Happy Thanksgiving week to those of us in the US this week. As befitting this holiday, I am traveling this week and staying with family. My connectivity is going to be extremely limited this week due to my hosts not having home internet and cell signal being near non-existent (essentially living off the grid unless I drive into town).

Why this is relevant to all of you, it means I won’t be able to be as on the ball as normal with things like handling screenshots with rikka or posting as much news. On the good news side of things for me, I am going to be eating delicious food all week. On the bad news side of things for me, I will eat way too much.

One thing I wanted to call out in particular is to make sure you are subscribed to !dandadan@ani.social so that the new episode discussion thread is federated to your instance this week. I will be delayed in posting the link to it in this community on Thursday, so just go ahead and reach it directly. @GordonFreeman@ani.social has done an excellent job with the discussion posts this season, so I want to make sure people can access it even when I will be slow in posting a link to it.

Good season so far. I’m following four shows (as I usually do) and I’m happy that three of them are good to great.

Dan Da Dan is a rare instance of a show that can do everything. The characters are enjoyable, the comedy is on point, the action is punchy and easy to follow, and the show can even pull off drama really well when it wants to. Impressive. I don’t have much else to say, really.

Orb is the freshest work I’ve seen since Frieren. Possibly fresher than Frieren, actually.

There are virtually none of the staples ones would expect from anime; there is no world to be saved and society itself is more the villain than the literal torturer is. Stakes are personal but feel high. Action is very limited and it’s mostly a science-philosophical exploration of theological dogma through the lens of astronomy. It’s basically like a particularly talky Star Trek episode but in medieval Poland.

On top of that, the characters, presentation, and story are all of high quality.

I didn’t think the industry had something like this in it and it might beat Dan Da Dan as my anime of the season. While Dan Da Dan’s punches land flawlessly, Orb is a master of an entirely different martial art, one rarely seen in the genre.

Demon Lord 2099 is nothing particularly special but is a solid example of getting your balance right. The magical and cyberpunk aspects of the show are well-balanced, as are mild comedy, action, and drama. The show is aware that it can’t take itself too seriously. Honestly, the most jarring element is the random V-tuber cameo that fails to match the art style. All in all a good mix, although not one that I will really remember much about in a few years.

Mecha-Ude is a nice example of a show that doesn’t know where it’s strengths lie. The story is bland and clumsily told, the protagonist may as well not have bothered showing up, the action is stale, and the show is really bad at drama but thinks that’s one of its strengths. What it is good at is being silly – honestly, this could’ve worked well as a zany comedy. Its near-total lack of self-awareness keeps is from capitalizing on that, however.

Weekly ranking roundup:

1. Anime Corner - Full Results - Weekly Winner: Bleach: TYBW
2. Reddit Karma - Weekly Winner: Dan Da Dan

Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma and /u/Nooble5 for the Anime Trending chart.

The karma for Dan Da Dan came back down to a more normal level this week after the high of episode 7. However, don’t mistake that for the show being more normal because it decidedly is not. Bleach is atop the AC rankings this week again, so the world is healing bit by bit.

I have finished all of Minami-ke, for now. It’s not the best thing ever but it grew on me. Season 1 is decent, season 2 is the worst in my opinion. Season 3 is decent again and season 4 felt quite comfy. In 2025 season 5 will come out after a gap of more than 10 years. It will join Hidamari Sketch as a rare slice of life with 5 full seasons. Both classic SOL that started in 2007. I also finished all of Gochuumon wa Usagi desuka. It is just a very good show, I hope for another season one day.

I’ve changed my mind about Murai in Love. It had such a formulaic romance climax that I should have known better than to judge it before the end. To be fair, I think that romance stories should avoid using forced drama as their climax, but perhaps that’s just me.

Thoughts on final episode:

By the way, after listening to the opening song Henshin! a few more times, it ended up growing on me.

Anyway, I’m happy enough with the ending, so I’m bumping its score back up to 10 / 10. It also means it would be the first shoujo anime to enter my top favourites (though I noticed a significant number of listings are missing a demographic tag so it may not really be the first). Time will tell if stays up there though; I have revised scores downward after some time has passed when recency bias has less effect on me.

Also completed Barakamon, which is a big step up from Handa-kun IMO. Both are about equally funny (i.e. not funny enough), but Barakamon felt a lot more mature and meaningful.

I like the supporting casts more as well.

This feels like an 8.5, so I’m gonna be generous and round it up to 9 / 10.

So now that the weather’s turning, I’m watching more anime, but since nothing this season grabbed me, I’m reaching back into the past some more. With sort of interesting results.

I watched Renai Flops early in the week. It was a fine example of a decent idea poorly executed. The set-up is a fairly ludicrous and contrived harem story that tediously hits on all the tropes, then there’s a big reveal that changes the direction of the story and makes all of the early silliness make sense. And it does a decent job of that all in all, with one gigantic flaw - the reveal comes far too late (in episode 8 IIRC). So the first two-thirds of the series is tedious and wearing, and the last third is rushed and therefore shallow and unsatisfying. It was okay all in all, once I trudged through the earlier episodes, but it could’ve been much better with better pacing.

Then I finished up Metallic Rouge, which was okay. Very stylish and a decently told and decently interesting story, but just somehow sort of drab overall in spite of that.

Then, most recently, I watched Renkin San-Kyuu Magical Pokaan, which was a lot of fun. I stumbled on it looking for something that was just unapologetically silly and weird - I have a soft spot for animes like that (e.g. Nichijou, Pani Poni Dash, Azumanga Daioh…) And it’s definitely that. And an odd thing came of it. I’ve never really understood the appeal of furries, but I got some insight into that with Liru, who’s just an outstanding character design. While I’m too old and jaded for her to awaken an entirely new kink, I can absolutely see how it’s likely that if I was younger and more impressionable, she definitely would’ve done that. And, I have no doubt, did do that for an awful lot of people back in the day.

And at the moment, I’m watching Akudama Drive, which is okay. I love the artstyle, but overall, it’s just in a weird middle ground - too over-the-top to take it seriously but too serious to treat as a satire. If it was less serious, it could be Kill la Kill, and if it was more serious it could be Ergo Proxy, but it’s neither. It’s okay, bit so far nothing special.

The list of anime I’m watching this season is shrinking every week it seems. Acrotrip has gotten pretty stale for me and watching it feels a bit like a chore, so I’ve dropped it. 365 Days Till The Wedding has had another frustrating episode last week as well. I’m not dropping it yet, but I’m not enjoying it as much anymore unfortunately.

Thankfully, Dandadan is still strong and NegaPosi Angler has been rising the ranks for me. Also still really enjoying 2.5D Seduction, so it’s not all bad this season.

Still need to give Orb a chance…