Through five episodes, Link Click, or 时光代理人, is quite good. If you can find decent subs, it's very engaging and explores the theme of empathy very well. It's not very easy to invest emotionally into so many characters when they are on screen for a singular episode, but the show finds ways to make the characters more appealing despite their lack of screentime. And for a show that incorporates a plot device that resembles time travel but stops short of an actual time machine, it's surprisingly controlled and well executed in its delivery of its message.


Fair warning, if you have some understanding of Chinese culture or the language, you'll probably find it more enjoyable than you would otherwise.

 

I've finished Link Click and I can say that I wasn't a huge fan of the ending leading into Season 2, but it was overall incredibly good. I do think that the enjoyment factor is very much diminished if you don't understand Chinese.

 

Spy x Family might just be my favorite anime in a decade and it's only 3 episodes in.

Admittedly, I don't watch a whole ton of anime anymore. The industry has gotten really lazy in recent years, churning out pretty much nothing but haremshit, waifubait rom-coms, or isekai. I'll occasionally check out stuff from favorite series (fate, AoT) and favorite studios (cloverworks, A-1, ufotable) after the season concludes, but I hardly ever watch anything simulcast anymore unless it has rave reviews.

Spy x Family has me absolutely hooked though. They've somehow managed to combine 'Baccano' and 'Sweetness and Lightning' and I'm absolutely here for it.

 

Im in the same boat, don't watch much anime, but really enjoy some of it.

I'll give this a go.

 

I read all that was out of the manga a while back when it only had about 20 chapters, and it was excellent. I was really hoping that the anime would do the source material justice, and considering that the response from everyone I know that's seen it has been positive so far I'll definitely get around to watching it at some point.

 

The story isn't much to write home about so far, but it's incredibly wholesome and zany, with great music and wildly expressive art. Everything I love in anime. I'll also say it has one of the best EDs I've seen in a long time.

 

Gonna be binging Spy x Family when it's all out.

I'm surprised there wasn't a huge influx of Marin simps from last season though. Then again I'm rather ambivalent towards the show, so perhaps it wasn't that impressive for others as well.

 

I mean for the last two months the anime portions of my Instagram feed have been basically nonstop Marin, at least until Spy x Family started up, so I’d say it definitely picked up a solid following. I hadn’t seen that much attention for a rom-com since Komi-San season 1 came out.

 

I currently have covid and have been catching up on the top shows from the last couple seasons. I really despised My Dress-Up Darling though. It is a quintessential example of the lazy waifubait romance I was speaking about above. I am so disgustingly sick of the "high-school knockout with literally one defining character trait falls in love with awkward turtle MC-kun because of his one defining character trait (or the rolls are swapped), and she then devotes her entire life to painstakingly pulling him out of his awkward turtle shell" trope.

This type of show is exactly why I don't watch much anime anymore. The "take my measurements" and "wipe off my sweat" scenes had me cringeing so fucking hard.

I yearn for more rom-coms like Toradora and Chuunibyo, where characters aren't pieces of wood, friendships actually feel real, and the otaku pandering isn't dialed up to 11.

 

It's insane how much fan-art alone has me going crazy wanting to watch Spy x Family. I adored Sweetness and Lightning too.

I'm at a place with anime atm where I just mentally acknowledge that I mostly hate it, with a rare few exceptions.

This isn't a pretentiousness thing, because I actually love isekai as a concept. This is a general writing chops thing. If the writing and characters are great, that's basically the only thing that's important to me.

Cringe-MCs that are specifically written to appeal to Japanese otaku/neet teens are what turn me off the shitty harem-bait/waifu-bait/isekai anime, not the premises themselves lol.

 

I think it's a bit weird that Toradora is your standard for romcoms considering the reasons you listed for disliking Dress Up Darling and liking Toradora/Chuunibyou. I watched about half of Toradora and it was far more cringe to me than Dress Up Darling was. Taiga bothered me on so many levels that I spent the entirety of my time watching rooting for Ami even though I knew it was megadoomed.

I don't particularly think Dress Up Darling is great, but I do think that in comparison to the other MCs that I've seen recently he's probably better than average.

 

They are really nothing alike? Toradora and Chuunibyo is about groups of weirdos who find solace in each other. All the chars are multifaceted, and the mains actually enjoy each other's company. Both series are 90% friendship and 10% romance.

Dress-Up Darling is a thinly-veiled excuse for perfect piece of wood Marin to take her clothes off in front of dull piece of wood Gojo.

 

Toradora has Ami who singlehandedly elevates the work

 

Fuck the dude on the manga discord who suggested I watch Redo of Healer because I said I liked Log Horizon. What the actual fuck. Got 1.5 eps in before realizing it was literally rape fantasy softcore hentai.

Who the fuck greenlit that show?

 

I started watching Demon Slayer on a rec. I feel like the writer for this series must have sat down and had a brainstorming session on how it would be possible to fit every single shounen trope in existence into one manga. Christ... they even throw in the Naruto running.

Nezuko derps are fun though.

 

Euphonium is getting an OVA in 2023 and a 3rd Season in 2024. I'm pretty hyped; if it ends well it could push Death Parade out of my current top 5.

https://twitter.com/Crunchyroll/status/1533061820948398080?t=xJ4uDrYFPU3yfBbcwQgLMA&s=19

 

Heyo. Spy x Family is back. Episode 13 has some excellent Anya Faces.

 

So I just finished watching a bunch of shit from last season which is honestly pretty rare for me. I average about half a seasonal every season.

Lycoris Recoil tried to play with the CGDCT trope by turning said cute girls into almost a secret service of sorts, which didn't really hit the mark. It did have a pretty good cast of characters, and it was pretty much total comfort food; you got the cute SoL stuff with a strong lead character and then occasionally the plot kicked down the door and forced itself onto your face, making you question why you were watching the show anyways. Probably would've done better if it was just a SoL show instead of something that tried to reach for an overarching shounen plot.

I have one episode of Yofukashi no Uta left but the show has honestly got this nighttime vibe that I fully relate to, having spent the vast majority of my college years only awake after the sun had already set. I don't really know how to describe the show, it's another SoL but it very much has a more mature feel to it than something like Lycoris. Pretty solid watch.

Cyberpunk Edgeunners was for sure AOTS though. I've never played Cyberpunk 2077 and had no background information going into the show, but it blew me away with the characters and the worldbuilding. I loved the way it approached a dystopian future and the themes and messages the show tried to get across. I found myself genuinely invested in these characters despite the breakneck speed of development (10 episodes really wasn't enough to fully flesh out a lot of things). There were issues; I felt that the FMC kind of got forced into a damsel and distress role when there was so much more that could've been done, and the relationships that the creators tried to develop didn't really hit the mark for me. Still, if there's a show you watch from last season, make it this one.

 

I haven't watched it yet cause it wasn't on Crunchyroll and I couldn't be bothered with pirating it, but the manga's one of my joint all-time favorites. Slightly less hyped for season 1 since the story picks up steam the deeper it gets, but I'll definitely get to watching at some point now that all the episodes are out.

 

Seconding Edgerunners. Fantastic series, and Studio Trigger was exactly the right choice.

If you have some time to waste, there's a podcast called Friends per Second. They usually talk about gaming related stuff but in this episode they have an hour long interview with the showrunner, which is quite fascinating as it relates to the collaborating aspect between CDPR and Studio Trigger.