Doctorkev’s Spring 2024 Anime Postmortem: Part 1
It’s that time of the season where I look back with regret that once again I was unable to contain myself and ended up watching far too many shows. When I first started blogging about anime just over five years ago, I watched maybe nine or ten shows per season. Now this has regularly expanded to more than twenty. Is this an addiction? The thing is, I don’t really watch any live action television, and I tend to enjoy most of the anime I watch, even though I’m very picky about what I start watching. Often I’ll start off with a dozen or so shows, but then I’ll get recommendations from friends and that’s where the doom sets in. Maybe I need to stop listening to people and switch off my internet connection?
While I might often rank shows into two articles as “best of the season” and “rest of the season”, there are so many shows that are running right up until the wire this time, that I thought it best to write about the shows that have already finished, leaving the rest that are yet to complete their run until next time. Therefore, there’s no real order to any of these. It is a nice break from my slighty unhinged complete Ghost in the Shell retrospective article series I’ve been writing lately, though…
Train to the End of the World — 12 episodes, Crunchyroll
My absolute number one new show of the season, this demented fantasy starring a bunch of personality-clashing girls on a road trip/train ride through a ruined world was my number one priority to watch every week. And it sticks the landing! There’s not a single bad episode among them, some are admittedly much stranger than others, but every one had me hooting with laughter or confusion, or both. I wrote it up as my top Spring 2024 anime for Anime News Network, so I don’t want to repeat myself here. Go check out the article at the link below:
They also kind of leave it half-open for a potential second season, which I would devour in a heartbeat.
Delicious in Dungeon — 24 episodes — Netflix
Speaking of devouring things, this strange cookery show/D&D mashup got better and better as it went along, showcasing some truly intricate and impressive worldbuilding, while deepening the characters and relationships of our central group. This was my runner-up for the above ANN article, so go check that out for my more detailed thoughts. Studio Trigger knocked this adaptation out of the park, and I’m delighted they’ll be able to adapt the manga in its entirety, with a second season already announced.
The Duke of Death and His Maid Season 3–12 episodes — Crunchyroll
Or: Emotional Terrorism: The Anime. It’s been a while since an anime has had me blubbing so consistently as The Duke of Death did in its last couple of episodes. Despite consistently wonky CG animation, this was about as perfect and complete an adaptation of the wonderfully whimsical and weird manga as I could have ever hoped for. Much of this final season moved the focus away from the titular Duke and his adoring maid Alice, instead deepening the relationship between younger brother Walter and lovestruck witch Daleth. In fact in some ways, Daleth becomes the story’s real MVP, fighting against her deep-seated emotional trauma to rehabilitate her misguided sister and win the heart of the man she loves.
Primary antagonist Sade turns out not to be completely irredeemably evil — and although her actions aren’t excused, she is permitted a chance at atonement. I love how she essentially grows up, and at one point even admits that she “has personality issues”! The Duke of Death is such a positive show that highlights the power of love and forgiveness even across great swathes of time. It concludes with an emotionally powerful, perfectly pitched ending that allows us a chance to say goodbye to a large cast of adorable weirdos. Taken as a whole, all three seasons comprise one of the very best anime romcoms of all time.
Konosuba Season 3–11 episodes, Crunchyroll
Perhaps not quite as strong as the previous two seasons, this helping of isekai lunacy remains very entertaining nonetheless. This season is split into two main (tenuously-linked) story arcs, the first with semi-rehabilitated creep Kazuma living it up in the royal palace, amusing the adoring princess with his antics. I feel this arc overstays its welcome by at least a couple of episodes, but ends well with a hilarious heist sequence. The second arc involvs masochistic crusader Darkness’ resolution to accept marriage to a scheming noble in order to pay off her family’s enormous debt. Again, this story isn’t mined for quite as much humour as I’d hoped it might be, but the conclusion is strong, especially Megumin’s not-even-subtextually-orgasmic-any-more Explosion Climax.
There are plenty of unresolved plot threads to be explored in a presumably inevitable season 4 (Aqua’s egg didn’t even hatch! There’s a new, freed demon dude!) I think the reason for the long delay between season 2 and 3 was that the director was engaged with both seasons of Princess Connect Re: Dive (both excellent), and the Megumin spinoff. Perhaps if he’s got nothing else on his plate, there might not be quite such a long gap between Konosuba installments this time?
Urusei Yatsura Season 4–11 episodes, HIDIVE
So with this we come to the end of David Production’s 46-episode reboot of the original early 1980s anime. It was certainly a different beast to director Mamoru Oshii’s version, and all of his additional characters and situations were stripped from it to provide us with a more pure adaptation of Takahashi’s long-running manga. As this was a “best-of” selection, it apparently covered around 130 chapters of the 350-chapter manga, including a bunch of chapters either not adapted in the original TV show, or previously only made as later OVAs or feature films. Instead of focusing on central couple Lum and Ataru, the show branches out to explore the huge cast of crazy characters. This does mean Lum and Ataru’s relationship moves along suddenly out of nowhere in some episodes, after being essentially ignored much of the time.
This season adapted the same material as my very favourite Urusei Yatsura OVA — Inaba the Dream Maker, and did it well. I like that it gives Shinobu a positive relationship away from both Ataru and Mendou. The final four episodes of this remake cover the storyline first adapted in Urusei Yatsura Movie 5: The Final Chapter, which fittingly adapt the final manga arc. I prefer this modern version to the movie, as I felt by that point the original movie sequence was running out of steam. I really only like Oshii’s first two films, Only You and Beautiful Dreamer, the rest are decidedly sub-par. I’m very glad they made this remake, and I’m looking forwards to the recently-announced Ranma 1/2 remake (another massive Takahashi manga), and I hope they actually manage to get to the end of that story, as the previous anime version gave up partway through!
Laid-Back Camp Season 3–12 episodes — Crunchyroll
All hail Secret Society Blanket! Despite a change in production studio, along with some art style changes, Laid Back Camp remains a fun, comfy time. There’s minimal plot, but it doesn’t matter. As a form of stress relief and relaxation, there are few anime that reach Laid Back Camp’s accomplished level. This season changes things up a bit with various characters solo camping, or touring on mopeds, or viewing cherry blossoms together. The two episodes with fourth-wall-breaking unreliable narration are a particular highlight. As long as they keep making more Laid Back Camp, I’ll keep watching it, and it looks like they sneakily introduce a couple of new characters at the end of the last episode, so I’ll take that as a given that more seasons are sure to come.
Astro Note—12 episodes — Crunchyroll
This season was a blessing for Rumiko Takahashi fans — not only were we treated to the final episodes of Urusei Yatsura, but we got this loving tribute to Maison Ikkoku, which also adds some UY-like intergalactic spice, culminating in a couple of truly bonkers final episodes. I adore this show and wish it had found more of a widespread audience. Perhaps its deliberately retro-styled animation and design put people off, but I feel this was made for me.
Naive alien princess Mira is a magnetic character and I completely understand why the besotted Takumi falls so head over heels in love with her. Most of the rest of the eccentric cast cheer them on with their slow-burning romance — though it’s not that slow-burning, considering its earlier anime inspirations. Maison Ikkoku took 90 or so episodes to resolve its main romance, while Astro Note dials that down to complete its story within twelve. As a concentrated blast of Takahashi-esque sci-fi romance/slice of life comedy though, it’s silly, heartfelt fun with a lovable cast who aren’t always quite who they seem. Highly recommended.
Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night — 12 episodes — HIDIVE
I have some mixed feelings about this girl band show now that it’s finished. While I thought it always looked very pretty, and I love the interactions between the main characters, I feel the plotting and eventual resolution leaves a slightly sour taste. Big conflicts are raised, but aren’t properly resolved. The relationships don’t go anywhere. Subplots are dumped. Stuff just sort of happens because the story needs them to, not because they’re organic or driven by the characters’ actions.
Main characters Mahiru and Kano have a massive fight, don’t speak to one another for several episodes, and then suddenly they somehow resolve their differences without communicating? What? And what happened with Kano and her mother? With an ending so maddeningly unsatisfying, I don’t care how cute and funny the characters are, with such narrative laziness the show invalidates itself and ultimately proves it has little to say about the process of collaboration, or creativity. How disappointing, as it started so well too.
A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics—12 episodes — Crunchyroll
This one was a huge surprise for me — I really enjoyed this very odd comedy full of — as expected — eccentric characters. I especially love hapless reverse-isekai-d female knight Livia and the way she bounces from one terrible job situation to the next, and ends up living with the shady mind-controlling female cult leader Noa Minakami who very obviously has the hots for her… So they form an idol group, obviously.
Co-protagonist Princess Sara’s plot becomes more funny once she enrolls in school and she ends up with an army of devoted followers, much to the confusion of her adoptive father Sosuke. Baby-faced, pink-haired lawyer Brenda and her doomed crush on Sosuke is hilarious too. I really really hope they make another season of this heartwarming offbeat comedy. I’ve written a more full review for Anime News Network that I’ll link to here on Medium once it’s published.
Netflix Binge Dungeon:
T・P BON — 12 episodes — Netflix
This delightfully retro time travel show based on an old manga by one of Doraemon’s co-creators just sort of randomly dropped twelve episodes onto Netflix with no fanfare, you know, like they do. A second bunch of twelve episodes is due to drop on 17th July. Please watch this, it’s really good, it’s animated by Studio Bones and looks gorgeous, plus it has great music. I wrote a full review for Anime News Network, so you can read it below:
Tardiness corner of shame:
Ishura — 12 episodes — Disney Plus/Hulu
I never found time to watch this during the Winter 2024 season when it originally streamed, but I heard good things about it from my fellow AniTAY writers. It’s a fantasy battle royale story, with a lot in common with the various Fate anime. It has an enormous cast of overpowered weirdos who clash (often fatally) with one another against a backdrop of war between two nations. The first six episodes are dedicated to intricate worldbuilding and character introductions, and are a bit slow, but generally fascinating. Everything explodes in the second half, and the action is spectacular. I’ll certainly be watching the recently-announced second season whenever it appears, as of the end of this first season, the real story has barely started. I’ve also written a full review of this for ANN, so I’ll link to it on my Medium blog once its published.
