Plk_Lesiak

Right, almost forgot about this one. I definitely won't skip on an otome villainess anime, they always deliver for me at least in some ways. Also, the glasses girl anime might be a cute piece of romance? Manga seems fairly well-regarded, and my general fondness for glasses probably won't hurt things. :3

So, guys, is there anything worth watching this season outside of sequels? I really struggle to find anything that catches my attention other than Mushoku Tensei Season 2. Will probably catch up on Horimiya too so I can watch the spin-off, but it feels like this season is going to be pretty barren, especially in comparison with how many sleeper hits there were in spring...

My un-favourite thing is actually all the instances of Rudeus pervying over his own mother, but yeah, I think this is as bad as it ever gets. Also, I feel that this part of Mushoku Tensei is why so many isekais after it made the protagonists either reincarnate as adults or awaken their memories of previous life at grade-schooler age. You can easily imagine how traumatic the experience of a fully self-aware toddler would actually be unless they're some kind of extreme pervert.

Mushoku Tensei is above all a redemption story and at least in anime while Rudeus' pervyness and his horrible past life are present, his positive qualities and him overcoming past traumas are much more prevalent. The very beginning of the story is pretty uncomfortable IMO but it only gets better after that, so I don't think it should be unbearable by any standards.

Sooo, I've been catching on some stuff from my to-watch list. First, Mushoku Tensei pretty much lived up to the hype. Really cool, character-driven isekai, with barely any weak points outside of the pervy stuff (which is not necessarily all bad, there is a narrative reason for some of it, but it's definitely overdone). I've wanted to watch it before the new season starts this summer and you can easily see how the original LN kickstarted the non-game side of isekai – it's so rich in its world and narrative that 90% of isekais after it ripped off major parts of it while rarely getting anywhere near it with either personality and/or complexity. Also loved how complete the first season felt, showing this massive personal journey of growth and overcoming trauma for Rudeus, while also giving a clear direction for the future. A few minor arcs felt rushed and slightly confusing, but overall, excellent piece of anime. 9/10? Cyberpunk: Edgerunners was another one I wanted to watch for a while and also enjoyed a lot. It feels like a short story more than a full series, but considering the subject matter, that's very fitting. It's all about how the world of Cyberpunk crushes people, and how it uses the very desperation it creates to exploit them even harder at every step. How Cyberpunks themselves, supposedly ones outside of the mundane oppression of the system, are actually another cog in the machine, used by the corpo powers as they please and discarded as soon and they lose their utility... But in the end, it's also not as depressing and grimdark as some reactions made me believe. I'm not sure there is much hope in it, but there's definitely some space for humanity and for some characters finding a better future, it's not just a tragedy for the sake of tragedy as some people make it out to be. Also 9/10 for me. Then, I've decided to finally check out Tokyo Ghoul... And... WTF? Just how botched that adaptation has to be if the manga is well-regarded? I kind of like the world, as I like vampires and this is basically a not-that-major spin on that theme... But holy crap the storytelling, it's just a neverending cycle of stupid->edgy->even more stupid->even more edgy, and then just fucking end in the most awkward moment imaginable. I actually quite hated the experience of watching it, and I didn't go in with such bad expectations, only with the knowledge that the adaptation was very imperfect. Maybe watching it as a dumb 15-year-old who really enjoyed Elfen Lied would leave me with a better impression... But I don't even think that's the case, it doesn't try to be a tear-jerker, it's just over-the-top brutal and obnoxious, on top of being rushed and sucking at character development... Meh/10.

Nice review! Although really, Liberation Day is a personal trauma of mine and I will never get the motivation to check out this game. Can't forgive how that game's plot was executed and the only way to not live with a burning hatred of it is to keep one of the time-travel alt endings as my headcanon, and never touch this series again.

Decided to expand my menu of seasonal trash with Yuri Is My Job and I understand why people hate on that show so much, the first three episodes feel like pointless drama, with the protagonist being a bit of a shithead, but getting abused for pretty much no reason... Fourth episode forward though, the show transition into quality drama, giving context to what happened earlier and creating this pretty interesting dynamic between the pathological-crowd-pleaser and manipulator of a protagonist and the main love interest who's this hopelessly strict and serious loner that despises dishonesty in all forms. Honestly, all four main characters have tons of potential and writing is mostly solid. My only fear is like with all Yuri shows, it won't go anywhere by the end of the season... But I've started enjoying the plot and the setting of yuri-manga-themed cafe enough to stick with it regardless. It's surprisingly fun after the shaky beginning.

So yeah, while the last episode of Conception was a bit more serious and cohesive (ie. boring), for the most part the show stayed consistently degenerate and mind-breakingly stupid. I'm tempted to throw in the major spoilers, because it's hilarious how fucked up they are, but I think I'll refrain. I kind of want more people to watch this show for themselves, because I genuinely feel it's overly vilified – the parody and off-putting perviness was so obvious from the beginning that I'm shocked there were so many people unable to immediately identify the kind of parody it is. It's like they expected genuine ecchi and romance in something absolutely disinterested in delivering those and got offended by not getting any. I give it a somewhat shaky 6/10 and a fairly confident "so-bad-it's-good" seal of approval.

I think musically the second semi-final was still a bit less disastrous than the first one, I liked Estonia and Belgium in a semi-serious manner. Which makes the fact we made it to the finals even more amusing... I guess it's the power of memes. there was a lot of chatter around our entry and in the end, all publicity is good publicity when you're pitted against a dozen of similarly bland things.

Definitely a love-it-or-hate-it thing, but it's more than just a particularly dumb anime, it's the kind of thing that perpetually go off the rails and try to one-up itself with pure absurdity and degeneracy. It's more deranged than just plain stupid, I somehow deeply enjoy that kind of weirdness.

Mashle is fun, the Harry Potter parody is a really good concept for this kind of anime. ^^ Generally, I mostly watch utter trash and sequels this season. Ancient Magus' Bride and Gundam: The Witch from Mercury are both still very solid in their own, melodramatic way. Smartphone isekai I think evolved from something mostly vapid to this still shallow, but genuinely cute parody of harem fiction... The spoof was obviously always in there, but it feels more self-aware and funny at this point. I don't even feel gross about watching it any more. Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is still a lot of enjoyable fluff and while some people complain about the pacing, I have a completely opposite impression – as the show got over all the setup and basic worldbuilding in the first season, this one feels a lot more like a personal journey of growth for Yuna. Not that much is happening overall, but I feel there's a lot more weight in the small decisions and challenges she faces, having to spet out of her comfort zone in new ways and establishing a more sustainable place for herself in the new world. I'm also, with no shame whatsoever, enjoying The Legendary Hero is Dead, probably the most hated show of the season? It's another one of those relentlessly weird and stupid genre parodies, but damn if it's not consistent. Sure, not all of the jokes land, maybe not even most of them, but with shows like this (I'd include Don't Hurt Me, My Healer and Conception in this exact same category) it's not the specific gags that I enjoy but the overall vibe of absurdity and inappropriate humour. And this show goes HARD, although with enough self-awarness to never become too vulgar or fanservice'y (it's this level of parody when ecchi is so stupid and warped it stops functioning as such). Even my GF liked the first two episodes, I think we'll catch up to the current episode this evening. xD

3/4 of the way through Conception and I low key really like this show. It's relentlessly unserious and stupid, and it's hilarious to see people complaining and incomprehensible plot and uncomfortable gags like if it was a genuine harem. At the moment the show is on the red herring BL episode, with the protagonist looking for the yet unknown 13th magical waifu and getting confused by the horny magical-tanuki-mascot-thing that the missing maiden might be a guy... And the protagonist REALLY gets into the mindset. Harem fans on Crunchyroll were not amused, I think it's pretty hilarious.

I think Serbia was genuinely quite good! At least it stood out. Croatia was funny and I like the relentless political parody, but I wish it was a bit more catchy/less messy. Welp, we'll see whether something in the second semi-finals tops what we've seen so far.

Well, the lukewarm nature of this year's contest makes me feel I actually got spoiled by the last four Eurovisions, they always had deeply memorable moments... And hell, we had Hatari in 2019, nothing will ever top that, so I guess I should adjust my expectations. At least the Moldovan shaman dude got to the finals.

I'm pretty sure there's a free livestream on the Eurovision website every year, I watched it that way a few years back when I was abroad for the contest. And yeah, Sweden is 100% winning this year, nothing comes even close. Not that I'm such a huge fan of the song or Loreen, but simply the competition is a few levels behind her in most aspects, and her live performance skills are impeccable.

Aye, she definitely has a very specific sound/vibe she's going for, but I found it admirable how much it stands out when even the better parts of Japanese indie pop are usually very samey. The sound and her whisper-singing could be annoying to some ears, but it's surprisingly skillful for someone this young. Oh, and while I'm chain posting, why not drop another underrated thing ;]

This year's Eurovision kind of sucks, and the Polish entry is just a full-on travesty, but there's always something exotic enough to make the contest amusing for me. My current favourite is this Moldovan-Turkish guy with a midget playing the flute: So, anyone else following this very important cultural event?

Interest stacks (user-made collections) on MAL. After all, I'm not the only weirdo around with this kind of "taste". ;]

You already got some quality feedback here and my idea os probably worthless, but the main thing that stuck to my mind observing the overall aesthetic is that it would look more consistent if you went full pixelart... Or maybe just using some additional effects on the sprites to make them blend better? I like what you've done already, but it lacks the stylistic consistency of Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk for example.

I've been slumped with RL stuff for the past few months, but now that things got a little less hectic I started to resurrect my anime watching habits. Outside of the seasonal stuff, I've resumed my quest to consume all the worst anime in history and my most recent pick is Conception, an adaptation of a weird, pregnancy-themed PSP RPG, basically a non-eroge with the most eroge plot ever. The general premise is an isekai where the protagonist has to conceive 12 magic babies with chosen waifus (including his cousin who isekai'd along with him) to clear out a magic labyrinth and save the other world. I don't know that much about the original game, but the anime version is a very low budget, clunky parody of harem fantasy, much more a not-very-elaborate joke than an genuine ecchi or romance of any kind... And honestly, I enjoy it a lot more than most people did. It's bad on purpose (very obviously so) and I quite like the absurd way in which it treats genre tropes and constantly makes fun of itself. I understand why a good majority of people would recoil from it like if touching red hot metal, but I unironically enjoy it halfway though the season, in a similar way I liked Don't Hurt Me, My Healer and this season's The Legendary Hero is Dead. 6/10?

This girl's compositions and arrangements got me pretty mesmerized lately~

Still listening to obscure Japanese R&B, including this girls: Furui Riho. Her songs are a tiny bit generic, but in a pleasant way and damn if she's not a talented one + a natural born performer.

It's been a while since I've actually looked for translated VNs, let alone read one, but I kept with my yearly ritual of shilling for Seisai no Resonance localisation. :3

So, I was dead for like a month and a half, but The Magical Revolution brought me back to life. I was waiting so long for a yuri show that would be genuinely fun and to the point, and holy crap, Anis really does not beat around the bush, she goes straight for the goal. I really hope for like two seasons of this and the romance blooming properly, it will be my dream anime at that point. Also, what a weird, isekai-filled season. Not sure how much of it I'll end up watching, instead of catching up on my backlog for example, but I'll definitely stick with Reborn to Master the Blade, seems like a really fun, lighthearted show that will benefit a lot from the adaptation into anime. And then, despite the meh CGI, I was quite impressed with the first two episodes of Nier: Automata. I feel like the authors are fully aware that they won't be able to fully present the complexities of the original, so they focus on showing its emotional impact and tone. The episode two in particular wasn't afraid to give a lot of time to a semi-random side story about the machines, from what I heard taken from some spin-off media and not the game itself, but which was extremely artistic and wonderfully established the moral complexities and cruel nature of the setting. Not sure how easily someone completely unfamiliar with the original would follow (I didn't play it, but I read a lot about its story), but it seems like something even random viewers should appreciate for the creativity and vibes.