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I figured it was a given that this series would be a good time as both a remake of a classic and widely loved anime and as one done in style my MAPPA. It clearly delivers on that front. The new coat of paint might not be to everyone's taste, but it certainly works for me with a soft and fluid style that lends itself well to the crazy martial arts on display. Particularly as the action ramps up in each short arc, there are lots of opportunities to showcase how these characters move and the choreography is really where this anime sings. Every fight ... scene is a joy.

The comedy mostly hits as well. The eclectic set of characters are a little tropey, but what keeps things interesting is how they interact, often with explosive consequences. It's not particularly focused on developing its characters, instead putting its focus on creating more ridiculous character moments with some light downtime in between.

My complaints are pretty minor. Outside of kids shows, I'll never understand the decision to have breasts without nipples, since it makes the characters look more like dolls than humans and makes any actual nudity feel more surreal. There's been some decent drama so far, even if it feels like a very minor element in the series so far. It's early days and the series focuses on its strengths, which I can respect. I think there are opportunities, particularly with where Shampoo's story goes at the end of the season, to expand on the drama in interesting ways.

Still, I'd say this is very close to an 8 for me. Lot of opportunities to grow the story from here and I'm looking forward to its next season.

This series had the steepest climb up my seasonal list this season. It’s not that it got off to a weak start - far from it, since it has a visually spectacular opening and introduces a solid cast of characters well - but rather that I didn’t expect a strong balance of fishing insights with a substantial character study.

I was drawn into this series by a pretty distinctive starting episode with some vivid animation, but didn't really know what to expect from there. In a sense, I got a little bit of everything out of it, including some pretty hard-hitting personal drama from Tsunehiro, ... Takaaki and Machida, some life lessons from Ice and Kozue, and stronger reasons to be invested in fishing from Hana, Fujishiro and Alua.

That split attention is probably the reason a lot of people aren’t particularly fond of this series in the end, but I put this in a similar camp to Bartender: Glass of God from a couple of seasons back in that I think it achieves a good balance. The drama isn’t quite as hard-hitting as that series, but I think that’s fitting for its tone. The aim of the series wasn’t to reach peak drama, it was to find ways for the MC and those around him to find a way through the drama and just embrace the present. Machida finds a connection with his son and his son connects right back despite what is clearly a painful divorce still affecting them both. Tsunehiro finally works through his fears about his diagnosis to reach out to his family and his health care team to start treatment. Takaaki, who has probably been running the hardest and the longest from his problems, finds his way back to a place of calm by helping Tsunehiro work through is problems in place of the brother he lost.

The show is not a complete character study by any means. These three characters definitely get the most scrutiny, but we don’t learn nearly as much about the rest, and I would have liked something more incisive about Hana and Ice in particular. But there was also a sense that those two very much lived in the moment. Most of the others did, so the focus of this season being on that set of 3 made the most sense to me.

Overall, I liked this season a lot more than I expected to from the outset. It’s not just a solid foundation for a series on fishing, but a pretty realistic take on a group dynamic that I haven’t seen done this well in quite a while. This eclectic group working together at a fishing-focused store who went out and taught us a lot about their methods and the fish they were going for was a little uneven at times, but it reeled me in and didn't shake me off.

This one was an oddity for the season. I picked it up relatively late and spent a lot of the time with it just vibing with the worldbuilding. I’ve done that with other series like Delicious in Dungeon, but that series left me constantly hungry (pun intended) for more information on the minute details of how the world works, whereas this one just kept me lightly entertained with its details, more like a continuous drip feed. The two do share a relatively middling narrative throughline and each has their interesting characters coming in with their own baggage, but the concept of this one is more ... basic by design. It’s part of a larger trend of taking fantastical concepts and bringing them down to earth by making them part of a more mundane, systematized setting. That’s not a negative, but it does mean that these concepts don’t elicit “wow”s so much as they do “that’s interesting”s.

Still, it’s the worldbuilding that hooked me and it’s the characters that help bring it to life. Everyone in the cast plays a role in fleshing out how its various elements work from the field work (Hitomi) to the engineering of spells (Kazuo) to the planning required to make them effective (Kana) to the organization behind those efforts (Kaede) to the leadership required to ensure that the company can stay afloat (Kouji), and the outside parties we’re introduced to reflect the different pressures and emphases of other companies.

It’s a neatly laid out story with some interesting, somewhat quirky characters and it leads to some creative confrontations with the various Kaii of the world (mostly mutations) that also simultaneously functions as a bit of the second best start up story this season (what can I say, I’m loving Trillion Game) as others discover their talents and Magilumiere moves up in the world. I would have loved to see them spend more time being scrappy and underappreciated in their industry, but it makes sense that their successes would be recognized as they have, even if it feels like we’re missing some opportunities to see how larger companies respond to this newfound competition. Instead, the series stays pretty tightly focused on the characters, particularly Kana, and how they develop their skills and expertise over the course of the series and become more confident in their roles.

Unfortunately, this focus also limits the series somewhat, since its narrative only hints at more going on outside of these dynamics. The history between Kouji and other CEOs seems like an interesting source of drama that could explain a lot of how the distinct mentalities of the different companies work, but we’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s going on there. I get the impression that there will be a shift to focus attention there after this, but there isn’t really a narrative drive towards some conclusion so far, just progression of the company and developing the people in it and those they interact with.

This season was a good time. The animation is decent and mostly pops in its interesting Kaii and magic designs when they really get going, particularly in that final episode. It sets a pretty strong foundation for a story that could build on it substantially if it ups the conflict and the drama, which is enough for a season 1, even if it doesn’t really stand out as much as I was hoping. I can't give this a full recommendation as a result, but I think S2 could do a lot to expand on this.

As a huge fan of the manga and someone who has a great deal of faith in Science SARU, I knew this season was destined for greatness. Still, how good could it be? The manga thrives in part based on the insane, bombastic detail of its splash panels, which any studio would find difficult to translate to animation. The interactions between its characters, particularly in its humor and romance, is difficult to emulate as well. The way things flow from panel to panel on the page has a very deliberate sense of pacing that could easily be lost in motion.

I am here to inform ... you that the animation doesn’t just succeed; it soars.

The first and easiest way this series thrives is in its action scenes. If there’s anything Science SARU consistently does well, it’s the flow of its movement. From Devilman to Eizouken to Tatami to Scott Pilgrim, this studio consistently does motion well, but Dandadan sets a new standard in crazy motion and use of camera placement. Each fight/chase scene creates new opportunities to showcase the incredible speed and dynamic motion of its characters. Shout out especially to the work on Episode 3 for its Granny vs. Granny action, which has a personal effect that just looks and feels incredible, Episode 4 with the crazy chase sequences from the crab and on the train.

It’s not just its action that goes hard. There’s a certain rhythm to how its romance plays out, particularly in Episode 5, that really stands out. There’s just something about Momo and Okarun trying to find each other and the way they finally do that manages to evoke this moment from the manga so well. It’s hard to say how well the series will play this out further since their relationship is still in its early stages, but it’s doing a fine job with it so far.

But if I had to give it up to any episode for doing something special, it would have to be Episode 7. Easily the best episode of the season and possibly of the year, this set a new gold standard for the series. The animation in this episode looks sharp and more realistic as the perspective shifts, and both it and the camera work are absolutely stunning, but it’s the emotional beats that hit surprisingly hard. Even as someone well versed with the manga, someone who is automatically dismissive of attempts to wring sympathy out of the end of a short-lived character, this hurt. The emotions in this episode are conveyed beautifully and show that in this absurd and zany world with all its incredible comedy, the series can just as effectively bring on the waterworks.

Anyway, there's a lot else I could cover, but I'm trying to keep this vague enough to avoid spoilers. Ending in the middle of a new arc was a bit of an odd choice, but I know they didn't have many options and I'm just considering S1 and S2 a divided single season. The choice to end it here nonetheless brings the series down a bit for me, since it's probably the weakest aspect of the season. I still enjoy what this series is putting down, and while it hasn't reached the series' best moments from the manga, it's still popping off nearly every episode. Look forward to seeing the rest of this series adapted.

The fact that this show remained in my watchlist for the season may speak more to my own schizophrenic taste than it does to the show’s quality. There really isn’t a lot to love about this show, after all: it’s a rather basic edgelord fantasy show where the lead wants to be the best (insert random role) like no one ever was. In this case, he’s a Seeker who wants to live up to the legacy of his grandfather who also has no compunction with using dirty tactics and stepping on others to make his way to the top, and of course, most of those ... “others” aren’t exactly good people, so we root for him all the way without feeling bad about it. He also gets mistaken for a woman multiple times because… I guess it’s still a thing in anime to make humor out of the MC looking a little feminine? Never worked for me, but here we are.

All that should have spelled an early doom for this series for me. I dropped a lot of shows with better premises earlier, so why did this one stick around? I chalk that up to two elements that could have been great: the eclectic central cast, and the (limited) worldbuilding.

A lot of this series rides on the new The Blue Beyond, particularly how it forms and how the warped personalities of its various members interact. Noel is a manipulator, both at heart and in his powerset, and leans into that a lot, both as the one responsible for bringing together the party and the one most important for directing that party. Alma probably makes the least sense as a character - she was literally rejected as an assassin for doing her job too well - but she’s also the kind of crazy and obsessive that makes for a good and somewhat unpredictable foil for Noel who is willing to put an end to him should he fail to keep her interested. By contrast, Koga ends up being someone who is perfectly fine being used as a tool and thus slots more neatly into Noel’s plans and plots. The balance isn’t quite as weird as I was hoping for from this series after Alma joined, though they’ve certainly shown other likely additions who would keep things interesting. Still, I think they’re more interesting than the original set and could drive better developments.

As for the worldbuilding, there were more than a few interesting ideas in play. Learning how society has been built on technology built on or around the organs of powerful creatures is probably the most interesting facet, but we only ever learn about one of them. What we learn more about is the hierarchy among Seekers and the various guilds involved in this business, which is essential as it gives Noel the basis for his drive to succeed apart from just wanting to be the biggest name around. We even get some power scaling, both among Seekers and the beasts they hunt. It’s just enough to guide the motivations of the characters, but unfortunately not enough to invest the audience in these elements.

So, alas, this series doesn’t really thrive as much as it could in either category. It’s edgy without ever having real bite to it. Its characters create a lot of opportunities that it hasn’t delivered on as of yet, mainly due to its rather frustrating pacing, which dipped a great deal at several points in the series. There isn’t enough worldbuilding to do more than tease at how this world works. As the party continues to expand, their relationships change and the world continues to be fleshed out, this could become much more interesting, but for now, this was just a decent watch with some good ideas. The main points it earns are as a result of its potential and catharsis. It’s actually a pretty good time to watch their opponents get their comeuppance and Noel is just very effective at finding the chinks in his opponents’ armor. It’s the one thing that keeps the pacing from shaking me off, and given an interesting power system (that unfortunately doesn't get much depth) in the Talker role, there was at least enough to keep me here if nothing to really wow me. Apart from all this, the series has some pretty good animation, albeit nothing terribly special, and I like the OST well enough. I can’t call it a purely good watch due the series feeling like it’s still not quite there, but Noel is at least driving the plot in an interesting direction that seems like it could yield some fruit in a potential S2. We’ll see if it gets one.

I’m of two minds about this show.

On the one hand, I think it hits most of its emotional highs and lows well. That’s helped by really digging down into its central conceit: what happens when a woman is “reincarnated” into the body of a young girl to help her family 10 years after her death? It’s more than just a story of reuniting loved ones, but also the effect on the young girl whose life is seemingly overwritten. How does having a young child with the mind of a middle-aged woman affect Chika? How does Chika perceive the apparent loss of her daughter’s personality and ... behavior? Is it even really reincarnation, and if not, is this really a positive development? This is really the meat of the show for me, not just because it was an interesting lens to use to interrogate the reincarnation plot, but because its more mundane plot elements like a single mother raising a child result in substantial introspection and emotional strength.

I think examining these issues is genuinely more interesting than the central plot, mainly because that plot is predictable: Keisuke and Mai both have to come to a better place and do so without relying on Takae so much. I do think the series gains some strength in the revelation that Takae is possessing Marika and her and Keisuke’s resolve to exorcise her so that Marika can live her life (more on that later), but there are still some powerful moments as this family does what they can with the time they have together.

On the other hand, I really don’t like how this story is told. There are some obviously really good ideas in here, but they’re told in a way that seems tailor-made to make them hit more weakly, and I chalk that up to two narrative issues: Marika’s presence (or lackthereof) and pacing.

Giving Marika back her body is a major focus of the last several episodes of the series, and while I think that works as a plot point, I think the emotional strength of it is significantly weakened by Marika’s lack of screentime. We get to know her a bit during a lapse in Takae’s control, but not enough that she feels like a full-fledged character in her own right. I get that we need a lot of moments with Takae to make this series work, but most of the sympathy directed at Marika comes from Chika’s feelings rather than anything directly for Marika’s sake.

None of this is really helped by a lack of context clues that could have helped fill in the gaps. We spend a little bit of time at Marika’s school and see how she behaves differently as both Marika and Takae, but there’s not enough here to get a decent impression of who Marika was beyond being depressed and fearful of her mother. Everything else feels like a sidebar, which makes the focus of so much of the narrative feel like a sidebar in her own story.

When it comes to pacing, it’s weird how the series seems to shift between taking way too long to hit a solid emotional beat and rushing it to the point that it’s almost nonsensical. It’s almost absurd how long it takes for Takae to really feel the fact that she is once again in a living body and able to interact with her loved ones again. Later, Chika’s come to Jesus moment about Takae being in Marika’s body is just hard to stomach. It takes shockingly little time for her to come to terms with this. Finally… *sigh*... the decision of Keisuke to marry Konomi. I get what the purpose of this marriage was and I could almost stomach it if not for how they chose to present it to Mai. It seemed purpose-built to create manufactured drama rather than respect Mai’s feelings and give her a chance to warm to the relationship, and that’s the kind of drama that never works for me, even if it did get followed up with some good father-daughter heart-to-heart.

Yet, somehow, this last part got worse for the ending. Having the marriage be a ruse put on to make Takae feel that Keisuke was ready to move on is just the worst of all worlds, since Takae doesn’t get what she wanted (clear evidence that her husband is forming a new and happy family in her absence - I get that he is in a much better place, but part of the point was not to be stuck on her, which is where he remains in the end), Konomi gets to be party to a lie told to both Mai and Takae that seemed tailored to make the former very upset, and a somewhat interesting relationship between Keisuke and Konomi that felt rushed just dissolves into nothing. If the relationship had just fallen back into dating, that would have been fine, but they just split. It’s not that this was all pointless - Mai learned to accept the loss of her mother and Keisuke’s resolve was a huge step forward for him, even if that resolve only aimed at ensuring that Takae passed on, and they both have clearly moved onto a point where they can find happiness in Takae’s absence - but this still dulls emotional beats that should have been firing on all cylinders. Even the heartfelt goodbye from Takae just felt staged before this revelation, and her return to wish Keisuke goodbye in his dreams felt hollow afterward. It all feels manufactured, not just for the characters but for the audience, so it doesn’t hit the way it was meant to.

In the end, this series thrived in its more realistic elements, but couldn't seem to find a lane that wasn't so manufactured that it took me out of any emotional beat it was throwing elsewhere. I love parts of it, but they’re overwhelmed by elements that frustrate the hell out of me. It’s not a bad show and it might hit better for others, hence the mixed feelings, but it could have been so much better.

There is a lot of hype around this anime and it’s there for a reason. Yes, in part that’s the animation. The character models are hit and miss, and while some of the movement looks rough, when it comes to the matches, they look pretty incredible. You get a real sense of the players styles as they move and strike the ball, and even as someone with limited knowledge of the sport, you get an appreciation for what each of them brings to it and even for some of the texture of it with the balls and paddles they use. There’s an impressive attention to ... detail on display.

But visuals aren’t the main place where this series shines. As with the best sports series, character development is everything, and this coming of age story thrives chiefly through its characters. Series like Haikyuu and Run With the Wind are particularly strong in this regard, but if we’re talking just personal growth, I think Ping Pong has them beat.

It would be one thing if this series just had a great set of leads, which it absolutely does. Tsukimoto and Hoshino are two very different sides of the same coin, but notably, each of them pushes the other to new heights. They’re both natural geniuses of the sport, but Tsukimoto thrives in finding and exploiting weaknesses, functioning almost robotically in his approach to dismantling them, while Hoshino just has a much more effortlessly capable, finding joy in his ability to just outstrip everyone without having to work much at it. They’re friends from a young age, and Tsukimoto starts the series holding himself back to allow Hoshino to shine. This is all part of a desire to let him be a hero Tsukimoto can look up to, someone who can bring back the joy he found in the sport when they were younger.

But Hoshino gets humbled, and his hero days end when he thinks his star has dimmed. He goes through a pseudo-hero’s journey, spiraling until he finds his footing once again and trains hard to improve. Meanwhile, Tsukimoto becomes the villain, isolating himself and training just to become a force that can’t be overcome. He waits for the grand return of the hero to find his joy once again, to embody the Smile nickname. And yes, it’s a pleasure to watch them rise to each other’s challenge, even more so to see them not repeat the mistakes of their elders and instead to push each other hard even through injury and pain.

And that would be enough by itself. This would be a great series if they were the only substantial elements in it. But then we’d have to forget about the fallen prodigy Kong who learns to find strength in his weaknesses by embracing the Japanese players he initially spurned. We’d forget Sakuma, a player who grew up with the leads but was always third best, finding a route to meaning in his life outside of ping pong. We’d forget Kazama, whose quest for glory after tragedy has led him to lose meaning in his countless victories only to find it in a glorious loss. We’d forget their coaches, almost all of whom seem to find a sense of renewed purpose through their charges. Hell, I almost forgot about Egami, a largely comic relief character who goes through a literal journey of self discovery to the sea, the mountains, abroad and back again after losing badly to Tsukimoto.

In part, what makes this series more effective in this regard, at least for me, is that it gives us a capstone. Sure, it could have given us more in the end, but finding out where these characters ended up in their early adulthood is gratifying. Not everyone goes on to be a great ping pong player, but they all find a path that makes sense for them, some of which are surprises. Kazama and Tsukimoto talking about their lives is one of my favorite parts of the series, and that last throw of a ping pong paddle into the ocean, which has a very different feel than the casting off that Hoshino did earlier in the series (feels more like a passing of the torch coming from Tsukimoto), is such a great place to end the story.

There’s just a lot to love here. It’s nothing too terribly deep, others have managed more emotional stories, and we get very little about their families or home life, but this feels very appropriate to a story of high schoolers finding their reasons to play table tennis and in a tight 11 episodes, it does everything it sets out to do with aplomb.

This is such a strange series for me to review because I find myself sitting here thinking about all the things I enjoyed, and wondering why it felt like there wasn’t enough of any of them.

In a series that was built on the premise of how difficult and, at times, diametrically opposed it was to run a murder investigation and a nursery simultaneously, I think the series’ biggest sin is that it just doesn’t really manage either as well as it could.

The series sets up an interesting plot as the central characters from the Vlad Agency, a group of vampires aimed squarely at protecting TRUMP, ... the original vampire and an immortal who knows no fear of physical attack, from all kinds of threats. With the rise of antagonists in Pendulum, there’s a great deal of opportunity for cool fight scenes and to reckon with what TRUMP has done.

It also sets up an interesting plot as these vampire nobles deal with raising their children themselves, something many of them have never done as aristocrats, and we get to see how their styles of parenting (or lack thereof) have affected their children over the years. That, combined with an intriguing subplot involving the death of Dali’s wife as the impetus for this nursery, make for a great deal of introspection and reckoning between characters involved and separate from her death.

Either of these tracks could have been investing in isolation, or at the very least, they could have served as more complete narratives if they had dominated the story. I could see a world in which the titular nursery dominates this season as we build out the mystery of the larger plot with TRUMP and Pendulum, leaving a lot of that development for a second cour. Sadly, that’s not what we got. Instead, it’s a poorly fused mash up of the two, where children are taken hostage because of course and change hands so quickly that it’s hard to buy they were ever in real danger. There’s a lot of discussion of cocoon phases for vampires which does cross over between the two subsets of the story, but feels more like an excuse to give certain characters powerful abilities than it does function as a meaningful part of the worldbuilding or as exploration of the characters involved (though there are a couple of notable exceptions to the latter).

What the series leaves me with is mainly a lot of good ideas with not a lot of fulfillment of their promise. There’s a great deal of anti-climax, particularly in the wrap up, and while there is some genuine character development, it’s muddled by the story’s efforts to keep moving the TRUMP plot forward. Some characters barely get any development, some of those who do feel like they get it for perfunctory reasons, and that lack isn’t in service of a narrative that felt powerful enough to warrant it. I liked seeing all the disjoint within Pendulum and wanted to learn more about most of where they were coming from, but the effort to get to TRUMP put most of that focus into one character, side-lining the others. The loss of Dali’s wife seemed so instrumental to one half of the plot that I thought it would remain relevant throughout, creating more tension within the Vlad Agency, but it seems largely forgotten after the hiatus. And the discovery that one of the children was going through an early cocoon phase and was experiencing illusions was investing until it just suddenly stopped being relevant. Its most investing stories just seem truncated or otherwise rushed.

I want to like this series more than I do. Its striking art style, bevy of characters and split plot intrigued me, but while some elements do work and the worldbuilding in particular is intriguing, it all falls flat on so many levels where it should soar. That may be more failing to live up to expectations or just lacking the number of episodes to manage it all, but it leaves me wanting for something better.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It's not easy to balance tones of an SoL with four boys living together in the same house getting up to all kinds of shenanigans with the emotional weight of their lost parents, but the show manages it pretty well all things considered. It might get just a little too light-hearted at times, but when it downshifts, you're going to feel the water works coming on. The neighbors as well were a good complement to everything happening on screen, with, in particular, Uta rising to the top.

Everyone gets at least some moments to shine, so none of the characters feel ... tacked on, even if some end up outshining the others. In particular, we spent a lot of time on Minako and Mikoto, who both get very well fleshed out, though I wish we'd gotten to more insight into Hayato, the boy who spent the most time with his parents and feels the greatest weight of expectation. It also could have filled us in more on the parents, who have personalities, but lack any real character depth due to a lack of screen presence.

I think this series is at its absolute best when its showcasing what it can do with animation, whether that's transitioning to a much more clearly drawn style with exaggerated motions or literally having our characters running through real streets in a scene that had me laughing. I wish we could have gotten more of these inventive scenes, but the ones that were in here popped all the more as a result.

I can see some room for improvement, but most of that could be solved with a S2 that, unfortunately, it's unlikely to get. Still, this was a lovely experience.

I don't do mid-season reviews, but sometimes you run into a series you just can't finish and this is one of those times. Seven episodes was too many.

This is painful. I'm a big fan of the manga and I remember some of these scenes well. They stood out in the manga for just how hype and fast-paced they were. Now... they're just drained of everything. The pacing is weird, the shots range from bad to OK, and even when things do look pretty decent, I just can't help feeling like I'd rather just re-read these chapters. It would be one thing if they could manage ... decent CGI and compositing, but they can't, and so much of the actual 2D animation remains just keyframes. Considering how pivotal these events are supposed to be and the investment we're supposed to have in these characters, my lack of interest is just making watching this week after week feel like a chore. It's a shame to watch a series this strong get so poorly adapted.