I have been doing some catching up on backlog this week as work settled down a bit (especially with my manga reading). I managed to watch most of the shows I wanted to this past week. First off, the non-seasonal I watched:

• Squid Girl - I knocked a couple more episodes of this out. It's been quite a while since I last read the manga, and I don't think they are going in any particular order, so some shorts I remember reading, and others I don't. It's been nice in a turn your brain off kind of way.

Now, for this season's shows:

• My Happy Marriage - This show has been pretty consistently good so far this season. A kind of crazy cliffhangar last episode, so looking forward to the next one.
• Ameku M.D. - A better episode this past week, but it was an incredibly misleading opening and episode title.
• Apothecary Diaries - It's kind of surprising that corpses and fungus were key components to both mystery shows this week. In any case, Apothecary definitely delivered the mystery better.
• Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf - This show doesn't reinvent the wheel by any means, but it definitely delivers on what it promises. Surprised at how much I am enjoying this.
• Guild Receptionist - Finally some lore this past episode to explain her compulsion to be a receptionist. Interested to see if they can actually make sense of the story in this one.
• Bureaucrat to Villainess - Biggest surprise for me this season. It has exceeded my expectations so far.
• 100 Girlfriends - This series always finds some way to keep upping the insanity.
• Beheneko - I checked this show out and it is wild. I don't think it is for me, but I simultaneously surprised at both how interesting the world and other characters are as well as how absolutely degenerate the show is. Never change Japan. If you like this show, then good for you.

Weekly ranking roundup:

1. Anime Corner - Full Results - Weekly Winner: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun
2. Reddit Karma - Weekly Winner: Apothecary Diaries

Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma.

Just a couple weeks left until Re:Zero comes back and shakes these charts up. There doesn't really seem to be a standout across the charts though. Some consistent performers in the to 5 would be Apothecary, Solo Leveling, and Sakamoto, but other entries are much more varied across AC and reddit.

Man, I finally ended up starting the new aquarion show and it's... a thing haha. I love the opening and the worldbuilding has some potential, along with the atmospheric music but that art style is so hard to swallow. Trying to figure out if it's worth continuing but might give it a few more eps.

Checked out beheneko out of curiosity and while it doesn't really do anything too novel, I do like the characters so far. Fanservice though uhh.. I guess it could be worse lol

Yeah, I don't really have anything against it, it's just not for me. I think in some alternate timeline where not every character wants to ravage this cat, I might have enjoyed the show more. I liked the supporting characters, especially Anna-chan.

No Zenshu yet for you?

It's my personal top pick of the season.

Yeah, Zenshu really delivered with the last episode. That was a level of ridiculousness I did not respect this show to reach.

Was the new Zenshu ep that much better than the previous 3?

but it was an incredibly misleading opening and episode title.

Kinda felt like a mistake to me (but it was probably just them trying to build suspension), since they showed a large part of it again at the end.

I completed the Shirobako series over the past few weeks.

This is probably one of the most relatable anime for me. At first I thought it's because 95% (or some other stupidly high percentage) of software development work is in fact common to most other jobs as per Working with Coders.

However, the more I watch it, the more I realised just how similar anime production is to software development. It's not just the stand-up meetings, the team dynamics, suffering from burnout, etc. Even the creative process - the way animators / designers / etc approach their work - is so similar to building software.

Picking just one example out of many,

::: spoiler Shirobako spoiler

when the goth animator drew that one line to make the animation complete, it's basically like when a senior dev make a change to just one line of code that resolves a big issue.

:::

With all the similarities, this anime may have as well been about making software.

Quality-wise (encompassing characters, story, and everything else), this anime is top-notch too. To be fair, it'll be ironic if an anime about making anime is badly produced.

As with any series that I'm extremely impressed by, I'm giving it a 10 / 10.

P.S. I would totally watch 3rd Girl Fighter Wing if it's an actual anime

Its about the same to me and matching my expectations.

But I never thought Zenshu was bad so I'm not sure what your questions about.

Actually, were you watching Zenshu in English Dub?

The dub is bringing forth a lot of subtlety of the character journey. I dare say that the dub is superior. I didn't have the same emotional attachment to Hirose in subtitles.

P.S. I would totally watch 3rd Girl Fighter Wing if it’s an actual anime

They did a 1 episode OVA of it.

The opening theme music is just a new cover of the first OP from the first Aquarion series of twenty years ago, though. In general, I find the soundtrack is weaker than Yoko Kanno's work on the first two series in the franchise. They do seem to be trying valiantly, but they have a lot to live up to in that department.

(90% certain I'm dropping this in favour of Promise of Wizard.)

I've started a few new shows lately:

I have a Crush at Work - meh. I watched the first episode and dropped it.

Armored Trooper Votoms - I've watched two episodes so far. Hard to evaluate off of that, but I think I'll keep watching a while longer.

Terror in Resonance - Pesky terrorists doing terrorist things. Why are they doing them? What is their goal? The show has dropped some vague hints, but so far it seems very unclear. It seems to want me to believe that nobody is being killed in these attacks even though there's rubble falling onto sidewalks from dozens of feet in the air. I guess "a good terrorist doesn't kill other people" or something like that.

The OVA was great. 11 more episodes would be better.

I'm watching the Japanese version

so I'm not sure what your questions about.

Rereading your original comment, I'm not sure either. I somehow read that you thought the newest ep brought new stuff to the table.

Started off last week with the rest of Scrapped Princess (2003), which was excellent. It has everything - an intriguing story, great characters, fascinating worldbuilding, humor, action, intrigue, drama, tragedy, redemption... And quality animation and music to boot. It was just a pleasure from start to finish.

And then, of all things, I followed it up with one that was even better, and from a somewhat unexpected quarter. Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na / Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! (2020).

It was directed by Yuasa, which is a huge point in its favor IMO - he consistently impresses me. But at the same time, it's an anime about anime, which is a niche genre that I find to be mostly tedious and self-absorbed, so even with Yuasa at the helm, I wasn't expecting a whole lot. But I was so, so wrong. It's glorious, and immediately jumped high onto my all-time favorites list..

One thing is that it mostly skips past the drudgery and workaday world of making anime - the part that most series focus on, IMO to their detriment. Instead, it gets all of that out of the way right off the bat by bringing together a main cast of three who are perfectly suited for their respective roles of director, animation lead and producer, then puts them in a wonderfully run down studio with every tool they might need just sitting there waiting for them. They do of course face problems, but they're generally more abstract, with the biggest recurring one being that they just can't stop creating - every idea leads to another idea, every one of which they want to draw.

And that really sets the tone for the anime - what it is is a celebration - a love letter to anime, and further to imagination and creativity and the thrill and fulfillment of visualizing something and striving to communicate it, then watching as an audience gets it, with all the impact you hoped for.

And a wonderful thing about it is that all the while that the characters are coming up with ideas and animating them, trying to capture movement and mood and interesting design, the anime itself, in the background so to speak, is casually throwing in its own wonderful animations. There's a constant stream of just little riffs scattered here and there - a transitional scene or a bit of background movement or some camera work - that are astonishing, and apparently the same thing the anime is depicting - people creating interesting imagery just for the joy of it.

And even with all of that, the characters manage to be engaging, there's a satisfying amount of growth and it's even laugh out loud funny. What more could I want?

It was almost a relief to follow that up with something... not good.

Duan Nao / Die Now is Chinese, and... well .. it shows. It's very derivative and tropish. The biggest problem with it though is that it introduced what could've been an interesting story in spite of the tropishness, and dropped all sorts of hints to apparent multiple layers of mystery... then ended. With another... oh... 30 or 40 episodes, it could've been good. Maybe.

So after that I was in the mood for a sure thing, so I'm watching Megumin's KonoSuba spin-off - An Explosion on This Wonderful World (2023) and laughing my ass off.

Oh, and along the way, and uncharacteristically, I'm following not one but two different current series - Honey Lemon Soda and I'm a Guild Receptionist. Honey Lemon Soda is okay - most notable so far for being pretty good in spite of being very tropish. Guild Receptionist is great though, and with the latest bit of character background, looks like it could turn out to be really special.

I think the dub is better. There's subtlety here in the voices that I feel like I'd miss with subtitles.