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i'll write this as a review for the whole anime, not just this season because my overall experiences and feelings are about the same. considering how mediocre the manga was, i wasn't expecting the anime to be any better, if anything my expectations were even lower than what i got so in general, considering how novel the concept is and how boring it sounds, the overall experience of shokugeki no sōma is decent.

i was hoping they'd do justice to tadokoro in the anime and give her a bit more focus and make her less subservient and homely but nah, just as annoying and downplayed as ... she is in the manga. basically the side characters are all an amalgamation of ideas that could be used for the cooking prop, they are hardly seen as humans or anything beyond their cooking skills. the only true characters are sōma and erina, and their relationship gets old real fast.

overall the anime lacks impact, doesn't try to fix anything from the manga and follows it to a 't' which is not all that bad if you're into some fun cooking trivia, which was the point of this anime for me.

aggressively average when it's not trying to be deep. when it is, it makes the comparison of getting ostracized and bullied to being left behind by a girl who the main protagonist just wanted to shag. it's mind-numbingly dense. the first part was average too but mostly watchable; there was a plot to follow. but this part 2 has basically characters running errands that feel like sidequests galore, in isekai terms even.

there were no big event or interesting situation that wasn't resolved by the end of the episode. i guess the creators were aiming for us to feel like the protagonist feels towards the whole ... situation he is in: cynically and completely devoid of any empathy. the only decent character is ruijerd but mostly because he is the perfect embodiment of the protector archetype and has basically no other traits. perhaps i only like him because i have a deep desire for a daddy to take me in.

anyway, it has decent animation, sound, intro, everything that doesn't require characters to speak is decent. and i'll ignore all the fetish/innuendos because that's just gross to even mention.

completely irreverential, insane, fueled to the max with the most deranged skits you could think of, and ultimately harmless. it might not be as insane as some anime out there but it does not use social stigmas to make fun of a group of people or minority, which is a 10/10 for me. you don't need to be harmful to others to be funny and asobi asobase is here to prove the case.

everything is brimming with personality, the characters, their expressions, the meta, even the ED is one of the most memorable songs in anime history. it's full wack and full love, there is just ... so much creativity and care given to this anime that i can only hope that the creators had fun making it and not just lost countless days and nights locked in the company building trying to get this done like most out there.

people mentioning the jokes and humor are forced forgot that this is the framework of this anime, it is not trying to be a slice-of-life with comedy, it is a comedy in the format of a slice-of-life, and the latter does not influence in the former.

mostly style over substance. the obsession over certain characters by the fandom and even the characters in chainsaw man is nothing but runaway looks done right. i guess i shouldn't be too critical about it because it is a shōnen after all, and by definition, they are not exactly about character exploration or exploring themes in a deep manner anyway.

i wish the relationship between denji and power was explored further instead of just settling around two goobers being goobers. makima had zero personality from beginning to end, denji didn't grow as a character, he just follows whatever trend was in front of him. the relationship ... between him and pochita was there just for the deus ex machina. most characters besides denji, makima and power were just temporary fillers to fill up space and time.

the only positive thing i can blurt out without an interjection is the overall art of the manga. it's nothing spectacular or unique but it's good from beginning to end. and it's where most of the appeal of chainsaw man is, and the fandom knows it because there are thousands of artwork out there.

perhaps one of the best continuing slice of life anime of the 20s so far. the character essemble is iconic, memorable and likable in a very absurdist way. well, the initial concept is already absurd enough so that makes sense.

'dragon s' is more of the same, but more of the same can mean different things in different contexts. the first season was throughly enjoyable with all its quirkness and great animation and kyoani somehow (after that awful incident) managed to keep the quality to the same level.

relationship between characters are further developed but not to the extent where stakes are ever high or foreboding, ... which could potentially be a problem in a third season if things remain the same and no real progression or development is given to individual characters and their relationships. we shall see if a third season gets announced.

hilarious how awful the script for this anime is. every episode got me chuckling during most of the exposition dialogues. anyhow, not gonna write long-format explanations to each of them, just gonna list some:

- not a single moment the AIs convinced me they are AIs. they all act like any badly-designed human character out there.
- the anime shows ZERO normal interactions between humans and AIs, just the ones that are going to have some impact on the narrative. and there is a terrorist group that wants to destroy all AIs because... humans and AIs can't coexist? and there is not a single moment where this ... is the case.
- we are supposed to believe an AI that can create thousands of different calculations and simulations came back to the past from decades ahead and it simply can't calculate the most basic way to stop an AI takeover? and why does it need to hibernate to WAIT for the events to happen instead of preventing them from ever happening?
- the songs are derivative as fuck.
- the whole 'what is the heart' thing is just cringe. HUMANS can't agree what emotions mean in an objective manner, why does it matter for an AI?
- matsumoto (the AI) is just annoying.
- satellites, when they are diverted from the earth's orbit to its atmosphere, burn up and disintegrate before they can ever reach the ground. and don't the AIs need the satellites to communicate and work properly?

just watch violet evergarden if you want something similar in structure but good.

similarly to 'wonder egg priority', the production value for this anime is huge. amazing op, great animation, sound is on point. and similarly to WEP, everything else is lacking. perhaps not as soulless, but still it is missing a lot of it.

for a creature that learns and grows from stimuli, fushi is awfully disinterested in its primordial programming. it has no real goal in mind or desire to explore its own existence. perhaps in future episodes they might explore this situation, but instead of exploring this theme of nihilism/disinterest, things just happen to fushi time and time again. all the characters that come in contact ... with fushi are just there to give context to what it means to be alive. of course this context is very human-centric and feels completely disconnected from nature, which has been part of fushi's character for much longer.

most of the characters that cross paths with fushi are one-dimensional, and some of them are straight up insufferable; but there are a few that stand out and makes this anime interesting and even emotional, which is where i'd recommend 'to your eternity' but in general these moments are just so few and far between that i'd rather recommend something else.

'to your eternity' finds itself in a very awkward mediocre position and hopefully the second season will have a better exploration of the characters and themes being presented.

also the jananda arc never happened.

a battle shounen anime through and through. there's not a single break from the action and plot progression, which kept surprising me since i would have expected at least a few episodes of character or setting exploration. for some, uninterrupted battles and power level progression will suffice and they are always exciting.

as for the rest of the show when battles are not the focus, it's just very basic. characters are not exactly one-dimensional, but they don't go too far into exploring any kind of social, personal or cultural aspects of a character's mind. most of the time yuu yuu hakusho tries really hard to redeem ... and make us care for most of the characters, even villains that took hundreds or thousands of lives or were set to destroy mankind. since the anime is not interested in exploring morality, for the most part i just rolled my eyes and ignored the situation. perhaps the only character that really developed and changed by the end of the anime was kuwabara.

people coming into this anime should expect surface-level battle shounen fun with decent characters and fun power leveling.

weebs you better chill. this is hardly something groundbreaking or genial as you'd think. it has a namedrop ffs.

overall the narrative is competent, but it doesn't have anything meaningful to say besides being a character exploration thriller/mystery/crime episodic experience. all characters (even odokawa somehow) are one-dimensional and do not grow or change throughout the first season. every single character stays the same from beginning to end. the whole situation is so fabricated that it feels completely inorganic and confusing to some extent. the entire kakihana arch is borderline unwatchable because it feels out-of-place and so unredeemable that i honestly would see benefits to the narrative ... in killing the character.

visually-wise, the characters being anthropomorphic animals did help a lot in contextualizing the plot but i have no idea why they thought it'd be a good idea to explain it in the last episode. it serves as a plot twist moment but it has literally no weight to the narrative (and the human characters look pretty bad). and oh boi the whole mystery behind doors in odokawa's place was one of the dumbest things i've seen in anime in years.

the first few episodes were interesting and i could see some of the praise in its novelty and plot, but similarly to wonder egg, it devolves so much the more you watch it (gladly not as bad as wonder egg). a decent 'meh' in my opinion, i don't really see the point in watching a second season, especially if the characters are now human.

aesthetically opulent in so many ways, one of the best looking anime out there and not just in visuals, the animation is also top-notch and i lost count of the amount of time i kept asking myself how much crunch the animators had to go through.

i'll jump straight to the couple last episodes: they tried to pull a madoka magica, a serial experiments lain, a persona and hell, even a k-on but they failed in all fronts. it's unbelievable how not only bad the plot becomes, but it also ends up borderline evil and sexist with its message about female frailty and inability to take ... care of themselves so they need two geniuses men to exploit their struggle and unhappiness so they can redeem themselves for... creating a murderous AI? i don't know.

there'll be a special in a couple of months but it's basically impossible the salvage how deep in the quicksand wonder egg priority put itself in with its awful and nonsensical plot development.

ALSO, people mentioning it's very respectful of trans people forgot the fact that a boy that was assigned as female at birth is in one of momoe's dream, which completely goes against the trans identity since the directors are basically saying "he is a girl, that's why he is in this dream, he just IDENTIFIES as a man but he is actually a girl!". fuck that. and momoe is also full of wrong characterization and queer baiting.