What I’ve Been Up To April 15th - April 21st 2024
This was a lot later than it had any right to be. I’ll be doing catch-up. Hopefully this time I actually catch up.
These posts are not meant to be comprehensive reviews of episodes or shows talked about. They’re not meant to introduce people to the shows and explain who the characters are. They’re simply meant to give an idea of my thoughts on the shows I’ve been watching recently. I try to avoid spoilers because there’s the possibility someone is reading and hasn’t seen the show, but they’re not necessarily meant to be fully understood without having seen the show being discussed. If you’re wondering who a character I mention is because I haven’t told you who they are or something, that’s somewhat intentional. If I explained who every character in every show was, these posts would be unbearable to read.
Shows discussed in this post:
Completed
Solo Leveling
Mato Seihei no Slave
Still Watching
Blue Archive
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei 3rd Season
ARIA The Natural
Heartcatch Precure!
Completed
Solo Leveling
I figured I should check out the most popular show of last season, especially since I’d heard the web comic it’s based on is good. Probably the most famous thing about the comic is the artwork, which can be pretty hard to translate into animation as things need to be somewhat simplified. I don’t think the artwork in the show is particularly stand-out, but I do think that there were some pretty nice action sequences which kept the series at the very least entertaining throughout. Unfortunately, if action scenes don’t do much for you, I don’t think this show will have much for you. I do enjoy action so I did enjoy the show overall, especially because mindless action was what I was in the mood for, but the writing outside of that leaves a lot to be desired. I do think that some of that has to do with the nature of this first season. There are many scenes which cut away to characters who haven’t actually met our main character yet, these scenes seeming to be setting up for events to come in future seasons. Our main character is still very much growing. He gets pretty powerful pretty quickly, but the power scaling of the world does do a decent amount to keep his relative power in check so that things are still tense. He is starting to reach the upper limits of what’s been established, so future seasons might not feel as tense, but the show so far does ramp up the stakes alongside his growth, and has a bit of a built-in reasoning for this due to “The System” matching him against certain opponents and displaying difficulty of opponents relative to his level. I don’t quite get why he’s so afraid of being found out as having become more powerful. I do get that people increasing their power is very rare, and being able to do it multiple times is unheard of, but this whole power system seems relatively new to this world, so I don’t think most people would be too harsh on him for this fact. The characters so far feel kind of bland. I don’t have any that I care about particularly. Ju-Hui is probably the most interesting. Her fear and questioning of whether she should be adventuring do give a bit of a window into a perspective I feel like we don’t see too often in these kinds of shows where regular people are given power and faced with having to defeat monsters. It’s also the only real complete character arc this season, and having some resolution on her character by the end does make it feel nicer watching this on its own. Overall, I did enjoy the show, but it also does feel pretty middling, and as said before, it doesn’t have much to offer besides its action scenes.
Score: Low 6/10
Mato Seihei no Slave
I wasn’t a particularly big fan of Mato Seihei no Slave, but it did surpass my admittedly low expectations. It panders to a very specific type of person, and I am not that type of person, so scenes which focus on that pandering weren’t particularly effective for me. I would say though, if you’re looking for ecchi, even if you aren’t into dom play, this show might still work for you. It has plenty of scenarios which pander specifically to the fantasy of a dom/sub relationship, but there are plenty of scenes which are more widely appealing than I thought I’d get with this show. The show has a very clear goal of appealing to its base while still balancing things to allow a broader audience to enjoy it, which is better than I can say for a lot of shows like this.
That’s about where the praise stops, though. If you are watching this show for anything other than the ecchi dom power fantasy, I don’t think you’ll find much here for you. The characters are pretty basic. The main character is very average for an action harem main character. The girls can largely be slotted into tropes. The antagonists don’t have much characterization or stated motivation outside of seeing themselves as superior. The production is kind of awful, with bland, samey backgrounds and an awful filter over everything. The action isn’t engaging or energetic. The powers aren’t anything novel. This show really just has 1 purpose, and everything around that exists not for itself or to be good in that way, but simply to bolster that purpose of arousing the viewer without becoming just hentai.
Score: 4/10
Still Watching
Blue Archive
I watched Episode 3 of Blue Archive this week. This was a fun one. Problem Solver 68 got introduced. In terms of the various club groups in the game, they’ve probably got some of the best chemistry and are one of the more unique groups. They’re also an enjoyable part of this story volume in the game, and while I wasn’t as fond of how they interacted with the Abydos students in the anime as I was in the game, their antics still brought enough levity to the episode to keep me entertained. We didn’t do much more this episode besides introduce Problem Solver 68, so there’s not a ton more to talk about really. The battle scenes still feel weird strategically. Like, Hoshino charging with the shield while Serika and Nonomi follow and take out targets as they reach them and Shiroko uses the time when the attention on them to flank the sniper isn’t the most outstanding strategy. The game doesn’t allow for much strategy to begin with, it mostly consists of using skills at the right time in a proper order, but I guess they really want to make it clear that Sensei being there is an asset. However, their attempts to display strategic prowess still look really goofy. I don’t expect the show to display some advanced level of strategy, but it should at least feel clever in how the Abydos students with Sensei at the helm overcome their foes. It should feel like something Hoshino couldn’t have come up with on her own.
I still wouldn’t quite say that the show has done enough to set itself apart from other seasonal anime as something truly special, but it’s gotten to be a genuinely fun time at least 2 out of 3 episodes so far. I don’t even remember any exposition this episode! I still wouldn’t say this is a must watch or anything this season. It’s not distinguished itself as something special or particularly interesting. But it at least has started to play with some of the stuff that made this section of the story in the game fun, and that’s kind of what I want out of this show more than anything else if we’re not going to get to the later parts of the story.
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei 3rd Season
I’m also now 3 episodes into the 3rd season of Mahouka. This episode was a lot of nothing really. Didn’t even feel like we had a ton of exposition. We have the face-off between Tatsuya and Maya, and we basically just had Maya tell Tatsuya to quit school and be locked up in the Yotsuba basement, and then Tatsuya refuse, and they have a magic stand-off for a split second I guess. Some stuff is happening with Mia as well supposedly?. And then we had the plotline of the diet member visiting the school with the reporters who wanna connect the school to the military, and Tatsuya doing an experiment which is for the betterment of society in a way which isn’t practical for military use to get them off his back. Which doesn’t really make sense if you actually try and think about how human beings operate, but if you look at it and don’t ask questions I guess it’s got a logical throughline of making sure the reporters had little to work with to tie the school to the military. This was a nothingburger episode, and I think the show knows this, because it ends with a call from Lina to wish Tatsuya a happy birthday and flirt followed by Miyuki in a fancy dress sitting on a bed with Tatsuya and also flirting, I believe to give the fans something pretty to look at and forget that the only things which happened that episode were we effortlessly shrugged off the eminent threats which have been built up the past couple episodes.
ARIA The Natural
I feel bad just writing “Yes I did continue watching Aria, it continues being good” but I don’t feel like I have anything new to say without going into the episode breakdowns, and unfortunately we’re far enough away from when this post was meant to be posted that I’d basically have to rewatch the episodes to do those this time. Overall, Aria continues to be very pleasant. I continue to grapple with watching it daily with others. I think I’ll be rewatching this on my own very soon, and might not write about Origination because I feel like I’m not having a focused experience with how I’m watching it right now.
Heartcatch Precure!
I watched Episode 3 of Heartcatch Precure!. I think this one is going on hold. Episode 3 was fun, with Erika’s debut as a Precure, but I am now very behind the group watch, and frankly didn’t want to group watch this entry anyway. I would like to catch up on the franchise in a more ordered fashion, honestly, but also don’t quite feel like I have the time for it. What to do…
