Chrysan's Anime Spring 2024

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

Hey all! I figure since my wife and I usually watch a bunch of Anime every season, I'd drop our current watching with a brief summary and what we like about it. Maybe help folks looking for more shows pick some out. So, without further ado, here's the Anime we're watching this season.

Astro Note

This one's probably my wife's favorite for the season. This series heavily calls back to the 1980's Rumiko Takahashi series Maison Ikkoku, following the talented young chef Takumi Miyasaka who is struggling to find work and ends up becoming the live-in breakfast cook at the Astro Lodge, an apartment populated by a bunch of misfits and managed by the demure and beautiful Mira Gotokuji who also just happens to be an alien princess. Hijinks ensue, continuously. This series has a lovely old school flair to it and is very charming and fun to watch. It's also helped by the fact that Takumi is not a weird pervert or prickly asshole, things Takahashi's earlier male protagonists were definitely known for. He's generally a good kid head over heels for this girl who he thinks is an actual widow, and also engaged maybe? There are lots of misunderstandings, as was popular for that era of Anime.

Delicious in Dungeon

This is a carry-over from the prior season, it's a fun romp through a D&D-style world where the author has clearly hyperfixated on dungeon ecologies and what it'd be like to eat all these monsters. Following the good-hearted fighter Laios and his companions in their quest to save his sister Falin after having been devoured by a Red Dragon. With their money gone when Falin's last act was to warp them to safety, Laios and the companions that remained with him have been making due eating monsters, which is typically the focus of each individual episode. Season 2 picks up after they killed the red dragon, found said sister's corpse, and revived her with black magic, which turns out to be a bad idea as she is now an evil bird/dragon chimera. Oops! The series has definitely gotten more dramatic, but as it's animated by Studio Trigger the drama means lots of cool fights as well as food porn so this continues to be a good time.

Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night

This is a contender for my personal Anime of the Season. It follows a group of four misfits - a singer, an artist, a pianist/composer, and a graphic designer as they work together to make Jelee, the avatar of disgraced former idol Kano Yamanouchi on a quest to anonymously win even more fans and acclaim than her former idol persona afforded her. She meets up with artist Mahiru Kozuki who was chosen to paint a mural in Shibuya but quit art soon afterwards when the people around her denigrated the mural and called it weird. That mural is now defaced with graffiti and used as the backdrop for underground idols which brings the two girls together when Kano tells people off for not respecting it. This show really speaks to me as a creative, tackling things like the personas we create to sell ourselves, the passion of making art together, and the impact of the deep emotional trauma that comes from not fitting in and being "normal", something that speaks to me quite a bit. The girls themselves are all quirky but there's an underlying loneliness and pain that's come from their respective inability to conform with what society wants and how they've dealt with it. It hits me in the same place that Ya Boy Kongming did a few seasons back, I just love stories about underground artists trying to make their way. There's just a lot going for this show, and I'm thoroughly enjoying the ride.

Kaiju No. 8

I've been following the manga for a bit in Shounen Jump and while at this point in my life I can take or leave most shounen series that follow the basic tropes, I've had some fun with this one and the flashy big budget Anime has been a good time. The basic premise is simple - it depicts a world in which horrific Kaiju attacks are normal and humans have elite squadrons to put them down despite the immense property damage they cause whenever they emerge. What makes Kaiju No. 8 notable is the protagonist Kafka Hibino is a mostly washed up 32-year-old who's working in Kaiju disposal. He dreams of keeping his promise with his childhood friend, the exceptionally talented platoon leader Mina Ashiro who is the hero of Tokyo but has never been able to pass the test. He had just resolved to give the test one last shot when a strange encounter with a small bug like kaiju that forces itself down his throat and turns him into a humanoid Kaiju himself. If you miss the Evangelion-style rain of blood from giant monsters getting exploded, want to see a genuinely good middle-aged sorta loser dude make his way, or learn about weird Kaiju biology (pee from nipples! It definitely happened!) then it's well worth giving a shot.

Laid-Back Camp

Laid-Back Camp is an understated favorite of mine. Definitely well-deserving of the Iyashikei (healing) moniker, Laid-Back Camp is comfortable and beautiful, following a bunch of high school girls who like to go out camping in the wilderness. The series spends lots of time depicting the beautiful scenery and sights you can see, as well as the particulars of camping and the fun the girls have along the way. It's comfortable, it's warm, it's a lot of fun and it's definitely something I need in my life right now.

Spice & Wolf: merchant meets the wise wolf

I never watched the original series which was apparently excellent but never finished, so this seemed like a great time to dive back in now that they're doing a full remake that will (hopefully?) encompass the entirety of the beloved 28-volume light novel series. Following the merchant Kraft Lawrence and his companion, the wolf god Holo whose village no longer really worships her, you get to see a detailed medieval fantasy world of politics and economics as well as some adorable character chemistry between the two leads. As I will detail in the Yatagarasu blurb, I love me some politics and economics are also good. Check this out if you're a nerd like me or if you like watching two adorable leads with amazing chemistry.

Tonari no Yokai-san

This is a fun, mostly wholesome series about a world in which yokai and humans live side-by-side, told through the lens of a small rural town and its human and yokai inhabitants. While the series on the surface looks like a slice of life, there's some inherent darkness lurking beneath the surface of a world in which yokai dwell. This series has a lot of great mythology, a warm gooey center of charming characters and interactions, and even managed to bust out a surprisingly effective fight sequence in the 3rd episode. We've likened this series to Ghibli productions, although I feel like you could also point to Mamoru Hosoda's work as well in that the world itself may seem pastoral and charming but there's still that darker edge underlying everything. I was expecting this show to be a comfy slice of life, but it's been really gripping to see the kinds of things the characters get up to. Also I would be remiss without mentioning bestest boy in the universe Buchio, an adorable and rare male calico who, instead of passing on of old age instead became a nekomata and is now navigating the realities of having a voice, magic, and paperwork to have to deal with. He's absolutely adorable.

Whisper Me a Love Song

This series is fluffy girl's love but I'm gay and I deserve a treat so here we go. It follows two young ladies in the throes of young love, the cool older musician Yori Asanagi and the bubbly first year Himari Kino who declares her love for Yori after hearing her perform. Said love wasn't intended to be romantic, but Yori fell HARD in a romantic sense and the two are now muddling through this. It's cute, it's fluff, and it's gay. I'm here for all these things.

YATAGARASU: the Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

After a few interesting Imperial Court dramas centering around a world styled after the Chinese Confucian courts, YATAGARASU gives us a distinctly fantasy Imperial Japan-style court political drama, in a world where every inhabitant appears to be a Yatagarasu - three-clawed ravens closely associated with death, and have the ability (although not always the inclination) to shift between Raven and human forms. This series deals with the machinations of success, with the crown prince born as a fabled "golden raven" and usurping his older brother's claim to the throne. The prince himself is highly unusual and is seen as foolish, and with assassination plots on the winds and his need to find a bride and stabilize his power this series is sure to have a lot of twists, turns, and, most likely, murder. I'm a sucker for big political series so this one's been great for me.

[michellewilson]

I like Delicious in Dungeon so far. The plot and story is great. The animation is awesome. The dark moments and comedy are great. I love the twist of a dungeon crawl, where the main characters kill monsters, and then a chef cooks them so the entire party can recover their mana and strength after every battle. It makes sense, too. It's unique to the typical fantasy anime I enjoy watching, and all the characters have great personalities. My personal favourite is Chilchuck, the Thief. Every episode I've seen so far was a treat to watch, and I'm hooked. The moment a new Thursday has gone, there I am, using the site I use to watch anime, to watch the new episode, or catch up on what I have missed if I have been relatively busy with other stuff.