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Wake up babe, Gigguk just dropped his new single "Thick of It" feat. KSI! What I expected was off brand domestic girlfriend in another world or an allegory for that one episode of trash taste where they talk about sharing pics of their mishapen shits with each other in a group chat. What I got was Ghibli at home... leaving home... in a nutshell.

I have two criticisms inside me. The first is that the first 4m of the short film drag on. The vibes with the guy texting his helicopter mom were off. Cell phone got too much screen time, guy is too moody, Mom ... is hacking his browser history, and this follows up the fanstastic vibes of the opening fairy flight where she says "want to come along" and there are two moons and one dragon establishing Euthenasia or whatever it's called. Nobody wants to see you react to your mom's text messages and we already know Euthenasia is a threat level 2 zone because there are dragons ya dinkus.

Which brings me to my second criticism. Put that threat level 3 in the bag son! A single action scene we did receive and it was top shelf. The gross leech horde and the fairies protecting the dragon pupae and the chance encounter in the forest, all 3s of it was superb. Whole film became a trailer at that point, because there is so much I wanted to see but the film really wanted me not to see it. The summetry is great, yes. The non-linear storytelling was well done overall and that's hard, I'm impressed. I felt the faintest swelling of my tearducts to receive the message about setting out and finding connection and building both the launch pad and home base for your people of the next generation when they set out on their adventure, even if it's only to the call center around the corner from wherever you couldn't stand to remain in your youth. Whatever is threat level 2 to you I guess. But alas, I am left a bit sore at the possibilities, and for my boy Gigguk I wanted a 9/10 ez gm and I think they had it with just a few more ruthless passes on the storyboard grounded in the shonen jump gaze. Reaching a bit further into the bag of generational trash taste for some establishing scenes, dare I say some sakuga, to convey the bond between bro and tinkerbell out in Euthenasia double moon slug dragon town. I don't care about playgrounds and call centres, although the household magic was all kinds of attractive, what I really wanted was double moon slug dragon to rip some fucking faces off and tinkerbell to get a pound of flesh for her parents trouble, because that leech parade type shit was not threat level 2 man. Mom got King Kong bug crevassed at youtube premium speeds.

I am a Gigguk fan, on YT he's the man. For me, his first film project is rough around the edges, but has an overwhelming number of redeeming qualities and I am at once relieved, inspired, and glad. Likeable voice acting, dialogue, and character designs. Good and believable character writing, a warm and powerful message delivered clearly - one that is especially difficult to deliver in a short film - but with the non-linear storytelling they managed to pull through and get it done. They had brief but powerful action in that one scene with Tinkerbell's parents, the story beats all immediately click when she runs into helicopter mom backpacker in another world guy, the creature design and artwork is all kinds of nasty, the animation is efficient and keeps attention at the right moments. However, the most charming relationships, the best story beats, and the coolest environment in the story just get less of the runtime than I wanted them to. I would have given this at least 3 episodes but I'm leaving a little thirsty. I generally like it when a story refuses to hand-hold and trusts you to infer events vaguely alluded to or symbolized which can sometimes hit much harder than depicting them... but this is a short film and I want make things go kamehameha BOOM. Or maybe it's a trailer for something like that coming out later. Can't decide, but I hope it is a trailer because if this is the first tilt at the windmill, I want to see the next 10.

Btw the guy who made this Anime used to work for the BBC.

Almost. Show drops from a comfy 7 to a generous 5 about halfway through, and while I am not above seeing a 5 through to a 3/10 ending I now find myself skipping ahead in the episode and distracted completely by my first and third monitors around episodes 6 and 7, so I'm out. The writing is the strongest aspect of the show so tbh I do expect it to pick up a bit towards the end. However, pacing the MSQ near-perfectly while constantly dangling carrots off to the side with shitty comedy, thirst traps, self-insert fantasies, and affirmations of whatever mind virus I probably ... have at this moment, is an elevated requirement in low-budget no-expectation entries that are otherwise have the mouthfeel of hot garbage. Normie shit like good dialogue, decent animation, and creative storytelling is all I really need to keep my sense of novelty above seinfeld rerun level and keep watching, but the budget-induced compromises that are guaranteed to show up somewhere in this kind of show all hit a little too hard at the halfway point for me.

What did I like? I thought they did a great job with the aforementioned balancing act out of the gate and coaxed the viewer into intrigue. Right away we have stakes, established the world, and rendered the MC and initial harem members in a decent light especially Theron. Left a bit of mystery here and there, some will they won't they questions and gooner bait especially with Theron, and raised solid plot questions to be answered over the course of their adventure. Unfortunately, the last few episodes between 5-7 have got us stuck on a side quest picking up the femboy loli member of the harem and kind of like Re:Zero without the time-travel dillemas front and center I quickly lose interest. A lot of people like that trash too though, so maybe they will like this.

New Saga has the same DNA as A-Rank Party from last season, but way better world building, technicals, subplots, more interesting classic character designs, and starts off with a grand calamity to motivate the time-travel adventure that will be undertaken to hopefully avoid it the second time around. There is some political intrigue, somewhat harrowing personal tragedies and sacrifices, interesting side characters, and wincest. Though it is a matter of preference I'm partial to these less angular flattened shape language and analogous color palettes in New Saga than the still cool A-Rank Party ones, and I will give it to A-Rank in the romance category as they very clearly had a lot of experience making Otome games although around where I dropped that show they are also trying to retain the lolicons to sell figurines I guess. Unfortunately, I have to say that neither show reaches plausible deniability in their redeeming aspects to convince me that the goal was not to retread tried and true tropes in order to sell a fresh batch of figurines to fatties.

There was promise in the concept. I also liked the character designs for MC and his in-game baddie NPC sidekick Atou. MC resembles the ink monsters from beyond the gate in FMAB, to everyone except Atou who sees him in his normal human form. Atou has peppy ears and funky bangs as a trad dark elf but also massive spiked tentacles that are literally copypasta from Clevatess in every way but on an even lower budget. At first, it looked like this could be one of those cozy midwit shows where you just do whippets, reminisce on all the mistakes you've made in life and ... vibe. Unfortunately, that dream died with the quickly stale interactions between MC and Atou. Even less interesting were the interactions between those two, and their new subjects - the dark elf denizens of the dark forest they spawn at. Really the final 10 nails in the coffin for this shit was the basic bitch Naruto filler arc level politics as they start reaching out to interact with the wider game world though. Thay actually have a character that is just kid naruto, but he lives with a race of Taurens. As the world building now seems completely unable to make up for the trash tier everything else, since Atou crushing on the MC is a waste because he is just a bog standard 10 year old boy with the tism and no spice to speak of, and given they introduced two random loli dark elfs to sit on his lap so they can make those kinds of jokes... I'm calling it here in episode 7, skip!

Could this have worked with better production values and writing? I do like the Adams Family aesthetic of the dark-aligned empire they seek to build together, the bug scouts are cool, and the whole "we can be more than just a player and his favorite NPC" r/MyBoyfriendIsAI vibe is well timed as in about 3 years people will be IRL apocalypse bringing their favorite video game baddies to their own personal Mynogoonras so they can opt out of the gene pool. This season of natural selection finna go crazy and everybody knows it, so they could have had some fun with this concept for sure at the cost of writing higher-quality banter. To be fair I kept watching because they did not fumble the fun aspects of the setting out of the gate. The grand premise of building up a not-so-evil evil empire over centuries, fighting off established neighbouring nations, and slowly spawning more and more underlings as they play politics and war games quickly rang hollow as the dialouge, the character writing, the jokes, the plot, the side characters, slid to 3/10 vanilla lame. When your empire is that pathetic it really ruins the fantasy of wifing up your goon godess in your favorite video game as an edgelord in another world, because she would probably be happier as just another greek letter in Shadow Garden. If you're looking for something that cucks this crap on every level, just rewatch Eminence in Shadow.

Initially, the vibes it was giving was darker, more power-fantasy-centric realist hero energy where the MC rebuilds the nation he isekais into using accounting and business etiquette. I could have done some whippets (I don't actually do whippets I just imagine I would have to) and kept watching Apocolypse Bringer Mynoghra like I did Realist Hero but unlike Realist Hero which did the bare bones writing required to deploy the limited production budget successfully and establish a world with characters and set of problems and events worth sticking it out to the end for, just was not there and this far in I do not expect a reversal. The competition has become extremely fierce to stand out in a given season compared to when Realist Hero was around, and if you only have time for a handful of shows I can't see this one making your list.

Streaming dungeon dives and quests is a really fun twist on the fantasy adventure genre and pretty much the hook for this show. Sponsored streams and the cottage industries that are supported by adventure streaming give the MC and his pals a convenient excuse to bang out side quests and push the story along. "Stream sniping" between parties, with the guild monitoring streams as a mechanism to track and verify adventurer activity or send help in case of an emergency trades the what-happens-in-the-dungeon-stays-in-the-dungeon tradition for a "full information" concept. That gives the guild a good reason to exist in-universe, being twitch/youtube + DMV + SWAT ... rather than just being there because there is always a guild in shows like this one.

Depicting the raw entertainment value for the general public and strategic value to other adventurers in watching the best clips back to see how different parties strategize and approach specific encounters in the dungeons is also just a free force multiplier on the limited world building a show like this can accomplish. Unlocking the ability to set the stakes or the next story beat just by playing back a previous stream on a screen somewhere and having any character in the show react to it, or having a character express some streaming related goal, is a great device that lets you do the same thing you would do in a flashback with a bit more immersion and flexibility. I actually didn't know about this aspect of the show before I watched the show, and I like it a lot more than I thought I would. It sounds like it would be cheesy and stupid af, but it's great and it's also not the only thing I like about this Anime.

While the streaming in a fantasy world concept does a lot to mitigate the generally low production values on its own, the fights have a passable level of "hard" mechanics and strategy. Exploring dungeons between fights allocates screen time and exposition to the need to stop and eat, rest and recover, camp out in the dungeon and replenish mana. It helps that the animation and direction are tolerable, too. Show crutches hard on effects, character writing, and concept but all together it's very watchable through the firmly mid action sequences which helps the stronger aspects of the writing get a foothold and grow on you.

The well written personalities of the MC and his new party plus good dialogue contrasts so well with the gross narcissists in his former "A-rank" party. He ditches them because he was being overworked, underpaid, and completely unappreciated for all the bullshit he has to take on just to get them through their higher level quests unscathed. Peak catharsis watching this man walk out on a C-suite that are too busy smelling their own farts to know what their best people actually do in a day to keep the lights on. It looks like a step away from his long term goals at the time and he will definitely have to take on even greater responsibility at first to build up his new, less experienced party. But if he doesn't have to deal with insufferable pieces of shit talking out of their assholes and taking credit for his work every single god damn day, it is WORTH IT. This part of the show gets me unreasonably fired up. Every time they pan to his shitty old party watching his new party dunk on a boss on stream I get wet back there.

Going meta, it is always good to see an MC in an almost-harem-but-sorta-CGDCT show like this having proper, workplace appropriate rizz. He handles his smart hot female colleagues without blushing or bleeding from the nose at all most of the time. Double that, the smart hot female colleagues appreciate him as a mentor and take initiative to contribute wherever they can. They also aren't just there to glaze him. When he's being too risk-averse or corny, they let him know and they're usually not wrong. Dialogue will often convey how close the girls are with each other, but not with him just yet. Makes complete sense because they were a party way before he joined, they're all girls, he hasn't been a novice adventurer for years and he's new to being a party leader. There's even a redemption arc brewing with one of his former party members, who is figuring out they were total dickbags to the MC and may try to mend fences in earnest.

These little touches of realism in how the characters are written and the "idiots all the way up" workplace drama theme dime out just enough lube to get the poor production values past my drop defenses. Streaming Solo Leveling gate encounters back to the general public is also a great concept to spice things up in an overdone genre. Same studio made that golf Anime "Birdie Wing: Golf Girl's Story" by balancing Jojo golf stands, the systematic development of adolescent super-talents in sports, yuri-bait and crime family golf vendettas. Bandai Namco do be cookin' with these concepts.

OP is a banger of all time, but most aspects of this show are simply less than what you can find elsewhere. I would expect a lot of people to be turned off of it quickly, and yet I'm still watching it? I guess... if you've seen any of the other mid Anime with cute guild receptionists that are just there to glaze the MC, there is definitely some fun to be had here.

Main appeal for me is Alina the MC's delulu decision to give two shits about her low paying, annoying job that she absolutely cannot wait to clock out of but constantly has ... to work overtime to keep, a job that is just holding her back, all because she saw some bad stuff happen to adults that she wanted to be like when she was a kid and that caused her to choose the safe and secure career track... this part, is waaaaaay too real.

Also, the chip on her shoulder over all these chode cardboard cutout adventurers who make silly demands and increase her workload regularly because they're so comically weak that they can't kill like any of the fucking dungeon bosses, and she has to choose between working overtime to deal with the fallout of their failures or just sucking it up and doing their job herself anonymously... that part, is also waaaaay too real. The inner dialogue and cutesy expressions that pop up when she is speaking to one of these clowns, making clear what she really thinks of them when they pull some bullshit in the guild lobby or ask her to do something that will add so much more to her plate than this oblivious fucktard could even try to understand, is all giving strong "sir this is a Wendy's" energy. At times the dialogue is genuinely funny or endearing, and the fact that they introduce a widely respected among adventurers love interest whose talents she has NO respect for, meanwhile he is simping for her like mike jack at a make a wish foundation banquet, just makes it even better.

However, the action animation is just not it. If it was, the show would be a sleeper recommend for the season, but while the art can be appealing most of the stuff I felt drawn to was in the more casual indoor or general town settings. I'm not sure why I haven't dropped the show yet tbh, but if I had to guess I would say it is carried mostly by the concept, the writing, and the voice actors. Even when they reveal Alina's reasons for being the weird half-workaholic part-time vigilante overtime-masochist-in-denial that she is, it just is not in the sweet spot. Still, the writers do a good job working with the concept.

My main criticism is that instead of emphasizing Alina's history as an adventurer, doing flashbacks and slowly revealing more and more about how she ended up like she is, they vastly oversimplify it and reduce her BiS hammer and god tier skills to "I dunno they like awakened or something? w/e bro". WHO IS THAT IN THE OP THOUGH!?!?! It's really not that deep anyways, but I've been turning off subtitles to enjoy the shit out of that OP every single time and I'm usually a skipper. It really is the best part of the show and it seems like that was missed by the studio, unfort.

Peak. Based. Cursed. Insane pace, Turbo Granny and UAPs after our bananas... the dialogue is so entertaining, and the plot is wild. English VAs are doing OK but the Japanese VAs are really killing it for Okarun and Ayase. Storyboarding is out of the world. The ship crash when they bust the door open and my guy reveals himself as THE Ken Takakura as it explodes was just too good. The economy of the storytelling and character introductions to set the tone for the series in that entire first episode was some savant shit fr. So far the pace has kept up and like the ... first episode the first arc has differentiated the show on multiple levels for the viewer, and done well to convince people who weren't familiar with Dandadan like me to start watching. I'll have to check out the manga to see if it's just the panels carrying this show so hard right now, but the feeling I get is that this is a quality adaptation by Science SARU and everyone they hired to work on this that is getting the special treatment because they stan the source material.

There is not a skill issue in sight on this production. The artwork even the still shots like when Ayase parks in front of Okaruns desk and stares down the people throwing shit at him, the expressions on the faces in every scene, the butter smooth animation at all times, the sound design and whacky OST that suits perfectly - the angles and crazy distorted perspectives in the action shots, superb direction in all the not-action scenes too, all the wild variations on the color palettes and change ups on art style but within a consistent range and with immersive transitions. The character writing and script and voice acting and character designs for Okarun and Momo are so good at defining these characters and their comraderie, that they have been able to carry these nutty cringe situations in just the first couple episodes. Since we're more focused on the interaction of their strong characters and the strong VA performances, we don't get the impression that the characters are being reduced to devices for cringe delivery. And that made all the cringe shit funny af, because the character interactions felt natural and endearing, and the characters are so likeable. The shock value moments came off as comedy rather than click bait for the same reason, even when they get too racey for a PG-13 rating. Those aliens were terrifying bro.

So far this is my jam, the show this season that I am most excited to see another episode of and it isn't close.

Re:Zero fell off. Strong S1, but they started the mid shit in the last half of S1 and then dipped hard into mid in S2 at times, and S3 isn't even mid. There were moments and ideas I liked in S2, but S3 so far feels like a nightmare about my childhood where I'm watching a Naruto filler arc but instead of Naruto it's Garfield who is just Boruto off of wish.com

Re:Zero is still and always will be one good checkpoint challenge from a great couple of episodes, but the first checkpoint challenge in season 3 was a 3-pump peter that ended in an SAO/CrossAnge-level ... cringe abduction, and Subaru's leg getting blown off, and bro AIN'T EVEN FINNA LOOP!? Sheeeeeeeeit... writers room has d/c'd. By the second episode like every character we've ever met has made a cameo to exchange hand-wovem BFF anklets bend the knee and throw a pity party with Subaru. It would be more interesting if they put him on a burnt out caregiver arc where like the audience he found it hard to gaf about anyone on screen and their constant whinging because there's just too fucking many of them. Instead he's being turned into Tanjiro-kun but with a lot more and a lot more sus demon loli little sisters in the backpack. In S2 there were so many characters, especially Garfield, that got introduced and added nothing to the story at all. But in S3 it's worse than that, because they came for all the previously interesting and well-written characters who provided structure and stakes to the story even (especially) at arms-length, engaged in a zero-sum game of thrones with Emilia and by extension Subaru. Having your strongest opps and rivals who you've slowly built respect for and with, all show up at the same time with their entourage only to start taking meetings and marching orders from you like they're shadow garden, reducing them to plot devices and infantilizing characters like Priscilla who now walks the streets like a common hooker taking artistic interests in street performers. AND we're still getting new uninteresting characters like Garfield's Mom, with uninteresting gimmicks like (you guessed it!) she has no memory of him. The jailbait busker, way too many furry sidekicks to keep track of, and that Reinhard guy's deadbeat Dad, I cannot even remember if these characters were in previous seasons of the show because they leave no impression at all I need Thanos to fix this shit right now there are too many mouths I don't want to hear from in this show.

What happened to Subaru's character writing and the world building accomplished so artfully through the looping dillemas in S1? I remember how hooked I was after the first few episodes of the first season of Re:Zero, how invested I was in Subaru assembling a team to hunt the white whale and loop-learning from failed negotiations with ruthless aristocrats like Priscilla that were willing to kill him for begging like a little bitch instead of coming in with a plan worth their while. Watching Subaru's mental state deteriorate with each traumatic death loop for a while there was good stuff, watching him throw hands only to be reinvigorated like the adolescent male he is by Rem's memeable cringe-cry emoteen 2-minute monologue, and all the goofy characters with their goofy designs but not TOO MANY OF THEM! There was weight to the narratives, stakes even with the looping mechanic, some good mystery bait, but season 2 just wasn't for me as much although it tried to hit those same notes and succeeded at times. It was too melodramatic, the super old spirit loli in a library I didn't buy it, the build-up with Echidna's tea parties inside Subaru's head was a wasted opportunity that had so much intrigue built up and didn't end in a satisfying way for me. Fuck Puck, simp. But in S3 there hasn't even been a good attempt at anything worthwhile, the team rocket threat level of the Sin Archbishops and witches' cult members when you know that Subaru can just loop on em' just isn't building any tension.

4 episodes into S3, we are knee deep in Sin Archibishops. We might have more archbishops than there are Sins by the end of this. Maybe sin is a spectrum. The witches shrouded in at least some myth and mystery just don't lend their intrigue to the witches cult, and the far more fascinating unknown link between Subaru's powers and the witch of Envy, and Echidna's little tea parties and ulterior motives, just interests me a lot more than all these sidequests and questionably smol sidechicks (they just can't stahhhhhp with the lolis bro!) and this SAO Asuna abduction storyline. I am curious about the witch's remains, but this whole flooding the city to kill her thing doesn't sound right because I'm pretty sure she can fly? This is like in the movie Her when ScarJo tells Joaquin that he's still her favorite book but now the spaces between words are so vast they might as well be infinite and there's so much to do in that empty space between words that she doesn't think she can finish their book anymore... we are in that space between words in this story right now. We are dancing to the latest K-Pop group the Sin Archbishops/Team Rocket, one is a dragon that speaks like a preteen girl, one is a mummy, one is a loli, one is a diddy, and all of this instead of building up some spooky mindfucky witchy shit which would be way more fun and is how the show got us interested in the first place.

And why the fuck is Garfield around? Tony the Tiger with PTSD from Kellog's going through bankruptcy cause frosted flakes just aren't that great... get this mommas boy outta here bro. His Mom lost her memory TOO!? How many times are we doin' this? I don't know if it's the source material or just the Anime adaptation at this point, but these mfers gettin' lazy ong.

Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night (Yoru no Kurage wa Oyogenai) has an interesting title. I read that Yoru means Night in Japanese, and you could therefore translate the title as "Yoru's Jellyfish Can't Swim". Light is also one of the only things a Jellyfish can sense at all, which is another reason I really like this Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night title. Apparently, the title was only supposed to be a working title. I'm glad they kept it.

When we begin in episode 1, Yoru's Jellyfish are definitely not swimming. She needs a spark, a guiding light, a sea with favorable currents. Her best ... piece to date - a mural on a concrete wall - was ridiculed by some classmates before she could tell them she painted it. She rejected her own art on the spot, standing in front of her signature so they wouldn't see, fearing that she would be rejected. Later, she even scratched out her signature on the mural and stopped drawing in general. There is probably a way to relate the "sting" of that unexpected criticism from people she was hoping to impress to Jellyfish biology, but I already explained about liking the title so lets not.

Back to that mural, Yoru still walks by it sometimes and ruminates. That is how she meets former idol Nonoka Tachibana, just "Kano" now. Kano absolutely fucking loves that fucking mural. She won't let people bad-mouth it, and she won't let Yoru let people bad mouth it! Then she has this crazy idea to sing anonymously online and have Yoru do artwork and OCs for this new joint venture they shall name "JELEE". See, Kano is like Water, but she needs Yoru to make the Jellyfish to swim in the water. They both need someone on the keys to compose these massive banger hits they will be making as JELEE, and they also need someone to do video editing and stuff like that. These additional requirements bring Mei and Kiui into the fold. Mei is on the keys, and Kiui is a fairly successful VTuber and really good at all things streaming so naturally she will be able to handle all digital duties with ease.

As you might guess, all four members of this JELEE quartet are going to have a come-to-Jellyfish "moe"ment resolving past traumas where they made some super relatable, but also super bad decisions. The catharsis comes from just how earnest and endearing the JELEE members can be when having each others backs or even when fighting and breaking up the band. It has that Oshi No Ko "industry insider" vibe but with a bunch of unrelated things that stitch together a more varied setting than "Jollywood" and nobody is above it all executing some masterplan. For example the motorcycle license test, getting a ticket for having two people on a motorcycle with just the license you get after that test, the girls meeting some random baddie with implants at the motorcycle test who offers to let the girls feel them up because she's pretty happy with the work I guess, Mei's piano recital, the yuri-bait scene, twitch chat, getting fired, everything about Yoru and her art, the old af idol mom pretending to be 21 who rebrands as a mukbangs-gross-shit youtuber eating disgusting amounts of food like deep fried butter balls to support her family and dream of being an attention whore simultaneously, and for some reason people watch that shit!? It's all just very savvy and on point.

Jellyfish reminds me a lot of many, many other shows that present a "4 girls against the world" premise like Bocchi the Rock, A Place Further Than The Universe, K-ON, Wonder Egg Priority before AIs started chucking hairdryers into bathtubs towards the end, and Girls Last Tour although that one was just the two girls. Like those shows, Jellyfish Can't Swim can be contrived. But being contrived is kinda the point - the themes are strongly based in what it takes to build an identity and how challenges to that identity will manifest before you know how to handle them. It also emphasizes how you might not be the one to fix it for you, it might be the friends we made along the way. It could also be following the selfish path, even if it upsets and darkens the path of the people that have brightened yours before. But finding a way to make it up to them, which Yoru does. Jellyfish is a fairly straightforward and unassuming allegory for navigating that whole part of growing up and getting gud, and how easy it is to fuck up by letting the lows keep you from keepin' on.

There are no facemelting action sequences here like in Wonder Egg Priority, it isn't my spirit animal like Bocchi, and there isn't a grand adventure like Place Further Than the Universe. Those shows all had their own special thing that made them awesome, but Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night has more yuri-bait.

Nah bro, this shit fell off. I was going to pull some punches here because I am an old man full of regret and self-doubt. It could be that I'm just bitter, I don't know what's funny anymore and I should just shut up and go to the bingo on my 4-wheel scooter. Maybe that is all real and true but NAH BRO, THIS SHIT DONE FELL OFFFFFFFF!!!!!

Konosuba was amazing. It played with the isekai and fantasy genre so effortlessly. The gags were always funny despite themselves, the characters were endearing and consistently written and likeable and likeably animated. Everything about the production of this ... show in seasons 1 and 2 was complementary to the fun characters that on their default settings just interact with each other in such a way that they constantly spit roast the harem, fantasy, and isekai genres while being a pretty good entry in each category on merit. The animation style, the art style, the exaggerated expressions, the sound design, Megumin's random Sakuga explosions, the comedy, even the pervy stuff like when Kazuma assumes Darkness is part of the succubus dream service and acts all dominating and she was totally into it... konosuba has always been a harmonious ham sandwich of laughter and each episode a treasured bite. The world building always went kinda hard for me by revealing itself primarily through debacles and not really caring if you understand anything going on in the world overall as the viewer. Kazuma and the girls don't care either, they been chillin'.

The magic of the show was finding comedy in the gap between the potential, status, and random good fortune of the main cast who just cannot help but to turn it all to shit or a pyrrhic victory through narcissism, greed, perversion, and ego. Their faults always end up biting them in their collective asses time and time again, turning triumphs into catastrophes and making easy wins spastic fiascos. I was here for that shit. There was always this undertone in the show that everything was definitely going off the rails and getting ruined and you couldn't help but laugh because there is also this undertone that everything would just be so easy for them if they could somehow stop being a degenerate/crybabybimbo/masochist/egomaniac! That random URL of character traits I just listed clearly defines to anyone that has seen seasons 1 and 2 (and probably 3) Kazuma, Aqua, Darkness, and Megumin. These characters are fucking iconic and they were presented so well and interacted even better. The dialogue was always selling us on that core strength of the show. In season 3 it just really feels forced out. Because it feels forced and off-brand, that breaks immersion and makes me feel like these characters that have made me laugh so hard in their better moments, are being milked for their popularity. And that shit is corny as fuck and makes me frowny face.

The little sister lolibait premise? Corny as fuck.
The body swap artifact? Corny as fuck, used in a corny way for corny gags.
Darkness getting depressed and leaving the party or whatever? Corny as fuck.
Sneaking into the castle to steal the artifact? Corny as fuck.
Kazuma and Aqua at fine dining after getting all that money? Had its moments, but they overplayed that gag where they just freeze framed on each of their faces for like actually 10s, multiple times within a minute-ish? Corny as fuck!

I actively don't want to go back and remember what happened in season 3 because it just hit me as so damn corny and off-brand. It felt like someone was trying to capture the magic of the show and its characters on a much lower budget, with much less experience, and really didn't care if they did a good job. This season of konosuba has so far been way more in the spirit of that random Megumin spinoff, because like that show it doesn't seem to have a good grasp on what made konosuba great in the first place. Also, the production values on this show seem notably lower than previous seasons, the sound design is off and sticks out, the detail is lowered, the same expression is used for like 35% of the gags on multiple faces of characters within the gag which looks terrible. Best part of the season was the OP, and it is mid.

I could point out some moments that got a laugh out of me, but really I was expecting to hit the highs from previous seasons at least a handful of times. I wanted a hit of nostalgia, to feel like "konosuba is back, baby!" when I watched each episode the way I felt when I learned season 3 was coming out. None of that happened for me this time, my konosuba boner is at an all time low right now and that makes me sad.

The main thrust of Vinland Saga S2 is Thorfinn becoming a farmer. I can appreciate that angle, despite all the off-model character animations and CGI/3D issues that were noticeable even to people like me who print nines, sevens, and fours so badly that the sharingan would be unable to distinguish them. The production values of Vinland Saga overall aren't great, but South Park needs almost no production values to be consistently hilarious because it is a satire on stupidity in the world and therefore looking stupid is actually a bonus. Demon Slayer, JJK, FLCL really do need the production values because they live and die ... by the Rule of Cool. What is needed as a baseline to produce sufficient and necessary quality to "get there" in Anime is subjective, but obviously the bar is different depending on the story, the waifus, etc. Vinland Saga definitely gets there, and it has some sequences that distinguish themselves, and really really nice artwork from the source material, so all together it sells us well enough on the gravitas of its characters and the time period visually. Besides there is so much more to Vinland Saga that is definitely worth making fun of.

Vinland Saga does not do "power scaling", alhough it's supposed to be a period piece. It happens less in season 2, but it's not like they fixed it compared to season 1. Swaths of grown men are constantly getting hewn from their lower halves by aerial blasts like we're sending Getsuga Tenshos through a bamboo forest. Any random edged weapon wielded by a named character in this anime could have easily overcome Gojo's infinity. One time, this big guy named Thorkell threw a spear like 2 miles and skewered four guys on one spear. There's also a guy from season 1 that is a cake from Netflix’s “Is It Cake?”, and predictably he is cleaved in two by a firm downwards pressure. Nobody could believe his metal plate helmet was cake all that time. A viking longboat is at one point casually sailed over a waterfall and we are worried it might sink, but it goes underwater and comes back up like a rubber ducky as expected. Four guys one spear man Thorkell, also enjoys sinking viking longboats by skewering them with pointy logs he launches off London bridge by hand. To be fair it is markedly better in Season 2 all the way until Thorfinn says "there's a trick to getting hit" and Anime gon Anime. I do understand the need to embellish for the bottom line. However, it would have been nice to see a more consistently human level of feats in Vinland Saga.

As a medieval character drama Vinland Saga is great, especially Thorfinn. But as a period piece, it is pretty uninspired. The artwork in the source material is superb so it holds the eye, but not much needed to happen to construct a passable narrative given the period in history in which it is set and for that reason the only passable narrative with remedial fucking plot holes was unfortunate. First though, lets talk about the good stuff - Mr. Thorfinn "The Farmer", son of Thors "The Troll".

Well-written characters Askeladd and Thors come together to motivate Thorfinn's archetypal journey, the son coming to understand his Fathers. There are so many visceral and poignant moments in Thorfinn's development, because we can respect his Dads as characters, we can understand their motivations and see their fatal flaws clearly. In Season 1, it is kind of a tragedy that Thorfinn gets his Dad killed because he's just a dumb kid that ignored that Dad's wishes and snuck onto the boat with the adults only to quickly be used as a hostage in the first scuffle they run into. It is also a tragedy that Thorfinn embarks on a quest to avenge his Dad, after he got him killed by being there at all, which plays right into the hands of the guy who killed his Dad, who adding insult to injury becomes his surrogate Dad. All of this is a cool setup for his character development but we kind of have to wait until season 2 for it to pay off because Thorfinn spends all of Season 1 screaming “You bastard! I’ll kill you! You bastard!” in that special Shounen MC tone that makes it feel like an ice cube just went up my asshole unexpectedly.

When Thorfinn says "I have no enemies" after getting his face rearranged I really wish he'd just said that to Canute instead, after Canute agreed to meet him instead of not doing that. Canute being Hamlet at Home in season 2 created that stupid situation and it was super weird because he was just like "nah, I'll skip this one" and not "well he did try to kill me last time so maybe I shouldn't". They didn't even get the motivation right, he just said nah on a whim. Canute also apologizes for killing Askeladd which is weird after he said nah let him walk by. Also, his goons just let him through to see their KING after receiving a direct order not to, because the man won a bet about getting hit 100 times without dying? Ok, guys. Oh. Kay. Also, how fucking useless can Einar be at this point? Why is he there? I get that in the Season overall he's reminding Thorfinn of himself before he became a murderer and stuff but why is he there at the end, with Canute, who is apparently so hard to gain an audience with? Man gets in the ring mid-bet, he follows Thorfinn to meet with Canute... it was crazy. You know what else?

Canute is so bootleg dude. Can we recall that Canute began the series as a NEET that likes cooking and does kuudere pinch-tugs at the tunic of his manservant, whispering in his ear so that the manservant will speak for him because he's scared stiff of public speaking? Then later on in season 1 he reflects on some passages from the bible or something like that and goes full greenpeace eco-terrorist, instantly and forever after producing testosterone at 10x the rate and gaining a new skill - Neo's open palm bullet freeze technique, which he uses to stop a rampaging cyberpsycho that is 10x his size and strength and had just killed about 800 people a minute ago. My mans character arc is whiplash on TRT. Unlike Canute's father whom Askeladd beheaded easily, Thorgil's strike at Canute's neck was blocked! V-I-S-U-A-L storytelling! Unlike his virgin father, Chadnute can send his rear guard off into a battle he shouldn't have attended anyways for also no reason, creating the opportunity in the first place for a beheading but then being able to block it too. Bruh. Canute is regularly conversing with his father’s disembodied head, in his own head, but saying out loud stuff like “finally someone who I can talk to” to the disembodied head with his servants able to hear him, as the inanimate crown twirls menacingly in the air sometimes enforcing its will because we might not "get it" otherwise. Hamlet copypasta and Hamlet was mid af anyways.

Lets fix Canute. Hear me out for a sec. Lets say we've already got all the Kuudere pinch-tugging and cooking scenes animated and for whatever reason all that bullshit is non-negotiable about the character and remains in the show. We COULD STILL have let Canute take some of Bjorn’s berserker mushrooms in that one episode where he transitions. Picture that - after taking all the ridicule he could handle and probably not even that much tbf, he just wants to stop feeling like such a pussy and he just saw this raging behemoth eat these fucky mushrooms and he likes cooking. At least we could have a dumb funny instead dumb dumb reason for Canute's fever dream. Frankly Canute's brother Herald seemed like a much better character to follow around from that one flashback we got, but Canute unnecessarily poisoned him so its cooked. Remember when Thorgil (English VA was amazing for Thorgil btw) sneaks up behind Canute and tries to behead him then Canute looks at Thorgil wistfully as he swims off into the ocean and thinks “what a daring man… if only I could bring him back to my side…”. got it, so you need daring men but not the ones that are blood related. Gay tbh.

Thorfinn says, “There’s a trick to getting hit.” and I say Thorfinn u can fuck off mate. Saving the world one missing tooth at a time is a wild strategem. When I watched that scene, I could literally hear Sylvester Stallone in my head giving his speech from Rocky Balboa (2006) “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!” and forever more I will believe in my heart that this speech is in fact the origin story of Thorfinn’s entire existence. Rocky even ends that speech with the line “don’t forget to visit your mother”.

The dialogue with Canute after Thorfinn gets his face caved in for no good reason is the dumbest faux-deep and contrived interaction ostensibly establishing mutual respect and common cause in the subtext ever. The inner monologues of both characters as they each witness the others' radiant "hey ChatGPT draw this character in the style of Jesus Christ" backlighting have lines like "This man… look at this man… a man like that… how can a man like that... with a man like that..." and honeslty it's super gay. Canute demonstrates that he cannot in fact stop the waves of the ocean, saying something like "Look I am CANUTE! I will stop the sea! Look, it didn’t stop though! As we expected… can you tell me who controls the ocean? Is it god? Then I will raise an army, and fight god in heaven here on earth... muhahaha! I am CANUTE!" and for some reason Thorfinn is all like "I see. Then I will take the people who think that is retarded to Vinland. Please leave this farm alone, sir…” and Canute DOES, guys. He leaves the farm alone! What the actual fuck am I watching/hearing right now, why is this happening? Is it just the dub that’s so retarded? Why is Canute on this shitty spittle of coastal farmland fighting a larger force than his own with his heavy hitters, losing “daring men” he apparently cares so much about and his elite mercenaries to a guy named Snake. Thorfinn, who he had no idea was there, and Thorgil who he fucking KNEW would be there, are also depriving him forever of Yams vikings and thaneguards that each likely cost him, and even worse earn for him much more per year than nationalizing this one spittle of farmland will. He is PERSONALLY attending to this annexation, with a force that is far, far too tiny to justify the risk to his person while the payoff is also far, far too tiny to justify the expense of the Yams vikings (I know it's not Yams, but I always think of yams when they say yommes or w/e).

Vinland Saga creates a much smaller world than necessary from its story and characters. Can we at least give a line to somebody to indicate how one might approach populating Vinland and funding its construction and the migration thereto? Can anyone other than Askeladd come up with a fun plan or a good twist? Even if Thorfinn’s character arc is just acting out that one speech from Sylvester Stallone in Rocky Balboa, we do feel for midwit Thorfinn consumed by anger when Askeladd kills his father. His age makes his responses believable. He wags his tail for master manipulator Askedaddy all the way through those teenage years and after both failing to extract his revenge and realizing Askedad cared about him for realsies he's quite reasonably done with it all. Askeladd’s death traumatized him all over again and the fact that he had now lost two fathers and found himself void of character sent him into the void. Depression. Watching Thorfinn proceed to rebuild himself in his father’s image in season 2 without even knowing that he is doing that, after failing miserably to understand anything about Thors and doing the exact opposite of what Thors would have wanted at every fork in the road in season 1, it really is a nice touch that he primarily navigates that inner journey by reflecting on his time with Askeladd. By giving Thorfinn a life similar to that of his father, Thorfinn ends up on the only kind of path by which he could become like his father - or he would have matured eventually regardless, it is left open ended and I like that. Einar is a great foil here, the only use he actually has in the show at all - he is the version of Thorfinn that never had an outlet for his loss, his anger, murdering all those people so he could secure the occasional duel with Askedaddy. Thorfinn fathers Einar to a good extent, in a similar manner to how Thors fathered him, and Thorfinn discovers in himself through this the desire to lead when leadership is needed. To protect the weak, work the land, to build and grow things. Slowly, Thorfinn feels himself pulled towards an idea, a call to adventure that was instilled in him as a youth before he was contorted by the death of his father, something he continued to forget at intervals but always spoke to him when he was reminded of it at key moments by Leif Erikson in seasons 1 and 2. Vinland...

Starting in severe depression, Thorfinn's slave arc begins with him believing wholeheartedly that “nothing good comes from living, because nothing good has ever happened to me”. But then he naturally responds to the murderous intent of a more capable warrior, who shows him that his body still wants to live and he can't argue with that I guess (?). This weird moment flips the script on Thorfinn. In releasing his trauma Thorfinn starts to find a new kind of strength, the ability to connect with others on the level of ideas and pursuade them with his vision and commitment. He is able to impress others as the tales of Vinland told by Leif Erikson once impressed him as a boy, and it is now his dedication and poise not his enormous swollen face or his secret to getting hit although apparently those also help through which he can enforce his will and negotiate with others - by realizing that he has no enemies. He has the vision that Thors lacked, as Thors was focused solely on establishing freedom for his family and never progressed beyond that point which eventually lead to his death when the entity he ran from caught up to him. He had nothing prepared for being located and exploited as he was, but Thorfinn has a greater vision and this is effectively why he is able to successfully turn away Canute although the themese are a lot stronger than the story and dialogue here which did not sell Canute's change of heart in any way. But thematically, it works for Thorfinn so fine?

The dialogue is bad, and the Thorfinn x Canute reunion is also needlessly homoerotic HOWEVER. Canute recognizes in the changed Thorfinn a strong ally in his life's ambition, and he is willing to concede to a radical and seemingly disadvantageous change in his plans such as Askeladd once recognized in Thors before killing him. Askeladd had asked Thors to lead Askeladd and his men, and although Thors said "no" and was promptly dead, Askeladd again did the thing when Canute got on the gear and committed himself to Canute's vision. Whereas Thorfinn previously cared nothing for communication on this level when he lunged at Canute for killing Askeladd, thinking only of his personal vengeance, Thorfinn "the Farmer" is now getting Canute to buy into his vision closing the circle. In taking the first steps towards Vinland as a realized ambition, approved by the powers that be, where he will not simply hide but instead take the hits and build... Thorfinn has in some sense surpassed his father Thors and revealed Askeladd’s motivations in acting as his surrogate father during his "you bastard I'll kill you, you bastard" phase. The spark of Thors "the Troll" to whom Askeladd would have sworn himself, Askeladd also saw in Thorfinn's refusal to back down from a flatly unwinnable fight, refusal to die alone in the wilderness, unwillingness to kill Askeladd in his sleep demanding it be an honorable duel, etc. Askeladd himself having killed his own father in his sleep, and being willing only to nurture, follow, give his life to the vision of those who are not like him in this respect calling all the men who mutinied against him except Bjorn dogs... Askeladd is basically the glue that holds the shitty story together.

Askeladd really shines in season 1 as Thors’ murderer, Thorfinn’s surrogate father, King Canute’s catalyst, savior of the welsh, descendant of Artorius and rightful king of Britannia, who has chosen to believe his mad mother's bedtime stories about her bloodline rather than submit to the ways of his father Olaf, generally the ways of the world at large, whom he first degree murdered in his bed after gaining his trust and respect over 2 years and thus the access required to kill him in his sleep for disrespecting the bastard Askeladd's sickly slave mother. In season 1, we hear Askeladd romanticizing the Roman Empire and harkening back to the good ole' days of Britannia when his ancestor accomplished great feats while cohabiting the land with the local peoples rather than ruling over them with taxation and tyranny. The slightly cartoonish roman columns and night sky in a more children's storybook art style while he monologues his thoughts on the matter with Thorfinn in earshot betray the cynicism (excellent Art Direction!), because he has no idea what it was really like in that time but he has allowed his mother's ideals to brainwash him and he draws strength from that inner lie. From being Lucius Artorius Castus the true king of Britannia, and he would share this with Thorfinn inauspiciously. His self-effacing delusions in this area betray that he does not have a solution himself, a way to make the world a place where his mother would not have been a slave sleeping in a stable with her son telling him tales of her noble ancestry. Askeladd does not elaborate on his feelings towards Thorfinn before dying, but we get a concerned side eye as he tells Thorfinn to "Stay back, you idiot!!!" and that really says it all. The ostensibly mercurial Askeladd, murderous mama's boy and closet iconoclast like Thors, Canute, and eventually Thorfinn. He wishes the world to be free from unjust war and slavery, but doesn't believe that good things can come from living - instead he seeks the one that does. There is the notion of “everyone is a slave to something” at play in the show, but generally it gets a shallow treatment. For Askeladd his love for his mother, his respect for Thors and anyone with a viable path to regional peace his people might enjoy, his friendship with Bjorn, his hatred of his father, his delusions as Lucius Artorius Castus king of Britannia, romanticizing the Roman conquerors of antiquity... in this character the show finds the depth that is lacking from the rest of the piece. That said, why the hell did Bjorn have to duel Askeladd? I get that it is a foil for his relationship with Thorfinn, what he sees in the boy, but it just didn’t make any sense at all that they would fight to the death right there.

Thors also did not receive much development and there isn’t much to him beyond badass that went pacifist when he had a child with a woman he loved. While Thorfinn’s growth and soul searching is laudable, for all of season 1 he is just some douchey kid that duels Askeladd and Thorkell and inexplicably doesn't die except that the blood of "Thors the Troll" runs in his veins. Hamlet at home Canute was more interesting when people were vying to use him as a patsy, since this offered an interesting lane for plot development, but he found jesus instead then also turned slightly evil and is shown to be a terrible strategist. Thorkell is a joke, he is shown fighting alongside Thors in season 1 episode 1, he is Thorfinn’s great uncle, and yet even the exposition that takes place during Thorkell and Thorfinn’s duel basically goes unreferenced within the story. We see Thors' backstory but Thorfinn does not consider it which would have been the thing to do. Thorgil was a way better potential plot device for setting up fights and his English VA was amazing, but he didn’t get a chance to actually do anything except break Canute's sword in a failed assasination attempt and swim really fast. The power scaling for the physically gifted OR ostensibly talented viking warriors like Thorkell, Askeladd, Thorgil, Snake, and Thorfinn was basically Miyamoto Musashi in Vagabond when he bodies 70 trained samurai in one go because he studied the blade. At least in the Vagabond manga the fight itself was handled brilliantly and Musashi suffers serious injuries and wrestles with his recovery and trauma in a very humanizing way. In Vinland Saga people lose eyes and fingers and ears and it just doesn't really matter because they are vikings, immune to infection and able to use the reversed curse technique.

I think for season 3, they should drop the act and go full magic system. Everybody tries to sail to Vinland, gets confronted by Jorgmander the World Snake and before he kills them can have a scene where that one guy Snake the mercenary has his name called out like "Snaaaaaake!" and Jorgmander is like “you are a Snake too!? what a coincidence!” then Jorgmander without elaborating further isekais them all to valhalla and there are valkyrie waifus and no slaves and its called Vinland and all fights are settled with games because you can't die in Valhalla anyways you just wake up in the starting zone again and Thorfinn can pursue his true passion - farming - which is going really badly until he realizes he has a unique skill even though he's only level 1...