To be honest, I never thought I’d see myself straying from the path of seasonal anime after 5 years of sticking with it.

(…normally I’d have an intro here talking about what I’m up to, but I wrote a long end note on it, so you might as well skip there instead if that’s what you want to read.)

(Also, the Twitter connection isn’t working, so posts won’t be tweeted unless I share on Twitter the long way.)

Bold indicates Crunchyroll, underline indicates HiDive.

The Best Bets

• Jigokuraku – I followed this manga while it ran and always knew it was desinted for great things, despite being pretty darn gory and sexual-looking. I have a post on it here and it made an “anime adaptions I want” list here (although, in retrospect, Hoshi no Samidare is not Spirit Circle). Maybe it’s time to write another “anime adaptions I want” list, now I’ve got a bunch of them and let them pass me by…
• Oshi no Ko/My Stan’s Kid – This one I was following for a bit before I fell behind on it with Manga Plus. It’s an odd series for me to like, but admittedly, there’s nothing average about it.
• My Home Hero – This one I heard about from Biblionyan (the website of which unfortunately seems to be defunct right now). I could read the source material, because it’s on Magazine Pocket, but there are so many other works waiting for my attention already…hahaha…
• Tokyo Mew Mew New s2: Aw, still no crappy pun about how it could be “Mew Mew Mew” or “Mew Mew New x2” or something…?
• Ancient Magus’s Bride s2: The first season was fine, but I feel like this season was hyped up for longer than the norm for some reason.
• Magical Destroyers: You know you got me with the words “magical girl”.

Middling

• The Hero is Dead!: 1) This page convinced me to check it out. 2) Blake…pretty…*wipes drool from face* 3) In a sea of romances (<- exaggerating somewhat), you need something else to cling to.
• The Reason Why Raeliana Ended Up At the Duke’s Mansion – If you’ve been around this blog a while, you know why I’ll throw something on the “sneak a peek at” list without having prior attachments to it: Ume or some other voice actor. That’s true here. I also seem to recall hearing stuff about this manhwa in passing, although I don’t remember if they were good or bad things, and considering I’m the Villainess, so I’m Taming the Final Boss was around a few seasons ago, it’s obviously not unique in its genre space (although it could’ve been unique in the manhwa world at the time of the original work’s creation).
• Dead Mount Death Play: Sounds interesting. It’s worth a shot.
• Opus Colours: This sounds decent, but its closest precedent – StarMu – is also only decent (from what I’ve seen of it, at least).
• Skip and Loafer: I’ve been holding on to a library copy of volume 1 of this manga for a while and holding up others from experiencing it…so it better be worth the wait.
• Otonari no Ginga/A Galaxy Next Door: I don’t normally gravitate towards the romances, but this one has a sort of magic realism element or vibe to it, as far as I remember hearing. Now, I could be wrong about that and regret it, but I prefer to err on the positive side.

Avoiding/May Regret Dropping Later

• Mashle: I dropped this one in manga form after a single chapter, but like Jujutsu Kaisen, I don’t 100% hate it. The anime might be the chance to give it another chance.

To Catch Up On

• Demon Slayer: Swordsmith Village Arc: I’ve watched Mugen Train now, but I think I’m a season behind.
• Dr Stone: New World: Ditto, but without the movie.
• Golden Kamuy season 4: Two seasons behind on this one.
• The Witch from Mercury season 2

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So, what’s hot and what’s not for you guys this season?

Lengthy, personal end note (CW: death, COVID): …to be honest, it feels like I’ve been gone from this blog and anime for ages, because despite my last published post going out last month, I last read (from this point of time I’m writing at now) manga 2 weeks ago (Ao Haru Ride, which was okay but almost overdue) and last paid attention to watching an anime (Dororo, which I still love but ran out of stream for, as opposed to putting anime in the background of chores) a bit over a month ago.

The fact I can say these things from my profile…probably says something about the mental state I’m in right now, since I’ve mentioned in the past my anime and manga consumption goes down when I’m in a more negative kind of mood (…now that I’ve written out the timeline, I can see the dip in consumption rougly matches with (in this order) 1) catching COVID last month, 2) subsequent job hunting due to contemplating job satisfaction over the isolation period and 3) the passing of my paternal grandfather – I wasn’t there to see him off digitally because I was working, which only made me more dissatisfied with my current job).

Reasons why I write these posts are to keep a snapshot of my mood before things get popular/sink into obscurity and, in this case, it’ll give me a sense of normalcy to go back to my old routine from some years ago.

However, since I’ve still got anime to catch up on, I won’t beat myself up over not getting around to everything like I used to. I know I never get to first episodes first and I’ll never be fully caught up to every anime in existence, plus I’ve got new things to stress about now, so picking myself up again and being kind to myself are the best things I can do. So, unlike being raring to go but then never even finishing one preview write-up in 2022, I’ll write first impressions on only whatever I make it to and won’t faze myself if I never get to everything I’m at least mildly interested in. “Everything in its own time” and all that.