Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

Aware I’d slid back into “let someone else take the chance on being horribly disappointed by new anime series” and conscious even that just might be a step towards “making a great show of disdain for all ‘recent’ anime,” I resolved to watch a few streaming series “with everyone else.” As soon as I’d started them, I was feeling kind of bad about “only watching the safest bets from among the most popular titles and very much depending on established names.” It took me a little while to think about the varied older titles I was also watching, a while longer to remember some unfortunate examples of “sequels much fault was found with for not matching the brilliance of the original production,” and some more time again to consider the examples I’ve piled up over a certain number of years of when I just didn’t seem as offended by certain series “everyone else” kept, or keep, singling out for condemnation, to say nothing of some perhaps more unfortunate instances when I wasn’t as impressed with some shows as insistences would have it. After all of that, in the end I suppose I was in general contented with all the anime I watched in the past three months, and conscious those months brought me up to another big anniversary of when I joined the anime club at university.
( Streaming sequels: DAN DA DAN and My Dress-Up Darling )
( Streaming absurdity: CITY the Animation )
( Getting around to work: Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. )
( On a new track: Shinkalion Change the World )
( Into dangerous territory?: Attack on Titan )
( A magical conclusion: Minky Momo )
( Back on a long road: Urusei Yatsura )
( Looking back, glancing ahead: Patlabor 2 the Movie and Nijiyon 2 )

As the new year started I was intent on getting back to the anime Blu-Rays I’d only just begun in the first days of October before breaking my hip. With family staying at my place afterwards to provide considerable and welcome assistance, watching anime on any screen larger and less private than an iPad had got to feeling awkward right away. Once I’d started making trips to and from their home so that they could keep meeting appointments of their own, that didn’t help either. Returning to those shows, my thoughts also turned to some Blu-Rays that had just come in, if in some certain way just to “get them out of the way now rather than leave them lurking in the pile.” Around that point, with schemes in mind to watch two episodes a week of some longer series, what wound up giving was any intention of seeing new titles streaming. The problem there was that I started thinking how sometimes not very many sour dismissals tossed into reaction threads to end-of-the-season reviews will nudge me away from trying to form my own opinions or just dampen my own best efforts at that. There does seem a threat of “always expecting the worst when it comes to recent anime.” It wasn’t until months later that I happened to wonder whether there’s that much difference between “a three-month-old series you gather you’ve been granted an all-clear for,” “a three-year-old series that’s still being mentioned but you haven’t quite found time for yet,” and “a three-decade-old series you suppose is worth watching because Discotek just licensed it, and they know what they’re doing...”
( More than a footnote: Albegas )
( A risky return?: Attack on Titan )
( Also getting around to it: Demon Slayer )
( Newer and older: Urusei Yatsura and Minky Momo )
( Streaming efforts: Blue Box and The Apothecary Diaries )
( Mecha movies: Macross DYRL and Gundam GQuuuuuuX )

Three months ago I remained conscious of having sliced a waking hour out of at least five days every week for the sake of getting more sleep before an early start at work, and how this had made me decide to halve the amount of anime I watched most weekday evenings, from two episodes to one. By most standards I was still taking in a lot of it, to the exclusion of just about anything else that might be watched, but I suppose a current habit of two episodes a week from a fair number of older and longer series added to the sense of constraints tightening. Still, in managing to maintain some variety of vintage and genre alike I kept finding certain rewards, organized here in the order I finished them in.
( Plugging along: Machine Robo Revenge of Cronos )
( Streaming dark and light: Dead Dead Demon’s DeDeDeDe Destruction and Narenare Cheer For You! )
( Streaming old and new: Major 2nd and Sengoku Youko )
( Back to long ago: Anne of Green Gables )
( A new adaptation: Urusei Yatsura )
( The concluding movement: Sound! Euphonium )
( The unexpected number: Girls Band Cry )

At the start of this year I’d picked up on a few upcoming anime series that seemed interesting to me from their first descriptions and the comments of a few other people. More than that, I could find the time to properly begin watching all of them. Having only managed both those things during one quarter of last year, I did feel as if things were coming back together at last. Even so, I suppose a few familiar risks were returning too. The benefit of “watching anime as it streams” would seem to be augmenting the experience by joining discussions about it and picking up on the interest of others. That can skew into “my good taste is demonstrated by picking shows everyone else likes,” though, and then the problem becomes that if-and-when smirking shrugs about “Sturgeon’s Law” apply, watching everyone else sour on things, or even bumping into casual brushoff postmortems, can get pretty dispiriting. Even so, the wrinkle of not being as exposed to the comments of others as I once was aside, I did seek a certain solace in still getting around to a good number of “older” titles from previous seasons or decades.
( Once upon a time: Galactic Whirlwind Sasuraiger and Getter Robo )
( Manga preparation: Heavenly Delusion, Aria the Natural, and Frieren )
( Movies part one: Weathering With You and For Whom the Alchemist Exists )
( Streaming part one: Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki and Metallic Rouge )
( Streaming part two: Sengoku Youko and Bang Brave Bravern )
( Wrapping up and moving along: Soaring Sky Pretty Cure and Pretty Cure All Stars F )
( Movies part two: The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes and Blue Thermal )

With an almost month-long vacation booked right in the middle of a more familiar “anime season,” I did some thinking in advance about how two of the things I was getting away from were Blu-Ray players and broadband connections. I have to admit I was also sometimes dwelling on previous long vacations (and even Christmas holidays, too) where, stuck brooding how far a good many other opinions run into had already soured on series then streaming, I would end up “dropping” those shows and be left dispirited. Since then I may not run into quite as many other opinions, but I still decided to get through some short series in full during the month before I left, try the same thing in the month after, and not pick up anything new streaming. It all seemed to work pretty well, even as I noticed complaints about how thin on well-done shows the season I was sitting out seemed.
( An augmented experience: Gunbuster )
( Wrapping back around: Love Live! )
( Continuations: City Hunter 3 and Mix 2 )
( Well into the past: Cyborg 009 )
( Catching up: Volicia of Pluto and Summer Time Rendering )
( Moving along: Love Live! 2 and Soaring Sky Pretty Cure )

All the “quarter” I have left to review here amounts to thirty days. After sampling a bit of anime from each of the sixty years just past (and managing to post something about that every day), I supposed I’d have to push harder than I usually do through a mere handful of other series should I still want to wrap them up and move along at a regular demarcation point. I managed that in turn, but it might have pushed back and displaced memories of my much less extensive exposure to the titles in a single and altogether personal sweep through anime. Having wound up supposing I’d managed to enjoy that stunt of sorts (which neither left me “regretful the saner anime of the 1970s hadn’t endured” nor “jaded at last by the now-worn transition decade after 2000 or so,” as I’d wondered and worried at certain anticipatory moments once committed), that later realisation had a certain weight to it.
( Two samples followed up: Wonder Three and Oh My Goddess! )
( Moving along and wrapping up: Demon Slayer and Delicious Party Pretty Cure )
( Actual streaming: Vinland Saga 2 and Nijiyon )

That much more prone in recent months to thinking ahead to what anime I’ll watch once I’ve got through what I’m viewing now, I happened to reflect on plans to spend the last weeks of September on a bus tour. With certain preparations, I’d be able to follow certain series on the road; others would have to be dealt with before leaving. In the end, though, I decided to just finish everything in advance; “taking a vacation from daily viewing” could seem a bit appealing too. When we had to be bumped to a slightly later tour that might have become a bit easier, but I then had to consider how I’d been hoping to at last get back to watching some upcoming shows as they streamed and would now have to catch up on them and, perhaps, not post this summary at the very beginning of October. Then, it turned out the tour had to be cut short, and I returned to my routines and a summary I’d already been typing up. Where sometimes the jumble of titles I report on is organized by the order I began watching them in three months ago, here they’re organized by the order I finished them in.
( A speedy yet rewarding review: Mob Psycho 100 )
( Going theatrical: Belle )
( Augmentation completed: Den-noh Coil )
( Adventures completed: Shinkalion Z )
( The legend continues: Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These )
( A family caper: Spy x Family )
( Taking a chance: RWBY Ice Queendom )
( Swinging for the green: Birdie Wing )
( A tasty adventure: Delicious Party Pretty Cure )
( Back on stage: Love Live Nijigasaki High School Idol Club )
( More than what might have been: Daltanious )

With a new year beginning I was contemplating what anime I’d watch in its first three months, but daydreaming a full year ahead too. Ideas of “what series to get to next” can sometimes stick in my head to the point of distracting me from what I’m actually viewing, but I might have topped myself some time before the end of last year, daring to think not just of “next year” but also “the year after.” I’ve alluded before to having happened on enough “sample fansubs” of anime from the 1960s to have at least a few episodes of at least one title translated for me from each of the years since Mighty Atom got on TV. The thought of a “sixty-day taste-testing tour” in that series’s anniversary year has been rattling around in my mind for a little while now. Aware I had to get through this year first, though, I decided I wouldn’t have to stretch that far beyond titles I’d already been thinking of to take in at least one thing from, as I’ve said before, “each of seven decades” (or, to be a bit more accurate but a bit less impressive, just about a full fifty-five years).
( Starting off way back: Golden Bat and Voltes V )
( Closer to the present: City Hunter 2 and Cat Girl Nuku Nuku )
( Into this century: Major and Lupin the 3rd Part IV )
( Getting to streaming: Sorairo Utility and Kageki Shojo! )
( Fansub follies: Megaton-kyuu Musashi )
( Finishing and continuing: Tropical Rouge Pretty Cure and Urusei Yatsura )
( Up to the minute: The Orbital Children )
( Everything old is new again: Project A-ko )
( Moving along: Daimos, Memories, and 86 )

I kept pushing along at my own pace watching anime through the months of summer, not lacking in the slightest for things now available to see. Towards the end of those months, as I came to the end of some “twelve-episode series” I’d got started on straight away, I toyed with thoughts of squeezing one more short title in. In the end, though, I did let my focus relax a little and tried to get started a bit sooner on writing up this look back, which has affected just how the titles are ordered here.
( Mecha and more from prose: 86 )
( More streaming: Zombie Land Saga Revenge and SSSS.DYNAZENON )
( You meet the nicest people on a Honda: Super Cub )
( Feature-length experiences: Evangelion 3.0+1.0 and Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop )
( Super robots old and new: Combattler V and Shinkalion )
( Sports and school: Major and Dear Brother )
( Pushing along: Tropical Rouge Pretty Cure and Urusei Yatsura )

At the start of the year I didn’t lack for anime to watch, and yet I had been asking myself how much of it I’d see in the three months ahead. For quite a while I’ve been getting through two half-hour episodes a weeknight. The thought did creep into my mind, though, that it might guard against burnout (having kept watching anime quite a while longer than many are said to has meant seeing certain people mutter a lot about just about anything recent) and sharpen my appetite to pare that viewing back to one episode a weeknight, even if just for one season. The extra half-hour opened up could be useful even if I can’t admit to doing anything profound in it, but I did keep enjoying what I did watch.
( Streaming selections: Appare-Ranman! and Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club )
( Blu-Ray chances taken: Bloom Into You and O Maidens in your Savage Season )
( Fansub follies: Shinkalion and Major )
( Going older: Future Boy Conan and Urusei Yatsura: Only You )