Just so you know in advance…I have no intentions of following any of the mega-franchises that have returned this Spring season. You know…My Hero Academia, Sword Art Online, Steins;Gate, Tokyo Ghoul, Food Wars, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Cutey Honey…and as for the Persona 5 show, well I can’t follow that at all, since I still haven’t finished the game and thus have no idea how it all ends.

(I suppose this gives me the excuse to hurry up and finish it, right?)

As for what I am actually going to watch, I’ve had to delay this post for a while because the first episodes for each of the shows I’ve picked are far apart. So I will begin with the very first one I picked, and a part of me rather regrets choosing it…

…although I am actually going to stick with this because it does look silly enough to amiably poke fun at.

Uma Musume Pretty Derby is a show I did not expect a studio like P.A. Works to put out at all; an ecchi studio like Xebec or something like Actas or diomedea perhaps, but P.A Works are known are putting out smart and meaningful shows (like Shirobako, A Lull in the Sea and Angel Beats!). This is just an adaptation of an arcade game…an idol show with human horse hybrids.

Sure, that sounds harmless enough, but P.A Works put out 2 episodes this week to show this off, and I don’t think they’ve made a very good first impression.

Uma Musume Pretty Derby is being made out to be another one of those sweet coming-of-age stories about the clueless horse girl Special Week (who has two mothers) who promised her human mom that she would become the best that there ever was. Not an uncommon storyline, and I think that’s what bothers me about this show more than its actual topic of training girls with horse ears to be strong runners, good dancers and talented singers. As Special Week begins her new life at a horse girl training academy, she joins a small-scale team along with the horse girl she has looked up to since she arrived in town: Silence Suzuka.

I actually have no idea of what kind of story this show will have. I have a prediction that this will be a divisive show, with people loving how ridiculous it can be, and others being really annoyed with it all. I don’t know whether to be totally annoyed with it though, but I am very surprised that P.A Works were the studio who picked up this adaptation.

How does a newborn have hair? Because she’s a horse girl, perhaps…?

Moving on to another show I didn’t expect a studio to do; here is Doga Kobo with Tada-kun Does Not Fall In Love. With Doga Kobo with a portfolio like New Game!, Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun and Yuru Yuri, one would think that they are more suited to making slapstick humor shows, but this new outing by them is sort of changing my opinion of them, for the better.

Luxembourgian lost lamb Teresa Wagner gets separated from her travel companion in the Tokyo city center, and runs into amateur photographer Mitsuyoshi Tada, who remains a bit of a mystery (I’ll come onto that another time). Hungry and alone, he decides to take her to his grandfather’s coffee shop so she can wait to be picked up by her colleague Alexandra.

Despite him and love interest Teresa taking up the first half, Mitsuyoshi Tada, our main protagonist, has not really made that much of a presence in this opening episode, leaving that job to his idiot friend Kaoru Ijuuin, who is a very punchable guy. I’m sure that’ll all change in time though, as this is a rom-com show, which doesn’t really feel like a Doga Kobo show that much. Of course that’s neither a good thing or a bad thing; what’s more important is how entertaining the show is, and it is indeed. But at the same time, I can’t help but feel there’s something missing. I know that more plot points will come in future episodes…that I am certain of. We do learn though via Alexandra that Teresa is in fact a very important person in her home country (Luxembourg is a Grand Duchy country, meaning it has a monarchy, or more accurately a duke).

I initially was not sure about picking up Hinamatsuri, and when I eventually decided to, was not sure what to expect. Was it to be some kind of ‘family’ show that would look not unlike Usagi Drop, or would the focus be more on the yakuza featured in the show? Well, it turned out to be a mixture of both. While Usagi Drop was made out to be a family drama, Hinamatsuri combines the “girl freeloading in a single adult’s house” formula with a topic I personally have not seen before. After appearing in the lounge of Nitta, a yakuza lackey, the telekinetic alien Hina decides to make herself at home, effectively blackmailing Nitta (“let me stay or I’ll destroy your home”).

In time, the two manage to get along, and I was quite surprised at how much their dynamic worked in the space of 25 minutes. Going from a selfish and heartless man to a kind-hearted caregiver is quite something, and his role as a yakuza lackey is more of a side-show. But this side-show doesn’t take a back seat though; while we see Hina make use of her time at school, we see Nitta trying to suck up to his bosses…this first episode, for instance, sees him having to arrange the use of an illegal construction company to clear land for a new hotel, and something else later on, which I won’t spoil.

This is definitely a show I will carry on watching. I’ve found it to be funny, but not over-the-top with its humor, and entertaining with the two ‘stories’ going on at the same time: Nitta having to be a caregiver for Hina, and Nitta trying to be a top yakuza member.

Now onto Darling in the Franxx, and I have had a lot of catching up to do, since due to my teacher training, this is one show I’ve had to fall behind on. And oh, the tables have turned when it comes to my opinion of this. The two studios, Trigger and A-1 Pictures (oh sorry, I mean CloverWorks…they changed their name this month) have used this halfway point well to introduce a lot of new plot points and build heavily on existing ones, especially when it comes to who Zero Two really is, and why she has become so attached to Hiro.

We’ve had filler episodes about the team, but these more recent episodes have made the show more interesting, and less of a cringefest. However, the last two episodes have only reinforced our beliefs that Darling in the Franxx is struggling to find its own identity, and so by taking plot points and ideas from other shows, it can be some kind of ‘post-modern’ mash-up…of a sorts.

This week’s episode is a flashback episode. While we saw Zero Two get crazier and crazier, as she reveals her belief of killing as many Klaxosaurs as she can so she can become human…and it’s this week where we learn why she wants that. As a child, she and Hiro met as runaways from their own prisons; Hiro got sick of the adults refusing to answer any of his inquisitive questions and left the nursery he was brought up in, and Zero Two escaped from her hell thanks to Hiro. As a test subject who was given a variety of tortuous experiments, she lacked any kind of humanity, until Hiro showed up and broke her out, thereby endangering him and his chances of being a successful Parasite.

This episode (this week was CloverWorks’ turn – the two studios take turns in making shows by the way) shows us that Evangelion and Star Driver are not the only shows that can be referenced/borrowed/copied from…or whatever you want to call it. The promises Hiro makes to his colleagues in the nursery, and to Zero Two are a reflection of the promise made (and forgotten) in Nisekoi, and the picture book Zero Two treasures is a reflection of the events in Yuri Kuma Arashi. Maybe the producers enjoyed these shows and wanted to pay homages to them, maybe they straight up copied these ideas…who knows? Maybe there will be more shows that will be ‘referenced’ in Darling in the Franxx. I guess we’ll only have to wait and see.

And so I’ve finally caught up with shows from this season. Time for some out-of-season stuff (because I can’t really call Princess Principal a classic show. Not yet anyway…)

This had everything I was expecting, and at the same time showed me some more. I had only read briefly about the synopsis back when it was airing last summer, and so I was very pleased to see Victorian-style spies with magic. I thought that the first episode would be the beginning of a long chapter that would last for a whole cour, but this is more of an introductory one, that gives us the basics on who the main characters are. Main protagonist Ange, who is very adept at telling lies…Dorothy, the driver and the only adult…Beatrice, the youngest spy who can mimic voices…Chise, the bad-ass transfer student wielding a sword…and Princess Charlotte, who we don’t actually know about right now. Episode 1 gives us a mission of escorting a defector to the Commonwealth, where the spies discover that there’s more than meets the eye about him. I’m fairly sure that this is the kind of show that I can’t pass full judgement on the first episode alone, and thus am more than happy to give the show plenty of time, because I know straight away that this is a show that I am really really going to love.

It’ll come as a surprise then that I won’t be dropping any shows this season, nor replacing them with other ones. I’m enjoying all the ones I’m watching so far, and that’s a good thing…right?

How has you started your season? What shows are you choosing to watch? Of course it’ll come to no surprise to me that a lot of you will be watching Persona 5 The Animation religiously, but what about anything else? Have any US/Australian readers here managed to catch Violet Evergarden on Netflix now it’s available for you guys at last? Feel free to air your opinions in the comments below…