Finally, an anime protagonist who struggles with the same problems I do:

Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan is yet another villainess series, but this time the protagonist reincarnating into the teenage villainess is a fiftytwo year old white collar worker and father Tondabayashi Kenzaburou , whose daughter Hinako was the one playing the game he reincarnated in. He himself has only a vague idea of how the plot is supposed to go or what role Grace Auvergne is actually supposed to play in the harassment of the game’s heroine. His idea of a villainess is much more classic:

Fun fact: Inoue Kazuhiko, Kenzaburou’s voice actor, actually played the male lead in Candy Candy. Which is also one of the first anime I remember watching, long before I knew it was anime, as a child in the eighties when you watched everything that was animated even if it was *shudder* intended for girls. Kenzaburou is very much of my generation then and also a bit of an otaku like his daughter (and wife). With little knowledge of otome games and reincarnated into a very aristocratic young lady, how will Kenzaburou cope in his new role? Luckily he has a cheat power, which transforms his thoroughly salaryman behaviour into the correct aristocratic etiquette for Grace to have.

I like the manga of this and I’m glad to see some care has been taken with its anime adaptation. It all looks a cut above the usual villainess/isekai production with some genuine impressive animation, character design and backgrounds. If there’s one thing that could be improved it would’ve been for Grace to sound even more oujo-sama-ish than she already does.

The problem with almost every isekai story is that the first episode wants to bore you with all the unnecessary details of how their protag-kun managed to be reborn/transported/trucked into his new world. Around 40 Otoko no Isekai Tsuuhan understands that all you need to do is turn up the Strauss, do a almost dialogueless montage and let your audience figure it out for yourself:

The rest of A middle Aged Shopper in Another World is less impressive, reverting to the main isaki anime first episode, with the protagonist establishing himself in his new world. What sets him apart from other isekai series is that his cheat power is being able to use his favourite web shop in this new world, rather than being able to summon dragons or whatever. Which means that after he reaches civilisation, we follow him getting started as a merchant. In the process, because he gave her candy and drew her portrait, he also got to shag the cute maid from his local inn, which is the other thing that sets him apart from the usual sexless isekai protagonists.

This is the sort of series I like to watch weekly: nothing special but entertaining enough. The animation and designs are good enough not to be annoyed by it and this will make for a decent palate cleanser between more demanding series.

What’s the matter Mutsumi? Are you in despair about the state of Bang Dream: Ave Mujica‘ subtitles too?

I was honestly, no lie, so frustrated by the subtitles on the first episode that it has taken me until the second episode came out today to be interested in writing about it. I loved Bang Dream: MyGo, as you may have noticed and was looking forward to the sequel, but the way Crunchyroll once again handled the translation and subtitles almost destroyed any pleasure I had watching the first episode.

It is bad enough that the episode starts with a musical performance from Ave Mujica, completely untranslated so it looks impressive but I had no clue what they were singing. This is something that drives me up the wall with Crunchyroll, that they cannot be bothered to pay for the licensing rights to subtitle songs; the same has happened with the last couple of IdolM@ster shows too. I’ve given up hope for any streamers to put up the money to subtitle their shows’ openings and endings, but at least for a music/idol show, do translate the insert songs? They’re kind of important!

But things get worse. Because this first episode retells the story of how Crychic broke up from Sakiko’s point of view. What we saw in MyGo was her receiving a mysterious text, after which she disappeared from the band’s rehearsal sessions for weeks only to say she was quitting the band once she finally came back. Now here, finally, we get to see what triggered Sakiko — had Crunchyroll actually bothered to translate and subtitle them! Even if it wasn’t quite necessary to get the gist of it, it still vexes me that Crunchyroll just couldn’t be bothered. And currently there are no fansubs available either. At least episode two was less reliant on text messages to move the plot along, irritating me less.

Not that there was time to be irritating by Crunchyroll’s incompetence when the second episode was just non-stop blows hammering down on poor old Mutsumi. In MyGo she was the least defined member of Crychic, basically reduced to being a go-between for Soyo to contact Sakiko. Even then I felt sorry for her and the way she was treated by both: Soyo blaming her for the band breaking up, Sakiko for forcing her to be in her new project while seemingly taking her for granted. But I didn’t know how much I really felt sorry for her until these first two episodes of Ave Mujica. Episode one showed her role in the breakup and why she said what she said all the way in MyGo‘s first episode, while episode two has her dealing with the fallout from the previous episode. Spoiler: it doesn’t go well.

Mutsumi is the anti-Tomori. Both have difficulty communicating with others and are clearly on the spectrum in some way, both have to mask their true selfs to a certain extent, but where in Tomori’s case this draws people to her — Saki, Soyom, Taki, Anon, Raana — with Mutsuki it repulses them. Tomori has been hurt by people not understanding her, has internalised the idea that this is always her own fault, but she also has the resilience to keep trying to reach out while staying true to herself. When it’s important Tomori has been able to make herself hear and has been rewarded for it.

The same cannot be said for Mutsumi. Like Tomori she withdraws in her obsessions, guitar playing, growing cucumbers, but when she tries to use them to reach out to people, like Tomori with her bandaids did to Anon, she fails, as when she brings her cucumbers to MyGo to congratulate them in MyGo episode 12. Several times in Ave Mujica episode two she tries to talk, but she never succeeds, even as she gets cornered to the point of a breakdown. Nobody understands her or even tries to, not even her own band mates. They all impose their own vision of her on her and Mutsumi just does not have the strength to object to it. She has always been passive when we’ve seen her before, seemingly eager for somebody like Sakiko to tell her what she should do. But she has never been important enough for anybody to help her discover what it is she herself wants. Not like Tomori has had Taki and Anon and even Raana and Soyo.

Being Mutsumi is suffering.

Get you a senpai who is this obsessed with you joining her school club:

As a young child Hana watched a recitation contest on television and became fascinated by it to the point that in middle school she held regular reading sessions for the younger children of her small island. By chance the club president of the broadcasting club of her new high school catches one of those readings and decides she has to have her for the club. But Hana isn’t sure whether she can, even if she wants to…

This was a nice surprise. I went into this completely blind and got not just a nice, sweet first episode about a girl who’s afraid to let herself attempt the things she wants to do, but also a bit of cute flirting by her senpai. Mizuki is a lot more touchy feely than normal for an anime character and feels extremely lesbian coded? Short haired, strawberry blonde, wears ear piercings and when we first saw her she was in a pants and blouse combination. I’m not getting my hopes up that this will amount to anything, but it would be great if it did. In the meantime this seems like a nice, meaty school club story and I like that it’s not all girls in the club either.

The character design is on point and the animation is strong, especially the character animation. Mostly it quietly shunts along until we get to the climax, where it lets loose, showcasing Hana’s dramatic recital of her favourite poem with equally dramatic animation. This so far is my favourite premiere of the season.