Deaimon

Deaimon is the dad anime of the season. Nagomu Irino goes off to Tokyo to live his dream of being a musical artist only to rush home when he thinks his elderly father hurt himself. His music wasn’t going anywhere but that is superfluous because he is the kind of guy who would drop anything for family anyway. He comes home to find out his dad is fine, and they have a new “daughter” who was just kind of abandoned at the house. He decides to stay and help his dad run the Wagashi business and take care of the little girl. It’s similar to all the other classic slice of life of shows like Sweetness and Lightning, Sakura Drops (I know), and Barakamon. The cast is fun, the story is on the light side and the dad character is a loveable empathetic guy.

Gaikotsu Kishi-sama, Tadaima Isekai e Odekakechuu (Skeleton Knight in Another World)

This is your typical light novel isekai trash that I love. It’s deliciously bad comfort food. A dude falls asleep playing a M.M.O. and wakes up in the game as his overpowered character. The catch to this one is that his avatar is a skeleton. The first season of these types of shows usually only covers the introductory arc of the shows, getting you familiar with the main characters, the setting, and the plot; and this show is no different. We meet the main characters; they establish their goals and we get some overpowered protagonist action. It’s your standard fare. The show covers about as much as I have read of the manga so I don’t know if it gets better but it’s a good afternoon of fun.

Koi wa Sekai Seifuku no Ato de (Love After World Domination)

Koi wa Sekai Seifuku no Ato de is a romantic comedy that posits what if the Red Ranger/Leader character of a Power Rangers/Super Sentai team fell in love with a mid-boss of the villain’s squad. The show is very good because it doesn’t play games and uses the “will-they-won’t-they” classic trope between the main characters. The couple is formed quickly, and the comedy is derived from their situation of having to hide their arrangement from their respective teammates. But what I liked, and I think made the show so good was seeing a completely innocent couple learn how to communicate their wants and feelings clearly. There is something fresh about two people in a relationship who are figuring it out together and using young love to make up for their ignorance around dating. Another thing I enjoyed was the numerous Super Sentai tropes, from the transformations all the way to the campy-looking fights. I probably didn’t catch all of the references, but the evil henchmen look like members of Dai-Shocker, the ones from the original Kamen Rider, so there were probably a lot of deep cuts for the fans who were looking for it. I especially like the trope of “we are an evil society but that doesn’t mean we are an unethical one when it comes to our employees”. This trope also popped up in the show Kaijin Kaihatsu-bu no Kuroitsu-san (Miss Kuroitsu from the Monster Development Department) which is another show you might like if Kamen Rider/Super Sentai parody is your thing.

Aharen-san wa Hakarenai

Aharen-san wa Hakarenai was my second favorite show of the season. It posits what if two neurodivergent high school kids just so happened to be placed next to each other in class. Aharen is a diminutive autist who cannot judge physical or emotional distance with people she takes even the smallest liking to. Her seatmate to the right of her, Raido, is a young man who is also neuroatypical but is better at hiding it. His thing is taking one piece of info and extrapolating extremely implausible conclusions from them. When you put them together  you get a cute pairing who excel at gag comedy. The show gets most of its laughs from Raido assuming something insane about Aharen and actually not being that far of the mark, or Aharen not having normal social skills. The supporting cast is decent with my favorite being a pair of female teachers who are also neurodivergent and probably accidentally dating. The anime gets you so used to the two main characters’ eccentricities that you forget that at the end of the day Aharen still can’t judge social interactions which makes the conflict at the climax of the show fun.

Otome Game Sekai wa Mob ni Kibishii Sekai desu (Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs)

Otome Game Sekai wa Mob ni Kibishii Sekai desu is more isekai trash. But seeing as I love trash, this show was right up my alley. This show falls into the subgenre of isekai that is getting more popular lately of being reincarnated into an otome game. Our main character, Leon Fou Bartfort, sister forces him to 100 percent a pretty bad otome game and he wakes up in it. Usually, these types of shows have a female lead but he is reincarnated as a side character that doesn’t even make it to the box art of the game. It’s pretty much a standard male power fantasy in the world of an otome game. The twist is in this world romantic gender roles seem to be reversed. The reversal isn’t really taken to its logical end though because the men are all still men of means and power. Try not to think too hard about it. The game seemed to also be a terrible mismatch of different games. However, the show distinguishes itself by coming to the end of the typical otome game pretty quickly and then doing its own thing. Usually, otome games have the antagonist be an irritable contemptuous person and then get their comeuppance later in the story, but in this show, the main character Leon decides to mess with the story using the knowledge he has from playing the game. It’s also hinted that Leon’s sister, who made him play the game, is also reincarnated as the protagonist but that’s never confirmed. This show is a good afternoon watch, but it won’t blow you away.

Shijou Saikyou no Daimaou, Murabito A ni Tensei suru (The Greatest Demon Lord Is Reborn as a Typical Nobody)

Shijou Saikyou no Daimaou, Murabito A ni Tensei suru is another one of those shows that are becoming popular to animate. The main character, Demon Lord Varvatos, is super strong and so he decides, for one reason or another, to reincarnate in the future just to be just as strong. It’s your standard fare in the vein of shows like The Misfit of Demon King Academy and The Strongest Sage With the Weakest Crest. It’s not as outrageously fun as the former but not as boring as the latter. I watched it mostly because again I love bad shows. Dude is super strong, he has two girls who really want to jump his bones. There is some comedy and some action, but nothing to write home about.

Yuusha, Yamemasu (I’m Quitting Heroing)

Yuusha, Yamemasu employs a trope I actually really love, but the anime ruined it by letting the cat out of the bag at the very beginning of the show. I love being introduced to a medieval world of swords and magic only to later find out that it’s actually a post apocalyptic world. Some manga also have this plot structure, but to give the names would be to spoil them. The main character is a bioengineered soldier made to kill demons who invaded through a dimensional gate. At some point society just kinda accepted the more peaceful dimensional immigrants. After protecting humanity for so long they kinda don’t need him anymore. so he goes and joins the enemy army. I dropped the manga because I got bored with it and the anime goes right up to the place in the story where I left off so it was nice to see it animated, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this show.