Welp, this is a bit awkward as some anime haven’t even concluded yet, but as I check my calendar we’re only about 1 week away from summer anime beginning to fire up. That means it’s time to hop into the saddle and give a short review of every one I saw this season. I can tell you right off the bat I fucked up and missed Shadow House so that’s why it’s not listed. Additionally I won't bother covering the big recurring stuff like My Hero Academia cause everyone already knows by this point if they’re watching it or not.
Megalo Box Season 2
Man I can’t believe they pulled this one out of their asses. I thought for sure this was going to be a shitty cash grab, however the writers managed to come back and tell another interesting story about Gearless Joe and the gang, albeit with a much different tone than the first season. This is a very somber and slow take on the series. Boxing is ever-present but sort of slips into the background for large portions of the story acting more as a force to bring characters together rather than being the main focus of the anime. If you’re a fan of typical sports anime that pretty much focus exclusively on the sport you’re probably going to be a bit disappointed with this shift towards the characters' feelings and problems taking up so much time. That being said, when a fighter DOES finally get in the ring in this season, it means something. Personally I loved it after I adjusted my expectations and grew accustomed to this season’s different take. If you enjoy stories that don’t skimp on characters while providing some nicely animated boxing every now and then, this is absolutely one to go back and watch.
Jouran: The Princess of Snow and Blood
Oh jesus christ. Where do I begin? This anime was basically over after episode four and I was left sitting there wondering “where are they going with the story now?”. Nowhere good ladies and gentlemen. This series was plagued with so many anime tropes and “oh, that just happened?” moments that I lost so much respect for it after the early installments. When a character seemingly went crazy with very little explanation or buildup, I was already on the fence. Then they fucking killed a character but BROUGHT THEM BACK OFFSCREEN? Holy moly. Maybe the ending could save it. It didn’t. Characters die for no real reason other than it seems like the writers wanted the ending to have more impact and it feels so pointless. Hell the ending doesn’t even make logical sense cause they cut out required scenes from the source material (I checked the wiki). God save me, the ending implies room for future seasons too. You bet your ass I’m not watching them if they’re produced. A strong start but a plague of tropes and poorly explained (or flat out boring) events make this one of the worst anime I watched this season. Outside of the cool artstyle and banger opening, I don’t recommend this, even to fans of action cause that doesn’t save it either.
Tokyo Revengers
I didn’t expect much from this one, but thankfully the show wasted no time in telling me to shut the fuck up. This was possibly the most consistently tense anime this season, especially towards the second half. The characters were absolutely the strongest aspect of the show and it makes you feel like you’re part of the gang right quick. There’s nobody I really dislike (except for Kiyomasa’s knife using bitch ass) whereas I want all the good guys to do well and stop the looming gang conflict. At the end of the day, this is another one that stands at the top this season and deserves your attention if the premise catches your eye. You’re given exactly what’s described with characters more likeable than you likely expected.
Zombie Land Saga Season 2
Unlike Megalo Box, this anime is pretty much a copy and paste of the first season. 70% of the scenes are funny, lighthearted situations where the zombie girls must figure out how to overcome an obstacle in order to keep striving for their dream of becoming idols while 15% of the screetime is dedicated to dancing/singing performances from the girls and the other 15% was comprised of serious, heartfelt moments. To be honest, this series has finally started to lose some steam for me as we end the second season. This is one that I haven’t been able to watch the very last episode before writing this because of scheduling, but I’m hoping this wraps up the story and marks a concrete ending for the series. Still if you enjoyed season one and want more of the same, you shouldn’t be disappointed with this continuation and I’d say it was worth watching overall if you kept up with the first one. Otherwise the comedy and heartfelt moments don’t punch hard enough for me to recommend someone to catch up to this series.
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I didn’t make it long with this one. After the series began I kept wondering “When?” When are they going to introduce a character I like? When are they going to give the already introduced characters more depth? When will I care about this story? I never found the answers to those questions and dropped off around episode four or five. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the premise was amazing. Discriminated people being forced to pilot mechs in an unfair society to fight the enemy while the empathetic main character learns that they’re people too and questions the authority of the government? Sounds like we could have had a mini Code Geass on our hands. Alas from what I saw this anime didn’t have the characters, tact, pacing, mech designs, or anything else that made Code Geass so popular. It was just, “here care about these characters cause they are mistreated please and thank you”. I have seen some positive reviews on the series so perhaps it finally picked up the ball after the early episodes and grew into something great, but with this season being stacked with so many anime (many of which were awesome) I didn’t have the time to stick around and find out.
Ijiranaide Nagatoro-San
I could never win with this anime. If I said something good about it, I’m a spineless cuck who probably enjoys my girlfriend ruling over every aspect of my life with her boyfriend. If I said something bad about it, I’m a tasteless virgin who probably worships vanilla sex and is so boring I never want to do any position except missionary. Basically it’s a comedy about a girl who bullies a nerdy loser guy into becoming a better man. But trust me, it’s not nearly as deep as it sounds. If that premise sounds exciting to you then by all means go for it, just keep in mind that this anime drops the “serious” vibe after the first few episodes and goes full comedy after that. There are a few real moments here and there for sure. Not enough to justify watching for them solely though. Honestly I didn’t laugh out loud that much if at all, but I did smile at the characters’ dumb antics. I don’t really need a season two of this but it was an enjoyable watch for what it was.
Fumetsu no Anata e
If my scheduling is correct, then this anime isn’t even really going away yet for another 8 weeks or so. It’s a good thing too, because this has been a beautiful ride from the very beginning. When I first talked about this anime previously, I said I didn’t know what it was about. Well, now I’m fucking 11 or 12 episodes in and I still don’t know exactly what it’s about. The general structure of the story is that this creation from a god who looks like he just walked out of Hot Topic is given life and learns to interact with people. The story sort of focuses on other characters and the creation, who eventually takes the name Fushi, is “stimulated” by his emotional and physical experiences with them. This MIGHT, just might be the objectively best written anime this season. Every character we meet I say “man, I don’t care about this chucklefuck” and then BOOM two episodes later I love and respect the character. Characters are so well defined and even when they do dumb shit, you can’t be that mad because their strengths and weaknesses were already outlined for you so it doesn’t feel illogical or out of place. And man, this show isn’t afraid to make you a sad motherfucker either. This is 100% a recommendation from me and I’m hella happy we’ve still got episodes coming down the pipeline. If you haven’t hit this one up yet, give it a try. I mean hell it has Utada Hikaru in the opening so that’s worth a listen alone.
After Being Rejected I Shaved And Took In A Highschool Runaway
Hmm. This one was right on the verge of being something special. The premise of a runaway girl finding and living with a salaryman was interesting for sure in my opinion. I’m not 100% certain what I was missing that kept this from standing out more. The biggest mistake was easily how the anime handled attempted rape. The response from the characters was so laughable and lackluster that it sort of lost any realism or ability to deliver moral insight for a while. Once we moved past that things returned to form. There’s still one episode to go, but I’m fairly positive this will become an anime that was a fun little ride for the season that I’ll almost entirely forget about a year from now. Overall I’d say if you skipped it, you missed a solid anime disregarding one big mistake. Nothing groundbreaking or redefining.
Koi To Yobu Ni Wa Kimochi Warui
I’m afraid the charm of this one wore off fast. I initially only picked it up cause I got addicted to the main girl’s voice acting, but after a few episodes we were reaching levels of genericity that I didn’t know were possible. This was the most formulaic, boring, and flat romance I’ve seen in a minute. Conflicts were about as deep as a kiddie pool and the comedy never reached the level of making me laugh or even chuckle. I dropped it around the halfway point and have never looked back. Plus the premise about a businessman trying to date a highschool girl was downplayed and deemphasized, becoming a topic that was never utilized in any way, interesting or otherwise. Throw this one in the traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash baby.
The World Ends With You
Holy hell. I watched this anime knowing there would be a ton of cut content. I was prepared to simply sit back and enjoy the fights and soundtrack. Sadly these were not enough to hold my interest all the way through. Fights were pretty poorly choreographed and oftentimes came off to me as outright boring. So much content is cut you don’t really connect to any damn character with the exception of Shiki. By episode 7 I had enough and dropped the bitch cause Kinky had fallen behind on it and I damn well wasn’t wasting my alone time on this. Completely not recommended, even if you had low expectations this will shatter them by going lower. The true experience will only be had by playing the game it seems.
Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song
After completing the series, I do double down that Fumetsu no Anata e was the best objectively written show from my perspective (though it is hard to compare them since Vivy has ended and it is ongoing), I couldn’t find any mistakes in that bitch. Meanwhile toward the end Vivy made a few decisions that had me like “huh? We’re just gonna...do that?” Still, these issues were regarding minor problems, nothing humongous like Jouran where it feels like the writers rolled a dice to determine how things should play out. In fact, the very last episode was extremely neat and ended the series wonderfully. There is a post-credits scene that kinda ruins everything in my opinion, so my headcanon is the animators finished work early but didn’t want to go home early and lose the pay so they made it as a joke. Ignoring that little attempt to destroy the show, this was still my subjectively favorite ride of the season and the year so far. The gorgeous animation, bombastic orchestral soundtrack, carefully choreographed fight scenes, and overall concise message that touched my heart made up for the small writing quips I mentioned. If you’re a fan of sci-fi or hell anime in general, I give this my highest recommendation.
Finally, that covers it. TL;DR: Tokyo Revengers, Vivy, Megalo Box, and Fumestu made this an absolutely banging season for me. I looked forward to each week’s new episodes with bated breath. All of them are worth going back and watching in my opinion. I can never cover everything though, so what did you guys think? What anime did you watch this season? Which were your favorites? Did you watch something you ended up hating? Say goodbye to the anime of Spring 2021 in the comments below!
