I have finished all of Minami-ke, for now. It’s not the best thing ever but it grew on me. Season 1 is decent, season 2 is the worst in my opinion. Season 3 is decent again and season 4 felt quite comfy. In 2025 season 5 will come out after a gap of more than 10 years. It will join Hidamari Sketch as a rare slice of life with 5 full seasons. Both classic SOL that started in 2007. I also finished all of Gochuumon wa Usagi desuka. It is just a very good show, I hope for another season one day.

I’ve changed my mind about Murai in Love. It had such a formulaic romance climax that I should have known better than to judge it before the end. To be fair, I think that romance stories should avoid using forced drama as their climax, but perhaps that’s just me.

Thoughts on final episode:

Anyway, I’m happy enough with the ending, so I’m bumping its score back up to 10 / 10. It also means it would be the first shoujo anime to enter my top favourites (though I noticed a significant number of listings are missing a demographic tag so it may not really be the first). Time will tell if stays up there though; I have revised scores downward after some time has passed when recency bias has less effect on me.

Also completed Barakamon, which is a big step up from Handa-kun IMO. Both are about equally funny (i.e. not funny enough), but Barakamon felt a lot more mature and meaningful.

I like the supporting casts more as well.

This feels like a 8.5, so I’m gonna be generous and give it a 9 / 10.

Good season so far. I’m following four shows (as I usually do) and I’m happy that three of them are good to great.

Dan Da Dan is a rare instance of a show that can do everything. The characters are enjoyable, the comedy is on point, the action is punchy and easy to follow, and the show can even pull off drama really well when it wants to. Impressive. I don’t have much else to say, really.

Orb is the freshest work I’ve seen since Frieren. Possibly fresher than Frieren, actually.

There are virtually none of the staples ones would expect from anime; there is no world to be saved and society itself is more the villain than the literal torturer is. Stakes are personal but feel high. Action is very limited and it’s mostly a science-philosophical exploration of theological dogma through the lens of astronomy. It’s basically like a particularly talky Star Trek episode but in medieval Poland.

On top of that, the characters, presentation, and story are all of high quality.

I didn’t think the industry had something like this in it and it might beat Dan Da Dan as my anime of the season. While Dan Da Dan’s punches land flawlessly, Orb is a master of an entirely different martial art, one rarely seen in the genre.

Demon Lord 2099 is nothing particularly special but is a solid example of getting your balance right. The magical and cyberpunk aspects of the show are well-balanced, as are mild comedy, action, and drama. The show is aware that it can’t take itself too seriously. Honestly, the most jarring element is the random V-tuber cameo that fails to match the art style. All in all a good mix, although not one that I will really remember much about in a few years.

Mecha-Ude is a nice example of a show that doesn’t know where it’s strengths lie. The story is bland and clumsily told, the protagonist may as well not have bothered showing up, the action is stale, and the show is really bad at drama but thinks that’s one of its strengths. What it is good at is being silly – honestly, this could’ve worked well as a zany comedy. Its near-total lack of self-awareness keeps is from capitalizing on that, however.

Happy Thanksgiving week to those of us in the US this week. As befitting this holiday, I am traveling this week and staying with family. My connectivity is going to be extremely limited this week due to my hosts not having home internet and cell signal being near non-existent (essentially living off the grid unless I drive into town).

Why this is relevant to all of you, it means I won’t be able to be as on the ball as normal with things like handling screenshots with rikka or posting as much news. On the good news side of things for me, I am going to be eating delicious food all week. On the bad news side of things for me, I will eat way too much.

One thing I wanted to call out in particular is to make sure you are subscribed to !dandadan@ani.social so that the new episode discussion thread is federated to your instance this week. I will be delayed in posting the link to it in this community on Thursday, so just go ahead and reach it directly. @GordonFreeman@ani.social has done an excellent job with the discussion posts this season, so I want to make sure people can access it even when I will be slow in posting a link to it.

Weekly ranking roundup:

1. Anime Corner - Full Results - Weekly Winner: Bleach: TYBW
2. Reddit Karma - Weekly Winner: Dan Da Dan

Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma and /u/Nooble5 for the Anime Trending chart.

The karma for Dan Da Dan came back down to a more normal level this week after the high of episode 7. However, don’t mistake that for the show being more normal because it decidedly is not. Bleach is atop the AC rankings this week again, so the world is healing bit by bit.