u/AnteikuAnimeReviews

You don't have to like Rudeus or agree with his decisions and lifestyle to agree that this anime is extremely well written. This story is constantly fluxing between uncomfortable peace and pending disaster: peace made uncomfortable by that looming, invisible, impending crux. And these are not individual arcs or stories within stories built in this manner either: they're part of a continuous, ongoing story that has many connected and moving parts. All while continuing to poke playfully at the isekai genre and its tropes. That's great writing.

Not to mention the characters. Every character is memorable. You can't say that for many anime. Bringing back Eris this season was very important as well. She's so critical to the core storyline that revolves around Rudeus. All the girls around him are, but she draws so much attention.

I can't wait to see how this continues. The big revelation this season was really big. What happens from here should be very momentous. I look forward to the continuation of this series.

It is a constant internal battle for athletes to continue to the training grind, especially the higher you go and the longer you’ve been doing it. Training has to be done pretty much with your mind off, and just let it do its thing. The moment you start measuring how you match up with others and whether your training will help you overcome them in competition, you’re already opening the door to quitting. Especially for talented individuals. When they finally encounter people who are as good or better than they are, they’re faced with a choice: continue relying on their talent solely like they have or grind harder, like all the lesser talented people they’ve known over the years had to do to even have a chance. That question doesn’t just start to open the door to quitting, it slams it open and loud music and blinding lights burst from it. Many talented athletes burn out quickly at that stage. I love how much understanding of this is being written into Yumeka here. The depth here is wonderful.

Fall 2026 is upon us! It's been an amazing year so far in the world of anime, but we've got one more season to go, and it's easily gonna challenge the others as the best season this year! Click through the images in this post to see the series we'll be following this season at Anteiku Anime!

And they lost their competition. I didn’t get it.

The daughter-father thing (why’d she call him a paramecium?), the sickly ringmaster, the yuri thing going on, all in the 1950-60s circus craze in Japan…it just never did it for me. It had some nice artwork moments, but those could’ve been better too. It’s a circus: it’s supposed to be a visual spectacle. This wasn’t at all. And the character storylines just didn’t get the care and attention they needed. I was surprised because the studio and staff behind this anime have done some other amazing works. Very disappointing.

This is what you get when passion meets art meets people willing to put forward resources and time to create something beautiful. It’s a simple anime. Not much even happens of note. How would you even describe this anime? Three girls who enjoyed manga at a young age make a club with a disenchanted former mangaka-turned teacher, and eventually they take their manga to a Tokyo manga convention? That’s all it looks like at the high level—but that’s not even a fraction of what really happens in this anime. And I’m not taking about depth of writing. That plays a role here, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s just—it’s hard to describe. It’s just very alive. And being alive is hard to describe because there’s so much to it. It’s like that.

The true anime fan should not miss this one. It’s light but has even an intensity to it at times, in the sense of being passionate about creating art. There are lots of moments that will move you, over the simplest things. It’s just a wonderful experience.

Yaniko was an easy favorite here. That incessant “nya” cat-speak verbal tic, her deadpan tone, her random interjections, her rather unique view of the world around her, and the subzero number of shits she gives were absolutely hilarious. Even her grossness has its charm in a way. And her VA, Yuuko Natsuyoshi, was tremendous. She was hilarious just to listen to.

But a really close second was the sleepy drunk Aruko. I love slow talking characters like this, and she was totally hilarious. That “secret ingredient” line in the finale when she finally got to sneak in the alcohol by pouring it into her curry had me dying. She was always doing stuff like that, all with that sleepy tone and really slow speech. Unforgettably funny.

So this idea of “pathos.” Normally we might associate that with something that makes us feel sad, or perhaps even in a broad, classical sense of anything that is evocative in literature. But here this word came strongly to my mind. I felt like someone threw a match in the firework shop of emotional responses as I watched this anime! This crazy, rapid fire, barrage of feelings: nearly simultaneously I’d feel sad for Yaniko and her poor friends, at the same time I’d feel like laughing uncontrollably, and consciously be thinking of how gross whatever i was seeing at that moment was, and feeling predictably uncomfortable because of that. This show wasn’t a rollercoaster of emotions: it was an explosion of them. So much so that I never felt any of them strongly. The humor was the primary sensation by far of course, but the pathetic plight of these characters nevertheless tugged at my heart. All while I rolled on the floor holding my sides laughing! And trying not to throw up!

Long and short of this: to me this means this show is extremely well-written. Whether by intention or not, this show has as much pathos as any anime of this decade. That’s got to count for something. Those kinds of things don’t happen by accident, even if the exact set of feelings prompted weren’t necessarily intended. As in, I wonder if we were meant to feel so sorry for these pathetic (in a technical sense, not a pejorative sense) characters, but because of how they were written, that partly what we end up feeling. I felt a lot of love for these poor characters.

The manga appears to still be ongoing, so we certainly could see more of this show. I have a feeling there might be friction on this though. I’m no expert on Japanese culture, but I’d guess that the powers that be are likely frowning on this kind of series. If that’s the case, it’s just a matter of whether they interfere and try to prevent the studio from adapting more. I hope not (the whole Shimoneta thing here lol), but we’ll see. I too have objections to some of this kind of stuff—it is rather reprobate ultimately!—but in this case this show is creative and funny and the crassness is simply there. It’s a bit much at times, but it’s heavily overshadowed by the creativity in the writing and the characters and their performances.

So here’s hoping we get more of this series! I can’t wait to see more of these crazy cat people doing their antics.

You wouldn’t think it was as bad as I made it sound just looking at these frames. But it was—not the b-word!—boring. The artwork was the best thing about it, and that’s sad. I don’t mind this kind of stark art style, but it was poorly used, especially with all the nighttime scenery. And the animation was bare minimum. So even the artwork was severely underwhelming.

The rest isn’t even worth discussing. The story hardly even felt like it had potential. Meteor impact affects a specific area and specifically certain children in the area, leaving behind an inexplicably floating crystalline mass that radiates “dust” that gives rise to these superpowers which the kids use in arbitrary team games organized by Professor Femboy for what purpose I still have no idea—and predictably the children have issues, though not really huge ones, other than the dead friend who may or may not be dead becoming a villain because his still living only friend “left” him somewhere between the time he died/didn’t die and when said friend lied to claim the girl Stella was his sister so he wouldn’t be alone, meaning he hadn’t been aware of dead/not dead friend’s presence—oh please. What a mess.

Skip it. Your time would be better spent on other obscure anime that really have value. Or gardening. Birdwatching. Pretty much anything other than watching this. This one was not a good use of anime production resources.

Dara herself was a wonderful character. She owned her scenes. Her size and gaze made her an imposing presence. The way that played off the unserious scenes she was often involved in with the siblings was an unexpectedly interesting and very entertaining dynamic.

That being said—Kaoru, the Misogiya little brother, was very close to stealing this entire show. Every time he opened his mouth, something funny happened. All the characters had great dialogue, but his interjections and random sayings were hilarious. And the delivery by his VA, Momika Terasawa, was top-tier. For such a simple and under-the-radar anime, this kid was a fantastic character.

The only holding this anime out of the main mainstream of anime—the nudity. It’s just there. It’s not even the sexiest part of this anime, by far. Many of the ladies were extremely attractive in a lot of different ways, and it didn’t involve showing skin. Even the hero from the past was a big strong dude, and I can imagine fans found him attractive. Then there was boobage. I called it “weird,” because that’s the best word I could come up with. This anime be rolling right along with all those quirky scenes the siblings and Dara would get into, and suddenly—boobage. Not even for any reason. Just there it was. I hardly even know how to judge it as an aspect of this anime. Did it serve some purpose, was it meant to be part of the sexiness of this show (most likely!), was it a positive or a negative…all kinds of questions. And just about this random boobage. I’ve already gone on way too long about it here. Strange.

Put that aside though, and you have this fantastically well-made, thoroughly entertaining anime. I don’t know what the status of the web manga is, but I hope we get more of this series. So, my recommendation is: parental advisor for the nudity and even some of the violence in the flashbacks, but otherwise I definitely don’t recommend missing this one. Mostly light with some occasional dark, heavy moments, but generally easy to watch and lots of fun.