[00:01] scorching heat because I have sat down and watched every single new anime of the summer 2025 anime season. No sequels, prequels, or spin-offs, and
[00:13] You've been here before. You know what we do. So, let's jam. we do. So, let's jam. Nine. Shihisha no. This is our first show of the season. And can we start with something that
[00:30] makes sense, please? Okay. Like, this show starts off with some hero fighting dragon stuff. Cool. A woman comes out, kills everything with her magic. Also cool. But surprise, none of that mattered because it was an anime that
[00:43] was being promoted at a shrine or something. Our protagonist is just working the event when an earthquake happens and some precious blue orb within the shrine falls down and breaks. And while examining it, our protagonist
[00:56] cuts his finger. I'm sure that won't lead to anything. Anyways, eventually weird stuff starts happening like a woman gets turned into stone at the park and episode 1 ends with some fire demon monster setting the school ablaze. And
[01:10] the entire thing in between is just this combination of like reverse syscon shy And a bunch of times the narrative just likes to wink, hey wink, something interesting. Wink might happen with this. Wink wink. Aren't you interested
[01:24] in what might happen with this thing? And the answer is no. Its foreshadowing is like the kind of thing I'd expect from a series aimed at children. It's as subtle as a brick for what hints it's trying to give, and none of it is
[01:37] interesting or entertaining. So, it's an easy toss for me. Apocalypse Bringer. [Laughter]
[01:51] Oh god. This is what I love about isekai now that the genre has been so overloaded that we start getting occasionally really wacky scenarios like this one where a guy dies of an illness in the hospital gets reincarnated into
[02:03] his favorite video game that we've seen before. But that game just so happens to be a legally distinct fantasy focused version of Civ. My god. Not that we've
[02:15] just this first episode. So, it's possible they're just going to toss that wholesale because, you know, the pacing of the show is really slow. Actually, in the basic reincarnation explanations followed by an introduction of our main
[02:29] hero unit and like a brief encounter with some dark elves that are either with some dark elves that are either this uh Sibs equivalent of a citystate, but perhaps even worse. Not sure. There's a lot about this world that they
[02:41] haven't gotten to yet. So, it's quite possible it gets even more generic as it goes on. But for the moment, I'm going to put it on hold until I can find out. to put it on hold until I can find out. Betrothed to my sister's ex. You know,
[02:55] you hear a title like that and you wonder, okay, what's the story there? I hear a title like this and I'm thinking, I don't know what the story is there, explained in less than an episode and the title will make less and less sense
[03:09] for the show as time passes. And sure enough, so how did this girl get betrothed to her sister's ex? Well, firstly, the whole thing is just a complete misunderstanding. To even call him an ex is pushing it. There was a
[03:24] letter asking for a betroal, but nothing was finalized because the sister was guy's estate. The sister before her death even freely admits she doesn't remember who this guy is out of all of the men that appeared at her like uh
[03:39] social debut party. So, honestly, I feel like the title is lying to us here and should have had a couple of more revisions, but I guess it got some hope to keep people invested beyond the first episode. cuz you know a little
[03:53] first episode. cuz you know a little technicality is fine, right? Right. The rest of the narrative is more or less a Cinderella story. Marie, our protagonist, has been poorly treated by her family for being apparently ugly
[04:06] despite, you know, not really genetically explaining how that came to be. Both her parents are blonde. Both of her siblings are blonde. And the show makes no mention of her being like a stepdaughter or adopted or the like. So,
[04:20] none of that makes sense. I get how red hair works as a DNA trait, but you still need red hair in the family on both sides if she was to get it. And if it's such an undesirable trait in their society, I mean, I'd find it unlikely
[04:35] that this situation has come to pass. Anyway, she's being treated like a servant. And even on her birthday, instead of being celebrated, her parents just turn that birthday party into the debut party for the much more
[04:47] Marie to cry out in the gardens where she meets our prince charming, a man who falls in love with her instantly. But why, you may ask? Why would he then send a letter of betroal to her sister if she's the one he's fallen in love with?
[05:03] Well, the answer to that is because he never got her name. He assumed, as probably most people would, that this was her birthday party and the name of the main girl at the party was supposed to be her because if it's her birthday
[05:16] is there to see. Of course, not knowing the family dynamics or any of the local politics, he just messes up there massively. So, he proposes via letter to the sister by accident, not the girl he wanted. And then the sister dies in an
[05:31] accident and the father begrudgingly sends our protagonist Marie to be married in her place since you know the family is broke and you know the whole narrative is mostly just kind of solved by the end of episode 1. Why do we need
[05:43] anymore? I ask that and yet I'm still willing to put the show on hold to find out. I could just drop it instantly, but I'm like morbidly curious as to what else this show has planned now that the title is, you know, technically done due
[05:56] to complications and everything else should just be gravy from here on out, but we still got like 11 episodes to go. So, let's see. City the animation. I can keep this one very brief. You are going to watch this.
[06:11] The mangaka of Niji Joe with Kyoto Animation doing what I can only describe as a gag series that is full of detailed simplicity. Yeah, you're watching this. The first episode narratively is a bunch of garbage. I know. I know that sounds
[06:26] bad. There's accidentally dumping noodles in some guy's bag. Let's go find a stamp card after creating a new god. Let's take some photos of broccoli and also have a guy wear a mini skirt. None of this makes sense. Some parts of it
[06:39] are hilarious. And for the parts that aren't, the animation, my god, the animation just makes this series a a watch for that alone. Keep solid. Keep watch for that alone. Keep solid. Keep clever. Clever. Clavitz, whichever.
[06:54] Bonus point at the start for having a non-esekai fantasy narrative. Many bonus points. So, here we have a fantasy world that is on one continent, which I think has five variations of fantasy races all trapped together. Why are they trapped?
[07:08] Because demonic beasts and their dark lord surround their continent and stop any humanoid from exploring beyond their own borders. So, none of them really get killed trying to leave. We don't know why this demonic border exists or
[07:23] why the demonic beasts have just, you know, never decided to say to heck with themselves. But, you know, with luck that might be explained later. We start woman who made a promise as a young girl to her father that she will fulfill some
[07:39] kind of prophecy about finally exploring beyond the borders and seeing the world and yada yada yada. She arrives as a grown hero to the southern border with an entire party of their strongest heroes. The strongest heroes that the
[07:51] continent has ever collected, led by the strongest hero, Stefan. Oh, hello, Mamiano. Fancy seeing you here. I guess you'll be an important character moving you'll be an important character moving forward. And he's dead. They're all dead
[08:05] because the demonic beast Clavitus is just that overwhelmingly powerful. He's been apparently guarding this border for thousands of years. And it's been at him, since anyone's been able to challenge him. While he does wipe out
[08:20] the hero's party like a bunch of bugs, Alicia is able to damage his horn, which is enough for him to see that humanity is a threat and make a move to obliterate it. He heads south to wipe out the closest king and his castle. But
[08:32] for some reason, this demonic beast is convinced by a dying mother to save her progress without it. Don't think about made the decision to raise it to adulthood for reasons. And he uses his
[08:46] powers to then revive the once Denalicia to become his servant and help care for the young Luna. Oh, and Luna is also of the royal family and is one of the few can create weapons strong enough to
[08:58] damage the beasts in the first place. It's fascinating stuff. I'm I'm quite intrigued. What I need from this show is to move it into like the goat position or something is for the season to actually give us more of a reason to
[09:10] actually attach to Clav and Alicia as characters. They are not very likable. Their world is not likable. There's a lot of horrible stuff that goes on here. So, unless we have like a good reason to attach the things,
[09:24] this series. I mean, the world building is fine. It's dark, but it's fine. There are enough questions that I want to kind of stick around to see the answers to. I to get answers, like what's beyond the border, but you know, we'll burn that
[09:39] bridge when we get to it. And until then, I'm putting this one on hold. cultural exchange with a game center girl. Uh, I can't I I can't. No. No.
[09:52] Can't do it. Just Just no. The story here is fine. Cute. Even. We got a with a game center employee and there's some romance, but it's really awkward because he can't really speak English and she doesn't speak Japanese. But
[10:06] that's not the part that I can't stand. It's the English. It is always the English. There's always something stilted about the performance and the dialogue of Japanese people speaking English that always always always rubs
[10:20] me the wrong way. Like it's not just awkward wording, but also like sentences that no one would speak. >> You seem to quite like that stuffed toy.
[10:37] It takes me out of it and is just has me cringing more than anything else, which is a real shame because the designs are cute and the story on its own is halfway interesting. Maybe if the series gets a dub or something that'll make it easier
[10:50] localize it, I'd be down for continuing. localize it, I'd be down for continuing. But as it stands, I no tossing. Dealing with Micadono sisters is a breeze. Well, this certainly is a
[11:03] different way to pull off what will probably become a Harum series, but okay, let's start. Our protagonist, I is the son of an acting prodigy, a woman known the world over for her abilities and skill. Unfortunately, I himself is
[11:17] just mediocre, which considering his parentage means he's just a massive disappointment to everyone around him due to their high expectations. But he's gotten used to it. And despite not being skilled or exceptional in any
[11:30] traditional way, the show hints at his own abilities, which do exist, they just don't happen to follow under the normal skills that a prodigy would hold. After his mom dies, he gets transferred into a gifted school where his mediocreness is
[11:43] put on full display to the student body, who all assumed him to be gifted like his mother. This includes the school's three emperors. three students at the top of their respective fields here in the school who all happen to be girls
[11:57] and they all happen to be sisters. Since our protagonist doesn't have a home to go to, a good friend of his mom's offers him his place to stay. But unbeknownst to ISA, this home that he gets to live in now is the same home as these three
[12:10] emperor sisters. Fancy that. So now he gets to utilize his actual skills properly as a house husband with the three prodigies as they continue their various specialtities. Well, you know, actually being garbage at any real life
[12:24] skill. People that watch me regularly know that I'm not big on her story lines and in general this is included in that. But I will say I am intrigued at the characters here and how at the very least the initial episode didn't try to
[12:36] hook people with needless fan service. That's not to say that there isn't fan service, but like over 90% of the herm Oh, we're living together now under one roof tropes don't make an appearance, at least so far, and I'm thankful for that.
[12:50] It's because of that that I'm willing to give this series the benefit of the give this series the benefit of the doubt for now place it on hold. Denkin Noura. All right. Here, a guy ends up doing
[13:02] something to get him banished from the afterlife. We're not entirely sure what, but the result is we have this guy that's more or less a living zombie. He acts and is pretty much a normal person, except he can't die, and he has to feast
[13:16] off of some kind of essence called spirit fire, which is those little flamy things that happen to float around spirits when those spirits happen to not guy's been doing this for a long time, and he still has to handle things like
[13:30] all of those problems can be solved with the previously aforementioned fire. The downside is that he wants that fire in order to collect massive amounts of it and then just force his way into the afterlife with it someday to bypass the
[13:44] up meeting two normal humans who get caught up in all of this paranormal the day, I kind of zoned out. There's a lot of lore and info dumping in the couldn't really see what the hype was about with our protagonist just, you
[13:59] of the spirit fire. Sure, he might go to the afterlife eventually, but I have a within the run of this series. So, we're just left with the show about a guy dealing with the paranormal with no other real great hook besides that. And,
[14:13] you know, the fact that he's essentially immortal. No thanks. Toss. immortal. No thanks. Toss. Detectives these days are crazy. Our lead character this time is a 35-year-old detective. He's been in the
[14:27] business for 20 years. And while he was super famous and noteworthy at the start in his prime, age is catching up to him. He now has a multitude of health issues that is affecting his work. And instead of solving hard-hitting detective cases,
[14:39] he's out there finding cats and proving spouses infidelity. What might help this washed up detective, however, is the introduction of the super ganky Mashiro, who wants to become a detective herself. But her abilities include infinite
[14:52] storage within her clothes, infinite ability to do anything if she puts her mind into it, like, you know, taking out a Yakuza gang by accident. Well, just, you know, being sent to deal with wasps. And she's just as head empty as her
[15:05] energetic nature would have you believe. Though in saying that, there seems to be might explain her motivations for trying to wiggle her way into this detective's life. I mean, I do like the vibes in general, but also there is limits to how
[15:18] much I can handle the combined gags of the young and energetic superwoman that is Mashiro and the broken bag of bones that is our detective. It's probably because the detective and I are the same age that all of these gags around his
[15:31] slowly broken body hit a little closer to home than I would like. They're really I feel like as a great of a detective as he was, I do wonder how much of an unreliable narrator he is. One of his main gags so far has been to
[15:43] show off how old that he is. And they do this by saying that he's never interacted with a smartphone before. And I mean, that can't be right. 35 is not an age old enough to be making that joke. I mean, just do a little math. The
[15:55] first iPhone was released in Japan in 2008. If he's 35 now, and we assume that the story takes place in present year, then he was 18 when the iPhone came out. Are you saying that he as a detective who would only benefit from the advanced
[16:08] technologies that smartphones offer has never touched a smartphone for the slightly better if you assume that he was 35 when the manga was released and that came out in 2016. So, that would instead make him 27 when the iPhone came
[16:22] out. And I guess that's slightly more believable, but it still just dates this narrative super hard. But, you know, it does raise the show up a tiny bit slightly, let's say. I was going to pass on it, but now I'm curious as to what
[16:34] makes the series worth adapting 9 years after the manga was first released. Is willing to find out and put it on hold until then. until then. Fermat no riori. A young boy goes to a
[16:48] prestigious private school through a scholarship in mathematics. But at a recent competition that he completely botched and after losing heart and motivation, the school decides to punish him by expelling him and then demanding
[17:00] the return of the scholarship money because the school was embarrassed at his massive loss. All the while this is going on, our protagonist also happens after casually making the staff meal for the day, he catches the eye of a shady
[17:14] individual who happened to be passing through. said shady individual is with his own restaurant at the age of 23. And the chef is absolutely enamored with our protagonist's pasta, such that he plans to help the kid realize that he
[17:28] may be good at math, but food should be his real passion. He just hasn't noticed it yet. This one is a bit rough around the edges, but it has a a heart to it I'm going to be keeping it for like the whole season. It may falter down the
[17:42] road, but for the moment, yeah, I'll keep this one. show and the first card of text talks about souls, certain expectations are
[17:58] then set really high. Does this show meet those expectations? won't say that the show knocks its premise out of the park with its initial
[18:10] episode because, you know, everything that they have is white. their clothing, their houses, their roads. There's no color in their world, which makes the rust and the dirt of the poor side look even worse by comparison. This societ,
[18:23] You must have been the one to do it. Throw him into the pit. It's just so Throw him into the pit. It's just so nonsensical, so barbaric, so infuriating exactly what he does. But the problem with that is that should he do so, there
[18:38] is no redeemable characters in this series. Even the love interest tossed There was not a single redeemable character here. Will there be one eventually? I sure hope so, cuz I don't know about you, but I'm not one to go,
[18:51] horrible people. At least not often. And when I do, it's a comedy, which is not when I do, it's a comedy, which is not this. But this is Bones. Not only is it Bones, but the original mangaka has been named the successor of Mangaka Okubo of
[19:05] Soul Eater fame. I mean, he also did Fire Force, so take that with a grain of salt. But yeah, I'm going to see where it goes and if I feel the desire to continue, great. Until then, it's on hold.
[19:18] Hotel in Humans. Continuing on unofficially after Tasakari Hotel at the start of the year and Apocalypse Hotel last season, we have Hotel in Humans where we are not dealing with mutants or monsters, at least none of the
[19:31] fantastical variety, but people who are inhuman like monsters. Assassins and murderers mostly by the sounds of it. This hotel exists kind of like the Continental from John Wick, but they put a large focus on two things. This hotel
[19:45] has two concierages and they must abide by any request of a guest and their abilities at least give off this air that when a request is asked for. It's that when a request is asked for. It's more like asking a genie for a wish. The
[19:59] abilities of these concierges give off this air that they can just straight up perform wishes or at least be able to do whatever they have been asked given all of the plausible tools to provide that kind of service in a way that sort of
[20:13] because I mean one of the concierages is in charge of information gathering before they even know if they're going to be staying at the hotel. How does he to be staying at the hotel. How does he do that? Who knows? The show may tell us
[20:27] hotel staff members are probably the least interesting characters in the show thus far. Well, you know, besides all the ones that got killed, this is a show know, we follow in the first episode a top assassin of a local mob/ Yakuza gang
[20:41] organization. And he's a far more likable character than either of the I'm going to continue this show all the way through? Maybe. I'm I'm willing to see if the show has any staying power. It's entertaining if it decides to go
[20:56] with an assassin of the week narrative or something, but am I going to do am I going to do something completely different? So, for now, it goes on hold. Comet Sububaki City under construction. Uh, I'm not sure about this one. Modern
[21:11] setting where an event called the blackout occurs, essentially dusting a very large portion of the population of what I assume to be the entire planet. The survivors move on and try to rebuild. Now, with, you know, the
[21:23] additional resource of fragments that overtake fossil fuels as a usable power source, our main character, Kaf, has to survive and live after her parents get dusted, and the aunt who takes her in gets ripped apart after some fragment
[21:37] insects go on a murder spree because people's feelings went out of control, and they could only be quelled by singing from Calf and four other
[21:50] It's a complicated mess of a narrative that boils down to the world is going to crap, but thankfully we have these five girls who can sing everything better. If animation better, but that is not the case here. This is a mixed media
[22:05] project, which is usually a bad sign because you have like five different mediums all colliding and none of them are really excelling one over the other. that have been developed and all five of the main protagonists are not characters
[22:18] created for this project necessarily, but are virtual YouTubers who are representing these characters. The most popular of which CF herself has over 1 million subscribers and has been producing content for the last 6 years.
[22:32] Mostly music videos with the same like 3D CGI animation attached like the show. So, like I'm not an expert on her specific VTuber lore and perhaps this anime and such was like the goal of theirs from the beginning or something.
[22:47] I mean, it's all good music, but I mean like since the inception of my channel, I've been covering anime projects that boil down to, hey, we have these good fantastical fantasy narrative around them and give them an excuse to sing
[23:01] really recommend for people to watch Project Ice. So, I have my doubts that this. The music of the girls individually is quite good, but really then I would just say to go and listen to them on your player of choice or
[23:14] YouTube channels rather than watching this anime. But you do you. I'm passing a break for a moment to give me a chance to collect myself, but also because I supporters of the channel over on Patreon because this video is not
[23:29] over there, the less sponsors Glass Reflection relate at any given time. So, patrons like Rifen Bonapart, Omar Showman, Ross Emerson, Hector Monttoor, Aiden City Yamako, and Blue Baron 15. We can't continue this without your
[23:43] support. So, however much you were able to help, I am eternally grateful. Necronomico and the cosmic horror show. Okay, so a bunch of Lovecrafty and elder
[23:55] inspired by them, and they plan to ruin the whole world. But for some reason, they're all trapped inside of a VR game located in a rundown amusement park facility. Their goals and desires, entertainment, I think. You know, there
[24:10] want to fight back against them, but that involves jacking into the VR simulation and defeating the games that the gods come up with. So, you know, can do that, which is streamers and VTubers because of course. So scientists
[24:25] send all these streamers in and the elder gods have like taken the forms of other popular streamers that have caused them to, you know, go and get hospitalized, including the best friend/partner/sibling
[24:37] of our protagonist, Necronomiko. Like she is a low subbed streamer, barely making ends meet before getting invited to this shindig with the very large prize pool. Except surprise, you're now all wrapped up in the games that these
[24:49] elder gods want you to play for the survival of humanity. I'm going to be fact, between the streaming culture, the death games, and the 3D representations of characters in the VR world, this is the near exact opposite of my thing. I
[25:02] love lore and building on the Elder Gods in general, but there was nothing here on the onset that made me actually care about this particular adaptation of them, and I suspect it won't get any better as we continue. So, I'm going to
[25:14] better as we continue. So, I'm going to toss this one from the get-go. New Saga. So, I know I previously gave bonus points to a straight fantasy, but I feel like in this case, our series loses most
[25:27] of those immediately. So, we have a demon lord and hero initial setup. The demons have ravaged this world, and in the last dish effort, the hero and his party move to stop them. The hero succeeds, but is morally wounded.
[25:39] However, he finds a magical artifact left behind by the demon lord, and then using it by accident, is thrown back in time 4 years to before the demonic knowledge, he believes that he's the only one who can stop the demonic threat
[25:53] loses all of its bonus points immediately because that plot just isn't attacking because they got some new demon lord. And the last demon lord was there was a time of peace, but this new one wants to kill everyone. Why? I don't
[26:10] know. Probably because he has a magical mcguffin that can turn back time. And it's explained very quickly that in order for this McGuffin to send someone exponential amount of magical energy, the kind that you can only collect by
[26:24] like wiping out half of the intelligent life on the continent. So since the that, it can be assumed that the demon lord wanted to go back in time. Why? Who knows? Oh, yeah. And since the hero now appeared in the past, he still has the
[26:38] artifact with him. So will the demon lord be like, "Hey, where did that go?" or are there two of them? Now, I mean, I'm interested in the answers to these have me want to sit through more of it with characters that I'm not attaching
[26:52] to in a fairly generic world besides. So, I'll be tossing this one on Kitan Rebirth verse. What is this in Yasha Shakos Re:Zero Mismash animated by David
[27:06] Production? I mean, that's not even the best description. Like, you'll also need to pick the flavor of mobile suit inspiration as well. Ava would work, but this series is like a combination of all of those things, and I haven't decided
[27:18] protagonist has spent the last number of years having a very similar dream where a very pretty girl saves his life, and he vows to protect her in kind. But looking creature from Truckon, he ends up into an alternate world where that
[27:34] same dream girl actually exists. She doesn't know who he is, but that's only that this world regularly gets invaded by demonic beasts from yet another hold off these incursions within sections of the city. But you know while
[27:49] sealed within the boundary and they can die if their petrified bodies get shattered. The heroes of the city summon essentially giant robots to fight but our protagonist has no such powers. He can however traverse the black mist
[28:03] has some abilities that are yet unexplained. Like for example, he seems to have returned by Death as an ability because after his dream girl gets shattered and he gets impaled episode one, he wakes back up back in time like
[28:19] none of it ever happened. You know, because this is like an amalgamation of past. I want to give it a fair shake beyond just a single episode. So, I'm putting it on hold for now, even if part of the setting doesn't really jive with
[28:31] me. Hopefully our protagonist's return by death legally distinct equivalent isn't just a straight copy. And there is some interesting twist to it, but we'll have to see. Rudy rocks.
[28:45] made a whole studio just so that they could animate Mushokensei. And they're going to do an anime about finding cool rocks. Well, how the heck do they plan reminding us that there are only two kinds of female bodies, flat as justice
[28:59] and hey, I got a great idea for a new anime plot. I wouldn't bring it up if the show didn't continually give us camera angles to best showcase one of the lead characters bodies continuously, going so far as to attach bells to her
[29:12] belt so that they ring every time she sways her ass. I really wish I was joking. I also wish that it wasn't as blatant in its fan service because like actually a really fun series about how minerals and rocks work shown in a
[29:26] wonderfully animated way that is very beautiful. The fan service is going to be a turnoff for some, but you know what? I think it'll be a turn on for enough people to make up for it. I'm keeping it personally. Take that as you
[29:39] will. Secrets of the Silent Witch. So, the first episode of this didn't do a lot of the heavy lifting to endear me to the intriguing. We have a fantasy world heavy on the nobility side that has
[29:53] awarded the title of sage to seven highly adept magical individuals. These seven sages are sent out to protect the land and a bunch of other very important magical stuff. And one of them is our protagonist, Monica, the silent sage.
[30:07] She is named such because she is the only mage in history that came up with a method to use magic without verbalizing an incantation. She can cast magic without speaking, which is something no one else can do. She's developed this
[30:19] magic well because she's a nervous wreck of a shutin and decided that it was far more efficient to develop magic without incantations rather than to figure out how to survive in any kind of social scenario. She has no social skills in a
[30:32] probably one of the strongest mages out there. She would rather live in a cottage by herself than do any real work. So, she needs to be forced or coerced into doing her actual job. In
[30:45] this case, protecting the realm's second prince from danger. This is, as far as undercover to a school where the prince resides, and she has been given the role of an attendant to a noble lady who herself has the role of essentially a
[30:59] villainess. And she's going to bully and tease our attendant mercilessly so that enough here yet for me to fully settle on if I'm going to keep watching it, so it's going to go on hold for now. See you tomorrow at the food court. Hey,
[31:13] simple to find out if you want to watch it or not. Do you like the idea of seeing two characters just sit in one place and talk to each other? Yeah, just sit there and interact, tease, and otherwise exist within the same physical
[31:29] space without moving for the majority of the episode's runtime. If yes, then you will love this show. If no, then move on with no hard feelings because that's school girls who meet up at a nearby food court and just shoot the [ __ ] with
[31:43] each other for the length of an episode. I find it great. But I mean, I grew up in the fires of conversations about the chocolate cornet. And only those worthy will know which part of it is the head. And as such, I'm keeping this one. But
[31:56] to most other people. Check it out if you are at least interested. But I don't have high expectations for it to get beyond like niche status. Solo Camping for two. I'm sure someone who either knows me or has watched me
[32:12] list and thought to themselves, "Oh yeah, this is going to be a Tristan core series. He's he loves laid-back camp, right?" And so another camping series would be right up his alley. Well, it is not. Solo Camping for Two follows a
[32:25] 34year-old guy who heads off to a campsite to be alone, to enjoy the solitude, to relax, only for his trip to be interrupted by a woman attempting to solo camp by herself. She gets lost, falls in a river, and then fails to
[32:39] reach the campground by closing time and therefore can't rent a tent. Last of all, she gets introduced to us and our protagonist by taking off her skirt to dry off in front of our protagonist's campfire, not realizing that he's just
[32:51] our protagonist spends the whole episode grumbling about her. And honestly, I get it. She walts up into his camp unprepared and then expects him to solve all of her problems while he just went up there to be alone. I'd be pissed off,
[33:04] too. Especially if the unofficial laws of social nicities would lead me/ him to being forced to offer up his own tent and have to sleep outside in the cold so planning and foresight should not be his responsibility. So, what if she can cook
[33:18] very well? you know, so well that for him it almost makes up for all of the hardship. None of that matters to me. Lastly, she basically bullies him into going on her next camping trip. Why? For what reason? Why did he agree to this?
[33:31] So, no, it's actually not Tristan core. It's like Tristan adjacent, but far with dropping it. So, that's exactly what I'm going to do. what I'm going to do. The fragrant flower blooms with dignity.
[33:44] The fragrant flower blooms with dignity. Oh. Oh, yes. Okay. So cute. Why are they so good together? Why does this narrative that's not all that original narrative that's not all that original on its own work so well? I'm not going
[33:56] series because I know perfectly well why I'm doing it. It's good. It's great. I'm keeping it and you should watch it. The summer Hikaratu died. Okay. Looks like we got a horror series on our hands. A a wonderful
[34:11] on our hands. A a wonderful psychological thriller on our hands. say Hikaru is the name of a boy who died. The title kind of gives that away, but The title kind of gives that away, but the thing is Hikaru came back. Or did
[34:23] he? It doesn't take too long before his best friend Yoshiki figures this out and figures out that it's not Hikaru anymore. But this is something else, something that has taken his place. And Yoshiki should be terrified. And he
[34:37] might be. He should be. He He should avoid Hikaru at all costs, but he won't. Why? Because not having any Hikaru at all is apparently worse than having this
[34:49] Hikaru, even if he's fake. So, what exactly is he now? What kind of creature? What kind of being? His disguise is not perfect. Cats can tell. That's not too surprising. But some humans can, too. Some see him and are
[35:02] terrified. But there are villagers who seem to want to keep a mountain spirit contained on the mountain and are now panicking that one in their ranks is dead. Did Hikaru kill her or something else? What about this company that's
[35:15] apparently been searching for something like Hikaru for over a hundred years? questions and hopefully some answers are to come. So, I am keeping it for now. Its hooks are at large interesting and intriguing. Will I keep it all the way
[35:30] through? Well, that depends on how good some of those answers are when we get to them. And, you know, if I start to care about whom this Hikaru actually is. The water magician. Reincarnation is akai with a protagonist who asks to be
[35:44] sent to a place where he can live a slow life, except said places still filled with monsters and dangerous creatures, and he needs to handle all of that stuff before his stores of food run out. He's given the ability to cast water magic,
[35:57] learn how to use it, which means he's not really living much of a slow life at The end of episode 1 also says that he was given the secret ability eternal youth. So, he's an immortal now, and I fully expect some kind of time jump to
[36:12] time skipping, which I know I've made my thoughts clear on in the past, there's enough to keep my interest. Just a a jumble of things, and not really a jumble that's even in a unique way, like with Onyoken. I may give it a second or
[36:27] a third episode just to see if I want to continue it, but for the moment, this one's a toss for me. There's no freaking way I'll be your lover unless Okay. Okay, I can work with this comedic
[36:40] lesbian romance with an introverted girl who is doing the thing where, you know, and she wants to change that in high school and break out of her shell. And she does that by somehow befriending the school idol, a literal model. And she
[36:53] joins her friend group despite how overwhelming, you know, long-term social contact is for her. The model Mai seems to pick up on this and she works to make Reno feel at home in their friend group. But after a close call on the roof, she
[37:06] now feels something for our protagonist. Not friendship, but love. So, being the she wants, she decides that she's going to be Renico's girlfriend. Reno does not feel great about this situation. She only just moved from loner to having
[37:21] some key friends. And in less than a day, moving into girlfriend territory is an even larger step than she is willing to take. But my can wait. She's both very patient and also extremely impatient. Hence the comedy of this
[37:34] did get chuckles out of me. So while I don't have high hopes for enjoying the whole thing and I worry about how this plot is going to end, I am willing to plot is going to end, I am willing to put it on hold for now to find out.
[37:47] Tolen Enki. So here on exist and the descendants of the great Momotaro have been on the hunt to eradicate them for generations. Okay, pretty standard so far. Our protagonist was saved as a baby by one such relation
[38:02] of Motaro who hoped for a a future day of peace between his kin and the oni. But you know, cut to when our oni Shiki is older, much older, and he gets attacked at home after being found out by the the Motaro agency cuz it's a
[38:18] whole agency now. Anyway, he awakens his Oni powers to try and fight back against not enough to help it before his adoptive father kicks the bucket. Then at the end, he gets abducted by other Oni, probably to be trained and used his
[38:31] powers properly to fight against the descendants of Motaro and all of that. I its action scenes. Those were wonderful. I just don't have much interest in action scenes, and it's not enough to let me keep it. So, this one, yeah, I'm
[38:46] tossing it. Turkey, time to strike. Um, why? So, the whole entire episode, the whole first episode of this series, just seems like cute girls doing a sport thing. In this case, the sport is
[39:00] bowling. You got a pink-haired captain who seems to actually be fantastic at another, keeps messing up after three consecutive strikes, whether consciously that yet. The club's got a new member who is super serious about bowling and
[39:14] is frustrated that the other members don't really seem to care all that much. And she's even more frustrated at the captain who she claims is losing on of the first episode to prove that their friendship will prevail or some such.
[39:27] But then a lightning strike happens somewhere that causes the pink bowling ball to glow and then all of the girls are sucked through a magic portal or something. And then I later had to look up what that was. And it's a portal to
[39:40] the past. So they're in the past now. Again, why? For what reason? If it to know the answer to that question, I would toss it. But because I do legit
[39:52] want to know why bowling plus time travel, the show is on hold until it gives me the answer. Ugly Mug Epic Fighter. Well, I mean, some points for originality need to be
[40:04] that that means anything for as far as how I'm going to enjoy this one. Rumor goes on the internet that if you turn your PC towards a particular direction at midnight, open the window and raise your arms, you will be issed to a
[40:17] been abused his whole life for being ugly, decides on a whim, since his life's been circling the drain, to attempt this rumor, and it just seems to work. But before he gets transported through to an isekai world, he gets
[40:32] access to a stats select screen. Being the power gamer that he apparently is, himself a whole bunch of weaknesses to shoot up his bonus points. So, not only he'll also take massive damage if a woman touches him, he cuts his money
[40:46] would normally be. And at the end, it all adds up to millions of bonus points. So, now he's basically a god, except he is the ugliest human alive, and he cannot touch any woman for fear of actually taking significant damage.
[41:02] that different from any other opio out there. Just a very slightly different flavor. And honestly, I'm not that much I just don't like ugly people or something because of it. But it's more
[41:15] themselves that they turn that into a character trait. Quite literally in this character trait. Quite literally in this case, so I'm tossing it. Censored is about to collapse. Comedic romance about a guy who's a total
[41:29] in the whims of his former childhood friend, who he hasn't seen in six years, who has no issues with forcibly kissing him or attempting to change in his backyard. There's also a busty student council member who our protagonist
[41:42] believes is out of his league, but she absolutely loves him, you know, just know what to do about the new girl in his life. And, you know, the OP and Ed hint that there's even a third red-headed girl that will join the herm
[41:55] at some point. And you know, as a non-enjoyer of harms, that's enough for non-enjoyer of harms, that's enough for me. Tossing this one. Welcome to the Outcasts Restaurant. God, what is it about shows that feel like someone just
[42:07] develop the backbone of your story? A high-ranking member of the strongest party gets kicked out by the overconfident and completely assholeish leader. Though some members absolutely realize that our protagonist was the
[42:20] everything's going to fall apart without him. He goes off anyway to follow his true passion which in this case is cooking. He wants to open a restaurant the house. And look at that. A poor and abandoned slave girl. But it's okay. Our
[42:34] hero is saving her from getting bought up by a pervert. So it's fine. Slavery is fine guys. And now, you know, they're together and they're going to run this I'm sure the old party will come crawling back once they realize what a
[42:48] probably phrase it like bringing him back would be doing him a favor. But really, now that he has his restaurant, he won't care. And and so on and so forth. I've seen this before. Sometimes I don't understand why narratives do
[43:02] this. And then I remember slash realize that they do this because it works. Because for some god-forsaken reason, episode one of this show ended and I was legitimately disappointed. I wanted more and I don't know why. I know where this
[43:15] is going and yet here I am is what I would say. Like I was pretty on the fence with it to begin with, but then episode 2 happened where it introduced a tries to help out by, you know, finding a party for her only for him to
[43:29] accidentally get her hooked up with a party full of unsavory types who want to bring her deep into the levels of the dungeon for reasons, you know, so that our protagonist narratively can then dive in there and save her from them.
[43:42] This was not needed. This is a happy golucky fantasy series with a restaurant and a cute poster girl, good animated food, and the like. I don't need a side plot about what happens to a ditz female swordswoman who can't identify red flags
[43:56] be saved by our protagonist. This is not a plot that needed to be written for this series, and they should do better. So, for that reason, I'm tossing it with you and the rain. Lastly, real quick, we have a young novelist who
[44:11] finds a dog on the side of the road in the rain. This dog seems to have a her to take him home. And once there, oh look, he can read and write. He can understand Japanese, but of course he is
[44:24] this one, to be honest. Like, it's listed as a comedy, but I didn't find it particularly funny. And beyond that, it's just this woman who talks to this raccoon tanuki creature, and the creature can talk back because he can
[44:37] creature can talk back because he can write. I don't really get it yet, but slice of life, and I'm curious as to where this could possibly go. So, we're gonna put it on hold and see where it goes. But that's it for our show today.
[44:51] of knowledge about what is airing this season and what you yourself will want doobly-doo so that hopefully you can find out where any show that you are if you can't, just Google it. Shouldn't be too hard. Subscribe if you haven't.
[45:06] video. And until next time, ladies, gentlemen, and others, watch more anime gentlemen, and others, watch more anime and stay frosty.