Animisery – A Blog About Living Miserably with Anime (Among Other Things)

Hi there! It’s been a minute since I’ve screamed into the void of this blog and there’s been reasons for that! I’ve been extraordinarily stressed between work, family strife, and the general unflinching despair instilled upon me by the world! Regardless, let’s discuss the anime I completed this month and revel in the portmanteau joy of what many sites have deemed Ani-May. Also this is my LONGEST blog post yet so maybe pack some snacks before you head out into the cruel wilderness of this anime blog? Be safe and don’t talk to strangers!

FULL METAL PANIC

This show honestly took me a year to watch due to just consistent setback from wanting to watch other shows to a general disinterest in the anime as a whole. It’s very unfortunate due in part that this is one of my partner’s favorite anime and I couldn’t manage a whole lot of interest in it. It’s strange because I presumed with the notion that it being a mecha, a genre that I find an almost universal interest in, meant I would find a whole lot more to enjoy in it. Alas, the adventures of Sousuke Sagara and Kaname Chidori regularly failed to hold my interest mostly in part that some of the actual mecha warfare failed to engage with how slow and meandering it could be. Don’t get that statement wrong though; Full Metal Panic seems to be focused on the more grounded militant engagements of a world with mecha combat which works well. It’s a more real robot kind of anime and not a super robot anime while the world of Full Metal Panic does seem to have more science fiction elements with Chidori’s talent as a “Whispered” which I never really grasped too much of what that actually entailed in universe wise. That could easily be chalked up to viewer error (I felt my eyes glaze over during middling sections of the show where Sousuke had to team up with an American company of soldiers) but Full Metal Panic also seemed quite alright to wave its hand in distracted indifference as well. The romance between Sousuke and Chidori also isn’t worth much of a distracted hand wave either as it’s a classic aloof boy paired with a strong willed girl who won’t admit she has any interest in our lead. It makes Chidori nigh insufferable as we go into arcs where a miscommunication leads her to distance herself from Sousuke in a frustrating sequence where any viewer with communication skills is left high and dry to wonder why our protagonists suck with these rudimentary abilities. I know they’re in high school and part of Sousuke’s regular schtick (that is actually hugely funny to me especially in Fumoffu, the next season) is that he’s lacking in common sense and social graces but it’s still an annoyance to me at least. Overall, Full Metal Panic had some great highs in the form of comedic slice of life bits (I was shocked by just how much I preferred them!) but reaches some rough lows with real robot action that repeats itself a couple of times too many. Basically the big bad JUST. WON’T. DIE. and he keeps choosing to make a problem for our cast. Full Metal Panic gets a Full Metal 6.5 our of 10 as I did have fun with it more than anticipated but I also had a lot more dull stretches than I’d want.

THE TATAMI GALAXY

The Tatami Galaxy is, hands down, one of my favorite anime and what I would consider one of the absolute pinnacle of the medium of anime as a whole and I mean no hyperbole at all in this statement. It is a transformative and surreal piece coming of age story that deals with ever present concerns that almost every person may have to come to terms with: where do I go and did I make the right choices to get here? It’s also a wickedly entertaining anime in that the animation exists to show the feelings of our characters so the model sheet is almost never used for anything outside of setting the animator’s coffee cup on and the very form of reality exists only as set dressing. Our nameless main character deemed Watashi (for sanity’s sake I suppose) is an actual every man that can easily be attached to especially by people who may be in college when they experience the show. He can be selfish but rarely seems to act with absolute malice and feels as if the world does exist to spite him in several regards. He has hopes and ambitions of a perfect college experience that are unattainable yet he still persists in that delusion which causes him boundless turmoil. He is so very flawed but hard not to inter pieces of ourselves in to some degree. The colorful cast that exist around him are so bonafide wacky and ludicrous from his goblin best frienemy Ozu to the eggplant headed Master bring colorful levity in every scene to this show and there is as much reverie in the show as there is abject dread. Some scenes are truly uncomfortable like watching Watashi’s senpai climb a wall of replica breasts to show his depravity (which I argue is purposeful and necessary as it displays the disgusting side of the character only to be juxtaposed against a softer side later on) or Watashi’s conversations with his libido which is personified as a crudely moving cowboy named Johnny. Everything in The Tatami Galaxy exists majestically even in discomfort and it’s an experience that only anime could achieve which delights me to no end. I always want anime that could only exist as anime and The Tatami Galaxy is the example I would use for what I want. It may be based off a novel but The Tatami Galaxy uniquely exists as an anime adaptation and is a classic among classics in my opinion. As soon as I finished my rewatch for our May-saaki Yuasa month, I wanted to rewatch it again. The Tatami Galaxy is anime perfection with an uncontested 10 out of 10 from me and would probably be my favorite anime if Steins;Gate didn’t exist. Maybe it’s pretentious and requires you to have your subtitled reading stats maxed out to enjoy but it’s the belle of my anime ball and nothing could strip it of that majesty.

WAGAMAMA HIGH SPEC

Imagine you had to sell your eroge so for your budget you collected all the 100 yen coins you could find on your walk to the poor anime studio who you had contractually forced to make your dung heap of a show. It would be a pretty bad show with only like 300 yen for what could be considered finances, right? Yeah, well, that must be what happened to Wagamama High Spec as it’s one of the most belligerently bad 3 minute long shows I’ve ever witnessed. It’s effective purpose is to somehow sell an eroge, or Japanese erotic visual novel, and the only thing it managed to sell me on is the concept of blindness. It’s a VERY generic plot: boy who writes manga joins all girl student council where the president or something is into drawing manga but WHOAOAOAOAOAH it turns out that she’s the artist for his manga!!! Hilarity ensues. Also his little sister is there and she wants, as is tradition, marry him and conceive a child that will have two noses and no wrists. Or at least I think that’s the plot because Wagamama is a gag show where the main character never shows up but the girls are there and that’s all that matters. It’s not like anyone cares about main characters in their “relief” material or whatever. To be frank with you, I don’t know why I watched this. The first anime kind of make me laughed and Crunchyroll’s algorithm recommended this show which I think may have been an insult actually. It was essentially like watching an episode of an anime since I skipped the OP and ED so it’s not like my time was wasted but that should inform you how poor of a quality this show was if only 20 minutes of it made me despise it. What got me all kind of rustled though was that there are post credit little gag bits, right? Harmless fluff for fluff’s sake or so you might think. Well, halfway through the show, those post credit gag bits just turn into an ad for an unrelated phone game. No joke. A character from said phone game joins the girls and they talk about the world of the phone game. This is why you need to give your studios more than a buck fifty or they’ll seek out someone who will pay them. This show made me laugh at its one stupid gag so that’s worth at least a 2.5 out of 10.

PING PONG THE ANIMATION

I went into this show thinking it was going to be way more than it turned out to actually be. That isn’t to say that Ping Pong isn’t anything but a masterfully crafted anime but it still didn’t hit me like I was led to believe it would. Ping Pong is another example of Masaaki Yuasa taking animation to the extremes as the visual storytelling on display is at its zenith. Characters stretch and expand to fit how the scene should feel (kind of like what I was saying with Tatami Galaxy) and everything on screen is as malleable as it needs to be to just show you how our protagonists are handling these games. It’s wonderful but it’s a shame the story doesn’t exactly fit the same mold. It’s not even a bad story but it’s honestly just another sports narrative that you’ve seen before: hero is great at sport, gets ass beat, gives up on sport, realizes they love sport, comes back reinvigorated and maybe they win or maybe they don’t at THE BIG TOURNAMENT but regardless we’re all better people now. It’s a yawn of a yarn but Ping Pong also has multiple different characters who all get tangled up in this generic plot to bring something new like Dragon, a man dedicated to Ping Pong, or the hero’s best friend Smile, who is coming to terms with his skill and who his best friend is becoming. Oh yeah, the hero is Peco. I don’t like Peco. You can like Peco. I don’t. The artistry of this tale told too many times is not lost on me; Yuasa is using the art of anime to really make a go for a unique experience. Anyone who has watched this show can confirm just how outstanding the animation is especially at the culmination of the final episode. It’s splendid but it never hooked me in like I really wanted it to towards the rush to the finale. At some point, I just became detached since the plot beats were inevitable and I stopped liking our characters as they dropped their unique aspects and became what they were always meant to be: stock characters who have a sole role to play. It’s a shame but it’s not all bad! The ending did hit with an awe-inspiring set piece where we learn something we all already knew: it’s about the sport and having fun, not winning. Also maybe the real ping pong were the friends we made along the way? It’s a resplendent show for sure but it didn’t hit the ball back as much as I would like in the sport of anime so 8.5 out of 10 for Ping Pong. It’s definitely an anime to watch if you love anime and should be on your 100 Anime List to Watch Before You Die though.

SOLO LEVELING: ARISE FROM THE SHADOW (SEASON TWO)

Here’s a summary of every fight in Solo Leveling season two for your reading pleasure:

(Jinwoo shows up to fight big bad and his army after something has INEVITABLY gone wrong.)

Jinwoo: Arise lol

(all of Jinwoo’s shadow army show up and fight the big bad’s army while Jinwoo fights said big bad in meaningless fights that are like watching two toddlers hit each other with foam swords)

Jinwoo: this fight is interesting (or whatever he says who even cares what his dialogue is, he has the same personality as a refrigerator crisper drawer)

Big Bad: Grrrrr I will kill you Korean man who speaks Japanese

(after a drawn out period with the kind of animation that would’ve been reserved for an anime film in any other year Jinwoo finally wins)

Jinwoo: I will add you to my shadow army, big bad, you can call me shadow daddy

Big Bad: I know you just killed me but I love you and want to do your bidding and am now the strongest person in your army to raise the stakes for the next fight because the creator doesn’t know how to power scale, commander

Jinwoo: cool I’ll just go ahead and aura farm now

Rinse and repeat four or five times and you’ve got Solo Leveling Season Two. It’s like Play-Doh; it’s fun to play with but don’t try to live off of it and eat it. I had fun while watching it but it’s a brain dead as I’ll be in ten years if I don’t stop drinking so much diet soda in a day. Whereas the first season had some legitimate, if hollow, growth to Jinwoo as a character, season two says “fuck it, we ball power fantasy to the max baybee” and so it goes full throttle. Yeah, Jinwoo cries at one point but it was such a shallow act that I didn’t even notice at first. Overall, I watched it just for the fights and nothing more. Jinwoo could’ve just sat around drinking coffee waiting for the fight to happen for all I cared and I probably would have been more interested in that. It’s the epitome of a 7 out of 10 from me: fun when I was watching it but I’ll probably forget it in a couple of months. I also think that season two is the only reason that Solo Leveling won the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards but who cares anymore?

ORB: ON THE MOVEMENTS OF THE EARTH

What should’ve easily been a contender of any rational anime award show, Orb: On the Movements of the Earth is a show that is hard to recommend on premise alone. It’s a historical piece about a group of essentially ragtag scholars, rogue priests, and young people trying to prove the heliocentric model of the planets as legitimate all while inquisitors of a corrupt church hunt them down. It sounds more like a piece of best selling historical literature rather than a wonderfully crafted anime available only on Netflix. Maybe that’s why the Crunchyroll Sham Awards couldn’t go to the botanist to find some flowers to give Orb? They had to get some for Delicious in Dungeon and they’re not going to admit that Netflix had two absolute bangers, you know? Orb is a phenomenal show that exceeded my every expectation from episode three onward with a multilayered plot that dove into some themes that could feel a little bit too “high brow” at times. Rest assured, however, that Orb never felt to me like it dove so much that it drowned trying to plunge into depths it couldn’t swim in. It was an anime musing on the rights of intellectualism and what it means to truly “have” knowledge but it was still very approachable almost as if it was a piece of prestige television reserved for a streaming service that cost 25 dollars for ad free content. Oh wait, Netflix is kind of reaching that point anyways, isn’t it? While Orb is critically devoid of the violence that ran rampant in Vinland Saga, I would honestly say they have more in common than any other show that comes to the top of my head. It’s not just the historical fiction of the matter but certain features of the plot that I just can’t spoil as to allow you to savor the joys of Orb if you choose to watch it which I really hope you will, dear blog reader. I’ve shouted its praises from the rooftops after finishing the final episode and I’ll continue to scream into the abyss at the risk of my own lungs perishing: Orb is a mandatory anime of 2024. It shows that anime is a universal story telling medium where no tale or topic is off limits and it brilliantly uses the animation to craft scenes of hopeless despair as well as unbound determination in the face of said despair. It’s an outstanding watch that I’d recommend to even my non-anime enjoying friends. I mean, it’s just one guy so it’s not too hard but the point remains. Orb is an exemplary anime that gave me legitimate feelings of hope and fear and would recommend it endlessly with a 9.5 out of 10.

KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF EIZOUKEN

Can Masaaki Yuasa do no wrong? Absolutely not as Japan Sinks 2020 still blemishes his record like how I stain my t-shirts with coffee (I cannot drink liquids like an adult) but we can forgive even if we can’t forget. I’ve not seen Inu-Oh so I’m going to make BOLD declarations and say that Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken was probably his last good work but by good what a work it was. Coming out in the miserable year of 2020, Eizouken was a blinding light of joy when I first watched it that year and it remained another “I’ve got to rewatch that show again!” star on my horizon. Taking place in a gorgeous town partial submerged underwater, main character Asakasa and her Tsubame and Kanamori (my beloved) form the film club Eizouken in an attempt to achieve Asakasa’s dream of creating new worlds in the form of anime. This is a show powered by the fuel of imagination and tries to make no illusion about what trying to put realism of anime production on display. This is not Shirobako by any means but that’s okay because it doesn’t have to be nor should it be. Eizouken is a tale about the strength of imagination and the joy of animation and how it impacts others and it spreads its time in great reverie on the subject. Asakasa effectively transports those around her into her world of imagination and it’s just as grand for the viewer to travel with her in these ventures. Yuasa has created vivid surrounding in the real world as well as Asakasa’s imagination that flex his talent for details as we witness a world just begging for exploration be it real or imaginary. I love this show and I hunger for more of it and this rewatch only instilled the craving once again. This is a show for anime fans and people who just love living with a spirit of imagination from people who are of the very same delightful ilk. The ending doesn’t hit as well as I would want but this is still another essential watch in my opinion so 9 out of 10 for sure.

VANDREAD

What is one of the worst feelings you can feel? Is it stubbing your toe? Is it being throttled in your genital area? Could it possibly even be heartache he said with a melancholy sigh? No, I think it’s that emotional disconnect of not really liking something your friend recommended for you. Enter Vandread, a mecha from the year 2000 that explores the concept of what if women were from Venus and men were actually from different planets and were kind of at war with each other? It’s a hugely 2000s concept for an anime and it was the winner of my podcast’s latest Patreon Review Raffle where we review the anime that wins a wheel spin. This time the winner was a Vandread which was recommended to us by a very delightful patron who has been nothing but kind and friendly to me and it breaks my heart that I just couldn’t get into this show like I wanted to. Don’t get me wrong: I did myself a disservice going on because the premise itself did not illicit excitement. I presumed this would be a harem show with gratuitous fan service inflicted upon one unsuspecting male who would want nothing of the sort. In Vandread’s defense, it is not that. Hibiki, the main character, is abducted alongside two other men who are mildly indifferent to their circumstances due in part to their in universe fears of women. The women also have no interest in the men and it become a story about people learning to grow and accept each other and overcome their cultural programming. Also there are some PS2 looking mecha that fight and these mecha fuse every now and then in ways that aren’t uninteresting but don’t really have a unique twist to make them stand out barring one select fusion. Vandread, as a whole, does so much to put select interesting spins on the genre and subvert expectations but it never managed to hook me in and keep me going into the next episode willingly. The characters do ooze that 2000s vibe which is fun to see but there’s not much else I can really wholly praise. It’s an average show and I hate that this first season never wowed me because I think our patron really did pick a show we might like. The second season (which I’ll cover next month because it didn’t make the cut) has far more features that gripped me but they still failed short of being something special. I’m still thankful this patron allowed us to see something fresh to us but this first season flopped bad for me. It’s still probably the second best show we’ve covered for our Review Raffle though so they can hold their head up high in the aspect. Vandread is a middling and vehemently underwhelming show that has fleeting lights of fun every now and then but it’s really so 5 out of 10 that it breaks my heart to say.

It’s another month down! I watched a lot more anime this month than I had expected (especially since technically there are two additional anime that SHOULD be on this entry) and I found myself seeking out anime more than I had in a while which was nice! I’ve been finding myself sneaking in more episodes during my free time just because watching anime is the only thing I want to do. Even as I type this, I’m excited for my next binge session tonight where I’m going to catch up on a few seasonals that have their hooks in me. I hope you all also had a pleasant Ani-May and will share what you watched below as well! I’d love to read it! Huge thanks if you read all of this too! WordPress claims it’s a twenty minute read and that’s simply scary to me. I didn’t think my magnum opus would be a blog post.

If you want more of my shameless anime takes then go listen to my podcast, the Anime Brothers Podcast (episodes 201 and beyond), and give us a review if you enjoy it! Thank you all for reading this! See you soon!