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This entry does away with the alienating solidity of the first film, and even the audiovisual appeal and dense atmosphere are diluted compared to other entries in the series. The mask of pseudo-depth concealing our duo falls aside, and we're left facing nothing but hollowness, and "Tell my crazy yandere waifu to stop murdering people!" It doesn't help that the storyline is kind of stupid, with the female lead, who is in high school, wandering around the city late at night, while a serial killer is prowling the streets, making her an obvious suspect (she might be a high school girl, but she has the ... ice-cold killer vibe) or thrusting herself into dangerous scenarios for no worthwhile reason. Her wealthy, upper-class family even seems to realize she is leaving, making them either neglectful or harboring a special motive. While I've yet to see part 2, there are a few oddly placed scenes involving her brother that suggest the latter is true. Either way, this is not believable nor compelling.

It's hilarious how the yin-yang symbol (even recycled with the stuffed cat toys) is being used to convey Shiki's alter, acting as her "partner in crime," and the other half of her dissociative identity disorder (is it made up? It's certainly an exaggerated phenomenon in fiction). The film presents a conflict of halves between what can be characterized as a noble samurai on the light side and a perverse serial killer on the dark side. The detective even states, "some kind of symbol was etched upon the body." Yeah, it's obviously a yin-yang symbol, dipshit. How could you miss that?

The male lead is a dope for not realizing the obviousness of the situation with his yandere sort-of girlfriend, even after his "bunny rabbit" admitted many details implicating her as a potential culprit and stating that he would probably die if he didn't stop sniffing after her tail like a dog in heat. He even stumbles upon Shiki playing with the blood of a corpse, wets his pants in fear, and is like, "Ungh, I can't turn my waifu over to the police. Maybe she'll be my girlfriend eventually! She told me that she wanted to kill me. That's so intimate and means she's totally into me! It's so exciting thinking she might kiss me one second and gut me the next!" followed by wetting his pants again, this time in ecstasy. What a fucking degenerate. It doesn't help that Shiki is such an unpleasant personality, making this unacceptable as waifubait, meaning we're just left with schizobait (sigh, just to prevent an akshually, yes, I know the difference between schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder). The latter half of the film, where the male lead is standing outside in the cold upon the premises of his waifu because she is ignoring him (or maybe he's trying to cockblock her kill streak) reminds me of that John Cucksack romcom garbage Say Anything, when Cucksack stands outside the girl's house and holds up his boombox.

Frankly, serial killers are mostly a sensationalized media construction by the U.S., whether it's some MK Ultra or other spook psyop or just a means to close cold cases. A lot of the body counts have little evidence to tie them to a particular killer, often only having a modus operandi in common, most of which are not especially unique... in fact, the bulk of the alleged body count of any particular serial killer is not even unearthed (very few of them carefully keep all the evidence collected under their house, like John Wayne Gacy), merely attributed to them because they claimed them to up their infamy, and a higher body count, more inventive methods, and an interesting story leads to the serial killer being more popular; it's already common for nutbars to call in and take responsibility when they verifiably had nothing to do with the act! One could even liken serial killers to a pantheon of dark gods, committing outlandish acts to enthrall and grow their followers, which gives them strength and love letters in their shrine (prison). Of course, it's glamorized in such a way that a person who would never have a place in history is immortalized by pointlessly killing a bunch of people by means of a discernible pattern, memeing the behavior into having a tangible existence it would never otherwise enjoy, only to be snuffed out by DNA, CCTV, and voluntarily opting into carrying a spy device everywhere (the smart phone). Man, I'm sick of serial killer plot lines. So trite, just like this film and psychobot anti-waifu.

For the reverse scenario of a female getting wet over a serial killer or murderer in prison, in which we have a cuck male falling for a female serial killer (the guy would definitely qualify to be the president of the Yuka Takaoka fanclub) who could and maybe even would turn his spine into a Christmas ornament, The Garden of Simpers Chapter 2: A Study in Hybristophilia - Part 1 is perhaps the ultimate vicarious experience. What a deranged, embarrassing romance, where the young lovers whisper sweet psychobabble and pseud philosophy 101 into each other's ears.

More SoL-tinged nothing burger "mysteries" with a latent sort of quirky but not really committed sulky romance that may not exist at all from the creator of Hyouka. This feels about as formal as a 1940s drama but more naturalistic and with a girl always dragging the guys around to eat sweets, like a corrupted CGDCT anime with muted colors and pacing issues that would make even those who like to watch grass grow get antsy.

Visually, it's decent enough but resembles a hipster neo-noir with a 21:9 cinematic aspect ratio, and you'll have to get used to the blandly muted colors. The ED's composited ... anime characters onto photographs and video cements the cinematic nature and manages to be fairly unique, and there are many dramatic shifts using sunset and the like. I wouldn't say the cinematography is overly memorable, but it does help craft a drab "I'm trying to be as ordinary as possible" and "but, mom, I don't want to go to school!" atmosphere, along with the sound design and an effective ambient score. Even the detached, anti-depressant-tinged dialogue comes across as ASMR. The characters simply melt into the aesthetic.

The mysteries are just as fillerish as Hyouka, there's more or less the same jaded, rose-tinted slacker philosophy of the main from that series, and the same detective component to add the didactic clownishness of Blue's Clues. Kengo, thankfully replacing the dull sidekicks from Hyouka, functions as a brash and fiery foil to the odd couple. The latter mostly spend whole episodes talking about nothing or boring school junk, solving a "mystery," or eating strawberry shortcakes and drinking matcha tea together. They occasionally have cryptic chats about being ordinary, like they're in a bizarro secret society.

It's decently written but comes across as shallow and awkward because it feels aimless, empty, and featuring robotic chemistry between the two leads, until we get to a "mystery," yet these are unrewarding and lack depth. The method seems to be to use the "mystery" to explore the characters, but there's not much to them other than flipping around between being unremarkable high schoolers and a detective duo who have never found a "mystery" too vapid to solve. If you want to make a mystery series, craft interesting mysteries. If you want a character study, you're not going to come to any compelling outcome by wasting our time with a slew of mysteries equivalent to Duchamp's readymade toilet prank from the art world.

The summary gets to the heart of the series and its issues: "However, for some reason, mysterious incidents and misfortunes keep coming one after another into their school lives. Will Kobato and Osanai be able to achieve peaceful days as ordinary citizens?" Are you kidding? The main conflict is for these two goofy goobers to remain "ordinary citizens," but Kobato can't stop from inserting himself into every literal "who cares?" event that prevents him from being "ordinary." Apparently, being "ordinary" means not sticking your nose into the business of other people and solving electrifying whodunnits like who took the last cookie from the cookie jar. I actually don't want to know the answer to this "mystery," if I'm being honest.

Let's walk through an actual episode. Don't worry. I won't spoil the answer to this exciting "mystery." In episode 2, Kengo airs his grievances about how the MC has changed: "Hah. You really think you're man enough to figure out how I made this premium cup of hot cocoa? Quit being a nice guy and start being an asshole! You'll never figure out how I made hot cocoa unless you're willing to be the biggest asshole on the block." After the pep talk is over, three minds come together to solve the "mystery" of how Kengo made hot cocoa. The MC is like, "Yep, that's right, I stopped playing the detective, but I had to step out of retirement to solve the mystery of how my friend made such good hot cocoa." Get the fuck out of here, you pretentious twat. It's like a decoming of age where the main regresses to a child to play detective games with his friends.

The nature of these mysteries indicates that the summary line I quoted is exaggerated and melodramatic to the extreme, yet the characters take these "mysteries" so seriously. During their smarty-pants investigation, the sister even "rules out" certain scenarios because there's a dirty spoon in the sink and the surface isn't wet. What if he simply washed everything down in the sink, wiped it dry, then put the spoon in last? It's so pointlessly speculative. It seems like they would have noticed the solution when they were making hot cocoa, but the eureka moment doesn't come until later. Maybe I missed something because I turned my brain off or was multitasking, but I don't even want to think about something so stupid.

I suppose you could argue Kobato was a man born in the wrong time, and he could have been the next Dupin, Holmes, Poirot, or Conan, but Japan is too serene to offer any mysteries worth solving, except for these cute little vanity projects to puff up the ego of the MC and allow everyone to blow smoke up his ass. Maybe next episode he can solve the "mystery" of who clogged the toilet at school.

Approaching My Wife Has No Emotion blind, it appeared to be an unwatchable bargain-bin drama or romcom where the salaryman's waifu is frigid and maybe even suffering from some kind of disorder to explain a "lack of emotions." That's not far off from the truth, but this is an android-raising simulator featuring one of the creepiest couple of bridge trolls for main characters that I've ever seen. It doesn't even work as passable fetish fuel like Chobits, where the pervert fishes his waifu out of the garbage. Instead, Mina is built like a Tesla, and you can't smother the fire by normal means and have ... to let it die out on its own, so this is an extra-toasty dumpster fire.

Mina, effectively making the show look like Chobits with down syndrome, has a sharp uncanny valley vibe: Metallic plates cover her whole body other than her face (making for peak try-not-to-cringe comedy when characters blush from seeing her full-metal body), her eyes bulge like zoom lenses, and she possesses a face with only one beep-boop expression, making her resemble a moeblob blow up doll from hell. The clear idea is that she will develop her emotions and the like, but these shows operate on an illusion: The girl must be cute and visibly completely human except for exotic moebits that might accentuate her appearance compared to real women, like those distinct robot ears they sometimes have. Typically, the android is supposed to be more moe than the human girls, but it's the other way around here. It's so strange to see them try and pull this off with Mina looking barely a step up from a kitchen appliance attached to a doll carcass someone fished out of the scrapyard...

Anime gets a bad rap for pandering to otakus with incel or loser mains who get the wamans without even trying, but this dude is the lowest of the low. The MC is downright creepy. Look at his eyes! Vertical slits, just like a snake! The pupils and irises are so thin, stretched, and reptillian within the sclera of his moeblob-sized eye sockets, slapped down upon his long, oval-shaped face, and it appears as if the character designer is intentionally or inadvertently presenting this guy to be as unpleasant as possible. Yet I've never seen anyone else mention this, so it seems to be working on a primarily subconscious level. While this is an unwise decision from a marketing standpoint and will reduce the appeal of self-insertion fantasies (a problem considering that's the entire anime), it's the perfect design for this creep, who has a face not even his own mother could trust. His appearance, behavior, mannerisms, and stammering dialogue are so slimy that I'm waiting for him to slip out of his skin as a molting snake would. Always slithering around on his underbelly, he grovels and is so uncomfortable with women that he's too embarrassed to even maintain eye contact with his waifu appliance that he bought, until he downs an entire fridge of beer, that is.

Ruddy-faced and chugging his beer to summon every ounce of courage he can muster to flirt with his appliance, he tilts his head in this creepy way, saying, "*Hiccup* You're what I like best Mina-chan. Think you'd be okay with being my wife?" This is nearly the first "meaningful" interaction with her, and—poof!—he's married to his appliance—a glorified rice cooker—before episode 1 is even half over. Mina's quizzical probing about his actions humiliates him, so he blushes, closes his eyes, and does the cliched hand-behind-his-head-school-boy routine. Upon showing this miserable (sub)human being the slightest affection, which is presumably part of her programming, he's infatuated with her, thinking to himself, "I wonder if she likes me? I hope she does." In a roundabout way, he more or less asks her what kind of men she likes. Is this guy, who "went on a date once, but it didn't work out," really so delusional and love-starved? The answer is, unfortunately, yes. I'm convinced the "date" the MC went on was with an instant messenger chatbot that he immediately asked to marry him, which turned him down, obviously.

The situations in the first few episodes can be roughly paraphrased as... "Dishwasher-chan (literal appliance), you're so moe that I want to ease your burden, and I don't feel like a man unless I help you wash half the dishes. M-m-maybe someday you'd, uh, like me to get out the dolley and, ermmm, roll you to the park, and, ah, we'll go on a date and eat ice cream. You t-twist my heart into knots every time I, uh, go into the kitchen! M-maybe you'd like to sleep with me tonight on the futon, dishwasher-chan? You make me, um, sooooo horny. NOOO... Dishwasher-chan don't ask me what horny means. NOOOOOOO, DON'T SEARCH IT ON THE INTERNET, DISHWASHER-CHAN! I'm so ashamed!" That's exactly how this show feels, just that the appliance is a bit more human looking, can talk like a seasoned ventriloquist, and spit out Wikipedia phrases and dictionary definitions.

In one of the most cringe scenes I've ever seen, the MC's co-worker says his bento lunch looks full of love and inquires as to whether he has a girlfriend. The MC admits the cook is an appliance. Later, he corners his senpai in the breakroom because of his nagging guilt at having besmirched his waifu in the previous scene by calling her an appliance. "Ummm... S-Senpai, earlier I said she was just appliance, but she is so much more than appliance. She's, um, the best, and she is family!" The senpai plays it cool, takes a swig (probably wishing it were alcohol), and delivers a polite, encouraging response, giving off a "I'll say whatever you want me to say, buddy" path-of-least-resistance vibe. Other great lines of dialogue include "There's a girl who will 'vibrate' for me."

Predictable as ever, this series raises a question about the possibility of androids possessing or developing emotions, where a certain amount of experience and "precious memories" will make them sentient by some abstracted magical sci-fi something something process. This title is an inferior Frankenstein product that seemingly grafts on every tired idea it could find from android-raising simulators, shut-in romcom trash, and slave fetish shows. Most of these series present the female android as hyper-feminine and more desirable than the surrounding moeblobs, yet there is one difference that makes this title potentially semi-unique.

The author presents our doting bag-of-bolts automaton as primitive and outdated. For basic improvements, she applies makeup and upgrades her wardrobe. I've heard she gets a leg extension upgrade (she needs a bolster when cooking or cleaning at the kitchen counter because she's short), and she is looking at upgrades in one episode, so there is the promise of her gradually becoming more woman-like in a physical sense. There's even a hysterical bit of potential foreshadowing: Mina reveals a compartment situated in her lower torso that seems oddly womb-like, in which she places an egg and heats it up. To appear more feminine, Mina lets her long hair down to flow freely in the wind. The MC, of course, blushes in response. Despite there being some admitted irrationality to what she did with the egg, she wanted to do it, anyway, meaning she went against her programming in what would constitute an error. This is clearly an important scene for either foreshadowing or bait. If anything, this drives home the android's attempted transformation into a "woman" far more than usual. Another seemingly throwaway comedy scene, following an escalation in intimacy, involves water pouring out of her "womb," which might have one thinking of a woman "breaking water" during pregnancy. Additionally, Super Mina is a separate character and a more advanced version of Mina, representing an ideal to strive toward and go beyond for our determined little rice cooker that could.

Armitage III already had androids with reproductive capabilities and similar themes were in Blade Runner and a bunch of sci-fi novels, so an idea like that wouldn't be much of a stretch here. These series tend to be anti-natal due to the non-reproductive nature of machines, but this is not about mere attraction or romance like other titles. Skipping any formalities or buildup, the series represents an intense wish-fulfillment scenario of having a subservient wife and the typical family setup. Remember, "she is not just appliance, she is family!"

A recent trend in terrible anime, including this rice-cooker special, is wish-fulfillment so heavy that there's not even any conflict. It's like when one dozes off, thinking about how he saved his romantic interest's life and became king without any effort. Even most isekai usually have easy conflict. While I would hesitate to call the MC a Mary Sue because of his hideousness, the setting and plot are Mary Sueish, for everyone is highly tolerant of what is presumed to be transgressive. However, if no one cares, is it even transgressive at all? Most of the MC's anxiety seems unfounded because everyone in his immediate circle bends over backwards to please him and are like, "that's cool/great/hot that you're married to a rice cooker." Some even praise the anime for eschewing conflict and focusing entirely on the slow-cooked development of the relationship, but what we're left with is a tasteless paste.

The android effectively doesn't have a free will or there are obvious limitations, though she goes against some of her programming and clearly has poorly communicated emotions from the get-go, in spite of the title. The MC foists a more "equal" arrangement upon her, but he could always take it away if he wanted. Hey, it's none of my business what someone does with his rice cooker in private, but it's hard to believe anyone would create this series and think it was a story worth telling in its current state. Either way, this "family" thing won't end well if taken to its logical conclusion; since it looks and reads like a hentai gone "wholesome," imagine what'll happen when the main gets his wish completed and this jittery mess has to take his non-functioning waifu in for repairs after filling it with a gallon of semen. Have fun explaining that one, given that you're almost too flustered to even cross the street side by side with your "wife."

Granted, the guy can only have this idealized arrangement through buying a machine, and the series would be far more interesting as a harem with a less pathetic protagonist, where the android whom he saw only as a rice cooker had to gradually gain his affection, preferably from a combination of emotional development and appealing upgrades. Would anyone want to admit they're in love with an android (a highly primitive one, no less) and make it visible to the world? At least make it seem like something more "meaningful" than a last resort for a snake-eyed, down-on-his-luck loser who seeks companionship with an archaic AOL chatbot on steroids that can cook an omelet. While this is a standard wish-fulfillment series, it's hard to to tell if it's meant to be a super-cringe "so bad it's good" comedy or a "cozy and wholesome" romcom meant to be enjoyed unironically.

It's painful to see what started as a promising series amongst the no-man's land of the CGDCT genre become so rancid, featuring the same incessant and insubstantive moeblob squeaks and giggles that Yuru Camp S2 had but worsened by poor compositing, mismatched CGI backdrops, and even computerizing the more active character animation in long shots or wider angles, including most of Rin and Ayano's biking scenes. The cast is also diluted further by expanding the roster of one-dimensional moeblobs. Despite the downgrade, most of the characters look okayish or not much different. In contrast, Rin is transformed into an obscene blueberryblob monster in what might ... be the worst character art change I've seen in a popular seasonal; you can't spell "amoeba" without "moe," and Rin is now so blobby that I imagine she corners her (likely all male) prey and liquidates them to absorb nutrients.

Although most who have seen both seasons will beg to differ because S2 seems about as well regarded as S1, the series should have been canned after S1 because they already told the only story worth telling: several extroverted girls bonding over their inexperience with camping, while slowly befriending a relatively seasoned camper who is more introverted. It was a simple story, but the loneliness of Rin's solo excursions contrasted well with the warm airheadedness and ineptitude of her soon-to-be camping buddies. There was a fitting lighthearted atmosphere and understated emotion that made the series feel more worthwhile than what I've come to expect from the genre. S1 strongly captures the joys (and the not so joyous aspects) of camping by presenting it from multiple perspectives and levels of experience, with much of the trial and error and learning being applicable to camping in real life. Although YC is not concerned with social commentary, the girls' (and Rin's grandfather's) interest in camping suggests there might be something a little off about society or that something is missing, not unlike Do It Yourself!!

Then S2 came along, turning into your typical slime of life moerot, where they wander to random locations like obnoxious tourists, chatter about nothing, and deliver loads of badly timed or subpar comedy, with every season adding 1-2 new moeblobs or mainlining those who were previously secondary support. Yep, a new grill here, an added doge there! Might as well roll out a toy line. Contrary to surface-level perceptions, slice of life does not mean inane dialogue with zero substance, but that's almost always what we get in CGDCT. The dialogue of almost every scene starting with S2 is heavily told through visual language to the point that you might as well not even read, as you won't miss anything: the girls are eating food and it looks tasty, and they're enjoying it, so the dialogue is some moemoe variant of "Mmmmm... So SUGOI! OISHI! Food so yummy in my tummy." The logistics of their trips are tackled via text messages with super-kawaii emoji heads, which felt more acceptable in S1 because of how withdrawn Rin was, but now it's pure budget-saving tedium. On each excursion, our moeblobs wander around like cute, know-nothing tour guides for the viewer, commenting about how cool x is, the steep price of the gift shop, or how they can't wait to inhale all the pastries and desserts in sight. This series takes the typical fatty (Nadeshiko used to be fat even!) with wanderlust and foodie hashtags, then gives them liposuction and an overdose of moe. The most deceptive thing about Yuru Camp S2 is that camp is still in the title, when it should be called Yuru Tourist, because they barely camp at all!

Probably the only notable change of S3 outside of the visuals are a few segments where the girls more or less break the fourth wall for comedic purposes by zanily revealing the artificiality of the scene by playing with memory; it's so seldom used—maybe 2-3 times—and out of place as to be baffling. I'm also aware that many fans feel S2 had stronger moments and scenes and was typically a bit better written and directed compared to S3, but S1 and S2 were like night and day to me and completely different animals (with the latter one needing to be euthanized), so it's difficult for me to perceive the distinction, but, hey, I'm sure it's there.

This series revels in the inauthenticity so common to the CGDCT genre. There are, of course, no men, like a catcall-free feminist utopia—well, that's not quite true. There are fathers, little tykes influenced by the joys of camping, and many helpful ojisans along the way, but there is never a male around who is roughly the age of our plucky moeblobs, aside from maybe one random scene with a dweeb making a John Wick reference (why?). The series even makes a few self-aware nods to this reality in S1, likely making a number of weebish hearts surely skip a beat when Chiaki is flipping out over Aoi mentioning that she has a boyfriend, the latter quickly backtracking and making amends for her presumed infidelity by saying she was just joking. Rejoice, guys, Aoi is still single! There's another part where their teacher Minami's "brother" steps in to help Rin and Nadeshiko, to which you can imagine a few people might self-insert, delivering pickup lines like, "How about I stuff my hot, thick log into your tight stove, Rin-chan?" Halt, not so fast! Minami's "brother" is revealed at the end of the first season to be her reverse trap sister! Sorry, but if you really want to self-insert, the best you can probably get away with are the dogs (Hanpen is pretty alpha at least)!

One cannot get to the heart of what I'm describing here by only discussing YC. YC is a carbon copy of the standard CGDCT formula, so we must look at the CGDCT genre as a whole, as well as a few industry trends. CGDCT is a fascinating genre from a sociological perspective because it's truly unique, and there isn't a clear parallel that I've been able to find in the media of other countries. Anime has gone through many changes over the decades, and waifu culture and moe eventually became more prominent and transformed manga and anime in various ways. Female characters are often more popular than male characters because of these two developments, but that wasn't always the case. Heroic male characters seemed more popular in the 1970s and 1980s, though there were shows with an FMC or an all-girl group that weren't shojo or josei that were geared toward men, like Dirty Pair and some others. The heroines tended to be a bit closer to a cross between noir femme fatales and superheroes in these types of series, often focusing a bit more on being sexy rather than cute. The lolicon movement started in 1979 with Hideo Azuma's manga and became popular and controversial in the 1980s. Moe can be seen as a (more) commercial sanitization of lolicon. The main difference here is that lolicon was typically explicitly sexual whereas moe is about cuteness rather than sexuality (and the age of the moelita in question is more variable), but there is, nevertheless, a latent or implicit sexuality often buried or not so well-hidden in these scenarios as well. Moe is sometimes said to entail an endearment so deep as to convey the feeling that something blooms inside one's heart (or one's pants).

When it comes to sexuality in CGDCT moeblob series, there's a difference in presentation. Let's say you're looking for a mate at the bar: she shakes her ass, pulls off her bra and lets you see her bare breasts, and invites you to her room. That outward sexual behavior is a means of selecting a mate as it signals she is dtf. Granted, this is bimboized one-night-stand behavior rather than how you'd hope to end up in a relationship. In CGDCT the girls have a more prim and proper presentation and are cute. They are presented as ideal waifus, and neotenous features are highly desirable in mate selection, so moe in no way is divorced from sexuality in the sense of mate selection, it's just that the girls are not (usually) doing anything explicitly sexual. Their desirability is flaunted without any men around to select for, of course. That's where the viewer comes in. The other aspect would be societal shifts. Birth rates and marriage are in decline. Incel has become a common term. Even femcel has. I don't need to get into the specifics but as relationships become more difficult to navigate, consumerist media that emphasizes these elements will have a chance to fill the gap without any potential headache. If relationships aren't going well, then portrayals of romance could seem undesirable in fiction for many, but enticing moeblobs presenting themselves as cute, fun, single, and not hounded by any males that could be competition is much less intimidating. Imagine a lonely male high schooler looking for a club to join and he stumbles upon Yuru Camp, which has a bunch of A+ moeblobs; he'd join in an instant. I'm sure he'll pitch a tent in excitement once he realizes they're all single as well!

Somewhere along the way, the all-girl or girls with guns style shows became more moeified. These had conventional romance plots and high school drama in the case of the former and action movie plots for the latter, and a bad script that wouldn't be tolerated otherwise could often be boosted by the girls being cute, ecchi content, etc. Although some shows like this are well-written, you definitely are going to get more mileage from a poorly written female-fronted show rather than a roughly equivalent male-fronted show. The girls with guns shows in particular usually had the male support characters rather emasculated because they tended to be impotent next to the skills, technology, or powers of the females; similarly, the male mains across a wide-range of genres gradually became less heroic so as to reflect the average otaku. After a while, it seems the plots kind of got in the way of the girls being cute, and the men so often inserted into these works were, like, so not cute, omg! Those men need to be sent to the Bijo no Yu hot spring to rejuvenate their skin and become lovely ladies. SoL became the perfect genre to insert moeblobs into because they could throw out anything resembling a plot or a well-thought-out script and focus on letting the moe fester like a pimple.

There also seems to be an ongoing feud between fans of harems and CGDCT. Harems have a gaggle of girls competing over some dude, so the main concern would be sexual dynamics. CGDCT subtracts the dude and sexual dynamics, leaving only the gaggle of girls, sucking out any conflict or tension. When I was becoming more acquainted with newer anime, I actually was puzzled over the apparent appeal of CGDCT series: "Why don't you watch K-On!?" "Isn't that for girls? It's like Powerpuff Girls or Sailor Moon or My Little Pony or something, right?" "No, mostly men watch it." "Oh, interesting..." However, not every story that has the possibility of sexual dynamics, by having similarly aged boys and girls, has anything resembling romance. So why is it that CGDCT often chooses to axe all young male characters instead of just pushing them to the periphery or having them naturally bumbling around as extras like any normal genre would do?

In fact, harems and CGDCT are probably closer than most would think, the latter suffering from broken harem syndrome and deprioritizing the possibility of self-insertion, giving it a more "cozy and wholesome" sexless vibe on the surface. Even if CGDCT series tend to ooze a kind of coy sexual charge. There are those talking about falling in love with these moeblobs, who just do cute things, getting teased or embarrassing themselves, always ending up with marshmallow slop on their faces, flashing a thigh or foot here and there like a few stray crumbs for the starving, dipping into a hot spring for a brief rack appraisal, and maybe even the much anticipated beach episode.

To better illustrate this, there's a trashy series called Aru Asa Dummy Head Mic ni Natteita Ore-kun no Jinsei, which is about a male reincarnating as a microphone that a bunch of unwitting moeblobs are using and abusing for ASMR... of all things... so while it resembles CGDCT, it's like a harem with a passive, deprioritized, and wholly objectified self-insert (with this knowledge in mind, the camping gear in Yuru Camp will never look the same again, as I imagine all the spirited away men were repurposed into lamps or tents to be sold at Caribou). You could say that series is a kind of "symbolic missing link" between harems and CGDCT. CGDCT moves one step ahead and evidently removes the self-insert altogether, except for the most imaginative. When the question comes up about what a man would do if he had the superpower of turning invisible, there's always the silly answer of sneaking into the girl's locker room, and watching CGDCT is the socially acceptable (ahem, tolerated) version of this.

CGDCT effectively becomes a less confined fantasy where the creators of this genre fine-tune a role for the viewer to become what I might call the Cautious Hero, who is something akin to that microphone the girls were fighting over for their ASMR performances, only the possibilities are even more boundless. There aren't any studs or dorks (better keep an eye on that dog, though) pining over our moeblobs. These males, instead of being seen as self-inserts, might be perceived as "sexual threats" or get in the way of the Cautious Hero who is overpowered but overly cautious. The Cautious Hero might think of asking Rin out but instead just sneaks around camp and watches her eat, read, and sleep. Likewise for the other rotating moeblobs, whom the Cautious Hero accompanies on suspension bridges (let's not forget the "suspension bridge effect," which has one mistaking excitement for romantic feelings) and gushes over trains with. The Cautious Hero forever gathers more intel to finally make his move. The Cautious Hero's fortuitous arrangement of not having to worry about any men approaching his moeblobs and cramping his style is equivalent to a decrepit tiger thinking he will finally get an opportunity to eat slabs of juicy meat because all of his young buck competitors were poached by hunters for his benefit. Yet the Cautious Hero is as cautious as the tiger is toothless.

Browsing through slice of life titles can be tricky, and it's easy to incorrectly stereotype SoL, thinking certain trends are representative of the genre. The older film and literary SoL (say, Yasujiro Ozu for film) was more traditional in style, then you have the later atmosphere-focused ones, with anime examples being Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou or Mushishi, and quite a few of them being iyashikei. Finally, there's the podiatrist-pandering brand of slime of life that you will find with the current deluge of CGDCT's patented cupcake and tea philosophy. Tonari no Youkai-san is in the atmospheric camp, for the most part, though it has the sentimentality ... common to the more traditional SoL, and a touch of introspection that spills onto the scenes with blush-inducing blunt dialogue in what can sometimes come across as multiple interconnected therapy sessions, even spanning across multiple dimensions.

The series resembles a cross between the SoL and family films of Keiichi Hara and the folklore-oriented fantasy and mysticism common to Natsume Yuujinchou or Ghibli but with a fraction of the budget, for the animation is proficient for what's needed but rarely anything amazing, and there are even some slideshows here and there. In the first episode alone, this is closer to the essence of what I expect from the genre. This is SoL in the truer sense of having fractured vignettes of a village community, living an ordinary existence with the ayakashi that the departed gods have left behind. There's actually a concern with atmosphere and setting and a magical and fantastical sense to the surroundings as we're slowly introduced to the essence of the world. There's a surprising amount of content crammed into episodes, with darker and lighter moods that are shifted around gracefully, and there are a few clear overarching plot points to act as hooks, as well as oni to add a light amount of tension (while thankfully not becoming a shonen). There's something new and fascinating to be found in every episode, much of which isn't over-explained and maintains an aura of mystery, giving a sense of wonder to the world that is sorely lacking in most popular SoL titles.

Most SoL follows a menagerie of moeblobs or assorted oddballs nowadays, and it's rare to see the characters really feel rooted in a living, breathing community at all. Thankfully, that's not the case here, even if the integration of the yokai going to school with humans and entering standard career paths feels a touch odd, if not inorganic at times. Quite a few of the yokai have lifespans significantly longer than humans, and there are many elderly characters, so there is a heavy emphasis on the grief of losing loved ones and knowing they'll die and you'll have to continue without them. It's not just a pity party either, as the characters are tightly knit and the surroundings are warm. Pretty much all of them find ways to cope and grow, and there's a solid amount of character development to be found here. As a downside, the pacing of how various character arcs are handled is not always ideal, and it feels as if many characters are swallowed into a black hole for long stretches of episodes. Or one seemingly important character will have a few fleeting scenes and there's the impression that the studio forgot to continue that story. I'm even surprised that this series is apparently covering the entire manga because there's plenty of potential left to explore both the world and characters, but the ending is satisfactory.

In a sense, the world feels a bit... off, which is probably to be expected for a fantasy weaving together humanity and yokai so closely. Throughout, there are numerous points where the plot pivots to discussions of alternate dimensions and their potential to affect the world we're invested in, creating a sense that the world could be a possible aberration or has a degree of instability, heightening the emphasis on mono no aware, which has to do with an empathy toward things (and with the animism of shintoism this can very literally mean just about any "thing") and impermanence, and there is a fragility to the world we're presented with, like it could be ripped apart at any moment, adding a bittersweet sensibility that leaves the warmth of the series with a foreboding feeling of heartbreak. The scale of the fantastical elements and the alternative universe sci-fi backdrop presents many ideas that suggest a limitless amount of possibilities existing "between the lines" of what we're presented with, giving the series a fair amount of depth.

Broadly speaking, the series is solid, but, when looking at individual scenes, there's more of a mixture. Many moments are handled well, even for the majority of the series, but certain delicate scenes are handled poorly. While I'd occasionally have issues with melodramatic delivery, it has become unsavory in scenes such as those of Chiaki and Kazuhiko, with lots of crying and sappy music. I was laughing during many of these "tearjerker" scenes because Chiaki looks ridiculous to begin with, and it's hysterical when he's angry or upset, then pulls a "YOU'RE NOT MY DAD" and slams the door, followed by Kazuhiko coming in with his best ultra-high EQ sensitive routine to defuse the issue. Then we'll cut to crybaby Buchio's wavering waterspout for eyes like the hyper-expressive visual humor you'd find during the '90s, except this is meant to be serious. This example can be generalized to apply to the occasional overbaked scene. A number of scenes can even be summarized as "I know I worried you. I'm really sorry." "I'm sorry too." "How dare you apologize! I'm way sorrier than you could ever be." While it could sometimes be a case of following the source material too closely, the direction is sometimes weak when it comes to conveying emotion, going too hard and overplaying their hand, and I can't stress enough that some scenes are too melodramatic and use sappy music as a crutch. The score is decent enough for most purposes, but sometimes it's hard to do sad parts justice, and I suspect the manga version handles these parts better because there isn't any music to muck it up. Other parts are much better, such as the twisty conclusion with Jiro's backstory that involves Mutsumi's great grandmother, reinforcing and building upon what is occurring in the present between Mutsumi and Jiro; or Yuri's family drama, exploiting a sci-fi concept to wonderful effect.

Probably the greatest difficulty in embracing Tonari's world is how much of a furry festival it resembles. You've got birbman Jirou, who looks like he flew in from DeviantArt and could audition for Sesame Street, and his underdeveloped—despite her seeming importance—catwolfwhatever sidekick with fuzzy eyebrows (who appears to have a blind boyfriend; it's tough being blind, man), a guffawing camel in a T-shirt, as well as other assorted critters yiffing up the scenery. It's so pervasive that I had to wear my Don't Yiff on Me T-shirt for each episode. The large web of relationships often remains vague and implied, but I'm pretty sure the one guy who lives with Yuri, the talking fox, is ignoring the "don't feed the animals" sign and giving her sausage, if you catch my drift; is it really any consolation that this fox can turn into a girl? Spice and Wolf can get away with it, but this series has one too many paws in woof world to be ignored. Old man Kazuhiko, who has the anthropomorphic car Chiaki for a caretaker, is shown being dumped in his twenties by a blue-haired manbull that was pulled by its nose ring out of Tumblr, which led to a chill running down my spine when I realized that was a potential premonition for grandpa to get shipped with his talking car! PLEASE STOP! There's even an intense moeification of the kappa females, yet daddy kappa is an ugly bastard (all of the male kappas as well). I've always taken a medieval kill-it-with-fire approach in these cases, but the female ones are actually kind of cute, I loathe to admit... There are even vibes that the young FMC might have romantic thoughts in her head about our noble birbman, and the spirits in the OP look like sperm... So there's more than a dash of latent fetish fuel (mostly the bad kind) in an otherwise "cozy and wholesome" SoL.

The Train to the End of the World might look like CGDCT moerot on the surface, but men actually exist in this world, there is a plot and goal to strive toward, and the post-apocalyptic setting—somewhat similar to Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou or Girls' Last Tour for the more lighthearted contrast to the usual bleakness—is on the unique side because of the slice of life tendencies, absurdist comedy, surreal happenings, and the usual power of friendship theme so common to moeblob high school setups that provides an emotional grounding to contain what otherwise could end up as a train wreck. Even if the writer often toys ... with the conventional by inserting zombies with a slight twist or presenting a few simple and predictable storylines in several episodes: Whether it's a parasitic copy of Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the mushroom mania of Matango crossed with the introspection of Mushishi or employing lilliputians to parody Gulliver's Travels, Gojira, and King Kong to hilarious effect. The episodes are at times a variation on the monster of the week setup but instead become an exotic locale or whacky situation of the week, with the train chugging along like the progression of a corrupted video game, growing more manic with each stop.

There's usually enough inventiveness to keep these sub-plots somewhat fresh, but, as opposed to fantasy that tends to have an inherent logic and a cohesive world, we're tossed into disconnected pop culture parody realms, blazing through many of them without much detail and sifting through others for perhaps too long. There are also some ridiculous ideas here, stretching the boundaries of believability, such as our characters communicating with the train foreman by hammering the railroad tracks to communicate in morse code, despite being hundreds or thousands of miles apart. This could never work in a realistic series, but the crazy distortions of the world make it mostly believable; meanwhile, the choice allows the girls to have a continued connection to their village (made all the more important for the usual conflict between the village and the city), acts as a relay point for new information, and provides extra comedy as the competent-for-five-whole-minutes train conductor is quickly zapped into a doddering, beady-eyed fool. Although earlier scenarios resemble fiction I'm familiar with, the series does benefit from becoming more warped as we get closer to Youka, for the Alice in Nerima Land manga comes to life, which has one of the more complex plots and a large cast of quirky characters, heroes and villains alike; but, most importantly, it does far more to build upon the relationship of the moeblobs in ways that most other scenarios fail to do. We're also treated to unhinged parodies of manga cliches and magical battles along the way, and Ikebukruo looks wholly alien.

For the duration of our whimsical train travelogue, our moeblob quartet engage in fast-talking and rather naturalistic banter. Shizuru is your typical lead role, though wracked with guilt; throughout much of the series, I mixed Nadeshiko up with Shizuru because their designs and hair aren't too dissimilar. The former's only defining trait appeared to be "I can use a bow," but she also plays mommy to the group and breaks up fights, yet she lacks a character arc of her own or even much screen time devoted solely to her, leaving her feeling incomplete. Reimi and Akira have a kind of rabid-dog tsundere relationship and conflicting personalities, with the former being emotional and physical-oriented and the latter intellectual, providing most of our encyclopedia drops and a surprising dose of humor being wrung out of literary references. We know less of Youka, and her relationship with Shizuru is short-cutted via the usual power of friendship dynamics that are experienced amongst our moeblobs and then interpolated where needed. There's even a dose of melancholy and understated emotion (emphasized well in both the OP and ED), preventing it from being too insubstantial, and even small details like the train being named Apogee has meaning that remains buried for much of the series (didn't expect it to be spelled out in such a sentimental fashion).

Unfortunately, the nature of the series is telegraphed heavily from the opening scene and a few parts throughout the first episode. What we know is not just implied; it is shown. The missing Youka had a hand in what happened with 7G and the unraveling of the world as we know it, and there was an apparent falling out between these friends. The journey to find Youka has a "We're not in Kansas anymore" Wizard of Oz vibe, like we're stepping out of monochrome into a whacky technicolor wonderland, at first just a girl and a dog and maybe a potential Wicked Witch. Mystery was not the main concern for the creators, but revealing the catalyst for all of the strange events we see unfolding each episode so soon is indeed a misfire. The delivery of what ended up happening would be more compelling if we didn't know the cause and the search for Youka didn't have an immediately established connection to the world becoming a jumbled mess. These coming of age scenarios are turbulent, and the fantastical impetus engulfing the entire world often ends up being deeply personal in storylines such as these, but an aura of mystery and uncertainty would complement this aspect better than bluntness. It doesn't need to be as dense in its unraveling of an elaborate mystery like, say, Tengoku Daimakyou, but it shouldn't blow its wad faster than the minutemen either.

7G warping the world in a myriad of ways is the type of goofiness the show goes for, but it would have been preferable if that idea were changed to something else instead of being the direct continuation of 5G and 6G, which are real technological projects. Most sci-fi fails in its predictions, and while the writer's intent wasn't to predict anything here, it would have been better to frame the problem technology with a unique name and property, as this aspect, intersecting with the real world, is goofier than just about anything else in the series. There's certainly a relatable anxiety here about the hubris of mankind and a never-ending thirst for "progress," rarely willing to stop and consider the potential dangers of technology rolled out at a rapid pace without any concern for safety or wellbeing, which could have an irreversible impact on the world. There's even a sense in which the various societies warped by 7G are stagnating or regressing technologically, with one village's humans becoming cute furballs (presumably) incapable of advancing civilization, so one could say this is nature "correcting course" to humanity's tampering in unpredictable and even nightmarish ways.

Looking through the director's credits, one can easily see how a series like this was inevitable, as he directed the well-produced and quirky CGDCT series Girls & Panzer and worked on a lot of oddball comedies like Shin-chan, Jungle wa Itsumo Hare nochi Guu, and Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan. Overall, despite a sometimes bumpy ride and certain scenarios not being overly strong or original on their own, the combination of various genres, ideas, settings, comedic timing, and effective direction and writing weaves everything together in a pleasing fashion, topped off with decent production values and an atmospheric score. The epic and uncanny proportions of the series lends more weight to this conventional but earnest story of coming of age and friendship than I'd expect from all the tired high school moerot that we usually get combined.

For better or worse, once Tolkien popularized the leading strand of fantasy, we've seen many elves in fiction. They're elegant, beautiful, and mysterious, living for hundreds or thousands of years. Usually, we explore fantasy through the eyes of a relatable human, and the elf is a supporting character. The typical story features a band of heroes looking to vanquish the dork lord's empire. The elf remains exotic and elusive even when joining the party in most cases. However, if we wanted to explore long stretches of time and understand how myths form around heroes over decades and centuries after their passing, then the elf would ... be better cast as the main character in our story. That's Sousou no Frieren's main appeal. Or is it...?

While writers have explored similar ideas with immortality in the novel format, the only anime of a similar nature that comes to mind is the nauseating Fumetsu no Anata e, which is only comparable in that both are fantasy, featuring a main character with a long lifespan and a tremendous amount of room for growth because these characters are oblivious to human affairs and enter all social interactions like they're on a tricycle with a safety helmet. Some reasonably believed this setup meant we were getting another cheap FnAe cry porn configuration (myself included), but the emotions on display are too stunted; there is understated emotion, as one would expect with a character-driven work emphasizing the passage of time and nostalgia, with Frieren maintaining a poker face like a champ and remaining a deer-in-head-lights doofus for most of the duration. Though trumpeted as a possible masterpiece, regrettably, SnF is marred by less-than-stellar execution. It has many elements undermining the work and leading to an identity crisis, and the source material is ambitious beyond its means. The series is held aloft by—blink, and it will go away—decent moments, character dynamics, and world building but carried mainly by Madhouse's excellent animation and technical chops.

Instead of showing us the adventures of the heroes so we'll have a connection to the party, the author takes the bold move of cutting right to the humdrum fanfare of the epilogue for an entire series. However, that will become a bait-and-switch once the author decides to flip back and forth between a walking simulator and battle shonen. Mary Sue—I mean, Frieren—will retrace the steps of her former party, treating us to these precious piecemeal memories. The journey of Frieren's new party will also reinforce what preceded it, exploring adventuring, friendship, heroism, and the like. Not only is the story's backdrop conventional, but the character designs are pervasively generic. The initial hero party looks like they were dragged out of a Z-grade isekai, not even fit for a bargain bin, whose only expressions consist of poker face (Frieren being the undisputed master), smug poker face (especially noticeable with Übel and Wirbel), Fern's trademark cheek-puff pout, the :3 face for the reactions to scenes that are supposed to be funny but aren't, then there are a few other characters, like Stark, with various comic relief faces. At least they put effort into making the handful of female characters as endearing as possible to generate extra revenue from anime pillows and figurines, so I guess it's not a total bust.

If SnF were a sci-fi, it would be an android-raising simulator, and, to quote Mark Zuckerberg, "The more of your data I collect, the more human I become." Though the genre we're engaging with is fantasy, the result is the same: to become sentient. Yes, Frieren may be 1,000 years old, but her understanding of human emotion, let alone her own, is so limited as to be shocking. Fern nurses her, pulls her out of bed, dresses, feeds, and caters to her every whim, like a mommy tending to her elflet. Yeah, it's in part an elfblob-raising simulator, if only to mine milquetoast humor and to be as on-the-nose as possible about Frieren's paradoxically childlike nature. Frieren is a kuudere whose name means "frozen." She's a forever-alone elfcel with no friends, is elftistic or on the elftism spectrum, and fails to be very relatable since she's over 1,000 years old (there's a reason why the 900-year-old loli is usually a supporting character...). Aside from a creeping bit of sarcasm to keep the series from being too one-note in its character dynamics, she's the ice-cube elfblob extraordinaire.

It is a surprise that we also get a kuudere sidekick. No, elves don't reproduce via binary fission like bacteria. Fern's sense of humor, competencies, occasionally temperamental nature, and dialogue vary from Frieren's. Still, when we spent about five episodes alone with these two, something appeared to be missing, and it was sticking out like a crooked painting on the wall with too much negative space. Then Stark rounds off the circus troupe to restore balance, and Fern completes her transition to cheek-puff pouting tsunderism, though it's a low-energy one due to her kuudere roots. Before that, it would be like reading a Sherlock Holmes novel, only to have two Watsons bumbling around and unable to progress the plot or figure out whodunnit.

Let's look at what makes Frieren tick: With development and wealth (or lifespan, as you can compare elephants and humans to "lower" animals), the correlation tends to be fewer children, and elves are a hyper-realization of this trend, marching toward extinction. In SnF, elves have no community and often go centuries without seeing another of their kind, leaving Frieren to seek human companionship or be forever alone—maybe both! Humans and elves are distinct and don't mix well—oil and water, for their lifespans and ways are too dissimilar.

From this odd arrangement arise the issues Frieren has with the "time differential" elves have in contrast to humans. She's out of sync with humans, so she doesn't fully understand how they or she feels until seemingly MUCH later... I mean, not even years—more like decades! It's like a latency issue in connecting with others, or she has a dial-up connection and takes 40 years to download 1 MB of emotional data. Of course, in the days of horribly slow internet and ancient hardware, it would say your download would take 40 years, but if you left the room, it might take 5 minutes. For Frieren, those absurd time estimations are accurate! The idea is that Frieren has had no long-term acquaintances, friends, or anything for close to 1,000 years other than one master-pupil relationship with a human, so she is sort of like an ignorant child in her emotional development, off in her little world. The script is written in such a way at first that neither the elves nor the humans seem to understand how the other perceives time and are so lacking in empathy that they don't attempt to imagine it. In most fantasy, there is usually a disconnect between humans and elves. The author of SnF chooses to multiply this aspect in a way that acts as both a compelling plot device and a dubious quirk upon which everything hinges, requiring a massive suspension of disbelief.

Frieren had a carefree millennium, hunting down grimoires, reading voluminously, and picking berries in the forest. Therefore, a charismatic Gary Stu needed to step forward to sweep Frieren off her feet and talk no jutsu her into the party, not unlike a dungeon master noticing the dedicated RPG nerd by the golden gleam of Cheetos dust and bringing her on as a wizard. It reminds me of a trash isekai called How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom. The MC in that series calls forward people with talent—any talent, no matter how useless it may seem—which leads to him recruiting several people into his inner circle. One is a fat guy who has eaten a lot of food from around the world. That character functions as a stand-in for an otaku who doesn't know anything other than anime, manga, and games, but his diverse gluttony becomes a "great talent" that leads to world recognition! Frieren is about the same because she spent 1,000 years attending to her hobby of finding and reading grimoires and has a curious "OMG, just like me!" appeal. Let me preempt all the "Nuh-uh! Frieren touches grass and travels" objections because her hunting around for grimoires is the medieval equivalent of a NEET stepping outside to pick up a preordered Nintendo game. The main difference here is sensuous elfblob wallpaper (meh, Deedlit is better, unless you're into grannies) and her hobby leading to her having godlike magical abilities.

Otherwise, we wouldn't get the sick battle shonen parts to relieve the monotony. Firstly, there's the foreplay that's the classic shonen "I know you are, but what am I?" talk and flex competition, the convenience of demons abiding by the honor system as justification for plot armor, and characters sitting around like dopes and monologuing instead of capitalizing on weaknesses that would end everything in under 5 seconds (looking at you, Fern). Secondly, a repetitive and mindless onslaught of Pew! Pew! Pew! IMMA FIRIN' MAH LAZER! X 263... "Hah, how pathetic you are, puny elfcel. Didn't you know I'm a gazillion times stronger than you'll ever be!?" "No, you're wrong! I was hiding my power level and tricking you the whole time! I'm infinity times stronger than you! Cope and seethe, demon!" *The continent explodes.* The thought process behind the fight scenes is so primitive that it's comparable to the apes learning to use bones as clubs in 2001: A Space Odyssey! Madhouse's talented staff made these scenes soar despite the source material's blatant shortcomings.

In the lazy tournament arc (you knew it was coming), the battles improve slightly, as the mages are using a wider range of magic styles (earth, water, fire, ice, etc.) and make effective use of the environment. Perhaps the battles lack substance, but they're oozing with more aesthetic and emotional weight than many character-driven scenes, sadly, even though there's a flirtation with profundity in how the author explores the cast. It's not that SnF HAS to have more elaborate action scenes, but one must wonder if it needs them in the first place. Having the occasional monster appear that gets vaporized is acceptable, but devoting entire arcs to a battle shonen format is not the author's forte. Case in point, this is ACTUAL dialogue interrupting a "heated" battle: "Let me lecture you on the history of magic." No. Stop it. I'd think the line were meant as a parody of shonen's verbosity and constant over-explaining of every detail in the middle of battle if not for the author's horrendous track record with comedy and adherence to dull shonenisms.

The series tries to be a jack of all trades, and the result is always being a master of none. As a fantasy, SnF does manage to be more organic than usual, for there are many innocuous spells like generating tea and other novelties, as you would think magic probably started and continued with many practical uses other than combat; there are neat touches like the humans acquiring flying magic rather than creating it themselves, thus not being able to modify it for lack of fully understanding the process. There's a hint of structure to the magic reminiscent of real-world disciplines, plenty of trial and error, and the equivalent of a magical arms race. If most series with magic have an occult vibe, SnF wants to present it as a science, though it loses some of the mystique. Unfortunately, the fantasy is too generic to be fantastical, too sluggish to be exciting, and too strewn with fetch quests, chores, and tonal clashes to be consistently atmospheric. For the fantasy genre, atmosphere is crucial, but, unfortunately, this aspect remains subpar even in spite of composer Evan Call's best efforts to set the scene with das fluten duten medieval fantasy tuten.

Although the series initially appears to be a slice of life with glacial pacing, the author is afraid to slow down to the extent required and self-consciously believes he'll bore someone, so he starts peppering in action and attempts at comedy. The humor is largely stock or facepalmish, like making fun of Stark's dinky (maybe we'll get a fart joke next), "hahaha, the 1000-year-old can't dress herself," or the agonizingly repeated (8 times and counting) mimic vore jokes where Frieren hungrily hurls herself inside the maw of a monster. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Elfcel Grandmas in a Dungeon? Because that's one thirsty cougar trying to show off that she's single. Where's the "deep, contemplative, and mature"™ bluster now? There are a few well-timed humorous moments, but only a handful feel like they bring the characters closer together or have any depth, the most obvious being the surprisingly great "boob cloud" scene, representing one of the few episodes where melancholy, character bonding, and backstory were all integrated seamlessly as an ode to both friendship and adventuring. Though there are highlights and decent moments throughout, the emotion and drama are similarly hit or miss, diluted by the series' clashing elements and identity crisis, cementing the jack-of-all-trades syndrome.

With all the context in place, I'll return to Frieren's initial 10-year journey to clear the final boss, the most precious event that she must relive and cherish, the duration being no more than spit in the ocean next to her long life, representing the only time she has had anything resembling friends to bond with: I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Once the credits should have been rolling, Frieren left to pick up all the Nintendo games in her backlog, which took about 50 years, leaving her companions aged and withered. She's like, "Why are you guys so old and uggo? I don't understand time, aging, and complicated stuff like that. X)" It would appear Frieren has had her first taste of regret, for the beloved Gary Stu soon passes, and she concludes that she never got to know her party as much as she would like.

Hence, we embark on a quest for Frieren to track down the ghost of Gary Stu. The rest of her old party says, "Frieren, it's so sad that Gary Stu died, but we're still alive. Why don't you get to know us? :)" "Because you guys are ugly bastards, lol! X)" "Oh, right... sorry. :(" It turns out she got to know her party better than she thought but was too much of a dope to realize it until the flashbacks were cued. Another essential thing to bring up concerns Gary Stu: Despite being handsome, competent, and renowned, there's no evidence he ever had a romantic relationship, got married, or had kids... hell, he's not even a cat gentleman! He was pining away into old age, wishing Frieren would notice him again. There's even the implication that the cursed item Gary Stu kept for Frieren for several decades caused gravity to compress him into a lawn gnome, further emphasizing his devotion!

At first, the story appeared to be more about employing an elf's lifespan to explore myth formation, deconstruct the hero's journey, and heighten the emotional response, and... it does all of that to an extent. Still, what starts as an examination of lofty and ambitious ideas gives way to an undignified focus on the undying love between two forever-alone individuals. Nonetheless, when boiled down, we're getting the same old teen or 20-something having their first-time romance, flecked with equal parts lost and forbidden love. Hey, many people like that, and it works. However, when you consider the author is simply reframing the same Lonely Hearts Club formula with a fantasy veneer, depicting true love™ between a human incel ghost who died at an old age with his love unrequited and an ageless beauty and coded virgin elfcel of 1,000 years, what should be a natural and compelling process is rendered as what I can only refer to as "romanticized derangement," upending what should have been a profound exploration of adventure, camaraderie, and heroism.

What do you get when an anime studio combines cooking with dungeon crawling? Well, it's like those awful gross-out TV series where people compete to see who can eat the most cockroaches, only the author has standards, so the grub is made more palatable, with the adventure adding an old-school RPG appeal to cash-in on the popularity of fantasy and isekai. There's also a dash of iyashikei: the dungeon's tension dissolves as our characters' mouths begin to water because the place is brimming with delicacies. Everything can be eaten, so we'll of course have to watch our not-so-lovable characters devour everything in sight, like fatmericans ... at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Episode 1: eat a monster... Episode 2: eat a new monster... Episode 3: eat a new bigger monster... and so on...

The series doesn't do much to ease the repetition and monotony. The characters are one-dimensional and obnoxious. The world is generic, save for homely—I mean, "quirky"—character art relative to other anime. There's hardly any plot to speak of. A short, often poorly animated action scene acts as part of the meal preparation, and the revival mechanic sucks all tension out of the series. The tedious comedy consists of slapstick dungeon crawls gone wrong and replaces the typical elf-dwarf racial grievances with the former being a picky eater and the latter having an iron stomach and corrupting the youth into munching on bug burgers and assorted slop.

DM has the depth of tuning into a cooking infomercial at 2 AM but combined with the mechanics and flow of a grindy old-school RPG, effectively merging the worst of both worlds. You can't live without food, but it's only a means to an end. The shallow emphasis on food is mirrored by the excessive amounts of world building. World building is supplementary and can enhance the experience like a spice when it's well balanced with the rest of the elements of a series. DM's world is developed through various segments of dialogue and lore, what we learn about the enemies and the dungeon's morphing ecology, and, most importantly, what-should-be-nasty food made to dazzle the senses via glossy filters. Effectively, watching the calorie-free DM is like eating a stack of banana peels instead of bananas.

When it comes to food and health, there's the phrase that can be flipped to indicate an emphasis on eating for the sake of pleasure or eating with quality of life improvements in mind: living to eat versus eating to live. I'm reminded of that when I realize the main characters are either exploring the dungeon to eat or they're eating to explore the dungeon; while it should be the latter, it, sadly, feels mostly like the former, resulting in the show coming across as a hollow gourmet showcase, albeit an unusual one, filled with parasites, bugs, sea monsters, chimeric entities, and other not-so-tasty-looking varmints. Our heroes' descent into the dungeon to save Laios' sister is more of an afterthought, lending the series an unintentional dark comedy vibe as the party goofs off and prepares tasty dishes like they don't have a care in the world; meanwhile, his sister is being digested by a dragon! Yes, they're taking it slow to improve their chances of saving Laios' sister, but the tone feels off, the scenes are badly paced, and there's no focus.

DM represents another no-brainer choice as an addition to Netflix's repertoire to the point that it's incredible this isn't an original series. Quit eating nutritious food because cow farts are bad. You'll have to eat bugs, soy patties, lab-printed slop, and wash it down with Bill Gates' patented poop water. That's basically what DM presents, only there's a slapped-on veneer of familiar monsters and anime culinary magic to make it appealing. Okay, DM makes the food look good, but, unfortunately, the characters were beaten black and blue with an ugly stick. You'd think that if we have to watch people eat bugs, then adorable little moeblobs would be hoovering them up, but instead we get goofy and drunken faces, Dumbo ears, big honkin' Tezuka noses, midgets, furries, and bodies with odd geometries as shapely as a donkey's ass. While I wouldn't say the manga is the most appealing thing to look at, the Trigger adaptation renders the warts in high-definition color and motion. What we have here might function as a great tech demo for a game, but it's too superficial and ghastly to appreciate as storytelling.

Metallic Rouge has a scant amount of exposition, and there's the possibility of Bones getting twisty, so it's challenging to tell where the series might go. However, based on the poor execution and boring sci-fi cliches, probably straight into the trash compactor with all the oh-so-unfortunate androids. There's not a single compelling hook to make one interested in the story from the first episode other than the promise of gradual world building; the second is an action romp, "chemistry builder," and quest through the Martian desert; the third develops the situation of the androids and their yearning for freedom from humanity.

There's the typical bit: ... Androids forced to follow Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and whine about wanting freedom from performing chores, aside from a few special androids (special needs in the case of Rouge) who aren't beholden to the laws. Just as horror inspired by Lovecraft would benefit by not name dropping Cthulhu and other cosmic critters, sci-fi would have more organic development by not explicitly referencing Asimov. One doesn't need to reference old sci-fi novels to indicate androids can't attack humans; it's old hat, lazy, and widespread. Everyone gets it without a drawn-out explanation. If anything, it doesn't need to be mentioned because why would androids be designed that could attack humans, except for special purposes, like war, policing, crime, etc.?

The android rebel group makes MR feel like the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie, written by someone who learned about these ideas from comic books. If they're just meant for labor, why even program them to want freedom, other than for an easy boo-hoo discrimination plot that we've seen thousands of times? It's like the people who designed androids were intentionally trying to make them a pain in the ass. Androids are supposed to be T-O-O-L-S! Don't give me this "YOU'RE NOT MY DAD!" attitude and babble about toasters having a free will.

MR might be salvageable if it were a more grounded cyberpunk series with a detective or crime angle, but it consists of sentai-armor slug fests amongst the "Immortal Nine," which sounds like a name a child came up with for a JRPG fanfic. The fight scenes, where all the budget is showered upon, are flashy but without depth. The backdrops and set pieces are adequate enough—sometimes imposing or grand—but standard for the genre. Even by episode 3, the budget is declining, and the series will probably continue to be inconsistent and unspectacular.

There will likely be many messy, under-cooked, and aborted plot threads everywhere, such as the android looking for his nectar fix, which seemed to just be a "compelling" way to introduce a drug that was important to the story; the idea being to paint the world as unfair and arbitrary because the substance appears to be scarce or rationed. "Those mean humans are not only forcing androids to work, but they're also failing to provide them with solid health care!" Can humans ever get a break? It might only be one episode, but the relationship between Rouge and Viola was rushed and non-existent, leaving the first episode without any substance, and the often touted chemistry between the two MCs isn't a whole lot better thus far. The forced drama between the two MCs, such as their cat fight and breakup, has no weight. To indicate the maturity of the characters, the ordeal started over chocolate.

There's a bland westerny feel to the character designs that seems right at home with Netflix, but the two mains are Lycoris Recoil-esque moeblobs and low-tier ones at that! Rouge has memory issues, acts like a 5-year-old, and has the defining trait of chomping on chocolate bars; Naomi is sassy, an airhead, and lacks much else. MR is slop, which is brilliantly displayed by Bones squishing their moeblobs onto the cover, inhaling junk food.

Under Ninja is a weird series within a gritty urban ninja fiction niche that combines semi-realistic character dynamics and setting with absurdist humor and action sequences, bolstered by familiar ninjitsu tricks and advanced technology, like invisibility suits, high-tech shurikens, drones, satellite beam weapons, etc. UN creates its offbeat world with non-linear storytelling, a Samurai Champloo hip-hopish aesthetic, and a conspiratorial hidden society of feuding ninja factions in modern-day Japan that are everywhere and yet nowhere. The series does a superb job of building up the mystique of the ninja organization's limitless potential domestically and internationally.

There was a book about the labyrinthine Japanese underground tunnel systems ... and why the government built them, and that is alluded to here, along with speculation about the bubble economy burst, hidden snuff films on public TV, and numerous other subplots that piggyback off of real-life conspiracies. Incorporated are also light amounts of social commentary, mostly about bullying and cyclical violence, which ties in nicely with the ninja selection process. The series is also more political than is average for an anime in a real-world geopolitical way, as the ninja organization was fractured by Japan's loss during WWII, with one side refusing peace as a result, manipulating Japan and the world from within the shadows. A lot is going on, as you see things from the eyes of the organization from various ranks, as well as foreigners, high school students, and drunks lounging around the apartment building.

More than anything else, it's probably the bizarre humor and heavy doses of vulgarity and crudeness which seal the deal and make the series standout: A Russian wannabe-ninja lopping off wieners because of a presumed hidden message in street graffiti, a guy farting through a tube to launch a dart, plenty of comic relief centered around men stealing bras and putting them on like it's some mystical object, a talking cat riding a motorcycle, etc. Until we got to the school arc, the author wanted to emphasize unappealing facial features, moles, missing teeth, pimples, etc., which is probably not helped by this adaptation being subpar and having mediocre animation and largely hideous art. Yet even the least sordid environment, the school, has the prettiest girl in the class picking her nose in public. The title "Under Ninja" simultaneously alludes to an underground ninja organization and acknowledges the scuzzy, low-brow atmosphere the series goes for.

Then there are the scenes where the fat crosseyed ninja in a filthy wifebeater trots onto a schoolyard, manboobs flopping in the breeze, and offers to pump his breast milk with a hand pump to children, petitioning them to lap it up straight from the source. Creepy and off-putting content like this is the kind of thing you might see on a trashy comedy show at 2 AM during a bout of insomnia, leaving you wondering if you just had a nightmare the next day. No one else around you can confirm or deny what you saw and will think you're a tin-foil-hat schizo for mentioning it. That's my impression of such a revolting scene, but it exists in UN. An unexpected "twist" involving this character decreases the grossness, but the mere presence is among the best examples of the author's bizarre humor.

The characters are quirkier than usual, and it's an improvement over watching the same colorless archetypes so common to anime. You have one ninja who is a ventriloquist using a teddy bear, but his lines, acting, and the contrast between his normal voice and the "bear's" are hilarious. The MC is one of the better examples I can think of when it comes to deadpan liars and bullshitters. Suzuki has an old man complex; her sadistic glee as an editor is also priceless. The talking cat is a regular support character and a sassy, chatty motorcycle! While these are some of the most notable characters, even the most minor or "normal" characters are intriguing due to the character dynamics and non-linear presentation.

UN seems charmless and crass at first, and it often is the latter, but if you can get past the initial disgust, there's a unique grimy charm. Some of the banter has an SoL feel, and the non-linear plot adds to that because the importance or meaning of many scenes seems uncertain until we connect them with later events. The stitch job keeps things interesting, but a few parts can be confusing, and it took me a while to figure out who is who with a couple of characters. Paying close attention helps, as I've occasionally heard that the anime adaptation takes the non-linear nature of the manga and chops it up even more than the Russian ninja-wannabe chops up wieners.