What have you been reading/watching recently? [Anime - November 2025]

The year has flown by. With the 40 h work week, you're speedrunning getting old!

Manga

I'm still only reading Great Teacher Onizuka and Shibuya Near Family - both of which are good.

Anime

Gundam SEED Destiny was a mess, and feels like a waste of time for what is 100 episodes of Gundam. And yet, there's still the movie to go through. Fun. D+

Eureka Seven is a show I've started recently, and is quite competently made. Not much is original, it feels like, with the show's themes (so far) being kinda obvious - a coming of age story. But I don't dislike it, and studio Bones is pretty reliably good. B

Dragon Ball Z - The Frieza saga ended - 200-ish more episodes to go. But DBZ is reliably good, even if slow. A

Vision of Escaflowne is good, even if imo somewhat harmed by the comparisons to Evangelion. I liked it A-

Wasteful Days of High School Girls is something I picked up on a whim and surprised me. Another show from the Azumanga / Nichijou genre, it's a fun one. I haven't had out-loud laughs at an anime in a while, but maybe it speaks of me I enjoy the kind of silly nonsense this show is about. A

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26 comments

Manga
Started Kingdom, currently around chapter 400. It's alright, kinda weird how the manga starts using the characters' japanese names after the first arc when apparently the anime uses the chinese names. Obviously extremely ahistorical but whatever, it's fun shonen slop. Also big props to the mangaka for having lots of women fighting or being generals, and only one of them (so far) is being weirdly sexualized (Karin).
I'm probably going to read Rooster Fighter because it's such a stupid premise.
Anime
Asobe Asobase is an absurdist comedy disguised as cute girls doing cute things slop that lands because of how over the top they go with the animation and voicework. As with most anime, it has a weirdo pervert character for no reason. 7/10.
Paranoia Agent is a surreal, episodic thriller about a number of different characters and their run-ins with the mysterious Lil' Slugger (aka Shonen Bat), a boy who is going around assaulting people with a baseball bat. It is also about how cutesy anime mascots are copium and that you should consider maybe facing the real world instead of shirking your responsibilities by watching anime. Episode 8 is a noteworthy standout, I cried. 8/10.
The Demon Girl Next Door is a parody of the magical girl genre where the generally useless main character awakens to her hereditary demonic powers and has to be tutored by a semi-retired magical girl who is definitely gay. Generally pretty funny, but as with most of these things, there are weirdly creepy bits. Like, canonically the main character is very uncomfortable in her "battle armour" which is of course skimpy and revealing, and this is just supposed to be funny. 6/10, both seasons.
Started Panty and Stocking, which is essentially just the joke "what if we made an adult cartoon with the art style of the powerpuff girls". It's interesting imo how despite it being extremely openly horny and characters constantly referring to sex and/or having sex just out of frame, that it's actually giving me less creepy vibes than many other shows I've watched. Maybe it's just a matter of expectations, but I think there's definitely something to be said about P&S being portrayed as sexually-active adults who are choosing to do the things they do and the way they dress, as compared to eg The Demon Girl Next Door where the "jokes" centered on sexualization are at the MC's expense.
Also started Log Horizon because I may have accidentally deleted Panty and Stocking and had to download it again. As is typical of the genre of "oh no I'm inside a video game I used to play", the game is poorly thought out. I think it's the fourth episode where the big "amazing 4000IQ play" that the protagonists use is to... use an ability again as soon as it's off cooldown. Rather atypical of the genre, if someone "dies" in the game, they actually just stay in the game and resurrect at the last great temple they visited. Ninja girl whose name I forget is a boring trope and horny party member must be stopped.
- Log Horizon is one of my favourite guilty pleasure shows. Keep going and just wait until the MC starts solving their burgeoning MMO society's problems... with free market capitalism and liberal democracy.
  
  Riiiiiight I remember hearing that they deal with establishing an MMO society. Can't wait for social commentary from the same show that has people (well, Gamers anyway) randomly turn to banditry in what is essentially a post-scarcity society due to boredom.
  Actually, now that I think about it, that makes even less sense. Banditry needs to have a high payoff to be worthwhile, but what exactly are you going to spend your stolen goods on when people aren't even aware you can cook food? From what's been shown so far, nobody's playing the new expansion content.
  
  Can't wait for social commentary from the same show that has people (well, Gamers anyway) randomly turn to banditry in what is essentially a post-scarcity society due to boredom.
  OH BOY
  You see, what you need are INCENTIVE STRUCTURES. If you Keynesian economics all the negative externalities away, we can fix all of society's problems.
  AAAAAAALLL OF THEM.
  (I don't want to spoil too much of the show inadvertently so I'll leave how the show answers your question, or even whether if it just completely ignores it for the sake of the narrative, for you to find out. I'll just say that the show goes places that are incredibly inadvertently hilarious to someone with even a basic grasp of socialist concepts)
- Asobe Asobase
  I keep a document of every time my mom says an anime title slightly-to-very wrong, and one of the ones she gets wrong the most often is Asobi Asobase. So you writing "Asobe" instead of "Asobi" just reminded me of that.
  But yeah, we loved Asobi Asobase, and I still think about some of the moments regularly.
  Paranoia Agent
  The first anime-related video on YouTube was an upload of this show's OP, which I think is a neat little fact.
  The Demon Girl Next Door
  I feel like the first season was stronger than the second one in some ways, like the plot in the second season is more complicated than it really needs to be when it's a parody show. But aside from that, Momo and Shamiko's relationship is pretty cute, and it is a pretty entertaining work overall.
  I think there's definitely something to be said about P&S being portrayed as sexually-active adults who are choosing to do the things they do and the way they dress, as compared to eg The Demon Girl Next Door where the "jokes" centered on sexualization are at the MC's expense.
  Pretty much, yeah. Devoid of context I'd see Shamiko's outfit as an "if thy right eye offend thee" thing, but in context the costume is textually sexualized at the wearer's expense.
  
  I keep a document of every time my mom says an anime title slightly-to-very wrong, and one of the ones she gets wrong the most often is Asobi Asobase. So you writing "Asobe" instead of "Asobi" just reminded me of that.
  
  I feel like the first season was stronger than the second one in some ways, like the plot in the second season is more complicated than it really needs to be when it's a parody show. But aside from that, Momo and Shamiko's relationship is pretty cute, and it is a pretty entertaining work overall.
  I think this is kind of natural in any long-running work centered on genre parody. You can only make the same jokes so many times before you have to either end the series or start taking the world and plot more seriously. Same thing happened/is happening to One Punch Man.
  
  You can only make the same jokes so many times before you have to either end the series or start taking the world and plot more seriously.
  I suppose so, but there are exceptions to this rule, too.

26 comments