It’s that time again ladies and gentlemen. Everything ends, and so another season of anime has left us. This will be an important season in history with the first WebToon, so it’s cool to live through it I suppose. Though COVID has made me a bit skeptical about being alive during major historical events. Regardless, let’s get right into some of these anime. Of course I’m just one man so if you don’t see your favorite anime on the list, it probably simply means I didn’t watch it.

Tower of God

May as well start off with the big one eh? I’ll be honest going into this I was a bit worried about the whole WebToon thing, but everyone and their mother kept saying it was going to be an absolute banger. With the first season now wrapped up, I must say I agree (for the most part). I think this was an excellent start for the series overall. I’m invested in a lot of the characters and want to see what will happen next. However, god damn there were a lot of moments in this season that needed more time. Some characters’ backstories were rushed, but more so the problem was that often the rules of the tests were often very quickly skimmed over. In case you haven't watched it, Tower of God is a series all about games and tests, and when you don’t fully understand the rules or consequences of the test, it’s a bit hard to keep track. In the middle of the season a bunch of characters kept saying “Yeah, but if we win then this person will fail!” and shit like “But I don’t have any points!!!” which left a lot of people confused as the reasoning behind those statements wasn’t made very clear in the anime. By watching some explanations on YouTube where people discuss and explain cut content, I was finally able to understand some parts that had left me wondering. My only hope is that they continue the series, but don’t feel so pressured to rush past so many details so that the people who haven’t read the WebToon (which I assume is almost everyone) can keep up.

Love is War Season 2

This shit is always great. Do I really need to say anything? The addition of the new character helped to spice up the joke possibilities a bit while still keeping the good vibe that the main four original cast had. The season also spent some time on some serious moments with her and Ishigami that made me care for them even more. If you like comedies and haven’t watched this yet, you may as well stop reading this article and get to it.

Sing Yesterday For Me

God dammit dude, did all drama anime become shit after March Comes In Like a Lion? That shit came out and then everyone else said “damn, so that’s what good stuff is. That looks hard, fuck this stuff”. Most slice of life anime these days are always the same fucking thing. There’s some guy, he likes a girl, but there’s another girl so he’s not really sure if he likes the main girl. Then blah blah blah shit happens and he ends up with the main girl anyway. Now the problem here is the manga is older, so maybe this story format wasn’t so big back then and it was revolutionary at the time. But what I really think is they must have shoved too much shit into too small a time frame. Characters in this show just do shit and you hear about it later. The main character SWITCHES HIS JOB offscreen. You might be thinking “But Snooze, that’s not really that huge” but listen in a slice of life anime, more often than not that’s about the biggest shit you’re gonna get in terms of things happening. Plus, a big selling point of this anime from the description is it’s supposed to be about a guy who doesn’t know what to do with his life. And he figures it out OFFSCREEN!?! This shit was a raging disappointment. Judging from the ratings I’m guessing this was a classic case of “just read the manga”.

Kakushigoto

Now this was the dark horse of the season. The comedy landed. The characters had redeeming moments and qualities. There were some educational moments about manga artists. The ending got a little close to a copout, but it made a point well enough that I’ll forgive it. Kinky and I picked this anime up expecting very little, but shit we got a lot. This ended up in our top three anime lists for this season. I don’t think it’s good enough that you HAVE to go back and watch it if you missed it, but if you’re on the hunt for comedies I definitely recommend it.

Wave, Listen To Me!

Now this was the dead horse of the season. The comedy rarely landed. The characters were one dimensional and never got any development until they attempted to cram it all in at the last minute. I learned nothing about radio or how it works really. I can’t express enough how bored I was watching this anime. The only reason I finished it was to be able to complain to Kinky about how much I didn’t like it. There’s no real plot, conflict, message, goal, fucking anything. If anybody out there did enjoy it, please let me know what I’m missing and how it’s actually a deep commentary on the dangers of clinging to old technology in a developing world for a business or something but I didn’t get it because I’m not Japanese.

Tamayomi

It was bad, but I learned about baseball I guess.

BNA

Man, why does it feel like Trigger just wants to animate. After Darling In The Franxx, it was clear that Trigger just loves to see shit blow up and pop off with a cool soundtrack. BNA feels like a similar situation. It’s a very slow-paced anime with the main plot not getting a lot of attention until the latter half of the season, and really by then I had figured out that I wasn’t very interested in the characters. They seemed pretty archetypal. I love my action as much as the next guy, but while the action is fun to watch and colorful, it’s not like the choreography is so amazing that I say “FUCK WRITING, MORE FIGHTING” with a show like RWBY. Things definitely pick up toward the end, and overall I left thinking the anime wasn’t amazing, but certainly not bad either.

As always, this is just my opinion so feel free to disagree. Perhaps you noticed or put together some things while watching these anime that I missed. Or perhaps you watched Yesterday and wanted to cut your wrists too as it would have been a better use of your time. What are your thoughts on these anime? Did you watch anything not listed here? Say your goodbyes in the comments below!