Time for an update and some reflections; last one for the year.
Anime Episode Reviews
Currently Covering in Episode Reviews:
- [Seasonal] GOBLIN SLAYER II – 8/12 eps.
- [Backlog/Retroactive] Love Live! Superstar!! (Season 2) – 2/12 eps.
- [Backlog/Retroactive] Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie – 1/3 eps.
Up Next:
- Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Next Sky – /1 ep.
- Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Season 2 -The Eve of Awakening – /8 eps.
- Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Final Season -Dawn of a Shallow Dream – /4 eps.
- Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out – /1 ep.
- Lycoris Recoil – /13 eps. (will re-publicize & re-date Ep. 1 review)
TBD (Subject to Change, Not in Any Particular Order):
- Laid-Back Camp Movie – /1 ep.
- Princess Principal: Crown Handler – /6 eps.
I’m on track to finish both Love Live! Superstar!! and Nijigasaki High School Idol Club by New Year’s Eve but I wanted some breaks between my respective posts for the franchise so I went out of my way to get a head start on Superstar!! Season 2. As mentioned in last month’s announcements post, I don’t plan on covering Nijiyon in episode reviews. It’s a chibi short series and I don’t believe it’s necessarily canon with Nijigasaki so I don’t see it as required for my Nijigasaki episode reviews.
I’m still thinking about covering School Idol Project. It could happen as soon as January, after the Winter 2024 premieres (which will give me a nice break from this rabbit hole of a franchise). This also depends on when Superstar!! Season 3 airs though I feel very confident that it’s not airing in Winter 2024 and Spring 2024 is looking a little unlikely. If it does air in Spring 2024, I can probably still squeeze in School Idol Project by covering it twice on weekends and getting a good chunk of it done during my February break.
I was not able to finish both the Madoka show and the movies by the end of Thanksgiving break. I’ll admit that I struggled to find time for this franchise. Still, I’m pretty happy that I finally finished covering the show at that point. I’m aiming to get to Rebellion ASAP (this weekend at the earliest) and finish Magia Record after that. Getting both Seasons 2 and 3 of Magia Record done by the end of the month would be great but it would require me to write some episodes on weekdays. A more realistic projection is Season 2 at the end of the month and Season 3 at the end of January. There’s still no release date for Walpurgisnacht: Rising so I’m honestly unsure when it’s releasing next season. It has dawned on me that Winter 2024 could entail December 2024 but that would surprise me as anime usually treats the season as January-March. If it’s actually December 2024, then I restarted Madoka too early. But whatever, better safe than sorry.
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out is out digitally in Japan but I haven’t found an English fansub for it so I haven’t gotten around to it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to watch it soon. Knapsack Kid just released theatrically in Japan so I ain’t getting to that anytime soon.
As you can see, Lycoris Recoil is on the list. It wasn’t up for consideration for a while because I was only one episode review in. The show will be topical when the new project is released but there hasn’t been any word on it since the initial announcement. Now, I don’t have cable but it’s recently been announced that Lycoris Recoil will begin airing on Toonami on January 20. In that sense, it’ll be topical again and I see that as a good enough excuse to come back to the show, hence the show getting listed. I did set my first episode review to Private but I will make it public again when I restart the show.
There are some other shows I’m thinking of adding such as Girls und Panzer, Made in Abyss, and My Next Life as a Villainess. I haven’t locked these into the list because like with Lycoris Recoil, I don’t think I’d get to them until their next project becomes available. There’s also the fact that all the aforementioned shows are longer than a season. I’ve learned from Love Live! that it’s hard for me to catch up on anything past 13 episodes.
Once I run out of topical shows, I’ll spend 1-3 months on finishing any shows that aren’t topical but I may as well finish them because there’s little left to cover. This includes shows such as Violet Evergarden and Revue Starlight, where I’m down to just the movies (as well as OVAs in Revue Starlight‘s case). I’ll also throw in Granbelm. I’ve been thinking the 5th anniversary isn’t a strong enough excuse but Granbelm is nevertheless the only retroactive show I haven’t finished so screw it, let’s get it done. This period will be the only time I’ll finish any non-topical show. Anything I don’t get to will be be left unfinished.
Episode Review Poll
I thought about posting a new poll when I finish the Madoka TV show. I ended up deciding against it since the backlog hasn’t dwindled just yet. I’m not sure if I’d do polls for very long but I’d like to do one or two more so that I can end this endeavor on something other than third one that took forever. I thought of some themes for the fourth poll but I’ll probably just do random picks again. I remember with the first poll, I covered one of the runner-ups to make up for the delay. I didn’t do that with the third poll because I had enough shows to catch up on as is. With that in mind, I might cover the first two winners of the fourth poll.
Winter 2024 Coverage
Assuming I do Love Live! School Idol Project and Lycoris Recoil, I already have two shows to cover during Winter 2024. That said, I can probably squeeze in a seasonal show. There’s no sequels for me to consider so it’d have to be an entirely new show. I still don’t have a strong desire to write First Impressions but we’ll see what I end doing during the premiere weeks.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender will be premiering in February 22. I only cover anime in episode reviews but I am thinking of making an exception for the live-action Avatar as the original series is my favorite TV show of all time. This is not set in stone and I will at the very least write about the show in a series review.
Xenodude Scribbles 