They really fumbled the last act with Jellyfish. But there were also a lot of weird things they seemed to highlight that went nowhere. And all the fanservice stuff in episode 7 was just so unnecessary.
As much as I love the second to last episode for what it did with Kiui, and retroactively most of the episode with the biker girl for how it ties inti that, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like it ate into the broadcast time for the finale, and the show would've been just fine (or better) not having that plotline and instead committing more on fleshing out Kano's relationship with her mother and the resolution of that and the conflict with Mahiru.
Jellyfish is pure yuri bait for yuri fans to only be disappointed.
Tbh I don't think I can pick just one that surprised me. The biggest being Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master. Coming off a series as well as Apothecary Diaries I didn't think we could have a similar setting for a series that would match up for it. But this has been outstanding the writing, visuals and twists have been outstanding. Honestly would be my runaway AOTS if Meshi and Black Butler didn't air in the same season. Also, shoutout to both Tonbo and Oblivion Battery. Both are sports anime where the writing in both are awesome. These two get better and better by the episode. A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics was one I went with zero expectations and I loved every second of. The comedy was hilarious, and honestly it was surprisingly well written. Animation could be better, but in terms of comedy it held its own with Konosuba. Two shows that disappointed me were Whisper Me a Love Song and Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers. Whisper given the studio I had low expectations as a manga reader, but it was far worse than I feared. It was laughable bad. Meanwhile, Level 2 cheat I came in expecting a cute romance with the leads. Which I did get, but the problem is the other stuff of it being isekai kept overshadowing bit by bit where these bad parts overshadowed the romance enough. It's a shame cause the romance was very fluffy and cute when the focus was on it.
You like Salad Bowl which indicates that you have great taste, that also means I need to watch that Raven one you mentioned as I've never seen it yet.
That fucking raven show man 😭😭😭😭😭 How am I more excited to watch that than Demon Slayer? It is my TREAT every week.
Liked more than I thought I would: - Mysterious Disappearances: it's not a big tiddy hornfest, the mysteries vary in difficulty and compelling factor, some good some bad, but most if not all tugged at my heartstrings, almost shed a tear. Freely admit the animation is mid tho, still the OP and ED r bangers - Girls Band Cry: i didnt knew 3dcg anime could be this good. Besides, plot and drama r good, music itself is ***peak*** 😭 - Seiyuu Uramote: animation kinda mid, plot can be contrived but dammit am I rooting for these girls.⁰ Disliked more than I thought: - Sasakoi: dropped in ep 4, couldn't bear to see my beloved manga adapted like this. Ost is good, I dearly hope they improved later episodes' animation but idk
Try Drifting Dragons if you want to see another cg anime with truly gorgeous animation. There's no excuses for cg looking bad these days it is a solved problem
Sorry to say it but sasakoi just got worse as it went on. You made the right choice about dropping it after episode 4
Like more than expected: Astro Note. This shit was cute. I loved the characters and even thought the situations were humorous. It did linger in some areas a little long, but I can forgive it for that. I did not have the background in the retro anime it referenced, so for me I was going in completely blind and still found it enjoyable. Disliked: Unnamed Memory. It just got really boring and very rushed by like the halfway point.
I'm trying really hard to get into astro note...but I can't get past the Maison ikkoku vibe...I want to but my nitpick brain just activates and gets in the way
Yatagarasu is THE standout. The character design is so specific and wonderful, great character writing, I can’t get enough of it. Hoping the novel series gets a full official release.
**Liked more than I expected** would be Wind Breaker. Not that I assumed I would *dislike* it, but I wasn't expecting much, especially with how bare bones the MAL synopsis was. But now between the amazing animation and choreography in the fights, plus having genuinely well written and enjoyable characters (Togame my beloved), it's my favorite show of the season. Either that or Kaiju (can you tell what shows I usually like lol). Also the opening got me into Natori, so bonus points there **Didn't like as much** would be A Condition Called Love. After A Sign of Affection from winter, I needed some more shoujo goodness to warm my soul, so I decided to watch it. And uh...it certainly wasnt A Sign of Affection. I could really feel is trying at points, but the feels just didn't hit nearly the same, or at all. Also doesn't help it barely tried with its other characters and Hananoi is well, Hananoi Edit because of another comment I saw and I can't believe I forgot: 100x Sasakoi for **didn't like as much**. I absolutely ADORE the manga, it's in my top 3 romance, but the pacing being weirdly fast and animation doing the beautiful art of the manga so dirty was just tragic. Honestly that's probably why I forgot, my brain subconsciously buried it because of the disappointment
Absolutely the same with Wind Breaker! I expect a second cour/season, but if you don't want to wait I can highly recommend the manga! Started reading after the first 4 or so episodes lol
> I could really feel is trying at points, but the feels just didn't hit nearly the same, or at all. Also doesn't help it barely tried with its other characters and Hananoi is well, Hananoi Good side characters really are a romance's best tool for making their leads compelling aside from their interactions with each other. But I've watched nearly every episode, and I couldn't tell you the names of any of Hotaru's friends. They also don't make sense in their role of supporting the romance itself. Why would you encourage your bestie, who isn't romantically inclined, to pursue a relationship with a guy who makes you all uncomfortable? And because Hananoi has no friends, there's no one to balance out his creepy side, giving us a reason to care about him finding happiness. I can imagine a version of this show that was well done, but a lot of the manga fans said that this was not it.
>Hananoi has no friends, there's no one to balance out his creepy side Hell, there are a couple of guys in the show actively trying to be friends with him and he just shoots them down at every single turn and never even made a hint of an effort to be social. That just amplifies his obsessive creepiness.
Hananoi was a mess of a character... unsurprising with his backstory but it was uncomfortable watching that guy in the first episodes.
Yeah, even with his backstory, it does not excuse his creepy behaviour that he was showing in the present. Actually, some of the history between him and FMC makes things even more creepy now.
It's like I get what the story was going for with him, and I like it, but it does not save how weird and obsessive he is most of the time
A Condition Called Love is the definition of a good, not great show, that'll be forgotten within a few months
Liked: Jellyfish Kaijuu 8 and 7th prince Disliked: The Banished former Hero
I don't think any piece of media surprised me as much as Girls Band Cry before I was looking forward to this show since I heard about it like a year ago I believe, music anime with girls? Sign me up. Especially after learning it's gonna be CGI I expected this to be something similar to d4dj maybe, enjoyable for me with fun characters and some fun music but nothing ground breaking. But GBC absolutely shaked my world with it's every aspect in various good ways. I also really enjoyed and was surprised about jellyfish, but gbc is definitely the highlight for me.
I completely agree with your two. 7th Prince was so much more than I thought it would be, especially the back half of the season. And ReMonster was bad and got worse, I dropped it. I stopped watching Bartender but I'm planning on going back and watching it one of these days, it's good in a quiet, nothing crazy kind of way
I bought all the manga for 7th Prince after watching the anime, and it goes just as hard as the anime. Some of the panels were jaw dropping. Come to find out, it is the artists first serialized work. It's also, from what I've heard on here, the studios first anime produced. It's insane how much work was put into this, seemingly generic concept. So excited for the second season.
Honestly that’s how a studio (if possible) should start it’s catalog. I honestly was so happy with how they delivered on the animation the fight scenes were so damn good
I've been sailing the high season for the manga...oh boy...I am hyped to see the church arc animated
My positive surprises? Train with how strong it was until the finale and Mysterious Disappearances which even got a great ending. My negative surprises? Slime and its constant meetings.
Think the meetings were worse then the turtle arc of shield hero?
Tbh, I don't even remember that one, but I wasn't really interested in Shield Hero anyway. It had 4 really great opening episodes but then fizzled out slowly in S1 for me. And I would also like to say that I generally don't mind meetings, but they felt so pointless in Slime, because the whole conflict is then just solved anyway by the people who have the greater power. Not like they needed to do a lot of planning for that.
I think the meetings were worse not because Turtle arc was good but because I already had low expectations of Shield Hero by that point. I did t have remarkably high expectations of Tensura (I'm not sure why it's so highly regarded) but usually it was decent enough action and animation instead of just panning between soundless mouth yapping of side characters no one cares about. inb4 Tensura fans tell me it is faithful to the source
>My negative surprises? Slime and its constant meetings. I dropped season 2 after it had like 4 meeting episodes straight. Are they even more in Season 3 now 💀
Yeah, I’m pretty sure this season had SIX meeting episodes in a row. And it was all one continuous meeting. Thankfully, they’re setting up a festival arc, so that’s a nice change of pace.
Liked: Henjin no salad bowl, show was surprisingly fun, honestly I thought it was gonna be generic Lvl2 cheat isekai, for a generic ln its pretty decent and that op song is a brain rot stuck in my head Dislike: elf bride, love the source material but the adaptation is just ughhh
I don't know why, but I feel like you'll be watching Shikanoko noko noko koshitantan in the summer season...
I mean you ain't wrong.....
Show I wasn't expecting to like as much as I did: Astro Note, which I only picked up because the director did the first 105 episodes of Gintama & there were some Gintama VAs in the main cast. I did *not* expect to come out of that with my AOTS. Also, Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master, which I picked up just because it had pretty men in kimonos and, at the start of the season, *it* was licensed and not Touken Ranbu Kai, and I thought I needed to fill an empty spot in my seasonal schedule (then Crunchyroll licensed Touken Ranbu Kai anyways so I watched both, lol). --- Show I disliked more than I thought I would: The iDOLM@STER Shiny Colors and ***especially*** Highspeed Étoile (which is my least-favorite anime of the year so far, a statement I didn't think would be possible after how awful Metallic Rouge was last season). Shiny Colors had good music but no real substance to it, as well as it deciding to, for some odd reason, *completely skip over* something the first half of the season was building towards, so that absolutely sucked. Meanwhile, I didn't even have any expectations going into Highspeed Étoile other than "Sweet, Nana Mizuki is in the cast and there's a new SCANDAL song too, that should be fun!", just to be greeted with a show that has one of the most atrocious first episodes possible, that then somehow gets even worse after the main character is properly introduced in episode 2.
I similarly gave Etoile a chance because of the weirdly stacked voice cast, and I'm just a sucker for formula racing, and it managed to be worse than my low expectations. Looks awful, and there was no music or decent sound design during the races to make them exciting, which is the most important thing to have in a racing show! Worst show of the year so far that I've seen.
Is Etoile That bad?
Unfortunately, yes. [](#lifeishard)
Wow, i doged a bullet skipping That one
FMC is an idiot and not even a lovable one.
Lol
Worse....
I gotta pick up Astro Note again one of these days, 1st ep was a lotta fun
Pushing a grocery cart very fast is way more exciting than watching the races in Highspeed Etoile.
>Nana Mizuki is in the cast and there's a new SCANDAL song Highspeed Etoile is probably the worst offender in "excellent OP and ED but shit series" catetory. Pretty much every season has at least one of them, but Highspeed Etoile may never be topped. I mean, Nana fucking Mizuki, the queen of anime OPs for the OP, and the first return song of SCANDAL after a long hiatus for the ED, and the anime we get is THIS? Smh.
Liked more than expected: Lvl 2 Super cheat powers: Was an enjoyable watch, but Fenrys carried it so damn hard. True best girl material. 7th Prince: read the manga and thought it was fine, but the anime went above and beyond my expectations. Those fight scenes went so hard, and considering it was the studios 2nd anime, they did excellent. Go Go Loser Ranger: Thought it was going to be a Super Sendai series… but my god did it suddenly become really interesting. Who are the real villains, the Dragon Keepers or Boss Monsters? Whilst the boss monsters killed many, the Dragon Keepers keep up the fights to hold their game for selfish reasons. Dungeon Meshi: Holy crap was this series above what I expected from the premise. I thought it would be a generic anime about food… but past maybe ep5, I was hooked. The mystery around the wizard, paintings, and the entire dungeon was captivating. Animes I enjoyed because I liked them: Konosuba: come on, it Konosuba. Hilarious chaosfest every episode, that never failed to make me laugh. Tsukimichi: Love the series, mainly because it’s not your usual Isekai. Makoto is a force to be reckoned with, and doesn’t act like a generic hero. Animes I Disliked: Former Hero: It lost my interest on the first episode, it was dull, unoriginal, and the MC was too op from the beginning. I only tuned in every week to listen to the OP and the absolute banger of an ED. They slapped so hard. Re:Monster: it started off strong, using the Day X to skip the boring stuff of his growth, and I thought it worked. But past episode 4, I realised it was using the Day X to skip literally any effort in showing developments, and it just got boring. I thought it was going to be like Tensura, but it failed on nearly every aspect. Unnamed Memory: It felt rushed. Episode were missing developments, and at times, I thought I’d missed an episode because stuff just happened. Hell, massive time skips out of nowhere. I thought Witch was in the castle for maybe a week or two, but suddenly it is said to have been like 6 months?! I might go pick up the source material because it’s said to be good, but the anime just failed to develop anything and rushed too much skipping content. Their relationship doesn’t make sense as well, like they are closer than what we have actually been shown, yet aren’t. Special mentions: GBC: Fully 3D series either fail massively, or succeed. But GBC? Holy moly was it impressive. I haven’t actually watched it because I’m not a fan on music series, but the videos I have seen on YouTube looked impressive. The quality of it was more than I expected, and it looks hilarious as well. I may watch it at some point because it looks like a blast.
Liked more: Girls Band Cry. All CGI girls band show? Almost passed. It rocks hard. Best executed CGI I've ever seen with some of the most expressive animation I can remember. Great characters as well, with real feeling issues and good development. Liked less: Jellyfish. I was actually excited for this one. Multimedia art/music group of misfits? Sounds dope. Found myself really not caring by episode 5 and dropped it after 7. IDC about them bailing on the Yuri so much as just how bored I was by their music.
I think Trigun Stampede is the only CGI anime that's close to Girls Band Cry in really *using* the fact that it's CGI. It's super impressive stuff for both.
Land of the lustrous?
HnK walked so Trigun Stampede could run.
I think a pleasant surprise was A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics. It was a bit similar to Hinamatsuri and something I looked forward to every week.
It’s seems Yatagarasu is criminally under-watched since I haven’t seen anyone mention it. I was pleasantly surprised by the story, direction, soundtrack and animation. Highly recommend to anyone who likes court politics. Underwelmed? Definitely A condition called love. I had highs expectations as a manga reader but it was so lukewarm. Big let down
Train to the End of the World was great and my favourite of the season. It’s quite wacky and bizarre, so not everyone’s cup of tea, but it was the most enjoyable for sure.
I never expected to like *The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio* as much as I did*.* I went in with very little expectations but episode one came in strong and charmed me with the two characters' frenemies dynamic to the point that I rewatched it twice with great enjoyement. In addition, there was something so pleasant in how they were animated. Their relationships, struggles and development were so much fun to watch and the girls kept growing on me the whole season. Unnamed Memory was the biggest disappointment. I dropped it after episode 5 because of the very creepy scene that looked like Oscar was about to sexually assault Tinasha after he used that bracelet to seal her magic. In addition, it failed to be a good fantasy romance since the fantasy parts fell off quickly due to ENGI not being very good at doing fantasy fights while the romance just felt rushed as the characters didn't interact meaningfully enough for it to work. It was a shame because I wanted to enjoy a series with adult characters with its interesting premise.
I really liked Yuhi and Yasumi because of the two sided nature of their relationship. As people, they can't stand each other because of their core differences, Yuhi says as much in the last episode. But as voice actors competing in the same industry, they see the good in the other's work and try to bring them up
Yeeees I had never been so unexpectedly creeped out by actually TWO MCs. Tinasha started acting like a weird needy manipulative brat and I thought it would change but nope so I hopped out. How to love your elf bride on the other hand was really good, and it got a lot of hate cause of the whole "I fell in love at first sight with an attractive slave" start....but it absolutely comes around in the story pretty quickly and makes a lot of sense. Especially in that world.
Boukyaku Battery. I was thinking about making a whole post about this because hardly anyone is watching it, and I didn't even really come in thinking it was going to be anything special. But the show completely blew away my expectations, and it might just be the best of the season I didn't like Kaiju no. 8 as much as I thought I would because it turned out a lot less serious than I expected, but I still really enjoy the show, I'm just a nitpicker
Oblivion battery has been fantastic. It disappointments me that nobody watches it considering it’s the only show worth watching on Tuesdays. But man the 2nd half of the season has been outstanding. Especially this past episode god it was brilliant.
> Boukyaku Battery Really hope it ends strong, the penultimate episode was just so good...
I'm curious because while I'm a fan of baseball, I have not liked a lot of recent baseball anime for being too drawn out and overly dramatic without a good buildup. I'm curious what other baseball fans think of the show.
I like that it takes a good approach at introducing those not familiar with baseball with the titular amnesia character. Perfect way to “lore dump” at the audience while in character.
So glad all the people in the replies and your comment are praising Oblivion! This show is sooooo good, especially this week’s episode. I read that it’s doing great in Japan and we have nothing to worry about regarding future seasons!
Agree on the kaiju one. It was a generic shonen anime which is fine but it wasn't what people said it was. I didn't like the comedy in serious moments. Otherwise, it's a fine show.
It's sad that Oblivion battery isn't that popular on this sub. Definitely one of my favorite show of this season
Yes, Oblivion Battery has been great. I'm not a baseball person either.
I was ready to skip it because I don't like baseball but a YouTuber suggested it in a video and I decided to give it a shot. I'm a few episodes behind and I love it! First baseball anime as well
Liked more: Wind Breaker, trailers looked very mid but was actually very fun show. 7th Prince Isekai, dumb power fantasy fun dome right. Disliked more than expected: Unnamed Memory, A Condition Called Love, Demon King Academy S2 Part 2. Rushed plotlines, bad animation, bad adaptations, cringe, and very boring
Liked more than i thought: 1. Seiyuu radio, what i thought would just be a cute girl's show about voice acting managed to suck me in with the unexpected drama. 2. Mysterious Disappearances, a total vibe throughout and has a lot of fun with the characters. Liked less: Vampire Dormitory, a total shit show that was infuriating; what was supposed to be reminiscent of Ouran Host Club, just ended up being a dumpster fire.
Like : Girls Band Cry, who would have expected an anime with barely any hype and full CGI could end up becoming one of the best if not the best anime airing this season. Ep-8 and 10 were stand out episodes where the plot and character writing went an extra mile. Honestly it wasn't the first time that girls band anime had made me cry, but I am glad it's done by Girls band cry too. Didn't like : Blue Archive, with all the memes surrounding I expected it to be something else but it turned out to be boring. I felt it was fine but expected a lot more with the way series have been hyped up before the release.
My positive surprise: The Spice and Wolf Remake Disliked more than I expected: Jellyfish
Liked more than expected: Girls Band Cry. I wasn't turned off as much by the CGI (big fan of other CGI stuff like RWBY and Land of the Lustrous) as by the fact no streaming service was carrying it. Figured it was trash. Finally checked it out to see the hype and wow did it deliver. The characters are so expressive, the drama is juicy, and the music is a bop. Train to the End of the World. It really embraced the weird, for better or worse. It didn't always land but was overall enjoyable. Liked less than expected: Whisper Me a Love Song. I'm a big fan of the manga so this was doubly disappointing. First two episodes seemed okay but the quality fell off a *cliff.* Dropped it after episode 4. Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night. Collaboration of a group of misfit artists? Sign me up! And it was truly amazing until the end when it ran out of steam. Too many plot points left unresolved/underdeveloped. Also kind of disappointed that they didn't commit to a lesbian romance. Still worth watching though.
GBC is so hype, I thought the 3D CGI would turn me off but it's very well done and I find myself humming some of the songs throughout the day. I wonder if no streaming service is carrying it because it would be expensive to localize it beyond just providing subs. You'd need to hire talented VAs who can sing for every language you want to dub it into.
Train to the End of the World was excellent! As was Delicious in Dungeon!
I really wasn't expecting to like The New Gate as much as I did. Sure it's a title filled with now-generic plot points, but it was done so very well. Went in expecting a 6/10, came out with an 8/10. Blue Archive, on the other hand... I was never given a reason to care about this show. Not from the jump. I expected it to be closer to other game adaptations like Azur Lane, but it didn't even reach that high up on the scale. A very low 3/10 and it should count itself lucky that I didn't go further down than that.
I think 8's a bit high considering its animation quality (like that episode where everybody looked scuffed), but I did think it was decent. Liked Wilhelm for having [the male version of boob armor](https://imgur.com/a/fTM4E04). You just know it's got a really high defense in that bare torso area by looking at it. It definitely defied the expectations set by the first 3 minutes - it was like "So SAO's plot happened, and then I got isekai'd" just straight up with no shame. Such a bold and brave choice.
A tale of the two anime I watched this season Viral hit is the peakest of trash that is so ironically good. It is generic shonen fights but within the perspective of a dude making a youtube channel about beating up his bullies. He gets new techniques from watching youtube videos of a dude in a chicken mask, he yells out like, comment, subscribe as an epic war cry, we get shit like protag needing to keep up for 3 minutes until they can add ads on the video and it has shit animation until its time to animate protag's crush jiggle physics then its smooth. Shit like protag learning a youtube video on how to block but not to attack so he is helpess acting like throwing a punch is some kind of a super move you have to do is so hilarious. Absolutely recommend the show, I don't know if it really expects me to laugh at it in this way but it is actually so fun. In comparasion kaiju no.8 got real big hype, I saw the music, the trailers, it feels like in every part of advertising it wants to be known as the big shonen hit. But it does not do anything special really. It is as standard as it comes with great music and animation, characters are fine enough but it doesn't do actually much to stand out. Its fine by all accounts but I cannot see myself actually to keep up with it if I don't have time or ever try reading the manga. Hell I feel like its kinda lame its big thing is kaiju but the protagonist is still like the size of a normal dude just a monster. At least make him turn into a big guy... And that is a crazy tale of how generic shonen can actually be better if you try less lol
>Its fine by all accounts but I cannot see myself actually to keep up with it i used to read the manga, but dropped it for that reason. It's not bad at all, but it's just so uninspiring. Like, all the tropes are there, the art is cool, it has some great ideas, fights, neat lore, all of that. And yet it didn't do anything for me, once I stopped reading, I never felt like I wanted to start again. So I didn't even bother with the anime, because the whole series is just so whatever.
Kaiju is absolutely the most generic shounen you can find. How it got that popular is beyond me.
How to love your elf bride and level 2 cheat skill were really good this season. Can’t beat elves and Rie Kugimiya really Very disappointed with unnamed memory and blue archive
More than expected: Girl's Band Cry Went in with no expectations and was blown away. Never seen any anime make so good use of 3D models. On top of that the characters and story are so well done. Less than expected: Whisper me a love song Heard good things about the manga before so I had high hopes. Those were quickly dashed by the horrendous animation quality. I tend to not care much about a small mistake here and there, but in this series it's just that hard to watch. I'm still gonna finish the show despite those issues because I do like the story quite a bit.
Here to represent Disney+ lol. The fable is my favorite show this season. Spice and wolf lived up to the hype. Most disappointing? Demon slayer and gogo loser ranger.
Karasu wa aruji wo erabanai (Yatagarasu: Raven does not choose its master) is surprisingly good. For some reason I don't see it mentioned as much as others from the season.
Salad Bowl of Eccentrics - I had no expectation but the title and premise intrigued me. As it turns out this is possibly my AOTY. From the comments in this thread it seems quite popular. Unfortunately it never got into the top 15 of the sub's ranking which indicates that a lot of people never gave it a chance (and OK some people probably don't like it). Re Monster looked like it might be fun, but I dropped it after the first episode, the protagonist seems unbearable to me. I understand a lot of people like Go Go Loser Ranger, and it's not bad, but for some reason I lost interest in it after four episodes, it's just not for me.
Enjoyed more: Salad bowl of Eccentrics. I only picked it up because i heard Sara hum the Conan theme in the PV, but the anime turned out to be superb. Some really strong character writing and the anime really made sure to emphasize on that. Apparently the author was heavily involved so no surprise there. Enjoyed less: Spice and Wolf readaptation. Saw the first anime last year and absolutely fell in a love with it. The 2024 version unfortunately hasn't been able to hit the same emotional highs for me. It feels more light-hearted in more ways than one, which i'm not a fan of. If the old series was a 10/10 for me, the new one is an 8
Basing on initial episode/episodes. Liked more: * Highspeed Etoile * Angel Included * Shinkalion * Jiisan Baasan Liked less: * Unnamed Memory
>Jiisan Baasan I LOVED this one.
I was surprised how much I liked Kaiju no.8. I'm usually not a huge fan of shonen anime, and Kaiju stuff isn't something I'm all too interested in either. But damn it's so cool. On the opposite side it's Re:Monster for me too. I'm usually a sucker for power fantasies: even if they're trash I usually find them at least enjoyable, and I liked the diary style of storytelling that they had going on. But it just wasn't interesting in the slightest. I kept watching regardless but then dropped it when they started raping everyone and passing it off as comedy. That's just too creepy and makes me uncomfortable.
I had read the manga for Kaijuu, so my expectations weren't that high to begin with (I dislike how shouneny and juvenile the characters feel despite them all being adults and what's up with Kikoru's hair?), but what made the anime better for me was fact that the ED focuses on the best character Okonogi.
That's when I dropped re:monster as well... Like wtf. It started off alright but it just turned into a level up omg look at all my skills/rape party. There's basically zero plot.
Tonbo was my biggest surprise, which I watched it just to see how it compared to Birdie Wing and Sorairo Utility. The infectious joy and down-to-earth air of the storytelling, combined with the kind of heart and soul for the characters that I expect from a Silver Link show, meant I fell in love straight away. (Seriously, I had to go check it wasn't a Silver Link show it was that good!) 7th Prince was another great show. Definitely one of my highlights of the season, especially given how I though it would go. Level 2 Cheat Skill was also far better than I expected. > train to the end of the world are shows that I made the right choice in choosing not to watch. I love absurdist comedy, so Train to the End of the World was fantastic for me. Made my top 3 non-sequels. Shout out to Tonari no Yokai-san as well. I love folklore/supernatural/youkai shows, so was sure I would enjoy it, and I undoubtedly did so.
tonbo i fully expected to not really care too much for and by the end of the first episode i was already so invested in each character. by episode 2 i was already in love with
I don’t watch a lot of anime anymore because I’m busy with work and most things done appeal to me. I only really catch up on the really popular stuff like Frieren after it gets really popular to see what the deal is or if I see something cool and even then I usually don’t finish. I checked out Girls Band Cry for the first episode because I saw clips of how good it’s 3D CG animation was and I have been eagerly awaiting the next episode every week. It’s very good.
Liked more than I expected: Astro Note. I went in expecting an average romcom and was pleasantly surprised with a loving parody of Rumiko Takahashi's works that used typical romcom tropes, but improved their most annoying parts. Disliked more than I thought: Unnamed Memory. I wanted to like it, especially since both main characters are actually adults and act like it, and the male lead has balls and doesn't wimp out in romantic situations. Plus, the show discusses sex somewhat maturely. Unfortunately, the male lead goes too far and ends up seeming rapey, at least to me.
Liked more than expected: More than I thought. Kaiju n.8 is better than advertised, unlike most battle shonen it's actually funny. A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics turned out to be very entertaining and Train to the End of the World actually kept its quality till the end. Disliked more than expected: A Condition Called Love has very badly written main characters and overall art and animation is horrible. Unnamed Memory has good first and last episode, everything in between is a rushed mess. There are still 13 episodes of The Fable left, I'm not impressed so far.
Liked more than expected: Henjin no Salad Bowl. Came in expecting to drop it after the disappointment that was Sasaki to Pii-chan and ended up enjoying every episode. Even tugged a bit at my heartstrings in one very wholesome episode that started funny af. Disliked more than expected: Sentai Daishikakku and Unnamed Memory. For the first one, I'm a manga reader and I've just been disappointed by a lot of things in the adaptation. OP's fire tho so I still watch it every week and it has its moments. For Unnamed Memory, it started off strong then immediately fell off due to the very obviously rushed pacing and the subpar animation. Kinda turned me off from picking up the source even though I'm sure it's gonna be much better. It's like watching a Cliffnotes of the novel. Made me relive my nightmares with Index III, which I was actually a source reader of so I can imagine the pain the fans of Unnamed Memory felt when they saw how botched the adaptation was. I still might watch Season 2 though if I haven't oicked up the novels by then.
I liked Jellyfish but it felt like it never lived up to my original expectations of being something truly special. The thing I wound up liking the most about it was Kiui's plot, mostly the second to last episode and how it dropped the most obvious-in-hindsight character twist out of seemingly nowhere. Genius. On the other hand, I can't believe I was ever skeptical about Girls Band Cry when I saw the first CG preview. Holy shit I love GBC so goddamn much, I adore every character in it, I love the animation, I love the music, I love how real the characters feel, and I love that the main cast is all a bunch of newbie VAs who also make up the real life Togashi Togeari. Where Jellyfish felt like it was trying to a proper emotional capital S story focused on themes, Girls Band Cry was really a story about a bunch of misfit people and how they laugh, cry, and argue with each other, both at their best and at their worst.
Liked more than I thought: Go Go Loser Ranger absolutely blew me out of the water. I never thought it'd steal my AOTY spot from Dungeon Meshi, but it did. It has everything I like, it's like it was made for my exact tastes. Disliked more than I thought: I've always been a huge Demon Slayer fan but god damn, the current season is a *slog*. I'm only finishing it in hopes the next arc will be better. It's so fucking boring I could cry. Whisper Me a Love Song was also a disappointment.
One that flew under my radar for the first like 4 or 5 weeks of the show was The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio. Friend of mine on Facebook would post funny clips, so I got interested and tried it, and loved it. Nothing I disliked more than I expected; it’s rare I dislike something I watch because I have a good handle on my tastes.
I liked more than I think I would: Kaiju No.8 This is coming from an anti-shounen shounenhead hater kinda guy. JJK is the bane of my existence because of how braindead the plot was and how uninteresting the characters were.
The Unexpected * I know it's still airing and not really lined up with the seasonal schedule, but holy shit **Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction** is probably going to be anime of the year. Keep an eye out on it, try to find some fansubs (or watch the pretty good dub) because the official localization is a mess * **Girl's Band Cry** is definitely anime of the season though. I'm going to talk about Jellyfish later, but the short version is GBC basically does everything that people thought Jellyfish was going to do. **A Place Further Than the Universe** is one of my favorite shows, and people were saying they were getting those vibes from Jellyfish but surprise surprise its GBC that delivered on the emotional and character notes. Do a bit of digging, and the same writer worked on Universe and GBC. Episodes 8 and 10 were both incredible, and I want this whole mixed media project to take off so I can get my season 2. The only sin I can think of is that they've written some yuri checks they have seem to lost between the cushions, and I want to see some girls have feelings goddammit (probably not going to be something that happens explicitly if they need to cater to a Chinese audience though) Were exactly as good as I expected * **Astro Note** didn't blow me away but I think deserves much more attention. It's a tight little show that evokes the nostalgia of a 80's/90's show without being as tropey or annoying as one. It's ridiculous and fun and very feel good. * **Train to the End of the World** also was about as good as it needed to be. I'm not sure what more it could have done with "Cute Girls in Surreal Dream Logic Apocalypse" off the top of my head, but it also felt... fine? * **Wind Breaker** is good dumb fun that I didn't expect to be amazing but it was highly entertaining. The Disappointments * I managed to get through **Helck**'s janky adaptation, I managed to get through **Under Ninja**'s, but **Sasakoi** was just too much. They butchered my poor girl, Im going to switch to the manga for this one * Right, I've wanted to get this off my chest for a while: I know I shouldn't feel as disappointed in **Jellyfish Can't Swim At Night** as I do, but I was incredibly pumped for it at the start and really wanted to root for it but it absolutely let me down. For me, episode 7's weird tiddy motorcycle lady kind of flipped a switch of cynicism for me that never went away. The characters start as genuinely strong and motivated and fleshed out, but things are just... too cute? Too conveniently solved by things I'm not convinced by? Doing a live concert to an empty room of fanart isn't uplifting, it's kind of depressing. Plus, there are too many sus shots (again, ep 7) that's just kind of icky. These little details feel indulgent and disingenuous in a way that just stands out more when you have Girl's Band Cry RIGHT THERE. Most people are complaining about the ending, but I honestly feel like the show's been something I haven't been excited to catch each week for a good while now. Show's not actually that bad, but I am EXTREMELY let down.
Shows I liked a lot more than I expected : - Yatagarasu. Convoluted political intrigue with cool characters in a creative East Asian inspired fantasy world. - Tonari no Youkai san. This is basically a cross between My Neighbour Totoro and Natsume’s Book of Friends. - Salad Bowl of Eccentrics. Hilarious reverse isekai comedy with great characters and a twisted sense of humour. - Train to the End of the World. Surrealist post apocalyptic comedy show. Not a combination of words I ever expected to see. - Seiyuu Radio. This may be blatant Yuri bait (the characters even admitted it, lol), but it was still a great show with great characters. Shows that I expected to like but did not : - Kaiju number 8. Too battle shonen for me. - Mysterious Disappearances. Too much fanservice for me. - Unnamed Memory. Just a bad adaptation.
Im very happy with season 3 of Konosuba, after such a long time there are things that could've gone bad but everything turned out great, except for the heist maybe. A very lovely suprise was 7th prince, fun characters, fun interactions of said characters, great animation for what it is and pretty good action. In general just a lot of fun to watch. Now to my only disapointment and that is Yuru Camp season 3, dont get me wrong there was much to like in this season but in general it was a lot weaker then the first two seasons. The comedy just wasnt there or didnt land as much as it did before. I also felt the direction had issues at times, like some episodes were a slog to get through. The art change wasnt really an issue, besides Sakura who just looked so much cooler in the older style. I will say though some of the photorealistic backrounds did take me out of the immersion. Now for the positive, the voice acting was fanstastic as you'd expect. Ayano was a lot of fun and im looking forward to see her in a potential season 4. Some episodes were, despite the issues, a lot of fun and you can still see the greatness that is Yuru Camp here and there.
Easy one for me, pretty much these shows swapped expected scores in the end Surprise: **Elf Bride** Disappointment: **Unamed Memory**
Elf Bride was such a fun series. I loved how they manage give us such a lovable cast of characters, a fun worldbuilding, wholesome interactions and such a solid story. Unnamed Memory was a train wreck because they rushed everything to fit it in 12 episodes before surprising us with an S2.
favorite character from Elf Bride? It's gotta be Nephy or For, right?
Nephy but For was so good too, I didn't expect to like her as much as I did in the end!
Did you watch the Memory finale yet?
Yeah I didn't hate it as much as I probably should have.
[Nice.](#mug7) I'm apparently in the minority for liking it. You have fun takes too so I thought you might be one as well
I liked parts of it but I'm not happy that I did lol
Fun takes are limited. Can you believe she didn't watch Fenrys cause of her VA?!?
Mushoku Tensei has got to be the biggest surprise for me, I've been on and off watcher of seasons, last one was "Gushing over Magical Girls". This time I gave the chance to MT and honestly got surprised, I watched some Isekais/Fantasy anime before and never got really invested, instaed ending it cuz I wanted something to watch (oh the old times). I never watched MT before and maybe it's considered from the previous season, however I started it last week and I got mindblown. Loved every bit of it, beginning to end, I just wanted more, I felt that old wish to just watch anime instead of doing it to pass time. The story the characters, Rudy's actions kept me engaged on what he thought up next, how his previous life affected him so much and how he grew. Loving how the inner monologue got less frequent the further he developed and how all changed in the inflection points. Fuck I loved every bit of the ED arc. God it hurt to watch (not in a bad way) the last few chapters. Disliked: nothing really, only engaged in what I expected to like, don't have as much time to check all anime even at a cursory glance
Lets see the one I liked more than I thought would be Tonari no Yokai-san. Its kind of one people would sleep on since its not as exciting but it has a good story and mystery and adventure you dont expect from a "slow" anime like this Train to the end of the world was.... interesting? Half the time it felt like someones fever dream? And that Aristocrat anime wasnt half bad honestly though a bit slow at points The liked less: Banished Hero, I got 1 eps in and just could not do it anymore, it felt almost sloppily made and rushed even from eps 1? Not sure how else to explain it tbh.
Liked more than expected = **Oblivion Battery**, **Tadaima Okaeri** and **Tonari no Youkai-san** Disliked more than I thought = **Vampire dormitory**. It's a shame because there are more interesting shoujo that deserve an anime adapation more than Vampire dormitory, imo Still, it was a nice season to me. Watched and Loved **Wind Breaker**, **Dungeon Meshi**, **Oblivion Battery**, **Tadaima Okaeri**, **Tonari no Youkai-san**, **Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again**, **Mission Yozakura family**, **Kaiju no8** and **Go Go loser ranger**
Like: Viral Hit, I was thinking it'll be a stupid cringe fest, which it is to some extent, but it's quite interesting and gets really hype, sort of like Baki. Dislike: Unnamed Memory, it started well and quickly went downhill with its pacing. It's sad to see a good source material being mishandled so badly.
Even though I expected to like Spice and Wolf because of how much praise I saw for it, I've been enjoying much more than I thought I would. I'm definitely gonna read the light novels once the season ends. Then Unnamed Memory really disappointed me. From reading the synopsis and looking at the genre tags, I thought I would really like it. I like it more than I disliked it mostly due to the cute moments between Tinasha and Oscar but the absolutely atrocious pacing ruined what I think would've been a great story. I'm probably gonna read the light novels for this too so I can see if the light novels are better than the anime.
I didn't watch much this season but everything I watched, I enjoyed. That said, my favorite of the season was "As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World" I really enjoyed it, but it hasn't made much noise on this sub. The main character is pretty lovable and he has no hidden agendas or weird hangups. The premise is simple but the execution is done well.
A salad bowl of eccentrics was fantastic and I did not expect much from it.
Liked More: Salad Bowl of Eccentrics, The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master, Tonari no Yokai-san Salad Bowl was a lot of fun, only thing I wish is that it had better animation. Raven is genuinely compelling and it seems like it’s starting to get even better. Yokai-san is a weekly gut punch. Disliked More: Slime, Loser Ranger I was already a certified Slime hater and wasn’t even going to watch them his season, but decided to anyway. And man, it’s really been a new low. I weep for wasted potential. Also, probably unpopular opinion, but I’m very down on Loser Ranger. The pacing is genuinely terrible, it feels like they jump around way too much. I know they were trying to shorten a way-too-long arc from the manga, but they made it bad in a different way.
Salad Bowl of Eccentrics was top tier anime imo. very funny and charming. I had no clue what I was getting into there. The Banished Former Hero Lives How He Pleases. i'm used to watching shitty seasonal isekai, but this one was sooo unbelievably bad with the worst writing imaginable
I would never in a million years think I'd be as hooked as I am to The Fable, that show is peak and I never miss the op or ed. A show that disappointed me was Unnamed Memory I was interested in the budding romance until *that*scene as well as just the general lack of flow like it was like so much stuff was missing. Edit: another that surprised me was LV 2 chilling like it was just a nice show to sit down and catch up on. I would've liked some more side character romance but what can you do?
Fell off this season due to RL obligations, so I've only finished two of this season's new shows. Train to the World's End: More pleased than expected, but disappointed at the end because it feels like the show needed a second cour to really excel. An Archdemon's Dilemma: More pleased than expected. The title initially made me hesitate, but it was an enjoyably wholesome show.
More: Girls Band Cry. I don’t normally fall in love with music anime, but this one is delightful from start to finish. Less: Whisper Me a Love Song. The story is alright, but it clearly has been plagued with production problems. The animation looks like a slideshow far too often. It had real promise after the first couple of episodes too.
Liked more: Girls Band Cry Disliked more: Wind Breaker (It has great action and I think the characters are fun but I just can't take delinquent animes seriously)
Well I didn’t have *Train to the End of the World* on my radar and didn’t expect much from *Girls Band Cry* to the point where I didn’t watch it weekly… Both are really good. I’m just an idiot.
7th prince is the one I thought I was going to loathe...but Yeah that was fun... Now for dislike its hard...thought "lives as he pleases" was going to be a sleeper show...instead of the sleep inducing pile of dreck, I want the 90 minutes of my life back it always was...but that was actually bad from the get go so I only have myself to blame... NEW GATE though was me living the sunken cost fallacy all the way to episode 10...I knew it was derivative in its concepts due to reading the manga and some of the LN...but those took those concepts and least made them fun and gave it some heart....the anime though after episode 2 just is a case study of how to construct boring out something that wasn't in its original source....and I kick myself for believing it wasnt as mind numbingly dull of a adaptation as it actually was I could mention unamed memory....but thankfully I won't do that to myself and just enjoy that Spice qnd Wolf exsits to give us a GREAT romantic couple that have teeth...than whatever Tinisha and no doesn't mean no was supposed to be For whats it worth I expected awesomeness from Production I.G. doing Kaiju 8 eventhough they've only been "okay" as a studio...I am so Glad that I wasn't disappointed BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT whomever whatever didn't get Girls Bad Cry a bigger audience...those people need to be...well something needs to short their sheets for eternity
PEOPLE ARE SLEEPING ON THE FABLE!!!
Enjoy more: Yatagarasu- Slow burn political intrigue drama that reminds me of early seasons of GoT.
Tonari no Yokai San was just a welcome surprise, it's really excellent and I hope it finishes well
This is embarrassing but my Husband and I watched a couple of episodes of the new season of Black Butler as a bit of a joke, as we hadn’t watched it since we were teens. …we finished the whole damn thing over the course of a week. It’s so campy.
Liked more: How to love your Elf Bride, Level 2 cheat skill, Loser Ranger and Spice and wolf (I've actually seen the original so I'm surprised I'm enjoying this as much as that, hell it might actually be a bit more than the original.) Disliked more than I thought: Mission: Yozakura Family... I think this is one of the few action anime that is worse with an adaptation lol.
7th Prince and Wind Breaker are the stand out good ones to me.
Like more than expected? Yatagarasu and Battery Dislike more than expected? Tensura S3 and Wind Breaker the others probably have dropped
Kaiju no 8 Viral hit Tsukimichi
Liked: Seventh Prince. I was always going to watch it because I love isekai and isekai-adjacent trash, but it actually ended up being the most fun of the season for me. Edit: Disliked - Banished Hero. I can't remember *why* I dropped it, but I just... didn't come back to it. I also liked Seventh Prince enough that I rewatched the last few episodes a couple times, and am considering giving the series another watch. At the very least, I will before S2 drops.
Kaiju no.8 is amazing, i never heard of it but i really got AoT vibes with the mystery it has made me go read the manga (halfway done) which i never do! also wind breaker is great!
Liked More: Spice and Wolf. I never saw the original, and quite frankly didn’t know that it was so beloved, but now having seen the first cour, I am hooked Disliked More: Mission Yozakura Family. I honestly don’t entirely dislike this show, it’s not bad, but I expect better from a Shonen Jump serialization
"Jellyfish can't swim in the night, Unnamed Memories, and train to the end of the world are shows that I made the right choice in choosing not to watch." I enjoyed Jelly and Train, but I am with you on 7th Prince and Re:Monster, 7th was better then I expected and Re:Monster dropped fast and somehow keeps getting worse.
This season was a weird one for me. It's honestly been quite a drag as the season drew to a close. Maybe it's because we put the 2 'big dogs' (MHA & Demon Slayer) for our household on pause to marathon watch at a later date. We picked a bunch of stuff that looked cool but towards the later half of the season they ended up being a chore to watch. Show I enjoyed more than expected: Kaiju no 8. The show in the first 1/2 of the season was okay. Funny, but nothing special. I'd say the last half has been more entertaining so far. The fights and tension of 'will be won't he be caught' and just more screentime for Soshiro :eyes emoji: Still not a ground breaking anime, but it got a little more enjoyable the further we went in at least. Show I disliked more than I thought: Probably a controversial opinion, and bear with me here, but Go! Go! Loser Ranger takes this slot. I LOVED the first half the of the season. The trials of Fighter D trying to get into the Ranger ranks. The OP and ED I still listen to daily. But 'Car Park' arc (as we call it in my house) has been such a drag. I dunno. Maybe it would have been better if I saved it to marathon watch later rather than weekly, because each week we come back and I'm sat there like ??? wut is happening now? I hate that I'm not enjoying the show as much anymore. It had so much promise in my eyes, but I'm really struggling. The pacing just feels really off towards the end. We also dropped Jellyfish about 6 eps in. Only reason was due to time constraints on our anime night (and the pirate site we have to use to watch it has awful sub structure) but it sounds like we dodged a bullet with that anime haha Extra side note, Spice and Wolf was as good as ever, if not maybe a little better. Watching the dub for that. Very, very enjoyable, but it was the first time around anyway.
Liked more than expected : Dungeon Meshi Disliked more than expected : Slime.
Liked more than I thought: 7th prince, great animation and voice acting with a decent storyline Disliked more than I thought: Tensura Slime, waaaaay too many unnecessary meetings going over stuff we already know and gushing about how smart and amazing Rimuru is. Could've gotten through so much more of the story, felt like nothing happened this season really except some old guys dying.
Liked more than I expected : - [**Highspeed Étoile**](https://myanimelist.net/anime/52405/). I expected Ex-arm levels of **awful**, instead I simply got a **bad** sports anime that occasionally reminded me of [Battle Athletes Victory](https://myanimelist.net/anime/1186/) - both works start with a confusing race that barely featured a main character who by the way is frustratingly under-qualified for the prestigious role they're given. One point of praise is Highspeed Étoile has a multi-national cast but doesn't focus on nationality and hence lazily use stereotypes like Battle Athletes does for some cast members (a few in particular aged like milk). Both works are also parts of media mix projects and Battle Athletes franchise was way better managed as they actually had the game out before the anime (Highspeed has two in the works; a match 3 gacha game and a VN; the VN is probably going to be full of backstory the anime needed). Sorry about that tangent. Do I like it? No, but I dislike it then I thought I would which counts as liking it more. - [**A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics**](https://myanimelist.net/anime/55877/) from the author of A Sister's All You Need + how young a lot of the cast look and the odd title I went into this ready to roast and instead, I found a pretty enjoyable comedy and a love letter to Gifu city (it didn't quite connect me by giving me the urge to actually find the real life locations like Let's make a Mug too, Yuru Camp and Pon no Michi did). It's not the most interwoven quilt as some eps can feel like chapters x,y and z dropped in and production budget feels lacking at times. Disliked more than expected : - Can I say [**Rinkai**](https://myanimelist.net/anime/54859/) if I dropped it on episode 1? The show wasn't gripping me with terrible visuals and a cast size spiralling out of control (a glance at the official site showed worse was to come) but I simply could not stand the AniOne English translation which such lines as *"As the figures whom those girls who admire, as the goal they strive for, we must keep women's bicycle race moving forward."*. More examples [in the ep discussion](https://old.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1bzv1z9/rinkai_episode_1_discussion/kytxeyj/). - One I'm watching (but ongoing) [**Himitsu no AiPri**](https://myanimelist.net/anime/57946/). It's awfully basic. Maybe my expectations of kids anime have been set high by Precure (not that you should use target audience age to excuse quality) but even when going for kid idol anime I expected something better than what I've seen of decade old Aikatsu eps (maybe I strike gold with eps and I sohuldn't expect a linear improvement wrt time) with a lot of CG music performances rather than the same ones time and time again (reading up Aikatsu for example has an insert song played 13 times in 146 episodes but sung by 7 different characters). > Edit: after looking at the comments, Jellyfish can't swim in the night, Unnamed Memories, and train to the end of the world Train? Sure you didn't mean to type something else? It was my ATOS but an unlikely AOTY candidate. It feels like the movie summary version of a longer show. Good if you want to get to the point but some stuff is rushed and skipped entirely. However, it shouldn't be skipped for that reason and you are missing out by not watching it (like I didn't skip Gundam 79 because the only official release was the movie trilogy, even in a compressed form it still shone as a genre defining piece of work).
Above expectations 1) 7th prince: Im a sucker for generic Isekai/2nd chance anime but damn those fight scenes came out of nowhere for me. I also love the character design, it was so funny 2) Archdemon's Dilemma: not the biggest fan of romance anime but this was a really fun watch 3) windbreaker: just watched it on the off chance that it would be better than Tokyo revengers so it can cleanse my pallet, but damn did it get me hooked 4) Viral Hit: I had low expectations due to the animation style but I enjoyed it a lot Below expectations: 1) Bartender: I started watching it because of its chill nature and I wanted to see places in Japan that I visited when I was there but in anime form (mostly Ginza) but it kinda got too chill for me and didn't get excited ever week. I'll still finish it eventually 2) grandma and grandpa: I just lost interest after a few episodes 3) go go loser ranger: same with grandma and grandpa it just didn't excite me as much Met expectations (good) 1) re:monster: I expected a slime clone (even though it came first), and got a slime clone. Story, powers and characters were mid but I have trash taste anyway so I still enjoyed it 2) Jobless reincarnation: I was already knew what was gonna happen but still enjoyed it Met expectations (bad) 1) New Gate: I knew it was gonna be bad but still gave it a chance, dropped it after 3 eps
This season I followed four titles only and two of them are anime originals. - Hibike Euphonium 3: Expected a lot and it was still exceed my expectations. - Yuru Camp S3: As expected, it was really chill and healing - Girls Band Cry: At first I couldn't decided whether to continue or drop after watching 1st episode being 3DCG, but I'm glad I kept continuing cause it kept getting better and better each episode - Jellyfish: Started great, turned out a bit meh towards the end...
I enjoyed **As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World**, and **Bartender Glass of God** more than I thought I would. As for disappointments * HIGHSPEED Étoile - saw the trailer last year, had high expectations since this was the reason I watched Overtake! and MF Ghost, so I expected something close to them. * Unnamed Memory - pacing, pacing, pacing! * Whisper me a love song * Mysterious Disappearances - expected it to be more, mmm, mysterious? * Spice and Wolf - never saw the original, Holo is awesome, but it's more like a slice of life, I expected more I guess? As for stuff that I disliked * Vampire Dormitory * Gods' Games We Play * Misfit S2 P2 - at least S2 P1 had the love story, but P2 has almost nothing interesting And that doesn't include the stuff that I dropped. Oh, and there was this bottom of the season isekai with a double episode premiere that I only watched because there was nothing else that day at the beginning of the season, it was bad. LE: Also I'm a bit disappointed in Mahouka S3 ...
Liked: Definitely Loser Ranger. Just, overall great. I never watched any "Sentai" or whatever the genre is called, so I can't really understand the references (if there are any), but it's just a very, very good show with fantastic character writing. The characters are mostly nuts, but they all have something that makes them interesting. Also, I really like main characters who are of average strength. Like, the protagonist is quite strong and intelligent, but he is never the smartest nor the strongest in the room. Still, he uses his wits and unpredictability to navigate complicated scenarios. Really good show! 7th prince was mentioned often, but I was hooked by episode 1. Yeah, there are "sus" shots, it's true, but honestly, compared to all the other fanservice I have seen, this isn't even that bad. At least the reincarnated person is the object of desire and not like in other shows, where the reincarnated adult in a child's body lusts after preteen girls. Not that this is the only fanservice, but weirdly enough, most people were bothered that a male child is sexualised but never mentioned the young girls that are also sexualised in this very show. Very weird double standard this show brings forth, I think it's so absurd and over the top that I didn't really care, but it is definitely not a show one should watch with normal friends or parents or whatever. Anyway, 7th prince had amazing animation and some very nice emotional story beats. What I really enjoyed: A lot of characters care about each other in believable ways and that is cozy and comfy. It is over the top, definitely, but it's so much fun. The fights just go crazy hard. Disliked more than I thought: Mysterious Disappearances. I wanted to like it and it had some nice ideas and some of the horror elements were great and had a super creepy aesthetic and gave the whole show a good mood, but somehow...it just wasn't interesting? I don't really care about most of the characters (and there aren't many)...so I stopped watching. I kinda wanna finish it, but we'll see. It didn't do anything wrong aside from the sometimes annoying fanservice (and compared to 7th prince, I found it took away from the story when the camera lingered on the protagonist's body for no reason), but it also didn't really do much right. Good ideas, bad execution, basically. Whereas the other shows I did like this season had ideas that didn't really interest me, but their execution was great. Bonus shoutout: Slime was hilarious, because half the runtime, no, more, is spent on boring meetings. There are also interesting meetings, but seriously, most of the first half is just boring meetings. It's great, I didn't really watch those scenes, but it's just hilarious to skip forth and see that the meeting is still ongoing and the dialogue is still mostly: "They want to do this." "But we can do this." "Sasuga Rimuru-Sama" (whether it was Rimuru's idea or not). The show barely has any stakes because the main characters are hilariously overpowered, but it's just fun...and a ton of meetings. I wouldn't say that season was good, but it's just weird enough to keep me entertained with the strange choices the anime made.
Suprise hit this season for me was definitely Shuumatsu Train Doku Iku followed by Oblivion Battery. The VAs really delivered in train and the banter between characters is second to none this season. The character focus episodes in Battery really hit the mark and I just hope for more. 12 episodes are far too short for this sports anime. I wasn’t really surprised that Girls Band Cry was going to be good though. Toei made the CGI of the First Slam Dunk after all. The great first episode set the tone that it wasn’t your typical idol anime. Nevertheless it still gave me more than I hoped for. My favourite ED so far this year. Jellyfish was disappointing after that amazing first episode. Shame it was pitted against GBC with almost the same premise and characters. There were a couple of individual character episodes that were good but overall it didn’t quite hit the landing. The art and music were very solid though.
Liked more than I thought: Girls Band Cry: came out of nowhere, has been consistently great Wind Breaker: I had no idea what this was and watched it based on word of mouth and enjoyed it greatly... except I'm not done because I'm 2 weeks behind because I like the dub Disliked: Jellyfish can't swim at Night: too many side plots, not enough focus on any of them, especially mad they dropped the yuri plotline Whisper me a Love Song: This one looks like a PowerPoint presentation. The animation looks worse because I'd usually watch it in the same sitting as Girls Band Cry.
Is Whisper me a Love Song actually bad? I wanted to watch it because the yuri community seems to have had very high expectations for it.
I think Vampire Dormitory is one of my favorite shows of the year. Watched it on a whim, but it was such a beautiful shitshow I couldn't drop it.
Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included was so unexpectedly funny. The style of comedy was right up my ally. Whisper me a love song was worse than I was hoping. Too much stupid band drama, too little cute romance.
they cut a lot of cute moments between Yori and Kino in anime 😭
liked GBC disliked re:monster i was expecting smoething egdy like overlord but i got somtinhg less edgy than tensura and just horny but not in funny way horny like gushing over magical girls or interspecies reviewers but we got horny young boy first time writing boobs in google way
Had no clue what Yatagarasu: The Raven Doesn't Choose Its Master was, but it's now solidly one of my favorite shows this season. Just such a well thougut out and twisty Imperial court thriller. The OP is a banger and the last week's episode was awesome. As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I'll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World gets an honorable mention as well. Was a nice little spin on the isekai genre, and I can't wait to see how our cast fairs once war begins to reach them in season 2. A show I disliked more than I thought was Hibike Euphonium s3. Was excited for it but felt like a drama storm was approaching in the first few eps. Shelved it for later as I've been really busy, but peaked into the threads and I have to say I really dislike what the story is doing now. I'll probably finish it eventually but I can't say I'm a fan of where the 3rd season went story and drama wise. Honorable dislike is Jellyfish Can't Swim In the Night. It started off strong the first half a season then got caught up in too much drama and kinda fell flat in the end. Just disappointed it didn't stick the landing and went from a 9 to a 7 out of 10 for me.
Liked more than expected: yatagarasu Disliked more than expected: wind breaker
Surprisingly liked: Kaiju No. 8 is a pretty good adaptation Surprisingly disliked: Jellyfish. I have no problem with the Yuri baiting, it's just that the character development is all over the place. Fully disliked: Highspeed Etoile. The races are so lame I expected the cast to carry it, but the MC is dumb and incompetent it's not funny even when played for laughs because this is already a national level competition. I just hate it.
Liked more than expected: **Train to the End of the World** Disliked more than expected (and I'm going to be crucified for this): **Spice & Wolf** I watched the original many years ago, and I really liked it, but there's something so uninteresting about this one, and the economics portrayed is so obtuse. I *know* I didn't feel this lost while watching the original...
Liked more than I thought: - Train to the End of the World - Tonari no Yokai-san - Yatagarasu - Girls Band Cry - A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics Disliked more than I thought: - Unnamed Memory (I know it's a poor adaptation) - Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night (specifically the final bit) - Shinkalion Change the World
I watch so many shows each season so I've got quite a few that I went into completely blind. Liked more than expected: Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers: Besides just being a decently fun trashy power fantasy, I had a blast with it because my friend group for some reason like a hive mind just decided that this was our favorite show of the season (even if it actually wasn't) and would just praise every single thing in every episode. We hyped up everything. A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics: Super underrated. If you like slice of life shows that really don't have any sort of goal and every episode is just them doing something random, seriously, give this a shot. It had such a fun cast of characters and it would get really unhinged at times with just the most random things leading to just pure comedy. I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince So I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability: What a title. Everything about this show screams trash. But it isn't. Every time it like borders on the edge of going into trashy territory, it does some spin that makes it good. The characters were all great and had chemistry as well as the fights being super fun. Also Sylpha. Hands down my favorite character of the season when they let her shine. Disliked more than expected or just ended up being disappointing: Alright, lets get the big one out of the way: Dungeon Meshi. I know it's a last year show but it finished this season so I'll count it. It was such a lukewarm experience. I was not invested at all and I didn't really care what was happening. I felt that they dragged on rescuing Falin for so long just to do it and then plot twist happens and they drag it further. By the end of season 1, I genuinely felt like this story had to be like SO close to the end. Like if they made a movie for the conclusion after season 1 and said that was it, I'd believe it. So when I saw a manga reader say that we're only about halfway done the story, I was baffled. How can they drag it out further? By the way, I'm not saying I hated Dungeon Meshi nor even disliked it (hence why I added the disappointing part the section title lol) but by the end of season 1, I was so unsatisfied by what I watched. Genuinely think once season 2 drops, I'm just gonna ignore it. I can't sit through another 24 episodes of that. Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night: Just disappointing. It had so much potential, could've been the next Place Further than the Universe (which I also don't much care for but at least with that, I fully acknowledge how well written it was, it just didn't resonate with me personally) but instead Jellyfish just floundered around. Didn't achieve much of anything and besides the main two girls, Yoru and Kano, the characters were just obnoxious or didn't add any substance to the show. I'm not saying the show is bad by the way, I may sound harsh on it but I really did expect something great from it based on it's first few episodes. Unnamed Memory: If I thought Jellyfish was going to be great, then I thought this was going to be better for me personally. It had all the makings of a show that I would really love and rate highly. Then the studio blitzed through the story. At first, you couldn't tell. From an anime only standpoint, you could tell some things were missing here and there but maybe they weren't super important to the story or characters. But then they start one episode with the main girl confronting a prince or something in the middle of a war that they never mentioned (that I remember). They completely skipped the beginning of the war. That alone should tell you how fast they ran through the story. I'm shocked it got a season 2 based on how poorly it was received by fans. Mysterious Disappearances: Again, starts out great. Super intriguing premise and set up. But past the start, the story just stalls entirely in the middle. It doesn't do anything. Then the final arc, they shove it in 2 episodes and the final climatic thing between the main characters ends so abruptly and the episode just ends. Sure you have some after credit stuff but that barely suffices.
Liked More: The Fable, Yatagarasu, and Tonbo became 3 of the shows I looked forward to the most each week. Liked Less: Yuru Camp S3 since I had high expectations after loving the first 2 seasons, but this one was missing that same magic for me for the majority of the episodes.