Chatty AF 222: 2025 Winter Mid-Season Check-In (WITH TRANSCRIPT)

TONY: … To see Studio MAPPA, too, coming back to original anime after Studio MAPPA has really kind of thrown original anime to the wayside, often to make some pretty good projects… Like, I love Vinland Saga. Don’t get me wrong.

DEE: Isn’t that Studio Wit?

PETER: It’s MAPPA now.

TONY: It’s MAPPA now.

DEE: Oh, it is? Did it switch over? I think it started as Wit. Alright, well…

PETER: It’s like the second or third anime MAPPA has taken over for Wit, who does not like to do second seasons.

DEE: Wit’s like, “We’re bored with this now. On to the next project.”

PETER: “Yeah, take this, MAPPA.”

[Introductory musical theme]

DEE: Hello and welcome to Chatty AF: The Anime Feminist Podcast. I’m Dee, former AniFem managing editor, now lurking in the office vents. You can find me posting cat pics and geekery on Bluesky @deescribe (that’s D-E-E-scribe) and occasionally remembering I have a Tumblr @joseinextdoor. And I am joined today by fellow AniFem staffers Tony and Peter, if you would like to introduce yourselves.

TONY: Hi, I’m Tony. I’m a contributing editor here at Anime Feminist. You can find me on Bluesky and other platforms @poetpedagogue, and you can find me on the AniFem Discord or lurking in the gayest techno club near you.

DEE: Tonight, in your town only!

TONY: [Chuckles] Literally.

PETER: [crosstalk] I’m Peter Fobian. I’m an editor here at Anime Feminist, and I am @peterfobian on Bluesky.

DEE: And today we are checking in on the surprisingly strong winter 2025 season. As we always do in our mid-season check-ins, we’ll be starting at the bottom of our Premiere Digest list and working our way up—with one slight change, but we’ll note that when it happens. So, let’s get into these titles from A to Zenshu.

Peter, I know you very specifically wanted to talk about Okitsura: [Fell] in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Know What She’s Saying. I think that’s the full title.

PETER: Exactly, yes.

DEE: Excellent. Gotta love those long titles. Let’s just call it Okitsura going forward. I know that’s one you wanted to check in on. We had that fairly low on the list because we were concerned about cultural appropriation or maybe insensitive depictions of Okinawans. So, I know you wanted to talk about that, so the floor is yours.

PETER: Yeah, I definitely get putting it down in Red Flags because it would be a major concern, but from what I’ve watched so far, at least, at about the halfway point, I’ve been… well, honestly, I’m really enjoying myself, but I’ve been kind of looking out for that, and while maybe I’m not the best member of the staff to make a judgment one way or another, I know Chiaki has also really been enjoying the show.

I think it has… It’s really both attempting to show some funny quirks between the way that Okinawans’ and Honshu Japanese works, not in a way that says either side’s wrong but just in how it can create funny misunderstandings. For example, Okinawans use… when they say, “I’m going to do something,” like going to the bathroom, it would be “Toire ni ikimasu”, but they would say “Toire ni ikou,” which is the volitional form, which is usually used as an invitation. So, somebody says they’re going to the bathroom and the main character, who’s from Tokyo, thinks he was just asked to go to the bathroom with ‘em, and then he follows them in. You know, they’re very confused about that. And then a girl, who is too shy to ask him out on a date, accidentally does so by saying she’s going to do something. So, just that kind of… As a Japanese student, I think it’s especially gratifying to actually understand these jokes. But the series also does a good job of explaining them, the translation, and even the show itself to Japanese people that I think it’d come across really well. It doesn’t get too obscure.

And besides that, I think it’s got a really kind of funny and interesting love triangle between the main characters. And the rest of the time, it’s just kind of informing you about Okinawan culture and Okinawan life. It goes over how they handle typhoons and how DVDs are still popular over there because they get power outages during typhoons, so it’s kind of like all the guys go to bars and get drunk, and they go to DVD stores in case the power goes out and they all have battery-powered DVD TVs, that kind of thing. Or the difference between Okinawan and Hawaiian shirts, how they have similar patterns but in Okinawa that’s considered formal wear. Just that kind of stuff. So, similar to a tourism anime in any part of Japan, I feel like it’s really trying to show you the cool stuff about Okinawa and maybe some unexpected facts and stuff like that. So, I think it’s a really great series.

DEE: Cool, so a little bit of an edutainment series that… It sounds like they— I mean, I can’t speak to the validity of it, but it sounds like there’s been an attempt to actually research the culture and spend time in Okinawa and all that jazz. I know Chiaki has been pretty high on it. I think she’s already basically said she wants to write a recommendation for it at the end of the season, which is very awesome that she feels that strongly about it halfway through. So, yeah, hopefully it continues to stay the course, then.

TONY: I have a question, though. Yeah, I mean, you bringing up it being like a tourist anime brings up concerns for me just because some of my Okinawan friends talk about the colonial relationship between the larger Japan and Okinawa and how that plays out in the tourism industry in Okinawa. And I’m curious if it’s ever acknowledged that Okinawa is effectively like a colony of Japan.

PETER: They do not get into that. Also, maybe “tourism anime”… I think I was trying to kind of compare how it’s rolled out, although I think in most tourism animes they specifically show you places that you can visit in that location, whereas this series is more focused on culture and life in Okinawa. So, I don’t think we’ve been introduced to places that you could potentially visit if you wanted to go to Okinawa; it just tells you more. But yeah, it definitely doesn’t get into the colonial relationship.

DEE: So, it doesn’t necessarily feel like it’s advertising Okinawa as your next hot vacation spot; it feels more like it’s trying to tell you about the culture there?

PETER: Yeah, it’s not doing a Zombie Land Saga or anything like that.

DEE: Yeah, without necessarily getting into the political details, which is a shame, but I’m also not particularly surprised.

TONY: Yeah, same here.

DEE: Tony, if any of your Okinawan friends want to write an article about the show for us, let ‘em know, because that would be a fascinating perspective. Yeah.

PETER: [crosstalk] Yeah, that sounds like a really great piece.

TONY: I’ll see what they think.

DEE: Cool! Okay, well, let’s go ahead, and we’re going to skip around. Peter’s watching a bajillion things, but we’re going to kind of focus on shows that the AniFem Patreon voters asked us to look at and then also shows that two or more of us are watching currently. So, we’re gonna skip up the list to Sakamoto Days. Quite a few people requested an update on this. Peter, you are the only one watching, so it’s your turn to monologue again. Let’s go!

PETER: Alright. I feel kinda like a spoilsport after knowing that so many people wanted to hear about this, but I previously read the manga for, I want to say, ten or so chapters when it first came out and I fell off pretty quick, and I’ve been watching this show and kind of remembering why. I don’t know, this series just kinda has one joke, which is, like, “A fat guy can fight well. Isn’t that funny?”

TONY: Oh, I hate that.

PETER: A lot of jokes and a lot of the visual humor are like, he punches somebody and his jowls are shaking like Homer Simpson when he gets poked in the doctor’s office. I hope people still understand that reference, but…

DEE: I got that reference.

PETER: Yeah. And then, also, when he gets really serious, he sucks in all his fat and becomes a thin guy again anyway, which is something that happens to every fat fighting character in every shounen anime, which I also don’t like.

Also, I kind of picked out something in the anime that I didn’t really in the manga, or at least I don’t remember, but it seemed like it was really interested at first in having Sakamoto be a silent protagonist. Like, he doesn’t talk at all, completely nonverbal at the beginning. And then, I feel like— And he does a lot of stuff like, when he wants to come across a message, he’ll point at a sign in a store or do something physical to indicate what his thoughts are, which… it’s sort of immediately copped out on by… The sidekick who shows up in the first episode and brings him back into the world of hitmanning is psychic, so he can read Sakamoto’s thoughts, so you get to hear Sakamoto talking just by thinking words at him anyway. 

And then the series just loses interest in that altogether. Sakamoto at some point just starts talking, and they completely give up on the silent protagonist thing. So, that was the one part that I thought was sort of interesting that it just kinda backed out on. I could make a really good comparison to Cassandra Cain’s Batgirl, but that might take too long. [Chuckles] But one of the reasons why I don’t read DC Comics.

I also just… I don’t think that the jokes are very funny outside of Sakamoto, and the action’s not that good either. I just feel like if you wanted to watch a series like this with an overpowered main character that’s got comedy in it, there’s Mob Psycho and One Punch Man, which both do it way better. They are about the same as far as their female cast. So far, the only— I know there’s some female characters that certain people have been looking forward to, but they just have the one girl in the main group and then one villain who… she’s really into guys, like, yelling at her or something like that.

And finally, the last thing I want to mention is, the more I watch the series, the more I realize it’s really heavy Gintama stolen valor going on. It’s got, like, the same central trio, a silver-haired main character who is kind of goofy half the time and fights really well another half the time, the kind of straitlaced guy, and then a Chinese girl with red hair that she has in buns who is kind of chaos energy and does martial arts really well. And then I realized Sakamoto also has the same VA as Gintoki, as well.

TONY: [groaning] Oh, God.

PETER: So, now I just can’t get that out of my head. Whenever I see the art, even, it looks like they’re even positioning the characters the same way, in a cityscape rather than an ancient Tokyo-scape. So, I can’t unsee it anymore.

DEE: So, the anime knew. The anime had to know to make that casting call. [Chuckles]

PETER: Yeah, I think… Yeah, they’re just like, “Oh, well, this is obviously what the author’s doing, so let’s just get Gintoki in there.”

DEE: Let’s call it an homage.

PETER: [Chuckles] Sure.

[Chuckling]

PETER: Yeah. But unfortunately, I don’t have too many compliments for the series.

DEE: Yeah, it sounds like you’re kinda just watching it because you have to watch it for work.

PETER: I… Well, I picked this one up specifically because it was on our list, requested by the fans, which is why I feel particularly bad about just, you know, insulting it for the past five or so minutes.

DEE: Well, we appreciate the update, and I will say sometimes we get votes on shows that it isn’t necessarily because our audience is loving it. It is partly because they’re, like, morbidly curious about it. So this may have been one where folks are like, “Well, I’ve heard good things about it, but I’m worried about the fatphobia. Does that tone down?” And it sounds like it continues to be pretty much a sequence of bad fat jokes. So, that is unfortunate. But yeah, so, thankfully there are other good shows this season that you can watch instead.

I did want to note real quick, before we move into stuff that we’re all watching together, we did have a decent number of folks ask us to check in on Sorairo Utility, the golfing show. I was trying to catch up on stuff before the pod and I watched the first episode of Sorairo and the first episode of Flower and Hana [sic], and Flower and Hana [sic] sang to me more strongly. So, I ended up—

TONY: You mean Flower and Asura, right?

DEE: Flower and Asura, yes. Hana— Hana, flower, yeah. My brain went Japanese and… yeah. Yeah. So, I ended up watching that one instead, so I’ve only seen the first episode. Vrai is kind of keeping up with it, but they’re a couple behind as well, so we don’t really have much to say about this one other than “Pretty fun sports anime,” from what Vrai has told me. We will do our ample best to have someone caught up and able to provide an update at the end of the season.

TONY: I will say, the end-of-the-season pod is definitely going to be a lot of sequel discussion, though.

DEE: Oh, almost certainly. I am watching a lot of sequels this season, although I’ve fallen behind on those because I had to catch up on— I’ll get there. Eventually I’ll get there.

TONY: It’s gonna be a lot of fun.

DEE: We’ll see if we can at least get a little blurb for Sorairo Utility, because I know a lot of folks are interested in that one. And I’ve heard good things. I just… I have a hard time with golf anime that aren’t Birdie Wing, which is JoJo’s. I mean, that’s JoJo’s Golf.

PETER: Same.

TONY: It literally is! [Chuckles]

DEE: [crosstalk] It’s JoJo’s Bizarre Golf Adventure. So, I like sports anime, but the golf of it all was not really working for me. But we’ll get something up here. We’ll get some kind of a quick summary for folks so we can let you know how that one’s doing.

And then that takes us to, heading up into our It’s Complicated category… Oh, Peter, you’re watching this one as well. Cool! Gotta love a long title. I May Be A Guild Receptionist, but I’ll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time. I will be referring to this as Guild Receptionist for the rest of this call, because I am not saying all of that again. You know what? I’ve been making you talk for a while. I’ll give you a break and I will…

PETER: Thank you. [Chuckles]

DEE: Yeah, I was gonna say, “Peter, what are your thoughts?” and I was like, “I’ll kick us off on this one.” I sometimes quite enjoy this one. It’s very like, popcorn anime that I’m not gonna think about probably at all once it’s over, but sometimes there is some personal value in having those shows on your list that you just kinda, like… “Yeah, that was fun,” and then you go about your day.

Basically, Alina is very good. I really love her as a protagonist. I think the show functions as a fantasy office comedy pretty effectively. Scenes of her at her office playing off of her coworkers or dealing with shitty clientele… I think that stuff can be pretty funny and pretty effective as a light social critique on the kind of crap office workers have to deal with. I think it’s a little less interesting when it’s going into fantasy lore and worldbuilding because this is kind of like video game mechanics, a little bit. It’s not nearly as bad as a lot of series I’ve seen, but it does sort of live in that MMO world style of storytelling.

My chief thing I want to love and I’m kind of annoyed by is the Alina-and-Jade relationship. Peter, what do you think about the two of them? That’s kind of like the romcom element of the story.

PETER: Uh… I don’t think about it a lot, I think. It definitely clears that I don’t really mind it too much, because there are other popular ships this season that I am just absolutely against. We’ll see if that comes up.

DEE: [amused] Okay.

PETER: But yeah, I at least think he’s kinda mostly polite about it. There was the weird swimming thing where it seems like he tried to engineer a situation to see her in a swimsuit, which I didn’t really like. But I do enjoy their different personality types and, I guess, also the fact that she’s willing to just… Like, I think when they first meet, she’s like, “I’m actually going to kill you in this alley.” And then he shows her that gemstone, and she just breaks it with her grip strength in what could have been a visual metaphor. So, I think there are enough jokes in there that I at least find their back-and-forth to be kind of funny sometimes, but I’m in no way invested whatsoever.

DEE: Yeah, I really liked the dynamic between them initially. I like that the whole thing is Jade really admires her and feels like he needs to find a way to be her equal. I do like that dynamic. I like that he’s very straitlaced and she’s more like, “I’m going to break the rules if it will get me a free evening to myself.” My issue with it is like… I feel like this is an issue with the writing of their… (how do I put this?) … almost the writing of the relationship itself versus the characters, because she is so harsh. Like, when he asked her out on a date, she’s like, “I’ll be vomiting blood the whole time, but if it’ll get me out of overtime, then okay, fine.” And he’s like, “Wow, you hate the idea that much?” But then she agrees to it anyway. So, I feel like the dynamic is supposed to be like she likes him but she’s too focused on other things to really focus on a relationship. But it ends up kinda coming across like he’s like, “I’m gonna wear you down!” You know what I mean? So, I wish the writing on that was a little bit cleaner because I really, really… I really want to love their relationship and it’s just not quite there for me yet.

PETER: Yeah. I do think she has a very violent inclination, which I actually enjoy a lot about the series.

DEE: She does. This is very true.

PETER: They wanted to interrogate that guy, who I’m pretty sure she literally just smashed into a puddle of blood in that forest before they could ask him anything. So, I think that—

DEE: I think she killed all those dudes. I think they’re just all straight-up dead!

PETER: I think maybe verbally she is just the same way she is physically, where she immediately draws blood no matter what. [Chuckles]

DEE: Even if she actually does kind of like the other person. Yeah, I appreciate that it’s also spending a little more time with the other characters and giving us some more backstory there, although it’s less funny when it’s dealing with the others. But, you know, adding some pathos. It’s one of those where I feel like it’s really close to being exactly my perfect comedy fantasy, and it’s just not quite there. So, I’m kind of rooting for it to fully click. But it’s not a bad watch by any means, but I wouldn’t say I’m enamored of it. Is that about where you fall on it, or are you kinda just watching it to watch it at this point?

PETER: Yeah, I think it— Definitely we thought that it might have some stuff about… you know, [we thought] it might be commentary of some sort, but that time has passed. I do have some trouble where— What immediately took me out of it was just, like, I think she literally has the only job in the entire setting that has overtime at all. So…

DEE: It does feel that way!

PETER: I just can’t help thinking that all the time. And, like you, whenever they start talking about divine skills, I just immediately fall asleep.

DEE: 100%, yeah.

PETER: But yeah, I can almost kinda let my attention lapse a little bit, and then when Alina comes back on the screen and starts doing something rambunctious, I’m entertained again. So, I think it’s good in that way. It’s good popcorn anime.

DEE: Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. So…

Alright, with that one off… We don’t have anyone on the call watching Aquarion, so we will pass over that. I think Vrai’s still keeping up with that one, so I might ask them for a little write-up on that at the end of season as well, like a quick paragraph we can read.

PETER: I am curious, yeah.

DEE: Yeah. Okay, folks, little bit of a plot twist. The next show on the list would be Zenshu, but we are going to save that one for the end, because all three of us are watching it and I feel like we all kinda want to talk about it for a little while. So, we’re going to save that one for the finish, so we’re gonna skip past that one real quick and go to Medalist. Tony, you get to talk! Welcome to the podcast!

TONY: Hi! So, Medalist is actually a show I have a huge amount to say about. I love this show. It’s probably one of my top two shows of the season. Actually, I’ll just say it: it’s my top show of the season. And I think that’s largely because of Tsukasa. I love Tsukasa as a character. He is— Well, when I first watched it, he kind of put me off because the first thing he does is he acts like, kind of, the cop of the rink and chases down a girl who’s kind of getting into this ice skating rink for free and is like [Assumes a chiding tone] “Don’t do that.” [Returns to normal voice] And at first I was kind of chafing at that because I was like, “Hm, what’s going on here?” But then I realized he did that because he’s a big baka dummy. And I’m like, okay, I can vibe with that. And then he reveals himself to be both a big baka dummy and also someone who’s deeply concerned with trying to teach her how to be responsible and also is a fantastic teacher.

DEE: A beautiful golden retriever of a man. Yes, agreed.

TONY: Yes, he’s wonderful but he’s also incredibly intelligent about how to effectively set boundaries as a teacher and to make sure that he’s engaging in meaningful support of his students in ways that give them agency, right, but also give them support to be able to engage that agency effectively, right, and show them the kind of unconditional positive regard that… Inori, I want to say? Inori? Is that what it is?

DEE: Inori. You’re right.

TONY: Yes. He shows her this really profound unconditional positive regard that is actually really, really crucial in understanding how you work with young people. And that’s how he provides her care, that’s how he maintains appropriate boundaries, and it’s interesting how they contrast him with these other coaches who sometimes don’t know how to set boundaries with the children in their care, right? And I think that it’s really, really amazing to see a representation of a teacher–student relationship that feels so authentic to what I know makes a good teacher–student relationship, based upon my own experience as a teacher, because so much of anime, I think, tends to present teacher–student relationships in these kind of weirdly either cold and distant ways or in ways that come across as not always maintaining proper boundaries or have this kind of fetishized “Be a hard-ass on your students and they will improve.” I mean, I haven’t seen a lot of Sound! Euphonium, but that’s how some of that sometimes feels to me.

DEE: 100% agree with you. I really loved when Inori is trying to figure out what she wants her program to look like, and he gives her options, and he goes, “Well, you could do this, this, or this,” and then he says, “I’m going to leave it up to you. What do you want to do? And I will help you make that happen.” And I really like that element of, again, encouraging her to have her own thoughts and agency and grow while also kind of setting clear boundaries, because she is still just a kid, and you can’t just throw her to the wolves and say, “Figure it out.” So, yeah, I agree. I think he’s a wonderful teacher, and I love him a lot.

But I was curious what your thoughts were on… There’s the kind of subplot with… Oh, character names are going to escape me here, and that’s fine. There’s the kinda foul-mouthed child who Inori befriends, whose coach is also kind of a temperamental, foul-mouthed person. And at first I thought, “Oh, this storyline is setting up to compare Tsukasa to this other coaching style and show how Tsukasa and Inori are such a perfect duo.” But then the way it kind of ended was basically like the coach and the student had similar personalities and the coach effectively telling her kid, like, “No, your fire is a good thing. I don’t want you to get rid of that. I have that in me, too, and that’s one of the reasons why I want to support you.” And my initial response to that was like, “This is a very unprofessional way to treat a child,” but then by the end of it, I was like, “Do I maybe actually like this because they’re meeting each other on the same level?” I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. What are your thoughts on that?

TONY: Remind me: was that in the most recent episode? Did that episode come out the last couple days? Because maybe I missed it.

DEE: No, no, no, not in the last couple of days. It was— So, in Inori’s first competition, the other girl, who she had kind of befriended, who was kind of refusing to listen to her coach and running away, and she and her coach, their relationship was kind of, like, yelling at each other, and she ends up… she messes up the competition, partly because she didn’t listen to her coach. And at the end, she goes to her coach and is like, “I gotta fix my entire personality. I’m such a mess.” And her coach is like, “No, you don’t have to do that. We can work within your personality. I think there are strengths to that.”

TONY: [crosstalk] How did I miss that? Oh, my gosh. I’m so embarrassed. I’m so embarrassed.

DEE: It’s okay!

TONY: Somehow I must have zoned out while I was watching it. But, I mean, in general—

DEE: You were too busy staring deeply into Tsukasa’s eyes. I get it.

TONY: I think, in general, I’ll say a couple things. I think, on one hand, that is a very nuanced discussion, because as a teacher, there’s multiple ways of looking at that. You have to make sure that you are not projecting your own story onto your children. That is a very dangerous thing to do and a very common thing to do as educators, and it often leads to a savior complex that leads to a lack of boundaries in the relationship and potentially a more controlling relationship where you try to push the child into the dreams that you couldn’t have, right? 

But what you’re describing doesn’t sound like that. It sounds more like a person talking about, like… similar to, sometimes, what I have— I teach at a school for students who are neurodivergent, and so I frequently will talk to my students about my own experiences as a neurodivergent person and how my work at the school is deeply connected to my own experiences growing up and not really having an environment like that, right, and how the things that they often feel slightly ashamed about are actually the things that make me want to stay and make me happy that I’m here, to be there with them. So, it’s a really nuanced thing. How do you make sure that you are using it as a way to appropriately build a relationship—because storytelling is a really important way to build a relationship with a student, right—while also not making the student feel manipulated? Or be manipulated, for that matter. Not just feel but be manipulated. Or, alternatively, projecting what you think is going on onto the student in a way that’s going to be counterproductive.

DEE: Right. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and I think that all kind of ties into… whether or not I agree with the particular style of this one character, kind of ties into what you were talking about, the unconditional support and love and how essential that is to a kid’s success, regardless of what form that takes, the kid knowing that the adult has their back, which we see in Tsukasa’s backstory, in… not the most, most recent episode by the time this airs but the week prior, that he also had that with the adults in his life.

TONY: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I found that really touching, because, I mean, the show is also about class. We haven’t even touched—

DEE: Do you want to go into that some more?

TONY: Yeah! I mean—

DEE: We really haven’t. Like the fact that ice skating is very expensive?

TONY: Yes! I mean, that is a huge part of what the show is… of Tsukasa’s story, is that he could not afford ice skating, and so that’s why he had to start late. It’s not just because his parents pooh-poohed him. It’s because he couldn’t afford it. Which completely recontextualizes the moment at the beginning where he’s talking to this child and being like, “Don’t go into the rink without having paid,” because he’s talking from a place of having been there himself, right, and trying to find the way to give her that support so she can enter the space legitimately, right? Also, it’s very honest about how having to work multiple jobs while doing a hobby or doing some sort of… or not even a hobby, I guess, on Tsukasa’s part, but while trying to get your start in a career where you don’t really necessarily have a stable source of income really destroys your ability to actually focus on your craft.

DEE: And he is very fortunate that he kind of stumbles across a family who’s willing to help and support him and kind of take him in and effectively say, “We’ll give you room and board if you just help out around the house a little bit.” And he is able to go a lot further in his skating career, given how late he started, than I think most people would have expected. And a lot of that does come down to the fact that he did finally find some support, both financially and just, like, materially and emotionally.

TONY: And I also just find it very charming how the show really shows explicitly how these cultures of saving face, which is such a huge thing in Asian culture, make it really hard to reach out for support, especially in the more recent episodes. Like the sushi bar scene, right? Just all the different moments of attempting to save face but failing spectacularly [Chuckles] I found very satisfying as somebody who, myself, has to often navigate differences in class between me and either people I’m dating or people who I’m friends with and how difficult it can be to talk about money when you have to save face and appear respectable at all times.

DEE: Yeah, the difficulty of reaching out for assistance. Absolutely.

TONY: Or even the kind of unspoken thing where somebody pays for your dinner and you, you know, say “Thank you,” and then you have to choose whether or not you’re gonna offer to pay for the next one, right?

DEE: Sure. Oh, absolutely. No, I know what you mean. Yeah, the “No, no, no, no, you can’t! You don’t have to!” “No, I got this! I promise!” And you have to say that like three times at least before you can move on.

TONY: Fighting over the check, yes, is a huge thing.

DEE: Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, yes. I’m from the Midwest. It is similar here. So, yeah, no, I feel that for sure. Okay, let’s skip ahead and… Let’s go ahead and move on. Hopefully we can come back to Medalist later this year and continue to sing its praises.

Next one up is for me and Peter, Honey Lemon Soda, the shoujo teen romcom of the season. Peter, you had plenty of time to rest your voice. Would you like to kick us off on this one?

PETER: Yeah, I can start, although I feel… I just have a weird perception of this anime, I guess. It’s kind of doing a lot of things that I think would really annoy me but in a way that does not annoy me. Specifically, the main character is… What’s her name? Ishima? Is—

DEE: Uka Ishimori. Yeah.

PETER: Ishimori, Ishimori. I know the “ishi” part because… Yeah.

DEE: Stone, yes.

PETER: Yeah, yeah, yeah. She is very kinda— I mean, I definitely sympathize with characters like this a lot, but it’s kind of a tightrope as to whether they can get really kind of annoying or just the way they’re portrayed can just be a constant nervous downer. But I feel like the series is really successfully walking a tightrope with her. I think what really helps is her internal monologue is really good about not just the ways in which she is uncertain about basically every situation she walks into and kind of… She doesn’t really— You just kinda get a perception of what has happened to her rather than the show explicitly stating it, and her strategies and desires to turn her life around rather than her lamenting how she has so much trouble with social interaction. And her aspirations are just kind of like “Live a normal high school life in which I have friends who don’t hate me.” 

So, I think it’s really successfully pulled that off. And it does have some scenes where, as opposed to that becoming very overwrought, I feel it’s very impactful. I did have that one scene which I think has got like a 100% hit rate on me where they say that thing like “Oh, I don’t have to lie to my parents anymore when they ask me if I made any friends or if I had a good day at school.” Whenever it’s framed that way, it’s just so frickin’ tragic. [Chuckles] Just like, oh, it wasn’t even that I was suffering; I just felt so bad about lying to my parents every day. Like, you’re really trapped as a kid. And so, I definitely… Maybe I just sort of recognize that it’s a very rocky terrain they’re navigating and they’re doing it pretty well. That said, her relationship with Miura kind of started off also in a way I was concerned about where it kind of seemed like he was her motivational speaker who she was in love with.

DEE: Yeah!

PETER: Yeah. But… I don’t— The anime… it’s weird but in a way that I’m enjoying. The last thing is… just the way her class interacts with her feels kind of like bullying half the time, like they’re razzing her to try to get her to react in a weird way because she’s so non-socialized. Like when Miura caught the eraser that’s thrown at him because he’s sleeping in class, everybody’s applauding, but then everybody points out that she’s applauding, maybe because that’s sort of an unexpected reaction out of somebody who would choose to sit in the center front of class, which kind of felt like bullying, but then in the ways that followed up, it seemed like they did find her endearing, but I don’t know, for somebody in her position, if that would be a very positive experience.

DEE: Yeah, I think the dynamic they’re trying to hit with her is that she is this very smart kid who went to a sort of casual high school. Like, they point out early on, like, “We’re more of a social high school. Nobody here is planning on getting into a fancy college.” And so, I think there was this kind of expectation… and because she was so quiet to start the year, I think there was this thought of she was just this very withdrawn, smart kid. And so, the teasing, to me, comes across as very true-to-life high-school “I’m trying to make a connection with you, and the way I do that is through humor,” like “I didn’t know that you would get excited about stuff like this” or “Oh, it’s cute that you did this or that.” So, to me it doesn’t really come across as bullying; it comes across more as just teenagers trying to connect with each other through teasing, which was definitely how I engaged most of my friends in high school, so maybe that’s why I read it that way.

I did have the thought in one of the last two episodes… I think when one of the other classmates was talking about Uka having to learn to read the vibes of the room, I was like, “Could you [read her] as neurodivergent?” And I will throw that one out to our listeners at home, our audience, because I don’t think I have an answer for that, but I think that might be an interesting read to have on the character.

PETER: It did cut to her looking up the definition of “vibe” in the library after that. [Chuckles]

DEE: Which was excellent, and I was very proud of her for that. And it’s that question of: can we read her as neurodivergent, or do you just read her as somebody who’s been very shy and got bullied and so just hasn’t had a lot of social interactions with kids? Which is also a very true-to-life and realistic experience. So, I think it’s an interesting conversation to have, not one that I’m here to make a statement about, but maybe something that I’d be curious to hear other folks discuss.

One thing I do like about the show is I was really worried early on that it would be Uka becoming super codependent on Kai, and I like that a lot of it has been… There’s been a good balance of some of the romance scenes with the friendship stories and her connecting to her class and her stepping up and wanting to be an active part of the school festival and engaging with other people that way. I also really liked, in the last episode… like, Kai has a conversation with his friend where they’re basically like, “She’s becoming really dependent on you. This is concerning.” So, I was like, oh, the narrative is aware and the characters are aware, which is wild because they’re teenagers. But I was glad to see that the narrative also knows that Uka runs the risk of becoming kind of codependent here, and so, the fact that it knows that’s happening gives me more confidence that the story is going to take their relationships and that character in a healthier direction as it continues.

I will say, just briefly, Episode 6 had a very weird directorial vibe to it that was completely different from the episodes before it.

PETER: I loved it.

DEE: I kind of loved… I liked it, kind of, but it was so different from what came before that the inconsistency really threw me off. So, I don’t know if the director was like, “The studio execs aren’t paying attention anymore. Time for me to have fun!” or what was going on there. It felt a little bit more like Kare Kano or, truthfully… I looked up the director; the director was the Azumanga Daioh director. That was kinda what it felt like at parts.

PETER: Oh! Were you the one who said, like, it went from Kimi ni Todoke to Kare Kano?

DEE: Kare Kano… Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mentioned that in the AniFem Slack, that the pacing and directorial tone just took much more of a turn into kind of wacky romcom that I really did not see coming. So, I don’t know if that’s gonna continue or how I’m supposed to read that, but…

PETER: That thought took me a long way, I think, because I read that before watching maybe the last three or four episodes. And I was thinking the whole time, “Oh, yeah, the scenario is more…” It starts off very Kimi ni Todoke, especially with the main character’s anxiety and all that. But the class energy definitely seems more Kare Kano, where they’re almost kind of like a collective character who is acting as, like, a straight man to the hijinks of the main character, like this very big reactive energy to the— They’re almost like an audience, right, and they’re reacting and participating in the play. And I noticed that was happening more and more, like when I was talking about the scenes where they were razzing her, where it was feeling like they were all kind of participating in a performance. So, I was getting Kare Kano vibes, already, off of their class as a collective that sort of led into that episode, which for me—and I’d seen clips and stuff—maybe made it feel a bit less jarring. But yeah, I think that was a really good thought that you had.

DEE: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for the affirmation, Peter. [Chuckles]

PETER: Sure.

DEE: Yeah, so, you know, I will say it certainly wasn’t boring. So, I’m kind of curious to see where the production goes from here. And like I said, I have more confidence in the overall story that it knows what it’s doing with its cast. So, fingers crossed, we’re back with more good vibes at the end here.

PETER: Mm-hm. Also, I love a romcom where the guy has an ex-girlfriend who actually turns out to be pretty cool, rather than just a villain.

DEE: Yeah, that was nice. That was a nice touch. The show does do a nice job of zigging when you think it will zag, which I appreciate as someone who’s watched a decent number of shoujo teen romcoms.

PETER: Good stuff.

DEE: Always good to have those elements in there.

Alright, next on our list, From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated! I’ve been calling this one Re-Dad for short, but I don’t think that’s the common parlance.

TONY: Re-Dad Redemption?

DEE: Re-Dad. Like Re:Zero.

TONY: [crosstalk] I think it’ll need a redemption after the last few episodes, oh, my God.

DEE: Yeah! I know you’ve been— I think you had higher expectations for this show going in than I did, so I know the last couple of episodes have definitely not clicked for you at all. Would you like to go into detail about that?

TONY: Yeah. Okay, so it’s falling into all the exact tropes that I really despise about villainess isekai—villainess otome isekai. Just my least favorite thing… And every single villainess isekai except for— I don’t think My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom does this, although maybe it does and it just seemed fresh and new the first time I saw it. But a lot of them just have these episodes that just stretch for on and on where you’re training in the magic system, the magic system that has absolutely no relevance to the plot whatsoever, and is absolutely, completely inconsequential in terms of what… It’s like checking off a box of what you’re required to do when you do an isekai, which is to have a fantasy magic system, right?

DEE: It definitely got distracted with game mechanics for a little stretch there, and my eyes glazed over, so I feel you.

TONY: It was like a whole good two episodes of that. And the dialogue just became— The only thing that was happening was characters literally telling you what just happened, right? Like “Oh, wow! She just switched from fire to water! How did she do that? Oh, she did blah-blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah.” You know?

DEE: Yeah, yeah. I feel like the adaptation was really struggling to figure out how to weave the— Because, you know, we’re introduced to his daughter and his wife [who] are now aware that his consciousness has been, like, sucked into this game while he’s in a coma, and they figure, “Oh, if we can get him to the end of the game, maybe we can get him back.” I love that story element, by the way. I think that’s very fresh. And I love that it makes this family story, a dad–daughter story, literally bonding over this game together. I think that’s really cool. 

I do think that the narrative… And I don’t know if this is from the manga or if this is an anime-only issue. I think it really struggled to figure out how to weave those two narratives together. So, like, stuff would happen in the game and then you could cut to the daughter and the mom reacting to it or… because she’s able to interact with it to a certain extent, so her figuring out what she can do with it. And so, you ended up with these scenes where it was like repeating the same scene but from two different perspectives. But it was a slog! I will say, in the most recent episode, I think they figured it out a little bit. Episode 6 did a much better job of cutting back and forth between the two without repeating the information. So, fingers crossed that we’re through that clumsiness and it will be a little cleaner going forward.

TONY: I think one of the things that was really disappointing to me is that they were only able to interact with the game insofar as game mechanics things, right, like switching it from fire to water, or “Combine these sprites!” or, you know, things like that that are just completely inconsequential. Although I do have to admit, the moment where there were these little plushes of both of the souls in the protagonist were… That was nice. I was like, “That’s a cute plush. I would buy that plush.” But—

DEE: [Chuckles] Then they did their job.

TONY: They did their job. But it’s disappointing to me because it’s not grounded in their relationship in any meaningful way. Right?

DEE: Yeah. I will say, in the most recent episode, it looks like she’s maybe figuring out that she can control the dragon.

TONY: Yes, I remember that.

DEE: So, she’s trying to figure out, like, “How can I actually contact him directly to let him know I’m here?” And so, I’m hoping that— Like, I agree with you about that concern. It feels like maybe they’re building to that, so that’s my hope.

TONY: That’s my hope because, I mean, she was trying to protect him, right, in that moment, which is meaningful. But I really want to see that be more grounded in their relationship. And my impression is a show like Endo and Kobayashi did that fairly successfully, if…

DEE: It did, yeah.

TONY: … you know, by comparison.

DEE: I liked that one. It was clumsy along the way, but it did a really nice job of building up and— Well, that one was more about the relationship between a person in fiction and the kind of bonds you can develop with fictional characters in terms of helping you through rough patches in your life, whereas this one is more about actual people, like a dad and a daughter, connecting over this game and her trying to help him out. So, it’s a little bit of a different vibe, but yeah, no, there’s definitely a similarity there. And in that one they were directly talking to the characters, and she hasn’t figured out how to do that yet, so there is definitely a weakness there. I agree.

TONY: And I feel like it would just be so much more meaningful to me— I know I’m basically saying, “I wish that the show was different.” But I do think that there’s a weakness here in that it’s harder to feel a sense of investment in that when it feels very one sided, you know, where the daughter and the mother care a lot about the father and making sure that he’s safe, but then the father’s just kinda rolling with it and not even… Like, he hasn’t even thought about how his daughter and his wife are doing that entire time.

DEE: Yeah. That bothered me a lot early. I think once I knew he was in a coma, I kinda told myself, “Oh, well, it’s like dream logic for him,” so it’s just not at the forefront of his mind. But I agree with you. I think the fact that… Again, I’m hoping that the story will have her reach out to him and then he’ll kind of have that realization of, like, “Oh, there is a reality to this.” But, yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, it is very much a comedy, and it might be a tad unfair for us to ask more of it than that.

TONY: That’s fair. Yeah, I just… And on that note, I just hope it starts going back to being funny again.

DEE: Yeah. The back half of Episode 6 did a better job of going back to being a dad otome, where he’s, like, getting really emotional about what great parents the other kids have and figuring out ways to work around the social mechanics based on his life as an office worker. So, yeah, I agree with you. I hope it’s able to stick to that and not get too mired in game mechanic and plot stuff, for sure.

TONY: Yeah. So, yep, it sure does need a Re-Dad Redemption. And let’s hope it gets that.

DEE: We’ll see, yeah. I’m still gonna stick with it because there’s enough here to kind of keep me interested, so…

TONY: I’m gonna keep watching it, yeah.

DEE: Okay. We are— Gosh, man, I really thought we were at a good clip and now I don’t feel so good about our clip, but it’s fine. We’ll get through Flower and Asura. We’ll try to do this one quickly. My main thoughts about it are: I really like it and it’s good. [Chuckles] Peter, you’re also watching Flower and Asura.

PETER: Yep. I think I’m pretty much on the same page as you. I don’t know if I have too much to say about it. I do like that it’s kind of directly— I think this is kind of a common theme in shows where you get a sense that the character has some self-hatred. Like, you could say that about Honey Lemon Soda: she just doesn’t like the fact that she can’t socialize the same way that other people can. But I feel like in this one it’s kind of directly tackling the subject where she says, “Oh, yeah, I do not like myself at all. Dictating is like the one thing I want to do well.” And I feel like one of the reasons she was resistant to get into it initially was either that she really didn’t feel like she deserved to be able to do it, but also perhaps that if she failed at it, that would mean that there’s nothing that makes her special anymore and only the parts that she hates about herself are actually real. So, I felt like it very directly confronted that, which I enjoyed. I liked that the head of the Broadcasting Club was very aggressive about recruiting her but not in a way that really turned me against them. Like, I know everybody loves Run with the Wind, but that really poisoned me against that series, when the guy was essentially blackmailing people into joining the race.

DEE: Oh, yeah, no, he was way over the line. Agreed.

PETER: Yeah. So, I just couldn’t enjoy the series after that because I felt like everybody was just being compelled to do this thing, and, in some cases, extremely in a way that was dangerous to their own health. And in this one, I feel like she’s very aggressive, but she doesn’t step over that line for me and she’s genuinely interested in her as a person as opposed to what she can do for their track-and-field team, say.

DEE: Agreed. And I think Mizuki also… I mean, Hana doesn’t say, “I don’t want to do this.” She’s like, “Well, I…” She kinda has excuses, right? She’s like, “Well, I can’t because of the ferry. I don’t want to put anybody out. You know, I live a long way away.” So, I think Mizuki also kind of picks up on “Oh, this is something she does actually want to do. She just needs someone to encourage. She just needs that push.” And I think she does a nice job of meeting her on her level, getting to know her, like you said, and… I wouldn’t call the show gay, but I would say it’s pretty queer…

PETER: Oh, yeah.

DEE: … in Hana’s… She is very enamored with Mizuki. And I feel like the fact that the story she decides to read, the connection point there, is an underclassman declaring their love for their senpai, and she’s like, “Oh, my God! This is the story I want to read!” And I’m like, “Mm-hm! Mm-hm! Yeah.” Not that I necessarily think this is going to end in, like, a kiss or anything. I think the anime is also playing up the intimacy between them a lot with some of the visual metaphors and things.

TONY: It’s very in the tradition of Sound! Eupho anime in that way.

DEE: And it’s one of those things where I wonder how much of it is built into the… because it’s the same writer, how much of it is built into her novels and how much of it is just the anime staff going, “Girl gay, Eugene!” So, I don’t know where specifically it is coming from. I really like their relationship. And I’m one of those people who… I am… Because we do get yuri anime now, which is terrific, and BL anime now, which is terrific, I am okay with the existence of shows that are dealing with sapphic crushes that maybe don’t necessarily end in big love confessions or are effectively platonic. That doesn’t really bother me. I get why it bothers other people, and that’s totally valid, so go into this aware of that, although we don’t know how it ends. So, you know, for all I know, they will get married. [Chuckles]

But yeah, I think as far as being a coming-of-age club story, I think it’s very effective. I was telling you this off the call: there’s definitely a part of my brain that imagines a version of this done by a top-tier director and studio, where it is, bar none, the best show of the season because of the way it handles the visual metaphors during the characters’ recitations, which isn’t to say— I think this is a good adaptation. I don’t think this is bad by any stretch. It’s just there is definitely in the back of my head, like, “Oh, I’m picturing a version of this that is, like, anime of the year.”

But, yeah, I really like— I think the character writing is very strong. I like that everyone kind of has their own motivations and goals for the club, and the series is pretty accepting of those different motivations. It doesn’t come down on any one particular character. So, overall, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by this one. I basically lowkey binged it the last week, and I’m excited to see where it goes from here.

PETER: Yeah. Like Sound! Eupho, it really digs into people’s reasons for joining club and the different things that those club activities are related to, both interest wise and career wise, which I think is interesting. And it also has, you know, the club members who have something interesting about them. Even though they may not actively have their own subplot or be very involved in the plot, their quirks come up time and time again in a charming way.

DEE: Yeah, you get the sense that every character is a fully realized character even if they’re not on screen. Like, you know they’re doing things when they’re not on camera, which is a good mark of character writing, I think. And then a lot of the conflict in the series comes from sort of smashing two of those characters together and having them interact and their different goals kind of bouncing off each other. So, yeah, again, I think it’s a good teen character drama, for sure.

PETER: Mm-hm. Same.

DEE: Alright! Now we are on to our final show. We have not given ourselves enough time. I’m sorry, everyone! We’re going over! Zenshu, my personal favorite of the season. I am absolutely enamored with this series. How y’all feeling about Zenshu? [Chuckles]

TONY: Oh, I love it. It’s great.

PETER: Nice. [Chuckles]

DEE: You are also fond of Zenshu, Peter?

PETER: Yeah. I like it a lot. Definitely, I think it’s— Ah… I’m just checking myself real quick. I think it’s got the most interesting story and setting of the entire season, pretty easily. I think it clears everybody else pretty easily. I hope I’m not saying anything insane right now, but just from top of the head… I really like the premise. What I really… I kinda actually wish they would do this a bit more but what they were doing in a lot of the early episodes is Natsuko kind of interacting with this story that she feels such a deep connection with from her childhood. Like, I remember the first [episode] at the part where they were running in and I think somebody was supposed to die, and it cut to her in the theater watching that. And that hit! That made me wonder how many cartoons have maybe indelibly traumatized me in some way that I still don’t recognize to this day.

TONY: Oh, I definitely remember how traumatized I was by watching Digimon growing up. That show was traumatizing. [Chuckles]

PETER: Mm-hm. So, I think that’s kind of a really interesting part, because from the premise that we would first find out, I was worried that it would be like, “Oh, she’s having trouble writing a love story so she gets sent to this world and falls in love and then she makes the best romance anime ever,” or something like that. But that does not seem to be at all what it’s about. I like that it’s set in someone else’s series that she feels a deep connection to and she’s kind of exploring this world and it’s kind of redressing her own relationship with art, both this particular piece of art and just kind of how her entire creative career has come from it. Really great idea, yeah.

DEE: Yeah, I think it’s simultaneously a love letter to the fiction that moves us and impacts us; it also— You know, I mean, God, it’s so nice to see… It feels like a classic isekai. Like, I know she might be dead. We know: she’s not. She’s gonna come back to life at the end.

PETER: Yeah.

TONY: Def not.

DEE: But in the sense that there is sort of that power fantasy element to it, which is true of all isekai, that you get brought into this world and you have some kind of special ability that makes you important in this world. But it’s also that journey of discovery and her growing into herself and a coming of age— She’s an adult, but you can have a coming of age as an adult.

TONY: Absolutely.

PETER: Yeah.

DEE: And especially… It does such a good job of threading the needle of… I like stories about loners having to learn to work with a community and cooperate with others. I think they can be… I have written about this in the Team Rocket essay I wrote for AniFem, but I think there can be a danger, when the main character is a female character, of pushing them towards, like, “Well, they need to be more feminine and softer and stop being so bossy,” basically. And I think this series does a really excellent job of, like, it doesn’t take Natsuko’s assertiveness or her… It doesn’t force her to be somebody she isn’t. She just has to learn that she can’t do everything on her own. Nobody can. So, I think that that has been a really good character arc for her without it feeling weirdly gendered, which can sometimes happen with stories like these.

TONY: Well, I also think it’s interesting, like in the last episode, for example, the whole thing that she realizes is that she needs to literally draw a staircase for the other people to climb. Right? She has to be willing to use her powers to allow other people to meet their best potential, right?

DEE: Yeah, to support others. Yeah.

TONY: And also, she herself is being supported by the definitely gay dragon, Justice, who’s lifting her up so that she can best do that, right? So, it’s all about everyone leaning on each other and best supporting each other through their various strengths and gifts rather than, necessarily, she needs to learn to be bossed by somebody else, right, or she needs absolutely to accept other people’s domineering leadership, right, or some man’s domineering leadership.

DEE: [crosstalk] Yeah, in some ways it— Sorry. In some ways, it feels like she’s having to learn how to be a leader, because she’s a director and part of being a director is also knowing when to give material to other people and trust other people with things and that element of teamwork, of, like you said, “We’re all working together on something.” So, yeah, it ties in really nicely with her story. The other thing I love about this is it kind of feels like a fix fic, almost, where Natsuko gets sent into her favorite anime and is like, “Oh, but my favorite anime is actually tragic and there’s some pretty glaring plot holes and character development issues.” And so, she gets to fix… she gets to sort of write the happy ending for these characters who have left such a strong mark on her. So, I love that. The way it plays with transformative fiction, I think, is rare to see and really, really cool because it is very supportive of what’s happening on screen.

PETER: Yeah, and I really like how a lot of it comes from… Like, in the most recent episode, she was really enjoying drawing expressions on the characters’ faces that she never saw in the anime. So, she’s able to more deeply engage with this piece of art that she really loves through this weird-ass thing that happened to her.

DEE: Yeah, like, she keeps learning things about the character. She was like, “That wasn’t on the character sheet! I didn’t know that about you.” And again, it is that sort of… that almost… that fanfic, that transformative fiction element of finding the information that’s in the gaps and rewriting some of the characters. I definitely get the sense that Yamazaki Mitsue, the director, whom I love, and it’s so nice to finally see her just let loose to do— I just knew if they just let her loose, her original project would pop. But there’s clearly an element of autobiography in this, so it does make me wonder how much of herself is built into Natsuko.

TONY: Yeah, for sure! And I mean, it’s, I think, especially satisfying and gratifying for me to see. I know this is just kind of bringing up my favorite things because they’re my favorite things, but, I mean, she was mentored by Ikuhara, who has created what I think are the greatest original anime of all time.

DEE: I mean, yeah, he’s… yeah, incredible director. No argument there.

TONY: He is the original anime guy for me. So, it’s just very satisfying to see her, especially to see Studio MAPPA, too, coming back to original anime after Studio MAPPA has really kind of thrown original anime to the wayside, often to make some pretty good projects. Like, I love Vinland Saga. Don’t get me wrong.

DEE: Isn’t that Studio Wit?

PETER: It’s MAPPA now.

TONY: It’s MAPPA now.

DEE: Oh, it is? Did it switch over? I think it started as Wit. Alright, well…

PETER: It’s like the second or third anime MAPPA has taken over for Wit, who does not like to do second seasons.

DEE: Wit’s like, “We’re bored with this now. On to the next project.”

PETER: “Yeah, take this, MAPPA.”

DEE: “We got you a hit. You’re welcome.” Interesting. Okay, yeah, sorry, that was my mistake there. But yeah, no, no, I agree. I will always love an original project, and I love when any director with a strong sense of style, but especially female directors, because there aren’t as many of them and they don’t get as many chances, are given an opportunity like this. So, yeah, Zenshu has been just a joy every week for me, and I’m really excited to see where it goes and how it ends and how it may or may not break my heart by the finale.

PETER: Yeah. And it does seem inevitable that she will return from this experience, which is kind of harkening back to the more classical isekai, where it is…

DEE: Exactly!

PETER: … you go there, and then you have your formative transformation and come back and take that with you to the real world, where it makes you a better person.

DEE: It’s a there-and-back-again story with, like, actual stakes instead of just being wish-fulfillment escapism. Which, like, look, there’s a place for wish-fulfillment escapism in everybody’s lives, but when it’s nothing but that, I think it becomes an issue. So, yeah, no, yeah, that’s a big draw for me right off the bat with this one. I was like, “Oh, this is a Escaflowne, Fushigi Yugi type, old-school isekai situation. Let’s go.” So, yeah, terrific.

PETER: Well, and even from a power-trip perspective where it’s a power fantasy, her ability comes from something that she’s already an acclaimed director in doing, in animating. So, it feels like it’s a skill that she has spent her entire life building up rather than just some unique power she’s gifted for being so important for being a teenage Japanese male. So, that feels great.

DEE: Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, it is a skill of hers that has been made magic. Yeah.

TONY: And in a sense, right… This is kind of getting at some of what I’ve heard can be one of the potentials of isekai series, which is to put you in a position where you’re not alienated from your labor, where your skill that you’ve acquired through endless toil working in exploitative conditions can then become something that you do in the isekai world that is valued for itself rather than necessarily being valued for the way that it allows you to be exploited.

PETER: Too bad about Headhunted to Another World.

TONY: Yeah…

PETER: [Chuckles]

DEE: For sure. Okay, we should probably start wrapping up. Do we have any other thoughts on Zenshu here, AniFam friends?

TONY: How do y’all read Justice?

DEE: The dub uses they/them pronouns and they cast a nonbinary actor, so that’s how I’m reading Justice.

TONY: Uh-huh?

DEE: Yeah. So, I don’t know what pronouns are used in the sub, but that’s the dub, so Justice, the genderless—

TONY: [crosstalk] I don’t even recall any pronouns in the sub.

PETER: I’ll have to check, yeah.

DEE: [crosstalk] Justice the genderless, disabled dragon. It’s great!

TONY: Yes, we love them. Yeah, I mean, when I first saw them, I read them as a butch lesbian, but nonbinary is also cool. Either way, do you read Natsuko as being attracted to Justice? Because Justice is clearly attracted to Natsuko, right?

DEE: I mean, Natsuko says something about Justice being attractive as she’s drawing them. So, I mean, I think that’s there. I don’t read it as, like, “Hubba-hubba,” but I think certainly on an aesthetic level Natsuko certainly is aesthetically attracted to Justice.

TONY: That makes a lot of sense.

DEE: Yeah.

PETER: But they’re setting up the romance between her and Luke.

TONY: They’re definitely doing that, yes.

DEE: [crosstalk] And I’m okay with it.

PETER: Yeah. That could be one sided, though. Yeah.

DEE: Luke is my other good boy of the season—him and Tsukasa. So, I hope they…

TONY: He’s such a nice guy.

PETER: I loved how enthralled he was watching her hork down bread.

[Laughter]

TONY: I do love—

DEE: She loves his food! It’s a big draw.

TONY: I do love that he’s attracted to the parts of her that are less feminine and her headstrongness, and I also love that he’s kind of forcing her to confront her bullshit, but not in a way that feels patronizing but feels much more grounded in his actually giving a shit about her and not wanting her to die, which feels like… There’s a lot of possibilities for what you were talking about earlier, Dee, of kind of being forced into this more feminine role and disciplined into it by the romance. And I don’t think that’s what’s happening at all.

DEE: No, agreed.

TONY: And it is very funny how that’s parodied through Unio, who is just such… He is just such a little bitch, but I love every second that he’s on screen.

DEE: Yeah, but Unio’s a little bit of a shit but in a very sort of charming and endearing kind of way. I think the fact that he’s a tiny little unicorn also… He can be kind of a jerk, and you’re like, “Well, you can just punt him. He can just be punted, so it’s fine.”

PETER: Lots of punting.

TONY: [crosstalk] And she does! Every time she grabs him by the horn and just starts twirling him around…

PETER: Swinging…

[Laughter]

DEE: It’s good stuff. Pretty good anime. Top tier, A+.

TONY: Yeah, no, it’s fantastic. Zenshu is everything that I’ve been hoping it would be.

DEE: Agreed. Again, I’ve been a fan of Yamazaki Mitsue forever. She has elevated adaptations that had no business being as good as they were, and her last original was really determined mostly by the writer, and it just… It was fine, she did her best with it, but it wasn’t what I knew she could do if she was given a project like this. And so, I have been, yeah, just so excited to see her be able to spread her wings like this, so I hope it all comes together well and this becomes my anime of the year because it’s certainly up there right now, and it’s very early in the year, but I’m okay with calling that shot.

TONY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because she also directed— Well, first of all, we should say to viewers—readers—listeners… God damn it. We should say to listeners, if you haven’t watched Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun or Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, those are top-tier comedies. You should absolutely watch those.

DEE: Yeah, she’s a brilliant comedian director, and… Yeah, I’m not going to go through a list of… We need to stop! Let’s plan on having a Zenshu podcast at the end where we can, like… I don’t know who will be on it. We’ll all have to, like, fisticuffs over who gets to join that one. Let’s plan on having deeper Zenshu conversations later because we are over time, my friends, and I want to make sure we don’t overwork our editor. Peter, I’m helping you, on this call, right now.

PETER: [crosstalk] Oh. Thank you. So considerate.

DEE: Yeah. And we’ll have time to talk about this stuff at the end of the season, as well.

PETER: Yep.

DEE: Okay, let’s wrap us up. We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Chatty AF. If you like what you heard, tell your friends. And if you really liked what you heard, why not head over to www.patreon.com/animefeminist and become a patron? If you enjoy our podcast, I recommend our $5 tier, which gets you a new bonus podcast and transcript every month, as well as access to our private Discord server, where you can geek out with fellow feminist-minded animanga fans. We also have a store, animefeminist.com/store (simple enough), where you can find cute and cool merch for the progressive geek on the go. And if you’re interested in more from the team and our contributors, please check us out at animefeminist.com. For our full list of socials that you can follow us on, just search for Linktree @animefeminist and it’ll pop right up.

And that’s the show! Let us know how you’re feeling about this season so far in our comments, and we will catch you next time.