Here we are! Twelve years writing about anime and religion. How much things have changed since 2012! The one constant is that I still watch anime. (Fun fact: half of all anime which has ever been made has been aired since 2011.) If I’m good, I should wrap up the anime I’m watching from the current season shortly in order to give you my opinions of them. I’ll just mention here that the show I most looked forward to watching each week was not the much hyped Solo Leveling but Villainess Level 99: I May be the Hidden Boss, but I’m not the Demon Lord. I found the heroine of that anime very charming and comical. May none of you have missed it!
Below is a list of new shows I want to try out from the Spring 2024 season. N.B. I mean try out: this means that each show will be given at least three minutes of my time. So much anime is made these days that it’s not worthwhile to watch an anime which doesn’t grab you from around the start. The only exception is when a friend (or one of my dear readers) tells one that the series is worth at least the standard three episode try. Here’s the list, but feel free to encourage me to give something else a try too:
- A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics
- Astro Note
- Bartender: Glass of God
- Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night
- Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again
- Kaii to Otome to Kamikakushi
- Kaiju No. 8
- Laid-Back Camp 3
- Mission: Yozakura Family
- Mushoku Tensei
- Spice and Wolf (2024)
- Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included
- The Grimm Variations
- The Banished Former Hero Lives Life as He Pleases
- The Misfit of Demon King Academy 2
- Train to the End of the World
- Unnamed Memory
With a list that long, you can see why I intend to be fairly cutthroat. Of that list, I’m most looking forward to Bartender: Glass of God, Mushoku Tensei, and The Misfit of Demon King Academy 2. You would think that I’d be most interested in Spice and Wolf, but a fine series has already been made of the start of Holo and Lawrence’s travels back in 2008. True, that may be 16 years ago; but if you’re going to bring an old anime back, give us some new story! The original anime did add some things to the light novels, particularly the character of Chloe. Do they want to make this new anime more faithful to the light novels? Do they really think that they can do better? We shall see.
Bartender is a manga I particularly loved. The earlier anime could not hold my interest, and the story seems to fit that format better. Mushoku Tensei is a tale I thoroughly enjoy for now. (I understand that polygamy occurs later in the light novel series. At that point, I’m checking out of something so anti-Romantic.) The Misfit of Demon King Academy has a very likable hero, and I want to see what kind of new adventures he will get into. The other anime I’m looking at out of curiosity.
What are my dear readers looking to watch? Any anime which I’m overlooking? Any shows above which I should actually avoid?
Medieval Otaku 
Our family has been enjoying Villainous 99, and the older girls got hooked when my husband and I let them watch Apothecary Diaries with us. Awkward discussions about exactly what the ‘pleasure district’ meant, and how if you thought too long or hard on the world it was really horrifying but people manage to live in it anyways.
Plus, it’s a really fun anime. Kind of like a Sherlock Holmes in no-magic generic middle ages Asia.
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Maybe I’ll give Apothecary Diaries another shot. I do love Sherlock Holmes. (The Japanese also really like that character, as one can see with the sort of mystery series they put out.) On the other hand, the thought that all these women in the harem are meant to serve the pleasure of one man and all those men are denied the joy of having a family did rather weigh on me. Maybe I will give the story another shot, accepting that, before Christ, this situation with rulers was very common around the world.
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It does an amazing job of showing how many people, period, had the tiniest of agency allowed to them… and how they tried to do good anyways.
With a lot of realistic politics, too.
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with origin of the “rule with tons of wives” thing– but it traces to the idea that the only way to really seal an alliance is literally becoming family.
….which a concubine is, in a way. She’s there to serve the interests of her family and home.
It’s an incredibly ugly world that’s developed over and over and over.
*IF* it doesn’t mess you up too badly, you could probably get some good writing out of the contrast with Christians having peace because we all have the same Father.
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That might make for a good post. Christians all have the same Father through baptism and come into the world though the same Mother: the Church. Kinship in the Spirit rather than kinship according to the flesh.
That is a good point about concubines. Esther certainly uses her post for the sake of her family and race–even though she abhors the bed of the uncircumcised (see Esther 14:15-18). What a blessing it is to live at a time still imbued with the Christian spirit! If secularists ever manage to have their way, we’ll probably be back in the same kind of world as we see in ancient China.
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To repeat myself, do not upset yourself to write it, though.
Heck, sooner write why you couldn’t get back in than that.
Don’t let trying to do good kill joy.
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That’s very good advice. Sometimes, I’ll drop an anime which bothers me and then go back to it and find it more enjoyable after some time passes. It was that way for me with Babylon. I am glad that I gave that dark fantasy/murder mystery another try. Maybe, it will be the same with Apothecary Diaries.
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Happy Anniversary! Yes, I totally agree Villainess Level 99 was so much fun. The main character really made the anime great. I loved her dead pan face as she showed over and over again that she had no clue out OP she was! I also liked watching the other students at the academy slowly learning that she wasn’t the super evil bad guy, she was just kind of crazy.
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Yumiella was a real trip as a character. My favorite moment had to be when she was blowing the monster summoning flute against the wishes of Patrick. She made an ordinary scenario for an anime great!
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Happy birthday, Medieval Otaku! May the peace of Christ be with you and your family!
I’m dedicating myself to watching classic anime and I’m really enjoying it. I follow season shows too, I’m going to watch Villainess Level 99 and Sengoku Youko from last season, I’m interested.
For seasonal anime, I prefer to watch romantic comedies and sequels, what are your preferences? ORO?
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May the peace of Christ be with you and yours also on this Feast of the Annunciation! (It’s odd not celebrating this on March 25th, but the Holy Week came up early this year.)
I’m happy that you’re watching the classics. I feel like older mangaka had more difficult and varied life experiences, and comes out in the anime adaptations. It is too bad that many fans neglect them.
Sengoku Youko and Villainess Level 99 are very good choices. As for what anime I like to watch, samurai anime come as my first choice, but good ones are hard to find. Then, epic fantasy and other sorts of fantasy. Action, sci-fi, seinen, and adventure count as other favorite genres of mine. (Outside of anime, I don’t watch or read much science fiction, but I really like anime with settings like that.)
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Congrats on 12 years. I’m about a week behind you! 😉
I’m already behind on the new season but I have Bartender, Hibike! Euphonium S3, Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again, Train to the End of the World, Yuru Camp S3 and Spice & Wolf on the watch list, though the latter oddly doesn’t look as good as the original to me, when usually a reboot means improved visuals.
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Thanks! And, congratulations to you also for lasting so long. I’ve seen so many people burn out over the years, and you still post very often.
I’m behind on the new season myself: four more episodes and I’ll be wrapped up on what I was watching during the winter season. (The finales of Metallic Rouge and The Witch and the Beast should be fun.) That the visuals do not look as good in the new Spice and Wolf sounds pretty bad. I hope that they’re not just trying to milk an old and popular franchise for more money because they’re out of new ideas. Maybe, the first episode will induce me to re-watch the 2008 series.
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