Ok, I was confused about the test that they traveled to as well. I guess that picture of them looking happy alongside the invite was taken after they passed the test?

One thing that I liked about this first episode is that it spent basically zero time setting up the premise. It was self-aware enough to know that viewers of this show are likely to already be familiar with the trappings and conventions of the otome isekai genre already. The game that this world is based on is as generic and prototypical as you can get. Additionally, we spent absolutely zero time talking about the MC’s previous life other than that she played this game and liked the Villainess. Sorry all you truck-kun lovers out there.

This first episode is a bit of a speedrun of the origin story behind our young Villainess. She studies a lot, practices good manners, gets crazy strong for an eight year old, and has a hell of a sweet tooth. I thought it was funny how she viewed things as a Villainess test, like when the king was asking her questions:

Speaking of, her plan of inciting a revolution for independence in a neighboring region so that her Kingdom can profit is a very Villainess-y move for sure. No saintess is going to advocate for stoking the fires of war, leave that kind of thing to the Villainess.

I am going to try to give this a couple more episodes time permitting, and I look forward to skipping ahead in time a bit to see how the school life goes, as that is usually the setting for the otome games. I suspect that these roses are going to be important. Our MC keeps getting portrayed alongside a black rose in the OP and ED (and her mom was carrying it in the beginning of the episode). So, I suspect that the MC is also a special rose person alongside this golden rose protagonist. We’ll see how it all plays out. @rikka@ani.social

I love this series after just a couple chapters…but it comes out so slowly. I wonder how long this series can even run since all its chapters so far have been based on real abandoned roads. There can only be so many of them, right?

If this new girl falls in love easily, does it also mean she becomes enraged with jealousy easily? I kind of doubt it. Frankly, it’s too early in the series to solve anything.

Spreading the gospel of pudding, one supernatural horror at a time.

The bit about driving narrow mountain roads is so true. I was on vacation once in Ireland and spent a couple days driving through extremely narrow roads with super sharp, blind turns everywhere. It’s frankly terrifying. I was also driving on the opposite side of the road from what I was used to.

On the one hand, they are sadly still playing out this Sakurai can’t control himself story arc. On the other hand, it at least doesn’t seem as traumatic for Uzaki as it was previously.

Good Lord these two are so damn cute together. Their chemistry is just so natural and delightfully weird at the same time. Chokki-chan is like scientifically perfected moe.

Hopefully. I kind of wish we got more out of that conversation with the rival character. It seems like he is the one who knows how things are going to go down.

You chose two fantastic shows to catch up on. LycoReco really surprised me. I didn’t really have many expectations going in, but I ended up really, really liking it. I cannot wait to see what the LycoReco Cafe is cooking up next. I too want to see what is going on with the LIlyBell group.

As for Oshi no Ko, I couldn’t control myself and binged the manga after the first season. Now I have to wait in pain for each new chapter to come out. I feel like this season in particular has really taken the adaptation to a whole new level.

This is just for anime. The !manga@ani.social community is entirely user-created posts.

I hope not. When you have the main pair as the literal title of the series, introducing additional complications like that feels pretty pointless.

I am hoping that this new girl is just looking for some fun company to hang out with and rediscover her youth a bit. We’ll see!

Even the principal is helping out by upending the school schedule to fit in a prom. He really puts the pal in principal.

I love the dynamic that Alvin and Karla have.

Not pictured: Falin passed out just off screen (in my head anyway).

I often have to make figures that end up in regulatory filings submitted to the FDA and EMA for work. So, I am a big fan of sticking to conventions when it comes to these kinds of things. Straying often just means that the agencies ask questions that get you the wrong kind of noticed by everybody else on the team.

I manually enable any shows that people mention wanting to check out in the general discussion thread previewing the upcoming season. Fall’s thread can be found here.

You can always check to see if the bot has a show enabled on this wiki page (in the top section of enabled shows), which is automatically kept up to date. If you would like a show to be marked enabled that has yet to have an episode air, then you can always reach out to me as well.

I will definitely be posting the final chapter to this community when it comes out if somebody else hasn’t already. I will try to remember to ping both you and @PrincessKadath@ani.social when it does. I don’t know exactly how much farther we have to go, but I think there is a moderate chance of it finishing up this year.

I plan on letting this post stay pinned for at least a couple days as the season gets going. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here. I do just want to draw people’s attention to the flow chart I made for this post as it took me way longer to make than I thought it would.

I swear it is the last week I will mention this series as its final chapter was just posted to Mangadex this past week:

• Monthly in the Garden with My Landlord

The final chapter didn’t really have any surprises, just tied a nice bow with some loose ends and showed the characters off with a smile to the rest of their lives. This was such an enjoyable little story with a likable cast of characters. There are a couple things that I would have liked to see gone into a bit more, but I don’t think it is enough to take away from a great adult yuri series featuring adult characters and nary a school uniform in sight.

• Oshi no Ko

The most recent chapter, 161, has really stuck with me. I knew that the series was approaching its end, but when redacted happened, it made me think we are way closer to the end of the series than I thought. Another interesting bit about this most recent chapter is that there are several things that actually tied back to the content included in the episode that aired on the same day (season 2, episode 12). I really, really hope that this series can stick the landing.

• Mary-san

This series passed 200 chapters on Mangadex this past week and I just wanted to give it a shout out. If I find some time I might try to make some pudding to celebrate.

• Yuusha to Yobareta Nochi ni: Soshite Musou Otoko wa Kazoku wo Tsukuru / After Being Called a Hero: The Unrivaled Man Starts a Family

This series wrapped up its most recent arc that has been going on for some time. I have enjoyed this series, but I think that this most recent arc was really dragging by the end. When there are just an endless sequence of new big bads that you have to fight, then it just starts to feel redundant. This series is at its best when it focuses more on the fluffy, family, SOL stuff. The battles are the parts I am least interested in.

Just as a side meta comment, during this past week I haven’t been able to be as responsive to comments/posts as I have in the past. I think it is a good sign that there is enough activity in this community as well as !anime@ani.social that my inbox can look like this after just a couple days:

Keep it up everybody and I apologize if you feel like I have ignored you. I just haven’t had the time recently.