I should let you guys know that I began writing this post just as one of my favorite K-pop acts has just made their mark on mainstream UK TV, and the reaction from the older generation has been both great and hilarious to watch. As someone in their mid-30s watching and enjoying something from a new generation, can this be interpreted as me becoming an old man? The metaphorical sledgehammer did hit me a while ago, and made me think that I ought to stop acting like a young and reckless weeb. Well this old man is still watching and loving anime after over 20 years of being into it.

Yes, that’s right. I’m in my mid-30s.

Enough about me though, let’s begin with some shows.

Bloom Into You is beginning to show more than just Yuu’s perspective, which is what we saw mostly in the opening episode. I am still familiar with what happens in the story, having read the opening volumes of the manga, and so I am aware that Sayaka is both perplexed and annoyed that she wasn’t chosen to be Nanami’s campaign manager. Although you can understand when Nanami says that she chose Yuu because she wanted first-years to get involved in all of this, and so having someone like Yuu play such an important role will boost interest all around.

Nanami then goes on to tell Yuu that she is totally okay with her not returning her feelings, so long as she is able to let her love her…which can be interpreted in many ways. Anime-only viewers (ie. those who are unfamiliar with what goes on in the manga) will have the impression, after watching what happens at the end of this episode, that Nanami is beginning to become rather selfish and manipulative with her feelings towards Yuu, who still can’t seem to understand why this second-year would want to fall in love with someone like her. It’s actually rather funny seeing other reaction posts to this week’s episode, as existing fans are itching to spoil what happens, and why Nanami wants to do this to Yuu. I think that Bloom Into You is going to shape up to become a very good show for 2018…end the anime year on a high, if you can call it that. It started off very well, and by sticking to its roots (in terms of animation style and the story), it will please both manga fans, yuri fans and generate more interest from others.

If you’re an anime-only viewer of the show, do you see Nanami’s actions as selfish or manipulative? I’m rather curious to know others’ opinions.

Onto that other yuri show, which is starting to disappoint me a little, actually.

I would think that this week’s episode of Release the Spyce is more of a introductory episode; no real plot twists here. This week, Momo is brought to the Tsukikage main base located underneath the city. Here, she is assigned to be Yuki’s apprentice, and her training as a moeblob spy begins.

This all sounds fine as a second episode for a show, but as I’m still unable to really connect with any of the characters (both main and secondary), I found all of this training and initiation very boring to watch, and even as we’re given a little back-story of why Yuki does what she does, little in the show convinces me that these guys are actually that serious, and only jump around while having hyper-active senses and strength after eating a stick of spice. Maybe it is this whole ‘spice’ gimmick that is beginning to throw me off. Of course, this is just a silly moeblob show and if young schoolgirls becoming spies with super-strength after eating spice is meant to be a plausible thing in a show like this, then so be it.

Even despite this…and this is probably just me, but I’m still unable to find anything that really grabs me in Release the Spyce. All the Dune jokes are long gone, and with this week’s episode devoted to Momo’s initiation into Tsukikage, I get the feeling that if all episodes in the show are going to be like this then this could turn out to be a rather disappointing watch. Could be just this week though, and to be fair, initiating someone into this group isn’t really that exciting to watch.

I am, however, in danger of becoming a massive hypocrite…once again. I say this because when I say silly moeblob spy shows that aren’t really meant to be taken too seriously, why has SSSS Gridman grabbed me so much?

As expected, the entire city seems to have had some kind of ‘reset’; no one remembers the kaiju fight from last week, buildings that were destroyed are mysteriously rebuilt, and it seems that those who perished in the fight appear to have either died long ago…or never existed in the first place. A lot of mecha shows would design these three protagonists (Yuta, Utsumi and Rikka) as a group who step up to fight immediately, and so I really like how Trigger have designed them not to fight without question, but to doubt as well. Rikka has a lot of hesitations on what she should do. Classmates disappear, the rest of the class haven’t a clue what she’s talking about, and despite not knowing them very well, she is understandably upset that these people who perished are just forgotten. Not just Rikka, either, as towards the end, even Yuta begins to think why he should do what he does, if people die and are just forgotten, and no-one is going to be around to remember these big fights in the first place.

But Trigger have had to go and introduce an antagonist already…and make her adorable while they’re at it.

I, along with many many other new fans to SSSS Gridman, are very curious about our new cute villain Akane. Although as I say that, I really don’t think she is fully behind all of this, and that there is much more to this than meets the eye. Despite her attitude and behavior, she doesn’t strike me as some kind of campy main antagonist like Rita Repulsa, emerging after 10,000 years with plans to conquer the Earth. I would instead compare her to…I don’t know…one of Queen Beryl’s lieutenants…

*Okay, I don’t really know where I intended to go with that…*

In fact, I think there is going to be a hell of a lot more in this show that will just jump out at us. Some mass worldwide event like in Kill La Kill or Darling in the Franxx? I doubt it. I think they will stick with this high-school theme for the long run. But it isn’t just Akane or this interesting new take on the kaiju genre that has grabbed me in SSSS Gridman. Animation direction is seriously on point here, and 2D and 3D animation seem to seamlessly blend together. The sound in the show is noteworthy as well (this use of silence continues on in this week’s episode too). This is going to be more fun of a watch than I thought it would be.

…and the same can be said for The Tatami Galaxy. Its style of storytelling is very different than what I was expecting. One could easily compare this style to something like Groundhog Day, but I don’t think so. As the show details the ups and downs of our hero’s two years of wasted life at college, the various circles he joined are all given their own story. He is the same person when he joins these circles, but the choices he makes are just different. Someone on a Reddit discussion thread compared this to what Akira Kurosawa did in Rashomon, and how the singular story in that was told from different perspectives.

A few things have remained the same so far.

  1. Both our hero and Ozu have ‘an enemy’: in episode 1, it is romance, and here in episode 2, it is the misogynist, perverted and tyrannical circle president Jougasaki.
  2. Ozu ends up becoming the catalyst for whatever trouble our hero ends up getting himself in, and is more than happy to make himself scarce at the first notice.
  3. Akashi has become someone who isn’t against our hero, and develops a sense of trust in him with this ‘promise’ that she keeps bringing up.

I’m sure that our protagonist will find some way out of this; how I’m not totally sure. Like I said previously, I’m very unfamiliar with this story, but as I learned this week that The Tatami Galaxy does not have a conventional beginning-middle-end story pattern, I suppose I can expect the unexpected. I mean, I enjoyed the Endless Eight, and figured out why the team behind Haruhi Suzumiya decided to make 8 almost identical episodes. I personally think that it was simply a story-telling experiment…that not everyone liked or appreciated.

And no, this style of story-telling in The Tatami Galaxy should NOT be compared to the Endless Eight at all. Many many stories with repeating stories came out before that.

So what kind of circle will we see in episode 3? What kind of ‘enemy’ will our protagonist and Ozu face? How will Akashi be involved? And will our hero even find a way out of this?…I mean, I’m sure he wants to graduate too, right? Well I already know what circle is coming in episode 3, as my curiosity sated me and I ended up watching it on Crunchyroll already, but I’ll talk about that episode in next week’s post.

So I have a new favorite show this season, and once again, I am in danger of becoming a hypocrite. This should seriously just become a regular thing for every anime season that I write about. Oh well…how have you enjoyed this season so far? What shows have caught your attention? Feel free to hit that like button and air your opinions in the comments below…

…and no, you will not be convincing me to watch Sword Art Online or the My Hero Academia movie.