Yeah. I felt the same about “No Longer Allowed in Another Word” at first, but it grew on me. I think it took about four episodes to establish itself.

Oshi no Ko - Finally picked this back up and binged all but the latest episode. I had high expectations and it easily exceeded them. 5/5

Dungeon People - Really enjoying this one. The characters and setting are fun. It doesn’t do anything big and seems a bit simple at a glance, but something about it just clicks for me. 4/5

I Parry Everything - I was on the fence about this one earlier on, but it really hit a stide in the last few episodes. The total absurdity of the situation is hilarious, but I’m not sure that can be sustained in a way that works… 3/5

Slime - First part of this season was largly a bust, but the current arc’s been fun. 3/5

Journey Through another World: Raising Kids - DROPPED. I’m not sure who the target audience for this was but it seems like it is for young children. Very boring. Dropped weeks ago. 2/5

A Nobody’s Way Up to an Exploration Hero - Somehow this show strays into so bad it is good territory for me, but that’s after skipping some of the duller bits. 2/5

Bye Bye, Earth - I really wanted to like this show, but it just refuses to do anything redeemable. The characters are awful. The world building is a disaster. The plot is nonsense. The world itself seems interesting, but is so poorly explored and executed that it is just a waste. 2/5

Dahlia in Bloom - I’m very behind on this, but what I’ve seen was a disappointment. The leads had no chemistry and much of the dialog (in a very dialog heavy story) was dull. (I enjoyed the light novels so the story itself is good…) 3/5

Failure Frame - I’m still on the fence on this one. I generally enjoy the isekei game system thing, but this one hasn’t quite “clicked” with me. 3/5

Nokotan - Extremely hit and miss. Some episodes are gold and some are just meh. The show has a bad tendancy to stretch a joke to far so that it stops being funny. 3/5

My wife has no emotion - Really enjoying this one. Yeah it gets a bit weird at times, but the show owns that and works with it. I really enjoy how Mina’s personality is conveyed with limited facial expressions and at odds with her assumed lack of emotions. 4/5

No Longer Allowed in Another World - The first few episodes were rough, but once it got going this turned out to be surprisingly good. 4/5

Pseudo Harem - The name suggests something trashy, but the show itself is actually incredibly sweet. I’m enjoying it, but it is almost too much at times. 4/5

Quality Assurance in Another World - Solid overall. I enjoy the characters, the world, the goofy dragons, etc. But seems to be lacking something that would take it from good to great. 4/5

The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant - This one falls into guilty pleasure territory. The combination of sweet and absurd just works. 4/5

Ossan Newbie Adventurer - A bit of a rough start, but it has improved as the story moved along and got passed the overly long intro arc. 3/5

The Strongest Magician in the Demon Lord’s Army was a Human - A bit hit and miss. Some of the characters are fun. The story is unremarkable but fine. 3/5

Why Does nobody remember me in this world - I watched through the first arc with the fight against the demons, and just lost interest. Soft dropped. 3/5

Wistoria: Wand and Sword - This one is barely holding my interest. The visuals are good. But the rest of it just feels off somehow. I’d say it is cliché, but I like a lot of cliché shows… 3/5

Spice and Wolf - I honestly forgot this was continuing. I’ll binge it later. Overall I alike and appreciate the show, but it can be exceedingly melancholy at times without enough comic relief to balance that out. I hope that has improved from where I dropped off.

I love how absolutely bonkers this is. Did not expect his training with the suspended swords to be foreshadowing and make this almost make sense.

It’s like mind numbing eye candy. At least the last episode delivered on the action. Plot, characters, world building, intrigue 2/5. Style, visual quality, flashiness 4/5.

Dahlia in Bloom 1-8:
More than just the last week, but I finally caught up with the translations.

The story is fairly mundane for an isekei fantasy world light novel. No major meta plot, no level grind. No major world building. No major fights. No real enemies. It is basically a light character drama slice of life. So far, maybe 6 months have passed in 8 volumes, and the main, so obvious even a horse sees it, romantic subplot is unchanged. The main character is something of a mary sue with everything tending to work in her favor (cold open, otome like dumping scene included.)

Normally I’d be bored with this. But the business/inventor subplot is fun and the characters are very well written, especially the way their interests and back stories tie together. It is character driven and uses the characters well.

Sadly it does not look like the anime has done a good job showing any of the stories charms, but I’m a few episodes behind so maybe it gets better.

I love how they keep the nature of Mina’s personality ambiguous. Confirming her parts are unmodified and her model should not normally be capable of having or showing affection…

Then there’s the way she resisted inspection then held her arms up just because she did not want him to see.

Looks like it is building to something, so I’ll give it one more episode but something about this show is just… off.

Agreed. This episode redeemed the series for me and I’m now mildly looking forward to the next episode.

Somehow this has become one of my favorites for the season. It helps that we’ve moved past some of the initial weirdness and that Mina appears to have some real agency.

That birthday surprise was unexpected but perfectly in character for Mina. I love how much character she does have despite the lack of facial expressions and monotone voice.

Random, likely wrong, theory. Clay and Belle are sisters, sort of a second family situation, with clays dad also being the previous admin. The whole bit about going to the tenth floor was just to get clay and belle to meet. Meanwhile he’s gone off to manage another dungeon.

Still not sure what to make of this show. It remains watchable and interesting enough, but not in a standout way.

I’m now wondering if the in game time is just massively sped up at it has only been a few hours.

This felt like a solid step back toward what I liked about the first episode.

Looks like this show may have peaked in episode one… way too much focus on cryptic foreshadowing and dramatic weirdness relative to the actual plot.

Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 9 Just finished this last night. It was more of the same for the adventurer arc of the series. Few real plot relevant events and no major fight scenes or challenges. The afterword makes it clear that a lot of this is just filler/extra content that was not in the web novel. The story did not really start to pick up until the end where it stopped on a cliff hanger.

Margit seems underused and under developed as a character. More of a tool/occasionally remembered plot element than an actual character with her own agency. Although the author did get to play out one of his bug girl fantasies, so there is that.

The world, most of the characters, the magic system, and all the teased plot threads still keep my interest, but the authors meandering prose and animal/bug girl fetishes are trying my patience.

3/5

I loved the first volume of the Water Magician, but the second volume was somewhat disappointing. It seemed less plot focused and more slice of life/random event driven.

I wanted to like the Nia Liston series, but lost interest somewhere in volume 2. The isekei bit seems to just be in there as a running gag with the main focus being a slice of life about a child TV star in a light fantasy setting. The whole thing reminds me a lot of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

The Oblivious Saint Can’t Contain Her Power - Once again, I enjoyed the first volume and lost interest in the second. This one became very tropey, spending far too much time on a love triangle that was obviously not going to amount to anything…

The Otome Heroine’s Fight for Survival - I’m still loving this series. Volume 2 continues from where 1 left off without issue.

The water proofing is probably only intended to protect against rain and dishwater. She is a lower end model after all.

I loved the crazy, surreal humor from the first episode, but since then it feels like the main focus is on bullying the MC and that humor isn’t really landing with me. Hopefully the next episode will mix things up a bit.

I spent far too much time trying to figure out if she could have got out of the chains on her own…

Still not quite sure what to make of this one.

Not sure how I feel about the NPC possession. It kind of ruined the illusion that she was more than just programming. But it was good to get some more world building and kick off the plot.