One thing that I liked about this first episode is that it spent basically zero time setting up the premise. It was self-aware enough to know that viewers of this show are likely to already be familiar with the trappings and conventions of the otome isekai genre already. The game that this world is based on is as generic and prototypical as you can get. Additionally, we spent absolutely zero time talking about the MC’s previous life other than that she played this game and liked the Villainess. Sorry all you truck-kun lovers out there.

This first episode is a bit of a speedrun of the origin story behind our young Villainess. She studies a lot, practices good manners, gets crazy strong for an eight year old, and has a hell of a sweet tooth. I thought it was funny how she viewed things as a Villainess test, like when the king was asking her questions:

Speaking of, her plan of inciting a revolution for independence in a neighboring region so that her Kingdom can profit is a very Villainess-y move for sure. No saintess is going to advocate for stoking the fires of war, leave that kind of thing to the Villainess.

I am going to try to give this a couple more episodes time permitting, and I look forward to skipping ahead in time a bit to see how the school life goes, as that is usually the setting for the otome games. I suspect that these roses are going to be important. Our MC keeps getting portrayed alongside a black rose in the OP and ED (and her mom was carrying it in the beginning of the episode). So, I suspect that the MC is also a special rose person alongside this golden rose protagonist. We’ll see how it all plays out. @rikka@ani.social

You chose two fantastic shows to catch up on. LycoReco really surprised me. I didn’t really have many expectations going in, but I ended up really, really liking it. I cannot wait to see what the LycoReco Cafe is cooking up next. I too want to see what is going on with the LIlyBell group.

As for Oshi no Ko, I couldn’t control myself and binged the manga after the first season. Now I have to wait in pain for each new chapter to come out. I feel like this season in particular has really taken the adaptation to a whole new level.

This is just for anime. The !manga@ani.social community is entirely user-created posts.

I often have to make figures that end up in regulatory filings submitted to the FDA and EMA for work. So, I am a big fan of sticking to conventions when it comes to these kinds of things. Straying often just means that the agencies ask questions that get you the wrong kind of noticed by everybody else on the team.

I manually enable any shows that people mention wanting to check out in the general discussion thread previewing the upcoming season. Fall’s thread can be found here.

You can always check to see if the bot has a show enabled on this wiki page (in the top section of enabled shows), which is automatically kept up to date. If you would like a show to be marked enabled that has yet to have an episode air, then you can always reach out to me as well.

I plan on letting this post stay pinned for at least a couple days as the season gets going. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here. I do just want to draw people’s attention to the flow chart I made for this post as it took me way longer to make than I thought it would.

I don’t have too much to write about this week that I didn’t include in the meta post above. I have been absolutely slammed with work, but I managed to catch up on a bit of backlog and watch the finales for a couple shows:

• Dahlia in Bloom - This show ended up pretty disappointing after it is all said and done. I think there is a good story here, but the anime was just executed really poorly and paced very slowly.
• Quality Assurance in Another World - Blitzed through my backlog on this show and enjoyed it, but the ending was…different. Is it ok to end a season on a cliffhanger with questionable prospects for a season 2? In any case, Nikola is absolutely the highlight of the show for me.
• Dungeon People - Had a great time with this show and sad to see it go. Nothing special, just good vibes all around.
• Love is Indivisible By Twins - After the season finale, things are just as messy as they have always been. I think this show has figured out how to make a perpetual drama device.
• My Deer Friend Nokotan - Overall, I enjoyed this show, though I understand why many found it disappointing. I think, to a large degree, it was a victim of its own making. The trailer, marketing campaign, and OP for this show were so well done that it set expectations that the bulk of the show just couldn’t live up to. I think it is an example of when viral marketing can backfire because the main product doesn’t live up to the hype cycle.
• Oshi no Ko - Still one more episode to go for this, but episode 12 was another fantastic episode for this season. This show killed it this season.

I am going to try to catch up on Spice and Wolf while I wait for Fall shows to kick off, though I am not sure how far I will be able to get due to time constraints.

Just as a side meta comment, during this past week I haven’t been able to be as responsive to comments/posts as I have in the past. I think it is a good sign that there is enough activity in this community as well as !manga@ani.social that my inbox can look like this after just a couple days:

Keep it up everybody and I apologize if you feel like I have ignored you. I just haven’t had the time recently.

Season 2 kicks off with everybody’s favorite thing in anime…a meeting! As somebody that has read the manga through what is likely to be covered this season, I like how Couran is depicted here. When he was first described in the manga, it made him sound like some kind of blundering buffoon, like a dim musclehead type of character. However, once you actually meet him, he is kind of a bro, and is more than willing to listen to the smart people around him. I always thought it was weird how the manga spent time trash talking him through rumors before we meet him and then it never becomes a plot point again. So, I am glad we just jumped straight to the meeting and seeing Couran in action.

The ultimate outcome of this meeting is that we are going to “negotiate” with a neighboring territory and win their assistance through some well placed bribes. Who better to entrust this high stakes operation to than a literal child? Also, I love Lycia, but I do find it funny that we are relying on her negotiation abilities, but she is completely outdone by Ars this episode. Let’s take a look at Lycia’s initial proposal to Ars:

But then Ars counters:

She could have opened negotiations with him with a much more ambitious starting position! Come on Lycia, the future of Ars depends on your negotiation skill!

In any case, it is nice to see this show kicking off again. @rikka@ani.social

Frieren season 2 was expected. Wistoria’s announcement makes sense because it just finished airing. It is these random announcements that allow me to hold out hope for some of my favorite series of the past that never got another season.

I was never in any doubt that there would be a season 2. I guess if you aren’t going to announce right away, the next best time would be the 1-year anniversary. Excellent news that it is going to stick with Madhouse. I hope that they are able to bring in a lot of the talent that made the first season what it is.

I had noticed Ruby, but thought the other reflection was of Gorou, but it makes more sense that it is Aqua. What a great adaptation this has been…

Yeah, other than Oshi no Ko, this is probably my favorite of the season.

Just wrapped up this show after binging the last couple episodes and thought it deserved a post for the finale.

I am frankly shocked at how this series ended. Not because there was some big twist or reveal, but that it ended literally in the middle of a boss fight. I can’t think of any other show that has ended its run this way. It is immensely frustrating. I doubt this will be getting a season 2, which just adds to the frustration with the way it ended. Like…seriously?

Nikola remains very cute though and was the highlight of the show for me… @rikka@ani.social

Well, the finale was nothing flashy, just more fun bopping around the dungeon with Clay and Belle as they explore food and eating in the dungeon (fitting since Clay’s VA also voices Marcille from Delicious in Dungeon). I kind of doubt this show will ever get a season 2, but if it does, I will be there. I ended up enjoying this way more than I thought I would. I would love if we got more info about Clay’s father and/or Belle’s predecessor. @rikka@ani.social

Yeah, this is pretty much what you might expect. They don’t really reinvent the wheel with this series. I have read most of the manga and this matches up with my recollection (I am 200+ chapters in, so it’s been a while since chapter 1). The keen-eyed among you might have gotten a hint of the kind of story it would be in the very beginning of the episode since he is reading Arifureta Vol. 1 when he is at his desk:

I probably won’t stick with this show for the whole season, but had time to check out this first episode to see how the adaptation went. Overall, it was nothing special, but not horrible either. Pretty much what we would expect from a show like this one. @rikka@ani.social

They are almost definitely adapting the manga. I haven’t read the novel, but having read most of the manga and watching the first episode, they match up pretty closely and I don’t remember anything like you describe in the manga. It is a pretty safe, by-the-books isekai.

My personal favorites of hers are the Lycoris Recoil ED and the My Hero Academia ED. My favorite of her non-anime work is Anonymous.

You might want to check out last week’s general discussion thread that was the Fall preview thread. Lots of good answers there! I am most looking forward to Dan Da Dan and Orb: On the Movements of the Earth.

You’re right. When I initially wrote this up, I didn’t yet see it pop up in HiDive for me, so I figured it must be similar to Nokotan from last season. Instead, it seems like it was only delayed a short time instead of a week like I had initially thought. I will edit the comment.

Meta Discussion

Ignore below, this show will be handled just like any other. There was a brief period where I thought the global release was delayed for up to a week. Carry on!

You might be wondering why this post exists when you can’t find it available to stream anywhere yet. Well, it goes live on certain streaming services (in Japan only I believe) a week prior to being released globally. In past seasons, what this means is that posts created by the bot on the streaming release timeline are likely to lay fallow for several days (until fansubs go live) prior to anybody in this community being able to watch and comment.

So, going forward, I am going to mark this show as disabled in the bot’s database. This means that posts will not be automatically created. Instead, the posts can be requested by users by private messaging the bot. This is what was done last season for the early episodes of Nokotan until the episode discussion threads were taken over by !nokotan@ani.social.

If you have any questions or issues, feel free to reach out to me or make a reply to this comment. Thanks for bearing with the limitations of the api the bot uses when it comes to edge cases like this!