Time for an update and some reflections; first one for the year. Note that everything here is subject to change.
Last year was mostly me catching up on my anime episode reviews. To my credit, I did finish a bunch of anime – BOCCHI THE ROCK!, Gridman, Horimiya, Madoka, The Quintessential Quintuplets, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, and most iterations of Love Live! – and made progress in others. I feel a little bad that catching up has been the vast majority of my blogging last year and I would like to change that at some point in the future. Still, I’m pretty darn happy with the progress made here and I appreciate anyone checking those posts out.
Currently Covering in Episode Reviews:
- [Seasonal] TBD
- [Retroactive] Love Live! School Idol Project – /12 eps.
Up Next:
- Granbelm – /13 eps. (will re-date Eps. 1-3 reviews)
- Laid-Back Camp Movie – /1 ep.
- Princess Principal: Crown Handler – /6 movies
- Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out – /1 ep.
TBD:
- Revue Starlight OVAs – /3 eps.
- Revue Starlight movies – /2 movies
- Violet Evergarden movies – /2 movies
- Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku OVAs – 3 eps.
The Winter 2024 premieres have begun. As it’s been the case, I haven’t had a very strong spark for writing First Impressions but I’ll still write a couple. I want to cover one seasonal show for the Winter but as you can tell from the lists above, I haven’t decided on anything. A Sign of Affection and Metallic Rouge are two shows I’m considering but neither are set in stone.
As for the backlog, that whole initiative is finally nearing its end. As for topical series goes, I’m down to just a couple of movies. No deadline set for them at the moment though I obviously need to watch the Laid-Back Camp Movie before the show’s third season premieres in April. The only TV show in the backlog is Granbelm. It’s not topical other than turning five this year but it’s the only retroactive show that I have not finished (retroactive as in I started covering it after it finished airing). I might as well finish it. I plan on restarting Granblem in February and finishing it during my vacation for that month. As you can tell, I’ve added in some movies and OVAs, from shows I’ve covered in the past, to the TBD section. None of the series listed above are topical but since I’m down to just their movies and OVAs, I might as well complete my coverage of them.
Regarding the Love Live! episode reviews, I am fully caught up on Nijigasaki and Superstar!!. I was a little anxious that I wouldn’t pull that off by the end of 2023 but I’m happy that it worked out in the end. Even though I’m technically done, I’ve decided to cover the original School Idol Project. It’s the only mainline series I have not covered on the blog. I might as well. I’ll start covering it after the Winter 2024 premieres at the earliest and finish it before NIJIYON returns in Spring 2024. I’d most likely write a series review of NIJIYON Season 2 but I try not to cover one installment of a franchise while another airs and I made that mistake when I restarted Nijigasaki Season 1 while NIJIYON Season 1 aired. I’m sticking with this policy so I have to finish School Idol Project at the end of March.
I had Lycoris Recoil up for consideration (again) and I was thinking of covering it in light of its upcoming Toonami broadcast. However, this plan might have to change in light of my goal to finish the original Love Live! by April. Even if I get a good chunk of Love Live! done during my February break, I might still need to cover it twice on weekends. If I do that, I can still fit in a second show for the weekend but then the choice is between Lycoris Recoil and a Winter 2024 show and I think for the sake of topicality, the latter would preferrable. Tackling Lycoris Recoil during my February break wouldn’t necessarily work as I’m already thinking of covering Love Live! and Granbelm during that. I could cover Lycoris Recoil on a weekday but that’d be a risk. With that in mind, it’s possible that I might not go through with Lycoris Recoil. That said, the show has always interested me and it would suck to back out after listing it in last month’s announcement post so we’ll see. I’m sorry I keep going back and forth on this.
Unless I’m running late on something, I expect Winter 2024 to be the last season where I’m regularly tackling the backlog. There are some other shows that are big maybes. Made in Abyss, for example, comes to mind. But I don’t know, I’ve been tackling the backlog since Summer 2022. At some point, I got to cut chord on this initiative. I honestly wanted to stop at the end of last year, before I finally decided to extend it for this season. I’m not opposed to rounding out another show during a vacation, particularly during the summer, or to fill in an empty slot on the “currently covering” list but I make no promises on this.
Not set in stone but 2024 might be the least year I do 30+ screencaps for an episode review. Thing is, I keep putting it off and settling for a single temporary featured image. I admittedly had to do that to better get stuff out on every day of my weekend and break but it still stands that I’ve struggled to find the time to finalize a gallery before or after posting an episode review. So I might stop doing it this year. Putting that aside, I really need to finalize the screencaps for a lot of posts that are published so consider that a New Year’s Resolution of mine. I also need to finalize the Anime Archive; that’s been under construction for far too long.
Xenodude Scribbles 