It’s a good time to be a fan of long running anime. Attack on Titan is approaching its climax, Demon Slayer’s latest animation in the fight with the Upper Six demon has been gorgeous to look at, One Piece continues to keep going after all these years and 1000 episodes, and Boruto is still an anime that exists. Now if you’re a seasonal anime watcher? Damn this season is pretty barren I’m afraid. Still, I managed to scrounge through the dirt and pick up some series to watch. Without further ado, here’s what I’ve checked out so far.

Platinum End Second Half

Oh hey. It’s the Platinum End section of the article. It’s still shit. Now a major antagonist is gone so it’s even shittier. Not recommended in the slightest due to a lack of interesting characters and rules being added out of nowhere in a mind-game format show. Moving on.

Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru

I had high expectations for this one based on the amount of people hyping it up, but so far it’s honestly just another romcom. Don’t get me wrong I’ve begun to enjoy my time with it each week as my expectations have calmed down. However, that’s because I’ve accepted it for being a fun little ride instead of an absolutely amazing slice of life like Horimiya. This is so far another story about a shy, unconfident guy learning to be himself through the help of ThE moST POpUlaR GiRl IN schOOL that we’ve seen in anime twenty times over. That being said, the animation is really beautiful and I do enjoy the main girl's character, even if she is the most obvious weeb bait creation ever written. Overall if you enjoy romance with some ecchi content go ahead and hit this up, but if you're looking for something meaningful skip this one. Again, these are first impressions after three episodes so perhaps some big brain shit will develop in the future but for right now big brain happenings are nowhere on the radar. Also if you see me refer to this show in the future, I'll probably be calling it "Doll Boy" for simplicity. 

TRIBE NINE

Okay hear me out. This show is fucking devoid of logic. I know. I’m with you. But it’s the good kind of stupidity. It’s like how Yu-Gi-Oh! turned playing children’s card games into a death sport with people being sent to the shadow realm. Well, this is that but with baseball. Essentially, nine baseball teams fight for control over the city except in Extreme Baseball, a little death is nothing out of the ordinary. It’s silly and the characters are very archetype-based, but it IS hype as fuck. The soundtrack is bumping, and after three episodes you learn that this shit ain’t always a game. I honestly have no idea where the series is headed after the first three installments but I’m excited to find out. If you want something to get you excited I might consider picking this one up, but just know that you probably won't learn anything that layered or be amazed at the complexity of the plot. That being said, dumb fun is still fun.

Tokyo 24th Ward

This show continues to have bad reviews poor in, and I just don’t fucking understand it. Right now this is easily both my and Kinky’s anime of the season (disregarding the recurring anime). Essentially three boys with different backgrounds and outlooks on life who are kind of friends yet fight often due to their fundamental disagreements are shown visions of the future. These futures are trolley dilemmas, where bad shit happens no matter which choice they make. Thus, the three boys have to work together to decide what the best outcome is, or dare to try and make their own outcome. Where the fuck else are you finding a premise like that? On top of this, the show sports a large cast and I’m enjoying every single character so far. With a cast this large, it means that many people are “eligible for death” and yet I find myself not wanting anyone to die, even the less important cast members. Furthermore, we’re setting up an interesting world that’s sort of pre-Psycho Pass. Crime predicting technology is just starting to get implemented and there’s push back and support, both among the general public and the main cast which acts as another division. Overall I don’t know what’s not to like. The OST has a couple of bumpin’ tracks, the characters are DIFFERENT from each other and not afraid to argue in order to find the optimal solution, the stakes are high, there’s a ton of unnecessary animation (in a good way, think characters moving when they don’t have to to add life to the shot), and the transitions from scene to scene are often godlike. And yet, this show is currently sitting well below Doll Boy which while entertaining, has done nothing unique so far. I simply don’t get it. Maybe my impressions are shit and you shouldn’t bother reading these. Anyway, if you can only pick up one anime this season to try out, here ya go. This is the certified Doujins.com pick.

Koroshi Ai

What do I even put here man. How can I write about my impressions of the show, when the show doesn’t even know what impressions it wants to send out. Is it a romance? No. A mystery? No. Action? I mean there’s action in it, but I wouldn’t put that as a tag on this anime so far. What the fuck is this? The plot on paper is that a girl with a bounty hunter agency meets an assassin. They end up working the same case and the assassin boy forces the bounty hunter girl to give him her contact info. They then keep in touch while working on further bounties/assassinations. It sounds fucking awesome. In practice, I don’t really feel anything watching this show. It’s just… empty. I’m struggling to even write this paragraph. If the premise sounds captivating to you then try it out, as for me I’m afraid I may be dropping this one shortly. It’s not bad…but it’s lacking too many elements for me to keep sticking it out every week unless some major developments hurry up and occur.

Overall, damn there was a lot of shit this season. Maybe everything has low scores because us anime fans got tired of the torture. As always I couldn’t make time to check out everything so if you found a secret banger I didn’t mention that left you with some positive impressions, be sure to spread the word. Or negative impressions too I suppose. Either can be helpful. What are you watching this season? Are you enjoying something I didn’t cover? What’s your favorite anime so far in the bunch? Bundle up, toss a scarf on, and say hello to Winter Anime 2022 in the comments below!