Rejoice comrades, february's thread is here
Manga
I returned and picked up Ah! My Goddess and Oresama Teacher again. They're both still fun manga. I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class made a positive first impression on me; as far as kinda generic romcoms can be. Unique in that regard was the manhwa Skill of Lure, which does have a really eyebrow-raising premise, and was somehow shockingly well written (and short) for what it was. Less r/incel and more r/relationshipadvice kind of stuff, I suppose. It not being in the dreaded long strip format made it easier to read.
Anime
I finished Season 1 of Full Metal Panic! (2002) and it's fun in how it merges end of history era brainwormed action movie tropes and a romantic comedy with the most unhinged male and arguably female leads in anime (Chidori Kaname is a total girlboss). A ...which leads into Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu (2003), a slice of life spinoff set between S1 and S2 and animated by KyoAni, which two episodes in is already one of the funniest anime I have seen. How did this show fade into relative obscurity?
Speaking of hilarity, Cautious Hero (2019) is an isekai so similar in spirit to Konosuba that it feels like a spin-off of that show. I did not go in expecting actual quality, but the show does have it. Ristarte does have some great facial expressions in the show. I have not finished it yet.
Instead of sharing the comedic aspects of FMP (well... usually), New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (1995) shares an oddly similar main character. The show is better and less so-bad-it's-good as the initial impression left on me, even if it does heavily borrow from the entire UC Gundam universe to the point of feeling a bit like a recap of 0079 to CCA. Definitely worth checking out, even if imo not as good as either G Gundam or After War X Gundam. B+
The Apothecary Diaries S2 (2025) Maoism is back, and is the same quality it was in Season 1. Hell yeah, A
Midnight Eye: Goku (1989) is not about Son Goku, but a 60 minute cyberpunk OVA. For what it was, pretty good, even if it had some B movie qualities. B
From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad's Been Reincarnated! (2025) is fun, and, even though it has a neat twist, fairly generic. For what it is, it's decent. B
directly related Games
Super Robot W is one of the best written games in the franchise I have played so far, but much like other games in the series, the further you go into the game, the longer the missions get. Beyond an exciting boss fight, the difficulty is medium to easy. A
i was missing this thread. glad is finally here. this season i'm mostly watching sequels so i don't have yet many things to write about. i also have been revisiting some old shows from my childhood to see how well they hold up (coincidentally, fmp is on the list for next revisits). this time i have a wall of text
Dragon Ball GT (1996)
After weeks of screaming "this plot idea was also on gt!!" while watching daima, i decided to go back and see how well had gt aged and if how much of my love for it was just nostalgia.
to my own surprise, i enjoyed most of it a lot. while the series had common problems found on 90s children anime, it actually did very interesting things. having a "20 years later" type of story was a very good idea since it lets you see a clear difference in the characters while keeping all of them familiar. new characters are interesting enough to keep the overal story entertaining. the big bad villain from the first half is simply great and probably one of my favourites from the whole db franchise. the last arc is great and thematically conected to the whole story, with the ending making me cry even if i already knew what was going to happen.
sadly, the show has quite some problems. many ideas were great but were not executed well. the second half screams production issues by how inconsistent it is and the ending, even if i loved it, was draged out and many events appear out of nowhere. it also has one of the worst sagas in the whole franchise (super 17) that is not only inconsecuential but it's many recycled ideas without any proper plot. pan was a great character and it was on the spotlight for most of the show (excluding the big fights) but at the very end she was delegated to a background character and didn't even had a last scene like other characters that barely appeared.
even with all of that, i still believe is a very strong db show and an amazing sequel to z. it tries to keep the core of the franchise while trying new things to keep it fresh. it's full of callbacks and homages without making them pure nostalgia. i didn't expect to hold up but it actually did
The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World (2025)
this one is actually a bad one. it's very close to a generic comedy isekai. it falls in common tropes and characters are quite simplistic. but for a fan of tokusatsu, the jokes about its exagerated nature in a somehow serious world are incredibly funny. they are starting to get repetitive and the plot itself is almost non-existant but it has been enjoyable until now. i'm not sure if i will get through until the end.