Some anime reviews
Jul. 24th, 2023 05:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrSome anime reviews
There's been some fun reviews at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
anime_manga and I said I'd try and post some myself so...here we go!
*pokes 'to review' list* ...oh god it's been so long I have forgotten half of these... But anything I remember especially enjoying is in bold.
No romance in the bit I watched but probably eventually m/f:
Kono Oto Tomare
Trigun Stampede
M/F:
Skip to Loafer
Sugar Apple Fairy Tale
My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Level 999
Why Raeliana ended up at the Duke's Mansion
Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts
I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss
My Senpai Is Annoying, The Ice Guy and his Cool Female Colleague, My Tiny Sempai, Saint Cecelia and Pastor Lawrence
F/F:
Yuri is my Job
m/m will have to wait for my manga/webtoons review post because there hasn't been any new m/m anime in a while :(
No romance in the bit I watched but probably eventually m/f:
Kono Oto Tomare: The Sounds of Life!: highschool music club ensemble drama anime, where a group of kids get together to Save The Koto Club. (Koto is a traditional Japanese string instrument) Seemed ok from what I saw, with some likeable characters, though a lot more male than female. I hear the eventual het romances are cute but there wasn't any in the couple of episodes I watched. I might watch some more eventually, it's pretty inoffensive.
Trigun Stampede: bittersweet Western-inspired action scifi on a desert planet. I enjoyed the 1998 anime back in the day, what I saw of this was pretty good but angsty enough that I haven't gone back to it.
M/F:
Skip to Loafer: A super cute, understated romance between an earnestly ambitious girl from the country and a checked-out popular boy whose cheerful facade hides a deep melancholy. Lots of great side characters and funny moments, just a fun highschool story in general with some lovely female friendships. Also the protagonist lives with a trans aunt in the city and this is handled pretty well! The couple don't quite get together by the end of the current season of the anime but it ends at a nice moment.
Sugar Apple Fairy Tale: 15 year old Anne, from a quasi-19th Century England fantasy setting, defies convention by being determined to become a sugar artisan, and by treating the enslaved fairy race with decency.
Her love interest, Challe, is a bitter ex-slave fairy like 5 times her age who she OWNS for a while, the consent issues are SUCH a mess but damn if I don't ship it. The show has basically no other female characters, and the fantasy racism has all sorts of unfortunate implications and Fantasy [White] Saviour plots, but I really enjoyed the basic compassion for all people (...including some very Fantasy Racist people) and how the story respects Anne's politely determined artistic and career ambition. There's no onscreen sexual content, but Challe has a lot of rape victim Vibes, he gives the impression of seeing sex with humans as just another part of his servitude, unpleasant but not worth making a big deal about (Anne is very I WOULD NEVER but some of this is because she's a Good Girl, she can be naive and prudish) Apparently was published as shonen, shoujo and seinen but definitely has a shoujo aesthetic. Currently mid season 2 and they're not quite together but basically both know their feelings are mutual, there's just Other Stuff going on.
My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Level 999: An emotionally expressive, earnest 20 year old woman gets dumped by her boyfriend and drowns her sorrows in a MMORPG video game, where she falls into the path of an emotionally impassive 18 year old gamer boy and his friends. I overall enjoyed this, I didn't get INTENSE shippy feels but they're both sweet, earnest people who make each other and the people around them happy. But the narrative and protagonist are occasionally Unfortunate about a (mostly very sympathetic) secondary male character who plays a girl in the game.
Why Raeliana ended up at the Duke's Mansion: An anime adaptation of the webtoon I already read and enjoyed. A Japanese woman is pushed off a building and wakes as a doomed minor character in a book she was reading, her attempts to not die throw her in the path of the Smugly Assholeish Yet Ultimately Decent male love interest. Engages with the premise more than a lot of other reborn-as-fictional-character stories (see below), like how she just assumes he can't be into her because he is Destined for the Protagonist, and has a lot of fun characters, but it's not doing anything SUPER original. The first season doesn't cover the whole story but the webtoon is finished if you don't want to wait.
Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts: Strange fantasy romance about a girl sent to be sacrificed to the king of the beasts (basically furries), who are in a cold war with the humans. But she's so weirdly ok with being sacrificed that he feels bad for her and they form a bond, and she becomes his fiance. Didn't quite work for me and I only watched a few episodes but it was certainly an interesting experience!
I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss: generic "normal Japanese woman ends up as Misunderstood villainess and gets together with Misunderstood main male villain" which sped through the whole getting together plot in like 2 episodes?? I was left very unclear on a bunch of plot points and not caring about anyone so I stopped at that point.
My Senpai Is Annoying, The Ice Guy and his Cool Female Colleague, My Tiny Sempai, Saint Cecelia and Pastor Lawrence: several workplace romances which immediately settle into plotless slice of life pining and silly jokes and I got super bored. Be more to my tastes, workplace romance anime >:(
f/f:
Yuri is my Job: a tropey yuri anime about yuri tropes. It's set in a cafe where highschool girls play at being Cute Shippy Highschool Girls. The protagonist has spent her whole life creating a persona of Cute Loveable Girl and thinks the job will be a cake-walk, but everything gets complicated by the conflict between the real life girls and the roles they play, and she doesn't know how to deal with the confusing feelings she has towards her tsundere senpai. Not aggressively subversive but still enjoyably explores real girls having darker, messier emotions than Cute Yuri Girls. Neither of the couples is together by the end of the first season but some important development has happened.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: I haven't watched this yet but keep hearing it's good and remarkably femslashy, so! Mentioning it for anyone into yuri who assumed a gundam show isn't for them, or assumed I'd watched it and was curious to hear my opinion. I am sure I'll get around to it one day! The problem is that Evangelion kinda ruined me for more traditional giant robots, I always end up wishing they were sentient.
There's been some fun reviews at
anime_manga and I said I'd try and post some myself so...here we go! *pokes 'to review' list* ...oh god it's been so long I have forgotten half of these... But anything I remember especially enjoying is in bold.
No romance in the bit I watched but probably eventually m/f:
Kono Oto Tomare
Trigun Stampede
M/F:
Skip to Loafer
Sugar Apple Fairy Tale
My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Level 999
Why Raeliana ended up at the Duke's Mansion
Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts
I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss
My Senpai Is Annoying, The Ice Guy and his Cool Female Colleague, My Tiny Sempai, Saint Cecelia and Pastor Lawrence
F/F:
Yuri is my Job
m/m will have to wait for my manga/webtoons review post because there hasn't been any new m/m anime in a while :(
No romance in the bit I watched but probably eventually m/f:
Kono Oto Tomare: The Sounds of Life!: highschool music club ensemble drama anime, where a group of kids get together to Save The Koto Club. (Koto is a traditional Japanese string instrument) Seemed ok from what I saw, with some likeable characters, though a lot more male than female. I hear the eventual het romances are cute but there wasn't any in the couple of episodes I watched. I might watch some more eventually, it's pretty inoffensive.
Trigun Stampede: bittersweet Western-inspired action scifi on a desert planet. I enjoyed the 1998 anime back in the day, what I saw of this was pretty good but angsty enough that I haven't gone back to it.
M/F:
Skip to Loafer: A super cute, understated romance between an earnestly ambitious girl from the country and a checked-out popular boy whose cheerful facade hides a deep melancholy. Lots of great side characters and funny moments, just a fun highschool story in general with some lovely female friendships. Also the protagonist lives with a trans aunt in the city and this is handled pretty well! The couple don't quite get together by the end of the current season of the anime but it ends at a nice moment.
Sugar Apple Fairy Tale: 15 year old Anne, from a quasi-19th Century England fantasy setting, defies convention by being determined to become a sugar artisan, and by treating the enslaved fairy race with decency.
Cut for slavery and consent issues in a fluffy candy coating.
Her love interest, Challe, is a bitter ex-slave fairy like 5 times her age who she OWNS for a while, the consent issues are SUCH a mess but damn if I don't ship it. The show has basically no other female characters, and the fantasy racism has all sorts of unfortunate implications and Fantasy [White] Saviour plots, but I really enjoyed the basic compassion for all people (...including some very Fantasy Racist people) and how the story respects Anne's politely determined artistic and career ambition. There's no onscreen sexual content, but Challe has a lot of rape victim Vibes, he gives the impression of seeing sex with humans as just another part of his servitude, unpleasant but not worth making a big deal about (Anne is very I WOULD NEVER but some of this is because she's a Good Girl, she can be naive and prudish) Apparently was published as shonen, shoujo and seinen but definitely has a shoujo aesthetic. Currently mid season 2 and they're not quite together but basically both know their feelings are mutual, there's just Other Stuff going on.
My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Level 999: An emotionally expressive, earnest 20 year old woman gets dumped by her boyfriend and drowns her sorrows in a MMORPG video game, where she falls into the path of an emotionally impassive 18 year old gamer boy and his friends. I overall enjoyed this, I didn't get INTENSE shippy feels but they're both sweet, earnest people who make each other and the people around them happy. But the narrative and protagonist are occasionally Unfortunate about a (mostly very sympathetic) secondary male character who plays a girl in the game.
Why Raeliana ended up at the Duke's Mansion: An anime adaptation of the webtoon I already read and enjoyed. A Japanese woman is pushed off a building and wakes as a doomed minor character in a book she was reading, her attempts to not die throw her in the path of the Smugly Assholeish Yet Ultimately Decent male love interest. Engages with the premise more than a lot of other reborn-as-fictional-character stories (see below), like how she just assumes he can't be into her because he is Destined for the Protagonist, and has a lot of fun characters, but it's not doing anything SUPER original. The first season doesn't cover the whole story but the webtoon is finished if you don't want to wait.
Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts: Strange fantasy romance about a girl sent to be sacrificed to the king of the beasts (basically furries), who are in a cold war with the humans. But she's so weirdly ok with being sacrificed that he feels bad for her and they form a bond, and she becomes his fiance. Didn't quite work for me and I only watched a few episodes but it was certainly an interesting experience!
I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss: generic "normal Japanese woman ends up as Misunderstood villainess and gets together with Misunderstood main male villain" which sped through the whole getting together plot in like 2 episodes?? I was left very unclear on a bunch of plot points and not caring about anyone so I stopped at that point.
My Senpai Is Annoying, The Ice Guy and his Cool Female Colleague, My Tiny Sempai, Saint Cecelia and Pastor Lawrence: several workplace romances which immediately settle into plotless slice of life pining and silly jokes and I got super bored. Be more to my tastes, workplace romance anime >:(
f/f:
Yuri is my Job: a tropey yuri anime about yuri tropes. It's set in a cafe where highschool girls play at being Cute Shippy Highschool Girls. The protagonist has spent her whole life creating a persona of Cute Loveable Girl and thinks the job will be a cake-walk, but everything gets complicated by the conflict between the real life girls and the roles they play, and she doesn't know how to deal with the confusing feelings she has towards her tsundere senpai. Not aggressively subversive but still enjoyably explores real girls having darker, messier emotions than Cute Yuri Girls. Neither of the couples is together by the end of the first season but some important development has happened.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: I haven't watched this yet but keep hearing it's good and remarkably femslashy, so! Mentioning it for anyone into yuri who assumed a gundam show isn't for them, or assumed I'd watched it and was curious to hear my opinion. I am sure I'll get around to it one day! The problem is that Evangelion kinda ruined me for more traditional giant robots, I always end up wishing they were sentient.
