Hitoribocchi is a triumphant celebration of social anxiety. I have grown to love shows about how messy life and relationships are, where all the characters are disasters, and
Hitoribocchi does this in the most fun and wholesome way as I have seen it done. It doesn’t have its characters have an epiphany and completely change forever, it really gets how slow and difficult emotional growth actually is.
The main four all receive a good amount of focus, and the group dynamics work flawlessly no matter which of them are bouncing off of each other at any given moment. The visual execution is fantastic as well. The mob characters having the detail that they do not only adds more personality to the show, it also helps to highlight Bocchi’s insecurities. And the comedy is consistently on-point, adding just enough edge to the comfy to put me in stitches at many points in the series.
This should easily be in my Top 10 for the Year, maybe even Top 5.
Aggretsuko S2 was about as good as the first season without being just a rehash of the first season. The early stuff with Anai and Retsuko’s mother was quite frustrating, although to be fair, that’s what they were going for. A lot of shows try very hard to put you in its character’s heads to get the viewer to sympathize with them, and it is quite impressive how this series manages to get you to feel the anger that its eponymous character does. This season in particular does not hold back, and it is honestly a rather unpleasant experience in some spots. But that’s the point, to show life’s highs and lows in the most poignant way it can.
The resolution to Anai’s arc was a bit weird. I didn’t think it was bad, just felt unlike the series to do a more traditional style of character development. I liked the stuff with Gori. More subdued (I didn’t get as angry) but still very effective. Really gets the constant uncertainties of life. I loved Ton’s speech to Retsuko towards the end. Life might not inherently have meaning, but that just means we can
choose our own reasons to live. Our passions and institutions might be ultimately be meaningless to an uncaring universe, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have value to
us.
Aikatsu Friends S2’s opening arc was good. The production was mostly solid, and the writing and performances were as good as ever. It introduced new characters and new themes, that the idea of fated relationships is shallow and that relationships are something you have to work on, and that being a leader does not mean being a martyr.
It was a risk pushing the beloved Diamond Friends to the physical comic relief roles, but it was worth it for Hibiki and Alicia’s character development. (It helps that PP’s comedic bits were hilarious and adorable.) I felt like Hikasa Youko was overacting a bit, but she nailed the moments she had to. I can’t reasonably expect the production to be super consistent (it
is toy anime) but hopefully the writing can continue to be above average for a kids’ cartoon.
Sarazanmai is an ambitious, gorgeous, and thematically dense production. It has a lot of interesting themes about the difference between Love and Desire, how powerful connections are, how genuine connections are formed, how we are defined by and are responsible for the choices we make, and how hope and despair are a part of life.
Unfortunately, it loses me a bit narratively. It has so much goofy nonsense and repetition that it doesn’t have the emotional grounding needed to humanize its characters as well as it could have (for me, at least). They’re not unsympathetic, but I think I could’ve felt more for them if the storytelling was more straightforward, or if they had more episodes to flesh their stories out, and it missed me on a couple of its important emotional moments. It’s good, but it could’ve been better.
Carole and Tuesday was more problematic and less compelling than I expected. The show’s attitude towards the music industry’s artifice has been rather curmudgeonly and cynical, and its exploration of how art is created hasn’t been as interesting as the show’s earnest performances. The performances in this latest arc are world-class, but it’s also been a venue for indulging in a lot of hackneyed tropes.
The thing that gives me hope for the second half is Angela. She seems to be written as a counterpoint to the show’s general attitude. She is both completely prefabricated and also completely genuine, a fashion icon backed by dark money and computer-generated songs who nonetheless takes honest pride in her drive and talent, and who could never have made it this far without those personal qualities. Another good thing to come put of the
Mars’ Brightest arc is also how it showed both the earnest joy and ugliness of fandom across its three leads. So perhaps it can have some more nuance to its themes. This has definitely been a weak arc, but hopefully we may be reaching the end of C&T’s struggles.
Star Twinkle Precure was uneven in the way you expect a kids’ cartoon to be. It has some jankier moments and some very simplistic episodes. but when it’s good, it’s good fun.
Senryuu Shoujo only had half-eps but it still ran long enough for me to get tired of it. Its gimmick was ultimately purely visual. Maybe it works better in print, but I don’t think it added that much on television. I initially didn’t mind the show leaning into its romantic coding more, but I got tired of their refusal to commit to it. Maybe this is a cultural thing, but I just don’t understand high-school boys who act like Eiji. It had plenty of cute and fun moments, but I might’ve liked it better without the romance.
Fruits Basket does not completely hold up. Once my nostalgia faded, it was mostly uninteresting and occasionally problematic. Even when it’s not bad, it feels dated in the way that many progenitors of storytelling tropes do. I understand the need to be faithful to its source material, but I’m not going to congratulate it for that. I used to love this series but I don’t think I will be watching more.
Kimetsu no Yaiba lowers the bar for shouen writing. The gorgeous effects and CG could not keep the constant exposition, clunky dialogue, and all the yelling from consistently breaking my immersion. It’s got a pretty simplistic, one-note, and obnoxious sense of humor, its characters gravitate towards a few specific archetypes, its plotting has no sense of momentum or coherent structure, its characters often speak in default shounen truisms that reflect nothing about their own personalities.
But the most frustrating part is that there’s a few points where this show could’ve had a big thematic idea that it could hang its identity on, the way MHA or
Mob Psycho did, but it just doesn’t go for it. I don’t know if it’s a lack of confidence or not realizing the need for it, but its speeches to that effect never build towards any coherent, compelling message. KnY isn’t devoid of fun, but I feel like its writing is just too far below the level I need for particularly meaningful investment, especially with a number of interesting action titles coming this summer.