Posted on December 30, 2022January 2, 2023 in anime, Anime Orbit Weekly, Misc. Anime

Ranking Every 2022 Anime I Actually Finished from Worst to Best – Part 2

“Ranking Every Anime” is a yearly, multi-part column where I rank every single anime I finished from a given year, from the very worst to the absolute best. Expect spoilers for all anime covered.

You’ve met the bad, and you’ll meet the good starting tomorrow. Meet the ugly. The weird, the flawed, and the under-sung.

Let me give you a peek under the hood, friends. To break this list—the whole thing, I mean—up into manageable chunks, I conceptualized it, as, essentially, four broad categories. The first part of the list was those few shows from this year that I genuinely disliked. This chunk? A motley assortment of the flawed but interesting, the under-loved and underrated, and a handful of things I still more liked than didn’t but was too frustrated with to put higher on the list. (I try not to think too much about this kind of thing when writing these lists, but if there are any truly Controversial picks here, I’m betting two in particular from this chunk of the list will be them.)

Without further ado, let’s get to this particular collection of weirdos.

#30. Miss KUROITSU from the Monster Development Department

It’s janky, it’s obscure, and it occasionally cracks problematic jokes. Nonetheless, Miss KUROITSU From The Monster Development Department is the first entry on the entire list that I can truly say that I like without too much in the way of further qualifiers.

Now, being a doofy comedy anime based on the premise of following a scientist who works for the evil organization in your average toku show, Kuroitsu is also undeniably really niche, at least as far as Anglophone audiences are concerned. But what can I say? I started watching it on a whim and found a lot to love between the deep-cut toku references, the absurd character comedy, and from time to time, some actual no-shit feel-good moments, such as an episode where the titular mad scientist helps one of her creations, a zombie girl, become an idol in spite of the fact that she can’t initially sing (or even speak) at all. Between that and the cameo of a character who is pretty obviously Minky Momo, I can’t help but have a certain only slightly-begrudging affection for this show.

Now, the gags about Wolf Bete, a male wolf monster accidentally put in a cute anime girl body, maybe those I could do without. But, hey, no show is perfect. Next!

#29. My Dress-Up Darling

Ah, young love. It can be sweet to the point of cloying, it can be horny to the point of awkward. In that sense, maybe no anime so far this decade has yet captured the feeling so well as My Dress-Up Darling.

You can distinguish MDUD from the bottom of the barrel romcom by virtue of both of its leads having tangible personalities. Honestly, Gojo and Marin make a pretty sweet (and believable!) couple the vast majority of the time, and it’s easy to intuitively understand how their overlap in interests—making clothes for dolls on his end, cosplay on hers—would push them closer together. On top of that, MDUD has a real love of otaku culture; Dress-Up Darling is almost certainly the anime this year with the most fictional anime, manga, games, etc. within it, and we learn enough about Pretty Cure ersatz Flower Princess Blaze that I was able to wring an entire april fools’ article out of the subject.

So why isn’t it higher on the list? Well, let’s circle back around to that “horny to the point of awkward” point. The series is fairly salacious; I’ve gone back and forth over how much of a flaw I think this really is. One must after all remember that this show is aimed at teenage boys, and teenage boys deserve good anime, too! Still, I think the series’ sometimes overbearing fanservice crosses the line of good taste a bit too often and it unfortunately hurts the show more than it helps. Maybe the inevitable second season will tone that down a little bit? Eh, let’s not ask for miracles. Ultimately, MDUD is an otherwise good show that just needs to learn to keep it in its pants better. Or maybe I’m just a prude, who knows.

#28. TOKYO MEW MEW NEW

The cat came back! 2022 was a great year for anime all around, but I was personally saddened by the lack of much that fits the broad “battle girl” mold. There were a few magical girl anime, but not terribly many that fit the wider idea of the supergenre, with even most of this year’s mahou shoujo being decidedly less fighty than normal. In the broader battle girl field there was of course Lycoris Recoil, but if you weren’t super keen on that show, or just wanted something that involved fewer guns, what exactly did you have to fall back on if you wanted to see a troupe of girls in themed outfits kick some ass?

Well, Pretty Cure. But! If you wanted a second choice, Tokyo Mew Mew New wasn’t a bad one.

Mew Mew New is a pretty naked nostalgia play; it aired in an otaku time slot, so it wasn’t really trying to compete with Pretty Cure or any other kids’ anime. Instead, it aims to be a distilled and concentrated version of the original Tokyo Mew Mew anime. A somewhat breezier adaptation of the manga that the former is based on, perhaps. I can’t say how well it succeeds in that specific regard—being unfamiliar myself with both the original Tokyo Mew Mew anime and the manga source material—but I can say that it’s an enjoyable and, more than anything, just downright fun twelve episodes of classic magical girl silliness. It was beat in even that category this year, as we’ll get to, but that doesn’t make Mew Mew’s attempt not worthwhile.

Speaking of which; of all the anime on this list that have gotten second season announcements, this is probably the one that surprised me most of all. But hey, I’m going to tune in, will you?

#27. Spy x Family

Once upon a Cold War, there lived a man named Twilight who, to fulfill a mission, found himself with a “fake” family consisting of an adopted daughter and a hastily fake-married wife. I think time and the show’s popularity have obscured just how weird Spy x Family’s premise is, but it’s worth bringing up because that strangeness is what makes the show worth following. When SpyFam dials things down into normal “shonen comedy” territory, you get bores like the episode of part two that is entirely about how bad Yor (the wife, if you somehow don’t know) is at cooking. When it remembers that it takes place in what is effectively East Germany during the Cold War, the show suddenly springs to life.

I’ll be honest, I debated long and hard where, precisely, to stick Spy x Family on this list. Because in its best moments it can be ridiculously funny—and it’s not just a parade of strong Anya Reaction Faces that’s making me say that—and even surprisingly heartfelt, but enough of it drags that I don’t really feel comfortable putting it particularly high up, either. I’ve written more about SpyFam than most anime on this list, and yet, I am still thoroughly undecided as to what I actually think of it “on the whole.” Ultimately, though, what I think doesn’t really matter here, SpyFam is easily the most commercially successful new face on this list, with its first season (broken up into two non-consecutive cours. Confusing, I know) raking in a truly rare amount of viewership not just among otaku but among the general public, probably owing to its fairly accessible nature. (There’s not a ton of “anime bullshit” in Spy x Family if that’s something you care about.) With a second proper season and a theatrical film on the way, Spy x Family will probably return for next year’s list. Maybe by then I’ll have a better idea of what the show means to me.

#26. Shinobi no Ittoki

Here’s a hypothetical for you; can you call something “okay” and mean it as a compliment?

No, I’m serious. Shinobi no Ittoki feels like a self-conscious throwback to an older kind of action anime, where The Sakuga™ was not necessarily guaranteed and was more of an intermittent thing when it did show up, where the character designs were mostly interchangeable, and the entire thing was entertaining but not really about much of anything beyond maybe some nebulous spins on big ideas like determinism vs. free will and cycles of violence. The series’ unflashy charm has all but guaranteed that it hasn’t and won’t ever develop a large fanbase (although, I should be careful about saying that ever since The Detective is Already Dead had its second season announced. Maybe you never really know.), but I’d argue it doesn’t really need one. Stuff like this is almost meant to fly under the radar, there was no way that this was going to pick up some huge following in the season that featured both Chainsaw Man and the return of Bleach, but that it has any fans at all is no mean feat, given the circumstances.

As for why it feels like a show out of time, I have a pet theory; a running theme in 2022’s anime was the knowingly retro. Miss KUROITSU is arguably an example as well, and we’ll run into a few more throughout this list. Of these, Shinobi no Ittoki might just be the one that realizes those mid-00s ambitions the most fully. Surprising, for an anime most people probably wrote off from its key visual alone.

Why does it nail that aughts-core authenticity? Well, in of itself, it’s hard to pinpoint anything “special” about Shinobi no Ittoki, but that very semi-anonymity is exactly what makes the show tick, a curious case of something being obviously nondescript but nailing the fundamentals so well that it manages to breathe a bit of new life into some pretty old tropes. The doofy high school protagonist who’s ripped from his ordinary life and inherits a secret legacy, ridiculous gee-wiz techno ninja gadgets, the scheming and sinister Tsuda-voiced villain, the death of the village chief, the final suicide mission, the all-in finale with excellent animation, it’s all here.

For bonus points: The blonde twintail traitor Kirei serves as an outside pick for one of Aoi Yuuki’s stronger—and weirder, dig that scratchy, nervous timbre—roles, if you’re into that sort of thing.

#25. The Demon Girl Next Door Season 2

Returning from way back in 2019, the anime more commonly known as Machikado Mazoku is the other other other magical girl anime on this year’s list. Although you could be forgiven for not really thinking of it that way, given that The Demon Girl Next Door focuses more on charming character-driven antics and general goofiness than it does fighting the forces of evil. (That’s really all in the rearview for co-protagonist Momo anyway. She’s retired.)

To be honest, in terms of “objective” merits and flaws, this is one of the rougher shows on the list. Machikado Mazoku’s second season has a real problem with overdrive pacing; some of the gags aren’t given quite enough room to breathe and it does hurt the show a bit by suffocating some of the more subtle character work. On the other hand, though, when it remembers to slow down there’s a real sense of approachable personality here, one that holds through equally well when the show delves a bit more into its proper plot with elements like journeys into lead Shamiko’s troubled mindscape as when it’s in more lighthearted pure-antics territory, as when she gets a job at a restaurant owned by a baku.

Machikado Mazoku will probably never top popularity polls, but managing to stick the landing on a second season several years later proves that it’s maintained its dedicated fanbase for a reason.

#24. Lycoris Recoil

Oh, LycoReco, what are we ever going to do with you? With the hype cycle some months in the rearview this feels like less of a #HotTake than it did at the time, but to me, what Lycoris Recoil is, before it is anything else, is an illustration of the difference between having good characters and telling a good story.

Here’s what it does get right. An extremely strong cast; not just Chisato and Takina, whose uneasy partnership blossoms into what anyone with eyes will be damn ready to call romance by the end of the show, but also Chisato’s father Mika, Mika’s villainous ex Yoshi, the playful hacker Kurumi, etc. They all feel like real people, and it’s a joy to watch them work through the winding tunnels of espionage that comprise the show’s plot. LycoReco does intuitively understand that a connection between two people, if it’s strong enough, can get anyone through even very dark times. This is a theme that showed up in several anime this year, including a few we’ve yet to get to, and it’s a strong core for something like this to have.

But, the same can’t be said of everything about LycoReco, which is why it’s not higher on this list. Too many of the actual plot points simply don’t survive any scrutiny, and I remain offput by the assumptions the show’s world is built on. Fiction that stars what are essentially cops develops more and more problems the closer it gets to reality. Lycoris Recoil’s galaxy brain spin of “it’s bad that cops shoot people but it would be fine if they used rubber bullets like the protagonist” is so utterly ridiculous that it’s not worth seriously engaging with, despite being a spin on a real thing some people think. The series’ commitment to exploring the idea is so minimal and half-assed that it scans as simply brainless rather than an active defense of the concept. But it is still pretty bad, and the show suffers for it.

Because of all this; how much of LycoReco’s downsides someone is going to be willing to forgive because of how charming the characters as written actually are, not to mention the show’s rock solid action anime fundamentals, is going to vary wildly. Especially because how good the show is at a given moment tends to be tied pretty directly to how much it’s focusing on its characters vs. how much it’s focusing on its boneheaded central narrative. I feel like an indecisive centrist putting LycoReco in this spot, of all places on the list, but as summer changes to autumn and autumn to winter, and LycoReco moves further and further into the past, I find myself totally torn between appreciating LycoReco for what it is and being disappointed in what it isn’t. There are worse ways to end your series than a sunny sky and crystal blue waters, so I can’t dislike the show and indeed, I don’t. The “retired in Hawai’i” ending doesn’t even entirely feel unearned. Even so, it still feels like something is fundamentally missing. So, when you get down to it, do I actually like-o ‘Reco? Well, at the end of the day, yes, but with a fucking lot of caveats. Hence its appearance here rather than a fair bit farther up. There’s only so many ways I can say that I love the characters but am not crazy about how they’re handled. It is what it is.

(And if you’re a super-fan and it makes you feel any better, this is another case where maybe you shouldn’t care what I specifically think. The show did just top a popularity poll over in Japan.)

#23. Fuuto PI

Every year, I watch a few shows that are solidly quite good, but have a few central flaws, or even just don’t hit quite enough high notes to make it into my personal best-of’s. 2022 was a damn good year for anime, so even the stuff that is merely decent, is, in a vacuum pretty good. Fuuto P.I. is one of those, combining a novel premise (transforming hero shenanigans + a somewhat silly pastiche of ‘gritty detective’-type stuff) with an impressive pedigree (it’s a sequel to 2009’s Kamen Rider W, which, full disclosure, I haven’t seen), and an unusual production team from Studio KAI, who are not really known for punchy action anime like this.

Upgrading to an older audience (remember; W is over a decade old. All those 8 and 9 year olds who watched it when it was new are adults by now) means that Fuuto P.I. acquires a bit of a sleazy streak, and while this feels like a flaw I should be nailing the series for, I found it hard to be seriously upset by the show’s more openly leery tendencies. Mostly because of the fact that it has a shameless amount of camp that really makes the jump from live-action tokusatsu to an adult-aimed action anime feel totally natural.

Because of where it lands in terms of character building, our heroes—Shotaro and Phillip—have already had their long journey wherein they learned to trust each other long ago. Here, they’re just two cogs in a well-oiled machine, with newcomer Tokime, the female lead and the focus of much of the fanservice, providing a twist on what is presumably the old formula. The result? A solid six hours of lightly trashy fun, combining action anime flash, the particular campy sensibility that only toku can deliver, and a few interesting, meatier points to chew on by its conclusion. And hey, the ending strongly suggests more on the way in the future. (Which makes sense, given that it’s an adaptation of an ongoing manga.) I’d watch it.

#22. The Executioner and Her Way of Life

The year is 2022, and isekai has reached a point of true saturation. Every single season, we are inundated with new tales of featureless potato-boys being whisked away to generic JRPG-style fantasy worlds and given heaps upon heaps of special powers which they use to fulfill idle fantasies of banging as many dubiously-drawn Hot Anime Women ™ as they can find while lazily hacking up goblins. The Executioner & Her Way of Life sees all of this, and it is not impressed. But to avoid going too far down the path of “this anime isn’t like other girls,” it should be noted that the main reason that Executioner is, shockingly good, is what it does with the basic conceit of an isekai in the first place. It doesn’t stand out because it rejects the premise, it stands out because it does something interesting with it.

To wit; our protagonist is not the otherworlder—isekaijin, as said in the show, which I don’t think is a term unique to Executioner but is one I am very fond of—Akari, who serves as more of a secondary lead. Instead, it’s Menou, an assassin employed by the local church whose whole job is finding these crazy-powerful elseworld drop-ins and killing them before they can cause too many problems. There’s just one issue; Akari is way more powerful than even she realizes, and Menou quickly develops a hard-to-place liking for the girl. I won’t spoil too much, but suffice it to say that what’s going on here is a lot more interesting than the stereotypical “guy gets a huge harem and looks at stat screens” plots that litter this format. (In fact, there isn’t a single stat screen at all, so far as I can recall, which is kind of amazing in its own right at this point.)

What this boils down to is that Executioner’s main strength lies in its ability to pull its parent genre apart into its constituent building blocks and then reassemble them into an intriguing new shape. Not just in its core narrative but also interesting worldbuilding details that show us just how the isekaijin have shaped Menou’s world. (Note, for instance, that literally everyone seems to speak only one language; Japanese. And yes, that detail is intentional. It’s pointed out explicitly at one point.)

It was not the only surprisingly good isekai anime this year (aside from another which will appear farther up on this list, there’s Reincarnated as a Sword, which apparently got quite good only a few episodes after I wrote it off. You can take my mentioning it here as an apology), but it was the only true anti-isekai this year. A story stitched together from the ripped-up shreds of a genre that many people, myself included, are very tired of by now. The show isn’t perfect, of course. Its flaws are few but fairly obvious; it ends in a noncommittal “go read the books, stupid” kind of shrug, it’s maybe occasionally a bit too edgy for its own good. That kind of thing. Still, all in all, in a year that had fewer “lesbians kicking ass” anime than I might have liked, you really do have to hand it to Executioner for holding it down.

#21. Delicious Party♡Precure

Ah, here it is. The exception, the thing I carved out a specific little niche of its own for. Delicious Party Precure—DePaPre, for short—isn’t actually finished airing, which on its own, makes scoring it a different, and much more difficult, prospect than ranking anything else here.

Yet, the fact remains that I really just utterly fucking love Pretty Cure. Delicious Party feels like it’s already being written off as a “weaker” season of the series before it even ends, and while that might be true in some grand rank-your-faves sense, it’s awfully rude to the show itself, which has maintained an effortless charm from its premiere up to present while dodging production issues and the deeply unfortunate Toei database breach earlier this year.

Certainly, that resilience shows itself off better in some corners than others. Amane, alias Cure Finale, is almost inarguably the character who’s most developed. Seeing her face turn is one thing, but the real meat is in how she copes with feeling like she isn’t quite a good enough person to be a Pretty Cure. Even that aside; there are all sorts of fun little details that only an anime afforded a full four cours—rare in this day and age—could indulge in. The gentle light that is the grandmother of Yui, the lead Cure, the quiet-girl introspection that Kokone is prone to, the zany antics of Ran (who, as Cure Yum-Yum, might hold the record for the silliest Pretty Cure alias), and even the ever-present B-plot about Mary, the girls’ mentor figure, and his disappeared former partner. This thing’s even got a time travel episode. Really, can you complain when even a “weak” Pretty Cure season is this good? I certainly can’t.

#20. The Ranking of Kings

You may be a touch surprised to see this here! Ranking of Kings (Ousama Ranking at home in Japan) started airing late last year, but only finished up back in the ‘22 winter season. The entire way, it forged a strong visual identity that looks like absolutely nothing else that aired this year and spun that visual charm into a fully realized fairytale world of princes, knights, and monsters.

Our heroes? Bojji the little mute prince and his roguish blob of a best friend, Kage. Together they set out on a truly classic adventurous tale, the kind that makes you wish that this sort of thing got such lavish treatment more often. Really, it’’s one of Wit Studio’s best-ever anime from a purely visual standpoint, with enough characterful sakuga to bring a smile to even the most cynical animation enthusiast’s face.

Ranking of Kings’ ending sees Bojji spurn his original goal, only to set out on a brand-new adventure, so it seems likely that we’ll return to this fairytale someday in the not-too-distant future. (A spinoff is definitively in the works. I wouldn’t be shocked to see a second season greenlit.) Like many anime on this list, I’d happily watch that second season, and I doubt I’m alone.

#19. TEPPEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Laughing ’til You Cry

Comedy anime get no respect. Whether classics like Nichijou or Azumanga Daioh or modern offerings like TEPPEN!!!!! here, pure comedy anime just never seem to quite pick up the followings that their more dramatic compatriots do over here in the Anglosphere. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that comedy is fairly cultural. Maybe people just don’t respect the power of a hearty chuckle enough. Whatever the reason; TEPPEN!!!! Deserves more credit than what little it got. If absolutely nothing else, it’s the only anime on this list whose air schedule was directly impacted by the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. That’s weird and notable enough to stand out all on its own; it helps that the show’s pretty good, too, featuring bizarre, absurdist shaggy dog tales concocted around everything from haunted inns to Bitcoin schemes.

At the end of the day that is why Teppen is higher on this list than a number of things I have “more to say about.” It was just fucking fun! Deriving a wide variety of zany slapstick from its central conceit of a group of teams competing to be the best comedy group in Japan (the titular Teppen competition) is in some ways the obvious route, but it worked for Teppen, and I can really only dock points for a couple off-color jokes I didn’t really like. Two sets of bonus points for you: along the way it found the time to squeeze in probably the year’s single best time travel-related episode (its fifth) and engineered an insanely catchy rapped OP theme. Put some respect on its name.

#18. Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Final Season -Dawn of a Shallow Dream-

I have to confess; I develop a not-entirely-logical attachment to anything I cover for long enough. I have written about Magia Record in various places a number of times since it originally premiered back in 2020. It is, as of this entry, the only anime that’s showed up here, on my 2020 year-end list, and on my truncated top 5 last year. There is an admirable strength to that persistence, even as I have to admit that what MagiReco tried to do as it closed out its final season, Dawn of a Shallow Dream, is a pretty niche thing. I’m actually not sure between this and RWBY: Ice Queendom, which was the more-watched SHAFT battle girl show of the year. This was certainly the better of the two, but anecdotally, I saw almost no discussion about it at all. Have people really written the Madoka Magica extended universe off that hard?

If so, that’s sad, but all too apropos. This particular corner of the dark magical girl subgenre pulls off an interesting trick of thriving best when ignored, and Magia Record itself ends with the white-gloved hand of Madokami herself shutting the book tightly on this particular story, as its protagonists lament that no one will ever know what they did here. Will it even remotely shock you, coming from a woman who’s eagerly defended both Day Break Illusion and Blue Reflection Ray, that I thought this was pretty good? It’s not just the metatextual angle, but that does help.

Now that’s not to say it’s a perfect finale, not by any means. For one thing, it’s really more of a movie, with any notion of it being a “season” being put to a serious test by the fact that it dropped all at once. (Not that this is inherently a problem, but it does suggest some behind-the-scenes issues.) For another, it is visually all over the place. It never gets as unsightly as the ugliest parts of Ice Queendom, but there is some pretty wonky character art in spots, here. But, by contrast, there’s also a lot that’s really lovely to look at, and in general the ‘season’ has a mesmerizingly surreal look to it that, in its best moments, does ably recall the heights of The Rebellion Story, still the strongest single articulation of Madoka’s core themes and aesthetic concerns. I am also still a little sad that they felt the need to kill b-character Kuroe, who took an unexpected leap from being totally off my personal radar to one of my favorites in the second season last year.

Still, despite its shortcomings, I find it hard to argue that this isn’t a solid end to an intriguingly strange alternate take on the Madoka story. I’m glad we got to take this particular ride.

And that’s all for today’s chunk of the list. See y’all tomorrow.

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Posted on December 29, 2022December 30, 2022 in anime, Anime Orbit Weekly, Misc. Anime

Ranking Every 2022 Anime I Actually Finished from Worst to Best – Intro & Part 1

Here we are again, anime fans. Every year, it’s seemed more and more surreal that I actually made it to the end of the year and kept up anime blogging. For sure, I’ve had my ups and downs this year—honestly probably more of the latter, for the first time since I began writing here on MPA—but I’ve kept at it, and y’all have stuck with me. I truly, deeply, from the bottom of my heart, appreciate that. You guys mean the world to me.

In past years, I’ve often let this introductory portion of the list run a little long. Instead, this year I’m just gonna run down the basics for you. This list, released in parts over the next couple days, will be of every anime from this year that I, personally, actually completed, ranked from worst to best. (That’s a little over 30 of them, if you were wondering. Not that much in the grand scheme of things!) The criteria for inclusion is a bit fuzzy, but for the most part, to get on this list, I have to have seen the series, and it has to be a TV anime. But, I allow myself some wiggle room, so you’ll see one or two things that were OVAs or ONAs and one that hasn’t actually finished airing yet! Two notable exclusions I want to bring up are Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury and Summertime Render. The former not being here is a simple case of its first cour not yet being finished. The latter is absent because the show is still not legally available in the US, where most of my readers reside, and I’d rather not open that particular can of worms at the moment. (I do highly recommend both, just for reference.) Also; the amount of entries in each part of the list is not going to be consistent. Roughly, it’s probably going to break down into the bottom five (this column right here), a column of shows I thought were “okay” to “pretty solid” (tomorrow’s column), a column of shows I thought were good to great (Saturday’s column), and finally, the top five on Sunday. Some I will have only a paragraph or two to say about, some I will have quite a bit more to say about. Hopefully you’re excited.

Finally, before we jump into the list itself, I do want to make a small plea, here. I don’t usually directly ask for financial assistance in the actual bodies of my articles, but writing the year-end list is extremely labor-intensive compared to essentially any other article on my site. If you can spare the money, and if you think what I do here is worth it, you can support me here on Ko-Fi or here on Patreon. Every little bit helps, and to those of you who have supported me at any point in the past, you again have my deepest gratitude. I really cannot articulate how much that means to me.

Anyway! Enough of the mushy stuff. You guys are reading this part of the column for one reason and one reason only, right? To read about this year’s few true washouts, the worst of the worst. To tell the truth, most anime this year were pretty good! 2022 overall stands as probably my favorite year for anime since 2018, which is a hard fucking bar to clear. Nonetheless, there were a couple real stinkers. Some of these are going to be obvious, a few might be controversial. We’ll save the good and the ugly for another day; let’s meet the bad.

#35. LOVE FLOPS

Where to even start? LOVE FLOPS, the year’s worst anime—at least, the worst I actually saw end to end—is an endlessly self-impressed, completely clueless piece of derivative junk with no greater point, no aesthetic value, and of real importance to absolutely no one. It is horny without being the least bit sensuous, and pompous without the slightest bit of genuine intellectualism. A cobbled-together kludge of tropes from all over Japanese pop culture: other anime, video games, visual novels, and manga. It’s impossible to call Love Flops disappointing; no one had any expectations for it in the first place. But somehow, it still feels like a huge letdown. Perhaps just in that it manages to be the most tedious and annoying harem anime in a year that also included World’s End Harem, which was also a stupid and self-serious piece of garbage, but at least had a half-assed titillation factor going for it.

The line of defense for LOVE FLOPS as some kind of secret masterpiece is obvious; it pulls a classic trick of spending its first half foreshadowing a twist at its halfway point. People like this kind of thing; it makes them feel clever, and there is a real element of surprise. But what LOVE FLOPS neglects to understand is that the series must be compelling both before and after the twist, and LOVE FLOPS is neither. It is not compelling during its absolutely rancid first episode, which features a parade of harem cliches run through with a cocaine-snorting speed as well as two separate instances of a character being sexually assaulted by a dog. It is not compelling during its bizarre reverse-transphobia episode; it is not compelling when listlessly parodying some ancient idea of the magical girl genre and giving its token mascot character anal beads while doing so. It is, most damning of all, not compelling after its pretentiously built-up big twist; that the entire preceding series has been a simulation, after which the series simply switches to plagiarizing innumerable sci-fi works instead of a mountain of other ecchi anime.

This, too, has been done elsewhere, far better. Listen, I am a colossal sap, it’s not hard to get me to care about characters given twelve weeks to get to know them. This show’s (admittedly not terrible!) final episode made me feel nothing, it is a total emotional black hole. Like The Day I Became a God, which bottomed out the list the last time I did one of these back in 2020, it’s not that there are no good parts to LOVE FLOPS, and in fact it has frustratingly solid production values for something this utterly empty, it’s that those that exist make the bad parts—which vastly outnumber them—seem even worse by comparison. Bringing up The Day I Became A God is appropriate for another reason, because it is damningly clear by its end that LOVE FLOPS, in addition to being a terrible ecchi anime, also desperately wants to be a Jun Maeda show. And if Jun Maeda can’t even do Jun Maeda’s particular style right anymore, what hope did this ever have?

There is nothing of value here, and more than anything else I actually finished this year, I actively regret my time spent watching LOVE FLOPS. Let me be a cautionary tale; do not watch this. Neither you nor anyone else needs to.

#34. RWBY: Ice Queendom

There are a lot of tacks one could take in criticizing RWBY: Ice Queendom. It relies strongly on you having a prior investment in its parent franchise despite being billed as a reboot, but to be honest, that isn’t really one of them. Instead, it’s much easier to cite the slapdash production—some cuts look great, others look terrible, but in both cases it’s obvious no one is really steering the ship, because there is no visual coherence whatsoever—or the bizarre pacing, which somehow makes a single 12-episode cour feel like an eternity, or the strange decision to end the show on a lavishly-animated foodfight that is better both visually and narratively than the entire preceding 11 ½ episodes.

But really, you already know what the real problem with Ice Queendom is if you’re reading this. Yes, the tired, awful, no-good Furry Racism Angle, which Ice Queendom shamelessly resurrects and spends an ungodly amount of time focused on. Ice Quendom’s world features the Faunus, kemonomimi people, who are the repeated target of naked bigotry by several members of the cast, mostly secondary protagonist Weiss Schnee, and a truly stunning amount of Queendom‘s narrative resources are spent futilely trying to make this seem like a grey and grey moral situation, instead of a people being badly oppressed for their physical differences. Everything else takes a backseat to this, including basics like character development and plotting. For some reason, an inexcusably vast majority of Ice Queendom is fixated on the empty metaphor of humans vs. the Faunus, and it completely kneecaps the series. What separates Ice Queendom from LOVE FLOPS is the very thing that makes this series in some ways the worse of the two; it had potential! If it were more focused on the fundamentals and less on trying to wring some life out of one of the most overdone and undercooked stock metaphors in fantasy fiction, it might have been a good, or at least decent anime, but it doesn’t, so it’s not.

This is another one where it’s less a lack of anything good and more the presence of its very serious flaws that brings the series down. You can watch episode 4 and see what this show could’ve been if it had more focus on anything other than the oh-so important plot of Weiss working through her racist upbringing, and then you can weep, because it never gets back there. For the most part, it does not even try.

Even elements that ought to be interesting, like the surreal dream world that much of the show takes place in, are generally wrung dry of any real fun or intrigue by the fact that this show is so focused on trying to make you feel bad for Weiss that it forgets to do almost anything else. It is bizarre, it is offputting, and it is only through the fact that LOVE FLOPS basically doesn’t work on any level as a visual-narrative project that this is not on the bottom of the list. To be honest, I was tempted to put it there anyway just because I have gotten so thoroughly sick of writing about this show. Still; it at least is a show in its own right, and tells a coherent (if very bad) story from start to finish, which is more than can be said for LOVE FLOPS. So, second from the bottom it is.

#33. Sabikui Bisco

Let’s be honest, here. I covered this thing week to week and even I barely remember it aired. I can’t imagine how anyone else feels about this particular action anime washout.

The story of Sabikui Bisco is one of potential unrealized. Solid foundational points like an interesting setting, creative character designs, and an opportunity to put forward some legit social commentary are all squandered on a show that slowly and methodically weathers away its initially strong characterization and story over the course of its run. The animation and general visuals follow not long behind.

If you were to binge-watch Sabikui Bisco in a single day you could see the series degrade in real time like a fading photo, until nothing is left but a vague, shapeless gray spot. This fact ended up presaging what one of the two studios behind this thing, NAZ, turned in for the adaption of The Lucifer & Biscuit Hammer, which, if I had actually finished it, would probably beat out even the dregs we’ve already seen to bottom out this list. Maybe, for the fans that Sabikui Bisco, the manga, must surely have, this anime is as bad as that one. For me, it’s mostly just a footnote. While it aired, I went back and forth a number of times between whether I thought Bisco was mostly a good show with some flaws or mostly a bad one with occasional bright spots. With its ranking here, you can see where I eventually landed.

#32. Love Live! Superstar!! Season 2

There is no reason this should be as much of a nothing as it was. What happened here? The first season of Love Live! Superstar!!, from just last year, was not the blow-off-the-doors affair of a certain other Love Live anime from the year before that, but it was still decent. It had some warmth to it, some color, some liveliness.

Let this be an illustration, then, of how fragile “decent” truly is. Superstar’s second season is not the worst anime of the year, certainly, but it’s probably the most disappointing for me personally. A series of absolutely baffling writing decisions—doubling the size of the cast, shoving the first season Superstars mostly out of focus for large chunks of the second, having the admittedly-cool antagonist character show up in a total of four episodes across a 12-episode series—completely sink the second season of Superstar as anything more than a curiosity. Yes, it still looks pretty nice in spots, yes, the concert visuals remain appealing, and yes there are one or two solid episodes. None of this changes that a good 3/4ths of this thing is a gigantic letdown. More than anything else, it is simply boring. None of the new characters ever rise above mildly amusing, and their meager story is not an adequate replacement for, nor an interesting addition to, that of the original Liella crew, which this season has a bizarre obsession with sidelining wherever possible. There is really just no merit to this thing for anyone who doesn’t have a truly crippling idol anime addiction.

But that’s the real nail in the coffin. If it’s underwhelming on its own terms, Superstar’s second season is an absolute embarrassment in context, being totally knocked out the ring in simple quality; in visual pop, story-arc writing, and character development by not only its own sibling, the second season of Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, but by a totally unknown, very different idol anime that aired in Superstar‘s own season. Spoiler alert; that show will place much higher on this list than Superstar does.

#31. Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie

Rounding out the firmly not-good part of the list is this piece of romcom cotton. In a year that had Kaguya-sama, Call of The Night, even My Dress-Up Darling, there really just isn’t a place for a romance anime that had this little going on. Crucially though, Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie, unlike the last few entries, is not an actively bad show. I can actually imagine why someone would like it, which is more than I can say of Bisco or Ice Queendom or fucking LOVE FLOPS, but it truly is just a very standard piece of genre fare in a genre that had plenty of better options to pick from this year. Its weak central gimmick—that the titular Shikimori is, in some sense, “cool” (read: very nebulously kinda-sorta masculine. Sometimes.)—is not enough to push it past being, at best, a curiosity.

But I do have to give Shikimori some due respect on the basis of its visuals. Shikimori’s fairly nondescript story is still brought to glowing, gentle, pastel life by studio Doga Kobo, and it manages to accrue a handful of standout episodes that are much better than the show on the whole. (The best of these focuses on main character Izumi’s unknown other crush, Kamiya, a character whose elemental melancholy adds a touch of the truly human to a show that otherwise largely lacks that.)

I give Shikimori a little extra credit for another reason, too. This specific team at Doga Kobo is also the one who will do an anime that I am really looking forward to next year. And that story, set to premiere with an astonishing triple-length first episode a few months from now, seems like something far more deserving of their talents than the fairly anonymous stuff here. Shikimori itself is so-so, but in a very literal sense, it is a sign of good things to come.

And that’s the very bottom of the list.

To be honest, I always feel a little bad writing criticism this negative, even though people seem to enjoy reading it for one reason or another. If you’re in the camp who prefers more positive anime criticism—and if you are, don’t worry, I’m right there with you—then you have quite a bit to look forward to starting tomorrow. Even the least of the anime from this point on are a lot better than what we just discussed. (And to be honest, LOVE FLOPS and Ice Queendom are so rancid that I felt bad putting the other three anime down here with them. It just feels cruel, you know?) But I pride myself on critical honesty, and I did honestly dislike all of these shows. Hopefully you’ll appreciate the more positive stuff going forward, too.

Posted on December 27, 2022December 27, 2022 in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 12 – “Katana vs. Chainsaw” (SEASON FINALE)

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

Twelve weeks of blood on chainsaws, and here we are.

A lot has been said—and a lot more will be said, both here and elsewhere—about Chainsaw Man, inarguably the year’s finest action anime, and among its best character pieces as well. But for one last time, at least until season two, let’s dial in and focus on this week’s episode specifically.

For the most part, this is our climactic fight. If we place Chainsaw Man in the grand anime tradition, it’s the end of this arc. Here, Denji and Katana Man—aka Samurai Sword—square off. It will not shock you to learn that Denji is of course the one who triumphs, his first major rival defeated soundly. With bells on, even.

But, this is Chainsaw Man. There is a lot more going on here than just a huge, flashy fight. Even if the huge flashy fight is a big part of the appeal and is a core component of what makes this episode so good.

For one thing, we open back with Aki, strangled into unconsciousness by the apparently turncoat Ghost Devil. He has, yet again, more flashbacks of Himeno, soundtracked to a quiet, lo-fi piano and drum piece as Himeno offers the then-a-minor Aki a cigarette, manages to talk him into taking it despite his initial reluctance, and then backtracks when he reminds her that he’s underage. (Say what you will about Himeno, she certainly had….some kind of moral fiber.) But when he comes to, things are different. The Ghost Devil looms over him, unmoving, and before Sawatari can really even process what’s happening, the Ghost Devil hands Aki a cigarette. On it is written perhaps the most iconic thing to be penciled on a cig in an anime since “Never Knows Best.”

Aki releases the Ghost Devil from its pseudo-contract with Sawatari, and the woman herself doesn’t last much longer.

This entire opening scene—and really, the whole episode—also drives home a point I’ve been trying to articulate about the Chainsaw Man anime in general. Visuals like these put the lie to there being any merit to all of those “anime vs. the manga” comparisons. An anime is designed to look best in motion, it will always lose that particular contest, because it’s not trying to look good in stills. One of the things that consistently makes the Chainsaw Man anime so great is that it is in no way redundant with the manga. You can read that, and watch this, and get two experiences that are, visually, very distinct!

Which brings me to the next major sequence, and, really, the climax of the entire first season. Chainsaw Man vs. Katana Man. Following a dryly amusing bit where Katana Man tries to get Denji to just kill himself over the immense guilt he’s sure that Denji feels for killing a bunch of yakuza who’d turned into zombies, the battle proper begins, and it is a sight. Normally, I try to be at least broadly poetic when describing this kind of all-feel fight scene, but to be honest, what do you want me to say here? The idea that someone could watch this and not think it’s the coolest shit ever is completely foreign to me. And hey, Denji and Katana’s banter is pretty good throughout, too.

And of course there’s the highest note of all. When the battle moves from office to mid-sky to train, Katana Man briefly seems to have the upper hand when he’s literally disarmed Denji by cutting his arms off. That doesn’t actually matter, of course. Denji is smart enough to use his head to finish the job.

And that, friends, is how Katana Man goes from giving Denji a fair fight to being bisected from scalp to backside. The man is turned into a one-color impressionist painting, it’s really quite impressive.

But of course, he’s not actually dead. We get explicit confirmation that Katana Man is, indeed, the same sort of Devil-Human hybrid as Denji, and the Katana Devil’s replaced his heart. This leads us to a scene that would absolutely not work in most other fiction; Denji deciding to torture the tied-up Katana Man by repeatedly kicking him in the nuts. Moreover, doing so with Aki’s help, as the two compete to see who can make him scream the loudest. Somehow, this works as a genuine moment of bonding; Denji’s goofy personality rubbing off just the tiniest bit on Aki, who is serious enough that even right up until he joins in, he tries to convince himself (and Denji) that Himeno wouldn’t want them to do this. (To which my only response is, come on, man.)

So yes. That is how the first season of Chainsaw Man ends, with an act of joint petty revenge, with a metallic ding every time they kick him, and with a slow motion effect that turns the entire scene from mild amusement into genuine hilarity.

Except, of course, it doesn’t really end there. There is more going on. A lot more! There’s Makima reporting to her shadowy superiors, where we get the bombshell that Public Safety has gotten enough Gun Devil flesh from the raid on the building that it’s started to move toward the main body. There’s the credits scene, wholly original to the anime, that consists mostly of Denji, Power, and Aki having a fairly quiet evening at home. There’s Aki finally smoking the “Easy revenge!” cigarette, and, in the closing minutes of the episode, there is a brief, fleeting cameo from a character we haven’t met yet.

But we’ll get to all of that, because I really, really doubt that Chainsaw Man as an anime ends here. It’s just getting started.

Bonus Power Screencap: Here’s a picture of Power drinking out of a water fountain, because I know some of you are thirsty like that.

A brief programming note: This is my last weekly recap of the season, of course. But it might also be my last for a while in general. I don’t currently plan to do a Let’s Watch column for the upcoming anime season, I simply have too much else to work on, both in terms of material for this site and in terms of real-life stuff that needs doing.

If things change, I will let you all know. Until then, anime fans.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

Posted on December 26, 2022December 26, 2022 in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY Episode 25 – “First Contact” (SEASON FINALE)

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

Spy x Family is, first and foremost, a slice of life series. Its focus is on comedy and on character interactions. Anything more serious is a secondary concern, at the end of the day. But! The fact that it does have a plot at all still puts it in a rather different space narratively than, say, something like Do It Yourself!! or BOCCHI THE ROCK!, to provide two examples from this very season. Things eventually circle back around to that narrative core. That’s where episodes like “First Contact” come from; they are quiet, slow, and subtle affairs, but they’re not boring. Indeed, the entire second half of this episode is ridiculously tense. Moreso than any scene since the bit with the bomb dogs back in the earlier parts of this cour. Through it all, Spy x Family makes things look effortless, not unlike Loid himself.

Speaking of Loid, he’s mostly the main character in this episode, which we get a demonstration of right off the bat in a scene where he’s snooping around Eden Academy’s school grounds just prior to a staff-and-parents meetup and creates a mental map of them in his head (complete with a cool wireframe effect.) But the first half actually focuses on Anya, who we should take note of as well.

It feels safe to say that Anya, with her bottomless well of silly reaction faces, general adorability, and strong design, is Spy x Family‘s most popular character by a decent margin. There’s also her charming dynamic with Damian, whose ongoing inner struggles to win the approval of his father have remained one of this cour’s more compelling subplots. It’s brought to the forefront here, and Anya, perhaps surprisingly, helps with that, scheming as she does to help her father by “meeting the evil boss” (recall that this’d be Damian’s father Donovan, Loid’s target). This launches a miniature web of half-misunderstandings and concealments, a spin on the classic “stupid people keeping obvious secrets from each other” school of comedic setups.

To wit; Anya’s great ploy to give Damian the confidence to confront his father directly is to proudly proclaim that she trusts her papa, which she demonstrates by saying she even shows him her “bad tests” and such. Anya’s conversational through-line here is shaky enough that she even confuses herself, ending this little pep talk with a flat “what we were talking about, again?” I have to admit, it got a genuine out-loud laugh out of me.

Loid’s plan, meanwhile, is to engineer a situation where he can talk to Donovan directly, using Anya punching Damian dead in his face way back in episode six as a pretext. It’s just one part of a fairly complicated scheme where Loid plants a fake sheep keychain, banks on Damian’s better nature to pick it up and hang onto it, “happens” to stumble over to Damian and his friends while “looking” for it, takes it back, and then attempts to build a rapport with Donovan by apologizing to him for Anya’s behavior. (Damian is only even meeting up with his father because he called his older brother Demetrius to ask him about it. And Loid only knows that because Anya read Damian’s mind and then happened to blab about it while he overheard. Quite a web being weaved here.) Loid is on the ball throughout, and while it’s no great feat to pull the wool over a group of kids’ eyes, Donovan himself is a very different story.

In general, Donovan Desmond (Takaya Hashi) is a grimly charismatic character, around whom the show actively warps. The background music shifts into an upright, militaristic march (and later, lead-heavy piano work). The man himself has eyes as big as headlights and is surrounded by a clutch of black-suited bodyguards, and the show’s art noticeably sharpens slightly in his presence. Every cue is crystal clear; Donovan Desmond is not a man to be fucked with.

Yet, fuck with him is exactly what Loid Forger does. In particular, I love the visual that pops up when Loid slides into the conversation, knowingly interrupting Damian’s rare meeting with his father. A literal idea web pops up, a giving us a very visual peek into Loid’s mind as he actively calculates the best way to get a foothold—any kind of foothold—with Donovan.

He does succeed, but the entire conversation is tense as hell. Again, probably the tensest moment in the series in nearly an entire cour. It’s cut by only a tiny bit of levity when Damian, in the midst of Loid’s prodding, confesses that he’d like to be friends with Anya. Cute!

Don’t feel bad for Damain about his meeting with his dad being interrupted, either. After Loid departs, both his and Anya’s earlier encouragement actually inspire Damian to tell his dad about what he’s been up to. In response, all he really gets is a “well done,” but for a boy who clearly almost never sees his father, that much is enough, a rare genuine moment of human connection brought out by advice from two people who are part of a family that is, in a lot of ways, much more real and genuine than Damian’s. Maybe he will find his own way to true connection—with his father, or with someone else—in due time. I hope so, the poor kid deserves better.

On that note, Spy x Family‘s wildly successful first season ends. I’d make some kind of grand denouement here, but the year-end list is only a few days away from starting up, so I’m sure you can wait until then. I will just say this much for now; through Spy x Family’s ups and downs, I’ve never stopped caring about the Forger family and their friends, and I am excited to see what else is in store for them in the future.

Posted on December 20, 2022 in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 11 – “Mission Start”

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

To some, it will seem a little surprising that we’re already near the end of the first season of Chainsaw Man. But quite a lot has happened over the past eleven weeks, and the foot is not taken off the gas pedal for a single second of episode 11.

We lead by catching up with Aki. As mentioned, he’s pushed to contract with a new Devil, one who is apparently known for taking quite hefty prices—the examples we’re given are “both eyes” and “half of the contractor’s lifespan”—and we meet that devil here. Don’t let the reputation fool you, though. He’s a surprisingly jovial sort. Meet the Devil of The Future.

He offers to contract with Aki for nothing more than the small price of living unobtrusively in his right eyeball. Why does he want that? Well, he says it best himself.

Aki says that he doesn’t care how he dies as long as he can get his revenge on the Gun Devil. But, notably, at no point does he think to ask the Future Devil (who would presumably know) if he eventually succeeds in doing so. Intentional foreshadowing? Just Aki drawing a mental blank that has no deeper significance? Neither? Both? I leave that question up to you.

A solid amount of the episode focuses on Makima having meetings; first with Kishibe and then with a Yakuza boss. If that sounds dry, rest assured that it very much is not. These are possibly the most substantiative character moments that Makima’s gotten so far. Plus, she is wonderfully stone cold throughout both. The character has a real ice-and-iron magnetism, and even if these scenes were about nothing much, she’d be a joy to watch.

Kishibe calls her out to try to discern her true intentions. Evidently, it’s clear even to him that she’s up to something. (Direct quote: He doesn’t care “what fucked shit [she] has cooking” as long as she’s serving mankind’s general interests. Kind of a wild thing to say!) He also accuses her of knowing about the train attack beforehand and doing nothing to stop it. When she reminds him that she was attacked too, and uses this fact to imply that there’s no way she could’ve known anything. Plus, a decidedly creepy grin, and the reassurance that her main goal is to “save as many people as possible from devils.” Oddly exact wording, maybe. Perhaps picking up on this, Kishibe flat-out calls her a liar, and the scene cuts away.

After another Aki scene (pretty good in its own right, but minor compared to everything else that happens here), we again join in on Makima meeting up with someone. This time, it’s the aforementioned Yakuza boss. Her goal here is simple enough; she wants his cooperation, a list of names of everyone both in his own family and in all the others who’ve contracted with the Gun Devil. (These “contracts” apparently consist of little more than giving the Gun Devil money and getting guns and ammo in return. The thing being a glorified firearm dealer is certainly something to chew on.) He refuses, arguing that this’d spark a gang war. Then, he doubles down, and tries to intimidate her while simultaneously justifying his own actions. If the Yakuza didn’t do what it did, he claims, then foreign mafias would elbow their way in to Japan. It’s a necessary evil, really.

This kind of self-justification evidently does not sit particularly well with Makima, whose own counterargument (it’s only a “necessary evil” if the state controls it) is pretty dubious on its own, but its effectiveness as a rhetorical point is rendered pretty irrelevant by what she does next; plops down a brown paper bag filled with eyes. Those of the various yakuza members’ girlfriends, parents, grandparents, etc.

With the frightening reassurance that, yes, Public Safety does have somebody who can put them back in, somehow or another, she gets her list. What exactly she does with it is not textually spelled out, but when the Yakuza goons start getting spontaneous nosebleeds and passing out cold later in the episode, it’s not difficult to draw a connection.

Which brings us to the episode’s final act; Special Division 4’s assault on the building where Katana Man and Sawatari are holed up (said building is infested not just with the Yakuza but also with a zombie army, a remnant of the Zombie Devil’s power). Kishibe leads the operation, and as he explains to the decidedly less-badass rabble that Div. 4 is operating alongside, they should be more worried about the mostly-non-human operatives of Division 4 itself than they should the terrorists. In practice, this is an excuse to give us a stylish introduction to several new characters. Enter Division 4’s ringers. In no particular order, we have:

Beam, the Shark Fiend (Natsuki Hanae), who can swim through any surface and briefly turn back into his proper Devil form to chomp basically anything in half.

The Violence Fiend (Yuuya Uchida), on the extreme rational end for a fiend, and strong enough that Public Safety straps him with a poison gas-emitting mask even in situations like, well, what happens during this episode.

The Spider Devil (Saori Gotou); who has a human woman’s torso with a zipper running up the center and, appropriately, eight legs that she can use to kick the ever-loving fuck out of things.

And finally, the Angel Devil (Maaya Uchida), who despite his waifish appearance can drain the life force from anything with a touch.

The entire final ten or so minutes of the episode look absolutely fantastic, and should once again quell any doubt about the Chainsaw Man anime’s worthiness as an adaptation from a style point of view. The real interesting fight, though, doesn’t involve any of these new characters. Instead, it involves Aki, who gets the chance to confront Sawatari head-on, and—this is unspoken, but fairly obvious—avenge Himeno’s death.

There is only one problem; Sawatari’s Snake Devil can somehow “spit back up” the other devils it’s eaten. Which means that as the episode ends, Aki is face to face with this; the Ghost Devil, returning to strangle the life out of him under Sawatari’s orders.

Will he survive? This hardly seems like the death that “fucking rules” that the Future Devil promised Aki, but maybe he just has a sick sense of humor. Who can say?

Bonus Power Screencap: Despite everything else it’s packed with, this episode doesn’t actually feature a ton of Power. Thankfully, she puts in a stylish monochrome appearance in the ED. Here’s that.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

Posted on December 19, 2022 in anime

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY Episode 24 – “The Role of a Mother & Wife”

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

Today, on Spy x Family, Loid and Yor have what is quite possibly the first honest conversation in their entire relationship. Does it work, as either a story beat or a piece of earned character development? Eh, yes and no.

This is, if you were curious, still about Fiona. Yor’s hung up on the idea that Loid might have someone else in his life, and might be eager to get rid of her, since she is, in her own mind, not a great parent. (Exactly why she thinks this is only explained in broad terms, given that she calls herself a “musclehead” and similar.) Loid knows trouble might be brewing because of some gossiping old women outside his apartment complex (a recurring fixture in this series, really). His solution? A bar date. Which, itself, does not go as planned.

Yor actually tries to talk herself into being okay with the idea of Loid leaving her for Fiona. The fact that this isn’t actually what’s happening is more or less irrelevant. She gets so into her own head that she tries to break up with Loid first. When she can’t actually make herself say it, she drinks enough that she starts sloshing and slurring her words. (Somewhere in here, Loid tries to 10,000 IQ his way out of the situation and gets kicked in the chin for his trouble. Not a good idea, man!) Trying to break up doesn’t work, of course. Because whether she realizes it or not, she’s genuinely in love with the man and loves her current life as his wife.

They eventually patch things up, in a moment that is genuinely pretty sincere. During their conversation, Loid ends up drawing an analogy between how safe he felt as a boy when his mother would sing him to sleep, and how safe Anya feels with Yor. It’s sweet, and it’s a nice reminder that these two idiots do, in fact, love each other, even if they’re still not really cognizant of it yet, necessarily. This is all extremely hetero, mind you, but straight people deserve good romances too. I’d say this episode is one. Its first half is, at any rate.

Yes, this is another episode with two distinct, largely unrelated halves. The B-plot here is about Anya, who, to be fair, hasn’t had a spotlight episode in a few weeks at this point. While I wouldn’t blame anyone for being a touch tired of The Anya Show, this is one of the better such segments. Mostly because rather than revolving around Anya’s ongoing quest to gain eight Stella stars, it instead centers on her relationship with Becky, a hitherto largely undeveloped character who gets a bit more depth and development here than she’s previously had.

The premise is simple, if silly. Becky wants to take Anya shopping, so she—the heir to a fashion fortune, remember—rents out an entire department store. What initially threatens to be a little dry soon turns out to be mostly an excuse to draw both Anya and Becky wearing ridiculous outfits. Those that Becky tries on largely remain within the realm of traditional cuteness. Anya’s, meanwhile, are so goofy that they quickly go from “cute” to “avant garde.” (Her outfits are also soundtracked by a pleasantly breezy pop song. A nice touch.)

More importantly; it’s genuinely sweet to see Anya getting along so well with Becky, given that she’s Anya’s only real friend. Anya eventually buys Becky and herself a pair of matching sheep keychains. A flashback from Becky’s butler provides some important context here—Becky struggled with making friends when she was younger, being prone to haughtiness and with an inability to hold her tongue. Anya, as perhaps the first friend her own age that Becky actually respects as an equal, is a very important person to her, whether or not she’d ever say so.

This week’s Spy x Family is, on the whole, a low-key and relatively character-driven affair. Very different than the tennis-fueled adrenaline rush of the last couple episodes, but solid nonetheless.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

Posted on December 13, 2022December 16, 2022 in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 10 – “Bruised & Battered”

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

Chainsaw Man does not really do “slow” or “transitional” episodes. Even so, episode 10 is a comparative breather. The series takes its foot off the gas here for the first time in a while, but that shouldn’t be taken to mean that this episode is in any way lacking. Pathos, humor, and a surprising amount of action are all here. Chainsaw Man doesn’t do “minor” episodes, either.

We open with Aki awaking in the hospital, some days after the attack by Katana Man and his co-conspirators. One must imagine he’s a bit disoriented. Himeno, his partner of a number of years, is dead, as is much of the rest of his division. He himself was taken down during the fight and seems to only have survived through sheer coincidence. What does he awake to find? Just Power and Denji eating most of his get-well soon basket. Just another day in the life.

After they leave, he finds himself frustratedly thumb-flicking a lighter that won’t start, breaking down into a crying fit as the repeated click-click-click of the flint dissolves into memories of Himeno.

Denji has an interesting moment here, as well, on just the other side of Aki’s hospital door. As he recalls that Himeno, one of the first people who’s ever shown him any genuine kindness, is now dead, he realizes that he feels basically nothing. Musing on it further, he realizes he wouldn’t be terribly sad if Power died either. Even Makima, for how big of a spot she occupies in Denji’s mind, would only incur about “three days” of mourning, he guesses. He wonders if he’s lost his heart in more than one sense, before deciding to shove the thought away for the time being because it’s depressing. (I bet he and Finn from Adventure Time could have a very long conversation about that particular technique.) All this before the OP even drops.

After the cut, we follow up on that whole “training” suggestion from last week, and the episode forks in two. Denji and Power get a new teacher, in the form of the chronically drunk, middle-aged devil hunter Kishibe (Kenjiro Tsuda, doing his thing). Kishibe is an enigmatic figure, but slots neatly into the archetype of the drunken mentor. His method for training Denji and Power? Killing them! Over and over and over again, and then healing them back up with blood so they can recover.

Slorp.

He reasons that, since he is (apparently) the strongest-ever devil hunter, if they end up being able to kill him, they’ll be able to kill even the strongest devil without any problems. This is Chainsaw Man’s idea of a training episode; our heroes having their necks snapped and their throats slashed out by the guy who’s trying to build them into better badasses.

When, after the first night of this hellish training is over, Denji complains, you understand where he’s coming from. This is unfair and completely sucks, he says. He’s been working hard because he wants to live his version of the “easy life”, a warm bed, hot showers, three meals a day, etc. But now that Kishibe’s hellish training routine is in the picture, he feels demoralized, and worst of all, this new stepping-up of responsibilities isn’t because of anything he actually did. The Gun Devil wants his heart for some unknown reason. As far as he knows, he has no part in that.

All of this will seem eminently reasonable to anyone who is, or has ever been, part of the mundane workforce. (And probably to more than a few other Devil Hunters as well, although I don’t think any of those read my articles. If you do, please tell me how you got Internet access in the Fujimotoverse in the comments below.)

There’s a particularly lovely bit here where Power and Denji recoup their energy while walking home along a highway at night. They plot to take Kishibe out and hopefully escape their current training regimen as soon as possible, but more than anything, the scene demonstrates a real camaraderie between the two, in spite of what Denji may worry about his own self.

Aki has a decidedly less pleasant experience during the course of this episode. Himeno’s younger sister—who we see here for the first and only time—delivers him Himeno’s letters. In a scene that’s almost completely identical to the manga, Aki reads them, and realizes that Himeno was trying to get the both of them to quit, or at least to go private, for years. Yet another sucker punch to the gut for Aki, who, I’m realizing upon re-experiencing this story for now the third time, seems to have worse luck than even Kobeni.

The episode ends with Aki being escorted to an underground facility where Public Safety keeps the devils they’ve managed to capture alive. Here, in this rusting cage somewhere beneath the Earth, Aki meets his new devil partner, who, we’re helpfully informed, has previously asked his contractors for such pleasant things as “half of their lifespan” and “both eyes.” What will it ask of Aki? We don’t know, the end credits drop in here, leaving that a question for the future.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

Posted on December 12, 2022 in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY Episode 23 – “The Unwavering Path”

Finally, for 22 uninterrupted glorious minutes, Spy x Family has seen fit to go full Looney Tunes.

I actually complained about something similar to this a few episodes back. But that was different; a single scene that goofy in an episode that otherwise works on rather different rules is out of place. An entire episode of that sort is a lot easier to swallow. Even if some of the fundamental issues that needle the outside edges of SpyFam remain, this is one of the strongest episodes of the entire second cour.

And what can we thank for this radical advance? Tennis, naturally.

It’s easy to use shortcuts like “fluid” and even “sakuga” to describe particularly pleasing animation in anime, but the stuff in this episode really does stack up perfectly well to anything else being made right now, even seasonal highlights in this department as diverse as Chainsaw Man and BOCCHI THE ROCK! – Spy x Family, for this episode at least, stands right beside them.

The “Fonies” tennis match is fun in its own right, too. Loid and Fiona’s opponents begin pulling out even more absurd tricks to help them win; raising and lowering the net height, artificial wind, coating the ball in a foul-smelling perfume, shooting Loid with a rubber bullet from a sniper rifle (quote: “I figured something like this might happen, so I wore a bulletproof vest.” What a man.) None of it works! Twilight and Nightfall are just too damn good together at, specifically tennis, and nothing else. When the match ends, the agents’ mark is so taken by the sheer strength of their play that he gives them the prize, as promised. One of their opponents turns over a new leaf as well. All’s well that ends well, right?

Well, not quite. Fiona is still Fiona, and while I’d ordinarily criticize Spy x Family here for managing to fail the Bechdel Test repeatedly when it has so many female characters, the rivalry that’s developing between Fiona and Yor is actually one of the more interesting plot points the show’s served up recently. It’s also damn funny, if only to see Fiona vastly underestimate Yor. She challenges her to a tennis match, apparently not sick of the sport quite yet. Yor appears to whiff her first swing, only for it to turn out that actually, what happened is that she diced the tennis ball into pieces. This is a fun double gag, because one sees Yor wind up dramatically, sees her seem to miss the ball and assumes the show is going for yet another “Yor’s so clumsy” joke, only for the ball to then crumble into chunks, revealing that this is actually a “Yor’s so deadly” joke. (The better of the two categories, by far.)

Naturally, Yor absolutely smokes Fiona, and Agent Nightfall is left totally defeated, old-school sketch frame and all.

The episode’s final shot is an intriguing one; Yor, sitting on the couch of the Forgers’ apartment, staring off into space, clearly bothered by something. Is it Fiona? After all, “fake” marriage or not, Loid has started running around, suddenly, with a woman who Yor’s never seen before. One can understand why she might feel insecure about such a thing.

This, to be sure, would still be a relatively basic plot. (It’s not like “two women fighting over a man” is anything particularly new.) But there’s always room for new spins on old ideas, and if Spy x Family seems like it’s more on-track recently than it has been for much of this cour, maybe digging back into the fundamentals is exactly what it needs.

Posted on December 6, 2022 in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 9 – “From Kyoto”

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

The highest praise that I, personally, can bestow on an anime has nothing to do with my writing at all. It’s a feeling, a kind of half-anxious, half-excited wriggling in my gut. Butterflies; basically, not out of serious anxiety that a show might “get bad” or any malformed pessimistic instinct of the sort, but from the sheer, imminent thrill of where something might go next. It is a very basic lizard brain sort of thing, and it’s not something I really have any control over. It’s one thing to feel like this when I’m not familiar with the source material—or if there is no source material—but today, as I sit here at 9 AM waiting patiently for the newest episode of Chainsaw Man to release, is the first time I’ve ever gotten it from an anime where I already totally know how this story ends. I am that excited purely from the sugar rush of this series being put to silver screen, yet again.

Maybe that means nothing to you, but to me, it’s another badge on CSM’s already well-decorated vest. One it’s really only just put on, in the grand scheme of things, given that we’re heading into the finale of the first of what is sure to be many seasons. Last week, when I was regrettably sick, we saw Chainsaw Man take its combat direction to another level as lives were lost, cursed phantoms appeared from the ether, and seemingly the series’ very foundations were torn to shreds in mere minutes.

This week? Vengeance with the V from Violence.

The last act of the Ghost Devil, Himeno’s now-former contracted devil, is to pull Denji’s ripcord before she finally vanishes. He and Katana Man go for round two in a fight scene that would be the highlight of an episode of nearly any other shonen anime. They slug it out something fierce, and Sawatari, Katana Man’s handler, even calls in some backup. But Chainsaw Man tends to swing for the fences, and this scene, while nice, is fairly conventional compared to what follows. I say this despite the fact that it ends with Denji being cut in half at the waist and left for dead. (You’ll forgive me for not pretending that there’s any real chance he’s going to stay dead in the anime named after him.)

A cue Chainsaw Man wisely takes from its most accomplished ancestors in the shonen anime field is that, while it is ultimately an ensemble piece, it knows to let each individual player showcase their strengths. By analogy; these are solos, stretches of the story where a single character becomes the focus on all levels; aesthetically and thematically bending the series itself to their personal rhythms. Chainsaw Man‘s ninth episode features, basically, two of these showcases, and they are wonderful, things of true frightful glory with fairly few peers in this—or any—anime season.

Makima, to the surprise of, I imagine, no one, is not dead. The episode pivots over to her part of the story through shots of the dead; eerie, still, and silent. Indeed, one of the bodies the camera lingers on is hers. That silence is final for most of the passengers aboard the train that the terrorists hit in last week’s episode. But, evidently, it isn’t so for Makima herself.

^{Makima jumpscare.}

When that train finally rolls in to its original destination, Makima is the one who steps off; covered in blood that is mostly not her own but evidently not actually any worse for wear. The two here-unnamed Devil Hunters she links up with are quickly drafted into a support plot. Simply put, no one involved has the time to speed back to Tokyo to help Denji and friends. Instead, Makima will “do what [she] can” from afar.

So what does “what she can” entail?

Well, I will start by saying, I think almost anyone with even a tiny smidgen of media literacy will pick up on the fact, very early in Chainsaw Man, that there is something decidedly off about Makima. But this episode is the first time we see just how “off” she really is. Let’s put it this way; her plan requires her to be taken to the highest nearby temple that her assistants can find, as well as “thirty convicts serving life sentences or worse.”

You can, here, start to make some guesses about where this is going. But if you don’t feel inclined to, the show spells it out about as soon as Makima has those 30 prisoners kneeling in front of her, with both they and her assistants wearing blindfolds. She then starts making peculiar hand motions; massaging her hands together, as though kneading a lump of clay. Here, for even the most unobservant, I must imagine the fact of the situation suddenly clicks into place; you are watching a ritual sacrifice.

As Makima works, the show undergoes a temporary transformation into a straight-up horror anime. One that is still, mind you, lit by the midday Sun, but is no less oppressive because of it. Makima’s contracted devils—whoever they are—must be fearsome indeed, because we don’t actually see them work at all. One by one, Makima has each convict recite the name of one of the terrorists. One by one, three prefectures away, crows spot them, they feel a sudden, inexplicable, and overwhelming sense of impending doom, and then, spontaneously, they explode, into a water balloon pop of high-pressure gore; ridiculous, and deeply unsettling expressionism by way of supernatural violence. The soundtrack, appropriately, darkens to an intense, drumming industrial track while this occurs. When it’s over, even Makima’s own immediate subordinates are more than a little freaked out. This, clearly, is some nightmarishly deep magic. Questions of how are of course unanswered at this time. You want a takeaway? Try “don’t mess with women in suits.”

Makima isn’t the only one to make an excellent showing here. Kobeni, who I suspect many anime-firsts might’ve written off as a bit character, puts in an absolutely stellar turn here, too. Shaking and trembling, she confronts the fleeing Sawatari and Katana Man. Hirokazu having physically shoved her out of the way of an assassin’s bullet and taken the shot himself, she is one of the few human members of her division left alive. Even so, she charges at Katana Man with nothing but a knife and a truly inhuman set of reflexes.

We actually get even fewer details about what Kobeni’s got going on as far as powers than we do for Makima, but sometimes exposition isn’t necessary. Kobeni manages to somehow flip what must be a truly back-breaking weight of PTSD into enough adrenaline and finesse to absolutely kick Katana Man’s ass; she very nearly kills him. Only after he and Sawatari have fled the scene does she finally break down crying, tearily apologizing to Denji for trying to kill him, and then laughing at herself for the absurdity of her words. The last we see of her here is that; half-cackling, half-weeping, and talking to a bisected corpse.

So, what of Makima and her two new “friends”? Well, somehow or another, she seems to know that her little Satanic ritual / artillery strike worked just fine. Madoka, a character we formally meet for the first time here, gives Makima the rundown; Special Divions 1 through 4 have been decimated—almost literally—by the terrorist attack, and the remnants of the four are being merged into a single unit under Makima’s own direct command. He also, without missing a beat, hands Makima his retirement slip. She accepts it, but when he tries to learn a bit more about what’s transpired here, this is the response he gets.

Bonus ~~Power~~ Screencap: Power isn’t in this episode! She doesn’t even show up in the ED! So do you know what you get instead?

Go on, guess.

Yeah, it’s another Makima stare. I’m not sorry.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

Posted on December 6, 2022 in anime, Anime Orbit Weekly, Misc. Anime

Anime Orbit Seasonal Check-in: Long Names and Short Stories in MY MASTER HAS NO TAIL

Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week. Expect spoilers for covered material, where relevant.

Of the anime I wrote first impressions on at the top of the season, My Master Has No Tail was and remains the most obscure over here in the USA. Its charming but unflashy production values and art direction as well as its somewhat niche subject matter have meant that it was basically destined to fly under the radar since day one. I loathe this phrasing, so I tend to avoid it, but it really is hard to conceive of something more quintessentially Japanese than a show about a tanuki learning rakugo.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. In fact, I’d actually put My Master Has No Tail ahead of several other “slice of life” anime this year. Partly, it’s simply that I’m a sucker for a good piece of art about the process of creating art itself. 2022 has felt light on those; anime that enshrine the creative and performative process itself as something worth valuing and holding on to. My Master Has No Tail is good enough that it’d stand out even in a year with more of them, but being the proverbial droplet in the desert has definitely made it mean more to me personally. (It’s not totally alone in this venture, mind. Earlier this year there was Healer Girls. This very season we have BOCCHI THE ROCK! Still, Master simply hasn’t picked up the fanbase that matches Bocchi, or even the more muted reception to Healer Girl.)

The anime’s tenth episode zeroes in on this to an even greater extent than the series previously has, as it heads into its final stretch. This episode focuses heavily on names, both in a general sense and several specific examples; that of the routine that features here, that of the previously-nameless Mameda herself, and on the tradition of name inheritance in rakugo as a field. In this way, it illuminates the importance of passing these artistic traditions on; from teacher to pupil, down through the generations. (The core conflict set up here is, in fact, about someone who doesn’t want that to happen.)

Mameda has, by this point in the series, been living with, and been the apprentice of, her master Bunko for some time. Except; the heads of Japan’s other major rakugo lineages aren’t having it. Mameda has to pass a test from all of them; the first was last week, and this week’s episode centers around the second. Her examiner, as it were, is Enshi Kirino, a cat-like rakugoka from a rich family who speaks in a dragging, laboriously slow monotone unless a metronome happens to be running nearby. (In which case, she can talk at normal speed. Though her tone is still informed by a sense of smug mischief.)

Perhaps not coincidentally, this is where the show finally makes use of “Jugemu”, probably the most well-known rakugo routine of all time, and certainly the only one that most western otaku are likely to be familiar with, if only because it’s referenced in anime, manga, and basically every other field of Japanese pop culture pretty often. The test put to Mameda is very simple; she merely has to memorize “Jugemu” from Enshi’s example (she has two opportunities to observe Enshi, in fact), and perform it perfectly. No mistakes allowed; not a single syllable out of place.

Enshi’s instructive performance is fairly interesting on its own; she puts a tightly-wound and almost mechanical spin on it, possibly in a deliberate attempt to psyche Mameda out, something her voice actress Ayana Taketatsu leans into quite well. Initially, Mameda just can’t commit the bit to memory. A problem when the entire premise of the routine is the title character thereof having a ludicrously long name.

Nothing helps until she thinks to meditate in the woods. There, for the first time, Mameda faces her fears in an honest way; she’s scared of failing the test, because failing would mean being kicked out. And she doesn’t want that because being under Bunko’s tutelage is the only place where she’s ever felt like she’s truly belonged. That realization is what makes the routine eventually click for her, and she recites it to Enshi, who in turn, is enraptured enough by Mameda’s performance—despite Mameda being totally exhausted at this point—to fall into reminiscence about her own master; the previous Daikokutei. Bunko‘s own master.

^{“Jugemu Jugemu Gokō-no Surikire Kaijarisuigyo-no Suigyōmatsu Unraimatsu Fūraimatsu Kūnerutokoro-ni Sumutokoro Yaburakōji-no Burakōji” – Mameda.}

The episode ends with Enshi presenting Mameda with a paper fan on which she’s written her own name. I do not actually know for certain if this is some sort of traditional gesture of esteem in rakugoka circles, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn so. In small moments like this, My Master Has No Tail is as compelling an argument for the arts as any other that’s aired this year.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

The Magic Planet

Category: anime

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Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 12 – “Katana vs. Chainsaw” (SEASON FINALE)

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY Episode 25 – “First Contact” (SEASON FINALE)

Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 11 – “Mission Start”

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY Episode 24 – “The Role of a Mother & Wife”

Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 10 – “Bruised & Battered”

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY Episode 23 – “The Unwavering Path”

Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 9 – “From Kyoto”

Anime Orbit Seasonal Check-in: Long Names and Short Stories in MY MASTER HAS NO TAIL