Sigh, nothing exciting tonight, but now I wanna go buy some bourgie macarons in the morning.
SHIBOYUGI: Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table
A bunch of girls wake up trapped inside a twisted mansion full of puzzles and traps. Some girls are there because they got tricked. Some girls are there to pay a debt. Some, like our main character, intends to beat the game 99 times. Why? Well, they’re not going to tell you in the first episode! As you might expect, not everyone’s going to make it. It’s called death game, after all. It would be pretty weak if nobody actually died in a death game. So one by one, the bodies begin to fall. The first victim dies to a booby trap, because she carelessly picked up a set of keys without checking her surroundings. Another girl dies because they panicked during a group puzzle and couldn’t pass around the set of keys fast enough. Finally, the last girl dies because… well, because they simply needed one more death to complete the game.
Bro, I ain’t watching another second of this show. The last bit is just so cruel. Yuki asks the final victim what she intends to do once she escapes. Oh cool, they’re bonding. But when push comes to shove, Yuki immediately kills the girl without hesitation. Well, she didn’t get through 27 previous games without making some tough decisions. And she’s going to have to make more tough decisions going forward. Do I wanna know why there’s a death game? Do I wanna know who set this all up and why they get their rocks off watching poor girls get hurt? Do I wanna know why Yuki needs to keep going roughly seventy more times? Sure, but at the same time, there is no possible reveal at the end of the series that can justify all this pain and anguish. There’s just no way. Let’s say two to three girls die every round. Maybe Yuki will be the lone survivor in at least one of them. And like I said, some of these girls got tricked into participating (assuming they were honest). We’re just watching sad girls die and for what? At the back of my mind, I can’t shake the feeling that this is some fucked up metaphor for sex trafficking or prostitution. Again, I simply cannot imagine any answer at the end of the series making this descent into hell worthwhile. All I got from the first episode was a pit in my stomach. The real world is fucked up enough. I don’t need this. But hey, that’s me. Your mileage may vary.
Easygoing Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord
Oh good, another isekai starring a little kid. What makes this show different from the previous one? Well, the other reincarnated protagonist immediately cut off the head of a corrupt official. Meanwhile, the protagonist here goes and buys a slave. Look, man, Van had no choice! His father would never let some commoner into the home, so we’re just gonna have to slap a slave brand on this poor kid!
Eventually, Van discovers that he only has production magic, which is apparently useless? Oh, I’ll bet it’ll be super useful. Nevertheless, Van gets banished to some “useless,” no-name village. So that’s the premise of the show. I bet our little lordling will eventually turn that village into a superpower or whatever. Even so, his personal maid goes with him, his tutor goes with him, and hell, even the guy who trains him in swordsplay decides to go with him. Nobody has any families or friends to worry about. They’re all ready to drop everything and relocate to the boonies for this one kid. Sure.
This is “Everything else” fodder at best, and I’m not even sure I can fit it into the schedule. I already have so many other shows to watch.
An Adventurer’s Daily Grind at Age 29
I really could’ve used a dose of something wholesome after SHIBOYUGI, and it really looked like this show was headed in that direction. Hajime, a “middle-aged” adventurer takes in an abandoned little kid, because he knows first hand what it’s like to be an orphan. Growing up, he had to risk his life fighting dangerous mobs and barely eke out an existence in the slums. So naturally, Hajime doesn’t want Lirui to go through those same trials and tribulations. There’s just one problem: this cute, little girl turns into a full blown, buxom succubus at night. At this point, any father-daughter relationship in anime must also include the mother in the picture (see: Spy x Family). Otherwise, it’s a hard no, because I keep getting punk’d by all these fucking Usagi Drop wannabes. Oh well, at least the red flag came up in the very first episode. I can now drop one more show from an already packed winter schedule.
