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.
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?
It’s twenty years since this kitten first came into my life, here in a picture taken in 2007:
These days she’s looking a bit more disheveled, but on the whole she’s still in good nick. She survived two other cats, Monty and Hector; the first the cat we got her to be a companion to, the second her ‘brother’ who took out of the asylum at the same time. When we first got her she was Sandra’s cat, but as Sandra got ill and was stuck in hospital, she gravitated towards me instead. Ever since, especially since I started working from home during the Covid pandemic, she’s been the most needy, constantly needing to be near or on top of me cat I’ve ever known.
Two years we moved from a tiny apartment in Amsterdam to a proper house with actual stairs in my hometown and I was worried she wouldn’t be able to cope, but nothing’s further from the truth. She climbs them as if she’s done so all her life, even if she doesn’t want to move too much these days anymore. As long as she can claim a spot near me, she’s happy to sleep the day away and just wake up long enough to get her food, drink or do her business.
