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*Spoiler Warning*

After Season 2 of Spy X Family, I was starting to become a little concerned about the direction the anime was heading in. I was concerned that Spy X Family was getting away from what made it so great in the first place: a perfect balance between the action of a spy thriller and the wholesomeness of having a family, all under the guise of the entire arrangement being fake with the fate of the world literally hanging in the balance. In the second part of its first season and in season two, Spy X Family had begun tilting more heavily in the ... direction of wholesome family bits and away from the spy action and thriller parts. The broader stakes have become more or less of an afterthought. Now I'm not against Spy X Family showing off more of it's "Family" part and there's some genuinely funny and meaningful scenes that have come out of that, it had begun to neglect the "Spy" part of the story and I think the anime as a whole was starting to get a little stale and forget about the reason why they're all even together. The plot had not meaningfully advanced in any serious way since season 1.

I think Spy X Family got back to its roots with this film, and whether it's canon or not (I'm not entirely sure and it seems to be a little bit of a grey area) I hadn't felt this good about Spy X Family since I was watching the anime for the first time. I enjoyed it that much. The movie got back to the roots of what made this anime so good and special for me as a viewer who is invested in the anime and it restored some of my confidence in the broader story. It managed to strike the balance between both aspects of the story and provide some kind of meaningful stake to the whole story: at first it's Loid being able to continue Operation Strix and later Anya's life becomes at risk at the hands of the Ostanian Military. Now at the end of the day it all gets resolved and nothing that meaningful happens as a result of the conclusion of the movie's events, it at least provides me some comfort in knowing that the anime hasn't forgotten the rest of its story.

The general plot of this movie is that Loid is at risk of being taken off Operation Strix due to his higher-ups wanting a different agent. However, Anya also gets an opportunity to earn a Stella should she win an upcoming baking competition her school is doing. In an effort to gain an edge, Loid figures out the principal's favorite dish which requires them to travel to a remote part of Ostania where the principal happens to be from in order to be able to replicate it. However, The Forgers inevitably get caught up in another instance of peace hanging in the balance after Anya "accidentally" eats a chocolate containing highly sensitive microfilm that if came to light would trigger a war. So the usual Spy X Family shenanigans that we all know and love!

One of the things that surprised me about the movie was how much of a darker story this was in terms of the greater Spy X Family story. There's quite a bit of blood and killing that happens in the movie (not that we hadn't seen it before over the course of the anime, but it had also been so long since we've seen something like that it comes across as a surprise). Colonel Snidel, the main antagonist in the movie, isn't anything special when it comes to villains but he was excellent for this story. He was brutal, bloodthirsty and intimidating. You only need to look as far as his willingness to kill Anya, a literal child, to get the microfilm that becomes a plot point in this film. He was a step up from the villains we've seen in Spy X Family and probably the only true villain we've had so far (unless you want to count Donovan Desmond but we haven't seen much of him up to this point). It's also always nice to see Loid and Yor throwing down with people and seeing just how skillful and strong they are, and this time they had genuinely challenging opponents (I know we saw Yor struggle against some assassins during the Cruise Ship Arc in Season 2 but outside of that she usually just mows guys down left and right), with Loid having to handle Colonel Snidel while Yor took on a cyborg named "Type F" who had a genuinely pretty cool design as what I can assume is a "first generation" cyborg. I also really liked the design of Colonel Snidel's airship, it brings out the Star Wars nerd in me.

The action stuff aside, there were always plenty of wholesome and funny moments from each of the characters. They seemed to carry over Yor's feelings of inferiority which was a plot point in a few of the episodes for season 2 which if memory serves (and it's been a minute), that plot point had already been kind of settled so I was a little confused to why it was being brought up again, but it provided an opportunity for Loid and Yor to build their connection more. I do think Loid is truly starting to fall in love with his family as seen from some of his POV shots for how he sees Yor and Anya. There's also the instance of after Loid's and Yor's Ferris wheel ride to smooth things over after Yor had drunkenly accused Loid of cheating, Anya interestingly did not repeat the thoughts that were in Loid's and Yor's minds after she asked if they were "aggressively flirting" (I mean hey...she technically wasn't wrong!) and she smiled. That all being said, towards the end of the movie after Colonel Snidel and his forces had been defeated and they need to crash the burning airship safely to avoid hitting a town full of people, Loid was able to convince Anya and seemingly Yor that they dealt with "Chocolate Thieves" (this is honestly on brand for Spy X Family), and Yor went along with it. I'm not sure if she genuinely believed that or not, bit you have to think as well that Loid and Yor are eventually going to become suspicious of each other's abilities and their true identities. It didn't flare up during the movie but after going through an ordeal like that makes you wonder if they'd start questioning each other. Who knows?

The production value of this movie was up to the standard we've seen for Spy X Family: beautiful animation, great designs, fantastic arc, the English Vas were great as always, and the music was enjoyable. I really liked the "winter theme" they went for the movie and I think it was a nice touch, and very seasonal considering this came out around Christmas time in 2023 and I'm only getting around to watching almost exactly one year later. It was kind of funny that at the end of the movie they decided to travel to a warmer area in order to retrieve the ingredients for a new dish that Anya has to make for her baking competition in order to earn a stella.

If there's one thing for me to nitpick this movie on was the whole "toilet joke" sequence that was going on during the back end of the movie. I get that it was comic relief for what was a high stakes and intense overall scene, but I think the joke dragged out a little too much for my tastes and the whole "poop fairy" thing was a little over the top. I get that its joke is geared towards younger audiences and I'm a little outside that age demographic now but it's one little critique that I have of the movie. That and the fact that the overall plot isn't really affected by the events of the movie and they end up having to more or less repeat their entire endeavor, but the movie might not end up being considered canon and it was ultimately still enjoyable to watch.

I enjoyed Spy X Family: Code White. It was a pleasant change of pace that we've gotten recently from the anime and it's a return to Season 1 form in which I believed the anime was at its best. If they want to continue the momentum and advance the story in season 3, they should take into account how they did this movie and repeat the formula for season 3. The story is at its best when it combines both elements of the "Spy" and "Family" stories. It is in the name after all.

*Spoiler Warning*

*Personal Note: There is some discussion about Weathering With You, which was also made by Makoto Shinkai, the film director for both Your Name and Weathering With You*.

This was my second time watching a Makoto Shinkai movie, the first being Weathering With You. Despite its dazzling animation and astounding production quality, I didn't enjoy Weathering With You a whole lot due to the plot being pretty weak. As such I went into Your Name with a bit of weariness. I didn't want to go into it comparing Your Name to Weathering With You and I understood that (as far as I know) ... these movies are separate from one another. Although Your Name predated Weathering With You by 3 years, I was cautiously optimistic about this movie since I had heard generally good things about it and some consider this movie to be pretty emotional. So how did I think Your Name stands up?

I would say Your Name was a good movie. It had phenomenal production value with the animation, art, music, voice acting, etc., it was a very well put together movie. The plot, which makes or breaks any story and can always make up for less than ideal production quality, was alright. I wouldn't say watching Your Name was a personally eye-opening experience and it didn't blow me away like the comet did to Itomori, but it was an enjoyable story that you can get reasonably into and have a nice payoff by the end. The plot was a little convoluted at times with the whole "body swapping" and the fact that the characters are also three years apart, so there's times where you may struggle to wrap your head around things. This phenomenon is also never really explained in too much detail but my head cannon is that it has something to do with the comet. Also, I think they overused the whole "amnesia" aspect to the body swapping a little too much. I fully understand that it was a plot convenience, but there's times the plot really uses it as a crutch and it shows. Although at the end of the day there's no egregious sin here.

In fact, I would say Your Name went out of its way to cover its bases and at least avoid any major plot holes (at least to the extent that a story like this could). One such instance was as I was watching Your Name, I was wondering in the back of my mind why the two main characters: Taki and Mitsuha, didn't just text or call each other during the events of the film. The movie cleverly explained this away by later saying that they had tried to communicate to each other before but their messages and calls wouldn't go through, and then drops the bombshell that Taki and Mitsuha are on different timelines 3 years apart but are able to communicate to each other through this unexplained phenomenon. It's easy to miss them but there's little hints and easter eggs throughout the movie that hint that Taki and Mitsuha are on different timelines through things like calendars hanging in the backgrounds, the dates on their phones, the kinds of phones they have. This was well planned and well executed, I'll admit I didn't see any of the clues at the time I was watching and only after the fact, but it was a good plot reveal. It initially opens up a sort of Pandora's Box of questions like: "If Mitsuha died when the comet struck, how is she still able to talk to Taki?" and the movie does go on to later explain how they are actually on different timelines and through this unexplained phenomenon they cross time and space. The movie also makes references to the whole "red string of fate" myth which in hindsight is also a hint that went over my head about how our main duo is able to talk to each other. While the plot can be a little light on the details at times, I do appreciate them conscientiously eliminating plot holes and having them make sense within the context of the story.

The Love Story between Taki and Mitsuha was decently executed and they're both solid characters that you can root for. I would imagine living a few days of each other's lives and seeing what they have or what they're missing out on can reasonably draw two people closer together. They also went out of their way to try to improve each other's lives as well which I'm sure the other found endearing in retrospect. The only real humor in this movie is when Taki and Mitsuha are arguing with each other and leaving notes for each other on their arms, notebooks or wherever, and they did sound like an old married couple bickering which was pretty funny. There's also the classic humorous question of "if you woke up in the body of the opposite sex, what's the first thing you would do?" and the movie realistically answers that question which was pretty funny. The connection between Taki and Mitsuha is a bit of a slow burn and by the time we see the comet strike Mitsuha's village it's obvious that their feelings are mutual by that point, and all the other side characters (who are also serviceably written but nothing exceptional in and of themselves) pick up on that too. It's an overall wholesome story of love that's used to save someone across time and space, and even though the logistics of it are a little funky, it was nice to see that because of Taki's efforts, Mitsuha was able to save her town and reunite with Taki when they reach adulthood. There was also a few times where they just missed each other in the film including the time when Mitsuha actually sought out Taki to try to meet him, but he didn't recognize her as the two were on different timelines which got explained later in the movie, so there was some genuine sympathy from me there on that that was given in retrospect.

To be frank, if there was a decimal system I'd give this movie a 6.5/10, but when I was deciding my rating I decided to round it up because I did ultimately enjoy Your Name and seeing Taki and Mitsuha reunited at the end was a sweet and strong scene to end off on. There's some aspects of the plot that are wonky and it can get a little weird at times, but it's a movie I can also see myself watching again in the future. Your Name didn't knock my socks off, but it was still an enjoyable movie that has great production, likeable characters and a decent plot. I did feel like it was a better movie than Weathering With You. Your Name felt like that despite its flaws, it at least carefully and skillfully pulled off its plot while Weathering With You felt like it wrote itself into a corner and the whole thing goes off the rails in the last 20 minutes. Your Name did not have this problem. I'd ultimately consider Your Name to be a decent movie and I would say that it was worth checking out!

*Spoiler Warning*

I went into season 2 of Oshi No Ko with decently high expectations, and all things considered I would say that they were met! Season 2 was a solid continuation of the story from the previous season. Some of the smaller plot threads, such as the Akane vs Kana battle for Aqua, were resolved in this season but the anime also threw in a lot more mystery and intrigue to the main story with the first on-screen appearance of Aqua's and Ruby's father. This season also sets up for Aqua and Ruby to take on inverted roles in season 3: with Ruby being ... the one to look into the mystery surrounding Ai's death and their father's involvement in that while Aqua seems more focused on living his new life and leaving the past behind him, thus maybe aspiring to what Ai always wanted Aqua to be. One of the things I've liked about Oshi no Ko as a whole is how it depicts the relationship between Aqua and Ruby and how they've taken completely different approaches to their new lives and now all indications are the roles will be reversed. Aqua and Ruby have been taking opposite approaches the entire time and now they're trading places while remaining opposites. It's quite interesting to watch and I have to give credit to the amount of depth that this story has. Oshi no Ko so far has been a clearly thought out and well executed story, even if it wasn't an exciting thriller 100% of the time.

The main story of this season was the Stage Play Arc which covers most of this season. For the most part it was alright but it did feel a little dragged out in some parts. The story of the actual play itself is a little basic and goofy, but I suppose it works in the context of the story and it technically doesn't need to be grand or otherwise it'd probably risk taking too much focus off the main story. There's quite a bit of flashback storytelling during the actual Stage Play episodes which I'm not generally a fan of because it keeps bouncing back and forth between the past and present for most of the episodes, although by the end of the Stage Play Arc you can actually come to appreciate it. It mostly serves as character growth for Aqua as he overcomes his inferiority-complex about him not being a good actor despite his obvious talent for it, which is also something the anime had me scratching my head over during the first season. The anime actually gives a reason as to why Aqua is this way (although in hindsight the answer was staring me right in the face), in which Aqua is still traumatized by Ai's death and him "enjoying acting" apparently runs counter to his mission of tracking down his father. The anime does a good job of explaining this and depicting Aqua's PTSD over the ordeal and how he ultimately rises above it which is fully embracing his "darker emotions" in order to turn in the performance required by the play. Aqua also wasn't the only character who had to overcome their own questions of self-doubt: Akane, Kana and even Melt all had some pretty good scenes during the Stage Play Arc and it was rewarding to see each of them step up in their own way to help move the play along and see just how genuinely good they are act acting.

Oshi no Ko also continues to depict what seems to me as an outsider a rather frank and realistic take on the entertainment industry and all the seedy, back-room deals and hand wringing that goes on in this line of work. The early episodes of this season explored the challenges of adopting entertainment across multiple mediums, and in this case, the creator of the in-universe manga Tokyo Blade takes issue with the script for the stage play and threatens to blow up the whole thing. Granted this was averted by some subtle manipulation on Aqua's part, I can only imagine how hard it is to adapt something written into stage play and I felt like that part of the story was realistically done. Makes me wonder if there's some degree of self-insert in this story lol. Ultimately though this part of the story was interesting and the manga creator was very eccentric and it made for some interesting moments.

One of the major underlying plot threads that got carried over from the tail-end of last season into this one was who would Aqua end up with: the tsundere red haired Kana or the quiet and timid blue haired Akane? Well if you go by this on a trend basis, you'd think it'd be Kana and the anime does tease us a little bit with the Aqua x Kana ship during their hangout before they travel to Miyazaki, but it was a bit of surprise to see that Aqua choose to stay with Akane, especially when it seemed like things were being set up to end their fake relationship. I do think Akane is ultimately a better match for Aqua: they do have some genuinely good chemistry and some sweet moments with each other, and she's the girl you could trust to hide a dead body with! (I'm not kidding when I say this, it actually surprised me too!). While Kana has her reasons for being a tsundere, I think Akane's softer personality is better suited for the quiet and brooding Aqua (who seems to be on the upswing to becoming more open with himself as well by the end of the season!). Now I don't know if Akane and Aqua's relationship will ultimately last, but how I interpreted their last scene together in the final episode was that Aqua is willing to give Akane a shot and is willing to let the relationship try to be more "real", which was also kind of trending in that direction during the early and middle parts of the season before it seemed like Aqua was thinking about ending things. They were more or less acting like a couple even away from everyone else, especially when Akane chose to look after Aqua after his breakdown early in the season. Akane should continue to be an interesting character, especially since she also seems like she may perhaps know or at least suspect that Aqua is Ai's son, and with her hanging around Aqua for the foreseeable future it'll be interesting to see just how truly devoted to Aqua she is, and given that she plainly stated she didn't mind of Aqua was using her and was well aware of it, it might not be for the best for her. I do wonder how Kana will ultimately handle the news that Akane and Aqua are now officially a couple, but it seems like she handled it as well as she possibly could've. Knowing Kana we'll probably see her full reaction in season 3. If there was one let down was that the Akane and Kana drama wasn't as exciting as it panned out to be. They butted heads a few times but it wasn't anything dramatic and they end up supporting each other in the play and both want the best for each other, so their rivalry is an interesting one but I felt that season 1 raised expectations a little too high for what we ultimately got here in season 2 between Akane and Kana.

This season also clouded the greater mystery behind the main story: Aqua tracks down his supposed half-brother which is confirmed through a DNA test: fellow stage play actor Taiki. We're initially led to believe that they shared the same father and that he ended up killing Taiki's mother and himself in a murder-suicide. This does give Aqua the closure he needs to drop his vengeance and move on at least a bit from his trauma, but that's clearly shown to be wrong as we're later introduced to Aqua's father when Ruby unknowingly passes him after a visit to Ai's grave. So I wonder if this is a case where the DNA test was flat out wrong, there is some degree of truth to the DNA test, or Aqua was being lied to. I'm sure we'll get the answer to that question in season 3. We obviously don't get treated to too many details about Aqua's father but it seems like he's some sort of serial killer after he kills a turquoise hair-colored girl who eerily looks like Ai with the shining stars in her eyes, although Aqua's father's eyes "shine black" similar to how when we see Aqua and Ruby channeling their darker emotions. I'm sure we'll learn more about him as time goes on but I do find it interesting that he's aware he has children yet hasn't made any moves against them, at least not yet.

Ruby is also a character that gets some drastic character development as well and seems to be in-line for some big things down the road. Although this time around she has less screen time than Aqua did, she's the only other character who experienced some drastic character development in which she discovered what happened to her crush in her previous life: Dr. Gorou (who is Aqua and yet somehow both of them haven't divulged or managed to find out who the other was in their previous life, and boy do I imagine that'll make for a hell of a reveal if it comes to pass). This obviously traumatizes Ruby and sets her on the dark path that Aqua was on in trying to determine who her father is and kill him. I do wonder what the whole deal is with the little girl with long silver hair, it seems to be some sort of figment of Ruby's imagination but I wonder if there's more to it. There probably is given how layered the writing is in a story like this.

The production quality in season 2 was just as good as it was in the previous installment. The OP: "Fatale" and outro "Burning" were pretty good songs and fit the anime well, but I still prefer the OP and outro for season 1. I will say I did find it interesting that the animation for "Burning" exclusively featured Ruby this time around while in last season's outro while in season 1 both siblings were featured, which I think is meant to foreshadow the path Ruby is taking this season and perhaps going forward. The animation, voice acting and art were all top-notched and matched the quality we saw in season 1. It is still a visually beautiful and well put together anime.

Ultimately while the Stage Play Arc was probably a little longer than it needed to be and can get a little dull at times, it does pay off in the form of meaningful character development and the last few Ruby focused episodes reignited the mystery and intrigue in the story which sets up an interesting season 3. Unlike in last season where there was a clear "next stop", this season's finale left things open-ended for where it'll go and what will happen next, and I think that's a good thing for the anime to do to help amp up the suspense. I think season 2 was an adequate sequel to season 1, and although I think season 1 is better, I thoroughly enjoyed this season and I look forward to season 3 to see what happens next!

*Spoiler Warning*

Generally speaking, I enjoy a good gag show mostly because my sense of humor is all out of whack. I can honestly find pretty much anything funny so long as you can sell me on the delivery of it. I don't even mind if the plot is not necessarily about anything in particular, just so long as there's likeable characters and there's genuinely good comedy involved. Now it's hard to keep comedy fresh and interesting over any extended period of time but if the show has something good to fall back on it can work. Does My Deer Friend Nokotan have that? Well...not ... really....no.

That's not to say My Deer Friend Nokotan is a bad anime per say. At least I wouldn't call it a bad anime. There's some genuinely good and funny moments throughout the anime but for the most part I think the absurdity and weirdness of the plot overshadows everything. I also find that sometimes the jokes run their course after the first few times at the most and it gets repeatedly used. There's also just some blatantly weird moments that make you question your life and all the decisions that probably led you to reading this review. I know that the anime definitely forced some introspection on me more than once during my watching.

The premise of this anime is that there's the classic "perfect" girl in the main protagonist, Torako Koshi, who is by all accounts a pretty solid character. She's not an exceptionally written MC but she's a likeable and enjoyable character who ironically enough also serves as the self-insert for the audience as we get a front row seat to her hectic situation. She is a former delinquent who has since turned over a new leaf and is now the "perfect" girl we all know and love. However, her way of life is upended when one day she crosses paths with a "deer girl" named Nokotan, who somehow deduces that Torako is a former delinquent and is a little loose lipped about her big secret. As such, Torako somewhat begrudgingly befriends her and gets Shanghaied into serving as President for a "Deer Club" which later on adds the other main characters: Torako's sister Anko, and Bashame, in order to keep her quiet. Now this was an interesting set up, but it's not like Nokotan is every really portrayed to be a malicious character and after a few episodes it was clear to me that if Torako's big secret of her being a delinquent in her past were ever to come to light, it'd either be because Nokotan accidentally blabbers about it or Torako loses her shit on someone and it becomes clear to everyone that she's not the "prim and proper" girl everyone thought she was. Ironically though, she does lose her cool in front of the whole school and goes off on Nokotan during the school festival episode, but nobody seems to be bothered by her "scolding side". So it seems that Torako's fears might be overblown (but then again she is a high school girl in anime, so of course her fears are going to be overblown), but the general student body also has their priorities out of whack and that's shown plenty of times over the course of the anime with nobody minding the chaos Nokotan creates. Also ironically it's not even her delinquent secret that comes out to the whole school, but all her other secrets in the episode where her sister Anko made her grand debut. As funny as that episode was, a part of me did genuinely feel sorry for her, and this happened several times during the anime. She's a bit of a proverbial punching bag throughout the anime, and having been in similar situations to her, I can definitely sympathize with her.

If anything Nokotan's a bit of an idiot to put it nicely. In fact pretty much the entire cast outside of Torako is a degenerate, and more often than not I felt bad for her for the absurdity she had to endure. All she really wants is to just to live her life the way she wants to by being her best, and it's actually admirable that she went from being a delinquent to an all-star honors student with a bright future. Not everyone does that so she has my praise. However she's constantly brought to her limit by Nokotan and everyone else's shenanigans and there's plenty of times the "delinquent side" of her pokes through her newly built persona, which seems to be genuine. Torako is hiding from her past and is trying to leave that in the dark to everyone else but she seems to have genuinely changed for the better. It's not like she's actively living a double-life, at least the anime does not portray her out to be that way. Now Nokotan is a generally harmless character (when she's now blowing stuff up) and she is the face of the anime, its comedy and its weirdness. The punchline (often at Torako's expense) is Nokotan. She's a character that you'll either laugh at or make you wonder why you're watching. The anime also does a good job in showing how close Torako and Nokotan become over the course of the anime, it does feel by the end that it's a genuine friendship. The best way I can honestly sum up Nokotan's character is that she's the weird girl at school who thinks she's a wild animal, and in this instance, she thinks she's a deer. What's kind of funny is that it's not exactly established what Nokotan is. At first glance you'd think that she's just a girl with deer antlers but with what she can do with them and all the times she removes the top of her head....she's not 100% human that's for sure. It's interesting.

Outside of the main comedic duo is Torako's yandere sister, Anko, and deer wannabe girl Bashame. Outside of their unique designs they're pretty much one-note characters: Anko is creepily obsessed with her sister to the point you wonder if she was ripped straight out of an incest anime, and Bashame who I'm convinced is high 24/7. Now they're not badly written characters and they have some nice and funny moments during the course of the anime, but they're pretty much one dimensional. Torako and Nokotan are the main show while Anko and Bashame are the plus ones. They do make things interesting at times but for the most part they're just kind of there. Anko did have an early promising start as an antagonist when she was trying to get rid of Nokotan so she could have her sister back all to herself, but she eventually comes around to join the deer club "as her sister's deer" and doesn't really do much else aside from simping for her sister. Meanwhile Bashame, who weirdly refers to herself in third person the whole time for some reason, wants to become a deer girl like Nokotan but ends up pretty much just eating rice and later farming it. That's their respective running gags throughout the anime. The only other character worth mentioning is Neko Nekoyamada who I suppose passes as the main antagonist for the show given that she's trying to usurp control of the student council from Torako and forcibly disband the Deer Club (for some reason), but she never really does anything and ends up supporting them in the last episode when some secret Deer Organization tries to take back Nokotan. Past that the other student council members are pretty forgetful: Kinu Tanukikouji is a character that panics over every little thing that goes wrong, and the Chiharu Tsubameya character doesn't have a whole lot of a personality other than being in the quiet type, but she does look like Ichigo from Darling in The Franxx which I thought was pretty neat!

The story for the most part isn't anything special or really existent past the initial set up and after the jokes run their course after the first few times, the anime really doesn't have much else to fall back on and you're left watching some weird deer girl dragging along poor Torako along for the ride in whatever she got herself into for that episode. Some of the episodes really feel like they drag on and they use the same running gags repeatedly to stretch out certain scenes. It does wear on you a little bit. Now this wasn't the case for every single episode, there were some episodes that were better than others and for me I felt that the first episode was interesting, then it fell off for a bit, found its rhythm around the middle part before flip flopping between a decent episode and a weird one. Truly, the comedy and the episodes were hit or miss throughout the anime.

What gives the anime its charm and does sell you on at least some of its humor is its production quality. They did something interesting: they used CGI Deer throughout the course of the anime which I thought was pretty funny. They really stand out and contrast to the art style in which everything else is drawn so it does help make the deer feel special. I also liked that in the episode typically around the midway point they'd show Torako and Nokotan hanging out around different parts of Japan which I thought was pretty neat! Otherwise the animation and art style was solid and did what it needed to do. I really did like it when they transformed the characters into chibis, it definitely added an adorableness factor to the anime! I felt that the voice acting for the English dub was alright. I really liked Roo Ryder's portrayal of Torako. I wouldn't wanna say she carried but she was phenomenal. Trina Deuhart for Nokotan was also a solid choice for Nokotan. Both actresses were natural fits for their characters and I think they nailed their roles! Outside of the main duo, I thought the voice acting was serviceable. It wasn't the best dub I've ever listened to but I've heard better as well.

The focal point of this entire anime, and how I came across it in the first place, is the OP. By now I'm sure everyone and their mother has heard and seen it, and needless to say: it's great. There's plenty of anime that tells you what the show is all about by their OP alone, but I think this anime is definitely the prime example of it and I mean that in a good way: it shows unfettered chaos, pop culture references and memes, which is basically what the anime is. The song itself is also very catchy, heck I was listening to it earlier today at work before I wrote this. It's catchy, uplifting and the animation for it is solid. It's honestly a very good OP and I'd rank it highly on my list of OPs. The outro was also very cool: it showed the real life process of making deer crackers which are heavily featured throughout the anime and I thought it was cool that they showed it!

So overall did I like My Deer Friend Nokotan? Well, I didn't hate it. It got some good chuckles out of me here and there while also genuinely surprising me off of pure shock value in some scenes. However, the fundamental problem with this anime is there's really nothing good to fall back on when the humor well runs dry and the anime suffers for it. The story itself has a good set up but it kind of gets forgotten about after the first few episodes and isn't relevant. The anime also relies too much on running gags and jokes that run their course after a few uses and just really stretches them out. I don't know if that was intentional to try to use all their air time or what, but it wasn't really sustainable and at some points it felt like the whole thing dragged on. The story and characters had some potential but it doesn't really ever get used. Outside of Torako and maybe Nokotan, the rest of the cast is pretty forgettable, and Torako is kind of the only character that has any semblance of writing or character development. Nokotan is likeable enough because of how weird she can be and you can come to appreciate the bond that blossoms between her and Torako. Other then of some flashy animation, pop culture references and 4th wall breaks that are sprinkled in, the use of CGI and the addicting OP, there's really not much the anime has to offer. If you're a fan of running gag anime you might like this one but if you're not super invested in the genre you probably won't. It's definitely not an anime to take seriously but for me personally I think the anime is ok and nothing more. Would I watch a season 2 of it? Eh...probably not. Unless they make another addicting OP.

I'll finish off this review off in deer:

Shikanokokokokochitantan Shikanokokokokochitantan Shikanokokokokochitantan Shikanokokokokochitantan Shikanokokokokochitantan Shikanokokokokochitantan Shikanokokokokochitantan Shikanokokokokochitantan Shikanokokokokochitantan Shikanokokokokochitantan Shikanokokokokochitantan Shikanokokokokochitantan

*Spoiler Warning*

I'll admit that I put off watching season 2 of Girlfriend Girlfriend for a while simply because I wasn't *that impressed* with season 1 and I had other anime that I was more interested in. Despite the first season's wacky and cringey moments, there was something almost endearing about the story: it didn't try too hard to take itself seriously and there were parts of it that were genuinely funny. The humor wasn't overwhelming either. I also thought that the anime posed some interesting questions at a deeper level and I was curious to see how the characters' polygamy would work out. I ... wouldn't consider Girlfriend Girlfriend as a whole to be a good story, it's really not, but in my experience the absurdity managed to endear me to the show enough to come around and give the second season a shot. So how'd it do? Well...

I won't sugarcoat it: the first half of this season (Eps 1-6) was painful to watch. The anime amped up the absurdity and blatant stupidity of the characters so much to the point that it was more frustrating than funny to watch. Genuinely the only characters who had at least a half-functioning brain during this half of the season were Shino (who herself wasn't perfect but that's due to a character flaw that was honestly well written) and Risa whose Rika's little and somehow rational sister. I suppose Nagisa didn't do anything infuriating but on the other hand she didn't do a whole lot this season either. Naoya was Naoya: a functioning dumbass and predictably makes his harem more complicated by the end of this season by adding Rika and Shino as unofficial members. I still can't understand why Saki continues to stay with Naoya and although her struggles to move forward with her relationship with Naoya such as kissing him was well portrayed, I just genuinely don't understand why she continues to be with him because at a fundamental level regardless of how well-intentioned Naoya's desire to make Saki and Nagisa happy, he's objectively saying she's not enough of for him. But she continues to stand by him and goes along with this whole polygamy so she's just as guilty as Naoya for this absurdity for enabling him. She's also not the sharpest tool in the shed herself from my observations. Rika was by far the most annoying and unbearable character to watch not just in this half of but the entire season. Her attempts to win Naoya over venture into literally drugging and forcing herself upon him multiple times throughout the anime. Now while there were some nice fan service moments that came out of these scenes, the rational part of my brain kicked in and realized that if Rika and Naoya were gender swapped just how much the vibes of this show and these scenes would be different. Now as a one-off scene, it's fine I don't really care and I can realize that this is just fiction so it's not like the scenes particularly creeped me out, but if I recall the scene played out like three different times over the course of the anime. It's like they were trying to almost make it a running gag but it was just poorly executed. The "Shino accidentally exposes herself to Naoya" gag that continued throughout this season was far better executed and managed to advance the plot out of it too. With the "Naoya getting kidnapped" gag, it was just some scene playing out and nothing really happens other than Rika just being a creep with some nice fanservice moments. A lot of the writing and humor in the first six episodes also came across as really forced and just wasn't particularly well-written. All the characters (except Shino and Risa) act like complete morons and their actions are dictated through their moronic behavior. It was overdone and well past the point of being funny enough to enjoy it. Now if there's one thing the first half of the season did do right was setting the stage for Shino's eventual confession to Naoya and the scenes in which she's trying to reason with Naoya and not straight-up bitching to him were very well done.

The second half of this season (Eps 7-12) , which is the Okinawa Vacation Arc, actually turned around the watching experience for me. It got the anime back to season 1 form: there's still plenty of absurdity to go around but it balances it with better written drama and better written humor than the first half did. I barely laughed at all during the first half of this season and I was more or less making my "wtf am I watching?" face the entire time. By the second half I was making that face considerably less, and I actually enjoyed the back half of this season. It settled on the overarching storyline of Shino facing her feelings for Naoya and coming to terms with them. Overall that was a fine storyline to cover and I actually enjoyed it. I felt that it was well written and had the right emotional feel to it. It still ended rather predictably and ultimately made the polygamy even more complicated, but if there's one thing that season 2 of this anime reinforced is that this is not an anime you can enjoy without your brain being turned off. You have to suspend disbelief and just go with it. Although I have my own threshold for ridiculousness and it reached that threshold during the first half of the season and I was considering dropping it before the sunk cost fallacy kicked in for me. Surprisingly though it was actually kind of worth it by sticking with it. Ultimately I'd say that if you enjoyed the first season of Girlfriend Girlfriend, the second half of this season is roughly on par with last season while the first half was a trainwreck. Hence the reason for my slightly lower score for this season compared to the last one.

So overall: the plot and writing for this season is kind of a wash. The production value of this season was just as good as it was for the first season and I have nothing negative to say about it. I did really like the OP: "Dramatic ni Koi Shitai", it was a very catchy song to listen to and it was the highlight for me for some of the episodes early on. The outro song: "Forira" was also good and the cutscene of Naoya just hanging out with the girls was wholesome.

Now I did write a review of the first season roughly a year ago as of this writing so I think it'd be worth checking out some of my commentary on it:

-I was musing about the possibility of Saki being a lesbian or bisexual, and ironically this season does somewhat hint at that a little bit. When Shino confesses her feelings to Naoya, Saki stated that she thought Shino had a crush on her, which Shino denies she ever did. Saki also does act pretty zesty around Shino by grabbing her boobs (or lack of them rather) a lot throughout the anime as well as on occasion being smitten by Nagisa and Shino, but I don't know if that's just more her joking around or cliche harem stuff. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if Saki turns out to not be straight. I'm not advocating for this one way or the other, I'm just making an observation.

-I was curious as to what Rika was going to do in order to enter Naoya's harem. I was not surprised that she ultimately forced her way in because Naoya is a spineless tool. Essentially what happened was that Naoya realizes that being mean to her and shooing her away isn't doing anything, so instead of reporting her to the police for all her various crimes in which he'd have a substantial case against her including witnesses and possible evidence, he decided the best approach was to let her move in with him and let her try to get with him under a time limit of 5 months. Yeah Rika didn't even have to try that hard, Naoya just kind of gave up. I will say Rika was pretty annoying and unlikeable throughout the entire season and maybe genuinely has one or two good moments that get ruined because of her toxic personality. I said in my review of the first season that she had "mean girl" vibes, and I was definitely right. Now I'm not surprised that Naoya is attracted to her in some way (it's honestly hard not to be), but his mistake was giving someone like Rika an inch because she's the kind of person who'll end up taking a mile. He should've just reported her to the police or just straight up slapped her but on the other hand he's probably right that Rika still wouldn't have given up. Rika is a moron and she doesn't understand "no". Again if Rika was a man and Naoya was a girl and Rika acted the way she did, the vibe of this anime would be completely different. I condemn her actions all the same regardless of what her gender is, but the anime tries to oversell this as humor a little too much. Also, it felt very weird when Rika was trying to use her sister as a way of trying to win Naoya over during the first time she kidnapped him. It was really the only scene I felt genuinely uncomfortable watching. Not that I think the anime was trying to imply anything and it more so speaks to how depraved Rika is as a character, but I honestly felt that they did too much in that whole scene with Rika "trying to give Naoya a little sister to play with and if Naoya finds her cute than he must find me attractive" kind of head-ass logic. It was just weird.

-My predictions on Shino pretty much came true: I predicted that she'd either be another antagonist figure in the story (which early on she kind of was) or that she'd try to join the harem (which she does). It was pretty clear to see at the end of the first season that she had feelings for Naoya and it gets confirmed pretty early on in the season. Shino at first tries to play the role of a good friend to Saki in trying to get Naoya to dump Nagisa and be solely with Nagisa. Although admittedly when she lashes out at Naoya for his antics in trying to keep the harem going, it almost feels like she comes across as the bad guy even though I personally think she's right in her opinions. On the other hand, I have a stance that so long as people in a harem or a polygamy are happy and want that kind of arrangement, then it's their right to. That all aside, Shino is technically a hypocrite since she harbored feelings for Naoya for years and at the end resolves to try to get Naoya to fall in love with her and try to convince him to formally join the harem. For now I'm inclined to take Naoya at his word that he's not attracted to her but Shino took the opposite path that Rika took this season. Rika is still resolved to break the harem and have Naoya all to herself. Shino, who obviously would prefer to have Naoya all to herself, will actively support Naoya's efforts to please both Saki and Nagisa and hope that Naoya changes his mind. Naoya and Shino do have some good genuine chemistry going and I think it's possible that Naoya can eventually develop genuine feelings for Shino. At least I think it's more likely that Naoya would develop genuine feelings and attraction for Shino over Rika. It's obvious that Naoya is not genuinely attracted to Rika and sees her as a pest that he's being forced to deal with for the time being. However he is essentially breaking his vow not to be a three timer by kind of "soft dating" Rika. In my opinion you can't trust Naoya and I don't know if he'll end up falling for Rika outside of a physical attraction standpoint, but again he's an idiot and the writing in this show does demand drama. However I will say on that point when the show wants to: it can be genuinely interesting and set up good intrigue. I do think Shino ultimately did the right thing in confessing her feelings for Naoya and handled the rejection well all things considered. I think Shino was the best written character this season and had genuinely good development. It might've been the only objectively good thing to come out of this season, but hey I'll take it! Even Saki's kiss with Naoya at the end of the season kind of just felt "eh" to me.

-In my review of season 1, I stated that I believed the anime was trying to answer this question: "Can all parties in a relationship (harem) truly be equals?". When I finished season 1, it seemed like the anime was trying to say "no". This season, it seemed like as hard as the anime tried to make it seem like it was actually "yes", I still think it's ultimately "no". Saki herself not so subtly implied that she didn't see this whole harem thing as a "long term thing". Additionally there was a driving subplot that Saki wanted to kiss Naoya as Nagisa and even Rika had already kissed him, and even Shino got her licks in before Saki. That was borne out of a desire to "get ahead of those hoes". When the girls fight with each other (usually it's Saki vs Rika), they do refer to each other as "tramps", "hoes" and other insults of that nature. So there's an obvious rivalry brewing under all this, even if they all seem to relatively coexist well with each other. Nagisa even admitted to Naoya that she at times misses him and wants him all to herself. With Rika and Shino as unofficial members of this harem, Naoya's going to find himself stretched increasingly thin and the girls are probably going to sour on the idea of sharing even more as time goes on and we've seen signs of that over the last two seasons. Ultimately I think that this harem is doomed to fail and I'd have a hard time envisioning the story ending with the harem still intact. I think one of the girls will eventually "win" and get the shitty prize of having a genuinely untrustworthy boyfriend, but hey that's what they want and who am I to judge? Although in my not so humble opinion, it'd be pretty funny if they all leave Naoya's dumbass. I personally hope that's the ending we get to this story, but realistically I doubt that'll happen.

In the end, I'd say that the anime as a whole is what most people would consider to be "slop". The story itself isn't very good, however, it does manage to endear you to it and some of the writing and storylines are actually somewhat interesting. The characters other than Naoya and Rika are likeable enough when they're not being full-time morons. I don't know what this season was trying to do for the first six episodes, but it rediscovered its mojo and whatever it was I found interesting in the last six episodes. So would I watch season 3? Well judging from what I know about how much source material is left compared to where this season ended off, it seems like there'd be just enough material to cover one more season of this story. If it turned out that season 3 would be the end to all this, then sure, I might as well since I've gotten this far. I don't know if I'd watch beyond that though. I'd rather see this story finish rather than continue in season 3.

*Spoiler Warning*

Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russia (or Roshidere for short which is what I’ll be referring to from this point on) is an anime that I found to be surprisingly good! I was so thoroughly enjoying and invested in the story that I ended up pulling a bit of a marathon to watch the first half of the season in one night, and I don't really do that for anything these days unless I'm really captivated by the story. It's a very enjoyable romcom that doesn't take itself too seriously but manages to balance everything that goes on in the story very ... well. There's also an occasional "4th wall moment" which is usually reserved for comedic purposes and it;s used pretty well! Roshidere has a rather simple and quirky premise of a tsundere Russian anime girl named Alya who berates her crush, named Kuze, in their shared language (whether it's Japanese, English or whatever language you choose to watch this anime in), but flirts with him in Russian even though unbeknownst to her, he actually understands it. However, I think this anime is a prime example of not needing to reinvent the wheel in order to make a good, funny and entertaining story. It has great worldbuilding, an enjoyable cast that you can genuinely like even the MC, and who doesn't like a cute Russian girl angrily yelling at you in Russian? It has everything you could ever want in anime! But in all seriousness, the thing that really won me over was the execution of the story and allowing me to get to know enough about the characters to form an opinion on them, but not revealing all their secrets too soon either. For a romcom that's cornerstone is a trope that is so commonplace in anime, albeit with an interesting wrinkle, it executes its story and does worldbuilding better than a considerable amount of other anime that I've watched over my time, and for a romcom it gets a lot deeper than a lot of the other romcoms I've watched up to this point.

Roshidere also shines in the production department as well. The animation was well done and the art was pretty good. I loved the designs of the characters and it really brought their personalities to life on screen. They did an exceptionally great job with Alya and her sister Masha, they looked adorable! Having watched this anime in the English dub, I thought the VAs were excellent and fit their characters well. What I found to be pretty funny and cool was that the voice actress for Ash in Pokemon voices Alya in this anime. The VA is Sarah Natochenny. As it also turns out, she is of Russian origin herself and I found her Russian lines of dialogue to be excellent. Of course, unlike the MC, I don't understand Russian without subtitles, but it sounded convincing and it was very cute to listen to! I really enjoyed the music for Roshidere as well. The intro has a very good and catchy song, and although the cutscene is a little spoilery for events that happen later on in the season, it still got me excited to watch the episode every time I watched a new episode. What's interesting is that each episode has its own exclusive outro and its own unique song that plays over official art of Alya and the other female cast members. I wouldn't say I have a particular favorite song out of all the outros, but I really liked the ones for episodes 1, 3, 6 and 12. I found those to be the most wholesome but across the board they're all pretty good!

The story of Roshidere centers on Alya and Kuze. The main plot involves a sort of mind game between the two characters, somewhat similar to Love is War but there's no particular sense of urgency or effort for either character to confess or convince the other to confess first as they go about their daily lives in school. There is an interesting subplot that develops in which Alya is seeking to run for Student Council President against Suou in the upcoming election and Kuze decides to be Alya's running mate and all the drama that happens because of that. Alya is confessing her love to Kuze in Russian, which again she believes Kuze doesn't understand and Kuze for his part pretends not to. However, towards the end of the anime you'll notice Alya displays her affection more openly and flirts more in Kuze's language and less in Russian. In the earlier episodes, Kuze seems to have thought Alya was messing with him but it's clear early on he has mutual feelings for her and I think he's waiting for the right time to express his feelings and perhaps to reveal to Alya he's been able to understand her all along. It's your typical angst between the MC and their love interest and it's sort of a game of chicken, but Roshidere presents it in a very natural and realistic way as the characters are highschoolers. Alya does become less cold and aggressive to Kuze overtime like a typical tsundere but when it does happen it makes for some pretty cute and wholesome scenes. Additionally, the anime sells the chemistry between Alya and Kuze very well. It truly makes you feel like you're watching a blossoming relationship play out and nothing feels forced about it. Even the chemistry among the other cast of characters is very well and entertaining, there's a lot of good humor and memorable moments that come from them!

The only thing I found a little weird was the whole situation between Kuze and his "childhood friend"/secret sister, Suou. It's a little confusing. Now the anime doesn't outright explain why Kuze and Suou can't admit they're siblings in public but the anime strongly implies that because of Kuze's strained relationship with his mother's side of the family (his parents divorced and he decided to go with the dad while Suou opted to stay with their mom), and I guess the mother's side of the family doesn't want anything to do with him and Suou more or less secretly hangs out with Kuze when they're not in school. Kuze's complicated family life is touched upon here and there but we don't have the full picture so for now we just have to take what the anime gives us and try to piece it ourselves and I truly appreciate the anime for doing that! Typically romcoms don't have a layered storytelling structure like that! What's confusing about their relationship though is that I find it hard to believe that it's a secret between them. They're in the same grade and right now I'm presuming that they've been together throughout the entirety of their schooling lives. You would think that even if their parents split up before they started school, people would probably pick up on that they're related. I can understand Kuze not being able to claim the same last name as Suou, but even Alya subtly picks up that they may be related after seeing both Suou and Kuze do their iconic creepy grins. Kuze also nearly revealed the secret to Alya in one of the later episodes but plot convenience got in the way of that. It can also be reasonably assumed that Kuze's Grandfather on his mother side, who seems to call the shots on that side of the family, doesn't want Suou around Kuze, hence their secret relationship, but if that was the case, why wouldn't their maid, Ayano, snitch on Suou? Maybe he realizes he can't stop Suou from seeing Kuze or doesn't care if they hang out so much? I don't know. It's complicated and the anime would have to go more into detail about Kuze's complicated family life in order for that situation to be cleared up but right now it's kind of a pandora's box situation and in the back of your mind you're going: "How does no one else know?". For right now that's really the only blemish on what's for the most part a pretty solid story. The only other thing that made me a little uncomfortable at times was the whole "incest angle" between Suou and Kuze. While I can totally believe Suou is a degenerate and is just joking....she does it enough that it makes you wonder what exactly she's up to. It is well established she is a pretty devious character and you maybe can't 100% trust her. She's harmless enough but she's also a giant troll. Kuze does a relatively good job in setting the boundary straight between them but it's also not clear if this is just Suou's way of messing with him or she actually views him as something more (SWEET HOME ALABAMA). If that's the case I guess it's stereotypical rom com stuff but it does provide an occasional moment of cringe. Although I'll admit: there are some funny scenes and banter between the two characters that comes from all this, so it's not potentially pushing a possible incest ship purely for plot purposes but rather more so for comedic value and I hope that turns out to be the case.

Now for the characters! I'll just be highlighting the main or major supporting ones:

Alya: She's the poster character for the entire anime, and she did not disappoint! She's a well written and likable character. Alya does follow the standard tsundere arc of being cold and aggressive in the beginning before slowly softening up overtime but as I mentioned it's all executed very well and it comes at a gradual pace. It's also pretty easy to understand how she came to like Kuze in which she saw him as a dependable, honest and caring guy (even if he's not quite a hard worker, at least not in the same vein as Alya). I really liked the scenes when she spoke in Russian, and it was always done for comedic or romantic purposes and it worked out well each time. I also really found it adorable and hilarious when she would get jealous and act out. It's typical romcom stuff and it's always funny to see. We also do get to see over the course of the anime how she deals with her flaws of being cold and unapproachable at times. As she's running for Student Council President, which is essentially a giant popularity contest, we get to see the shortcomings of Alya's personality and how Kuze pushes her to overcome that at least a little bit for right now. She's a very well written character and I'm onboard with the Alya-Kuze ship. Although I think that things have the potential to get very interesting regarding that which I'll get into a little bit later!

Kuze: Solid MC! Usually Romcom MCs aren't the most deeply written characters but are usually passable enough to where you can get behind them. I know the reasoning for this is so that the audience can "project" themselves onto them, which I'll admit I've never entirely liked that concept. Instead I put value into characters if I can truly relate to them and find something about them that gives me a reason to root for them to get with a love interest. I don't necessarily want to "project" myself into the story. Kuze was written in the aforementioned way that I like. While he's a little bland and has some of the usual Romcom MC tropes, he does have a funny and likable personality and truly a character you can even emphasize with. His chemistry with characters like Alya, Suou, Masha and the others feels genuinely organic and is written very well. He also has some noble traits about him: he went out of his way to learn his childhood crush's native language so he could talk to her, he put aside his previous angst about rejoining the student council to help Alya realize her dream, and despite his obviously complicated past with his family he does everything he can to have a good (if not slightly questionable) relationship with Suou, his sister. He's not 100% pure of heart, but he doesn't need to be either. Kuze is an excellent take on a Romcom MC and he's pretty well-written. He surprised me the most when I started watching because initially I wasn't expecting to get a whole lot out of him but after the first few episodes I was firmly in this guy's corner rooting for his success.

Suou: She's probably what you can call the "antagonist" of this story even though there really isn't a character that neatly fits that bill, but Suou fits it better than anyone else. As I mentioned previously: she's Kuze's secret sister but public childhood best friend, and she's a bit of a degenerate (the funniest callout Kuze ever gave her when he rhetorically asked if she was a failure. I think that was one of the funniest lines in the whole anime). It's generally fun when she is, but some of the scenes with Kuze where she's trying to flirt with him were kind of pushing it for me. Suou also does a good job in bringing a sense of modernity to the anime with some of her Gen-Z level humor (when she said: "Chat we got cooked!" it got a good chuckle out of me). She's also a bit of a troll character which I found amusing in the ways she tries to mess with Alya and Kuze and their budding relationship. She's not necessarily doing anything out of malicious intent but more so just for her own amusement. She does not so subtly feed into Alya's idea that there's something more between her and Kuze, and it makes for some juicy drama between the characters! She's also not a character that's willing to compromise her own ambitions and dreams to be the next president and she shows she's willing to take on Alya in a relatively honorable way, at least for right now. While she's not above playing some games with her, she does keep it within reason. I am genuinely curious if she's not at all hurt that Kuze is running with Alya against her. It seems like she's not but I suppose time will tell. She'll definitely be a character to watch!

Masha: Or Maria if you prefer. She's Alya's older sister and pretty much the exact opposite. Where Alya is cold, aloof and serious, her sister is far more joyful, approachable and silly. It's a classic duality between the two sisters. Masha is a very sweet and cute character and I'd seriously question anyone that didn't like her. While she's more or less of a side character in the story, I do think she's being set up to play a major role in the story down the line: the anime strongly implies but does not outright confirm that Masha is actually Kuze's childhood friend from Russia which was the sole reason he learned Russian. If that proves to be the case, Kuze is going to likely have a very agonizing choice about which sister he would want to be with. I would say it'd probably still end up being Alya, but if it's confirmed Masha is indeed that childhood friend we saw in the first episode and the flashback during Alya and Kuze's "confession scene", this will get very interesting! Masha also seems to recognize Kuze when they first meet, though Kuze does not. I'll admit when I first saw Masha for the first time as well I did notice that she looked really similar to the childhood friend (although the childhood friend had blonde hair and blue eyes, Masha is a brunette with brown eyes). It's entirely possible that this detail is meant to be a red herring, but I would definitely feel comfortable ruling out Alya as being the childhood friend as in her flashbacks she's had silver hair this whole time and she made no mention of ever having been abroad before. Although in fairness Masha has never stated this either. It is also stated Masha has a boyfriend and she herself seems to confirm this when she has her first scene with Alya, but we curiously don't see his face on her little pendant. It's entirely possible she genuinely does, or maybe this might be her way of rejecting guys in which her boyfriend is a made up person. Who can say? But Masha is probably the number one character I'm most interested in for the plot of the story. She will be the cannon event in deciding how things will proceed with the story. That's my prediction. As far as who the best girl is between her and Alya, I'd have a hard time making up my mind.

Ayano: I guess if we had to make a love square rather than a triangle, I guess we can throw Ayano in there. I thought her character was alright. She's mainly a side character and Suou's family maid. She's very robotic but I guess that speaks to her loyalty. Although she states that she doesn't have any romantic feelings for Kuze, I'll kind of believe it when I see it. You'd have an easier time selling me ocean front property in Arizona than convince me that a maid character in a Romcom isn't interested in the MC in some way. That all being said, she mostly exists in the background to support Suou in her bid to become president, so we'll definitely be seeing more of her!

Taniyama: Her character was a little confusing and weird, but she does provide another level of palace intrigue to the whole student council election subplot. We first see her in flashbacks to when she lost the student council election to Suou and Kuze in middle school and she didn't take the defeat too well. Which is what I thought was part of the reason why Kuze didn't want to be a part of student council after middle school because he felt bad for robbing the opportunity from Taniyama, although the way Kuze talks about her doesn't make it seem like that's the case. She then tries to instigate a conflict with Alya claiming that she "stole" Kuze away from Suou and that she "idolized" the duo. It's understandable to a degree but I just found that all to be weird, but did serve a purpose in helping Alya and Kuze draw closer together so I wouldn't necessarily say it was forced. It also does lay the groundwork for Taniyama to eventually swing her support to Alya during the closing ceremony which helped lend some legitimacy to Alya's underdog campaign, but she did say she won't help any further. I guess you can attribute Taniyama to being a bit of a wild card and I imagine we'll be seeing her again. Considering that in the intro she is billed as one of the major characters so I do wonder how deep her admiration for Kuze runs. I don't know, I'm sure we'll see!

Roshidere was an anime that surprised me. It has a very fun and entertaining story while also having complex characters and a deep story. I ended up getting pretty invested into this anime and I'd consider this to be among one of the best Rom Coms I've watched so far. I still think Toradora sets the gold standard for what I've seen but Roshidere has excellent writing and falls through on a solid execution brought on by a great and likable cast of characters. This anime doesn't do anything revolutionary and it doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it does a great job on selling you on its quirky premise and taking you for a fun and enjoyable ride. It's a cute and funny story and if you like Romcoms and/or always wanted a cute Russian girl to yell at you, I'm sure you'll like Roshidere! I think this story has a lot of potential and our characters have a lot of room to develop! I can't wait for season 2 and I look forward to seeing you all then!

*Spoiler Warning*

I think the plot for Solo Leveling can be pretty easily summed up like this: "Virgin beta male becomes stoic Chad after near death experience." Maybe it'd qualify as rebirth technically, but that'd be getting into semantics. Jokes aside, I did enjoy Solo Leveling and it did have its main character, Sung Jin-Woo (who I'll be just referring to as Jin-Woo from here on), go through a natural progression of becoming stronger. He wasn't automatically OP when he got a second chance at life and the anime does remind us on occasion that he isn't invincible, even when he's at his strongest towards ... the end of season in which he struggles against some very difficult bosses. Jin-Woo is also a likable enough character and there's enough reasons to like him. I wouldn't call him the deepest MC, but he's competently written and you can get behind rooting for him. If anything I think he serves as a reminder that you too can become a Chad. Preferably just don't die when you try to become one. One thing that is interesting about Jin-Woo is that as he gets stronger and especially as he is forced to kill people to defend himself, he becomes a bit more "darker", which could set up some interesting stuff for his character. Overall, I would say the anime follows a relatively simple formula for the plot and story. It's not a reinvention of the wheel, but if you're into action stories with a mystery element behind it, I think you can enjoy Solo Leveling. It's also on the shorter side with 12 episodes. I also didn't realize it until I watched it, but I realized that this anime had Korean origins. So it was nice to be exposed to something new!

One of the things that really surprised me about this anime was how dark and brutal it could be. There's limbs and heads being cut off, a good amount of blood, and you can really feel the physicality in the fights. Hell, we get to see Jin-Woo get thrashed around for a good few minutes by giant statues and people get disintegrated. It's a rather dark and gritty anime, but I'm totally fine with that. I've watched some pretty dark anime in my time and I probably would rate Solo Leveling being up there on the scale somewhere. However, I would also say that being able to feel the dark and gritty nature of the anime is a statement to the solid production work that was done by A-1 Pictures for Solo Leveling. The animation was very fluid and it was excellent! I also really enjoyed the art style, it has that "new spiffy look" to it! I also really enjoyed the OP and outro songs. I'd have a hard time picking a favorite between the two and both cinematics were pretty great.

As I mentioned earlier, there's a mystery element to Solo Leveling which I imagine will learn more about as the series goes on. To briefly sum up the plot of the anime: certain people receive "an awakening" which gives them the power to fight your typical monsters who show up from these portals that mysteriously began spawning into the world ten years prior to the events of the anime. Your power level is locked in and you're put on a power scale ranked A-E (A being the strongest, E being the weakest. There's also an S rank for those who are OP. So you can guess where our stoic Chad MC originally starts). This also seems to apply with whatever powers you get. If you're a healer, you're stuck as a healer. If you're a mage, you're a mage for life. So on and so forth. The anime does say that the only way you can change your power level is if you have a "second awakening" but that's treated as an incredibly rare event. So it would seem that not only did Jin-Woo have a "second awakening", but he also got gifted the ability to as the kids these days say "git gud". His power basically works the same way as leveling up in MMORPG, which tells me that's the secret to the whole world of Solo Leveling that this is all some kind of "simulation." It makes sense to me: the DND style monsters, the ability to level up, the whole inventory system...a gamer knows it's a game when they see one. Not to mention as well, the outro cinematic shows us Jin-Woo apparently running to his younger self as he's watching TV but as soon as he enters the room, he disappears and the younger Jin-Woo is left looking down the hallway wondering who opened the door to the room he was in. I think that might be the anime trying to tell us something. I could entirely be wrong but I feel like that's the direction this story is trying to go in, but we'll see. Ultimately the mystery is where exactly does this "system" that gives Jin-Woo the ability to get stronger come from and if this is how a "second awakening" works. It'll also be interesting if there's other people that have this power too or if there's other people that have also had reawakening, which the context within the story implies that there are.

There also seems to be a parallel storyline in which Choi Jong-In and his Hunters Guild are trying to retake an island from the monsters in which their previous efforts did not go over well. I imagine at some point these plots will converge and Jin-Woo will become involved somehow presumably as people learn about his power as his friends and former associates were beginning to learn about it towards the end of the season, so I don't imagine Jin-Woo's efforts to keep his power under wraps will be stay that way for that much longer. Especially as he now has a target on his back since Hwang Dongsuki's brother rightfully knows that Jin-Woo killed his brother. I imagine this will come together at some point. I'm also curious to see if that "double dungeon" will make a reappearance. Jin-Woo is still clearly haunted by those events, and we do know he'll eventually make his return to that "hell" instance to try to heal his sick mother back to health. It'd be pretty wild if they were to combine the both of them somehow!

I won't do my usual dive-in for the characters. For me, Jin-Woo was the only one worth talking about and the rest of the supporting cast is just kind of there. They're by no means bad characters but there's not a whole lot of things to really go into about them, at least not right now. The supporting cast is also rather bland and don't have a ton of depth behind them. However, I am interested in how Jin-Woo's sister, Jin-Ah, will react when she inevitably learns about his powers and I'm curious to see if she too will get an awakening. As far as I can tell, awakenings are pretty random. I'm not surprised that Joo-Hee, the initial love interest, didn't stick around, it was pretty clear after the second dungeon episode that her days of being a hunter were behind her. My wild theory right now is that Jin-Woo might eventually cross paths with Hae-In, one of the S rank Hunters we're introduced to, and perhaps they might become a thing. She doesn't do a whole lot in the scenes she's in but she does pop up a number of times and her power is never shown or even really discussed. So it has to make you wonder.

While Solo Leveling might not have a ton of depth to it, it's still an enjoyable and surprisingly dark and gritty action anime, and there's enough mystery and intrigue to keep you invested. I think this anime has some potential and I plan to follow along with it. Overall, I'd consider it solid. I wouldn't say it's anime of the year worthy, but it's worth watching. I enjoyed watching Solo Leveling and I'm excited to see where the story goes!

*Spoiler Warning*

Over the years there's been many times I finished a story and walked away from it feeling somewhat curious as to what happened next in that universe of characters. A true sense of finality is often hard to come by and only a select few anime I've watched has ever delivered on that for me. What makes Frieren: Beyond Journey's Edge (which I'll just be referring to as Frieren from here on out) so unique and enticing to me is that it's the first anime I've ever watched that explored the epilogue after the "main story". While we're greeted to bits and pieces ... of that story that are sprinkled in throughout the anime and it begins right at the end of it, the focus of the anime is primarily centered on the epilogue but that main story is still very important as it serves as the catalyst for Frieren to grow and develop as a character. I can say this with my full chest: Frieren has some of the best character growth I've seen in an anime, and there's a few that have pulled it off well to the extent that Frieren has for its main character. I can also say that after watching this anime, it's more than earned a spot on my top 10 list and I can see why it's still the #1 anime on this site (as of this writing at least).

At a more fundamental level, one of the reasons I really enjoyed Frieren is that it teaches us about human relationships and to value the time we have together. Frieren is an interesting case as Frieren herself is an elf who can live upwards of thousands of years. As such she has a near-immortality to her which causes her to perceive time very differently especially compared to humans. Over the course of the anime we get to see Frieren slowly develop from her being rather detached and aloof to a character who lives life on autopilot to someone who values sentimentality and more so lives in the moment. It's a nice gradual and natural transition to that state for Frieren as well and you can tell the difference in her character when you look at her from the beginning of the anime and at the end. It's still Frieren, the feisty, silly, little elf mage we come to love by watching her over time, but you can tell how the journey she goes on this time around truly changes her worldview and how the events of that "main story" that has long since passed motivated her to change. The anime was also on the longer side of the things I've watched up to this point and it definitely made the most of it. At first I was slightly intimidated by the length of Frieren as I rarely ever watched a season with more than 20 episodes, but after a while you really don't notice it and you're enjoying it so much you don't want it to end.

The anime sends a truly heartfelt and emotional message by reminding us to value your friends and family and the time you have with them, while also teaching us that relationships are messy, complex and unique, but it's okay, you can still leave a positive and lasting impact. I won't lie: this anime definitely gave me some moments of introspection myself as there've been plenty of moments in my life that I glossed over at the time as well only to have a sense of longing afterwards. Frieren reminded me a little bit of myself at times, and anytime an anime can do that, I'm going to look upon it very favorably. The anime does a great job in communicating the message through its characters and their interactions with each other, particularly among the main trio of Frieren, Fern and Stark. Seeing their relationship grow over the course of the anime provided a lot of laughs and a lot of heartfelt moments along the way. I'll get more into the characters later on but the character growth happened to other characters besides Frieren.

The production value of Frieren was also excellent, but I'd suppose it'd be up to standard for a fantasy-centric anime. I thought all the elements of the production were solid. The animation was solid and I thought the art was pretty. The occasional Frieren troll (or I guess in this case, it'd be an elf?) face and Fern's pouting were definitely memorable. The voice actors for the English Dub were excellent fits for their respective characters. I had heard from a friend of mine that apparently the creator of the manga had a hand in picking the voice actors based on what he thought they would sound like in English. After hearing how some of the characters sounded in Japanese, I can definitely believe it! (I don't know if this is actually true or not, don't take my word for it.) I will say I was not expecting Frieren to have a deeper voice but it does suit her character well. It gives a mature and almost motherly vibe to her which at times she can be. The voice acting all round in the English Dub was phenomenal and it's definitely among the better dubs I've listened to so far. What I really appreciated was that they brought in Trina Nishimura, who did the voice of Mikasa Ackerman in Attack on Titan, as the voice of Ehre who is one of the mages in the Exam Arc in the final arc of the season. Not to mention there was also Mikasa Ackerman easter egg in Frieren as well with Wirbel's childhood friend having a very similar appearance to her. So that made me very happy.

I really enjoyed the music in Frieren as well. It captured the fantasy vibe well in the story and it was very catchy, especially the soundtracks for the fight scenes. Frieren had two OPs: Yuusha and Haru. I liked both songs, with Yuusha being a more emotionally downbeat of a song and is more intense while Haru a more upbeat and cheerful song. Both OPs did a phenomenal job capturing the mood of the story at that point in time when they did the switch. If I had to pick a favorite between the two, I'd probably pick Yuusha solely for the fact it's the first and it really does the best job of setting the tone of the anime and giving it that solid first impression. The outro was "Anytime Anywhere" which was a perfect fit for Frieren. What's interesting is that at the time when they change the intros, they still keep the same song for the outro but play a different part of the song which I found to be interesting. The song itself is a perfect emotional ending and the first cinematic couldn't have been more perfect for it. My personal favorite part of that cinematic is when Frieren is walking out of a forest and the shot goes to her feet and we see her walking by her friends and it perfectly ends with her walking past the character that had the most lasting impact on her: Himmel. There was a second outro, a "clay" outro which definitely threw me off a little bit the first few times I watched it and I wasn't the biggest fan at first, but I grew to appreciate it over time. The first cinematic was still superior hands down, although I thought the shots in the second cinematic of Frieren lying beside a gravestone (that I presume to be Himmel's) and then the final shot of her with Fern was certainly wholesome.

Now for our party of characters...

Frieren: Simply put I loved her character. Early on she's a bit aloof and detached, but she has some lighthearted moments even early on in the story as well. She has some sass in her, she's clumsy as shown by her falling for the mimic (those scenes will never not be funny for me) and despite her ancient age she has her moments where she acts like a kid. However, what really changed her was Himmel's death and that was what inspired her to get to know humans better and to value the time she has with them, and Heiter's death later on reinforces this. With the last surviving member of their party, a dwarf named Eisen, being well past his prime now too, Frieren has to find new people to do adventuring with. She's introduced to Fern by Heiter, who somewhat manipulates Frieren into taking her on as an apprentice but it was one of those times that it was for the best as he knew his days were numbered, and later on they come across an initially cowardly warrior named Stark. Over the course of the anime we get to see that Frieren really is dedicated to her goal of learning more about humans by seeing how she helps the two of them and her interactions with them throughout the anime. I also really liked how throughout the anime we see how Frieren remembers her past adventure with Himmel, Heiter and Eisen and develop a newfound sense of appreciation for them and the time they spent together (although I'm sure she enjoyed their company even then but she was more so going through the motions and well knew that it was a temporary arrangement that they had). We even see perhaps how Frieren falls in love with Himmel, although it's too little too late now as he had since died, but the heartache was shown well throughout the flashbacks that Himmel obviously liked Frieren but she didn't get his signals. She still might not after all this time (given the whole lotus ring flashback) but it's clear to me as she recalls her time with him she's definitely developing something. Heck, the point of her new adventure is for her to see him again in the land of spirits. Frieren did mention that Elves are kind of a rarity in the world as they're not exactly big on reproducing (which makes sense given their long lifespans), so romance is definitely not something that comes naturally to Frieren but seeing her perhaps develop these feelings is definitely wholesome! One thing I also appreciated seeing as well with her character was being shown just how truly powerful and terrifying she can be. Seeing the POV of the demons and seeing just how absolutely terrified they are of just being within proximity of her makes me wonder if I now have a thing for older women. There was some really cold scenes of her and my questionable machoism aside, the world should definitely be grateful that she turned out to be a good elf. Anything less and they might be genuinely screwed. Just seeing how she and Fern even struggled against the Frieren mimic during the second exam is pretty much proof of this. They were the only ones who could even compete and kind of got lucky in the end in order to win.

Fern: Also a phenomenal character that got a lot of good character development. It was heart warming to see her grow up from being this scared little girl who at one point was contemplating suicide until she was thankfully saved by Heiter into becoming a first class mage. You get to see Fern really mature throughout the series as well and it's basically like watching someone grow up which is pretty neat. Frieren proved to be an excellent teacher for her and it was great seeing her in action defeating fellow mages and demons alike with what ultimately constitutes as a simple attack spell while her opponents usually rely on some kind of gimmick. Fern's the perfect example of showing us that there's nothing wrong with the basics! She also has phenomenal chemistry with Frieren and Stark, and it's funny to see her at times stepping up to be "the mom" of Frieren when she acts a little childish. Though Fern acts a little childish as well from time to time and her pout scenes were definitely memorable, it was also nice to see what I think is a slow burn romance between her and Stark. It seems like the story is driving those two together considering at times they act like a married couple (and a few on occasion where they actually act like a couple too), so I do think those two characters will get together either by the end or at the end unless the story goes in an unexpected direction.

Stark: I liked his character and he also got some good character development. He started off as a bit of a cowardly warrior who was coasting on a bit of a fraudulent reputation, but we get to see him put aside his nerves several times and do some pretty incredible and heroic things. I can also feel for him when he has to deal with Fern's pouting moods and how he gets all flustered trying to deal with it. As I mentioned with my take on Fern: they have undeniable chemistry and I think he and Fern will get together at some point. Although at this time I think Fern is more or less nurturing a crush she doesn't fully realize and I'm not completely clear on to what extent Stark reciprocates those feelings, but they do spend a lot of time around each other and clearly enjoy each other's company so I think that's enough to go off for now!

Sein: Great character! He's the new party's Heiter and is also a bit of a "corrupt priest" in which he not only drinks, but smokes and is a womanizer! In all seriousness, he was the group's calm and cool collected head and usually served to mediate disputes between Fern and Stark. He definitely took on the mantle as the group's father figure. It was great to see how Frieren, Fern, Stark and Sein's brother worked him over to eventually agree to go on the journey with him and he had some good moments throughout the season as well. I was surprised that he parted ways with the group but I expect that we'll see him again, especially since there's a shot of him in the finale sitting on a beach somewhere. I do hope for his sake he finds his childhood friend alive and well. Sein was a very likable and enjoyable character!

Himmel: This anime successfully made me miss him and I hardly knew him too! While we're largely treated to snippets of him in Frieren's flashbacks, his impact on Frieren and the world he ultimately left behind is truly evident. He truly improved people's lives everywhere he went and was always a genuine and kind-hearted person. While there's a degree of selfish-ness within him of wanting to be remembered by people, it's for ultimately a good cause and just seeing the impact he had on Frieren and the random people and towns we come across in the story tells me all I needed to know about Himmel.

Heiter: My favorite corrupt priest! He was a great and funny character. Even despite his questionable morality through his alcoholism, he was still certainly a kind and well-meaning guy and also played a huge impact on Frieren and especially Fern as well. In fact we can thank Heiter for having Frieren ultimately take Fern on as an apprentice. He truly did come to see Fern like the daughter he never had and how she views him is clearly evident after her staff gets broken in the second exam and how she wants it fixed because it was Heiter who gave it to her. Much like Himmel, his impact on the main cast of characters is evident throughout the story and I truly felt sad when he died even though we didn't have a whole lot of screen time from him.

Eisen: He was a great character! He's ultimately the only other surviving member of the party of heroes who slayed the Demon King, but by the time the story of this anime takes off his adventuring days are clearly behind him. We mostly see his legacy and impact on Stark as he was his apprentice, although they parted on bad terms. Despite that, Eisen was a good and interesting character to see in the flashbacks and was certainly a powerful warrior. I do hope we get to see more of him in future installments and that he and Stark ultimately reconcile.

Flamme: She was interesting! We don't get to see a ton of her, but her impact on Frieren is evident enough as she was her master and they both have the same favorite spell which involves flowers and it's a big theme for Frieren throughout the anime as it seems to be the motif for remembering the people she cared about. I'm sure we'll get to learn more about her as the story goes on but I don't expect anything grand personally.

Serie: I won't lie, at first I was expecting her to be the main villain of the anime. Both OPs did subtly tease at that by making her look evil. I did find it interesting that she was basically the anti-Frieren and how they have such differing views on humanity and magic was interesting to see play out in the final exam. Although her stepping in during the exam was clearly her way of rigging the whole thing against Frieren. What was interesting to see though is despite Serie's differing views on humanity and magic, it affected her similarly to Frieren just in a more subtle way. Serie also clearly doesn't spend as much time with humans and interacting with the world around her as compared to Frieren so it was an interesting philosophical clash. These characters are great foils for each other and have more in common then they actually realize. She might be the only character in this story that's stronger than Frieren, and probably older too. I wonder if we'll get to learn more about her later on in the story.

Ubel: ....mommy....? Sorry. Yeah she was an interesting character and definitely fun to watch on screen. She was a good representation for the darker side of magic and mages and she's not above killing or manipulating others to get her way. She was a very fun mix of "chaotic good" and it was interesting that she goes by her own set of rules. I expect we'll see more of her later down the line and I hope we do see her again especially now that she's a first class mage as well!

Wirbel: He was interesting! Kind of similar to Ubel, but in a way more "noble". I do wonder if him reuniting with his childhood friend (who bares a very striking similarity to Mikasa) will become a plot point later on, but I think we'll get to see him again as he leads the fight against the remnants of the Demon King's army in the north where our cast of characters is coincidentally heading to.

Land: He definitely had one of the funnest powers in which he's able to make clones or "projections" of himself which have a considerable range. It was a pretty funny reveal in which he was at home the entire time for the Mage Exam and Seerie passed him because she was impressed he had the audacity to be "remote" for this. He has interesting chemistry with Ubel, although I think he's just more weary/annoyed with her as the way I understood how her powers work is that she gets stronger by learning more about others. So if she's able to learn that technique, well....Ubel might be on a whole new level of lethality.

Lawine and Kanne: I'll group these two together. They were a fun and cute duo and although I find myself more often than not trying to figure out if they're actually friends or genuinely hate each other, they were great and fun characters! It was funny how they're bickering made Frieren flustered but eventually forcing her to step up to be a leader for them in the first exam.

Denken: He was solid and enjoyable! In a way he's the one character that's most like Frieren. Perhaps it's because he's the oldest human character (or at least one of the older ones) and to me they both give off a similar vibe of being a mentor-like figure to their respective parties, have a sense of appreciation for the past and stepping up and being a leader when the moment calls for it. Their duel during the first exam was also very well done.

I don't think I need to sell this anime anymore than I already have: Frieren is amazing and you should absolutely watch it ! If you love fantasy and are interested in epilogue-themed stories, I think you'll fall in love with Frieren. It's a phenomenal anime with great characters, solid emotional depth, good character development, enjoyable action and comedy, and overall is a fun to watch! MAL absolutely is right for making this the #1 anime. It's definitely earned a spot on my top 10 list! I'll eagerly be waiting for season 2 and see what happens next with our favorite elf mage and her new party of friends!

*Spoiler Warning*

There were a lot of things to like about Jujutsu Kaisen's second season. It was a thrilling, exciting and even at times emotional watch from start to finish. This season had just about everything you could want from action, backstory, comedy, character growth, emotional moments and nearly every moment this season felt like it mattered in at least some way. This season also answered some important questions that I had from season 1 and the movie, so there is a good payoff aspect here as well. It's very hard for a season to maintain a high level of quality on all fronts throughout ... the course of a season, especially a longer one, but I was consistently entertained and enjoyed watching the whole time. There is at most one filler episode that happens between the season's two major arcs, and even that was a worthwhile episode especially given what happens later on. While I do think this season ultimately has some things that hold it back from being a perfect 10 and some missed opportunities, I would say this season is at least a solid 9.5 and it ultimately elevated my opinion of the anime as a whole which should be the goal of any additional season of a show. Simply put: JJK Season 2 succeeded and what it set out to do and it has me pining for more!

The production value in this season was just as good as it was in previous installments in which it was amazing. The animation was solid as always. The art style was good despite there was a handful of times during certain action scenes that it looked a little sketchy but it was only ever for a brief moment, everything else looked anywhere from good to gorgeous. The voice actors were great, and a special mention to Kaiji Von Tang (Gojo's English VA) and Adam McArthur (Itadori's English VA) for their solid performances during some of the most emotional moments in the entire anime. The music was outstanding. The OP's, Ao no Sumika and SPECIALZ were great songs to listen to (granted I had been listening to Ao no Sumika long before I started watching JJK, it's actually what got me to notice the anime in the first place). I definitely do prefer Ao no Smuka over SPECIALZ since it's more of my taste in music, but I would say both OPs are better songs than the OPs in the first season. The cutscenes for both songs were also solid, but I'd say Ao no Sumika is better in that regard as well. Although both fit their moments in the anime when the story switches from covering Gojo's backstory to the present with the Shibuya Incident Arc. The gap between the two outro songs is a little more profound for me in terms of personal preference, I liked Akari over More Than Words and I'd also say Akari had the better cutscene, although I'm not bashing More Than Words's cutscene as it was quite touching but I liked Akair's better and it had more emotional weight behind it.

The story in season 2 can really be summed up by its two main arcs: Gojo's Past and The Shibuya Incident. Both arcs were solid in their storytelling and entertainment value. We got a great personal look into Gojo and Geto's characters and how they turned out the way that they did. Geto's fall was generally well depicted and fairly easily understood, although I think it could've been a little more gradual. Speaking of Geto, I had wondered how he was "alive" considering that he apparently died in the JJK movie which predates the first season and this is something I brought up when I did my review of the JJK movie. Season 2 answered my question, and it was a great reveal in which Geto's body is being puppeteered by some sort of brain curse spirit. That reveal was a great scene and the emotion and shock of the moment in the form of the music and Gojo's reaction was perfect down to the last minute detail. It also has become one of my favorite moments in anime. It's also not entirely clear if Geto is completely dead considering his body briefly resisted the curse spirit during the reveal, but it made for a cool and creepy moment!

Speaking of Gojo's character, we got introduced to a darker and sadistic side of him that genuinely sent a chill down my spine. From him wanting to slaughter the Time Vessel Association after recovering Riko's body, to his sadism during his fight with Jogo and Hanami, it was definitely a change from his generally positive and joking personality. I am reminded by what Geto said at the end of Gojo's Past Arc: If Gojo wanted to, he could kill everyone in the world, and I genuinely believe that. Ultimately Gojo doesn't fully engulf himself in his dark side, but it was a nice touch to his character.

One of the other things that surprised me the most about this season was the body count, and it was quite high. It was almost at Attack on Titan levels. Nanami, Mechamaru, Maki, Nobora, Mahito, Jogo, Hanami all died or apparently died given their lack of appearance after they went down, and some of their deaths were rather shocking even though I had been spoiled on Nobora's death prior to watching and unknowingly spoiled on Nanami's death as well. It was just unexpected to see and in the case of Nanami's and Nobora's it was a bit emotional as I had come to like their characters. Apparently Ijichi survived and I'm pretty sure Fushiguro also survived (they can only kill off so many characters and still have a functioning cast). I wasn't entirely surprised that they killed off Riko in Gojo's Past Arc (given I had also seen the scene way before I watched JJK and that she wasn't brought up at all in either the first season or the movie), but her death scene was pretty jarring. It's not too often that a character's death scene throws me through a loop but this one did. While I wasn't expecting Riko to get a happy ending considering if she wasn't killed by Toji in that scene, she, Gojo and Geto would've been fugitives and likely hunted by every Jujitsu Sorcerer out there since they were betraying Tengen, but alas it didn't happen. The anime did a good job in lulling you into a false sense of security and emotion and then suddenly ripping it away. It was a good shocking moment, even though Geto would've ran into Toji at some point, I wasn't expecting Toji to straight up headshot Riko.

I will also praise this season for connecting the JJK Movie by bringing Yuuta Okkotsu into the story at the end, and it would seem that the anime will be setting up a clash between our two protagonists as Yuuta has been ordered to execute Itadori for the Shibuya Incident. Given that it had been canonically a year or so since we had seen Yuuta in the story, I'll be very interested to see how he's grown as a sorcerer and what his ability is now given that Rika had moved on into the afterlife.

Going into the story arcs a little bit deeper now, I really liked Gojo's Past Arc. I genuinely think that as of this writing, it is the peak of JJK. While I wouldn't go as far as to call it 100% perfect, it was a great backstory arc for Gojo and Geto. It was nice to see their character developments and how despite their talents, they were not invincible. Toji, who can't even used cursed energy, absolutely walloped them. It took Gojo pretty much falling into insanity to activate the full extent of his power to defeat Toji in their rematch. It was also interesting to learn how Geto developed his hatred for "filthy monkeys who can't use Jujitsu" and his worldviews: it was pretty much due to his confrontation with Toji. So in a way, we can blame Toji for a lot of things that happen in JJK. That all being said, Toji was a great villain in this arc and it was a nice change of pace to see an "ordinary" person soundly beat essentially two magic users. It's not something you see too often of and given that Geto and Gojo were the best students at JJK and with how well Toji fought, I genuinely didn't know how they were going to beat him (until Gojo watched the Mugen Train from Demon Slayer). While I think this arc would have benefited from an extra episode or two, the pacing was generally good.

The Sibuya Incident Arc was also enjoyable for the most part. The arc is structured to be an entire marathon of battles as we see Itadori, Fushiguro, Nobora and the others battling against curse users and spirit as they work to lift the three veils over a portion of the city. For the most part each of the battles were unique and interesting in their own ways and we got to see the characters use their powers in unique and interesting ways that we hadn't really previously seen. However, I will say that other than the Mahito-Itadori and Todo fight, the Fushiguro-Toji Ghost fight and Nanemi, Maki and her father facing off against Kuthulu (yeah I'm calling the cursed spirit that, watch it and you'll understand), it never really did feel like any of the main characters were in genuine risk of losing. To be fair a lot of the fights are the characters against token villains, so while I can understand that it's meant to provide buildup and they do sometimes face serious opponents, like with Itadori and Fushiguro facing off against the Grandmother doing the seance and her grandchildren, I never really doubted that they good guys would lose. I'm not sure if it was because the good guys were OP or the villains were generally pushovers, but they did spice up every fight to provide at least some level of variety. Even during Itadori's fight with Choso, while it was a great and epic fight, I didn't feel like Itaodri was in genuine danger since Sukuna is inside of him and I was waiting for him to take control (which he does later on in the arc). One other thing that bothered me during this arc was the over explanation of the character's abilities. I felt that they did a pretty reasonable job of balancing it in the first season, but this time it felt a little overdone. I understand that there was a lot happening and it was certainly helpful, but on the flipside I can also see the argument that not everything needs to be explained. One other fight worth mentioning was Sukuna's fight with Jogo. Even though Sukuna was clearly more powerful and perhaps holding back, Jogo balled out this arc. He took down several characters (I'll even argue Mahito's killing of Nanemi was an assist on Jogo's part, there was no way Nanemi was going to live after getting half his face burned off). It was kind of sad that he lost but I'll commend the guy for putting up a fight. Even Sukuna commended him for it. The result of the fight was a major portion of the city being destroyed and what was interesting to see in the OPs after that fight had occurred, the intro changed up a bit to show off scenes of the damages which was a cool touch.

While I have generally sung this season's praises, there are some things that I felt were missed opportunities:

-In Gojo's Past Arc, I wish we got to see more of Shoko's character. At least during the arc's OP she was billed as part of the main "trio" with Geto and Gojo. While she does have some nice and funny scenes, she's generally not involved too much in the story. While this was understandable, it did feel like she was sidelined. She could've had a big moment when she confronted Geto after he became a wanted man, but she was oddly calm about everything while talking to him which confused me. While this does ultimately make sense for her character given her personality, I think she could've had a bigger moment and her conversation with Geto could've been more emotional especially since they were supposedly good friends. Again, this could ultimately be explained because of Shoko's personality, but I would've expected the scene to play out differently. Gojo had a more realistic and understanding reaction when it was his turn to confront Geto that I thought was far better than the Geto-Shoko conversation.

-In The Shibuya Incident Arc, I wish Fushiguro learned that he was fighting his father. While we as the audience knew this the entire time and the fight ends with Toji's spirit gaining self-awareness and killing his host's body, Fushiguro has absolutely no idea what's going on and is just fighting for his life. After Toji's suicide, he's understandably left bewildered. While the emotional weight of the fight makes sense to us the audience, it doesn't make sense for Fushiguro and he has an understandable reaction. The old Zenin guy could've told Fushiguro that was his dad or something to hint at it, but that was never given, and it's not particularly likely that he'll ever know it. The scene would have definitely been better enhanced emotionally had Fushiguro gotten that reveal about Toji. Heck now that I think about it, Old Man Zenin was also holding out on Maki too given that Toji pretty much has the same power as Maki: no cursed energy but is stupidly strong physically.

-It was disappointing not to see Mei Mei vs The Fake Geto. The OP teased it and after Mei Mei dispatched the cursed spirit that Fake Geto had sent to stall her, the two presumably fought, which Mei Mei confirmed at the end of the arc when she was shown to have survived. It was a bummer we didn't get to see that fight and we could've gotten to see the full extent of Mei Mei's power. As a side note: I can't stand her little brother anymore. At first, it was kind of funny and I thought it'd be a one time kind of thing, but I think the kid *likes* Mei Mei a little too much for his own good. I was actually hoping for the kid's death at one point and I was even a little shocked when Mei Mei appeared to have sacrificed him to defeat the cursed spirit. But alas...

-In The Shibuya Incident Arc, Mechamaru's "betrayal" was kind of odd and came out of nowhere. While yes, he was always portrayed as not exactly being "close" to his fellow Kyoto students for obvious and understandable reasons, I never got any vibe or sense that Mechamaru had any real reason to betray his classmates. His betrayal does make sense in the context of him getting his body repaired by Mahito which is what happened and how I understand why it occurred, but for Mechamaru to then turn around and then try to fight Mahito and the fake Geto seemed pretty shortsighted to me. I don't know what Mechamaru was really hoping to accomplish here. I did find the mecha scene to be a mix of cool and funny. Cool in the sense that technology is being incorporated into this magical world, and funny in the sense that seeing the giant Mechamaru suit reminded of Darling in The Franxx.

-The actual ending of the Shibuya Incident Arc felt abrupt and disjointed. After Geto releases all those cursed spirits the episode cuts to monologues from various side characters talking about the ramifications of the whole Shibuya Incident as the camera pans over the city. The transition was jarring and for the arc to end on that note after everything that happened felt underwhelming. Apparently from what we can gather, the Jujitsu Leaders pin the entire failure on Gojo and Itadori and Yuuta is being sent to kill Itadori as Gojo is presently sealed. The whole ending scene just felt rushed and could've been executed better.

While there's a few noticeable blemishes to Jujitsu Kaisen's second season, it was still an entertaining and solid season. It had a great backstory arc for Gojo and Geto, and the Shibuya Incident Arc was a generally thrilling watch and will presumably take the story to the next phase. I'm not sure how much is left to cover in the JJK story in relation to the manga to anime conversion, but it feels like we're around the midpoint of the story, so I'd imagine we'd have about two more seasons to go depending on what they cover going forward. Overall, I really liked this season and I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens next!

*Spoiler Warning*

Truthfully, I've always been a sucker for prequels (it's not limited to just Star Wars!). Anytime a story goes out of its way to show us, not just tell us, about something that had happened in its timeline previously to add context to certain events while also giving the supporting characters a bigger share of the spotlight than in the present storyline, chances are I'm going to enjoy it. I can say with all certainty that was exactly the case with Jujutsu Kaisen's prequel movie: JJK 0. It was a solid and enjoyable prequel!

The events of JJK 0 take place approximately a year ... before the events of the first season. As such, Itadori isn't the MC. He, Fushiguro and Kugisaki aren't in this story. Instead, the mc of this movie is Yuuta Okkotsu, who does have a similar vibe to Itadori but has a stronger and more compelling backstory. The movie centers on Yuuta's efforts to break a cursed bond that he has with his dead childhood friend/lover, Rika, while Getou (who really hates monkeys) launches a full scale war against the Jujutsu Sorcerers with the goal of wiping out all non Jujutsu Sorcerers (those filthy monkeys who can't even use Jujutsu), and hopes to acquire Rika's powerful cursed spirit. The main supporting cast is rounded out by our beloved Gojou and the second year Tokyo students who are first years in this story: Maki, Toge and Panda. Maki in particular got a fair amount of screentime which was kind of surprising. Some of the other characters that were in season 1 do have little cameos throughout the movie which was a nice touch to things. Even the Koyoto students made an appearance towards the end which was cool to see them in action fighting curses instead of their Tokyo counterparts (not that was a bad thing!). In fact, their role in their battle against the curses is referenced during the Sister School Exchange Arc, so points for the movie adding this connection!

Overall, the plot of the movie is pretty standard and follows the usual Shonen storyline. Yuuta is a fairly typical mc who was bullied and weak but slowly and surely gains enough self-confidence and mastery over his power to defeat the big bad. However, the movie makes Yuuta a likable character that you root for him to be successful in the end. He doesn't have *a ton* of depth, but what we get is still good. His relationship with Rika was also tragic. Admittedly I'm still wondering where a kid like her got an engagement ring (that actually reminded me of a funny personal story that a friend of mine once did), but still from what we saw of their relationship, they did have a sweet thing going. The movie did a good job in initially making it seem like it was Rika who put the curse on Yuuta, hence why she continued to follow him around and violently protect him for all these years, but the movie had a pretty good reveal by confirming that it was ultimately the other way around, and their parting scene was touching. I was fully expecting Yuuta to go on and "live with" Rika and it would've made sense given that we don't see Yuuta in season 1, but she instead peaced out and disappeared in a truly heartfelt scene. We also were treated to a decently emotional scene between Gojou and Getou, the latter who was a Jujutsu Sorcerer himself at one point and seemed to be good friends with Gojou before they parted ways (I know that their relationship is going to be explored more heavily in the second season, but the movie does provide a good foundation for these two.). The movie did a great job of showing us the tension between the two characters, even if we don't know their full history even by the end of the movie.

One of the things I liked most about the movie was the attention it gave to Maki. While we were introduced to her character in the first season and already knew a fair bit about her, the movie gave a more personal take on her character. The movie really tried shipping Yuuta and Maki together, and there were a few moments of what seemed like sparks between them. Although it was 80% driven by Panda's trolling and one moment where Rika was openly jealous of her before Yuuta reeled her back, it did seem like Maki may subtly be attracted to Yuuta and she just doesn't fully know it. Hence the scene where after she approached him in the classroom and stormed off after Yuuta was being a bit dense about her complicated relationship with her family, she was blushing but trying to suppress it. I'm not sure if Yuuta feels the same way about her given that he did seem to have loved Rika this entire time as evidenced by him breaking down after she faded away, but I doubt he'll live the rest of his entire life being dedicated to just her. So do I think a Yuuta x Maki ship is likely? Not particularly but I wouldn't rule it out either. I guess we'll wait and see if and when he emerges in the storyline again.

Other characters that got a good amount of screentime were of course Toge and Panda. They didn't play huge roles in the story but it was good to see more of them and we can see that they've certainly grown from their fight against Getou to when we see them in season 1. Not that they were terribly unskilled or anything but they're definitely stronger in season 1 which is nice for continuity. Speaking of stronger, we got to see more scenes of Gojou in action, and it confirmed what I had said in my review of the first season: he's the strongest character in the story, at least on the Sorcerer side. Getou might be second only to the Sukuana with the amount of curses he was able absorb and use. On the magic front he far and away outclassed everybody except for maybe Gojou, which is why it's a bit jarring to see that he ended up losing to Yuuta. Now, I can understand that he couldn't have won that fight or there wouldn't be much of a story to tell afterwards, but Yuuta, who is still fairly new to Jujutsu Sorcery despite having an exceptionally strong curse at his side, was able to defeat probably the Sukuna of curse users, pretty much through the power of love. I get it though, it's a symbolic thing and Getou had to have lost, but seeing him go out in that way was a little jarring to say the least. He also apparently dies at the end, so I'm not exactly sure how he's alive again by season 1, but I assume season 2 will cover all that. I'll be looking forward to it because he does seem to be an interesting character. I will say Getou was one of those unintentionally funny villains too. He got a good laugh out of me anytime he called someone "a monkey".

The production value of the movie was solid. The action scenes were great, the music was enjoyable, the animation was solid and the voice acting was good. It was a good production continuity from the first season and it was visually pleasant to watch for the nearly two hour runtime.

During my watch of the movie, I was mentally debating whether to give it an 8 or 9. I did believe that it was a bit better than the first season the entire time, but there were some drawbacks which I mentioned: Yuuta is a bit too similar to Itadori, Yuuta is similarly a little too OP and his training is a bit rushed through, but the ending of the movie won me over to it being a 9 and seeing Yuuta's character come full circle was a nice ribbon on top of what the story the movie was trying to show. Speaking of, I appreciated the movie's "show" which I feel is the stronger way to portray a story. The movie also added on well to the lore of some of the JJK characters and gave us a deeper personal take on some of them that we didn't get in the first season, so it earns points for me there. The JJK Movie is a solid prequel and it's an enjoyable installment to the JJK story. It provides good depth to some of the characters and context to certain events in the story which I hope the anime continues to build off of to complete in future installments.