Kaho, does your shirt say LOVE MEAT?

Prior to April, basically everything I knew about The iDOLM@STER: Shiny Colors came from fan art. However, I've since watched two episodes of the TV anime, and I guess it's fine? It's 3DCG animation, but it's at least as good as it was in the Million Live! anime. In fact, it might even be better. Unfortunately, I don't find Shiny Colors as interesting, but that may be because I felt I sort of knew the Million Live! cast better. Would prior familiarity be helpful in a show that seems to be a straightforward idols-doing-their-best series? I'm not sure.

Learning Yuika wears a monocle made her my favorite L'Antica.

I wouldn't say I'm burned out on idol anime, but the Shiny Colors setup does feel a little rote so far. Frankly, I don't need to see idols doing their best. Hiori accusing Mano of not doing her best will be more interesting to me if Mano really does slack off and drag others down, but we all know that's not happening. Best case scenario, Hiori resents Mano and Producer all season for being dropped on her and Meguru, because it's demonstrates a lack of confidence that the original duo was good enough.

Well, I might dislike Kiriko if it turns out her gimmick is being constantly injured.

The part I liked best from the first two episodes so far was the completed L'Antica music video. That was pretty good, but I didn't really need to watch them filming it and overcoming unexpected production challenges. Ultimately, what this probably means is the Shiny Colors anime wasn't made for me, and I would presumably enjoy the experience a lot more if I already liked the characters before starting the series. I don't dislike any of them, but I'd much rather be watching a second season of Million Live! if I had a choice.

Beware the golfer with one club.

Someone on the IRC opined, "Tonbo is...it's like a kid's anime? But not really?" I didn't know what he meant, but I sort of understand after watching the first episode. It's Tonbo herself. She comes across as much younger. She's in her final year of middle school, but I would have no trouble accepting her as a seven-year-old child instead. Perhaps that's deliberate, since that's about when she lost her parents. A synopsis I saw described it as a car accident, but didn't specify where. Was it on the island? That seems to be the sort of small community where everyone knows each other. If it happened on the island, and there was another car involved, surely she would still see the driver of that vehicle all the time.1 How awkward. (My guess is it was off the island, and she moved there when her grandfather became her guardian.)

Your name is Igaiga now. Deal with it.

Anyway, Ooi! Tonbo does seem tonally odd. I'm probably overthinking it, and it'll turn out to be an actual kid's sports anime. It does have familiar clichés such as when the pro golfer guy narrates amazing techniques that he spotted in a split second. However, the source material apparently runs in a weekly golf magazine (presumably for adults), so maybe the tone actually is weird for what it is. Not that I'm expecting something darker. This is surely an anime about good times on rustic golf island as a former pro golfer fleeing his old life gets his act together again with the support of genuine small-town folks and through the power of unorthodox golf techniques. There are already 49 volumes of the manga, though, and it's still ongoing, so anything can happen.

Note 1: I suppose all of the other occupants in a multi-vehicle collision could have also died, but I feel as if accidents that violent require speeds I wouldn't expect on the island. Probably they died off the island, or in a single-vehicle accident, or the entire parental death thing is an unexplained bit of the backstory that I'm completely overthinking. [Update: The second episode confirms their deaths occurred off the island.]

Where we're going, we don't need roads.

Last week, I provided a quick rundown of what I expect to watch this season. This post augments that one by including additional titles that I plan to try, but won't necessarily watch all the way through. By the time I finally post this, the first episode of Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku (Where Does the Doomsday Train Go? or Train to the End of the World) should be out. This is an original anime with Mizushima Tsutomu attached, so I'm more optimistic about it than the rest of the shows I'm considering. In many of those cases, I've only read potentially misleading descriptions and won't even have necessarily watched the corresponding trailers.

I don't know anything about you.

Astro Note is one of those anime I know nothing about. I believe the first episode has already leaked, but I remain wholly ignorant about its contents aside from learning it's an original anime. It's enough to warrant a try out of general principle.

Have I even seen any fan art of you? You don't look familiar at all.

Blue Archive I know only from fan art. Based on that, I'm confident the series will be about scantily clad schoolgirls making passes at their teacher while toting around firearms designed by people who know absolutely fuck all about guns. I did watch a trailer, and it mostly seems to feature only the shrimpy kids. Where are all the aerodynamic students?! Are the shrimpy girls the ones who are popular among those who actually play the game? Did fan art lead me astray?

I assume this has nothing to do with Boukyaku no Senritsu.

Boukyaku Battery (Oblivion Battery) is a baseball anime with an amnesia gimmick. Curiously, it's the catcher who lost his memory, and not the pitcher. I could totally see how this story would work with a now-clueless pitcher taking cues from a knowledgeable catcher (you know, like in Bull Durham), but having a catcher who doesn't know what he's doing sounds like a bad time for a battery. I also noticed there's an ONA from 2020 with these characters except set after high school, while this new TV series is set at the beginning of high school. I'm not sure what the deal is, but I'm going to assume the ONA adapted material from later in the original manga, and it's not the TV series aging everyone down to make them more relatable to an adolescent audience.

As for the rest of the new Spring 2024 anime that I'm going to try out...

• Jii-san Baa-san Wakagaeru (Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again). Everything I know about this comes from its title. I can't tell from the promo art if I'm looking at the couple while they're old, but they look oddly young, or if I'm seeing them when they're already young again, but they still look oddly old.
• Unnamed Memory. @frog_kun raved about the source material years ago. My taste and hers often don't align, and she tends to be a lot more enthusiastic than I am about the same titles, but it's still enough of an endorsement to warrant a try.
• Seiyū Radio no Ura Omote (The Two Sides of Voice Actor Radio). Hasegawa Ikumi is in it. I don't think she's voicing one of the leads, though.
• Ooi! Tonbo is about golf. Eh. Golf.
• NIJIYON ANIMATION 2. Yeah, I'm watching more because they're making more. It's a vicious cycle.

It's not a metaphor.

With less than a week left before the start of the Spring 2024 anime season, I currently have 19 shows that I'm willing to at least try. Moreover, I compiled this list weeks ago without closely scrutinizing what series will even be airing in April. There's a good chance I've overlooked multiple anime I'd also consider, and I may have missed series that were announced only recently. Based on past experiences, what's likely to happen is I'll end up dropping a lot of these, but that still leaves a significant number of shows to follow.

I didn't expect to like Hibike! Euphonium more now than when I started the series.

Some of these titles are a lock. For example, I'm guaranteed to follow Yuru Camp△ SEASON 3, Hibike! Euphonium 3, and Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 3 (KONOSUBA -God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! 3), and Wonderful Precure! regardless of how they turn out. Likewise, I'll probably stick with Kimetsu no Yaiba: Hashira Geiko-hen (Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Hashira Training Arc) and The iDOLM@STER: Shiny Colors.

Everything know about Shiny idols, I learned from fan art.

Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha: Shijou Saikyou no Maou no Shiso, Tensei shite Shison-tachi no Gakkou e Kayou II Part 2 (The Misfit of Demon King Academy: History’s Strongest Demon King Reincarnates and Goes to School with His Descendants Season 2 Part 2) probably has enough momentum that I won't drop it outright, and I'm curious enough about the Spice and Wolf do-over (Ookami to Koushinryou: merchant meets the wise wolf) that I'll at least watch some of it, despite finding the first anime horribly overrated.1 Anyway, I support the assertion that good media do not need to be remade. Rather, it's the bad ones that would benefit from an opportunity at being unfucked. Since I have a generally negative opinion about the 2008 Spicy Wolf, then this remake should be right up my alley. I hope it's not bad a second time.

I've since learned Holo has "the form of a sweet 15-year-old girl" via @Kotobukiya_EN.

Besides these and a few more I didn't mention, the current lineup also includes eight new shows, at least two of which are anime-originals. There's even a baseball anime. This place could use more robots, though. Preferably giant ones, but I'm not going to be picky if the alternative is a robot-free-zone spanning three months, alas. It's probably hypocritical of me to say this, though, seeing as how I never got around to watching Brave Bang Bravern! during Winter 2024. I heard it's great. I suppose I could just watch that, but I can't resist New Season allure, and there's so much of it.

Note 1: I got to Spice and Wolf late, after its positive reputation was well established and generally uncontroversial. Well, I disliked nearly all of it for reasons too lengthy to include in this aside. I probably should have written a blog post detailing those reasons at some point instead of bitching about it on the IRC and on the Twitter (such as here, for example).

This fight could have been an e-mail.

As far as I know, there is only one episode of Sasaki to Pii-chan (Sasaki and Peeps) left this season. I should have dropped it after that bowling alley fight in episode two. Let me be absolutely clear about this: All of the fights in this anime are terrible. They're not interesting, there's no tension, and they never feel necessary. They're not the worst I've ever seen, but Lord, they ain't good. If this were a better show, I would say something like, "Thankfully, the fights comprise only a small part of the series, and are not critical to one's enjoyment of the narrative."

There are A LOT of shrimpy girls in this series, but they aren't love interests.

Unfortunately, Sasaki to Pii-chan is not a better show. Maybe it'll get good after 50 episodes? I get the sense the audience is supposed to be in it for the long haul. I don't know how many volumes of the source material this single cours has covered, but it doesn't feel like much. The show drags, and it seems as if it wants to explore a lot of different ideas, but also wants to do them all at once. Consequently, there's no chance for any sort of satisfying conclusion or storytelling beat this season. It's just going to end, and I'm not going to care.

I like that they imprisoned her with her sword.

When I first heard about Torture Princess, I assumed it was some sort of edgy bullshit manga. Then, when I found out it's a comedy, it wasn't difficult to piece together what it's actually about. Later, when I learned it was getting an anime adaptation, I assumed it would generate a fair amount of buzz, since I had always heard the manga is popular. As it turns out, I dropped Hime-sama, "Goumon" no Jikan desu ('Tis Time for "Torture," Princess) after two episodes even though it was mostly fine.

Cordless phone.

I stopped watch Torture Princess because I assumed it would continue being mostly variations on the same basic joke. I'm sure this sort of thing can remain fresh if it's done creatively, but I'm not a huge fan of reaction-based humor to begin with. As a result, I got my fill of Torture Princess gags pretty much right away. It didn't take long for me to lose interest. There were some jokes that I liked because they did not follow the basic template of the main gag, but they weren't enough to keep me watching.

Where does she poop?

Still, I assumed the anime would be fairly popular with other viewers. And while I wouldn't call its current performance a failure, it at least doesn't seem to place highly in weekly popularity polls and whatnot. I also don't encounter much enthusiasm for the series in the corners of the Internet that I frequent. I suppose I should avoiding putting too much stock in that one particular metric, since I don't encounter much enthusiasm in those areas for BokuYaba or Frieren either, and those are my top two shows this season by a considerable margin. There's no question those two are popular, though. Torture Princess, not so much.

Not every episode is about poison. Sometimes there's one about drool.

I'm glad Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) rolled straight into the Winter 2024 anime season after Autumn 2023 instead splitting or ending after a single cours. 12-episode shows seem to be the norm now, and I think that limits the effectiveness of certain stories. Apothecary Diaries in particular has a long continuous plot (or multiple subplots) that are advanced a little bit every once in a while interspersed with episodic stories, so it's good it received more time to develop them.

Not every episode is about poison. Sometimes there's one about money.

I read the first volume of the light novel not that long ago, and its chapters are structured the same way, so it seems the anime adaptation is straightforward and faithful to the source material. (Well, the occasional comedic exaggerations are embellishments.) I don't read a lot of light novels, but Kusuriya no Hitorigoto seems to be one of the better ones. I don't know if this has more to do with how light novels are translated or if it's a tribute to the original text itself, but I'm at least eager to read more.

Not every episode is about poison. Sometimes there's one about lactation powers.

On the other hand, I'm less subjectively interested in the Apothecary Diaries anime even though I still find it "objectively" good. It hasn't dropped off in terms of quality or anything like that. It's not boring, and the subject matter hasn't shifted, so I'm unsure why I don't seem to enjoy it as much as I previously did. I'm still looking forward to reading the second volume of the book, though, so perhaps this response results from liking the book more than the anime? It is a mystery.

The dog still likes being on a leash despite having human intelligence.

You might expect this post to be a lament about the apparent decision to eliminate fights from the current iteration of Pretty Cure. Through four episodes, there have been no blows or searing energy beams. I've complained in the past when the franchise has reduced its signature violent content, but I'm also cognizant that there have now been 20 solid years of Precure beatdowns, so I'm not hostile to exploring other approaches. Besides, this is but one of the ways Wonderful Precure! departs from established conventions.

Go on, hug the shit out of it.

Specifically, the "pink" Cure and first to be called is a dog. And not an air-quotes dog the way Milky Rose is a rabbit, or Cure Beat is a cat, or Cure Wing is a bird. Cure Wonderful is an actual domesticated canine pet. (Well she at least also acquired a transitional human girl form at the same time.) She can also speak while in her original dog form now, too, although I discourage you from thinking too deeply about all the implications involved with a Cure who retains her original dog form and continues to do normal dog things, like go on walks. Does she still do other normal dog things? Like I said, we're probably best off not thinking about it. It's fine.

I think it's weird this cat's whiskers come out of her ears.

There's a cat, too, or will be one soon. So far, the only Cures are still the dog and her owner, but there's a cat and girl pair who are obviously due up next. There's also a rabbit and a boy who could potentially be mid-season additions as well, but I have not yet seen any confirmation that this is happening. Granted, I've not been looking either, but Pretty Cure as a franchise tends to be fairly poor at keeping future developments secret, and I'm adjacent to enough fans that I think I would have learned something by now if such plans were concrete.

I like how you're such a downer.

So how is Wonderful Precure! itself as a series? I guess it's all right. It's still too early to tell, but I can at least say I'm not discouraged by the lack of gratuitous violence. Don't get me wrong, I love me some gratuitous mahou shoujo violence, but there's room for trying something different, even if that means I need to actively avoid wondering if Cure Cat will still poop in a box or if Cure Dog will still need to wear a cone of shame while in her human form after she's spayed.