I finished Cop Craft. So much wasted potential. It really is in all aspects of production mediocre to distractingly bad. I should've followed my instincts after the first 2 episodes, but I hoped something would come off it. But it just got worse and worse towards the end.

65 Chapters of wholesomeness, angst, and internal confusion.  65 Chapters of two roommates becoming closer.

65 Chapters ... and we might be rounding the turn.

I checked out next season and holy shit is it stacked. It's as if it was made for me.

Haikyuu
an anime aboutbig titty monster girls
an anime about animal girls
an anime about cat girls specifically
a motherfucking Shaft anime that's not Monogatari
Show by Rock
Yurucamp short
and holy shit it's an actual new Railgun!

Happens. I been keeping to my 1 episode per dinner these past few days, which would be good pace.

I hope to not have any free time this winter break, but if I do then I will have plenty of time to catch up on anime and video games.

I love the Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen manga (yeah, that's the title).  It's really interesting and the main character is such a cutie puff.  It's isekai but it's different than most because, instead of a powerful fantasy hero, the main character awakens after her death on Earth as a sickly little girl in a commoner family in another world.  As such, when she learns that books, which she loves with all her heart, are hideously expensive and only available to nobility, she has to use her knowledge from her former life to work toward a future where she can create books on her own.  

Yes, it's slow-paced and certainly not for everyone, but it's smart, funny, different, and I find it interesting.

Anyway, I just now learned that it has an anime, which I didn't recognize because the commonly used title wasn't one I was familiar with--Ascendance of a Bookworm.  

Not even sure I'm going to watch it, to be honest.  It's kind of hard to imagine the slow and detailed pace being squeezed into an anime.  Seems like it would either be accelerated too much or it would kind of drag in real-time form.  Some works are easy to imagine as anime, others aren't.  

I dropped Honzuki after 2 episodes. Yes, she's cute but it drags on too long and the show's one gag gets old very fast. There are literally no interesting characters introduced in the first ep, including MC.

If I want something nice and slow paced about a book crazy girl I watch Shirayuki hime. At least that one has characters and a story.

It's been a good season.

-  Just finished Kono Oto Tomare! ep. 12.  Damn, that was good.  Easily the best musical scene of the entire series.  I'd even put it up there with Nodame Cantabile.  Hozuki is just ridiculously huggable.  Also, I really, really hope Suzuka-sensei

.  

The funny thing is, I dropped the manga.  I found it to be very contrived.  And it is contrived, but with the music added in, I no longer care.  It makes a massive difference to be able to hear what everyone is gushing over.

- Chihayafuru continues to be one of the best anime ever produced, even into season 3.  What else is new.  

- Fate Babylonia something something started off really slowly.  It was my "nothing else to watch" anime and I semi-dropped it a few times.  Right now, though, it's one of the best of the season.  Last few episodes have been great.  Incredible animation and exceptional voice-work aside, both of which are kind of expected, the humor has been the best part.  What the series needed was for the Servants to take center stage--when that delivered, the series delivered.  Honestly, the main characters themselves are boring, the show is best when they're foils for the over-the-top Servants.  Also, everyone ignoring Jaguar had me dying.  I watched that scene five times.  

Rin--I mean, Ishtar, is still a treasure.  Kana Ueda is one of the best seiyuu ever.  

- Ahiru no Sora is a decent enough sports anime.  However, the "boys vs. girls" arc was really fun and I'm glad it spanned three episodes.  Best part of the series so far without a doubt.  

- Dr. Stone remains entertaining.  Yeah, it's cheesy sometimes, but the story itself is first-rate, as crazy as that is for a shonen title.

- Kabukichou Sherlock is weird but I keep watching it.  I'm not even sure why but I just find the interplay between the characters interesting.  Awesome OP, too.

Next season seems interesting, as well.

- Somali Mori no Kamisama: I read the bit of the manga but it didn't really grab my attention.  Really cute human kid being raised by a powerful Golem (or something).  Seemed very much in the "cute for the sake of cute" trend that's been popular in manga.  Still, the premise sounds solid so I might give it another look.  

- Dorohedoro:  Already talked about this one, manga is amazing.  Praying the anime lives up to the insanity.

- Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na!:  Talked about this one, too.  Awesome manga with tons of imagination.  Masaaki Yuasa (Devilman Crybaby) is the director so this one has a good shot at being a good adaptation.  

- Plunderer:  Read a few chapters of the manga, wasn't really impressed.  VERY like Seven Deadly Sins.  Overpowered hero character that's being hunted by the government, a girl who wants to find him because she needs help, lots of fan-service.  Liked the idea about everyone having a number that's like a countdown for their life thing, though.  

- Murenase!  Shiiton Gakuen:  Enjoyable manga, mostly because of the Wolf-girl.  She's a fun character who will also get your sympathy flowing.  Hina Kino is her seiyuu so I have no doubt she'll be entertaining.  Some of the other girls are fun, too, especially the

.  

Interesting comparison, as the two couldn't be more different.  I loved the charm and main character of Shirayukihime but I ended up dropping both the manga and then anime.  The premise is good but it starts on a high note and then just kind of drifts along.  Everything is really just background noise for the "will-they-or-won't-they" romance.  It just didn't have a lot of meat.  If I were to chart it on a graph, it would start very high and slope downward.

I'd chart Honzuki no Gekokujou as starting low and then sloping consistently upwards.  It's a journey, with lots of interconnecting points that play against one another.  The story starts with the main character's interactions with her "family", then the neighbors, then the soldiers, then the merchants (the biggest jump), then the clerics, then ... I'm guessing the nobles, which should be another important and possibly dangerous jump.  None of them get left behind, though--for example, both her family and merchant connections are part of the dealings with the clergy.  It's well-planned development.  The original work is a web novel so I'm not surprised that it's structured differently.  

That's the manga, though.  I have no idea about the anime.

Also, the artist for Honzuki no Gekokujou is bloody good.  

Well turns out I had plenty of free time. Fortunately with that free time I could finally play some video games and watch anime. Life is temporarily good eh.

Haganai (2 seasons 24 epiosdes): Season one was very intriguing, but then it turned into your average slice of life anime. Not that I have a problem with that, but I was hoping for something a bit more. Season one also had the random nudity, which was awkward at times and good at other times. The humor was certainly very good. Season two had the abrupt change of no nudity for some very odd reason, so much so that I thought I was watching the censored version. I can understand having no nudity, but to change it after the first season was gratuitous is an odd decision to say the least. Despite all that, season 2 was much better. The final episodes were intense and I enjoyed that the MC isn't just an idiot, but a pretender. Unlike most harem animes that try to make it work, this one was a lot more realistic and I thought that was awesome, especially the final. I skipped OP and ED.

Levius: This show is steampunk to the core, and I think that is cool. I kind of like the background of the war and politics. The whole show though is based on metal boxing, which basically means it is a sports show. While I am not too interested in shows based on fighting in a ring, some of the characters in the show were quite likeable. What I really didn't like is just how annoying the concept of undefeated is. When someone is already undefeated it is hard to hype up the next opponent, sure he might face another undefeated person, but that would certainly be rare if you have a long career. There are some examples of a boxer being undefeated like Mayweather, but before his pro career he was indeed beaten by many people. On top of that this show used another undefeated female character as a simple stepping stone in the MC's rise to the top. At least the OP and ED were decent.

Lost Song: I really liked the twist that this show pulled about halfway through. I also enjoyed the animation very much with the cool moon/ planets / stars orbiting the World.

Tangent about Astronomy: Astronomy is always something that will fill me with a sense of wonder and although a planet that close would not be possible to sustain life I appreciate the art put into it. One thing I often google is "Jupiter as seen from Io" or any other Jovian moon and some of those fake pictures really excite me. And the truth is that it would look insane. The moon from Earth takes up .5 degrees, while Jupiter from Io would be 18 degrees, in other words Jupiter would appear to be 36 times as big as the moon appears to us. Now I don't know about you but I have taken a few looks at the moon and spotted a few details, so Jupiter would be quite monstrous and dare I say it; fear inducing. The same is true but to a lesser degree for every single one of Jupiter's moons, so if life is possible on Europa, then that would be an interesting sky to look at.

Now back to the show, the good old knights and magic is back but now magic is simply a song from special mages. The plot was quite predictable until the good ole twist. The characters were poorly developed, but the plot moved smoothly. I did enjoy some back story for some of the older characters as well as the origin, but the characters themselves weren't very interesting. The songs were nice, but not my style. OP and ED were good for the 1 or 2 episodes, then it didn't really feel like it fit for me.

Well, I finished Bunny Girl Senpai. I came away pretty disappointed, not because it was bad but because I foolishly let myself be hyped by other people. Overall I'd say it's a solid 8. It has pleasant characters and a straight forward yet not so interesting narrative. From all the comments on the internet I expected it to be some kind of mind bending drama with high concepts and eye bawling tragedies. Until the last episode I waited for some massive twist or captivating gut wrenching tragedy to happen, but nothing did. So I walked away wondering why everyone was so hyped about this show. And then I remembered that people are also crazy about Oregairu, so I'll just go away and keep reminding myself that the majority of shows people hype about are just not for me or are hyped by people who've seen 3 animes in their life. At least I got it behind me now.

More room to focus on the amazing new season.

Speaking of herbology, one of my favorite manga right now is Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Pharmacist's Monologue).  I love the main character.  She's small and does her best to make herself plain, but she's smart, knows all about herbs, and has a somewhat twisted personality.  For example, she loves poisons more than anything.

The story begins when Mao Mao is kidnapped and sold to the Emperor's palace, where she is basically a servant in the concubine section, where men aren't allowed unless they've been snip-snipped.  She soon catches the attention of the beautiful eunuch(?) in charge, who becomes fascinated with her, perhaps because she's the only person who treats him like a bug.  

It's basically structured like a medical mystery series, with Jinshi coercing Mao Mao into helping him when something odd happens.  Meanwhile, their relationship kind of develops and elements of her upbringing (she was an orphan raised in the Red Light district by an old doctor) become more important.

It won the 2019 Tsugi ni Kuru Manga Award for best print manga.  I think an anime version is inevitable.