Seasonals of the Abyss - Summer 2025

 Seasonals of the Abyss

  * Summer 2025 *

 

I was hoping to publish a second post on this blog that was a little bit more interesting so you don't get the impression that all I do is write about seasonal anime, but it wasn't meant to be. I've bought myself a couple months to cook up something new for my third blog post, so please wait patiently for that. You'll have to forgive me for my lack of work ethic when it comes to personal writing ventures, but I'm a disagreeable person who only finds drive in penning the sort of self-indulgent hodgepodge that I'd want to read from someone else. Scratch that - it's because all I've been doing for the past couple of months is watching Gundam. Hundreds of episodes immersed in war flavored personal struggled topped with mech aura fights, awkward feminist statements from your well meaning grandpa (thanks Tomino), and coming of age stories where the children are always getting traumatized by losing their parents. A fun journey, but not one I've been dying to write about in length. Not yet, at least!

So here we are again, three months disintegrated from the timeline and knee deep in a whole new batch of seasonal anime. Fitting for the warm summer season, a massive wave that was looming on the horizon for the entirety of last season has finally crashed against the land and spread its boons across the pearly white sands. There were so many contenders this season that I had to make some necessary sacrifices to keep my list tight and compact. When you work a full time job for money so you can arguably lose money on writing for an obscure old internet style blog that less than a dozen people will read, there isn't enough time in the world for picking up a double digit serving of seasonal anime. 

Some fans of the medium can shovel twenty or more productions into their schedule like dumping an entire bag of Skittles into one's mouth, but I firmly reject the notion of having to watch such an unreasonable amount of anime per week. First off, I know my own tastes and I'm confident that there will never big a single anime season where even half of the shows appeal to me unless production quantity decreases considerably. Secondly, if I miss out on a good show and I do find out later, I'll simply watch it then. I don't believe in FOMO. I don't believe in desperately clawing my way into the next cultural moment. Any art that is truly great will be great whether you watch it at game time or years later. What's the rush? I'm already watching nine shows this season, so get off my case!

Nine shows, nine headings, but it'll definitely take longer than nine hours to write. 'Seasonals of the Abyss' is a series where I remind everyone that a single cour of anime is less than nine hours of television. Thanks for reading.

 

Takopii no Genzai

Produced by ENISHIYA

It's easiest to start off with the only anime I picked up that has actually concluded; a rarity in a series of posts that aim to be finished before the season ends. With only six episodes in its run, Takopii no Genzai (Takopi's Original Sin) presents something that's closer to a segmented film than a full series. Well, it can't really be helped - the manga that's being adapted here is only two volumes long. It's functionally a short story, so a more concise approach to structuring the anime was the logical choice. In a season with so many heavy hitting competitors, it's easy to assume that a quaint little miniseries like this might get overshadowed by the sheer star power at play. It's a manga adaptation in a sea of many and the source material never managed to escape the confines of its niche audience. What's an underdog to do in the face of giants?

The answer is to show up a week early before everyone else. I'm not going to make any bold statements about this being a deliberate choice, but you get a lot of stares when you're the first presentation in the class. With a slightly extended ~40 minute premiere episode, Takopii no Genzai stood up in the gap between the ending Spring 2025 season and this one with little to obscure it from onlookers. What did they do with all that attention? Naturally, they hung up a dead body with a warning sign in front of it.

Takopii no Genzai concerns a small cheerful pink octopus-like blob known as Takopi. He's basically an alien form of Doraemon who wields space magic instead of a technological wormhole from 250 years in the future. Much like the robotic cat that Japan knows and loves, Takopi specializes in gadget-based problem solving. You could even say he has something of an Inspector Gadget approach. He's on a mission to spread happiness across the galaxy with an array of spectacular magic items designed for pure joy. A wonderful sentiment, if not a little naive. Everything he believes in is put to the test when he crash lands on Earth, discovering humanity through a microcosm of our complex struggles.

Shizuka is a grade school student whose only real friend in this world is her dog Chappy. She gets mercilessly bullied at school by her classmate Marina due to circumstances out of either of their controls - Shizuka's father is out of the picture and her mother has seduced Marina's father, leaving Marina to deal with her own mother's abusive ire. This creates an ugly cycle of violence where Marina physically and emotionally thrashes Shizuka every day at school to vent her powerless frustration. Takopi, who is used to solving problems with tools like "funny little wings that let you fly for a little while", has no idea what he's getting into. That's why he ends up handing Shizuka a magical ribbon so strong that it can't break and can easily be tied into a makeshift noose. Then you remember that there was a suicide warning at the beginning of the episode.

It turns out that Takopi has another power from the Doraemon arsenal - time travel! With his magic camera, he's able to make photographic checkpoints that can be fed back into the machine to snap time back to the moment it was taken. Determined to understand what could make someone take their own life, he zips back to when Shizuka was still alive and tries to take control of the situation in order to change her fate.

Despite how it sounds, this isn't a time travel story. It has a role in the narrative but is largely absent for most of it after a sudden plot development; a wise choice considering the weight of the themes at play here. Takopi thinks his goal is as simple as correcting the factors that cause Shizuka's sadness, but the real issue at play is his complete misunderstanding of the problem he's trying to solve. It's only through his later immersion into the lives of Shizuka and Marina that he starts to truly understand how narrow his perspective is.

It's easy for a story like this to go overboard in reverence of the darker subject matter on display, and even easier for an anime adaptation of said story to exacerbate the issue. Color me surprised that this is actually a fairly uplifting experience! Some may find it cheap to see such optimistic sentiment from a show that exhibits darkness in its establishing shots, but the last thing I wanted after the harrowing debut episode was a grim and violent pity party involving child age characters. Takopi's foolishness is not without meaning. The series is called Takopi's Original Sin after all. His mistakes are the most important part!

That being said, this isn't an anime for the faint of heart. It has some immaculately animated scenes of physical and emotional abuse that are excruciating to watch. An early example is when Takopi, disguised as Shizuka, experiences firsthand a prolonged taste of the thrashing she gets from Marina every day. The animators, sound designers, and voice actors throw their full weight to portray the blunt emotional force of this sequence without holding back. It's not a gratuitous affair of blood and gore, but a cold cruelty that reflects itself through the bruising and swelling of skin. Takopi, with Shizuka's voice, begging for mercy as Marina remorsefully declines through another swift kick to the face. It's a brutal sight, but it's necessary for illustrating the sheer weight of Shizuka's daily struggle to Takopi who has spent most of his life sheltered by joy.

If this show deserves acclaim for anything, it's for how tasteful it manages to be despite serving the appropriate amount of punch when the scene calls for it. There's this beautiful disharmony between Takopi's fantastical existence as a magic being and the drab despair of humanity he struggles so often to resolve. Despite his grossly simplistic outlook, you still can't help but root for the little guy. This whole narrative is a tragedy of disconnects that he too is part of. The tragedy of Shizuka and Marina who are both victims that don't understand their mutual suffering. The tragedy of Takopi who truly believes in happiness but was never taught how to understand sorrow; just a child like the rest of them that's fully out of his depth.

There's a third human character - the male honor student Naoki - who also has a sizeable role in the narrative, though it's a bit weaker than the other driving forces at play. Not to imply that his situation is less compelling than the others, but unlike Shizuka and Marina, he had a very firm lifeline he could've pulled on that he decided not to out of pride. I know a good part of it was driven by emotional abuse, but then the resolution ended up being just as simple as I was expecting and left me a bit disappointed. Ultimately, I still enjoyed seeing him interact with the rest of the cast so it wasn't a deal breaker.

The animation quality surprised me quite a bit considering the studio, ENISHIYA, had little to their name beyond music videos and a couple ONA episodes. I took the effort of dissecting the real talent behind this project by thumbing through the credits and found a massive list of animators. There's a lot of freelance talent and newer blood mixed with a few veterans; major key animators whose lineage can be traced back to titans like KyoAni, SHAFT, and Bones. Every episode has a different director and animation team working on it, which gives each one its own stylistic flourish without losing visual consistency. The quality speaks for itself.

I did enjoy the OST as well, especially the Takopi flavored music bits that sound like childish alien carnival music - sometimes with creeping dissonant synths in the background that twist it into a fucked up trauma abuse theme park instead. The OP sequence is especially great, showcasing through both the visual element and the somberly catchy "Happy Lucky Chappy" that same conflict between Takopi's childlike magic and the sobering reality of neglect and abuse that the humans deal with.

Anything more profound to be said will have to wait until I revisit this, but I'm sure considering its popularity and acclaim that there's an army of video essayists already on the front lines ready to fill in all the opinionated blank space while the iron's still hot. All that matters is that I liked it! The last stretch of the story was a little shaky but I personally enjoyed the conclusion and I admire the level-headed yet optimistic message it left behind. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more miniseries releases like this now and again if they're packing production values of this caliber. Talent and passion go a long way, folks.

 

Nukitashi the Animation

Produced by Passione

An eroge adaptation? In 2025? It's more likely than you think. That's because it's real! Studio Passione is like the new XEBEC in the way that a lot of people treat them like an ecchi studio even though it's only a fraction of their entire body of work. Some sick freaks would have you believe the only anime they've ever produced are Rail Wars! and Ishuzoku Reviewers. Start praying to your god of choice if they mention Renai Flops at all. I guess they did Isekai Meikyuu too, but you'd be crazy to think I've seen that.

I suppose the egg is firmly on my face because here they are stepping up to affirm the role expected of them. To be fair, I'd have a hard time distrusting the Ishuzoku Reviewers guys with a sex comedy premise considering they've been around the block and back. It'd be dishonest of me to imply they don't have the qualifications for this. With little familiarity of the source material, viewing this was almost entirely out of personal curiosity. The advertising called it so twisted that they have to air it on television "Nice Boat" style with only the audio. What the hell is a Nukitashi anyways?

If Shimoneta is a zany resistance story about young people attempting to reclaim a world of sexual liberation and humor, then Nukitashi the Animation is the same concept turned on its head. Where the former is a cautionary tale mired in irony about a deeply repressed society under sexual censorship (a concept that's awfully relevant these days!), Nukitashi presents itself with far less urgency. It's essentially a practical joke premise for anyone who's familiar with the myriad stock standard ero-doujinshi plot lines. On the remote Seiran Island, the local government has created a microcosm of erotic freedom where premarital sex is mandatory and all the high school classes are sexual education. As long as they aren't a young child, citizens must be ready and willing at all times to fuck, suck, and everything in between or face persecution.

Junnosuke and Asane, two siblings who left the island as children, return to their homeland to discover the perverted society they were shielded from. They're not exactly paragons of purity though - Junnosuke is an onahole enthusiast with a knack for 3D printing and Asane is a lesbian brocon who has an aversion to men that aren't her older brother. Yet they share a belief that deeply contradicts the island law - voluntary celibacy! Junnosuke is firmly against loveless sex and Asane wishes to abstain from unwanted heterosexual relations. Learning they're not alone in opposing the island doctrine after being contacted by an unknown benefactor, the duo creates a resistance front to dismantle the laws that prevent true erotic freedom from existing.

The "nuki" in Nukitashi refers to "nukige", a more specialized form of erotic games that are engineered deliberately for maximum efficiency masturbation. Some ecchi anime are similar in the sense that they are essentially softcore hentai that are intended to have a titillating effect on the viewer. This series is clearly very tongue-in-cheek about its own existence, and so it has constructed a premise where sexual activity is so common and frequent that the viewer will quickly get desensitized to it. I'm compelled to believe this is a purposeful choice - Nukitashi clearly presents itself as a sexually driven comedy where the absurdity is the point.

Painfully obvious as it is, this is the kind of anime that isn't even worth watching if fictional teenagers engaging in sexual activity is going to make your head explode. Turn back if you're not comfortable with the freakier sides of otaku culture. Public sex is as common as pedestrians on the sidewalk and a fair share of the sound design has gone into producing different variations of the "stirring macaroni and cheese" noise. Much of the dialogue consists of censor bleeped sexual puns that feel very reminiscent of raunchy youth gag comedies, especially Seitokai Yakuindomo.

There's no denying that this is a comedy first and foremost. The most visceral and graphic sex scene up to this point ended with a character getting backshots so hard that they were propelled into the air and promptly struck by a moving truck. It has action movie sequences with chases and gunfights, but the guns have nonlethal ammo that most people can tank with the same kind of toon force that keeps Blue Archive characters alive. Most of the sexual elements are just building to the next punchline. The raunchiest moment is still the POV animation in the OP!

This is an interesting experiment of a show that I've been viewing as a curiosity, but it's also reinforcing an unavoidable truth - it'd be far more enjoyable to just read the original eroge and experience the characters and world as they were envisioned. Those familiar with the original work have mentioned that this anime is going for a unique route that's a mix of everything, but that means too much is being diluted in the process. With only eleven episodes, the progression of events has been pretty scatterbrained. Episodes seem to flip-flop their focus between sexual gag humor and action sequences. The characters have nice designs and vibrant personalities, but some of them have so little focus that they're simply along for the ride.

But maybe the biggest issue here is one that's deeply ironic - it's just not very erotic. In some contexts this feels deliberate, particularly in regards to the constant on-screen NPC boning sessions that happen around the island. One is supposed to become desensitized to the frequent casual sex that is largely deprived of any affection; a key point in Junnosuke's argument against the island doctrine. Yet, even the casual nudity and sexual humor from the main cast feels deprived of the necessary level of passion to sell it. It's strange because Passione didn't have this problem with Ishuzoku Reviewers which was similarly loaded with salacious humor and fetish content. Hell, even Shimoneta (which was produced by J.C. Staff) managed and that's a significantly less explicit anime in terms of visuals. 

The most reasonable conclusion I can make is that this is an adaptation problem. Visual novel style media rarely adapt well, especially nowadays. This series has a lot of characters and to make most of them stick in a mere eleven episodes is a huge ask. I'm not convinced they can pull it off with only four left. After learning the original game has an official English release, I can't recommend this one. Any interest in this premise would be better served experiencing it as intended, with the anime as a "bonus" after the fact; if you want it, of course. Reading Grisaia probably made me hate the anime more and Majikoi had a very forgettable adaptation, so it's not always sunshine and roses for your favorites. Proceed with caution or stay away entirely.

 

Game Center Shoujo to Ibunka Kouryuu

Produced by Nomad

Conclusion: It's moe slop. Roll credits.

Every once in a while I get a craving for the kind of mindless, saccharine moe garbage that only a fool like me could have any affection for. Self-awareness is a key trait in evaluating any art; it's hubris to act as if we can sever our egos from the act of evaluating and presenting subjective perspectives on a given work. We're all slaves to nostalgia in one way or another, no thanks to the great power of a human brain in progress. When my interest in anime was kindled, I was barely a teenager and understood little about why I truly liked or enjoyed anything in the abstract sense. What I did know is that I liked Lucky Star and Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt; two shows deeply infused with moe energy (albeit very different kinds) at a time where business was booming. 

I didn't have the words to name the concept back then when I was fresh and eager for enlightenment, but I could intrinsically understand when I was watching cutesy moe TV dinner fodder. If you were paying attention to the seasonal anime trends throughout the 2010s like I was, then you already know that a good majority of it was densely populated with sugary moe girl ensembles. There are an embarrassing amount of shows I've seen where they've been relegated to nothing but the character designs in my mind. One could question if there's really any true enlightenment to be found in just appreciating another variation of the "cute girls doing cute things" theme. But every once in a while, even a show like D-Frag! might suddenly seem like a treasured part of my history. We can spend our whole lives re-evaluating the art we've experienced.

The world of moe is very different now, but in some ways it's also quite the same. Game Center Shoujo to Ibunka Kouryuu (Cultural Exchange With a Game Center Girl) is living proof of that - a bishoujo filled comedy straight out of last decade that revolves around an archetype that every Kiniro Mosaic fan already loves: a cute blonde British girl. Lily Baker and her family have taken up residence in Japan and she quickly finds herself visiting the local game center where the designated male protagonist Renji is an employee. After witnessing her spend hours enduring highway robbery from one of the crane games, Renji swoops in and secures her prize. In his attempt to communicate through his poor grasp of English, he bungles himself into presenting the prize as a gift on the most romantic day of the year: Valentine's Day. Traditionally clueless, just like the doctor ordered.

This is a comedy surrounding a young British girl who has a distinctly moe childishness about her pining romantically for a barely-adult male, so many will throw their hands up and shake their heads disapprovingly so nobody thinks they're endorsing controversial age gap relationships while viewing this show. Personally, I feel that's a bit overly reflexive because this entire experience is as wholesome as they come. Lily's crush is preserved in a deliberate status quo where the upstanding Renji doesn't have it in him to break a little girl's heart, so he settles for them having a healthy pen pal relationship. Naturally, this develops into them actually interacting outside of work, but that's when they introduce Lily's protective macho man father to assure you that her best interests are being kept in mind.

Most of the action happens in the titular game center where Lily seeks cultural enlightenment by honing her skills in novelty and traditional arcade games, but her presence in the Japanese educational system allows her to both become a better communicator and drag other cute girls into her domain including Renji's dense little sister Aoi, the fiery shark-toothed tomboy Karin, and the straight-laced straight-banged class rep Hotaru. Together they learn of the joys that game centers can provide and their sense of community, especially when vibrant bishoujo characters are around.

What we have here is an experience that could essentially stand side by side with forgotten Silver Link moe romps of the 2010s like Stella no Mahou and Anne Happy; you'd have to be like me to remember them. The studio behind this anime, Nomad, has a dedicated niche following thanks to their hand in engineering the adaptations of the otaku beloved Rozen Maiden and the quirky Jashin-chan Dropkick (which gets multiple references in this), and I get the feeling they know their audience pretty well. An opening where the whole cast sings and an ending where the primary bishoujo heroine gets all the focus? It's for the Heisei era moe otaku, of course.

Props to Lily's seiyuu, California born Sally Amaki, for doing several long scenes of just speaking English so I didn't have to read the subtitles as much. Naturally, there's a lot of humor surrounding the English speech and Lily's grasp of Japanese that becomes stronger as the series goes on. She also forms her own unique relationships with the other characters like Karin becoming her fighting game mentor and Aoi helping her become more comfortable with speaking Japanese. It's pleasant, heartwarming, and appropriately goofy.

I wouldn't say I'm in love with it, but it's got heart! One of my favorite sequences was a stylized enactment of a shoot-em-up with the characters as mecha musume fighters trying to survive an onslaught. The staff has an appropriate amount of reverence for Taiko no Tatsujin, made especially clear in the ED animation. It's certainly a game you'd find me playing at an arcade!

If you're fond of young blonde foreigners in anime at the optimal head patting height, then lock in. Moe slop eaters who discriminate little between similar flavors? Throw it on the list if you've got room. Everyone else stay home because this is sickly sweet and filled with the whimsy of a previous era. In a season like this with so many candidates swinging for the fences, there's some novelty in being pleasantly average. Leave the high quality moe craftsmanship to the heavyweights like KyoAni and Studio Bind.

 

Yofukashi no Uta Season 2

Produced by LIDENFILMS

Ah, memories. Just three years ago, I wrote about the first season of Yofukashi no Uta (Call of the Night) for a Seasonals of the Abyss piece. You can still read it on Escape This Planet, my previous place of employment where I was fired after never being legally hired because I kept writing about anime that nobody gave a shit about like Kuma Miko. You'll find I had plenty of positive things to say about it, and my sentiments are largely the same in that regard. Tomoyuki Itamura, a veteran director who once held the reigns to the Monogatari anime series at SHAFT until the conclusion of Owarimonogatari in 2017, lent his vision to adapting Kotoyama's vampire-centric manga series at LIDENFILMS. All the DNA of his previous work went into creating a highly stylistic show with plenty of style and thick to the brim with atmosphere. The color design was distinctly touched with indigo purples and maroon reds.

Three years can pass by in an instant, but little time has lapsed between where Kou and Nazuna stood between the end of the first season and now. Kou still wishes to become a vampire and Nazuna is willing to help him get there, but first they have a lingering problem to deal with: the chain-smoking, vampire-hating detective Anko Uguisu. After nearly succeeding at disposing of the recently turned Akkun, she reveals to the the vampire community that items from their human past can be used against them as weapons. This leads Kou to urge Nazuna toward learning about her own origins to avoid being the next target.

The focus pivots from Kou's own desire to understand relationships and his love of the night to fleshing out the tangled world he's stepping into as a thrall wannabe. Turns out vampires have their own complicated relationships! Anko has something of a deuteragonist role in this season, the entire OP sequence dedicated to her and the trusty lighter she carries around. The events that fueled her hatred for vampires tie into the histories surrounding the local vampire community that expose much of the forces at play. While it is still very introspective for the characters involved, Kou takes more of an observer standpoint as he supports Nazuna through her journey of self-discovery.

Itamura is taking even more of an active role this time around, providing storyboards on four episodes in the first half which is double what he boarded in the first season. His flair for psychological horror built up from his time directing Monogatari hasn't dulled in the slightest. The visuals are sharp and impactful when illustrating the messy tragedies that lurk in the shadows of those who cast away their humanity much like Kou is attempting to do. There's quite a few tense scenes with fantastic composition and directing to throw their weight around with. This is the second anime this season I've watched with a suicide warning in it!

Of course, Yofukashi no Uta still retains some of the humor and feel-good silliness that was dotted throughout its first season. It's used more sparingly as a consequence of the second season focusing more on serious topics as it ties its world together. There's still a good deal of downtime, and many of the flashback sequences (there are quite a few this time around) are pretty heartwarming before they inevitably reach the tragic moment that bleeds into the melancholy present. It's not gloom and doom all over, but that distinct carefree vibe that ran through many of the early episodes from the first season is notably absent across the board.

I stand a strange crossroads in regards to this second outing, because I do think it's very well done. It's a bit more ambitious than the first season in regards to its boarding and direction. The OST remains a huge boon to the experience with old and new tracks mixing seamlessly. There's a sense of stylistic consistency between both seasons that is very impressive considering the production gap between them. Love the way the characters are portrayed both visually and through compelling performances from all the seiyuu involved. No denying that the animation is stunning. But I feel like I got bamboozled a little by the narrative shift that has dominated the majority of the season. The saddest part is that it's not the anime's fault!

Kotoyama's previous work, Dagashi Kashi, was a slice-of-life comedy surrounding a dagashiya in a rural town. What was largely a silly candy themed series with light romcom elements turned into a conflicting mix in its latter half. A rivalry with a convenience store, a dramatic choice between a career in the candy business or being a mangaka, and a love triangle that doesn't really feel like one; threads that were casually drawn into the margins before taking center stage and driving the story to its conclusion. It's the kind of writing that comes off impatient, as if he was trying to bust out of the constraints set forth by his own premise. Not the worst problem a writer can have - it's good to be flexible when things get stagnant. But trades like these never come for free. Something is always lost in the process.

Yofukashi no Uta is drifting into a similar pattern where its hard turn into a plot-driven supernatural drama has left it little room for anything else. Sure, the first season sowed the seeds for this direction with Akkun's turning and Anko's introduction at the school, but it felt properly balanced with longer scenes driven by atmosphere and visual storytelling. Now there's plenty of Monogatari style "stand around and talk" sequences propelled through flashbacks in between the building tension surrounding the vampires' weaknesses. Scenes often feel crowded even when there aren't that many characters on screen, and the looming threat means there's barely any downtime between events. Akira barely exists anymore because she has no link to the plot but Mahiru gets to stick around because he has the hots for a vampire now.

The urban fantasy elements were always my favorite - the quiet streets under indigo skies, pale streetlights and dim alleys crawling into the darkness as they stray further into isolation. Kou's insomniac wanderlust and Nazuna's careless lifestyle were submerged in the ambience of these landscapes, and now they feel more like mere backgrounds that are suppressed further by frequent stretches of time being spent inside various buildings. Most of the atmosphere is reserved for the trauma and suspense that runs throughout these characters' lives with little to spare otherwise. I understood that Kou flirting with a dark world he doesn't fully comprehend would build to something, especially where vampires are concerned, but I suppose I had the wrong impression of how that was going to be executed.

This is an entirely selfish complaint because it really is superb at what it's doing. My expectations were just skewed in a certain direction that I preferred and it took a different path at the fork toward something more action packed and driven by plot rather than vaguely pacing along the street in a more carefree way. I'm not sure where things will go once this narrative arc concludes, but I'm still interested in learning more about the characters and the resolution to their current situation. I just think it would be nice if it gets some time to really breathe before the end comes. All in all, what's been put out so far is great and if you enjoyed the first season you're likely to get plenty out of this. Nazuna and Kou's relationship has come a long way and it's sure to go all sorts of places from here!

 

Dandadan 2nd Season

Produced by Science Saru

It's been less than a year since Science Saru released their first offering of Dandadan, an adaptation of the Shounen Jump manga series that was already making waves around the internet. I'm essentially an out-of-touch old man when it comes to what's hot in the manga scene nowadays, but I was aware of this particular work around the time it made its debut on the television screen. My understanding was thus: Japanese X-Files with a primarily teenage cast wrapped in a supernatural battle shounen spectacle that involves aliens, haunted spirits, kaiju, and presumably other creatures of myriad legends cast throughout human history. It sounded like a good time to me! On top of that, even with the departure of acclaimed director Masaaki Yuasa, Science Saru has been a studio to keep an eye on with anticipation for their next work. I may not have loved Yurei Deco, but it was a sign of a healthy creative drive for a studio who has proven time and time again they've got the spark.

I wrote virtually nothing last year because, frankly, 2024 was a pretty terrible time all around and anything I could've offered the curious reader would've been lined with the worst flavors of adult angst and pessimism. Even if I wrote about how much I enjoyed the first season of Dandadan, one may have scanned through my choice of words and come out the other end with the impression that I secretly loathed it and was only showering it in good graces because it was a popular series with hype riding along its contours. But the educated reader already knows that my favorite genre of anime is cute girls moeslop a la mode with Do It Yourself!! sitting stress-free on the "Anime of the Decade So Far" pedestal in my virtual temple. If I say anything positive about modern shounen battle fare, then it's a safe bet that it's my honest opinion.

With that out of the way, let's get down to business: Dandadan is pretty damn good. It's stylish and fun with a diverse cast of misfits from differing backgrounds coming together against threats from beyond the veil: aliens trying to harness the power of human reproduction, cursed beings clinging selfishly to the living as they seek satisfaction, the Alaskan bullworm from Spongebob Squarepants but significantly more fucked up, and even more to come! This series seems to take the concept of "mythical" entities to its extreme by including other oddities along the way including a family of guys who essentially look like the stereotypical "fat old bastard" Japanese man archetype that has famously (or infamously) appeared in countless eroge and ero-doujinshi for decades.

What began as an unforeseen partnership between the gyaru psychic Momo Ayase and the occult otaku Ken "Okarun" Takakura has expanded to a quartet of power users including the bubbly two-faced Aira and the jock hype man Jiji as foils-to-friends for the main protagonists. With assistance from Momo's spirit medium grandma Seiko and the captive mascot Turbo Granny (who Okarun borrows his powers from), the cast takes on bigger and wilder stakes and recruits more bizarre allies along the way. It's been a pleasure to see how these characters develop in between incidents, with each arc progressing both the main narrative and the scope of the ensemble that lends this world the appropriate level of vibrancy for its zany premise.

Dandadan 2nd Season begins seamlessly from where the first season concluded with the beginning of Jiji's arc. I had the pleasure of seeing the first three episodes at my local theater bundled as the Evil Eye film a month before the television premiere. It was the same day the Nintendo Switch 2 released, so I was feasting my eyes on the big screen while many people stayed home playing overpriced Mario Kart. No judgment if that was you, but thanks for keeping the theater less crowded. It allowed me to appreciate the new OST tracks, many of which are heavily influenced by house techno from the dawn of the millennium. They pandered to me directly and I do appreciate it in this case!

In an effort to spruce up this second cour, original director Fuuga Yamashiro paired his duties with Spanish animator Abel Góngora who boarded the first season's OP and provided key animation on several of its early episodes. As a result, the first three episodes of this second season provide a sharply directed vision that continues to exude confidence and style every week. That's not to say the first season was lacking in confidence - its bold animated sequences and clean boarding impressed me greatly. Despite having some of the jumpiness that modern battle shounen anime are known for, the clever perspectives in each frame of the action ensured that a viewer will never lose track of the scene's flow. The second season retains this quality and takes things even further, enhancing the animation style without muddying the scene with poor visual coherence.

One of this adaptation's greatest strengths is the way it uses color; each major arc has a defining shade on the RGB spectrum that plays a major role in the visual design and is reinforced through elements outside the show itself like the KVs. Jiji's arc, which involves the tragic-yet-twisted Evil Eye, is heavily defined by its dark purple hues. Jiji's transformation into Evil Eye is soaked in purple shades from his eyes to his spirit energy that largely takes the form of soccer balls and a cursed house to trap his victims in. But even the color choices outside the main thematic arc are vibrant with purpose. In their fight against the Mongolian Death Worm, the scenes are tinged with yellows and oranges like the sun in a sandy desert. This later gives way to the blazing reds of fire and lava that dominate the climax of the immediate threat. Satoshi Hashimoto is credited as the color design lead on both seasons and his long list of credits, including the majority of Satoshi Kon's work, speak for themselves.

What Dandadan really excels at isn't the high octane action sequences, and that's saying a lot considering they're very well done. Rather, it's the aftermath of the action; the in-between where the characters dynamics flourish after the conflict has settled. Evil Eye had a fantastic introduction and his fight with Okarun was gripping, but it's the way this fundamentally shapes Jiji and the way characters interact with him in the debrief period where the best moments of the show come out. Okarun's rivalry with Jiji pushes him to become stronger enough to truly support Jiji as a friend through affirming his desire to protect the tortured Evil Eye. Momo and Okarun continue to be a pair brimming with chemistry, not just in the romantic sense but in the way both characters complement each other so well due to their strong mutual trust.

I know I already mentioned the music, but I have to bestow an honorable mention to the Hayashi exorcists rocking the hell out in such a traditionally power metal fashion that the English dub cast managed to secure Dragonforce vocalist Marc Hudson for this bit. I'm watching with Japanese audio but I have to admire the commitment to getting that part right. Both the Japanese and English versions of the song they perform is pretty great and the entire exorcism sequence that takes place with Jiji begging to protect Evil Eye's life is a major highlight of the season. I also enjoyed the more practical implementation of it later on when Okarun and Aira fight the composers in the school music room to further hone their powers.

With an entire kaiju themed arc to come and the introduction of the mythical Kinta (many manga fans have assured me he's worth the wait), there's no shortage of moments to look forward to with this series. Dandadan is what I like to call "damn good TV" - not trying to be profound or experimental, but the show has incredibly solid core strengths that allow it to be consistently great: an easily likeable cast that are exaggerated yet very human, a fun premise with room for plenty of creative setups, and the appropriate amount of whimsy that allows it to slip between comedic and dramatic action sequences with little friction to disrupt the experience. This second season is a testament to its consistent level of quality and should be an easy sell to pretty much anyone who enjoyed the first one. If you're still on the fence about the whole package, give it an honest try and see for yourself.

 

Ruri no Houseki

Produced by Studio Bind

Studio Bind has been nothing but surprises since I wrote them off many years ago at the dawn of their creation. I was never swayed much by the well animated sequences that were often posted on social media from Mushoku Tensei, one of the forefathers behind the reincarnation isekai trend. When I heard they were created for the sole purpose of adapting that work, my interest in their potential largely dwindled beyond their animation prowess. As if to call my bluff, Bind spent an entire year of work on producing the adaptation of Oniichan wa Oshimai!, better known as Onimai, to air during the Winter 2023 season. The first episode found its way onto the internet several weeks early and my reluctant viewing turned to shock as I witnessed the kind of passionate energy that fueled many a great moe slice-of-life comedy in the genre's heyday. At a time where even a seasoned moe studio like Dogakobo was trending more toward hype productions like Oshi no Ko, there was no better time for a new major player to step in and keep the spirit alive.

The talent at Studio Bind are still plugging away at Mushoku Tensei in the margins, but their commitment to furthering the spirit of moe has held true with projects like Hana wa Saku, Shura no Gotoku from earlier this year; a solid adaptation of a manga written by Hibike! Euphonium author Ayano Takeda. Now they're back with a second serving of peak cute girls edutainment that has already made its impact in a season with plenty to talk about. Helmed by Onimai director Shingo Fujii, Ruri no Houseki (Ruri Rocks) is a manga adaptation concerning the titular Ruri - a bratty high school student who has a fascination with jewelry. Her surface level desire for gems is cultivated into a genuine appreciation for mineralogy after a chance meeting with Nagi, a graduate student at the local university who is conducting studies on the subject. Nagi's cool-headed demeanor is a perfect foil for Ruri's fiery tantrums, shaping her passion into meaningful results to further her love for minerals.

From the moment Nagi pulled out her rock smashing hammer in the first episode, she had already left her mark on the culture. Not to mention she might single-handedly make girls wearing jeans cool again in anime. Can we get a little applause for our heroes? Similarly to Onimai, the studio took some liberties with adapting the character designs to make them stand out even more. Nagi's massive stature and beauty have been the talk of the town, but I'm particularly fond of her fellow mineralogist-in-training Youko who is a top quality meganekko homebody who is cultivating her own niche passions alongside the others. Ruri's bubbly energy and cuteness makes her a perfect gravitational center to the other characters, that same magnetism drawing in her fellow classmate Shouko to the mineralogy fold later on. There's also their mutual classmate Aoi who is essentially tanned Ritsu Tainaka with a more laid back personality.

Speaking of beauty, this is a gorgeous anime front to back. As one would expect from a show surrounding minerals, much of it takes place in the great outdoors. The water glistens, the rocky cliffs and paths colored with moss and fauna; each new excursion the girls partake in come with breathtaking sights soaked in vibrant shades. Minerals are recognizable by their specific color and form, and these have been lovingly recreated and define many of the anime's best moments. From the placer gold Ruri discovers in a sunset's glow to the rods of sapphire embedded in stone at a former shrine, each major discovery feels immense to both the viewer and the characters who worked so hard to get there.

As an honest piece of edutainment, Ruri no Houseki doesn't skimp on the process. A good chunk of the show takes place at the university laboratory that Nagi and Youko do their research in. Long before Ruri is able to accomplish her desire to find sapphire in the area, she has to go through rigorous testing to narrow down its location by sifting through sand from the local rivers. We gain insight into Nagi's research process through the way she guides the other characters on their own journeys while furthering her own work. All the critical planning for each outing is clearly outlined which contributes heavily to the satisfaction of seeing that effort pay off. There are even educational slides during the eyecatches that cover topics relevant to the episode. They're fairly comprehensive to the point where one would need to pause in order to read most of it. Good thing we're in the age of digital viewing!

Something else I appreciate about this show is that, despite its grand presentation, it's very animated in the traditional sense. I love the OP and the dramatic OST because of the funny contrast with the reality that the anime is generally laid back and silly. One episode generated a storm of fan art with Nagi wearing a maid outfit because there's an entire sequence in the lab where Youko and the girls dress her up in different outfits. Characters squish, stretch, and smear in a cartoon-y fashion that I find very endearing; a quality that was also prevalent throughout Onimai. It's playful and cute while still taking its subject matter seriously, a balance that has traditionally fared well in similar works such as Yuru Camp. A fun, likable cast can get a viewer to care about all sorts of niche stuff!

Shouko's introduction to the cast left an impression on me because it centered around being judged for having niche interests like minerals. She overhears her parents disapproving of the idea of her pursuing the field due to its lack of clear income opportunities, forcing her to suppress her passion after she spent her childhood being ostracized for it. It's an interesting perspective you don't often see in stories like this; the struggle of searching for those who share the same zeal for a specific hobby and being able to define its significance to oneself. Ruri reaching out to affirm Shouko's love for mineralogy allows her to start on that path by offering her a supportive community environment to thrive in. It makes me think fondly of Do It Yourself!! which had a similar focus on 'belonging'. The DIY shed and the mineralogy lab serve the same purpose - a second home and source of enrichment for fellow hobbyists.

Obviously this isn't the kind of anime that will excite anyone who are searching for a narrative with twist and turns to anticipate. Ruri and her gang of mineral fanatics form the ironclad quartet structure that has carried all great CGDCT slice-of-life works, and few of those were ever known for compelling plot maneuvers. You're here for the cute girls doing cute things, aren't you? Well, one could show up with more interest in the gems, but it's the ladies who will be handling them. I wouldn't call this pure iyashikei, but it's pretty close when rounding. The atmosphere is generally comfy with a plethora of nature shots and eye candy. Other than some light comedy and a mild dose of drama, Ruri no Houseki plays it nice and easy.

This anime didn't have to do much to earn my affection since this is my bread and butter, but Studio Bind enjoys catching me off guard and they've succeeded yet again. What could've been a passable manga adaptation has been given the royal treatment with stunning visuals and a strongly designed cast that are easy to grow fond of. I'm sure the remaining episodes will largely be more of the same material that's been showcased already, but that's what I signed up for! Really, all I ask for is that the studio keeps producing anime like this. They're doing me a service and don't owe me shit, but it'd be an honor to see them keep honing their craft. I wouldn't mind an Onimai second season announcement, either. Whatever comes next, I'll be waiting patiently.

 

Turkey!

Produced by Bakken Record

A little less than three years ago, Tatsunoko Production's label Bakken Record produced an adaptation for the competitive judo manga Mou Ippon! which I watched as it was airing. Shortly before its debut, they made an unexpected announcement: the production of an original anime centered around a group of girls who love bowling. The project's name was Turkey!, a scoring term in bowling that indicates a player has achieved three strikes in a row. Very little about this project was revealed in the time between its announcement and the lead up to its first episode other than the character designs and notably vague key visuals. The studio had no other projects in the pipeline and presumably toiled away at crafting this piece of work right up to the deadline. When it finally resurfaced earlier this year, I wasn't sure what to expect. A cute girls bowling sports drama with heartwarming friendships? A silly CGDCT slice-of-life where the sport is the dominant theme? Solid guesses, I'd argue. But there's no contesting with the truth; I was bamboozled.

With the first episode came many revelations that were further cemented by an entirely new key visual and a considerably ominous OP sequence. This was when the mask dropped to reveal that Turkey! was secretly an avant-moe trojan horse designed to forever polarize its audience reception. If you're wondering what "avant-moe" means, then you may be disappointed to learn that I made the term up. It's when CGDCT gets weird - a recent example being 2024's Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku?, a surrealist train adventure directed by Girls und Panzer series director Tsutomu Mizushima. A more relevant series to mention would be the GoHands romp from earlier this year, Momentary Lily, which was as bizarre and divisive as one would expect from the controversial studio. The director, Susumu Kudou, is the very same man who is steering the ship for this bowling thriller.

The first episode twist - spoiler warning I suppose - is that this is really a time travel story that involves bowling. Cheerful bowling club captain Mai prioritizes fun over results, but this leads to friction with the newbie Rina who feels ostracized for being the only member who cares about winning. Mai is something of a bowling prodigy, but a mental hiccup causes her to consistently create a 7-10 split after achieving a turkey in scoring. Rina believes this is an intentional slight against her and challenges Mai to a match with her club membership on the line, resulting in Mai's failure to prove her earnestness to Rina after caving to the snake eyes curse. It was the appropriate setup for a light moe sports drama, but then lightning had to strike an unearthed bowling ball that was hundreds of years old and changed everything.

So now, let me reintroduce Turkey! - a bowling themed emotional thriller that takes place in the Sengoku period of Japanese history. This is more commonly referred to as the "Warring States" period in English. Just think Oda Nobunaga and you're basically on the right track. From here, much like Momentary Lily, the anime introduces a sense of mortality to our plucky cast as they get thrown just adjacent of a merciless battle in an open field. Lots of killing and pillaging and similarly unsavory actions were rampant at this point of Japanese history, and so a severed bandit head finds it way into the viewpoint of our girls who quickly realize that this isn't just a performance.

There's quite a bit of teasing in regards to how brutal the show is willing to be; another quality it shares with the aforementioned GoHands project. Momentary Lily presented itself as a life-or-death drama where characters could be completely erased from existence by kaiju-sized alien life forms. There was even a major character death in the second episode after a different member of the cast survives after spending several minutes begging for their life. The show then goes on to be 95% slice of life antics where there's a dedicated cooking segment every episode with the other 5% mostly relegated to consequence-free action sequences. The early tragedy and suffering was more bait than substance, creating a heel-turn where people who wanted another Mahou Shoujo Site signed up for dystopian Koufuku Graffiti instead.

Tonal whiplash can throw you out of an experience, but Turkey! wields it like a ball-and-chain with its whole chest out. One must accept that a group of female high school students from the modern era have to survive in a ruthless period of history where killing and fighting for survival are the norm. Women don't exactly get the royal treatment, either. But in that same world, these fated time travelers have the power to channel their passion for bowling so strongly that they gain the ability to overcome any trial. Bowling balls are magic items that can knock grown warriors out cold and scare the hell out of hungry wolves. They're the only weapons our cast are licensed to wield. How else would they be able to hit the bowling quota every episode?

Yet the reality is that there really hasn't been much brutality at all. Once our quintet of bowling girls successfully earns the favor of the young lord from a nearby village, they manage to secure shelter and food at the Tokura family estate under the guise of being traveling performers. This is when we meet what I like to call the mirror cast; the five Tokura sisters who conveniently have the exact same spread of hair colors as our main heroines. They're even conveniently paired together in the OP sequence as if to hint at some kind of revelation that's still yet to come. For the next several episodes, each one of main cast and their respective 'ancestor' gets their time in the limelight. Through these individual stories, we get the much needed insight into the histories of these characters and what drives them. These are played fairly straight as traditional slice of life episodes with a smidge of drama. Well, excluding the time where one of the cast members lobs a huge boulder at a dude's head.

Speaking of the OP, you know I have to proclaim my love for girls playing instruments in the intro of a show that isn't about music. That being said, what really caught my eye is all the foreboding sequences and the off-kilter bowling symbolism. Young Mai covered in blood in a house on fire, Rina witnessing one of the other heroines getting bisected, Sayuri's angelic wings being torn off, the riff on The Creation of Adam but with a bowling ball; there's a lot to dig through and it continues to change as more information is revealed throughout the show. The payoff thus far has been largely positive for both the main and mirror casts, but in the world of original anime, anything can happen in the last few episodes. It seems like a happy ending could be a sure thing, but things could change when the time comes around! The melancholy flash-forward that began this series has a decent chunk of context that still needs to be filled in.

Despite this bait and switch, I've been enjoying Turkey! more than most viewers. It helps that I'm very fond of the cast and find most of the characters endearing. Mai is a great lead who fits the role perfectly even with a twinge of sadness behind her smile and enthusiasm. Rina serves as her optimal foil with a cold, terse demeanor that begins to thaw as she confides more in the others. Sayuri is a gentle giant whose shy demeanor contrasts cutely with her brute strength, struggling between her innocence and the desire to protect her friends. Nozomi and Nanase are polar opposites; a wannabe fashion influencer and a know-it-all nerd who both find their reasons to make a difference even at the risk of completely destroying the timeline they came from.

I enjoy how they created a generational difference between the main cast and their Sengoku counterparts by casting younger seiyuu for the modern girls and veterans for the Yokura sisters. I'm not sure what compelled them to do this but it makes for a unique voice dynamic between both casts. It's interesting to hear newer seiyuu who have only been active for several years perform with longtime talent who have been in the game since the 1980s. Three of the veterans were major characters on Ranma 1/2, with Rei Sakuma practically coming out of soft retirement just to be part of this. Perhaps Turkey! is the kind of absurd production that can excite even the most seasoned of performers.

It's a gorgeous show with distinct character designs and visual language. The OST is equal parts fun and bombastic, scaling with the time travel drama antics. Unfortunately, those who wished for a straight-laced bowling sports drama with training arcs and tournament hype will not get their wish. To create a bowling anime that is secretly a historical time slip drama is somewhat reminiscent of Akiba Maid Sensou presenting as a maid cafe comedy for it to be a yakuza movie instead. Turkey! scriptwriter Naomi Hiruta has virtually no other credits - new anime writers must be bringing all kinds of crazy ideas to the table. If anything, my excitement for original anime productions is only going up. Like it or not, Turkey! does cute girls bowling gone wrong and it deserves respect for sticking to its guns. This show could even inspire someone to write a normal bowling anime one day. For all I know, we'll get a sequel that's just Time Squad with bowling balls in a few years from now.

 

CITY The Animation

Produced by Kyoto Animation

Kyoto Animation has both literally and spiritually risen from the ashes of the tragic arson attack that occurred back in 2019. Against all odds, following a situation mired in sadness and loss, the remaining pillars of the studio refused to give in. Years of slow production were inevitable as they picked up the pieces. Yet continue they did - the Violet Evergarden film and the continuation of Tsurune still released even at the dawn of the pandemic. They successfully completed their competitive swimming series Free! and their adaptation of the school band drama Hibike! Euphonium. Longtime director Tatsuya Ishihara carried on the legacy of deceased veteran director Yasuhiro Takemoto through a second season and now a new film for Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon. And now, more than a decade since Nichijou would redefine the studio at the mouth of the 2010s, they're feeling more emboldened than ever to put out a project that proves they're still one of the great heavyweights of the industry who can still exceed expectations. "KyoAni finds a way", wise sages once muttered in the annals of discussion boards past. Their wisdom was not lost on us.

CITY The Animation is a poetic refrain that once again redefines a studio that eludes the jaws of time with grace. Beloved mangaka Keiichi Arawi has returned to collaborate with KyoAni after a long period of separation. Seated in the director's chair is none other than Taichi Ishidate, a frequent storyboard artist and episode director who landed his first assistant directing role on none other than Nichijou back in 2011. He further refined his directing chops with Kyoukai no Kanata in the early 2010s and Violet Evergarden in the latter half, cementing him as yet another major talent in the studio's roster of greats. As someone whose early anime journey was largely defined by Nichijou and other KyoAni works, this was a project I knew I had to be on the front lines to witness. In the months leading up to the premiere, I read the entire manga and became familiar with the large ensemble cast that makes up the intricate city that serves as the series' namesake. My expectations were shattered almost immediately upon viewing the first episode.

KyoAni is renowned for many things, but one of their prominently known qualities is their tendency to take creative liberties during the adaptation process. K-ON! is a notable example of this, particularly the second season which was comprised of largely anime original material. Hibike! Euphonium recently finished with the end of its third season which deviated largely from the novel's conclusion. The studio worked with the original author on a new vision for the ending which caught novel readers off guard. CITY takes this a step further by taking on a self-imposed challenge that some manga readers may find overly restrictive - one volume per episode. With thirteen episodes to match the thirteen total volumes of the manga, the studio had to reshape the material in a way that would fit the time constraints. This has given birth to an adaptation I would argue is a perfect complement to the manga, but not a replacement in any sense of the word. It's a unique experience that covers similar events and is more than worthy of standing together with the original work.

Nichijou and CITY are similar yet very different from each other. Arawi's character writing and humor are brimming with his particular flavor of whimsy; an element that is a core part of his creative DNA. Both works are gag comedies that involve a large ensemble cast with distinct groups of characters that intersect. They aren't worlds apart, but they live on opposite sides of the coin. If Nichijou serves as a humorous contrast between extraordinary personalities and the ordinary world they live in, then CITY is redefining "ordinary" by taking place in a world - a city - that's already fascinatingly weird in the first place. It's a bizarre hub of human interaction where mystical creatures lives in the sewer and the greatest menace to society in a nice rich lady with a butler who wants to give everyone awards. Everything is normal because nothing is, even when some characters grapple with the lack of common sense.

CITY is centered around two prominent family businesses - the Makabe restaurant and the Adatara winery - and their web of relationships with the other residents. This tangle of social relations snares three university students who live in the same dorm: the burnt out Nagumo, her best friend Niikura, and their free spirit neighbor Wako. Something I find interesting is that KyoAni opted to skip the manga's first chapter which establishes Nagumo's primary goal: to pay off her overdue rent at the demand of her merciless landlady. To save herself from eviction, she takes a job at the Makabe restaurant to pay off her debt while fruitlessly chasing gambling opportunities and snaring her friends into schemes to get rich and live the good life. Surrounding our trio are plenty of smaller groups who weave in and out of focus between skits including a soccer team with only one good player, a disastrous mangaka and editor duo, and a classroom of people trying to cover for an adorably sleepy girl.

Nichijou had many subgroups and side characters, so this shouldn't be a brand new concept to viewers who are already familiar with it. CITY takes things a step further by having every group cross paths with each other in one way or another, giving the proper illusion of a community that inhabits the same streets and shops as everyone else. It has a scale of ambition above Arawi's other work by creating a single continuity where even the mobs and auxiliary characters get a place in the sunlight. There are loosely defined arcs that culminate into large events like a massive party at a mansion or a city-wide race where nobody is able to escape the magnetism of all the citizens gathering together to have a good time.

A precarious balancing act is often being performed, with episodes bouncing between groups to distribute time to most of the major characters. It's been a treat to see how each volume gets condensed per episode, and I find myself thinking more about how intricate of a process it must've been to restructure the material. There's no denying sacrifices had to be made; the Adatara family received the short end of the stick and the majority of their chapters are notably absent from the anime. Nagumo's rivalry with her landlady is understated due to most of their interactions getting cut. The most recent episode turned the volume 11 mega story about Tatewaku Makabe and Wako's little sister Riko being stranded together on an island into a post-credits gag sequence (which admittedly was pretty funny). 

The tradeoff is that KyoAni gets to work their magic on every second of the material they do cover. With a distinct visual style defined by vibrant pop art colors and thick outlines, every individual frame is a feast for the eyes. Characters are highly expressive and animated in every sense of the word. There's plenty of the explosive slapstick and reactive comedy that fueled many a Nichijou reaction gif, but this time around it's a little bit sharper around the edges. There have been multiple episodes with filmed footage involving scale models of structures in the show that are integrated with the animation. The whole ED sequence is done in claymation (though I believe it's digitally rendered). A major punchline to one gag involves a camera eye perspective streaking across the galaxy before seeing a character ejected from the Earth like it's the final episode of The Curse.

It's a daring project that will undoubtedly frustrate purists who think adaptations should just deliver the source material as is instead of trying to create a work that can stand on its own. But a faithful one-to-one adaptation would've never delivered something on the level of the fifth episode; a mind-boggling setup that involves several different groups viewed through an array of picture-in-picture screens. All the residents are drawn toward a massive celebration at the Tanabe mansion where Nagumo and the famed Nicest Guy In The City are trying to escape the massive Hospitality Towers. Once Wako scales the towers to join the unlikely duo (which can be witnessed on the massive scale model the studio constructed), the scene splits into several perspectives which will fundamentally change the experience for each viewer. While there is always a primary scene which gets the benefit of the biggest screen share and audio, there's plenty happening in the margins that can be witnessed, followed, or completely ignored. This all culminates into a massive Where's Waldo style climax involving a jaw-dropping amount of characters and attention to detail that borders on overwhelming. It's an experience that begets multiple viewings to fully appreciate the dense layers of effort that went into crafting this behemoth.

The manga simply had the real estate to build the plot threads in separate chapters and then pay off with an admittedly impressive spread of its own. It's the restraints of the adaptation itself that put KyoAni in the position where they had to come up with a creative solution that would still satisfy manga fans and anime-onlies alike. There's an alarming amount of people in anime circles who consider this blasphemy. Why? It's sometimes maddening to me how narrow minded viewers can be when witnessing something that could've only bloomed from artful passion; love for the medium and everything that defines it. CITY The Animation is yet another bold tally mark in the roster of adaptations that fight for their own identity beyond mere manga panels sequenced into key frames. What use is there in anime that don't wish to stand proudly beside their source material? There's seldom a thing more beautiful than an adaptation and a source that are worth experiencing in equal measure.

What is cut is not lost. I think a major driving force for "the Animation" being placed in the title, much like Azumanga Daioh before it and even Pani Poni Dash! in a spiritual sense, is to declare a clear demarcation between this anime and the CITY manga itself. It's an animated version that has its own rules and structures with a distinct vision that will often morph the source material to fit its own boundaries. This is not a replacement nor an abridged version - it's a companion piece. KyoAni and Keiichi Arawi worked so closely together in the production process of Nichijou that Arawi was given the position to write the screenplay for the final episode; an anime original conclusion that poetically ties the entire series together. His enthusiasm and role in assisting the studio again with CITY The Animation is well documented, and it's seeming more likely than ever that another Arawi penned conclusion episode will be coming now that one of the volumes has been skipped via material compression. I simply can't believe that approaching an adaptation from the standpoint of 'they better adapt my favorite chapters or it's bad' is a meaningful way to experience art even in the most casual context.

Over the years I've often seen complaints about how Nichijou, and now in turn CITY, are not good simply because they are not "funny". This is largely attributed to their reputation as slice of life comedies, with the 'comedy' part heavily emphasized. If it doesn't make you laugh out loud then it's a failure. But I find that to be a narrow viewpoint that is almost sickeningly reductive. Arawi's best quality has been ability to convey human emotions earnestly in spite of how exaggerated his characters are. The best moment in Nichijou was not the Nietzsche bit nor the deer wrestling scene. It was Yuuko telling Nano that she's Nano, not just a robot but a dear friend. It was Yuuko and Mai bestowing Mio with the certificate of eternal friendship, cementing their bond forever. Arawi's comedy, too, is not just for cheap laughter. It's a comedy of joy and warmth that could only come from someone who truly believes in the good of humanity. CITY finds itself squarely in the same shoes, with perhaps the most impactful scene being the pumpkin gag between longtime friends Matsuri Makabe and Ecchan where they can no longer run away from the truth through their own brand of surrealist humor - the truth that Ecchan is moving thousands of miles away and their remaining time together is running shorter by the day.

The reason I argue so passionately for this show is that, despite there being a few episodes still to come,  I sincerely believe it's one of the most impressive and beautifully animated works of this decade. CITY The Animation is a crowning testament to Kyoto Animation whose legacy has been long built on this spirit of passionate creativity. So many studios settle for by-the-books adaptations. Some simply don't have the talent pool nor the resources to do better. KyoAni has always created with reverence to establish anime as something that strives to be individual even when it's working with existing material. Some may find the characters annoying or the comedy beats overbearing, but it's the whimsical sensation of viewing Arawi's world and the celebration of empathy that it inherits that bears the most meaning. It's a thought that somewhere out there, maybe a city more bizarre than our own is doing fine in this crazy world we live in. I think it would be a tragedy to deprive oneself of the joy of experiencing this anime at least once. For anyone who enjoys this offering, the manga is an essential follow-up to complete the experience. 

My last point is in regards to the OP, which many will write off as it's the polar opposite in terms of presentation when compared to both of Nichijou's chaotic openings. The high octane vocal onslaught of Hyadain's songs paired with what was just about every single Nichijou character appearing on screen is the yin to the yang of CITY which has an opening where barely any of the characters appear in it at all. But that's the point, isn't it? It's called CITY, not Citizens! The focus is on the architecture, the animal life, the objects, and even the weather. Not until the very last moments do we see our Mont Blanc trio doing their griddy style dance in front of a vague crowd consisting of the citizens that inhabit this colorful place. At the end of the day, these buildings and shops are defined by the people who reside and mingle within them. As the time passes, those buildings will in turn redefine the citizens as well. It's their city, folks. We just get to live in it for a little while.

 

New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

Produced by Trigger

Here we are again, old friend. Standing at the end of a long winding road paved through sheer patience and faith. There is no single anime I owe my loyalty more to than Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, the 2010 Gainax culture shock that mixed their frenetic action-oriented animation with the aesthetic styling and structure of western cartoons more familiar to North American audiences. It's arguably the only great thing that was ever spawned from the existence of Drawn Together, a Comedy Central relic from the mid-2000s rife with edgy shock humor and operating on several levels of pastiche as it spoofs entire animation styles, musicals, and the once long-running MTV reality show The Real World. As a young teenager who was conflicted by the direction TV animation was taking in the western world, Panty & Stocking couldn't have appeared before my eyes at a better time. It bridged the gap between me and anime - a medium I had long written off due to understanding nothing about it - and set me off on a long journey to obtain clarity about this cherished form of animation and what makes it so great. 

On Christmas Eve in the year 2010, Panty & Stocking concluded with an infamously wild cliffhanger and a tongue-in-cheek promise for a "next season" to come and resolve it. This was then followed by its iconic OST being released with a hidden track nestled at the end of the CD where Arisa Ogasawara (Panty) and Mariya Ise (Stocking) remain in character to discuss their hopes for a second season and beyond. For more than a decade, believers and non-believers clashed over whether the promise for a second season was genuine or simply another pastiche style gag meant to emulate but not guarantee anything. None of that mattered to me because I never stopped believing. When the Gainax exodus took place and most of the show's talent left to form Trigger, my faith was not shaken. Even when the massive blue balls event of the Gainax West announcement happened and it turned out to be a random cafe promotion, I was anchored to what I knew was true. A second season was always in the cards, but the journey to getting there would take some time

Trigger had to fully establish themselves as a studio, work out the rights disputes with Gainax to acquire the IP (alongside Gurren Lagann), and find the time to put the whole production together alongside most of the key figures who defined Panty & Stocking as a cultural powerhouse for many years. Not the kind of stuff that happens overnight! As we now know, it took over a decade for things to fall into place. In 2022, Trigger finally announced the long anticipated New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt; the "next season" that eluded viewers for so long. Three years later, what was once considered an unlikely miracle is now a very real thing. We almost have all the episodes for it, in fact! Can a raunchy, low brow, parody stuffed gag anime with a cartoon art style still make an impact nearly two decades later?

New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is what I'd call the "2010s revival" version of the original Panty & Stocking. Many cartoons that ended prematurely in the early-mid '00s either got revivals or conclusions in the 2010s. Sadly, not many of them were particularly great. What they all had in common was an increased emphasis on technological advancements, internet cultural humor, and characters aging to reflect the passage of time. Of course. as Garterbelt makes clear right away, this new season begins mere minutes after the controversial twist ending that punctuated the original show. Panty just got diced clean into six-hundred and sixty six cubes by Stocking who was actually a demon serving the disgraced Corset. Everything that was hinted in key art and promotional materials since the first season's conclusion paid off; Brief and Garterbelt (and Chuck) teaming up with the demon sisters Scanty and Kneesocks, Stocking turning into a kaiju demon, Corset becoming a shit smear on the pavement, and the botched-then-fixed resurrection of Panty that culminates in a massive cat-fight with the city as the arena.

Let's run it back a little bit. Panty and Stocking are the Anarchy sisters; two spoiled angels from heaven who were kicked out and confined in a church run by the eccentric priest Garterbelt and his weird little pet Chuck who is the distant cousin of Gir from Invader Zim. In Daten City - the human center between heaven and hell - twisted human desires can manifest into ghosts that wreak havoc upon the citizens. Since they are immune to human weaponry, it's the job of our titular angels to slay them and earn Heaven Coins to buy their way back into the great upstairs. The only problem is that these two sisters are one-track minded hedonists who indulge endlessly in their respective pleasures. Panty is a blonde bimbo addicted to sex and Stocking is a spoiled gosurori girl who only craves sweets. It's only when their daily routines are interrupted that they get off their lazy asses and actually do their jobs properly.

Despite the fact that time allegedly did not pass a second in the fifteen year gap between seasons, things feel noticeably updated. The angel and demon phones turned from BlackBerry knockoffs to modern smartphones. Stocking's old blog has been forsaken for the social media landscape but she does continue to shitpost on imageboards. Kneesocks works at a card shop for nerds at the worst time in history to do so. Brief makes a joke about being socially progressive in the first episode. The economy has crashed so Heaven Coins have become worthless. Hell Coins now exist because Scanty and Kneesocks have become maids who live and work at the church after Corset's demise and need to pay their own fare back into the underworld. The new angels are, for lack of a better word, 'zoomers' who only speak in slang phrases preferred by modern teenagers. With every change brings clarity, and it's clear that the DNA at play here is still what you'd come to expect from Panty & Stocking. It's gross, sometimes juvenile, but always uncompromising.

Structurally, the way episodes are formatted are very similar to their first season counterparts. Much like the Cartoon Network programs of yore, most Panty & Stocking episodes are divided into segments. What's interesting is that majority of episodes in the second season have largely trended toward three segments per episode. The first season only had a few of these in its latter half, opting in for two segment A/B styled episodes for the majority of its run. This change has given New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt the feel of an anthology series due to the increase in segments and clear style changes between them. There's still a running undercurrent of plot that is compounding on what the first season built and even a stronger sense of continuity between episodes this time around. Many segments are experiments reminiscent of "Vanishing Point" from the first season that focus on a specific pastiche mired in parody and visual adjustments to fully sell it. There's also an increased emphasis on pairing off the characters, especially with the demon sisters in the mix as main cast members.

The evolution of Trigger's animation style has been a treat, especially considering how Panty & Stocking ended up being a fundamental part of their DNA as the final project Hiroyuki Imaishi, Yoh Yoshinari, and many of their Trigger fellows completed at Gainax. The stylized CG rendering used throughout the first season was refined over the years and culminated in the creation of Promare in 2019. This style has come full circle with the new season as quickly as the first episode where Giantess Panty and Demon Ghost Stocking square off in the heart of the city. The wider array of staff on this project, with some episodes almost completely outsourced (two segments in episode four were completely directed by staff at Yostar Pictures), has created an environment where the visual style of the show has far more deviations than the first season did. It's reminiscent of Space Dandy where many segments have completely unique teams of boarders, directors, and animators creating their own vision of the show. It's less unified than the first season, but it trades consistency for playfulness without borders.

Those who were worried that the OST wouldn't live up to the original's glory can rest assured that it still kicks ass. Taku Takahashi, Teddyloid, and Mitsunori Ikeda have returned with an array of new guests and a different twist on their music after fifteen years of growth. It's certainly more in tune with the modern Japanese DJ scene, but the new tracks have some tricks of their own and the new remixes of old favorites have been spectacular across the board. There have been some incredible spoofs as well, like a song that makes "Life Is A Highway" seem like it could've been good if only vaguely remembering how it sounds. Many of the old favorites are still incorporated into the show in one way or another, and pretty much all the themes got remixes including the first season's intro. Speaking of which, I love the new OP visuals and theme song quite a bit. It may not be truly as short as the original, but the full version is killer and they've already incorporated it well in a couple episodes. Similarly, the new ED theme "Reckless" has grown on me quite a bit. "Fallen Angel" was always a hard act to follow, melancholy as it was, but I enjoy the more uplifting bravado being offered here. Frankly, I'm a big fan of the cheesy ass rap verses that have been prevalent in the new tracks.

New characters have been a major focus and anticipation for most of the show's run, but it's also the renewed takes on the original character dynamics that have been a treat. Now removed from the immediacy of the '00s, there's a noticeable decline in the mean-spirited nature of the show. Drawn Together was emblematic of this; an entire show of reprehensible personalities that fundamentally hated each other and streamlined paths to edgy humor like the pseudo-Disney princess that was irredeemably racist. That's not to say the edge has dulled with New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt; they've just reinserted the blade somewhere else. Panty and Stocking feel more like real sisters and their bond is more tangible than ever. This contrasts well with Scanty and Kneesocks who, despite their initial distaste with the angels, also have a strong sisterly (incestual) bond. The pairs influence each other - one segment follows Stocking and Scanty training at a dojo while another one has Panty helping Kneesocks celebrate her birthday - and eventually what was once reluctant cohabitation becomes a happy little family that's plenty weird and even a little twisted. What's not to like?

This isn't some shrugging revival that intends to soak in the original's afterglow. The opening theme says it, the name says it - it's NEW! It's a surreal feeling to see what is truly progression from the first season and an unwillingness to muck around with the same old tricks. There are plenty of homages to episodes from the original run - one episode ends with a Fast & Furious inspired spoof involving sentient sperm ghosts trying to execute a successful 'heist' on Panty's lower lips; a segment highly reminiscent of "Pulp Fiction" from the first season. There's no true retreading of material though because the dynamics are no longer the same. Panty and Brief have a touch and go relationship that has our geek boy simping harder than ever after having successfully reinserted Panty's vagina cube (yes, really) during her resurrection. The angel and demon sisters living together have altered the chemistry of the main cast. You get the sense that these characters have legitimately grown from the first season even though all the stupidity. Panty is finding joy in things that aren't just sex. Stocking cares more about the people around her and sharing her passion for sweets. Scanty and Kneesocks have found new appreciation for life and each other as they navigate their positions at the church and human society. Garterbelt is now the proper "dad" of the group and his interactions with Brief come off as real kinship instead of rerunning the catholic priest pedophilia gag.

So far the new characters have been great additions to the cast and brought their own spin on the Panty & Stocking formula. Super Guy Jin (as in, super gaijin [foreigner]) is the spirit animal of all weeaboos in the 2000s who wore a Naruto hachigane to school. Gunsmith Bitch gives both Brief a cute female nerd friend to geek out with and the angel demon alliance a temporal space merchant who can provide them with weapons and modifications to take on their new rivals. The boy angels Polyester and Polyurethane were a major part of the advertising, with Trigger revealing their designs well in advance. This was an interesting move considering the demon sisters were kept under wraps until their debut in episode six of the original season. I suppose it isn't too hard to understand when one remember's that the original 2010 PV hid so much about the show that they deliberately left out the angel transformations so they'd be a surprise in the first episode (it worked, and people were talking about the transformation sequence for weeks until the demon sisters got theirs in the aforementioned debut). I was skeptical seeing the designs alone, but I'm happy to say that my doubts were unfounded. The young internet slang poisoned angels are very charming, funny, and their interactions with the cast are increasingly worthwhile. They also have a damn good transformation sequence of their own with the boy band themed cut "Divine" standing proudly with its treasured brethren "Fly Away" and "Theme for Scanty & Knee Socks".

Also, trust me, this show is not any less horny than it was in the first season. I already talked about the Fast & Furious sperm bit, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Brief pays Panty a large sum of money for her worn panties after she wins a card game against a ghost. The cast gets captured by a social media validation ghost who dies after they all climax too hard from viral exposure. Kneesocks casually lets slip that she wants to witness her sister passing bowel movements on the toilet. Brief jerks off to Panty having sex with a cop during a giallo-style murder mystery segment. Panty tries to pay Gunsmith Bitch by fingering her who instead uses Panty's gun Backlace as a dildo. The most recent episode had a pastiche of The Thing that concludes with the universe being consumed in the most Panty & Stocking fashion possible by a vaginal black hole. The juvenile humor, the parodies, the creative mania - it's all there and stronger than ever. 

This is what a proper follow-up to a long beloved series should be like. It's an iteration that moves forward with the strength of the past, not dragged back down by its former greatness. Some cling to the mean-spirited comedy of the 2000s like storied history that must be regurgitated with the belief that it was wrongfully displaced from the culture. I think people just got sick of writing unlikeable characters with edgy humor that isn't sophisticated enough for adults or juvenile enough for children. Not that Panty & Stocking ever had this problem, of course. My ultimate point is that we should embrace meaningful change and evolution in the creative process. This isn't a rehash or a half-hearted resuscitation; it's an honest sequel that wanted to exist. Plus, it's not like there aren't plenty of laughs at the expense of other characters. The humor comes with a little empathy as a treat. The audience that was courted by this series during its infancy are fifteen years older now. We live in a world fundamentally shaped by technological advancement that has redefined the human social structure. It may be built from the collage of artworks past, but New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt lives firmly in the present.

I'm incredibly pleased that they were able to get the majority of the original seiyuu to reprise their roles. I am speaking in regards to the Japanese voices - apologies to the English dub enjoyers who have to settle for a completely different cast. The only major character who got recast was Kneesocks due to her original seiyuu Ayumi Fujimura being on indefinite hiatus since 2019, but it took me more than half the show to even notice there was a difference so her new seiyuu (Akeno Watanabe, who is known for shounen male roles such as Midoriya from Boku no Hero Academia) clearly understands the role. Arisa Ogasawara loved voicing Panty so much that she willingly came out of retirement to reprise the role after nearly a full decade away from the business. They somehow found the guy who did Chuck's voice (whose only other voice credit was a random goon in Yoshiyuki Tomino's Overman King Gainer) and got him to record more noises. Yuka Komatsu came back to voice Scanty after a prolific career in dubbing western live-action and animated works. Everyone else remained stable in the industry; there's no shortage of Mariya Ise roles but she can still voice Stocking like she's been doing it every day since the first season ended. Hiroyuki Yoshino does his Brief voice in plenty of shows and I notice it every time (he's doing it in Dandadan right now as the wannabe influencer priest Majirou).

Humans can only make long term emotional investments so many times in one life. When something to that magnitude pays off, it can feel satisfying in a way words can't properly express. Fifteen years is only a fraction of our natural lives, but there aren't that many fifteen-year spans for the average person. For me, all the daydreaming and anticipation that ran through the margins of my life in the time between Panty & Stocking and its continuation have been validated. It's everything I could've wanted it to be and more. So easy is it for creatives to lose touch or even agency over their own work. Many revivals, returns, and continuations have fallen flat in a media landscape dominated by them. New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is a triumphant success in spite of that fact. Much of the returning staff have expressed sentiment over the years in regards to all the ideas they built up for the second season since the day the first concluded. All that pent up creativity and vision has been unleashed and fills the spaces of every single episode. I have no doubt in my mind that they've always been serious about this. It's a series that isn't for everybody, but anyone who enjoyed the first season has little to worry about here. We won't have to pretend a second season never came out like it's Clone High.

Labors of love of this variety just don't come around every day. They barely even come around every fifteen years, I reckon. We're living in a time where art and human expression is further compressed onto conveyor belts to make soulless ghouls, who couldn't shit even an ounce of creative spirit with the highest strength laxatives one can buy, copious amounts of money for providing absolutely zero amount of worth to the human experience. Visions are being sanded down to appease speculators and focus groups. Guys who know how to use Microsoft Excel to run functions with fake numbers have more say on how artists can express themselves than the cumulative talent doing the actual work. Weird, bold, and provocative works like Panty & Stocking are what we genuinely need right now, especially at a moment in history where payment processors have decided to kowtow to speculative legislation and comply in advance to puritanism of the most destructive order. Kill la Kill, Trigger's flagship series that established them as a major player, was centered around themes of shame in conflict with the ideals of personal liberation. Nudist Beach, although rife with exaggeration, was central to the concept of overcoming unnecessary shame at expressing, or even witnessing, the natural human form. Those who wield power wish us to feel shame for immersing in core aspects of the human experience through fiction. The middle fingers that have become a symbolic component of the imagery in New Panty & Stocking are an apt response. Glory to the bitches.

 

 

If you read all the way through this, then I'd like to thank you for your patience. If you scrolled to the bottom to see how far it would go, I can't really hold it against you. This was a long one to write for a lot of reasons that extend beyond the fact that it was nine separate entries to talk about. Summer 2025 is one of the most exciting anime seasons of the decade and a massive testament to the creative energy flowing through the medium right now. The industry still has its persistent issues, but the higher influx of original works and adaptations that are more ambitious have given me plenty of reasons to be optimistic about where things are headed. I do think there's a massive restructuring of priorities in creative spaces right now and more artists are vocal about getting their intended visions out there. It's been a chaotic decade, but the footholds are starting to become clearer as the path is carved out before us.

This will probably be the longest seasonals post I ever do. I could eat these words in the future but I'd bet money that if it happens, it won't be anytime soon. It especially won't be next season which seems appropriately dry for Fall considering how many heavyweights are currently in the ring. There's a few things I have my eye on: Shuumatsu Touring seems to be a twist on Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou that trades its off-kilter melancholy for something lighter in the face of loneliness. Towa no Yuugure is the newest original anime from the king of originals, P.A. Works, and this time around it's a science fiction romp in a post-war society that might redefine the "Progressive" part of the studio's name. Spy x Family is coming back for its third season and my expectations are it'll be a lot like its second season which was a lot like its first season. It's a winning formula! I come back to watch it every time, so it must be working.

To end this properly, I'll give my final statement on the shows I talked about on my previous seasonals post.

Lazarus - The ending was somehow worse than I predicted and then it tried to cap it off by baiting a potential sequel. Shinichiro Watanabe desperately needs a new co-writer and he needs to start again on the right path by never listening to Jason DeMarco ever again.

Apocalypse Hotel - Funny ending. Yachiyo's suffering at the hands of her human benefactors having no tact at all is a great bookended punchline. I know a lot of people thought that the Tanuki family was annoying and wanted to kill Ponko but I think they're overreacting a little. Not bad, Cygames.

Gundam GQuuuuuuX - Don't hand Tsurumaki the aux again. Well, it's still better than Gundam SEED, but that's not much of an accomplishment. It's basically a heavy handed Gundam 0079 ship fanfiction with Lalah Sune and Char Aznable. The three protagonists are never allowed to have any agency or desires of their own. Also the Gundam gets really big because the franchise is massive now or whatever the hell he said in that interview. At least it was interesting, but the early intrigue of the show now comes off a bit dishonest and there's a bit too much material that's referential for the sake of it. 

Ninkoro - This one didn't change much after Satoko and Konoha finally bonded in the wake of Roboko's death and formed a much healthier relationship. Ninjas still show up to assassinate Satoko and then get shanked and sent off to dead ninja assassin heaven where all the characters killed throughout the show are trying to livestream to the living world. It was SHAFT doing what they do best - stupidity with cute girls. It's a good one.

Hibimeshi - It was spiritually Non Non Biyori season 4 with a different cast, so naturally it was great. The ending had the funny tone conflict of both being conclusive and non-conclusive at the same time. It's insanely unlikely this will ever get a sequel because P.A. Works has a nearly nonexistent record of ever doing second seasons for their original stuff. Weirder things have happened, I suppose. It was funny and the characters were charming and ate food. Guess you don't really need a sequel to that when you really think about it. 

mono - Loved it. Deeply underappreciated. Too many people got mad because they thought it was going to be Tamayura written by the Yuru Camp guy but instead it was Afro lowkey blogging about his urban sightseeing trips and then inventing a cast around the concept. There were cameras but it wasn't a series themed around cameras. The title literally means "thing" in Japanese. It was a show of miscellaneous purposes and cameras were involved. It still had really creative camera work across the board and fantastic boarding, framing, shot composition, etc. No complaints. Give these guys Yuru Camp season four. It'd be madness to let anyone else do it when they've clearly got the spark.

And that's all I've got. Until next time - stay moe, friends.