Anime

True, I never heard of anybody falling for an especially attractive pair of kidneys

Our protagonist Yuri, wakes up onboard an interstellar space ship and discovers their memories are missing. They have no idea who they are, where they are or what’s going on. Which is a bit of a handicap as they find themselves in a situation where one of the four other people on the ship isn’t actually human but a gnosia, a human infected by a murderous alien lifeform devoted to murdering any human it can. Normally in such a situation the ship would blow itself up to prevent infection from reaching an inhabited planet, but in this case the onboard AI has been persuaded to pause proceedings and give the crew the chance to sniff the gnosia out — by playing werewolf.

Five people vote, one will be send to cold sleep. If the right person is chosen, the AI will no longer see any gnosian infection onboard the ship. If they guessed wrong, on to the next round. And sadly, they guessed wrong, but the ship has to go into warp before the next round of voting can take place. During warp humans are helpless but gnosia can walk round freely. Which mean they can kill with impunity. And indeed one of the four doesn’t wake up from warp.

Now with three people and each of the other two voting for the other, the casting vote lies with Yuri. With basically no information to go on, Yuri has to trust their instincts, but choses wrong. All die. O the embarrassment. But then Yuri wakes up again in the same medbay he woke up at the start of the episode and the real game can begin….

And yes, Gnosia started life as a video game and honestly the whole setup of this first episode really shows its origins. Yuri having amnesia gives the rest of the crew an excuse to explain the setting through them, while the rest of the episode does a neat job of showcasing the game dynamics. For what’s basically an entire episode of people talking to each other with no real action, it held my attention well. The animation looks good even if the direction has a penchant for weird facial close-ups. But the setup gave me problems.

Because it is all a bit artifical. The gnosia are such an existential threat –the planet the ship left from being hinted at being overrun by them– that ship AI have standing orders to self destruct, yet it allowed itself to be overridden and get the crew playing werewolf instead. That and the fact the AI can infect gnosia presence but not pinpoint it necessary to tell the story Gnosia wants to tell, I understand that. So is making Cold Sleep dangerous enough that you can’t just sent the entire crew into it or again you wouldn’t have a story.

But you could just cycle people through cold sleep without the need for an elaborate voting ritual. Select one crew member, see if putting them to sleep erases the gnosia detection; if not defrost them and go onto the next. That way you’d never get into the situation where the gnosia has the upper hand.Similarly, from the gnosia point of view it makes no sense to let this voting drag out, if they’re free to move around and murder anyone they want during warp. Why stop at just one, why not the entire crew?

These are just minor quibbles for me though. With three of the crew (Yuri, Racio and Setsu) seemingly non-binary and SQ being bi if her flirting with Yuri and Setsu both is an indication, this looks to be a rather queer series. And while the setup for it is a bit dodgy and gamey, it’s still interesting enough to make me want to watch it.

I’m glad to say that the anime version of Saigo ni Hitotsu dake Onegai shitemo Yoroshii deshou ka / May I Ask for One Final Thing is as good as I hoped.

That was a very satisfying premiere. The anime was smart enough to keep what worked in the manga version and having two episodes meant we could deal with both the setup and start the actual story in one fell swoop. Starting with the denouncement, before going into an extended flashback that shows Scarlet immense patience in dealing with her shithead fiancee, before coming back for the well deserved catharsis of the beatdown she delivers to him and his cronies, worked very well here. It’s a structure you see more often in villainess anime or manga, but rarely as well handled as this. The second episode being able to move onto the bigger plot, with the prince revealed to be no more than a figureheard for a coalition of corrupt nobles engaging in slavery, helps move the story along. A lot of villainess stories tend to spin their wheels between the big banishment scene and the inevitable redemption through romance, not so this series. There’s romance with the other prince on the horizon, but the manga hasn’t really gotten to it yet so I don’t expect the anime to get there either.

All in all this is an almost perfect adaptation, with my only minor quibble being that the big fight scenes were a bit static. Not every production can have the budget or staff that a CloverWorks or Science Saru can bring to a project, sadly. Direction and mise en scene makes up for a lot here. All of leaves me free with something that irritated me when reading the ANN reviews of these first tow episodes, viz Rebecca Silverman’s remarks about its worldbuilding:

It also stumbles in its worldbuilding; if it’s not proper for Scarlet to show her legs, why does her school uniform skirt come to mid-thigh? If slavery is illegal, why is it so easy to find the slave traders in the capital? And how credulous is Scarlet that she thinks a rock is a precious ore even though she’s clearly not stupid? Moments like that took me right out of the story.

This feels like a case of overthinking reviewer’s brain. The remark that it’s not proper to show her legs is made when Scarlet does a flying drop kick at a ruffian who tried to rob her and is clearly a joke. In any case the school uniforms do include a stout pair of stockings, so hardly improper even if the skirts are on the shorter side. That Scarlet thinks she’s been sold mithril is because of her sheltered upbringing, not her lack of intelligence. And, since she later remarks she has to go back to buy another as she broke it, it may even be that she very well understood it was fake, she just wanted to help the boy selling it.

These are minor things, but Silverman’s objection to how easily Scarlet and co found a slave trader goes directly to the heart of the story. It’s not just that it’s naive to think illegal things cannot be found easily for those who go looking — or nobody in Wall Street would be addicted to coke — but that it means you haven’t really understood what you just watched. As these two episodes have been at pain to make clear is that while slavery is illegal, it has the support of powerful people, from Scarlet’s ex-fiancee, the second prince, to the group of nobles he’s involved with to the prime minister. Just like corruption under Trump is still illegal but widely practised, so too is slavery here. Because these powerful people are involved, slavers can operate semi-openly. Even so, it takes some effort for Scarlet et all to track them down and they did have the help of an insider.

That’s the Watsonian explanation. The Doylian of course is that the series isn’t interested in doing a police proceduralesque investigation into the slave trade and wants to move on to the real meat of the story. The slave trader is easy to find because it isn’t interested in spinning the investigation out more than it needs to to get to the next set piece, where Scarlet will get to punch some more deserving bastards.

Kotesashi dreams of becoming a sports doctor. To achieve his goal and get a college recommendation and study grant, he’ll spent his high school years fondling and groping his five female dorm mates

We’re opening strong, with the blonde above moaning in ecstasy or pain in the first few seconds, the sort of fakeout every horny anime show likes to use, though in this case it will turn out to really be what you think it is. Our hero is then shown helping an office lady who collapsed in the streets by lightly fondling her ass before arriving at his new dorm and immediately landing himself in To Love-Ru shenanigans. He walks in on the blonde as she’s changing and she’s fully nude, tits and ass on full display, setting the tone for the rest of the episode. Kotesashi-kun than lands face first in the ample chest of another dorm mate, the motherly onee-san to the blonde’s tsundere character. All of this is just foreplay to the main attraction: Kotesashi-kun treating the tsundere for her stiff muscles by rotating her hips and legs. We get full frontal nudity that only stops us from looking right up her crotch as they just didn’t draw that part.

This then is a horny harem comedy, but one that might as well be pure porn; usually these series stop at showing the girls in their underpants rather than fully nude. Nor did I remember the original manga being this lewd (and indeed a quick check of the first chapter shows that the blonde tsundere there is just in her sports wear when Kotesashi opens the door on her. You do wonder what the point is when this is clearly porn, just without the actual sex.

You also wonder why a school that prides itself on its sports programme and training future Olympians doesn’t actually have staff on hand who are actually licensed and trained to provide the services Kotesashi-kun is volunteered for here — one of the girls is already on the national volleyball team. But then you wouldn’t have a series I guess.

Almost October means it must be time for a new anime season and guess what I’m looking forward to?

With the embers of the Summer 2025 season barely glowing and the first hints of frost in the air, it’s time to look forward to what Fall 2025 might offer. I started watching seasonal anime in the autumn of 2015, which makes this a decade of keeping up with seasonal anime for me, for better or worse. That season had a bit of a controversy as there were two series starring a black haired Kirito clone accidentally surprising their pink haired room mate undressing herself, leading to her dueling him. Imagine that, two series with the same setup airing in the same season. Couldn’t happen these days.

MAL is showing over sixty new series this season, so what I thought I would do is highlight the ones that look interesting to me, either from their description or because I know the source material. There will inevitably be a lot of naro slob, but I’m going to ignore those.

One Punch Man 3
A decade too since the original One Punch Man aired, the biggest show that season. The sequel came out in 2019 and everybody hated it because it wasn’t done by Madhouse. Nevertheless it was a perfectly cromulent series, still faithful to the original manga, just slightly less impressive than the first. Six years is a long time between series, but it’s not as if there’s a lot of complicated plot you need to dreg up to enjoy this. Of all the high profile sequels (Spy x Family Season 3, My Hero Academia, Fumetsu no Anata e Season 3, etc.) this is the one I will be watching week to week. Most of the others I first have to finish the previous series for anyway.

Tomodachi no Imouto ga Ore ni dake Uzai
Hapless nerd is unpopular with girls, but has to to play the boyfriend to his uncle’s daughter to get his uncle’s support for his gaming business. Btu what about his best friend’s younger sister, who always teases him? Sounds like a classic (harem) romcom and depending on how well the fake relationship is handled, may be fun. The studio responsible started out as a maid cafe, but has done similar series, some of which I’ve enjoyed, like the Hokkaido gal one a few seasons back.

Other hetero romances/harem series this season: Bukiyou na Senpai (awkward girl gets kind, nerdy kouhai), Kao ni Denai Kashiwada-san to Kao ni Deru Oota-kun (easily bored dude tries to get a reaction from his expressionless classmate), Yano-kun no Futsuu no Hibi (kind class president has to take care of her clumsy classmate) and Yano-kun no Futsuu no Hibi (the transfer student is a vampire, but our protagonist is just an ordinary boy) all look interesting enough to try.

Chitose-kun wa Ramune Bin no Naka
Too handsome for his own good, Saku Chitose is regularly attacked online for being a womaniser. Dude is fine with it until his teacher tells him to get a classmate to come to school, a classmate who has bought into all the slander and really, really hates him. I’ve read part of the manga this is based on, which was a bit cringe with its talk about ‘normies’ and otaku and light and dark sides of the class, but it looks interesting at least.

Saigo ni Hitotsu dake Onegai shitemo Yoroshii deshou ka
When Scarlet’s engagement to the country’s second prince, Kyle, is publically called off and she’s accused of bullying the woman Kyle actually wants, she has only one request: “may I sent this stupid bitch flying”? Ever since she got engaged she tried to behave how a true royal fiancee should, but she wasn’t called the “mad dog princess” for nothing. Her favourite activity beimg beating the shit out of corrupt nobles. I love the manga version of this, so I hope the anime will up to this. LIDENFILMS is a decent enough studio but the director hasn’t got that much experience, so let’s wait and see.

“I’ve come to eat you,” so softly utters the mermaid Shiori as she emerges from the sea and takes high school girl Hinako by the hand.

Watashi wo Tabetai, Hitodenashi
Oh good, we’ve got the toxic yuri sorted out this season. Studio Lings worked on Watashi no Yuri wa Oshigoto desu!Oomuro-ke/cite> movies, both with Passione. This seems to be their first solo outing.

Sanda
This is the next big name shounen battler Science SARU is adapting. Do you need to know more? I liked the original manga well enough but unlike Dandandan it did get boring after the first couple of dozen chapters.

Shuumatsu Touring
Two girls, one bike, on a tour of post-apocalyptic Japan. I loved Girls’ Last Tour so this is right up my street. How well this does stands or falls with the animation quality. The studio responsible, Nexus fortunately has a small but excellent resume.

Kikaijikake no Marie
Arthur Louis Zetes is the heir to a giantic fortune and as such incredibly paranoid about letting anybody get close to him. Hence he asks for a robot maid as a personal assistant. When this proves impossible, teenage genius Marie Eveans is drafted instead to act like one by his staff. Hilarity ensues. I liked the manga of this.

As perusual, I will try and watch everything, but these are the series that stood out the most for me.

One of the things that sets Ruri no Houseki/Ruri Rocks apart from other series this season is the care and attention the translators have given the show like they did here, translating the little post-it notes on the map Imari is holding. The shot is only a couple of seconds long and you have to pause to actually be able to read them, but it shows so much about Imari’s character that might’ve otherwise stayed hidden:

Episode ten has Nagi unable to take the girls on an already scheduled expedition, so it’s up to Imari, her kouhai, to do so. Since it’s her first time doing this on her own and she’s anyway more comfortable doing archive research at the university than she is climbing mountains, she’s understandably nervous. We see this at the start of the expedition, when she’s a bit unsure which direction to take and has to be told by Ruri — who always has been a bit doubtful of her — to take charge. When they hit a dead end when they’re almost at the end of their journey, she takes out her map again to consult it and this is the first time we get a good look at it.

The way Imari has to frequently consult it during the journey already shows her inexperience compared to Nagi, who has to do so far less often, but this shot confirms it. Having to have reminders about trying to not make rocks fall when climbing slopes and warning people if they do, as well as to hydrate frequently are very Imari coded. Again, Nagi wouldn’t need this because this is all second nature to her. It shows Imari’s sense of responsibility that she made sure to include these reminders, just as her decision to not try for a detour after they hit this snag does. It would be easy to let herself by badgered by Ruri and Shoko to continue, but she knows her limits and responsibilities.

So often this sort of little background thing isn’t translated, especially when it isn’t directly relevant to the plot, so I’m always happy when translators do make the time and effort to do so. In this case what we got was a bit more insight into Imari’s characters, important even if the actual text translated didn’t really matter. You may have guessed what the post-its were about even if they’d stayed untranslated, but would you have even noticed them in that case, or would they’ve just remained background clutter?