[00:00] A sleeper hit that won everybody over is a chain-smoking cat that does poop jokes. The fandom for Reincarnated as a Slime doesn't seem to understand all of the time travel mechanics, which is kind of fair, and even though I'm doubling up on this,
[00:13] two of some of the most heartfelt shows this season involve people smoking. Okay, at the beginning of the season, I watched everything and gave you my opinions on the first episode of all of it. And now, here at the end of the season, everything is done.
[00:27] Will I be going back through every single show? No. But what we are going to look at is the ones I actually finished. You can judge me and whatever I like based solely on what I have actually completed this season, because I haven't even completed things according to my own tier list.
[00:41] There are things in A. There's even an S tier I didn't finish watching, which is not quite fair. It's not that I don't like the saga of Tanya the Evil. It's just one of those, I'll get to it. It's great. I know it's great. But there are some times you just need to be in the mood.
[00:55] To counteract that, though, there's another S tier for my original season. and all that. I did finish, but yeah, it's not great. We'll get to it. And so ladies, gentlemen, and others, my name is Ankada, and welcome to Glass Reflection, where today
[01:07] we are looking back on the summer 2026 anime season, and to give you a summary on what I actually completed. Let's jam. Let's start with the cat. J-Smoking Cat is like one of the surprise favorites for this
[01:21] year, and not just for me, but for everyone. Surprise, because it is exceptionally well animated. Its characters are lovely and deep in a variety of ways. But also, I don't think any of us had any general idea
[01:33] what we were getting into when we first watched episode one. But despite the fact that it was probably one of the most vulgar and disgusting shows of the last, at least, decade, if not more, the fact
[01:45] that it committed to that so hard and, for some reason, someone was able to cobble together a budget for this show, for this kind of content and made it look this good, that's amazing.
[01:57] That's a miracle in and of itself. And you know, it's not just about poop jokes, because the show both kind of starts and ends on one, which is, you know, full circle. But the cats themselves are just like lovable walking disasters.
[02:09] And yes, a lot of what they do and things that end up happening to them are set up for comedic purposes. There is still a very deep level of I want to say a deep level of humanity, but they're mostly cat people,
[02:21] and so they're not actually humans. that said there is still this level of humanity mixed with like a kind of melancholy on their lives and kind of the discussion of their lives and how they're treated and how then they act
[02:34] based on that treatment and how everything just kind of spirals and then at the end some of it is just depressing because it's not like they have great lives and yet at least our main protagonist seems to be content with her life
[02:46] in a way as long as she has a smoke obviously the show is not for everyone and even have it completed I don't think I would recommend to most people. But there is like a certain subset of person. If you can find a person that will either enjoy
[02:59] or at least tolerate most of the poop jokes, the sex jokes, the screaming, and then just the general grossness of some of the humor, there's a lot to like here. It has some amazing character writing, some really good emotional beats,
[03:12] and genuinely strong animation for the type of content that this is. Which again, is impressive. Moving on, I'm just going to lightly stay here since we're talking about good animation and probably some of the best animation to the surprise of no one is Mushoku Tensei.
[03:25] Now, I briefly discussed Mushoku Tensei in our video from last week where we talked about time travel, but here I'm just kind of giving it a brief acknowledgement because it's season three of Mushoku Tensei. If you're already watching Mushoku Tensei, you've already watched this entire season and you already have opinions on Mushoku Tensei,
[03:38] you don't need to hear mine. Because, in general, Mushoku Tensei is a wonderfully written and lore-filled series with all amazing characters, just not our protagonist.
[03:50] Despite being a light novel reader, A lot of this season kind of makes me feel like someone had this amazing, like, God-given story and world and characters, and then you just have this guy comes in, and he's like, you know this character, Rudy?
[04:05] Despite being a terrible person, he should be the focus of everything. When he's not in the room, every other character should ask, where is Rudy? And this season of Mushoku Tensei should have him louder, angrier, and give him access to a time machine.
[04:19] Anyway, that's Bishoke Tensei. You're either watching it or you're not. Next up, reincarnated as a swine. Yeah, okay, it's only been a week. I can't really talk about how, oh, what has changed since I made my video on it. It's only been a handful of days as I'm sitting here since that video went live.
[04:33] But the general consensus, especially because I looked online, because I was very curious about reactions to the whole Chloe Hinata Corona debacle, as it were. And yeah, a lot of people seem to think that the time travel material within swine is incredibly convoluted.
[04:48] And it kind of is. So, like, I'm looking at it now, and I very much am of the mind of, we probably shouldn't think about it too hard. This is a show that literally brought up a bootstrap paradox and was like, oh, well. And I'm like, if you're not even going to treat a bootstrap paradox
[05:02] with, like, any semblance of discussion or debate, or even, like, thinking, okay, well, how can we resolve the bootstrap paradox or explain it or do anything? If we're just going to have a bootstrap paradox and then kind of brush it away,
[05:14] I'm kind of just assuming that most of your talk about time travel is just bullshit. And a lot of it is just based on vibes and rule of cool. And that's fine. As long as we have that understanding. What is Corona?
[05:26] Oh, Corona is like some weird being created of memories or things. And Chloe's fine. Chloe can also now change back into a young version of herself. Why? I don't know. Someone thought it would be a cool idea.
[05:38] You don't need to understand why it happened. You just need to understand the result of it. And that's pretty clear-cut, and it's just more of the same. I will say, at least this season is exceptionally better than the previous season.
[05:50] That was the meeting season. Like, I like the meetings from a lore perspective. I liked how they progressed, like, the Empire building, because as I mentioned, I do enjoy Empire building narratives in general. But from a watching animation perspective, my god, those meetings were boring.
[06:06] And so I am very glad that this season was quite a bit of a step up from that. Yeah, there's a lot of slime that just comes down to, It is also kind of a comfy show to watch. It's a comfy istakai, because there's not really any real stakes.
[06:18] Everything is going to work out well, conveniently, for Rimuru. Probably because Raphael is just, like, a literal god at this point, and she's just solving shit for him. She's not even asking for permission anymore.
[06:30] She's just doing things. She is essentially his wife, and I'm sure that that's not going to become a problem in the future. So, if you're a fan of slime, we're all still having fun here, right? Yeah, I'm sure we are. Some of the time travel stuff might be treading into I don't know what's going on anymore,
[06:45] but we don't need to understand. It's all wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. Anyway, let's just enjoy it. Try not to think about it, and next season will be good as well, I'm sure. Next up, Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You.
[06:57] Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You is very much like a comfort show. One of the great things I love about Smoking Behind the Supermarket is the fact that, like, it is not a fantasy. I mean, there are probably some more rose-tinted goggle writing when it comes to how well characters interact
[07:13] and just how particular aspects of these characters' lives happen that might not actually occur in real life. But, you know, that's fine. And it's also about adults, which is becoming more common now.
[07:26] We're getting a lot of shows now, especially in the Isekai realm, where the main character is in his mid to late 30s, Almost as if the market for these shows is now catering to a slightly older audience,
[07:38] who were watching this 10 years ago back in their 20s and are still watching it now in their 30s I can complain I part of that demographic But having a more adult romance is nice even though it not a romance I made a video about this even like at the end of last season
[07:52] before this season, where I talked about how I kind of didn't want the romance to the show to continue. I still am of that mind. I know it probably will, and I'm pretty sure it does to a point in the original material, even though largely Smoky Mind the supermarket is this big whole
[08:06] will-they-won't-they. Blah. and parts of that I'm starting to get tired with, especially after 12 episodes, because a lot of the will they won't say kind of comes down to how stupid are these characters that they don't recognize.
[08:19] Not only does our main character not recognize that Yamada and Tomada are the same character, but then she also doesn't recognize this influential guy from her own past. And so it's like they're both not realizing
[08:31] who they're speaking to, but we the audience do, and there's only so long that I can actually put up with that before something needs to break. and I have a feeling that this is the type of story where as soon as that is revealed to either of the characters, the entire story just collapses and you have to end it.
[08:45] And that is sad. If they are going down a romantic path, I would like there to be a little bit more of an obvious romantic progression. Next is a show that I kind of had further down on my ratings, but for whatever reason, I kept watching it,
[08:57] and that was The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects. This was my actual, like, pleasant comfort food sort of anime over the course, because I did watch it weekly, unlike Smoking on the Supermarket, which I only caught up with at the end. It was an extremely...
[09:10] It is an extremely cozy, atmospheric show. It's got a very charming cast. We're watching this settlement grow, which is, like, one of my favorite, like, little subplots within fantasy. I love settlements and, like, empire... Well, I guess empire building, but this is not really an empire building.
[09:25] It's just a settlement. It's a small grouping of tents, essentially, by the end of it, even. And one of the reasons why I enjoyed watching it is because it is simple. Things that happen are, yeah, kind of obvious. you kind of see where things are going, but it's not obvious in a stupid way,
[09:40] and it doesn't, like, try and treat you like everything is a big revelation, it's just one of those, yeah, okay, things just kind of happen, this community is building, everyone is accepting of one another, yes, conflict ends up happening with some outside forces who either are jealous
[09:54] or have their own desires for power and, you know, the wheel turns and all of that. The biggest problem, which I did mention during my talk about smoking behind the supermarket, is that, like we spoke about in the supermarket,
[10:07] this is the other show of the season that has a bit of an age gap between the romantic leads. A little bit more indefensible, to a point, in this show, because our female romantic interest is actually underage,
[10:22] and you can do all of the wonderful, oh, but her deciding her culture, yadda yadda yadda, all you want. Thankfully, our male lead realizes that this is a problem, but he ends up taking her as a wife because, you know, he wants to have good relations with his neighbors and everything,
[10:37] and they are very big on the whole marriage to solidify relationships and things. And he doesn't make a move on her, and he has explicitly stated he has no intention of doing so until she becomes a legal adult in his mind.
[10:50] And that's fine, but why did you write it that way, though? Write her? You didn't need to! You could have written her as an 18, 19, 20-year-old, and nothing would fundamentally change. someone specifically designed to write her as an underage character,
[11:06] and that's more what I have a problem with. But I still watched it. Just because I have positive feelings towards the show does not mean that I need to have a positive feeling on the romance aspect of it. This is not a show that, like, reinvented the genre or anything,
[11:20] or did anything groundbreaking or any of that, or is even something that I largely would recommend. I just really enjoyed watching it. It was cozy. But I mean, it could be worse, Because now we're getting into things that I finished, and it's not that I wish I didn't, but...
[11:34] Okay, so Love Unseen Beneath the Clear Night Sky. You'll notice that a lot of the things that we're talking about today are shows that I've made videos on, and this is my follow-up. The general consensus that I have for after watching the finale for Love Unseen Beneath the Clear Night Sky
[11:47] is, uh, f*** cancer. Which should not be, you know, a controversial statement. But also, screw whoever decided to write and paste the final episode of the show. So if you remember, this was a romance series about a guy who ended up spending a lot of time and getting infatuated with a blind girl.
[12:04] And in my video, I had a little bit of frustrations when it turned out that no, she decided she was going to suddenly forget everything about her life, get admitted to a hospital, and she has cancer and she probably doesn't have very long to live.
[12:16] I suspected at the time that her forgetfulness and amnesia was bullshit. I was correct. And everything was still kind of basically gearing up this entire thing to be a very sad ending.
[12:29] And we've had sad endings before, right? Stupid you're lying, April. Anyway, the reason why the final episode bothered me, spoilers for that, the finale of the series bothered me so much because basically they do a rug pull at the last moment
[12:42] where they spend the first little bit of it being like, here's the finale of our characters. By the way, we're implying that he's dead. Cut to credit. But then you actually look at the runtime and you're like, this is still half the episode left. The credits end and then we do a time skip to like 15 or 20 years in the future.
[12:58] And no, she didn't die. She was fine. They lived a nice, happy life. But then she eventually died of cancer anyway. And you can look at that and be like, okay, well, it's a little bittersweet because, hey, they got the future that they wanted. I'm more annoyed because we didn't get to see that.
[13:12] And the pacing and the way that the show was designed and presented made it, it kind of tried to force you to feel an emotion. And I don't like when narratives try to force an emotion out of you. I don't like when a narrative throws things in front of you and be like,
[13:26] here, look, sad thing. Look at the sad thing. Aren't you sad? It's like, no, I'm pissed because you're trying to manipulate me and I don't like it. Like, there are plenty of times when narratives can make you cry. I can play a particular song about a secret base and have most of my viewer audience crying
[13:41] while watching this video, if I so choose. But you have to, like, earn it. And this one didn't, because it's been hitting us over the head with, hey, you're gonna cry? You wanna cry, right? For at least half the season.
[13:53] And even if you, like, were sort of prepared for it, it doesn't mean that I have to enjoy it. I'm bitter about the ending. I've actually looked it up, because I was curious if other people were as bitter as me, and apparently not. I'm in the minority on that, so sure, if you watched this ending and you were fine with it,
[14:05] okay, you're allowed, I suppose. Let's talk about another ending I didn't like. So I gave The Ogre's Bride an S here, right? And I kind of said at the time that I didn't expect other people to agree. I kind of expected this was going to be a trash romance for the series.
[14:19] This is a supernatural entity, like an ogre guy, and all of the supernatural type of people from this universe, they have some, like, biological condition where they have to find their person, and once they have found their person,
[14:32] they're, like, biologically locked to that person, like some weird imprinting. And so the Prince of the Ogres finds this girl that's being mistreated by her family, and suddenly you're really hoping that her entire family gets their comeuppance.
[14:45] And for, you know, a good chunk of the show, that does happen. But then we get to the finale, and the finale was this weird build-up after, like, three episodes of the show, kind of pitter-pattering between are we going to actually have her sister,
[15:00] who is extremely, like, narcissistic to an absolutely stupid degree, is she actually going to get her comeuppance, Or, since we spent, like, an entire episode on her backstory and things from her perspective,
[15:13] are we going to try and give her some semblance of redemption? Are we going to have, like, a classic Cinderella version? Like, not Disney Cinderella, but, like, more classic Cinderella, where one if not both of Cinderella stepsisters are actually forgiven despite their treatment of Cinderella once she gets picked up by the prince There a lot of Cinderella comparisons that can be made with this show But by the end of it like the resolution was just so poor We
[15:40] spent all this time setting up a potential, like, redemption, and then not only did she not get it, but then she got her comeuppance, but it didn't feel satisfying, because it was like the comeuppance that was sort of forecasted several episodes prior, and it
[15:55] essentially required her to be god-awful stupid, so you can't even look at her and be like, oh, well, that's tragic. It's not tragic. It's just like, it was one of those, f*** around and find out, and yet how it was presented was just not satisfying.
[16:09] Like, seeing our main character, Yuzu, escape the abuse of her family, seeing her actually slowly become more happier with now her soon-to-be husband, seeing this guy actually support her
[16:21] physically, emotionally, in many ways, that was really good. It was just one of those, the show had weird priorities, and it didn't, like, stick to things. It jumped around a lot, and it kind of all fell flat because of it.
[16:34] Next is a heroine saint? No, I'm an all-works maid. I got this one really wrong when I did the seasonal, mostly because I was really annoyed at the fact that it was an istakai, because I was like, well, why did it need to be?
[16:47] Why can't it just be this girl that has these powers that just wants to be a maid? Why does she have to be an istakai at all? And that's because we kind of throw in some villainous tropes here, in that, yeah, there's Isekai for our main character, but she's very much not wanting to be the main character of this actually Otome game universe.
[17:06] Meanwhile, several other players of the Otome game have reincarnated into other characters within the narrative, and they know what is supposed to happen. and then they are getting slowly perplexed by the fact that the protagonist of the Otome game
[17:20] hasn't made an appearance, because they don't know that she changed her hair, changed her demeanor, and decided to become a maid somewhere else, and just threw it off to go and live her life. But, you know, the universe is trying to converge them all together anyway,
[17:32] they just don't identify what's going on, until another character that ends up coming into the story plays the remake version of the game, that had the protagonist become a maid. What is this? It is a story that is taking, like, that whole Atomic Game plotline,
[17:47] and it's turning it on its head, and it's rolling it down a hill, and it's smashing it into pieces, and then it's rebuilding it and calling it gold, and a lot of times it actually does things very smart and very well. The downside is that once you watch episode 12, you realize,
[18:01] okay, well, it's not over, and we don't have a season 2, and we don't really know where the plot is going because it's not finished yet, and we're just kind of sitting here in limbo now, and so I can't really recommend the show, because it might not continue.
[18:14] I can probably recommend the original material having not even read it. And really the only positive part about the show is how it is dealing with tropes and how it is playing the tropes. Like beyond that, the actual narrative is fine,
[18:26] but it's not like it's full of tension or anything because our main character is literally a demigod who acts like a maid. She's the saint and she has all of these powers, but she's essentially a demigod. It's just a matter of she only cares about things that are related to her maid profession.
[18:40] And if it doesn't fall within that purview, She doesn't care. So, general thought on that one, it'll be fine if there's another season. If this is where it ends, it'll probably be forgotten already, let's be fair. A Living Lady's Guide to Getting Even.
[18:53] Oh, wow, okay. I didn't expect this one to get as popular as it did, which maybe should not be a surprise, because, you know, actually having a protagonist that is legitimately a villainess is kind of unique enough to be noteworthy.
[19:05] And the show does proceed and continue to do that. But, like with all works made, this is also a the show's not done yet. We did finish off the finale with Elizabeth continuing her revenge spree
[19:18] in trying to take down the opponents of her past, who screwed her out of literally her life, and she decided, no, I'm going to take down everyone who ever wronged me and the entire kingdom besides, and she is on that path.
[19:31] We just haven't gotten there yet because we need more time. Is there going to be a second season? I don't know. but if there is I'll recommend it but if it doesn't I mean I almost feel like this will get forgotten
[19:43] even more so than all works made because there are certain parts of like the production that are a little bit lower there's inconsistent and like limited animation at times because we jump around a lot with Elizabeth being like this oh I'm a super
[19:55] competent merchant lady and look at this whole upbeat stuff that we're doing this like slice of life building this store and everything and having a good time swap over to I'm going to murder you, your family your entire kingdom and then everything's going to burn,
[20:08] and I'm going to laugh maniacally while doing it. Like, that flop, it kind of, like, it works at times. It's just one of those, I wonder if it's ever going to get boring. You're getting into the question of whether or not we want Elizabeth to do this as a character,
[20:22] because she is crossing a lot of lines, and you can say, well, it's all in the name of revenge. But then it's one of those, but then what after? It's that very common question with revenge stories of, well, once you have completed your revenge, then what?
[20:36] and we don't really know what Elizabeth's plan is after that because she hasn't told us and she might not even have one. Also, like, the whole I have these magnificent grimoires is in the title which barely uses the thing, so I don't really know what that's about.
[20:49] You could have removed that entirely from the story and not much would have changed. Like, if you want a villainous story that actually earns its title of villainous, this is probably the best that we have gotten in a very long time. It's just a question of whether or not that revenge plot of our villainous
[21:03] is enough to push through the little bit more rougher writing animation than the fact that we don't have an ending yet. Conversely to that, the other villainous series that is getting a second season, and I would argue it doesn't need one,
[21:16] is Though I Am an Inept Villainess, which was my... Like, I'm actually going to... If I'm going to rank all of the villainous shows this season, this one's going above Vivid Lady. It is a strong favorite show of mine from this season,
[21:28] mostly because of just, like, how the characters morph and change over the course of the story. No one is static. You can watch Vivid Lady, right? And Elizabeth is roughly the same character after, like, the first two episodes all the way to the end.
[21:40] It's just parts of her character are hidden from us, the audience, and we get to discover her as she decides to go and commit a couple of atrocities. But in that villainess, the characters, both our main heroine
[21:53] and our main villain, the actual villainess, we get to see them develop over the course of 12 episodes. They grow and they change based on their new circumstances after doing a wonderful body flop. Their dynamic is very interesting.
[22:05] And of course, you know, we're seeing a lot of this whole Chinese-inspired court ladies' shows. And I do find it interesting that, like, we do have a confirmation that we're getting a new season of Inept Villainess.
[22:17] And we happen to be getting them in the off-seasons of Apothecary Diaries. So, like, we had more Apothecary Diaries earlier this year. Then we had this. Next season, we're getting more Apothecary Diaries. And then when that's over, we're going to get the next season of Inept Villainess.
[22:29] so like the anime has just given us these court dramas like it's candy and i'm eating it i'm not gonna lie but that's the thing though is like yeah we're getting another season of it but compared to the other ones like if this is where it ended i would be fine i would still recommend the show
[22:45] if this was all we got it was it's a strong self-contained story for all of our leads i'm curious in fact of where we are going to go because we've already had the build-up of our protagonist, we've had the redemption of the quote-unquote villainess from the series.
[22:59] Where are we going with this? I'm excited to find out. Jadugar, a witch in Mongolia! Out of all of the videos I released this season, this was my least well-received. And by that, I don mean that like my opinions and my thoughts on it were poorly received It just more of a people didn care enough to watch the video and it the least viewed one of the bunch Sadness for me Despite the fact that a lot of people didn watch my video on it Jaduzar is still probably one of the best
[23:23] anime of the season. It is on the shortlist of best anime of the year. It also doesn't have an ending, necessarily. It wraps a number of things up, but there is still clearly more story to be told, and we're not entirely sure if Science Saru is
[23:37] going to be going ahead with any more of it. It is one of those, as it is, I still think that it is worth talking about, it is worth recommending, it is worth watching if you haven't, but it is also one of those,
[23:49] if a future me decided to appear randomly in my study and then tell me that, no, people stopped talking about Dadagarian and never got another season, and it just became one of those cult classics
[24:01] that dipped into the background, I wouldn't be all that surprised. I'd be disappointed, but I wouldn't be surprised. It is a show that is extremely and exceptionally well-written, beautifully animated, though I know that some people have problems with the style. I didn't.
[24:17] I thought the style was great. It is essentially, it is like a reviewer's anime, kind of. It's a critical darling. It is politically complex. It is culturally distinctive. Even if you don't know about those cultures, it catches you up to see reasonably enough, as well as I can tell,
[24:32] and it is brilliantly presented. The only downside is that the entire show just kind of feels like an act one to a much larger story, and I don't know if we're ever going to get it. But even then, as it is, it's great.
[24:44] There are just some shows that are just that a little bit higher than it on my own personal list, such as The Ghost in the Shell. Because Science Saru can't freaking lose, and so not only did they release Jaguar, one of the best anime of the season,
[24:56] they also released The Ghost in the Shell, which is another one of the best anime of the season, It's a science horror who is just freaking amazing. So, the Ghost in the Shell, which is a show that I did not make a separate video on this season,
[25:08] because I didn't know how to just say, I love it, please watch it over and over again and fill up a 15-minute video, because that's kind of what it is. This is the first Ghost in the Shell that properly adapts the original manga. I know, technically, the 1990 Mamoru Oshii film is an adaptation of the manga,
[25:25] but, I mean, come on, for real, if you ever actually watch that film and read the manga, you know that they're different. Oshii, especially in that time period is very well known because he also did this with Ernest E. Yasuda yeah, he also did this with Beautiful Dreamer
[25:38] where he takes the property and he kind of puts his own spin on it and it's fine and his own takes are really good I have no complaints about it and I definitely don't have any complaints about Ghost in the Shell 95 I would be an idiot to have a complaint
[25:50] about Ghost in the Shell 95 it's an exceptionally good film but this is not that this is an actual adaptation almost using the manga as a storyboard And it is great, and it is amazing, and it's the first Ghost in the Shell to do that,
[26:02] because every Ghost in the Shell before this, all of the adaptations before it, all of them are just their own takes on the material, on the world, on the characters, and this feels like that if you didn't know any better,
[26:14] but if you do know better, you're like, no, this is kind of the OG. And it is probably the most faithful adaptation that one could ever have expected. It is probably one of the best adaptations that I have watched of an anime, period. It is so good that I am not sure how I would rank it yet within the Ghost in the Shell adaptations,
[26:31] because, like, Stand Alone Complex is very near and dear to my heart. It is one of my favorite anime of all time, and it'll take me a bit to really wrap around in my head whether or not I would put this adaptation above it.
[26:43] And I'm not going to lie, a part of that is going to come down to whether or not they make another season. And we don't know if they're doing that. There's been a weird hint or a teaser saying that they might continue with the next part of the Ghost in the Shell manga. Unfortunately, the other parts of the Ghost in the Shell manga aren't as well received
[26:58] as the parts that have already been adapted. Then we're starting to get into the territory of being faithful might not actually be the best idea, but we're going to have to see. Which then leads to the last show that I wanted to talk about,
[27:10] and my favorite anime of the season, Draw This, Then Die. I can say with full confidence that The Ghost in the Shell is probably the best anime of the season, based on a whole bunch of different factors that I basically listed.
[27:24] But best doesn't mean favorite. I don't know how many people I could honestly recommend Draw This and Die To because I feel like you need to enjoy a certain kind of story. Draw This and Die is an anime about mangas,
[27:36] and about writing mangas, and drawing mangas, and how writing a manga can influence the next generation, and then how the next generation's response to your manga can influence your own life. And it's this wonderful manga.
[27:49] It is this beautifully written story about this group of girls who get into manga writing, and they're influenced by one of their teachers, who used to be a mangaka,
[28:01] but got burnt out and crushed by, essentially, the industry, because it constantly questioned whether or not she actually wanted to do this enough to make a living. Inevitably, she didn't, because inevitably she washed out and had to become a teacher.
[28:15] And she's a little bitter about it, but over the course of the show, even she starts to get a little bit of her fire back, a little bit of that magma boiling up with her, and this is an exceptionally good show. I'm happy to hear that we already have a second season
[28:28] confirmed, and we're gonna get it, and my god, am I looking forward to that. I mean, I want to say that this is the best character writing of the season, but we've had such good character writing all throughout the season, and not just this show, but many others, so that's very hard for me to say,
[28:43] to, like, put it on a tier, but it is definitely in the conversation, and should be in the conversation of, like, best character writing here between our protagonist, between our protagonist's teacher senpai, between even the other girls
[28:55] that she ends up making manga with. This is a wonderful show about creative enthusiasm from a younger person contrasted with adult creative burnout.
[29:07] And as someone who has experienced both, I love how each of them were portrayed and neither of them overpowered the other. It was just this wonderful way of how all of that came together to bring us this narrative that I love.
[29:20] Because we've animated so well, the colors are great. This is probably like one of the best shows about being creative that we've seen since Keep Your Hands Off of Zilkin. And I say that with very high praise. It's my favorite show of the season.
[29:33] And with that, that is my wrap-up of the season. If you go back and you watch my seasonal, and you look at the chart that I've made, in fact, why don't I just, whoo, there it is, look at that lovely chart! Notice how some of the things I talked about today
[29:45] are further down in the rankings. and yet I finished those and I didn't finish other things. There's a lot of stuff in the eighth year that's probably great. It's either I didn't have the time or I didn't have the drive or maybe I'll go back to it later.
[29:57] That's still a thing. Like there are certain shows from both this season and previous seasons that I need to finish. You and I are polar opposites. I definitely want to finish that alongside The Ramparts of Ice. These are both shows that existed within this year
[30:09] that I just haven't got around to. I still have them on my list to remind myself, yes, finish them. My God, I want to and I just need to find the time. there are a lot of things within the interior that'll probably become that, and I will come back to it, especially if next season ends up being the slower one.
[30:22] My God, please, can we have a slow season, just so I can catch up on some things? Okay, thank you. Unfortunately, that might not be the case. But until then, a very special thank you to my patrons, whose names are strolling beside my head right now as I speak.
[30:35] And of course, a very special thank you to patrons! Kidiomiko, Rife and Bonaparte, Ross Emerson, Omar Stroman, Geekwig, and Aiden for being
[30:47] exceptionally awesome. And until next time, ladies and gentlemen and others, watch all of these anime! Not all of them, I told you some of them you can skip, that's fine. But watch some of them,
[30:59] and stay frosty.