This Week in Anime

Unreviewed Gems

Chris
Lucas, you know that you and I love our streaming reviews, but as anybody who's even glanced at the lineup during Preview Guide times knows, there is too much anime being produced these days. It's why the ANN powers-that-be have to narrow the field down in the first place with a vote-off each season. Unless something is particularly notable or heinous enough to inflict a hate-watch after only a couple of episodes, it means we or our esteemed cohorts don't get to write it up weekly.

This does apply to Ruri Rocks, thank you for asking, which I can only naturally assume got in on the powerful prestige and pomp of its presentation. ANN viewers simply appreciate massive, lovingly rendered...minerals.

However, like you said, that can leave behind a few of the less attention-grabbing shows. Or even the ones that did get attention, but for the wrong reasons.

I definitely felt bad for Necronomico and not making time for it, myself, at the outset of this season. It's a Cygames original joint, and you know I'm usually all-in on those! But the subtitle situation was enough to put me off at a time when I was already cramming premieres in by the bucketful—it was my first time working a full shift in the Preview Guide mines, which was fun, but intense! I don't think I was out of line in not giving them the time of day, as they initially couldn't be bothered to translate and subtitle directly. I can only presume that the streaming review voters largely felt the same.

Again, probably unfair, since they've seemingly fixed the subtitles, and starting to catch up on Necronomico for this column has confirmed for me that there was absolutely something worth watching here. I appreciate any anime with an amount of sauce on it, so I appreciate a series this dedicated to simply writing its title in different cool ways. I also appreciate any story that teaches the lesson that you can't trust gamers.

To be sure, death games are not an enjoyable anime establishment. That's one thing that grabbed me about Necronomico out of the gate, that it's doing the multiplayer murder battle royale thing with all the aplomb of a mid-2000s project riffing off Kamen Rider Ryuki in its heyday. <\ Not that there aren't other influences. The whole extra-dimensional game show angle calls to mind Kamen Rider Geats's take on the conceit. And I dig how it deploys a vindictive, vengeful protagonist whom I can still sympathize with and root for even as she's disregarding the broader plight of the world. Maybe it helps that they contrast her with the aforementioned gamer.

You're right that the Cygames-cemented commitment to itself might've made Necronomico niche enough to skip streaming reviews even without the original subs putting people off. We've had plenty of anime about streamers and internet creators do well that readers did want to follow (some even reviewed by yours truly!) and The Cosmic Horror Show would certainly have been fun to see theorized about in real time. Or maybe Turkey! just grabbed the "out-there swervy show" slot for this season's reviews. At least this one does seem to have found its audience, regardless, as I've got several colleagues like yourself who have been happily following it. I know I'll want to try seeing it through before the season's end now!

With all that said, sometimes the reasons a show doesn't get voted in are more down to depressingly demographic reasons. You don't have to tell me that readership skews more toward the dudely when so many Shonen Jump slugfests get in, while Betrothed to My Sister's Ex, virtually the only specifically lady-focused romance story this season, gets stuck on the sidelines.

It'd even admittedly passed me by before it was brought up per this column, which feels like a miss on my part, since at the very least, Count Granado slots pretty neatly into my strike zone. I've checked out lesser shows for thinner reasons!

Marie's crushing lack of confidence (and the borderline-comical abuse heaped on by her parents that led to it) has been a little more of a crutch for the show's plotting than I'd prefer so far. But then seeing a character's growth is a big part of the appeal of a story like this. Even Yona of Yona of the Dawn took a bit to grow into being the badass warrior-leader we'll definitely see followed up on in a second season, and there's still plenty of show to go in Sister's Ex here. I can appreciate its dedication to those interweaving fantasyland foreign politics. It's even bluntly addressing racism, you don't always see that! Not that rich stories of intertwined romance and palace intrigue don't regularly resonate with ANN readership. Yatagarasu AKA BIRD SHOW and of course The Apothecary Diaries have been followed via write-ups here to much enthusiasm. But as you indicated, Sister's Ex might've seemed just a bit too unassuming at the start. I'm only a few episodes in myself, and I recognize it takes that time to really get going. Even as I can also sate myself along the way with cuddly counts and super-strong maids.

Nukitashi was another one I was happy to return after the second episode somewhat brought up my opinion of its potential for smutty satire. Though, for what it's worth, I fully understand why this one fell off the radar of the Streaming Reviews voters.

It's not the sexual content—readers demanded reviews of Interspecies Reviewers even after Funimation binned it. But Nukitashi's official streaming home on OceanVeil means a whole bunch of people simply aren't going to pay for another service to keep up with one (1) currently airing show. Even one as appreciably outlandish as this one.

More's the pity. I know from reviewing Gushing Over Magical Girls myself that there could've been some fun to be had with this series week to week.

Look, Nukitashi is still based on an explicit porn game; you're supposed to get at least some "WOULD" for the characters therein. And we're living in a time when all kinds of problematic, messy, sexy stories have to be stuck up for. Even as Nukitashi itself is about sticking up for those who don't want to stick it in. Freedom of expression is ultimately all about not imposing your beliefs on others, after all.

That source material setup does make me wonder if Nukitashi's denser political ambitions are more navigable in spaced out in-game form (which you can still buy here, speaking of!) but the anime's working its mojo well enough for my tastes. I appreciate Studio Passione exercising their niche for something more clever like this compared to the sexual Surf Dracula that was Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World, which did, exhaustingly, net streaming reviews.

Also, not for nothing, Nukitashi's previously noted similarities to SHINOMETA produce an interesting precedent, as that latter anime was one of the vanishingly few series on this site to be granted streaming reviews due to popular demand halfway into its season!

I can't say that could ever be a common recurrence, I don't speak for editorial management (if I did you know I'd let Rebecca do as many Precure streaming reviews as she wanted, democracy be damned), but it still shows how making your voices heard can affect things even after previews are said and done.

Sorting the gems from the grunge is why reviewers are even a thing. Sometimes I take suggestions from you and Rebecca and check out series that might have passed me by, other times I dip back in to see if Solo Camping for Two still looks like ass.

Answer: Yes. Readers didn't miss much by skipping this one.

You've basically very politely summed up what Steve and I had to say about it when we covered it with the other rom-coms earlier this season. You'll note that Betrothed to My Sister's Ex wasn't included in there, by the way, since it would be disingenuous to claim much "comedy" in that hard-knocks tale.

I mainly bring up Solo Camping here as a way to demonstrate that sometimes...unpopular things are unpopular for a reason. Sometimes a series doesn't get voted in for streaming reviews because squiffed subtitles skewed its perception or it's on a funky streaming service, and other times it's just as much because it's a mid-tier title that wouldn't be worth talking about weekly.

True, they've been doing it for a while after all. And I appreciate getting the readers involved in straight-up telling us what they want to watch, even if that results in regular occurrences like James being subjected to a medically inadvisable amount of GoHands shows.

As well, even if things miss their opportunity, there's always a chance to circle back around with full reviews. That's how it was for Food For The Soul, a little slice-of-life cooking club show I honestly hadn't even heard of until a few people I follow started chattering about it well after the season was over. To say nothing of Maebashi Witches, a series that Steve and I previewed and kinda blew off at first blush, before my cohost came roaring back to rave about the show in a full review.

I take that back, maybe democracy doesn't work. Hopefully, our excavation of some of this season's shinier hidden gems will convince people to throw some votes next season toward something just a bit weirder and rougher that might turn out to be a diamond. Better that than the latest seasonal shonen shovelware. Or the second cour of Solo Camping for Two that we're inexplicably getting.

And even if you don't, you know we here on TWIA will still find excuses to indulge ourselves in talking about the shows we want to.