#I loved madoka so much the last episode actually had me tearing up

[novodontia]

I just finished Madoka Magic, so here's some sketches of nyo! Italy and Germany as Madoka and Homura!! Because I think that their personalities actually fit really well lol

doomed yuri >>>>>>

[magireco]

Would love to hear more thoughts on how these girls have understandable teenage motivations (A+ tag analysis by the way)

1. Thank you!!!!!!

2. ALRIGHT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS (shuffles my papers). i’ve gone off about homura’s motivations in depth before but i think it was only in dms/groupchats? anyways i’ll go in order with All the girls bc i think about this all the time as a teenager who grew up mentally ill and had their perceptions skewed because of it, and also i don’t think it’s talked about nearly enough for the others, at least on my blog... so, buckle up!!! this is REALLY LONG!!!! 

3. i tried writing like, an individual thing for every member of the quintet all together in this one ask, but i ended up talking a little too much about homura and now i’m going to split up all the different analysis stuff for each character into the reblogs and work on it every so often! you’re free to kinda skim of course because i really did write a whole novel but here we go!! read under the cut. :3 this is literally essay length btw. i did NOT expect it to get this long but if you want to read it all i’d recommend it but i don’t expect most people to

First: Homura Akemi

okay so i’m going to kind of summarize everything but from the perspective of empathizing with her so if you don’t want to reread a whole recap you can skip to the ending few paragraphs

Summary

first of all, in episode 10, homura’s past is explained for the viewer. she was a shy, unsure girl who had been bedridden for a long time. she was clearly unsocialized, not to mention she went to a catholic school and those can be brutal, esp in japan... that’s all we know about her in that episode, but it’s revealed in one of the drama cds that she was bullied as a child(& further at mitakihara middle), her parents never were mentioned ever (i assume them to either be dead or neglectful, considering she lives alone and unchecked), and in magia record, homura says to natsuki that she’s never had friends before, she hasn’t been on vacation before until the beachside bonds event, hasn’t ever celebrated valentine’s day, has never celebrated new years, etc... 

clearly, she’s missed out on a lot not only because of her sickness and hospitalization, but because of her isolation as a child at school. judging by her demeanor and the way she reacts when madoka comes up to her without being asked to, something like that had never happened to her before. it’s clear to me that madoka was many of homura’s “first’s”, her first friend, the first person who reached out to her, the first person to compliment her name honestly(validating her, disproving her dislike of her name), the first person to regard her so kindly rather than judging her based off of her appearance and demeanor (like other students had apparently done, this is also shown when the other students at mitakihara middle make fun of her for being tired after only being able to run one lap). AND, madoka (and mami, but homura knew madoka better at that time) saved her life, even though homura was so willing to die, just in that moment... i’d assume it made homura feel like someone believed in her even when she was at her worst. it’s really clear by the glimmer in her eyes that these are nice people that made her feel happy and welcome... and then walpurgisnacht came. she didn’t know much about magical girls and just believed in madoka and mami to be able to defeat the witch because she saw them as strong and saw the witch as defeatable, despite its size. and then mami died, right in front of her and madoka... 

this kinda seems headcanon-y when i phrase it this way but it’s practically proven in her actions but i really think homura is scared to be abandoned, especially by someone who was as overtly kind and nonjudgemental to her as madoka... it’s in the way she cries her name and says “don’t go” before madoka runs away to fight walpurgisnacht. OH ALSO, i need to address this one thing really quick because people like to assume that homura didn’t care about mami from the beginning and only liked madoka. it’s not that she wasn’t sad when mami died, she was clearly terrified and didn’t want the same to happen to madoka, also mami LITERALLY WASN’T IN HER CLASS OR HER GRADE so i assume she spent most of her time with madoka considering they were in the same grade and class and probably shared most of their periods with each other... but also, once again, mami is older than both of them and homura probably saw her as more of a mentor/teacher that she needed to impress rather than madoka who was more on her level, i guess?

anyways, moving on... homura had to see madoka die (& experience the crushing guilt she felt for “letting madoka go” even though there was nothing she could’ve done) and literally says “i’d rather you had lived than saved someone like me” ... her self worth is below zero. she makes her wish to be strong enough to protect madoka(because she sees madoka, her first friend, who saved her life which she felt had no worth, as so strong and noble) which causes her to go back in time, etc. etc., you know the deal. okay before i move on to talk a little more abt the timelines and the personality change i’m going to address why it’s reasonable that she’d be attached to madoka.

i mentioned before that homura said herself that she had never had a friend before. just like, put yourself into her shoes for a second. this girl has no idea how to make friends; it was never taught to her. it’s literally rational that she’d get attached to her first ever friendship. it’s not “normal” the way she views madoka, but how could it be? this is her first time having a friend, she’s afraid of being abandoned by her, but she’s had to see her die over and over again anyway. she doesn’t want to lose madoka. even if she doesn’t go about it in the right way, there’s no way she would’ve actually known how to Do relationships. no one taught her. i think that needs to be empathized with more...

i kinda feel like i need to summarize all this just bc if i word it right it kinda reminds you & puts into perspective just how terrible and scary all of this was.

anyway Again, i would skip straight to the end of timeline 3 (where a New Flavor of trauma is given to homura) but i need to first address timeline 2 for a second. it was homura’s first time repeating the timeline, she trained with madoka and mami again, she was still hopeful despite what happened, etc. kinda just bonding further with madoka Again... and then it’s at the end of this timeline that she watches madoka turn into a witch, just in front of her very eyes... and realizes the true fate of magical girls. when she resets the timeline again, it’s up to her to start anew and break the truth to the group when she sees them again. when she tries telling the truth, sayaka immediately shoves this aside, claiming homura was just trying to split everyone up. it’s clear that that hurts homura. (also the little shinies in her eyes were wavering which is anime-code for sad) her feelings were immediately disregarded by sayaka and she couldn’t defend herself, but madoka did for her, and mami tried to diffuse the situation. 

after they all find out homura was right when sayaka turns into a witch, mami kills kyoko and ties up homura in her ribbons and aims a gun at her, and this, rightfully, ignited a fear within homura... madoka is forced to kill mami in order to save homura, leaving only the two of them to fight together. then, when walpurgisnacht comes that time, The Promise is made... madoka tells homura to go back in time and save her from becoming a witch (because she doesn’t want to curse the world that way, she still sees beauty in it) and homura agrees, saying she’ll never stop until she saves madoka, and then... homura has to mercy kill madoka before she becomes a witch. she cries loudly and shoots madoka’s soul gem... it’s literally so heartwrenching and (usually) brings the viewer to tears, or puts something into perspective for them...

then we assume the personality change happens in the timeline right after. this personality change causes a lot of discourse because sometimes it’s seen as kind of irrational, but personally, i think even moemura had at least SOME resent for the world around her considering what she’d been through. it’s madoka’s repeated deaths that finally push her over that edge. i could get further into the coolmura arc but that’d take a WHILE, so i’ll just kind of explain something briefly though -- why homura ended up becoming even MORE focused on madoka. and i’m also going to debunk the claim that homura doesn’t care about her other friends as fast as i can before moving on.

also, ONE LAST side tangent, for those that think homura really did do a 360 degree personality turn are wrong. it’s shown explicitly in homulilly’s labyrinth that there’s this... “core” homura, a shadowy purple silhouette with braids. every time the series depicts homura’s internal self, it’s always glasses+braids, symbolizing her “child” self, who she truly is. she never stopped being that person. she doesn’t want to kill. ...but i can get into that in a rebellion analysis later! this is also shown in wraith arc bc the person inside her soul gem has glasses+braids. anyway let’s get to the next part i’m going to rant about

Homura’s Love for Madoka, but Otherwise Apathy

homura has seen many different, yet all similar, versions of her friends. the first claim i’m going to talk about which i saw brought up quite a few times before is in regards to homura and mami. first of all, homura absolutely still cares for mami, and not just in the “i only care about your life if it affects madoka’s” way. one part that always gets me is when mami ties her up in the series timeline after homura frantically warns her that this witch isn’t normal, to which mami IMMEDIATELY brushes this off, without even giving homura a chance. then, when mami’s ribbons fade away, homura looks horrified and just goes “oh no...” and it’s kind of obvious to me that it was in response to mami’s death rather than madoka’s reaction. this is arguably up for debate i guess because i’ve seen different takes on that reaction and it’s ambiguous, i guess? but i’m about to get into something extremely similar and that’s the sayaka situation, where madoka throws sayaka’s soul gem onto a moving car. homura gasps and immediately pauses time and disappears, running in literal open traffic and climbing on top of a moving car to retrieve sayaka’s soul gem. one could argue that this is ALSO only just because homura wants to save madoka (and kyoko) the fear, but don’t you think her expression would be different? if homura truly didn’t care for sayaka’s wellbeing, wouldn’t she be making an expression more similar to like, “oh, this shit again...” instead of the frantic one she was making in the scene? this kind of thing Also happens when kyoko asks homura to leave while kyoko’s about to sacrifice herself in oktavia’s labyrinth, and homura looks up sadly at kyoko and then back down at madoka, and once she knew kyoko was dead, she just quietly said “kyoko...” to herself. she usually refers to them as [last name, first name], but she dropped that during that moment... it otherwise sounds like a bare minimum thing to do, but keep in mind the timeline we’re shown in the series is implied to be like, the 110th timeline, i think? like, this is the last timeline, she’s worn down, but she still does have empathy -- or at least sympathy -- for the others. she still loves them. 

homura promised to be madoka’s protector, she dedicated her life to her, and also she doesn’t have a choice not to dedicate her life to her anymore, even though that’s not fair to her... homura is in a really hopeless situation and madoka is her hope, and madoka is the one that judges her the least out of the quintet (like saying “i’m sure homura is good” to herself) upon first impression. also okay i mentioned this already in my last post (which you saw) but i’m going to bring it up one more time, homura is not mentally 26!!!!!! she is still 14 mentally!! in order to be 26, you have to have experienced 26 years of new life experience. maybe you acquire that through school, maybe you aquire that through friends, whatever it takes. but homura just repeated the same month over and over, and it’s not like her body (canonically) ages ever. she just kind of gets transported back into her body in the hospital again considering she’s back wearing her braids and pajamas... so, yeah. no mental development there. i also mentioned this here but i’m gonna say it again, that just makes it even harder for her to actually age correctly... it stunts her to 14. imagine being 14 for 10-11 years...

In Defense Of My Own Claims

btw before you think i’m just going full-on radical homura apologist, i’m not explaining all of this to be like “homura made ALL THE RIGHT DECISIONS because her trauma gave her an excuse!!” because like, Obviously, she did a lot of bad things, she killed people, did a lot of callous things, a lot of thoughtless things, a lot of things that make her seem emotionless, etc. but i just have trouble blaming her considering how things ended up, and it’s not like she enjoys killing people. she’s not sadistic... she ends up becoming short with all the others not only because of her (extremely) weakened trust in them, but also because the amount of times she repeated the timeline. i’d imagine it makes her feel like the others can’t truly die because she can just go back and see them again. (this is also why wraith arc/post-tv series must’ve been hard for her because she can no longer turn back time, things are permanent now, deaths are forever) she’s become so worn down that she’ll do anything to escape the loops... also considering she has no choice but to continue? although it shouldn’t be, it’s technically her job as a magical girl to defeat all witches and walpurgisnacht counts. it kills magical girls and tears up the whole city and she’s usually the only magical girl left... her choices, when defeated, are either to give up and die or to go back and try again, and she made a promise to her first ever friend to do just the latter... i just don’t understand how this isn’t easier for people to comprehend, that all of this trauma and stress and responsibility on top of an already traumatized 14 year old does not mix well. ever. she had to figure out all of this by herself.

TL;DR:

homura was a previously traumatized, unsocialized 14 year old with (very)low self esteem & self worth whose first friend (and first love, really, let’s be honest) died in front of her in horrific ways and she watched as she (and the other friends she came to make) drifted slowly apart from her in her endless and futile attempt in saving her from what proved to be an inescapable fate. also she’s 14 and also she’s (canonically) mentally ill and a lesbian. not a monster, not evil, not “psycho”. and that’s that!

[dyingfad]

pls answer all of the anime asks i love knowing things abt you

hello beloved anon (whose name may or may not begin with "L"), thank you for the splendid request. I shall provide my answers under a "keep reading" out of courtesy, hopefully it works.

1. first anime you ever watched

Naruto. my brother and I encountered it one day while scrolling channels when I was about 6 or 7 I believe; I was fascinated by how different it was from the cartoons and shows I was used to.

2. first anime crush

I wouldn't really say I've ever had a crush on an anime character, but I'm a big fan of maka from soul eater.

3. favorite anime character

I thought about this a lot while making my fav characters list, and it is probably maka again.

4. least favorite anime character

This one's kinda tough, but I think I'll have to go with the main character from Alien Nine, Yuri Otani. I don't necessarily dislike her in terms of personality but I feel like she spends 70% of the show crying which made her very unpleasant to listen to. Alternatively any weirdly horny character could also go here.

5. list all anime you have ever watched

I have currently seen 211 shows so I shall refrain from making this that long. Though, if anyone is truly curious I do have each one listed and organized by my personal rating in a google doc that I can share.

6. popular anime you didn’t like

Made in Abyss. Really cool concept and decent visuals/music, but I often felt worse after watching an episode than I did before, it almost borders on torture p*rn at times.

7. anime you are currently watching

I'm gonna shorten some of these names, if any are unclear and you rly wanna know you can ask. Great: Sonny Boy Decent: Idaten Deities, Slime, Kaizoku, Higurashi Sotsu, Realist Kingdom, Aquatope, Peach Boy, Tsukimichi, Vanitas no Carte, Deatte 5 Okay: Tantei wa Mou, Seirei Gensouki, Kageki Shoujo, Night Head 2041, Otome Game X, Blue Reflection Ray, MHA season 5, Dragon Maid S, Cheat Kusushi

8. anime character you are most like

This one is also quite tough, I sometimes see a little bit of myself in characters but usually there isn't a ton of similarity. Though I did take a quiz a while ago that said I was similar to Uncle Iroh from avatar and I was very pleased with that answer.

9. favorite anime child

A tie between Renge Miyauchi from non non biyori and Naru Kotoishi from Barakamon.

10. favorite anime animal sidekick

Not technically an animal but Matsumoto from Vivy: Fluorite Eyes' Song was pretty good. Can't think of many off the top of my head honestly.

11. anime you didn’t expect to like but did

Nichijou. I actually stopped watching it the first time I tried thinking it was just generic cute stuff, but now it's unquestionably my favorite anime of all time.

12. anime that should get more attention from others

Mononoke. Super cool visuals and fairly interesting little stories.

13. funnest anime you have watched

Another difficult question, there are a few different ways I think a show can be fun (visually, plot twists, rapid action, etc.). But since it has all the things I just mentioned, I think I'll have to go with The Tatami Galaxy

14. saddest anime you have ever watched

Probably Plastic Memories, very similar to the movie I Want to Eat Your Pancreas.

15. anime you never get sick of watching

Nichijou, it's too good.

16. 10 best animes you have watched

Nichijou (10), Houseki no Kuni (9.8), Girls’ Last Tour (9.3), Yuyushiki (9.3), Wonder Egg Priority (9.2), Tower of God (9.2), The Tatami Galaxy (9.1), Kaguya-sama: Love is War (9.1), Mob Psycho 100 (9.0), Mononoke (9.0)

17. biggest anime crush

Still don't really have any so I'll just say Maka again.

18.10 worst anime you have watched

Juuni Taisen (6.5), Dragon Ball (kinda) (6.3), Kokkoku (6.3), Magical Girl Site (5.9), Mirai Nikki (5.6), Babylon (5.6), Ueno-san wa Bukiyou (5.4), From the New World (5.2), Asobi Asobase (5.2), Made in Abyss (5.0)

19. favorite anime ships

I don't really do this either sorry. I do like the relationship between the two main characters of Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions I suppose.

20. least favorite anime ships

Any weird pedophilic or incesty things people are freaks about.

21. anime that made you cry, when

I don't ever really full on sob because of shows, but the scene in Madoka Magica where they face off against the orchestra witch who is a character I won't spoil definitely made me tear up. Still love that scene.

22. age you started watching anime/person who introduced you to it.

As previously mentioned I think I was like 6 or 7 and I suppose you could say my brother introduced me to it.

23. unpopular character you love

I don't know if I have a good answer for this one as I'm not too sure which characters are and are not popular, but I feel like Adamant or Kongo-sensei from Houseki no Kuni is somewhat underappreciated

24. popular character you hate

Was never fond of Black Star from Soul Eater.

25. anime you would recommend to someone who hates anime

Either Cowboy Bebop or FMA Brotherhood usually seem to please people who aren't usually into anime.

26. manga you have read all the was through

There are a couple, but Shimeji Simulation is my favorite manga by far.

27. anime you plan to watch in the future

Komi-san will be getting an anime adaptation this October which I'll be watching.

28. most upsetting moment in anime, why

The scene in Made in Abyss where one character attempts to amputate the arm of another that has been stabbed by a venomous quill using only a rock and pocket knife. Like 15 straight minutes of a 12 year old screaming and crying in agony.

29. anime that deserves another season

Houseki no Kuni 100%. I've read through the manga for it and there's so much good content that could be covered.

30. one anime conclusion you would change

I would change up the ending of Carole and Tuesday quite a bit, the scope became too grandiose and ended up feeling pretty lame. Still a good show though, especially the first half.

[millepara]

aikatsu on parade episode 22 spoilers (fell asleep immediately after writing this and havent reread since so i have no idea whats in here)

I thought Raki’s event was going to be the unit thing, but apparently it’s a 3-day 3-school event.

Ichigo and Yume wanted to perform in it after hearing about it, so there they are... that’s Everyone But Akari

ARGH The title of her event is Aikatsu on Parade.... ouch!!! my whatever organ that takes damage from ‘the MC was the author of the book all along’ plots!! it hurts!!

ok, there’s Akari too.

Powax2 Puririn are just letting her use their 3-day concert as the venue?? huh? I guess if they perform too, it won’t really make a difference in the end, but for whatever reason, of all things in aikatsu this is the one that strikes me as most unrealistic

a single still shot from behind of Haruka☆Ruka’s hair in an S4 uniform

omg Wakaba’s hanging out with Madoka and Rin... what a perfect group...

Raki’s off to ask Tristar to join in. I was wondering where or if any conflict would be in this ep but I guess this is it and they’ll reject her? ...or rather Mizuki tells her her event is stupid and pointless (paraphrasing). I get what she’s saying about it not really being the event Raki wanted to make ‘all by herself’ if she’s getting all this help, but as they have said on aikatsu before... luck is part of being an idol, and if that comes in the form of your senpai idols taking pity on you and giving you a venue or agreeing to perform, I don’t see the need for Raki to not take advantage of that? well....... whatever

Raki’s really rejecting the event hall so she can go look for one on her own... hmm

and now she’s afraid of even asking them for advice when they offer it. HMM

she ended up being able to use Yotsuboshi and Star Harmony’s respective event halls, but for the Starlight day the school’s event hall is closed for maintenance, so she’s using the gym. it’s small and not meant to be used as an event space... if she’s having nationally famous idol units Soleil and Luminas perform there, isn’t that a problem? like imagine if idk Beyonce or whoever had a concert in a school gym. there would be issues

I am surprised that the event is already starting in this ep..... but I should know better

omg a single girl in the audience has glasses!! at last!!

the tiny bit of Wake up my music in the bgm just now made me feel emotional. god I’m truly the biggest sucker for aikatsu nostalgia

I love the 3p version of this dance. the 6p version, while identical, feels like a lot. but it’s still nice to see this Soleil/Luminas performance

meanwhile Take me higher still has, imo, the dumbest choreography of all time but I also am actively holding in tears bc I love Tristar that much. they’re still my fav unit in the entire aikatsu parade.

every time there’s a touching moment btw Raki and Mizuki I am reminded that Aira Rin’s fav aikatsu chara was Mizuki when she was growing up and she really hoped that Raki would get to interact with her. aww

OH??? a 1-day-only limited-time unit, Pure Strawberry Palette??!?!? I hate to get my hopes up but are we really getting a brand-new performance this late in the game?!?! PURE STRAWBERRY PALETTE!??!!? AHHHH WHAT are they gonna si n g oh no what if it’s not a cgi performance though what if it’s just a stillllAHHH OK THANK GOD it’s a real cgi one. thank god

they’re in the Shining Line coords from the game. I assumed we were getting an all-MC Shining Line in the final ep or so, but are we actually getting a few different mix-up unit performances in the last few eps? (or both?) that’d be pretty cool...

Aine and Mio sounded really good in Diamond Happy. that was nice. if weird and sudden

the next ep is the aistars day of the event, so the next next one must be aifriends. and then what...? oh, looking at the calendar, that’s the week that aionpa s3 ends on the game, so it might be ep 1 of whatever’s next!! exciting!!

but first: finding out whatever’s next!! at last, it’s tomorrow........

[anthonyreadsthecards]

Hey so I saw you talk about Escaflowne are there other anime that you like and would recommend?

I mean...yeah but I’m what the kids call a “filthy casual” when it comes to anime. I don’t really watch a lot anymore. I think last year I watched like two or three? I can recommend what I like but I’m just gonna warn you now you’re in store for a lot of Magical Girl anime. Read for more if you dare.

So I feel like the first and most obvious anime I would recommend is, of course, Sailor Moon. Now while I don’t normally care for anime that are over a minimum of 13 and a maximum of 30 Sailor Moon is one of the few exceptions. Stacking up at 200 episodes the series has four seasons and overall it’s pretty damn great. Yes there is filler and yes it is a bit dated but people don’t give Sailor Moon enough credit. Our main character Usagi begins the series a little self-absorbed and a huge cry baby but ends with the biggest heart out of everyone and sacrifices her life, more than one occasion I might add, to save the world and those she loves. Plus everyone has a Scout that they can relate to (Neptune is bae) and everyone has their favorite arc (Saturn/Mistress 9 or Nehelenia arc). And while people complain about the filler those episodes are used to round out all of the characters and give each girl their moment to shine. Unlike Sailor Moon Crystal but I’m not getting into that rant today. I prefer the japanese dub because that’s all I really had since the DiC dub was all we had in the States at the time but there is a new dub from Funimation that is very faithful to the original script so whichever you prefer on that end. We also have two movies which are great

Another 90s classic would be Cardcaptor Sakura. I unapologetically love this anime despite it not having aged well in terms of writing. Sakura Kinomoto is our main character who accidently releases the mysterious Clow Cards and she must find and capture the cards or else they’ll wreak havoc. Season 1 is all about capturing the cards and Season 2, the better season imo, is about Sakura becoming the new master of the cards. So the writing is a bit...problematic and this is mostly due to CLAMP’s, the writers for the show and manga, wanting to take the concept of love and seeing it from multiple angles in all of their works. Cardcaptor Sakura is no exception...however there is a lot, and I do mean a lot, of relationships that show age gaps between two characters. Sakura has her crush on her brother’s friend Yukito she’s ten and he’s in high school, Sakura’s dad was a fresh out of college high school teacher when Sakura’s mother was like sixteen or seventeen and they got married after she graduated, and then there’s Rika, Sakura’s classmate, who has a crush on their homeroom teacher and it’s just...sigh. There is a good episode in Season 2 when Yuki finally breaks it to Sakura that she’s way too young for him, besides him having eyes only for her older brother, Toya, and Sakura realizes that she doesn’t love Yuki in the way that she thought before and it’s really good. Nothing is sexualized, everything is cute, and the characters are allowed to feel and express themselves which is you know great. There is also two movies as well as the sequel to the show the Clear Card Arc but I don’t recommend the sequel mostly because nothing happens and it’s mostly used to show how cute Sakura and her boyfriend are...which is a lot I’m not gonna lie they are incredibly cute and I love them. That being said the rest of the series is full of low stakes questions not being answered and a cliffhanger ending and who knows when that’ll get resolved (I’m not bitter I promise). So yeah stick with the OG anime. There was no redub of the show so I would just recommend the Japanese dub.

Revolutionary Girl Utena is one of my favorite anime of all time. Seriously when I’m super depressed I binge the whole show. This show has a lot going on symbolically and that’s like crack to me. I love deciphering hidden meanings in shows and Utena has that in spades. The show subverts a lot of tropes and gives me so many feels. The show is about Utena Tejo who dresses in the school’s male uniform instead of the girl one. She is a tomboy, good a sports, and pretty decent with a sword come to find out. She duels one of the student council members for Anthy Himemiya the Rose Bride. Anthy, who is just another student at the school, is passed around from duelist to duelist and is treated however her owner sees fit. After winning Utena treats Anthy like a friend and protects her from other duelists so that Anthy can be free to make her own decisions. It’s so good. Like really good. My main complaints come from the loooong walking scenes to the dueling area that we go through every episode but honestly it’s worth. The characters are well written, not all likeable but well written, the animation is pretty, the jokes from the gossip girls are dumb and I love them, and the overall story is just great. We even get queer characters. There is a movie retelling the events of the show but it’s...well...different. I would stick to the anime.

So I you know how I mentioned I like symbolism in my shows? Well one thing that I really like is when it symbolism that involves fairy tales. Princess Tutu while funny when you say the title is another great show with darker things going on in the background than one would assume. In the show we follow Duck, yeah that’s her name, an actual duck that transforms into a young girl due to the machinations of the mysterious Drosselmeyer the author of the fairy tale we are in. This anime deals with ballet which I love and uses dance and music to help Duck purify the hearts of those who have been taken over by darkness. This show gets a bit dark over the course of the series but the hope and light that comes from it by the end is so worth it. 

Ok this is the last magical girl anime I promise. Puella Magia Madoka Magica is amazing, dark, subversive, and soul crushing. I love this show, again, for the symbolism, the characters, the music, the animation, and for how much it makes me cry. There are a lot of allusions to Faust and things get darker well before they get happier but they do get happier by the end of the series. Unless you watch the sequel movie The Rebellion Story and then you’re just left with bitterness and tears. The show was an actual show but then was later split into three movies, just the same show with more details in the animation, but personally the show was just fine with me. 12 episodes long you could get through it in a weekend. Just make sure to bring some tissues along and plenty of comfort food. 

So if you have an interest in RPGs and fantasy but don’t want anything to serious or heavy I would recommend Slayers. In this show we follow Lina Inverse one of the strongest mages of her time and we watch her blow up a lot of things. By episode 2 she gains her first, and constant, follower Gourry Gabriev a dimwitted but talented swordsman who is very sweet and endearing. This show doesn’t really have a plot except Lina and Gourry trying to make money so they can eat and Lina stumbles upon a quest where hopefully she’ll get some gold. This show is mostly an action comedy and boy does it deliver. This show had five incarnations and I still haven’t seen all of it in it’s entirety but it’s pretty great and has a lot of memorable characters. 

 If you want to watch something to mellow you out that also gives you that folklore and fantasy feeling then you should watch Mushishi. We follow Ginko, a mysterious white haired man, who studies and deals with Mushi, spirits...sorta. The show is set in the Edo era...I think and it really gives off this folklore and almost ghost story vibe. Like this would be stories that your great-great grandpa would tell you about when there weren’t so many cities and everything was trees and fields and there was a strange magic to everything. This show is by no means scary. I was really zen throughout most of it. Travis Willingham does great as Ginko and his cadence really helps with that mellow feeling. 

 Romeo x Juliet is what I would recommend anyone that is interested in a love story with a bit of war, destiny, and a whole lot of Shakespeare. This show is set in Neo-Verona which is a slightly futuristic but at the same time not. Lord Montague, Romeo’s father, has murdered Juliet’s family, the Capulets, and rules over the city with an iron fist. Juliet is a badass sword-wielding vigilante and Romeo is a soft cinnamon roll who needs to be protected at all costs. I really loved this retelling of the the classic story and I really hate Romeo and Juliet for reasons I’m not gonna get into as this list is already so long. The interpretations of the characters are different and unique and that alone is worth watch. If you know anything about Shakespeare you’ll catch the references to all of his other works, the bard himself even pops up in the show which was wonderful, and the even include several scenes where people speak in iambic pentameter, especially Ophelia. My only complaint about this show is the main musical theme which is “You Raise Me Up” by popular by Josh Groban and as a person who really doesn’t like Groban this was almost a deal breaker for me. Thankfully the song is sung by women in English and in Japanese and, when used appropriately, it really made the show feel as dramatic and epic as the original play. 

So if you like Dynasty Warriors, hyperactive cute boys, explosions, adorable father-son moments, a rivalry that borderlines on romantic relationship, and a bad guy who literally travels with ominous music and a death storm then Sengoku Basara is for you. Ok so when I first saw this show I was surprised how quickly I fell in love with it. Like it’s so stupid with how campy and action packed it is and I loved every second of it. We follow historical Japanese soldiers and fighters in their quest to defeat Oda Nobunaga the Demon King. Like most of these people actually existed but we gave them elemental superpowers and pumped up the action to the extreme. I don’t have much else to say except it was a wild and fun ride from start to finish. 

And I think that I’m gonna end this with Fate/Stay Night:Unlimited Blade Works. Having seen the original Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero I can say that UBW has enough from both series for people to find something to love. Also you don’t need to have knowledge of any of the other works to get into this series as it is a retelling of the original story. You say Fate/Stay Night was originally a visual novel with three routes. The Fate Route, the Unlimited Blade Works Route, and the Heaven's Feel Route. The first route is considered the “best route” as pretty much everyone survives it, the second there are some casualties but overall it is the actual best route because one of our main characters, Shirou, isn’t a complete idiot this time around, and the third and final route is super depressing and holy shit who wrote this? UBW is full of action, historical figures...again, great animation, great fight scenes, and a pretty good story. 

And that’s my ten sort of broad animes that I would recommend. I think that you’ll probably find something that you like in all of this especially if you like magical anime. 

Take care

[animemisogynist]

Fall 2017 Anime Season Preview

It’s almost time for a new season of anime, so here’s the first installment of what will hopefully become a regular feature here at Anime Misogynist: the season preview, where we tell you what’s worth watching before it’s even aired. Now, most sites are slow and lazy and wait until a show has aired an episode (or even three ghastly episodes, for shame!) to tell you whether or not it’s worth your time. However, here at AniMog we are more evolved; when you’re just using a show as a kind of Rorschach blot for your ideology, do you really need to see any of it before judging? The teaser paragraph and one image should be more than enough; frankly, the show doesn’t even need to be animated yet. Honestly, we could post our Summer 2019 Preview Guide right now. Still, we already wrote this one, so we’ll just go with this for now.

Note that these are not the only shows that are going to air this season, but they’re the only ones worth talking about; all the other shows are stupid nonsense that only chicks and cucks would watch. By the way, did you know “cuck” is the absolute best insult? I don’t know what it means, think maybe it has something to do with poultry, but by God, every time I use it I feel so manly and strong. Don’t be a cuck, cucks watch Gamers.

Returning/Continuing Shows

March Comes in Like a Lion, Season Two—First of all, as we’ve been over before, there are no goddamned lions on this show, which is a damned shame. Imagine if instead of a skinny teen moping around his apartment starving to death and wondering what new futon to buy, this show was about an actual lion that plays Shogi? Like, they go to that stuffy club where all the televised Shogi matches happen, then a Lion prowls in wearing a bowtie, and then someone goes “Why is there a Lion in the stairwell?”, and he’s like, “Despite being leonine, I enjoy a stimulating game of Shogi every now and then, on languid afternoons,” but then halfway through the game he rips out someone’s jugular with his teeth, because he’s the king of the jungle and he has no patience for cerebral board game shit. That sounds like a pretty good show, but alas, it is not this show. Still, this show has Akari, who is really hot and pretty and one of our ideal waifus, so we’re probably going to watch it just for her. Watch if you like motherly, mature waifus, skip if you really want a waifu who will step on you.

Rating: 2/10

Fate/Apocrypha, Continuation—Look, I’m just going to throw something out here, it may sound crazy at first, but hear me out: What if all these people just stopped fighting over the Holy Grail?

I mean, think about it: every time we see the Holy Grail, it’s basically a cancerous tumor that has blown up to the size of a Dairy Queen, and it oozes pure evil in the form of black monster bile that burns your skin like acid. It’s supposed to grant wishes or something, but it’s been corrupted by the venal sins that lurk deep within the heart of man, and now it’s just a giant Bouncy House made of oozy suck. So maybe we could get a bunch of historical and mythical figures together, in these awesome, pimped-out costumes with big swords and lances, and have them do…I don’t know, literally anything BUT fight over the Holy Grail. Like, imagine Saber and Jeanne d’Arc starting a coffee shop, and tell me you would not watch that show in a hot second. It would be like Is the Order A Rabbit?, only with frequent disembowelment instead of a talking bunny.

Oh yeah, and speaking of Jeanne D’arc, it’s cool that she’s in this show: because if there’s one thing misogynists love, it’s seeing martyred young girls get empowered and kick righteous amounts of ass.

Rating: Malevolent Menstrual Tumor/10

Food Wars!, Season Three—An important disclaimer: this season, you can either watch Food Wars!, or one of the bishonen idol shows, but not both. Because if you try to watch both, what’s going to happen is that Food Wars! Is going to make you ravenously hungry, eat everything in sight, and gain 60 pounds. Then you’ll watch Dynamic Chord, and cry manly tears that you just gained a spare tire around your waist and will never have the lithe, willowy physique that men in otome game adaptations have, and in all likelihood, contemplate killing yourself. This is just another way the misandric anime industry tries to brutalize male feelings of self-worth, and we’re warning you now so you can take care of yourself; please practice proper self-care.

Anyway, as to the show itself, it’s pretty okay. There’s lots of fanservice from the girls, but the same girls who provide the fanservice are also awesome chefs who give the lead character a run for his money in the cooking competitions, and that’s messed up. Also, like its many predecessors, including Mister Ajikko and Yakitate! Japan, the show manages to harness all the excitement of shonen battle manga while sidestepping the hetero-masculine trope of using violence as progression, so it’s a good show to watch if you’re some fancy fuck who likes taking sociology classes.

Rating: Veal Piccata/10

Yuuki Yuna wa Yuasha de Aru: Yuuasha no Shou—It’s the second season of Yuuki Yuna, or as we like to call it, Poor Man’s Madoka. Honestly, we never watched the first season, so we have no idea if writing off this show as a Madoka Magica clone is fair, but that seems to be the consensus of opinion on the internet, and that’s all that really matters. Of course, if this show is a lot like Madoka, then it presents misogynists with the same fundamental problem as Madoka: it gives little girls magic and makes them very powerful (Misogyny BAD!), but it also puts those girls in situations where their powers do nothing except make them miserable and suffer horrendous fates (Misogyny GOOD!). Kind of puts us in a delicate position: “Why would you want to watch a show all about girls who kick ass?” “yeah, but they’re being put through a metaphorical meat grinder while they kick ass,” “irrelevant, the point still stands that you are watching a MAGICAL GIRL SHOW, explain this shit.”

So yeah, we’re not sure whether we recommend this show or not. We have someone in the back room crunching the numbers, trying to figure out if it’s more misogynistic to watch a show about females suffering than not to watch it at all on account of the stars being girls, but until we get a preliminary estimate back from our math guy, you’re on your own here.

Rating: Meguca is Suffering/10

Hoozuki’s Coolheadedness, Season Two—There’s a lot to talk about with this show, like the beautiful traditionally-styled Japanese art art, the quirky humor and the ingenuity of making a kind of slow-paced workplace comedy that happens to take place deep within the bowels of hell, but honestly, all that is overshadowed by wondering how the fuck this show even exists. See, there are four categories of anime: Moe anime (cute girls), Ecchi anime (sexy girls), Shonen Jump manga adaptations (shows where people punch each other for several hundred episodes), and Fujobait (shows for desperate-ass chicks.) Occasionally we get something that doesn’t know what the hell it wants to be, like Bungo Stray Dogs, but in general, most anime produced come in one of the aforementioned flavors. Hoozuki’s Coolheadedness is very much its own thing, meaning there’s only one explanation for how this show got made: it’s produced in an alternate dimension where anime has incredible artistic variety.

Maybe in the mysterious and wonderful dimension Hoozuki hails from, there’s an anime for every taste, Harmony Gold never got the rights to Macross, Cowboy Bebop is up to season 147, the director of Kemono Friends wasn’t fired, and Funimation can write an entire dub script without putting in a totally ham-handed reference to intersectionality? Maybe J.J. Abrams died in a horrible lens-flare related accident before he had a chance to announce his adaptation of Your Name? The possibilities are endless!

Come to think of it, that Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju show must also come from that dimension, since it doesn’t really fit any popular genre molds…neither does Joker Game. Neither does ACCA. Neither does Poco’s Udon World. Neither does The Morose Mononokean. Neither does Barakamon. Neither does Erased.

Hmmph. Either a lot of shows are somehow making it through the portal from the Antimatter Anime Dimension, or modern anime has a lot more variety than most people are giving it credit for. Must be lax security on those interdimensional portals….

Rating: Makes us question the nature of the multiverse/10

Himouto Umaru-Chan R (second season)—We love Umaru-chan! All hail goddess Umaru! Actually, we hate this show with a passion, because if it was gender-swapped and it was about an otaku dude who was a bum at home and acted like an asshole toward his sibling, everyone would call him a pathetic loser, but because Umaru’s a chick, it’s fine; just another example of this glaring double-standard at work. However, if the last time this show aired is anything to go by, in about a week from now every inch of the internet is going to be wallpapered with GIFs of chibi-Himaru rolling around in her Snuggie, guzzling liters of Coke, and you just can’t fight that level of media saturation. Like, it’s going to be that insufferable “Dude turning around to check out another woman while walking with his gf” meme, only the girlfriend is Umaru-chan, the other woman is also Umaru-chan, and even the cheating dude is Umaru-chan, but slightly taller. So in this case we’re adopting a philosophy of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” and pretending to be huge fans of the show; only dedicated AniMog readers will know that we’re actually liking it ironically, HAHAHAHAHAHAH. Because watching a show ironically is COMPLETELY different from just watching it normally, and earns you coolness points from God.

All that said we will (ironically) enjoy watching Umaru do her lazy secret otaku thing, and (ironically) enjoy the sundry references to otaku culture that the show will surely make. We look forward to the (completely insincere) joy we will experience with this series once again.

Rating: 11/10 (wink)

Idolmaster Side M—Once upon a time, idol anime were about cute girls, and all was right with the world. Then some schmuck decided to make an Idolmaster anime about guys, and it’s like, really? Wasn’t idol anime supposed to be the last area of anime that was just for the enjoyment of creepy dudes, now creepy chicks have displaced creepy dudes as the target audience? What are all the creepy dudes supposed to do now? Jump down a well?

Really, the way these idol anime objectify young men makes us sick, especially knowing it’s all being done for the enjoyment of drooling fujoshis who would probably die if they had to talk to a real guy IRL. At least there’s only one of these problematic male idol shows this season.

Rating: Hard to find a good well to jump down/10

New Shows

Dynamic Chord—Wait, actually there’s two problematic male idol shows this season, and this is the other one (and also, the show you should absolutely NOT WATCH if you’re going to do the Food Wars! thing.) From cursory inspection, it seems like a poor gal’s version of Uta no Prince-sama, and even UtaPri is a poor gal’s version of UtaPri, if you know what I mean. At least UtaPri has that slowly mounting tension as you wait for Evil Succubus Nanami to show her true colors and start snacking on the guys’ entrails, but it doesn’t look like there’s any of that intrigue here: just an endless stream of handsome, objectified males for women to put on a pedestal and deepen their aversion to real, flesh-and-blood men. At least there’s only TWO of these problematic male idol shows this seas--OH WAIT, FUCK--

TsukiPro The Animation-- God is a Fujoshi, and we live at her pleasure; That’s the only explanation. Even if we were to die, there would be no escape from armies of emaciated male idols crooning insipid JPOP for all eternity. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a singing, pink-haired bishounen in a sparkly tuxedo stepping on a dude’s face, forever.

Rating: Orwell Reference WE SO CULTURED/10

My Girlfriend is a Faithful Virgin Bitch—Okay, we are not falling for it this time. You’d think a show that goes so far as to call the female lead a bitch in the title would be a field day for misogynists, but whenever anime promises us a show that seems like it’s for us, it’s always a damned trap. Remember when Keijo!!!!!!!! was supposedly this super-misogynist show, so much so that trashy online magazines were writing hit pieces on it? How did that turn out? Oh right, the female fanbase was so fucking empowered by that show they went out and invented a whole new sport. If that show was supposed to make women feel bad about themselves and stay home, then someone was asleep at the fucking wheel there, ya think? Oh, and remember a few years back, when people were all offended over The Pet Girl of Sakurasou because of the titular “pet” girl, thinking the girl was being treated poorly, and the show turned out to be about creative genius and the psychological toll it takes on the people geniuses rely on for support? And remember when people said that Kuma Miko was…wait...well, okay that show WAS hella misogynist, but that was like, the one time. It was bound to happen once.

Anyway, the point is that we no longer believe shows that dangle the promise of wymyn-hating in front of us like a carrot. More likely, “Virgin Bitch” will end up being about how women will dominate the STEM fields of the future, and the Virgin Bitch will only be a virgin because she’s too busy developing a new form of clean energy from discarded takoyaki containers to have any time for sex.

Rating: WTF is a “Shobitch?”/10

Anime-Gataris—It’s a show about an anime club, kind of like Genshiken from the sound of it. Except, you know how at the beginning, Genshiken was mainly about dudes, but by the end it was a couple of sweaty fujoshi yelling about whether or not bald dudes were hot? Well life seems to be imitating art here, because we have now reached the point where our “anime nerds go act like nerds” shows are all-female. I mean, I hate to be a broken record here, since we’ve already railed about the tragedy of the generic male leads in Magical Girlfriend shows being replaced with women, but seriously, what roles are left for males? Soon the only dudes left are going to be Boruto’s Dad’s son, whoever Gintama is, and the baby seal from Go! Go! Goma-chan, assuming he is even a boy…I mean, how would you know? I wouldn’t know where to even look on a seal, to be honest.

Rating: Location of Seal Penis?/10

Net-juu no Susume—“Gee, Anime Misogynist is exaggerating here. Some of the roles traditionally filled by men in anime are opening up to female characters, sure, but it’s not like it’s happening everywhere or anything.” Yeah okay, this show is about a 30-something loser gamer NEET, the role that men were born to play, only the main character now has a blasted uterus, ARE YOU MAYHAPS NOTICING A PATTERN HERE GENIUS?

Rating: Soon Boruto Will Be All We Have Left/10

Black Clover—Yaaay, it’s a show with a male lead who isn’t an objectified pop singer! Except it’s one of those shows where a guy wants to become a great magician, and how many of those have there been already? At least with The Irregular at Magic High School people could sidestep the dullness of the premise by arguing on Twitter over whether or not Ayn Rand was smoking crack back in the day, but I doubt we’ll get any such stimulating political discussions here. Apparently the hero gains the power of Anti-Magic, so maybe he’ll be like Touma from A Certain Magical Index, and this show is just a means to an end until we get the inevitable Railgun-esque sequel that focuses entirely on the female cast? Fuck, that’s probably exactly what’s going to happen. Skip this show and stop the next Raildex loli phenomenon before it starts: only YOU can prevent another Kuroko.

Rating: Only My Railgun Is A Good Song Tho/10

UQ Holder: Mahou Sensei Negima! 2—If you think this is the kind of blog that does actual research before we post anything, then I have some very bad news for you. However, after the extremely minimal amount of online goofing off we did before writing this post, we got the impression that this is based on the manga Ken Akamatsu really wanted to make, when he made Negima!, only he had to make Negima! first for some reason? Or maybe the second half of Negima! was the manga he really wanted to make, and this is the sequel to the thing he wanted to make, so he super-duper-wanted to make it? Not really clear on the details here. However, if what we remember about Akamatsu from the Love Hina era is still valid, what he REALLY wants to do is play MMORPGS all day, so we should let his show fail so he can do that; that’s what he wants, deep down, probably.

Rating: Let Gamers Game/10

Wake Up, Girls! Shin Shou—It’s more WUG, the idol show that somehow keeps getting made despite the fact that idol fans hate it and no one else will touch it with a ten-foot pole. How do these seasons keep getting funded? Maybe it’s one of nature’s mysteries, like how bumblebees can somehow fly despite the fact that the calculations show that they really shouldn’t be able to. We’d say that it comes from the AntiMatter Anime Dimension, except that whole concept is predicated on the notion that the people who live in that dimension have shockingly good taste. At least by its very presence, this show is balancing out the alarming number of male idol shows this season, but to be honest, if WUG is your only alternative for idol waifus, you may as well just turn gay already.

Rating: Taste the Rainbow/10

Urahara—It’s about three girls who want to protect Harjuku’s culture from some evil aliens, somehow. Now it would be one thing if it was say, Akiba culture they were protecting, but Harajuku? Isn’t Harajuku all gothic Lolita fashion and shit, like chicks wearing those tiny little top hats on their heads that are about five times too small to be actual hats, and their heads must be really chilly? We’re watching this show to root for the aliens, because seriously FUCK those tiny little hats, take them into space, either wear a fucking hat on your head or don’t 

Rating: Extraterrestrials and Questionable Haberdashery/10

Juuni Taisen—Having done no research, we don’t know anything about this show, but at first glance, it appears to be a ripoff of Fate/Stay Night, only themed around the Chinese Zodiac instead of badass historical figures holding pointy things. In that case, we’re going to give this show the same advice we gave to Fate/Apocrypha: Stop fighting over the Holy Grail, it’s overrated! Unless this is the one instance where the Chinese knock-off is better than the original, in which case, as you were, gentlemen.

Rating: Incoming Hate Mail From China/10

Blend S— On a surface level, this show sounds good; a girl takes a job as a waitress at a role-playing café, and she gets assigned the role of a extreme sadist, so maybe we can anticipate some sexy dominatrix-type action. However, once you think about it, the premise falls apart; we finally get an anime about a dominatrix, only the girl doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s probably going to be all sweet and kind and innocent, and only in episode 12 will she get five seconds where she acts the part properly. The entire show is probably going to be about her coming into her own budding sexuality or whatever, in a totally healthy way, and it’ll be about as kinky as an episode of pre-HBO Sesame Street (don’t get us started on what HBO did to our girl Abby Cadabby.)

Dammit, remember that show Amanchu! from a few seasons back that was supposed to be about scuba diving, but the bitches didn’t even really go scuba diving until episode 12? Why can’t we have a show be about what it says it’s about from episode 1? Is that really too fucking much to ask?

Rating: Make a Goddamned Commitment to Your Premise, Please/10

Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utao—We interrupt your regularly scheduled Anime Misogynist to bring you something that has nothing do with misogyny, but really should be mentioned. The synopsis of this show says that the main character is an archivist on a floating island called Mud Whale. “Mud Whale.” There is only one way this came about:

J.C. Staff Executive 1: “Damn, we only have 3 shows so far this season, and according to the venerable J.C. Staff Company Charter, we must have at least four. Anyone got any pitches for another show?”

J.C. Staff Executive 2: “I have two words for you: Mud Whale.”

J.C .Staff Executive 1: “Get me a script by Monday. And that’s why we’re the best goddamned cartoon company in this industry, kids.” *puffs on huge cigar* “Eat your heart out, Kyoto Animation.”

Rating: Inspiring anime studio fanfiction/10

FILMS

Free! Take Your Marks—If you somehow resisted the urge for self-harm Dynamic Cord and its brethren inspired in you, you can go to your local cinema and torture yourself with images of the perfect abs of the Free! boys. Being Free!, presumably this film will be filled with lots of striking images of lean, beautiful boys swimming in beautiful, sparkling swimming pools, so it’s maybe worth watching if you have some kind of a fantasy about belonging to a really nice country club that doesn’t allow fat people. Otherwise, avoid like the plague.

Rating: TOXIC MALE BODYSHAMING/10

Fate/Stay Night [Heaven’s Feel] 1. Presage Flower—What number adaptation of the same 2004 visual novel are we up to already? They’ve been making these F/SN anime for over a decade, and it’s not like they’re adapting a whole sequence of visual novels or something; they’re literally adapting different parts of the same game. For a decade. This is where Fate fans jump up and say “But Heaven’s Feel is about Sakura and Rider, it’s TOTALLY different than Fate and UBW!” You mean to tell me that somewhere during the last five anime productions in this franchise, they couldn’t have found some time for Sakura and Rider? Maybe they could have edited out those scenes in Fate/Zero when people just walked in circles around each other and smirked, then they would have had enough time for poor little Sakura to have her day in the sun.

The fact that this franchise has been dragged out for so long, with so much repetition (since there’s a lot of overlap between the routes) is by far the worst thing about it—and we’re saying this about a series where King Arthur has been known to experience menstrual cramps. Oh, and stop fighting over the Holy Grail, it blows.

Rating: As I Pray, Unlimited Adaptation SpamWorks/10

TV Short

Taishou Chicchai-san: The Bad News: it’s based on a Boys Love game, because as previously established, God is a Fujoshi and she’s also a greedy bitch who wants all anime to herself. The Good News: it takes place during the Taishou era (1912-1926), so everyone involved is probably going to die of cholera before things get super-gay.

Rating: They could also die of polio/10

Osake wa Fuufu ni Natte Kara: A short anime about a tipsy wife who enjoys her husband’s cocktails, because apparently someone thought I Can’t Understand What My Husband is Saying had too ambitious a premise and they needed to scale it back. Why is she the only one enjoying his cocktails though? Does he ever get any cocktails? Maybe it’s a “she cooks, he makes the drinks,” situation, but you know damned well there is no cooking going on, lazy ass drunk girl is probably microwaving Healthy Choice meals for him every night. And is that a filling dinner? No, it is not, he will likely be hungry again by 9 p.m.

Rating: File for divorce/10

OVAS

Is The Order a Rabbit? Dear My Sister—We don’t actually care about this show, but we feel the need to point out something that’s been bugging us for years; shouldn’t the name of this show be localized as “Did Somebody Order a Rabbit?” Wouldn’t that be a much catchier English title, with proper syntax and whatnot? Anyway, if you like watching cute girls drink coffee, this franchise is basically the Citizen Kane of cute girls drinking coffee, so knock yourself out, I guess.

Rating: Also there is a tea shop/10

Encouragement of Climb, Omoide Present—This may come as a surprise, but Encouragement of Climb may just be our most hated anime here at Anime Misogynist. Why? Well, if we have to live in a world where the premise of 99% of anime is “cute girls do a thing,” the least they can do is try something awesome, like climbing mountains (although, to be fair, “Cute girls ride thoroughly realistic armored tanks,” is pretty good too.) So we had high hopes for this show, only to discover that this show’s version of “climbing” is what your Great-Aunt Estelle from Boca Raton considers a leisurely stroll. Seriously, these girls buy backpacks and sundry equipment from Campmor, only to do these little pedestrian hikes on gentle hills that even toddlers and the elderly can do. If the premise of the show is mountain climbing, then for God’s sake, climb Everest. Climb K2; take your hobby SERIOUSLY, dammit. But no, Encouragement of Climb makes the Boy Scout Jamboree look like the absolute epitome of outdoor sportsmanship.

Now that there’s a new OVA, we can only hope this show is going to do what it should have done in the first place, and show the girls climbing an actual fucking mountain, like with climbing spikes and ropes and….oh. Oh. Oh God, no. Just saw the preview and what does it say? “The OVA centers on a certain item that relates to the memories of Aoi and Hinata.” They ain’t gonna climb SHIT, are they? Fuck you, Encouragement of Climb, you could have encouraged us to climb but you never have and you never will.

Rating: DISCOURAGED/10

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We hope that this timely feature will help you navigate the confusing and sometimes scary smorgasbord of swiftly moving drawings available this season. Now would be the standard time to request that you donate to our Patreon, except as sitting board members on the International Council of Patriarchy, we have no use for something as plebeian as currency. If you would still like to support Anime Misogynist, because you are a nice and high-quality person, please let all your friends know about the value of looking at anime through a misogynist lens: the nuanced, rigorous media criticism of the future.