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Update: It's shit.

what do you think of Nukitashi?

I uh... actually missed that that came out. I may get back to you on that later.

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what do you think of Nukitashi?

I uh... actually missed that that came out. I may get back to you on that later.

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I wish I liked City

• It's obvious top tier quality made by master craftspersons

• It feels very genuine and not just Nichijou again

• There should be more like this, in fact everything should be like this

• I'm not having any fun watching it

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Spring Anime 2025: Disappointments and comebacks

Rock is a Lady's Modesty

At the end I really had to remind myself that this show used to be good, because while the plot about Marimoots secretly rocking out has its issues (mostly its characters being paper-thin and overplayed), the parts where it decides it's actually about boomer takes regarding what counts as real rock music are just complete ass. And because this is definitely written by a shounen author, this is presented in the form of a tournament arc with the worst musical performance scenes I can think of - I've heard of shounen fights being turned into AMVs, but here you get to enjoy AMVs being turned into shounen fights. 6/10

Apothecary Audiobooks S2

It's become increasingly clear to me that I don't like this show, I just like Maomao. So when the last half of this season was her being hostage by incessant exposition by people I barely care about about people I don't care about at all, I was ready to give the show its 5/10 and never mention it again.

And then the last episode is the best one of the entire thing and so you'll probably get the chance to hear me complaining about how much I don't care about the plot in Apothecary Diaries again in the future. Oh no. 6/10

Kowloon Generic Romance

This is probably the biggest disappointment of them all, because you know what's the absolute worst you can do to an impeccably moody, slow, mysterious vibes show with interesting characters? Stuffing it full of big concrete slabs of expository dialogue about a goofy sci-fi plot that can most charitably be described as "an attempt was made". Now, most people would chalk this up to the blistering pace of the adaptation (11 volumes in 13 eps is a lot), but while that certainly doesn't help, I don't think that stuff is a good use of anyone's time and should have been completely left out – and by that I mean completely left out of the manga to begin with. Seriously, just delete every scene that includes Yulong and the show's instantly much better. 6/10

Food for the Soul

I keep forgetting about this show, which is probably not a good sign. But when I do remember it exists, I think of it as an enjoyable time with delicious food and cute antics. It's incredibly shallow, but that's just what this genre is, I suppose. 6/10

Umamusume: Cinderella Gray

To put it simply, Cinderella Gray is what Umamusume should have been in the first place: Not a masterpiece by any means, but at least it has a proper generic sports shounen plot instead of just an uncanny simulacrum of one, with a manageable cast of moderately multidimensional characters. It also gives us a look at the world outside of Tracen. Apparently they're still just retelling old horse racing results, but I guess at least this time they picked some worth retelling. 7/10

Fire Force S3

While S3 doesn't really contain much of what I'd call "Peak Fire Force", it's still a fun, goofy time that just keeps trucking along, where they can bring back characters I've last thought about half a decade ago and I go "hey, it's that guy!". Give me my weekly dose of lovely grannies with a threatening aura and interdimensional piggyback rides, and I won't complain. 7/10

Catch me at the Ballpark!

I kind of feel bad for this one, because I honestly love it but it will never get the attention it deserves. First of all it's incredibly niche, but more importantly it's cheap as hell – the best thing I can say about the production is "barely acceptable in the context of shows that don't require production to be good". But yeah, I do recommend this one, a lovely true ensemble piece about a bunch of very normal people. This anime really makes you feel like you're a hopeless fan of a shit baseball team. 7/10

Apocalypse Hotel

And finally, Apocalypse Hotel is just really fucking good. I've always been a sucker for thoughtful postapocalyptic sentiments, but ApoHotel not only doesn't drop the ball but goes to some unexpected places. For one, it has variety - sometimes it almost feels like a Space Dandy-esque anthology show, only unlike that one it's good at all of the things it tries. But then it also couples that with a notably strong throughline with continuity and character development. And on top of it it's just super well put together, Cygames already have a track record for these off-the-wall originals and this is their best one yet. Instant classic, 9/10

And just for the record, To Be Hero X is still going so I won't spend time on it, but you should watch that show if you're not already on it. It's very good.

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Apothecary Diaries was a mistake.

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Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray, episode 10: "The Peak" (2025)

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To Be Hero X, episode 9: "Loss And Gain" (2025)

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Official list of alternative names for Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX

Mobile Suit Gundam CHaaaaaaR

0079 Gundam FM: This Ain't Your Dad's UC

Dimensional Fortress Gundam: Do You Remember Char?

Gundam Wars: The Newtypes Awaken

The Itchy & Scratchy & Char Show

Mobile Suit Gundam Uguu

Gundam SuuuuuuX (free square)

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<&delta> man <&delta> maybe i just missed this but <&delta> do you know who the concept writer behind food for the soul is? <q66> no <&delta> atto <&delta> we can now call it nom nom biyori

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Was there anything actually good last season, continuations aside? It looked dire so I skipped basically all of it.

Last season was actually quite good, since now literally anyone cares I'll just give a rundown of what I watched, in descending order for a change:

Medalist: Best sports anime in years and a lot better than Yuri on Ice, which makes it the de facto best figure skating anime.

Okitsura: Very cute infotainment. You'll learn a bunch of Okinawa facts and Shin Itagaki's jank is only present in very small doses.

Ave Mujica: Not as good as MyGo, but still plenty entertaining. I just don't like theatercore as much and it has some strange pacing decisions.

Momentary Lily: You are statistically likely to hate this, but I think I like GoHands now just because they're so incredibly weird.

Tasokare Hotel: Pretty C-tier show with some writing issues, but I still liked it because the characters were nice.

Sorairo Utility: Basically some ex-Trigger guys making Yuru Camp but about golf. Nice production, but overall it's only slightly above average for a CGDCT.

HanaShura: It's an okay-ish and pleasant enough small scale version of Euphonium, but ultimately does not go anywhere or achieve anything.

Zenshuu: Speaking of Trigger, here's the proof that ladies can make animation nerd shit with really questionable writing too. I did not like it at all.

Ameku Takao: I thought this would be wild nonsense, but as it turns out it's just a really bad mystery show. Avoid.

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Seriously though

There's something really sad about Anno's pathological obsession with getting his finger into every 60s/70s franchise he liked as a kid. I liked him more when he was depressed.

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A preliminary report on the topic of Spring Anime 2025

I'm not going through all this shit but here's some notes on shows of note. Fire Force and Apothecary Diaries are continuing but those are basically just what they've always been, and the whole CGDCT parade featuring mono et al are good enough but exactly what you'd expect. Anyway:

Apocalypse Hotel

Not much to say, this is well done and a complete no-brainer for me based on the topic alone. Planetarian without KEY, sign me the fuck up.

Rock Is a Lady's Modesty

This would also be a no-brainer based on the topic alone (I will watch basically any Class S spoof no matter what), but what if I told you that when this show says "rock", it means "sex" and it isn't subtle about it either. I just hope they stop spelling out Lilisa's motivation in every episode eventually.

Kowloon Generic Romance

Passes the vibe check easily and it's pretty interesting outside of that too; it's surprisingly arthouse and thematically rich, but seemingly without the pretensions this usually brings.

Lazarus

This is surprisingly bad, boring and completely uninteresting, and I dropped it before it even gets to the part where Watanabe gets on his soapbox (Carole & Tuesday is, indeed, still continuing in my head, you hack fraud). Best thing I can say about it that it looks expensive, and even that is basically just a demonstration that chasing live action clout by bringing Chad Stahelski in is a foolish idea because this shit looks like West Side Story.

To Be Hero X

But who needs washed up hacks from the 90s when you can watch Li Haolin do whatever the fuck he wants. TBHX is primarily a sick graphics demo, but even if the writing in the first episodes is not supposed to be the focus, it's still smarter than most things in this subgenre - kind of like MHA meets OPM without the godawful parts of either. There's definitely no guarantee that it will stay that way (Haolin shows are known to go places, and so far TBHX barely seems to have anything to do with its own elevator pitch), but it's a risk I'm gladly willing to take.

Witch Watch

Surprisingly good for a shounen romantic comedy, mainly because it nails the comedy. This might get old, but so far it hasn't.

Gundam Uguu

I'm split here; the "main" part of it is a pretty neat cyberpunk cartoon with endearing characters. However, I aggressively don't care about UC Gundam, so Hideaki Fucking Anno coming through with the most embarrassing Char fanfic I've ever seen (and that's saying something for a sub-franchise that has basically subsisted on embarrassing Char fanfics for decades) for an entire episode is very much not appreciated. I'll give it another episode but if that contains basically ANY notable amount of UC memberberries I'm out.

Ballpark de Tsukamaete!

This one is probably doomed to obscurity because it's extremely niche and looks like ass. But for the record, I'll say that I'm a sucker for true Altman-style ensemble pieces if the characters can carry them, and that is the case here. A very positive surprise.

Cinderella Gray

Mainline Umamusume has well jumped the shark by S3, but this spinoff is at least possibly worth watching because it's just a pretty standard sports story without most of the cruft. That doesn't really make it exciting on its own, however, just a lot less irritating, and I'm not sure if that's enough of a reason to actually stick with it.

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[20:30:07]  <&delta> "ryukishi's cringe slapstick" is the name of my jazz fusion prog rock band btw

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What did you think of Red Ranger Isekai?

I'm not enough of a Sentai fan to make "shitty generic isekai but with Sentai references" worthwile. And Zenshuu is already eating up all the goodwill I am willing to expend on stuff like that.

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I sure hope that tricking me into watching 2 acceptably cute episodes before you start expositing about how OP your cheat skill is for 10 minutes isn't the new trash LN adaptation meta.

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[22:38:29]  <&delta> new headcanon: kokoro is bankrolling ave mujica because she's going through a goth phase

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Zenshuu is like if you took a broken down Yugo and changed every single part for a brand new Rolls-Royce spare part – apart from the engine.