Man oh man am I glad this season is wrapping up. There weren’t many shows I was interested in to begin with this time around, and the ones that I did watch were either hit or miss. For those watching continuations of this season like Attack on Titan I’m sure you guys probably had a good time, but for this season only anime? It was nothing less than a warzone. Let’s go ahead and start breaking down these bad boys so I can put some of them behind me forever.

Platinum End Second Half

Platinum End was a 23 episode mess with a very bold and interesting ending. I’m not going to sit here and say even for a single second that the journey was worth it to arrive at said ending, but it did make Kinky and I go “wow, that’s nutty.” Apart from that the series suffered from terrible trope-y characters, slow character growth (if any), and stakes involving people you don’t really care about. Mukaido being the exception of course, that’s MY BOY. Anyway, this series never reached half of the intricate narrative and twisty road of Death Note so if that was your hope you can go ahead and be disappointed. Really the mind games here felt meaningless as new rules were added along the entire journey (“new” as in the viewer was not previously informed) so that wasn’t much fun either. In conclusion I can’t really recommend this to anyone for any reason, and it’s a shame that such a daring ending was wasted on a slog like this.

Tribe Nine

Okay here’s the deal. This show is absolute stupidity. People play baseball to the Xtreme and things become life or death. The characters are mostly tropes, the message has about the intellectual capacity of a five-year-old as it boils down to “do shit you enjoy cause it’s fun”, and the plot goes pretty much exactly where you might expect after the first few episodes. Despite all that, I still really enjoyed the show. It knew what it was, and did its best to lean into the stupidity and hype at all times. This show, while silly, has a ton of conflict and nutty moments where characters are giving their all in order to win some baseball and stay alive. And since death is on the table you do worry that some characters ain’t making it out alive. Objectively I’d say this anime is like a 5/10, perhaps 6/10 AT THE HIGHEST. However, my subjective experience was around an 8/10 especially with the last few episodes that skyrocketed the hype train to overdrive. If you want something to turn your brain off and relax it while letting your heart take over and get pumped at the sheer stupidity of what’s happening, I thoroughly recommend Tribe Nine. It was a blast and I think others would enjoy it if they knew what they were getting into.

My Dress-Up Darling

Alright if you loved this anime you might want to skip this one, because this will be the harshest review I’ve written in a while. I have no fucking idea why anyone on Earth would enjoy this anime. There’s no romance that’s acted upon, there’s no conflict the characters face, there’s no real character arcs or developments that are earned or strived for. This show is 20 minutes of amazingly cute and well done animation each week. That’s it. I’m sitting there watching animation play out without any story or direction. “All glitter, no gold” has never been a more appropriate saying than for this series. It’s just… empty. Now listen I’m a bit biased as people were hyping this show up big time and I had my expectations up, but this shit disappointed me in ways I didn’t know imaginable. I didn’t know it was possible to have so many episodes and progress practically fucking nothing. The characters are the worst part. Marin, the main female MC, is a godlike entity who is sexy, cute, loyal, respectful, playful, a good chef, a model, kind hearted, and every other amazing trait. She’s a little on the dumber side but it’s never really utilized in a meaningful way. She is essentially a perfect doll with no engaging flaws or problems and Gojo (the male MC) is about the same. His flaw used to be he has trouble expressing himself because he’s nervous other people will call him a loser for being a boy and playing with dolls as one girl did in the past, but he gets over that pretty quick and then he’s close to perfection too. Handsome, kind, caring, blah blah blah. It’s like I’m truly watching two darling dolls dress up and pretend to be human each week. Not to mention the fact that this show is essentially devoid of conflict after the first few episodes (both internal and external) and results in the later half being an aimless ship in the sea. I’ve seen people compare this show and couple to Horimiya, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Horimiya is an anime about flawed teenagers learning to love themselves and others despite their shortcomings. My Dress-Up Darling is an anime about flawless teenagers doing cosplay. If you really love cosplay and want to learn more about it, I suppose you could give this a try or read the manga which supposedly contains way more information about cosplay than the anime counterpart. For everyone else in existence, I can’t see what value you could possibly ascertain from this anime when so many other good ones already exist.

Koroshi Ai

Yeah, I gave up on this one about episode four. At the time I couldn’t tell where we were going tonally with the show but I was pretty convinced I wouldn’t be missing much by dropping off. Darling I was forced to watch till the end so I had more to complain about, here I can just say the romance they were setting up seemed horribly bland. I don’t know how you make a love story about bounty hunters lame but judging from the initial episodes they managed to succeed in that aspect with this project. Oh well, Spy X Family is on the horizon now and will be airing shortly and from the PV I expect it to employ a similar premise but do it with much more style so it’s probably for the best I fell off this one. Keep the palette clean, you know?

Tokyo 24th Ward

Finally, oh dear Lord finally, an anime that was fucking banging this season. The only one that was truly banging I’d argue. A huge cast of characters, most of which are adequately explained and developed. A plot that actually has bumps in the road and requires sacrifice *cough Darling* cough*. It was all so refreshing. This anime had the perfect balancing of world building, character building, hype action, sad moments, and meaningful choices to end up with a satisfying conclusion. This may be my favorite 12 episode anime since Vivy. I want to argue some characters were a bit trope-y yet overtime I think they’re expanded upon enough to where they feel human and unique, especially the main three boys. Essentially this anime boils down to a giant debate on privacy and security with no clear answer in sight and it's up to the boys to slowly reach a conclusion that values both and therefore improves their city overall. Trolley dilemmas ensue and stakes are raised. Mysteries are unraveled. Fuck it’s just so solid. Kinky and I both agreed it was around the 8/10 to 9/10 range. Even the directing and scene transitions had a unique feel to it. If you enjoy the aforementioned debate and want to see a group of boys have to put aside their stark differences to come together and create a future for their city and the people in it, this is not a skippable option. Highly recommended and easily my anime of the season.

So there ya go. Man apart from Tribe Nine’s dumb hype and Tokyo 24th Ward’s smart hype, this was a slog of a season for me. I should also shout out Ryman’s Club, I planned to watch that with Kinky but we fell out of it time wise and didn’t come back. It seemed decent though. As always this is merely my opinion and only considers the anime I had time to watch. What anime did you pick up this season? What was your favorite and what disappointed you? Are you hype for next season? Grab your baseball bat, dress up your doll, and save the city in the comments below!