#now playing

6 episodes of the OVA, 14 episodes of the TV anime, 12 more episodes of Dash. It was an interesting experience, in a sense. 

All three series are made on the basis of the same manga… in theory. But they are all extremely different, in tone and just in terms of the basic stuff like character roles and personalities. If there is anything I would compare it to, I guess maybe the various takes on Tenchi Muyo? 

In terms of tone, the TV anime is pure fluff with nothing serious at all, Dash tries to be serious with only some really weirdly placed comedy, and the OVA probably goes most similar to the manga (I assume) and is kind of in the middle. 

But another way to look at the differences is in terms of the emotional focus, which generally expresses in what relationship is focused on in the climax. 

For the OVA, it’s the Natsume-Mishima family and more specifically Nuku Nuku’s attempts to reconcile Akiko to heal the fracture within the family. So the final episode has Akiko finally acknowledge Nuku Nuku (”who would have thought a robot could have such a kind heart”) in between the robot of the weak. The OVA generally comes off as the most cohesive version because everything ties into the family, whether it’s Nuku Nuku’s origins, Mishima corporation, the main conflicts, etc. 

For the TV anime, it’s the relationship between Nuku Nuku and her high school class. Most of the hijinks throughout the series feature the class members, and the climax has Nuku Nuku reveal that she’s a robot to everyone, at which point they confirm that they accept her as she is (because they’d already figured it out, she’s not subtle). The TV anime probably suffers most from the fact that the classmates are all kind of boring one-note cliches, so the hijinks that make up basically the entire series are generally just not very interesting. Even so, some of the humor can work at times. 

For Dash, it’s (sigh) the romance between Nuku Nuku and aged up Ryunosuke. The problem is that, unlike the other two which were comedy fluff with some character moments, Dash is plot-focused. And the plot is about Mishima and their various unethical experiments. (My face when the second to last episode started going on about the founder keeping himself alive with illegal genetic modification and the board of directors being clones) Except that Dash removed Ryunosuke’s connection as Nuku Nuku’s owner, Kyusaku as the creator of the robot body, Akiko as the founder’s daughter…

You could also say the focus is Nuku Nuku’s self-actualization and choosing to go beyond just following the orders of her creator, but her creator only shows up in the last two episodes, while she peppers in a lot of “Ryunosuke-san” in her dialogue and her “last memories” are all of Ryunosuke. Plus, they made a very deliberate choice to age him up because it was explicitly a romantic relationship they wanted to push (and Ryunosuke is the narrator most of the time), so it’s like… the most important thing is Nuku Nuku’s self-actualization, but we’re going to see it through the lens of this horny teenager who has the hots for her and she kind of comes to like him too. I guess it’s a kind of “finding a lover is proof of achieving adulthood and moving beyond the parents” thing…? 

Except, you see, the romance is, uh, not good. Ryunosuke is a whiny, self-centered brat who likes Nuku Nuku based on love at first sight and a whole lot of horny. Nuku Nuku spends most of the series being extremely naive, submissive and kind of weepy because her memories were sealed. Their relationship really comes across as tepid at best, and Ryunosuke’s detachment from the plot focus gets really noticeable toward the end. He can’t react to the robot reveal because there’s no time and he can’t even say anything meaningful about Nuku Nuku’s personal crisis and choices because he has no direction to approach it from. He’s the POV and his relationship with her is the most important one, but the actual meat of the story is her personal choice, which he has no participation in, but he’s gotta be in the last scenes, so……. yeah. 

With this kind of confused and split focus, Dash comes out the worst of the three. (The fanservice doesn’t help.) Funny enough, it’s also the one furthest from the manga, so I wonder what that could mean. 

The absolutely funniest, most ridiculous thing in modern novels/comics is when the transmigrator MC looks at the OG protag of whatever world they ended up in and goes 

“This self-insert power fantasy to make the readers feel cool is TOO COOL, I can’t relate! I want to prove how cool I am by ruining everything he would have achieved!” 

“He’s too OP! Fate is on his side, it’s unfair! Ignore my OP system giving me cheats, I am the real relatable one here, don’t you see” 

This weird envy and hate toward standard protag types and the desire to supplant them is just bizarre and hilarious. The personality-less self-inserts are just not patheticenough for some guys to project on, I guess??

On the subject of Blossoming Blade, I haven’t read a lot of the murim stuff, but I’ve read a couple now. 

Here are the ones I enjoyed and still follow: 

Doctor’s Rebirth

It’s very power fantasy isekai/transmigration, but I do like that the MC is a doctor and has a very doctor drive to help patients, even he tries to logic himself out of it. It’s also impressively gay (though I assume it’s not really intended to be that way). The MC has managed to get two boyfriends fighting over him already, and he’s full UST with a third. Godspeed, you dumbass. 

I’m a Martial Art Villainess, but I’m the Strongest!

(The link it just to the scanlation site, because they keep doing something to make bookmarked URLs not work.)

The title hits the main points. There’s power levelling, politics, and romance, it’s got everything. Also, the ML has the biggest tiddies. 

Precious Daughter of the Greatest Martial Arts Villain

The usual “reborn as the baby daughter of a whackjob, time to act cute to survive” but in a murim setting. The dad is hot though, very my type. Jokes aside, it’s a pretty cute story on the whole. 

Bonus: Special shoutout to SSS-Class Suicide Hunter which is doing a take on the murim setting in its current arc. 

I’m only putting this separately because I don’t have a list to add it to lol

This is just a comedy series based on the tokusatsu aesthetic, similar to Love Before World Domination (though very different direction). This kind of thing is fairly common, and Kuroitsu isn’t particularly outstanding. 

But it’s fine at what it does imo. There were a few segments I particularly enjoyed, like the last part of ep 9 about the retired heroes and villains, and the last episode is a fairly satisfying (if deeply cheesy) conclusion, with the overseas company trying to horn in on these idiots’ territory and everyone coming together to fight them off. I also like that Kuroitsu just directly wants to become an executive, since it’s weirdly rare for protags to have goals if they aren’t shounen leads. Good on her! 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the music is very catchy. There is one specific track that just keeps looping in my head, and the OP/ED tracks are very… concentrated anime but in a good way. 

The hit list: 

1. Skeleton Knight in Another World

Ep 3, dropped. Its crimes are countless. Starts with sexual assault, rendered in loving detail and lingered on. Continues with a rather convoluted and contrived excuse for why the MC is OP. MC is also bland. Continues on with the female lead being stupidly confrontational, and adds on to its sins by going “look how strong she is, she doesn’t need help just like she said!” except you can just smell she’ll need help in a minute because how else will the MC wiggle into her good graces. And she does… with more sexual violence. Good times. 

Aside from that, it tries (rather limply) to do a kind of old school vibe with the opening song and the spell title cards. Think like… old super robot anime. That kind of thing. But they can’t really carry it through, and it’s not nearly enough to excuse everything else. 

Overall mediocre and run of the mill, but I have better things to spend my time on, even as background noise. 

2. The Greatest Demon Lord Is Reborn as a Typical Nobody

Ep 3, dropped. This one is mostly just too stupid. I’ve seen a few shows with this premise of “the MC was super OP, but he decided to ‘reincarnate’ into the future because reasons and now everyone is amazed by this magic super child who is the hottest shit.” This one is like… whatever, but it is the most mediocre harem focus. 

The concepts seem interesting, but I can tell they’ll never get past the stupid way they’re being presented. All this did was remind me of this one Monster High School show where the main girl was a pink-haired vampire with a cool alterego and the MC started to become a vampire too and the second girl was a succubus… it was a much better show. The character designs were also much better than this pathetic mess. 

Bonus mention to how much this show cannot handle its own premise. “Typical nobody” but his dad is a super mage and everyone actively refers to him as the son of a great mage, by ep3 he’s announcing himself boldly so everyone will know his name and casually showing overpowered magic… And not even getting into how people from his old era are still around but somehow the magic from back then is treated as a secret lost art. 

3. The Dawn of the Witch

Ep 3, ongoing… for now. Though not precisely on its own merits. 

This shows is like… it has a fairly good concept, being not an OP protag power fantasy and not being set in a school, with a main cast that has specific backstories and personalities and a setting I at least understand and don’t mind. 

But the pacing. The pacing is such a mess. I don’t know if this is an adaptation issue, but you cannot just drop two tragic backstories and a big betrayal in episode 2 and think it’s going to work, on an emotional level. 

However, since beginnings are hard, I’m tentatively willing to see how it goes further in. 

4. RPG Real Estate

Ep 3, dropped. This one isn’t bad, actually. But it’s just “cute girls doing cute things,” and I am not interested in that. The fantasy setting is nice in theory, but it’s just too off from my tastes. 

5. Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs

Ep 1, dropped. Lasted about 10 minutes and then I’m out. I don’t need this moron with an inferiority complex (and the author with presumably the same) wasting my time shitting on a genre made for girls to begin with. 

But I will say this: you should have just put the game on auto for the dialogue and looked up a guide for everything else. If you had so much trouble clearing it when it looks turn-based, that’s on you. 

6. Love After World Domination

Ep 3, ongoing. I’ve actually read the manga for this. The anime adaptation is pretty good so far. Special mention to the transformation voice announcement and also the way they draw the thighs and asses on the guys. 

That aside, it’s just a fluffy rom-com. It’s kind of nice to see such an uncomplicated romance sometimes. 

7. SPY x FAMILY

Ep 3, ongoing. Good as expected. God, Anya is so dumb, I love her. 

Going forward the two biggest questions will be whether they can keep the pacing from being too slow or too fast, and how they’ll end the season, since the manga is still ongoing. But so far at least I’m pleasantly surprised by how solid the adaptation is. 

8. Ascendance of a Bookworm, S3

Ep 3 (ep29), ongoing. Bookworm is still Bookworm in the new season, without too much difference, though they are entering a new arc with more scheme-y political stuff. I enjoy it as a medium engagement show - I pay some attention to what’s going on, but I’m not super into it emotionally. It’s nice and rather different from the isekais we usually get animated. 

—-

….And that’s about everything new this season that I’m planning to try. 

Not much survived, and something else will probably bite the dust in a few more weeks, but for now I’ll go and find something else to marathon while waiting for new eps, haha. 

Bounty

8.9.21