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The winter season has basically drawn to a close. Let’s talk about it! Anything surprise you? Disappoint you? Disgust you? I’m looking for some hot takes.

Please feel free to use this thread as a normal weekly discussion thread as well! Anything that would normally be in the weekly discussion thread any other week is welcome here.

As always, remember to be mindful of spoilers. If you want to know more about how to handle spoilers in this community, check the guide here (also linked in the sidebar).

  • Unboxious@ani.socialEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    Things I watched this season, in no particular order:

    • Apothecary Diaries Season 2 - So far it’s been just as good as season 1; I find myself looking forward to every new episode. Glad to see it continuing into the spring.
    • Kill la Kill - I’m 8 episodes in and while some of the “jokes” go too far for my taste I can see why a lot of people got hyped about this show.
    • From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated! - I watched the first episode. It was fun, but it didn’t hook me.
    • The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You Season 2 - As with Season 1 this was a near-perfect adaptation of a really fun manga. I really hope this gets a third season because my favorite character hasn’t even been introduced yet. It’s certainly popular enough, but managing the voice actors is going to get impractical at some point.
    • Medalist - This was the surprise anime of the season for me. Anyways, rehashing what I’ve said on it in other threads: at the start of the show I was really worried about the CGI skating from a studio that isn’t known for amazing CGI, but in the end it ended up working really well! Maybe it helps that they usually only had to make the skaters look good in isolation; during tournaments they’re skating around the middle of a big, otherwise-empty rink after all. The way Inori and her coach Tsukasa play off each other is incredibly charming, and the anime staff did a great job of capturing the facial expressions from the manga. It’s also amazing how a sports anime can feel like it has more dramatic stakes than something action-based. Maybe it’s the very real chance of failure. Maybe it’s just because it feels more grounded and realistic. Either way, nothing sucks me into the next episode like one of the characters getting ready to do a difficult jump in a tournament and everyone is watching to see what they’ll do and speculating whether they can actually do it and then the “next episode” button appears and I just can’t resist pushing it. Looking forward to the recently-announced Season 2.
    • Blue Box - This is probably the first time I’ve thought an anime was too beautiful. The manga had a more grounded look to it, whereas in the anime everything is lit up with specular highlights everywhere. It can feel a little over-the-top. Still, that’s my only complaint (and it’s one that very few people seem to share with me). Overall it was a great adaptation of one of my favorite romance manga (and my favorite shounen romance manga). The first season in isolation is a little sad, but I anticipate that the recently-announced second season will get us far enough to make things cheerful again.
    • Terror in Resonance - I know a lot of people really liked this one, but I didn’t care for it. It’s unclear to me why “terrorism” was the only answer for the main characters (and especially for one in particular). That whole chess airport sequence was just plain dumb.
    • Akiba Maid War - Everything everyone said about this anime was true. Great stuff. If you want a cute yakuza drama comedy look no further.

    Edit: I completely forgot there were two other shows I tried:

    • Zenshu - I can’t forgive them for the bait & switch, especially knowing that they said it was an isekai in the Japanese description but not the English one. Only watched 2 episodes.
    • I Have a Crush at Work - The first episode gave me the impression that the whole anime is basically just the same joke over and over so I didn’t watch more of it after that. Hopefully I’m missing something and it’s actually better than that.