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Yeah, that happens... It's a shame, because I feel like talking after the reveal is part of the fun of the event. It's unfair that some people are robbed of that joy because their partners are only interested in the badge. (⁠｡⁠•́⁠︿⁠•̀⁠｡⁠)

I see! I used to almost never rate things 1 or 2 either, but nowadays I like to utilize the full scale to make as much difference between shows I liked and shows I didn't. I obviously respect the hard work of staff regardless of personal enjoyment, but I merely rate the products themselves.

There's a lot of things I'm planning to watch this winter, but we'll see how many I actually stick with. The fall 2023 season was actually one of my favorites in a long time with a ton of great surprises – I was never expecting to enjoy shows like Atarashii Joushi wa Do Tennen, Kimi no Koto ga Daidaidaidaidaisuki na 100-nin no Kanojo or Undead Unluck as much as I did but here we are, haha.

I'm glad you're chill about it! (人 ᵕ—ᴗ—) Having worked as an elf this year I now know the secrets behind the matching process, so I understand why we were paired together even though we don't seem to have that much in common in terms of overall anime taste. It's definitely a roulette with the recipient each year! Sometimes you get lucky and are able to recommend to someone who seems to like just about anything and other times there are those on which you stop and wonder why they're even watching anime. As a recipient, I'm probably somewhere in the middle where I have a fair share of anime I dislike, am fairly tough to keep interested and don't really have a consistent formula of things I always enjoy to go off of, but once I like something I usually vibe with it a lot.

In Memopad's case, I was most of all turned off by the unfunny, unnecessarily repertitive bath towel humor and the way it handled gender... Things like "she doesn't have a womb anymore, which makes her a man" (I get that the character continued living as a man as a disguise, but that specific idea of "womanhood = bearing children" was implied during the case and it rubbed me the wrong way) or "her breasts are too beautiful to be wearing a sarashi" made me uncomfortable. Besides that, I felt like most of the characters were quite unconvincing and that lead to an overall shallowness of the story, which is a problem I already talked about a little. All cases were about replenishing lost connections, mostly following the same formula of character X having had a dramatic falling-out with character Y to realizing they cared all along due to an incident involving the NEET detectives. However, because I couldn't connect to any of them, it didn't feel meaningful. I also never liked Ayaka, she was probably my least favorite character in the show, so her suicide didn't really impact me. Rather, it felt pretty forced and out-of-place – it was indeed a WTF moment, but not in a good way. (⚆_⚆)୨`` On the whole, I feel like the mystery aspect that could've been interesting by itself took too much of a backseat to pave way for ineffective melodrama, and I'm just not the target audience for shows like that.

You've been diligent with 2/3 completed already! (⁠人╹o╹) Some people don't watch the shows they're given at all. I see you gave them both a 7/10, is there a specific way you rate shows or do you just go by the adjectives MAL has given (e.g. 7/10 is good, 9/10 is great)?

Greetings Santa,


It is indeed I, gyanburubii, at your service, teaching a bit of basic katakana to the passers-by who waltz onto my profile!
(`･ω･´)ゞ Just kidding. My username is actually spelled out on my profile like that not only for the aesthetic, but also as my best attempt to make its reading ("gambling bee" / gyanburu = gamble) more clear. It has been quite a futile attempt for now, as there are still a lot of people reading it in every other possible way except the correct one, haha. But as for your gift, I was very pleasantly surprised! It was nice to get matched with another Santa who specializes in longer gifts and I really enjoyed reading your well-worded reasonings for the shows you chose. (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

So, I started out from Kamisama no Memochou, the shortest of your recommendations. In addition to its compact length, I was drawn to this particular anime because of the Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri comparison: I loved the fun character dynamics and whodunit-style mysteries in that show, but your recommendation ended up being similar in other ways. The comparison is definitely fair, but I personally thought Kamisama no Memochou to be more like an alternate version of Durarara!! in the style of Jun Maeda – a scriptwriter I've never been a fan of. (⁠^⁠～⁠^⁠;⁠)⁠ゞ You don't seem to be familiar with any of his works, which is quite surprising to me.

Still, I wanted to finish at least one of your recommendations in order to be able to give you a proper response. Even though I wasn't convinced by the initial setup of Kamisama no Memochou, there was a single aspect that made me keep watching until the end besides your promise of an interesting finale, and that was Tetsu. As soon as I saw him begging Narumi for money behind that mahjong table, I knew I could keep up as long as he was around... (๑> ؎ •̀๑)ᕗ☆ I happen to have a major soft spot for the gambling addict archetype and I would've loved for him to have more screentime, haha. The concept of detectives being speakers for the dead was pretty clever as well. I got the feeling that even though Alice feels somewhat powerless among the chaos that is the unstoppable progression of time and fate, she helps people in her own way – the way she's capable of as a shut-in. According to how I understood it, there was also a possibility to interpret Alice herself as a presence larger than life... or maybe she was merely a bit of a chuunibyō. A fun, food-for-thought detail nonetheless!

Unfortunately, that is about all the positives I managed to gather. However, I sincerely believe that fiction cannot be "objectively" bad or good: it all comes down to preference! I can go into further depth on my complaints regarding Kamisama no Memochou, but that is only if you wish to hear – I don't want to mercilessly tear down something you hold dear in front of you.

I did try your other two recommendations as well, three episodes of Zetsuen no Tempest and a brief look at Shinreigari, but didn't feel like they were my thing either. When it comes to Shinreigari, it seems a bit too avant-garde for my taste. The atmosphere and the narrative mannerisms of the first episode instantly reminded me of shows such as Shinsekai Yori and Serial Experiments Lain, which I didn't find entertaining at all, so I didn't continue further. Zetsuen no Tempest on the other hand was quite captivating to watch with its clever camera angles and action scenes, seemingly quite ahead of their time. However, my biggest issue with that one was probably with the characters: the main cast in terms of both protagonists and thus far introduced antagonists just felt off to me, as if they were missing a crucial component. I didn't straight up hate any of them, but you couldn't call it an acceptable amount of indifference either. If it were such, I may have persevered for a few more episodes, but I'm speaking from former anime completionist experience when I say that no amount of development will save a character whose personality makes me feel downright callous on first impression. If I'm not invested in a single character after two episodes, twenty-two more aren't likely to change my mind. I also have a strong underlying feeling I won't enjoy the romance aspect of the show for the aforementioned reason. (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠；⁠) However, I do have to say that I owe you one regardless – I feel a bit enlightened! I've always known that I prefer likeable characters in a mediocre narrative setting over a one-in-a-million story with a boring cast. However, thanks to watching your recommendations with the intention of giving feedback on them, I think I've finally come to understand why that preference exists. Characters are a necessary vessel to help me ground myself to the show's setting, and I need to be able to be invested in their story to truly feel the stakes.

The way you sold all three recommendations painted them in a very favorable light; I feel bad for not being able to respond to that passion on an equal level. (╥⁠﹏⁠╥) Still, for me, the most important part of the event is getting to meet and talk to other anime fans! If you want to tell me about the shows that didn't end up being included in the final present due to the three anime limit, I'll be glad to hear more about them.

What recommendation(s) did you get from your Santa? If you've watched them already, what did you think of them?


Happy New Year 2024!! ヾ(＾∇＾)

Hey! Secret Santa! Thanks for recommending Real Drive, I haven't heard of this before, and it sounds pretty interesting. I appreciate the recommendation. :)