Later than usual on this, been busy (in a good way) so not caught up on it all and on a bad side one of my favourite places to watch on the high seas is gone so finding a new place to go sailing
Good season overall, plenty to watch and 4 good heavy hitters. Also side note, if you were waiting for the last episodes of Nier amd Demon King to be released, those have dropped so can watch the entire season now.
The heavy hitters:
Mushoku Tensei Season 2 part 1: I put this first as I personally enjoyed this the most, our guy suffering from ED thanks to the ending of season 1 and a LOT of revelations in this season than big action scenes.
Bleach: TYBW part 2: of course this here and great news for manga guys, this anime is fixing plot holes from the original manga.
Zom 100: ever had a job that was so depressing it made you wish for the apocalypse so you didn't have to go in the next day? Is this the anime for you! Bright with comedy elements but doesn't shy away from dark moments.
Jujitsu Kaisen: good return to form and excellent actions scenes to watch.
Still good but more personal preference:
Atelier Ryzu the animation: Yes I am a proud member of thighology, what about it? It's a calm ok anime but I know why you're here, the animators DEFINITELY know from the angles, just admit it.
Reborn as a vending machine: following the example of 'reborn as a sword' showing that your main mc can be reborn as an inanimate object and STILL have more personality than the average Hollywood protagonist
The Devil is a part timer season 2 part 2: it's good with funny moments, I think the unfortunate thing is that when it first released it was more unique and now it's competing in a saturated market.
Reign of the seven spell blades: Interesting premise of a non-pussy hogwarts where everyone's carrying, death rate is 20% and headmaster is a dark side milf.
The great cleric: only carried this on as 1. The animation baited me as it reminded me of 1990s- early 2000s anime style and as someone who occasionally plays healers I sympathise with their plights.
Need to catch up on:
Undead murder Farce: really interesting premise but not enough into it
Dark Gathering: despite how one of the main characters looks, VERY dark series so be warned.
My happy Marriage: heard good things about it but I need to watch more.
Liar liar: it's basically twitter if everyone had above room temperature IQ, everyone's putting up a front and there's a system to steal prestige from each other in this academy setting but if you steal one 'red star' you are granted the ability to tell one lie EVERYONE will believe.
The Gene of AI: a Madhouse work that explores relationships between AI and humans and the personality and consciousness concepts if you have the ability to save it after death.
My Tiny Senpai: other than the twitter rage it caused during announcement, it's ok just wish it was developed more as they are adults working in an office not a high school romance.
The dreaming boy is a realist: I actually have read the manga for this so like to see how the anime compares. A boy who simps hard for one girl just decides to stop and accept she doesn't like him, leading to a situation where she is confused about her feelings now that he's stopped chasing her.
I need to get round to watching:
Saint Cecila and the Pastor Lawrence
HECK
Average:
My unique Skill makes me Op at level 1: standard isekai where guy starts off apparently weak but gets op fast. It's ok but that's it
Dropped
The girl I like forgot her Glasses AND The masterful Cat is depressed again today: GoHands, the people who made the both of these, wtf is with you? Why do you keep doing weird animation angles? I had to drop both of these because I was getting sick, not in a 'I'm sick of this genre' sense, motion sickness. Your animation style was giving me motion sickness!
That's the lot for this season, anything I missed feel free to add and let's hope the left continues to be gatekept.
If you're looking for another place to yarr your weeby ways, aniwave.to (previously 9anime) seems pretty reliable.
Thanks mate, it's like a never ending voyage at times to view things.
I just wish a Japanese company would essentially make a Steam for anime only so we could buy and view EVERYTHING in one place.
Seconded. Never had any real complaints. The very rare downtime, but that's not too out of the ordinary for a gray market site. I use adblock anyway, but I've heard people say the ads can be overwhelming, so grab an adblocker for sure.
Oh, and if you want to track your stuff, choose if you want to use on-site or MyAnimeList from the start, as I saw someone complaining they lost their whole on-site list when they imported from MAL. So both are available, but conflict.
Nice find. I'll keep that in my back pocket for when harddrive space gets tight again.
Synduality Noir: Mecha-lite with fun characters, I'm enjoying this one. Post-apocalyptic cyberpunky world, MC finds an adorable android girl who is of course special and important. One of my favorites this season.
Malevolent Spirits: Mononogatari Cour 2: Good timing, as I'd just watched the first when I noticed this was coming out. Nothing too fancy, but fun action and interesting characters. Worth a watch, above average.
Horimiya: The Missing Pieces: Haven't gotten around to watching too much of this, but it's a continuation of Horymiya; fun romance with a bit of a twist.
Now for two I thought were pretty weak, and didn't continue with:
Classroom for Heroes and Am I Actually the Strongest?: Both start off alright, but the first gets kind of annoying, and the second just didn't hold my interest in the slightest. Just not impressive, basic "trash isekai" and, at least for me, not even in the enjoyable way. There were a few animes this season that felt cheap; some I enjoyed, these I did not. For me, Liar, Liar falls somewhere in the middle, which is a shame as I like the premise.
Now for my thoughts on some that were already mentioned:
Jujitsu Kaisen Season 2: It's partly because I didn't watch it all back to back, partly because it's jumping around a bit, but I found this to be quite disjointed. It's well done, but I often have no idea what's going on, and that's a little frustrating. It seems to be throwing a lot at the wall, and almost feels like half the episodes are missing or something. Again, probably partly on how I watched it though.
Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Fairly interesting. One word of note, one episode gets genderbendy (I personally found that episode very tiresome, too)...if you're on a site with comments, choose between battle and avoidance, as the fucking troonsquad, true to form, is out in force. These fuckers will jump in and try to ruin everything.
The Great Cleric: I mentioned there were some animes that felt cheap, but that I enjoyed. This is one of them. It's just wacky fun; doesn't take itself too seriously at all, but still tries to be a bit unique. My Unique Skill Makes Me OP even at Level 1 is also cheap. It's alright, but really nothing special, and Cleric was, at least to my tastes, far better.
Still have to watch Nier.
Enjoyed, but don't feel like making this comment even longer: Zom 100 and Vending Machine and Undead Murder Farce.
Didn't you know? Everything is just a high school romance! Still, I enjoyed it.
For the ones you (OP) haven't watched:
Saint Cecilia & the Pastor Lawrence: Personally I'm enjoying this one, it's just one of those wholesomeness-overload shows, and the side characters are pretty good.
Helk: Enjoyable action comedy but, as others have mentioned, wastes a bit of its potential. I'd say it's still good fun nonetheless though, although it could have been better.
If by "gender-bendy" you mean "actual secret tranny school club in the basement"... It was ridiculous, as if it was some heavy-handed Western LGBTBBQ propaganda trying to groom Japanese kids into the Non-Binary crap.
The more it went on the worse it got. The animal rights activist thing is just eye-rolling. I don't care how they rationalize this in-universe, it's heavy-handed, drips of propaganda. The OverPowered little teenage girl samurai thing got old by episode 2. Relationships between characters feels forced and fake. The "honor" speeches feel force, fake and often nonsensical.
I won't even bother complain about the Main Character here.
Too bad, the premise of the seven spellblades was interesting.
Reincarnated as a Vending Machine has better characters. And they are not that good. But the anime is somewhat enjoyable. Seven Spellblades get irritatingly bad and Current-Year preachy.
Yup, it was pretty dang bad. Enough to turn me off to the show going forward. I'll probably see what it did from there at some point, but it pretty much killed the show for me. Shame.
This specific episode made me drop the show too lol. They probably lost a massive audience based on just this alone
Damn was looking forward to Liar Liar as like you said the premise seemed good
Still have The Gene of AI to binge at least.
I mean, don't let one person's opinion turn you off. I just found it a bit tiresome, others may love it.
I'll give it a shot but I'm just moving it down the list, got others to catch up on.
I have enough in my watch list to last me 30 years lol
Fair enough. And while you're taking my opinion into account then, add Synduality Noir to your list.
Ok that gets a leg up, heard others remark it reminds them of early 2000s mecha anime.
Thanks! Greatly appreciated
No problem, helps to organise my watch lists too as almost missed the AI one before doing this lol
I wish vending machine would keep to one form, ability to change forms just makes his only disabilities unable to speak and unable to move (horizontally on his own)
I'd put the one room hero and the level 1 Demon King on the list of to catch up. I loved that one was really funny and overall enjoyable.
The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses has a lot less GoHands overanimation after the first episode, if you like middle school romantic comedies it's delightful and joyful.
I'll give it a shot later on by skipping the first episode, it was just so bad for motion sickness for me.
The only story that you really miss by skipping the first episode is that they establish that the girl he likes forgets her glasses.
Ah not much and avoid the sickness, fantastic
Helck's first cour ends this week. For a fantasy series, it's been underwhelming. There is an immediate danger to everything in the setting, but half of the season has been wacky episodic adventures.
Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: from Villainess to Savior was actually pretty decent, other than the final episode (because basically nothing happened).
I initially thought Helck's premise would have been interesting, overtly jovial hero character 'switches sides' and joins up with the demon hordes, claiming to want to help them wipe out humanity, and only one character sees through the ruse and spend all her time trying to prove the hero is playing a fast one. Wish they kept that going for longer, once the revelation that almost all the humans were turned into mindless killing machines it became much less interesting.
Yeah, I'm still enjoying it for the characters and sometimes tone, but I agree with both of you it probably would have been better if it had kept to the initial premise for a bit longer. They really rushed through the demon king selection too, it felt like, when sounds like we all thought that was more interesting anyway.
The revelation was actually easy to predict. The trouble was that they've taken the main characters out of the main plot for half the story, and I'd much rather see the things going on in the Empire than wacky frontier adventures.
Disappointing about the last boss one, it's awful when you're watching a show, get to the near end the last episode lands with a thud. Just kills the momentum to ask for a continuation.
I've actually been enjoying Helck quite a bit. The pacing might be a bit off, but it definitely feels like it's building towards a decent payoff. If nothing else it hits the right notes for me of laying out a mystery to be uncovered over the course of the story, which is what really draws me in with a lot of media.