…I couldn’t resist that post title, really *sweatdrops*.

In this post:

• Paradox Live
• Frieren
• Helck (catch up, I’m partway through episode 7 right now)
• Migi and Dali
• SHY
• Ron Kamonohashi
• HypMic

Paradox Live

This feels like a parallel universe of HypMic – everything’s the same yet ever-so-slightly off. The only real differences I perceive between the two are team/character dynamics and how each team is touted to be an “expert in their style”, like some kind of Iron Chef (HypMic characters have “styles of music”, like how Jakurai has his “uneven flow”, but that’s not emphasised as much in favour of other aspects).

…surprisingly(…?), I liked it quite a bit. As I said in the previous post, I wonder if it will glorify or otherwise go overboard with the trauma, plus the CGI usage was pretty well handled, the storyline is solid (the rose in the stinger definitely has my attention!) and the music is actually more catered to my taste than HypMic‘s is, but the English is…possibly more cringe than HypMic‘s. (See, for example, some random examples I am going to pull from the depths of my brain: “Dotsuitare Honpo SHIT!” or “My fellow chicks and dicks from Yokohama.”)

That said, my allegiance still lies with HypMic and even if I never give a vote or money to anyone on the ParaLive side – if you don’t get my ConvertKit newsletter, I deleted my Twitter account recently because of the potential paywall – nobody ever said you couldn’t be a fan of both franchises, yeah? People in the HypMic server have already proven it can be done.

Other notes:

• I knew Paradevi was coming, but Paradevi is basically Chuohku of HypMic in that he’s the announcer. (There is some deeper stuff about Chuohku which I won’t go into due to spoilers.) I find his voice a little annoying and overly hammy, though.
• …surprisingly, after “meeting” them for real here, I like BAE. I wasn’t expecting to like them, particularly how Allen appears to be this series’s Ichiro (from HypMic again, natch, in that he’s a kinda plain dude who’s serious about his style of music and sometimes he works a little too hard, but Allen is more K-pop whereas Ichiro is rap). This is probably because BAE specialises in EDM more explicitly than Fling Posse, which is my jam.
• Having heard about Iori from one of the HypMic server members, I kinda squealed when I recognised him… *sweatdrops while laughing*
• There seems to be more emphasis on the characters writing their own songs here too, which is not a thing HypMic really focuses on…I guess I never noticed that until now because I made one of my HypMic fan characters “the one who writes the songs”.
• All this talk about Buraikan just makes me wanna chant, “TDD! TDD!” (If you’re not following, that’s from TDD Legend, where “TDD” refers to The Dirty Dawg from HypMic.)
• I feel like HypMic skews slightly older than ParaLive, which…I guess shows how I’m always ahead of the curve, huh? *sweatdrops*
• I think the CGI is appropriate here. Possibly even more appropriate than it was for HypMic s1, at least. (However, usage of CGI on HypMic speakers is always acceptable.)

Frieren

I somehow understood Frieren had a debut comprised of 5 episodes (1 feature length + 4 normal ones), which is what scared me off from starting it previously. However, it’s just 4 normal episodes, so…because of the lack of time I have while writing this (I’m writing this in a spare hour between submitting that freelance work I mentioned in the previous post and my “day job” on the 5th of October in my time), I’ll only cover what I have time for (so I may miss what’s labelled on Crunchyroll as eps. 3 and 4 or just one of those eps)…

(Ep. 1 only, haven’t watched eps. 2 – 4 yet) Although I haven’t read the manga, I have heard of its reputation and it most certainly lives up to that. I can tell a lot of care was put into everything. I didn’t cry, but I feel like this anime will make people cry later on.

More notes:

• I think I understand why people were saying Frieren‘s OP doesn’t fit it – it’s a sad, melancholy anime with a peppy electronic OP.
• I’m typically quite unemotional to people because if I’m emotional, typically I come to regret it. Either that, or I’m in a scenario where I feel I can drop my guard enough. That’s why I get where Frieren is coming from, emotionally speaking.
• Old!Heiter reminds me of Yakumo the 8th from SGRS and Pine from ACCA – both of which I liked from a critical perspective, so that is very high praise.
• Magic is a tool to some, a weapon to others. That’s what I learnt writing fantasy stories.
• With my grandpa having passed away earlier this year, I honestly should’ve cried harder at (and felt closer to) this premiere…but I wasn’t close enough to him to make memories that would drive me to tears.

HypMic

Well, that was uber, uber fun! It’s shaping up to be a HypMic mystery…which there are several versions of, between the multiple arms of the media mix…but this one actually seems to be incorporating the lore of the series into the story for once (as well as Dotsuitare Honpo and Bad Ass Temple – more on them in my Rhyme Anima post, which I linked in the notes below), whereas existing “HypMic mysteries” (such as the game’s event story Murder at the Western-style Mansion or the song Murder at the Mystery Mansion) are usually normal murder mysteries. (The main story’s season 2, with its mystery about Charms…I skipped reading most of that, so I don’t know if it qualifies.)

As implied in the aforementioned post, there is a high bar to entry for anime-onlys, although the reuse of Page (bomber dude from season 1) does make things somewhat easier. However, if you already have your head around the extremely complicated relationship quadrangle that is this series, you’re good to go. The animation is better than s1, as well, if you’re worried about the CGI.

More notes:

• DH! BAT! In Glory or Dust-style sorta-CGI! Oh my stars!!! It’s really happening! (Sidenote: Glory or Dust is an animated HypMic music video, if you didn’t catch on to that.)
• (after listening to the OP, Rise From Dead, properly for the first time) *laughing* Ohmygodohmygod, that was so good…but welp, guys, if you wonder why I’m stuck in HypMic Hell, this is it. Or if you wonder if this might be Character Overload for a 2 minute anime intro: Yes. (Statistically speaking, 18+ characters in 24 minutes means, on average, you cover at least a character a minute for a full episode.)
• Rumour has it that if Crunchyroll gets fancy coloured subs, then that’s a human’s fault and not a machine’s. I mean, for HypMic, you need a human to deal with it (between the raps, wordplay and more) – anything less would make a huge mess of things.
• (after “Amayado Rei?”) Ohhkay folks, you are definitely going to need to know who that is. Luckily, I have a post for you! Update: Welp, he appears in the episode proper, so if you finished season 1, you should recognise him but not know what significance he plays in the overall HypMic plot.
• (after the record shows the Bad Ass Temple logo) *screeching* Oh my godddddddddddddd! BAT!…sorry, you probably didn’t ask for me yelling like a banshee, but a few years ago, all Hypnosis Mic had in terms of the animation department was Ichiro’s hand. (That was a minor meme in the fandom, too.) Now all 18 characters have been animated in 2D beyond a few minutes of paid content, so it could be considered nothing short of a minor miracle.
• Oh hey, Hitoya still insists he doesn’t like pineapple in sweet and sour pork (he first said this in his intro drama track). He’s nothing if not consistent.
• “…I, a humble monk…” – Yes but no. “Yes” in that that’s what his pronoun, sessou, actually means (roughly “this humble servant of Buddha” and usually used by anime monks like Yamabushi Kunihiro). No in that…a punk rock/rap dude like Kuko is obviously not humble.
• (after Sasara and Rosho’s intro) Sssssssssssso…we have a HypMic mystery, I guess.
• (after the mention of uni) Uni is sea urchin. *does the research* Sea urchin gonads, to be precise *sweatdrops*…It’s nice to see they stuck with “Doppomine”, though – that seems to be one of the translation choices the fandom actually liked.
• “affiliated clubs” – Come to think of it, in ARB, one or two of the event stories mentions Fragrance – the Shinjuku-based host club Hifumi is no. 1 host of – has an Osaka branch. It’s that sort of thing.
• Gentaro doesn’t speak Shakespearean English anymore! *punches air* I mentioned it during one of my translation assignments, as well as that being a bit of a fandom punching bag from season 1. Update: …they still have that. It’s just massively toned down.
• “Owl Consultation Forum” – Cute…The “owl” is a bit of wordplay between Ikebukuro and fukurou (owl).
• “Brother Ichi” – …another relic from season 1, IIRC…although I can’t think of a better way to handle it. aside from transferring “Ichi-nii” wholesale.
• No CGI for the speakers! Hell yeah!
• (Buster Bros merch) – That was in the trailer. A few people (mostly BB fans, natch) noticed Ramuda had some, but we didn’t have any proper background info on it until now.
• “…Samatoki sir…” – Eyyyyyyyyyyyyy! I like this choice! (Note the original is -sama.) Also note this scene where they butt heads is reminiscent of War War War. (…but now I think of it, these warehouses look like where 3 Seconds Killer was set in season 1 as well.)
• *cut to inside the warehouse* I wonder who this “powerful ally” is. Ichiro? Riou? *sees Jakurai* *metaphorical needle scratch* …oh. I should’ve seen that coming (especially given Jakurai was unaccounted for in the previous Shinjuku scene), but I guess I got used to Jakurai being written out of stories from ARB. Most notably, there was a beach story about 2 months ago where Hifumi and Doppo were present, but Jakurai had other plans for that time…I was robbed of beach Jakurai, dammit! *shakes fist at heavens*
• Also, it’s nice to see Page (the microphone bomber from season 1) again. He was pretty popular for a side character.
• “…the Chuohku…” – Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh…most people in English either go “Chuohku” (no “the”) or translate it mostly literally to “Central Ward”. Either that, or he’s referring to the Party of Words, which are known as “Chuohku Division” because that’s the land they occupy.
• (cue ED) – Extra Wardrobe 02! Oh my godddddd! My favourite Jakurai outfit! It’s gonna be animated!
• (EW02 Jakurai) Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Jakurai! I totally praise the animators who worked on this ED, they made him look absolutely splendid without making him look old (like some of the ARB card art does)! (I’m still slightly bugged by those hand symbols though…what are they?)

Rankings

I wanted to take on the Yuzuki family anime before hearing about the borked-up subs (see the link about coloured subs in the HypMic notes) and the firefighter anime (which has been getting good reviews), but I think this season is already packed enough with so many average or higher-tier anime. You probably can’t go wrong, no matter where you look this season…right?

I think at this point, it’ll be an absolute bloodbath between Tearmoon, Spy x Family, Kurusiya no Hitorigoto and the rest.

Continue:

• HypMic: I know it’s not perfect and people might even frown at me for putting this up the top of my rankings – critically, it is quite flawed due to high entry barriers, character overload and kinda middling animation (except for the ED, which is reminiscent of the JJK ED Lost in Paradise) – but this is my blog, I’ve already climbed over the barriers, it still brings the emotional highs season 1 did for me and I do what I want. In terms of in the greater scheme of HypMic…only time will tell if I deem it better or worse than s1, though.
• Frieren: This is this season’s critical darling, I’m sure of it.
• Shy
• Paradox Live: I didn’t expect to be ranking it this high, especially given HypMic was still a few days from airing when I put it here, but *shrugs* it happens.
• Migi and Dali: “Hitori” means “one (person)”…so in this case, Hitori is meant to be one child. Also, apparently the neighbour gets confused when the twins put up the birdhouse – I didn’t see that!

To deal with in a less crowded season:

• Ron Kamonohashi: Upon retrospect, either I didn’t pay attention or I didn’t see enough of the clues signposted if this anime wanted me to “play along with it”.