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

After reflecting and rereading my June Anime Recap, I have come up with a solution for the sake of a more readable blog post: split it into two! That way I can enjoy more time typing up what has made me happy about the anime I’ve seen each month and I’m also not exhausting you with a 5000 word essay. A masterful move if I do say so myself.

APOCALYPSE HOTEL
( 8.5 / 10 )

It’s been a minute since I’ve gotten fully invested in a season of anime and I forget about the simple delights that happen when you give an anime a chance just because of word of mouth. Apocalypse Hotel is a show I would’ve easily overlooked just on premise and the associated hype surrounding it but online friends and anime onlookers quickly gave me reason to expect that Apocalypse Hotel was more than just a throwaway anime original. Apocalypse Hotel blends the melancholy of a post apocalyptic world that has been mired with overgrowth by a planet long since void of humanity with a heartfelt comedy and slice of life that wouldn’t be uncommonly played straight by another show. You could have easily had a story about robots persisting in their final tasks (in this case running and managing a hotel) that dwelt on the futility of persisting when they’ll inevitably fall to pieces and called it a day but Apocalypse Hotel is not a cynic of a show. Apocalypse Hotel likes ice cream, hamburgers, and pizza and will GLADLY blend them all together to make a (respectfully speaking) bastardization of nutrition and it said “oh yeah aliens too” with the kind of gusto that is almost childlike in nature.

Apocalypse Hotel has ridiculous sci-fi elements (there is even a mech fight with a motorcycling yankee robot) with aliens, melancholic musings on life, and a comedy on growing up with your found family all in one tight twelve episode package. It works because the main character Yachiyo is malleable and fits into any situation as she can be as big of a straight woman as she needs to be but also serves the ridiculous elements by being an automaton herself. It also doesn’t hurt that she and her main staff are almost ageless and decades can pass showing reasonable growth in a few scenes so the anime is never stagnant in any way. A lesser anime of 24 to 26 episodes would flounder to interest me to its cast the way Apocalypse Hotel has and an even lesser anime of 12 to 13 episodes would make the entire process feel rushed with the morel limited episode count. That is to say that Apocalypse Hotel is delightfully paced with wonderful characters who will hook you in unexpected ways which surprised me especially when the most ludicrous of plot points happens towards the end. All in all, Apocalypse Hotel is a shining gem of the Spring 2025 season and deserves a watch if you’re on the look out for the new and exciting experiences that only anime can provide.

UMA MUSUME CINDERELLA GRAY
( 8 / 10 )

I hate watching anime on Amazon Prime. It just feels like a unpardonable sin for some reason. Maybe it’s because I won’t forgive or forget Amazon’s crappy attempt at exploiting anime fans with their Anime Strike service (you had to not only have Amazon Prime for Video but also you had to pay for Anime Strike to get select anime to stream, eat horse manure Bezos) but I prefer just not to do it of my own will. Imagine how enticing an anime has to be for me to do so! Uma Musume Cinderella Gray is the anime adaptation of a manga adaptation of the now very popular to the western world franchise Uma Musume. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a continuation of the three seasons and movie that have already game out and perfectly stands alone without any experience with those. Hell, it functions properly enough that it exists without needing to really be that far gone into Uma Musume. There are horse girls. They race. This is the critical lore you need to know and will be told before the end of episode one. You do not need to know how a horse girl is spawned. You do not need to know a horse girl breaks her leg then does that mean they put her down. You don’t even need to know that all the girls are based off real horses but it’s a really fun detail so why shouldn’t you know that?

Let me get to the point. Cinderella Gray has some god tier animation for no reason except to draw you into these races. The anime doesn’t lean too hard on some of the more loathsome sports anime tropes where our characters talk over half the episode discussing how each event is going out. It also doesn’t overindulge in our characters thinking about the event all too much either. The races are straightforward and brisk with very rewarding payoffs immediately. It’s unfortunate that the formula for the races, in a narrative sense, become very repetitive but I suspect that is the intention for the sake of the finale and the development of our protagonist Oguri Cap who is the stand out of the show. Oguri Cap defines herself with an almost shonen protagonist style personality as her only two joys are running and eating which she does in extreme, and often hilarious, measure. Her supporting cast of friends and rivals don’t really serve to do much but give Oguri more of her star power barring one rival towards the end who proves to be almost, if not more sympathetic, than Oguri herself. This caused the final two episodes of Cinderella Gray to be the standouts as the intensity reached to such a pitch that I almost had a small anxiety attack in anticipation. I get really into these kinds of anime as you can infer. The unfortunate downside is the formula that Cinderella Gray almost constantly employs up to that point as I almost dropped early especially when a very annoying “this is an anime with anime characters who have anime feelings” plot point occurred. I’m trying to refrain from spoilers but let’s just say that Jo did not have propel himself to the top of my favorite characters of Cinderella Gray list at all.

Still, I enjoyed my time with Cinderella Gray even as it exhausted me. It was a fun yet sometimes weighty watch that was rewarding as a newfound fan of the franchise. I don’t know what quality the other Uma Musume adaptations have but this one is definitely something that fans can’t say NEIGH to. I know I already did this same joke in the horse girl blog post.

THE SHIUNJI FAMILY CHILDREN
( 4 / 10 )

From the mastermind who brought you The Annoying Harem Anime That Spins Its Wheels Too Damn Much comes another annoying harem anime that will probably spin its wheels too damn much. I’m, of course, referring to Rent-a-Girlfriend by Reiji Miyajima which The Shiunji Family Children can shamefully call their father. It’s a harem anime except is a harem anime with a twist unfound in anime: all the prospective love interests are actually the main character Arata’s siblings! Nuance will never be dead and buried as long as Miyajima-sensei has the will to write manga, huh? They’re not really his siblings as the author can’t commit to the bit all the way so the anime immediately backpedals and reveals the plot twist that none of the siblings (except two of them weirdly enough) are related. They all have different color hair and face types and this presented as a huge shocker. Only in our beloved anime, folks. This story beat was actually exciting to me on my watch though! They’re familiar with each other as family and now they’re legally and morally allowed to go at it like rabid lupines! The plot can only thicken! The plot doesn’t thicken so much as it clumps because this only carries so far as all the girls immediately decide that they are in love with their brother and make small attempts to get with him. Arata, with a real sexy voice in the Japanese audio, refutes them because they are siblings and he will not desecrate family like this! Our Arata is a stand up guy.

An interesting plot is thus wasted as we quickly descend into harem anime tropes we’ve all seen before. One girl openly pines for him, one girl quietly respects and longs for him, and another is confused by her mixed up feelings oh why oh why does senpai make her heart go doki doki oh why!?!?!?!? The Shiunji Family Children brings nothing new to the table except a new bountiful harvest of anime girls to purchase goods for. It has a few laughs within its twelve episodes but nothing worth watching when you can find something that is consistently funny and has a story worth telling. It feels almost as if you could set your clock to how the story will flow for this anime as each girl (except one) gets their time with Arata and it’s just like you’re doing algebra in high school all over again because this stuff is formulaic. If you’re the kind of person who needs to cultivate a crop of waifu for yourself then The Shiunji Family Children might have something for you. For everyone else, this is not the harem to reformat your thinking on the genre. I only wound up watching this because of my buddy Grenth who I did a show swap with. Sorry, friendo.

LOOK BACK
( 7.5 / 10 )

Tatsuki Fujimoto’s work is like cheesecake to me. I don’t particularly like cheesecake and I don’t seek it out yet cheesecake is constantly thrust upon me with expectation that “this is the cheesecake to change your mind”. Chainsaw Man, the manga, is the Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory of his works because it’s the only one I really really REALLY enjoyed but I don’t even want it all that much even then. Look Back, that is to say, is more cheesecake to me. It is a somber story about the friendship between two artists that, on deep inspection, seems to have something that it wants to say between all the piano music montages. The thing is, that statement (when boiled down to it all) is the utterly vapid and hackneyed sentimentality that we can’t change things and have to just revel in what we’ve got at the end of it all. It’s really not that deep nor is it poignant but Look Back goes to extreme lengths to manipulate you into diving deep in a kiddie pool that cannot support you. The montage at the end ended up taking me more out of the experience than anything else as the music swells to a sweeping finale while a pretty mediocre slideshow of Fujimoto styled art presented itself to me. I can’t hate on him too much because it’s not like I have any artistic talent in me but is his art really that bad in the original product? Some of the hands were so off putting that I wouldn’t screamed “IT’S AI ART!” if I didn’t know any better.

I’m being kind of dour but maybe it’s because I found Look Back’s emotional twists and turns a little unrewarding. The story is about two friends who grow together as artists but eventually strife ensues that changes the direction of their lives. There’s a bountiful amount of symbolism to dissect and pour over in detail but these brilliant pieces are but ash in the hands of this film as they all become window dressing for a shallow plot thread that only becomes deep when you’re standing in it and watching the film. I get that Look Back is effectively art and that art does not need a plot, per se, to illicit an emotional resonance with a viewer. Look Back lingers on scenes, landscapes, and slow shots to simulate that it is orchestrating grand moments of intense emotional impact but it unusually missed for me more often than not. That isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate what Look Back was putting on as a performance. I recognize the talent behind the film but, as a viewer, I immediately felt disconnected when I had space from it. In the throws of watching the film, I was distraught and left with agony as I felt the woe of our protagonists. When I woke up the next day, Look Back was like a thief in the night in that nothing was left around me and Look Back was gone. Is this a Matt issue? Could be. It could also be that Look Back is sincerely just an emotional roller coaster: it’s only thrilling while I was on it. It’s probably a phenomenal film for some but it sure wasn’t for me.

That’s another (half) month down! I hope you all enjoyed this blog post! Tell me what you’ve been watching below so far this month by commenting! I’d love to hear from you! If you want more of me then be sure to listen too the Anime Brothers Podcast on your preferred podcast platform where my friends and I scream into the anime void on the regular!

I’ll see you all soon! Take care!