In which Our Dolly Loli makes a new friend, and then lures Our Ditzy Heroine into baby play, exploiting her character flaws to keep things flowing even after she breaks the mind control. Meanwhile, we get an origin story for Our Distinctly Unfeminine Heroine.

Unrelated, we’re halfway through, and the show airs on Wednesdays, so could this be described as the “double humpday” episode?

Verdict: Instead of the standard “monster of the week”, we’ve got “fetish of the week”, which somehow works with the character development.

(not exactly a mother/daughter pic, but I’m delighted that I don’t have any relevant fan-art for bottle-feeding and diapers)

Fetish Alert!

Four-eyed catgirls must also be four-eared. Duh.

Except for this one:

Related, Leafa-chan could use a good pair… of glasses:

The Apothecary Diaries, episode 17

They really lean into the comedy side this week, taking advantage of all that character-building they’ve been doing. Plenty of serious plot crumbs being dropped, though, with Maomao learning some things about Jinshi that don’t match his public face, and Jinshi getting a few puzzle pieces that are sure to lead to future revelations.

Verdict: …possibly as early as next week, when the secrets of Creepy Monocle Guy come to light. Secrets he was strangely anxious to hint at.

Slo-Mo Leveling, episode 5

I can’t figure out how they’re planning to end this season, given the pacing. This week is basically an advanced intro to dungeon crawling, with Our Leveling Hero and His First Friend joining a pick-up raid that goes wrong. This week also debuts the real post-upgrade Jinwoo, obliviously putting pretty young nurses into heat.

Verdict: it’s a solid adaptation so far, but if they don’t announce a second cour, it’s not going to be very satisfying. They need 4+ to do it justice, even with some trimming.

McPharmacist, Waifu, & Sister 2, episode 5

FYI, while you can use filters to emulate depth of field, using it to make your cheesecake fuzzy is a bad idea; fortunately they compensate for this mistake with bath scenes. The big news this week is that Ruti’s bust stays at a consistent size in and out of her clothing. The bad news is that the point of the episode is a sparring match between Red and Danan, consisting mostly of panned stills with speedlines, with the climax offscreen. And it ended with more time spent building up Our Psychotic New Hero; this is sure to take time away from the cheesecake.

Verdict: if it weren’t for all the cleavage shots, this episode would have been wasted. Bonus points for Mr. Crawly-Wawly getting a bath scene.

Today I Learned

The pon-pon girls refer to their electronic mahjong table as Janta-kun. This is one of the many in-jokes, because the word for mahjong table is jan-taku. This also explains why the talking bird is a sparrow: the kanji used for the “jan” in “maajan” means sparrow: 雀.

(not a pon-pon girl, but qualified to sit at their table)

Dear Erika Ikuta,

Are you sure you’re from Nogizaka46 and not Hello!Project? Because I have some fashion questions…

(source NSFW; disable Javascript…)

Metallic Rouge, episode 4

Wow, that was a mess. It’s really weird to read an episode review and find praise for all the things I thought were terrible about the story. Usually I think Tenka Seiha’s takes are too negative, but this week he nailed it.

Verdict: bored now.

(picture is completely unrelated, to take the bad taste out of my mouth)

Frieren, episode 21

Finally! This was better than last week’s episode, despite there still being no reason to care about most of the mages. It helped that they let us see Flamme again and tied her to the ancient elf that popped up out of nowhere last week. Now, if they can manage not to drag out the next round of the tournament…

Verdict: a bad run of Frieren episodes is still better than 90% of what’s out there.

Molesting Magical Girls, episode 5

There are innocent ways to play house and play doctor. Our New Emotionless Loli, however, has knowledge beyond her years and kinks to match. If you thought forum commenters were squicked out before, this episode should send them into orbit as she shows off her fully-nude transformation, mind-controls two of Our Gullible Magical Girls into violating the third, then takes a firm hand with Our Sick Villainess, for her own good and ours.

Verdict: …and yet this is actually a character-driven story that introduces a new teammate and shows her life being improved by making friends.

(this is more wholesome than Alice’s idea of a lady doctor…)

Pon-Pon-Q, episode 5

The big news this week is not that Girl#5 joins the gang, but that the other girls wear different clothes. This is sufficiently rare in anime that it deserves a callout, even though the results are less revealing. Sadly, while the eyecatch shows them switching costumes, there’s no magical-girl nude transformation scene.

It’s not like they just wear different outfits every day like normal people, though; there has to be a reason, and this week’s reason is having a barbecue picnic (while promising a future swimsuit episode).

Verdict: despite Our New Goth Girl’s obsession with a revenge match, this is an actual cute-girls-doing-cute-things episode, with no mahjong content. This also means no man-face “jokes”, which is a real bonus. Next week: more costume changes.

(…but not this sort of costume change)

Been There, Done That

AKA the second-best Groundhog Day episode back when everyone was doing that, AKA Xena season 3 episode 2. The series has rotated back to being on Prime again, so I had to watch it, to see if it still held up. The answer is… mixed. The episode is still funny, but the video was horribly over-compressed, which made it barely watchable; my HD streams were fine, which means that Amazon doesn’t have a decent SD source for the show.

Also, I remember Gabrielle being a lot cuter when I originally watched this show. Still young, healthy, and girl-shaped, so I’m guessing my memory merged her with other blonde actresses of the Nineties. After all, I haven’t seen any of this stuff in nearly 30 years.

Just got a phone call from someone claiming to be Amazon Customer Support, trying to confirm recent purchases. This was suspicious not because of his random phone number and strong Indian accent, but because he claimed to be Amazon Customer Support, a group that is slightly less mythical than the Easter Bunny.

I asked him what the email address associated with this Amazon account was, and he carefully spelled out “outdoorlimited@…”.

So I hung up, changed my password at Outdoor Limited, and contacted their customer service to let them know they’d been hacked.

Update

...and another one today. Oddly enough, they hung up before I could.

In which both the OP and the ED are omitted to make room for three bathing scenes (steam and soap say: “buy the Bluray”), and with the exception of a short bit highlighting that the new Hero is a psychotic loon working for an ambitious cardinal, the story is A Day In The Slow Life for Our Girls Gone Mild. Followed by A Night In The Old Life, which leads to some nice character development for Our First Friend.

Ruti is adorably awkward at normal life, but she’s trying really hard. I particularly appreciate that Tisse manages to navigate the day without the writers resorting to Shouting Is Comedy. Instead, they actually put in the effort to make it warm and funny.

Verdict: Best. Episode. Yet.

Now that’s a compelling offer!

Just spotted in a job posting:

Competitive pay up to $[highest pay] per hour

Frieren, episode 20

They’re trying really hard to make us care about these new mages. It’s not working for me, and they didn’t even compensate with intimate close-up shots of Little Miss Fan-Service. Sure, it was nice to see Fern casually taking down two experienced combat mages, but then we had to sit through the exposition on why they’re pursuing this certification in the first place. Which sounds a tad suspicious.

Verdict: please burn down the forest in the first minute of the next episode.

The Apothecary Diaries, episode 16

Sherlock Maomao returns to solve a locked room drawer mystery, and gently hints that maybe you don’t want to sniff lead solder in rooms without ventilation. While she’s got her Great Detective hat on, she also figures out a small piece of the larger puzzle. Pity she’s not in the room when Creepy Monocle Guy drops a hint the size of a small boulder, which somehow zooms right past Jinshi.

Verdict: this is pulling ahead of Frieren by the simple virtue of not getting bogged down in a tournament arc, despite the extremely contrived nature of the mystery metal mystery.

(next week, slumming with the common folk!)

Solo Leveling, episode 4

This week, it’s Baby’s First Dungeon Grind, as Our Hero explores his menus and spends skill points to Grow Stronger, expositing all the while. The payoff is that an evening of leveling up gives him the power to save his not-girlfriend while remaining safely anonymous.

Verdict: 1/3 of the way through the season, and he’s finished the starter area. Will they get a second season that rewards the viewers for their investment? I hope so, because I want to see Esil animated.

(not this not-girlfriend; this one’s a self-rescuing princess, for the most part)

Online Pon, episode 4

In which the online game that’s sponsoring this show is prominently featured, with Our Bounceless Pon Girls playing online mahjong while sitting at a mahjong table together. On the bright side, they spend most of the episode actually playing mahjong, which is theoretically the theme of the show. Not that I know anything about the game, which makes the exaggerated dramatic moments zoom right past me. Speaking of drama, the episode ends with Girl#5 successfully stalking Our Poor Little Riiche Girl to the parlor. Fortunately she’s qualified to join the group, and by that I mean stacked. Also apparently homeless.

Note that the online game is getting its own anime in April, which is apparently its second season.

Verdict: if only the girls were, y’know, animated; and they stopped doing the man-face jokes; and they cut the volume on the This Is Comedy music.

(classical reference)

Dear Amazon,

The “Inspired by your digital shopping trends” section consists primarily of dead-tree editions of books I already purchased as ebooks. From you. Why do you think that’s a thing?

Molesting Magical Girls, episode 4

You know how Japanese men’s mags put luscious 19-year-olds in (and out of) schoolgirl outfits? Well, that reference art is clearly how the artists responsible for Our Supposedly-Fourteen Ditzy Drill-Haired Redheaded Magical Girl’s appearance this week got their inspiration. Honestly, Sulfur’s about the only member of the cast so far who could plausibly pass for under 18.

Despite the bound and bountiful cheesecake on display this week, there’s all sorts of plot crumbs being dropped. Next week, Team Dom adds a loli.

Verdict: in the words of Donna Barr, “anyone who takes this seriously deserves to”.

Metallic Kiddy Rouge Grade, episode 3

Oh, look, the bus people are back! Maybe I should have remembered their names! Or not. There’s no combat this week, just a history lesson and a bunch of random plot coupons, and a sauna scene that doesn’t even offer the hope of an unsteamed Bluray release.

Verdict: yawn; all the shallow Nean allegory is really turning me off of this show.

The Apothecary Diaries, episode 15

Monocle Guy has stopped lurking and started getting vaguely sinister. Meanwhile, Maomao plays Detective Pukeatchu and somehow manages to locate the unlabeled jar that contains the evidence; I presume it glowed when she moused over it.

Verdict: Jinshi’s inability to cope with being friendzoned is always amusing.

Solo Leveling, episode 3

I keep getting distracted by the razor sharp chins, but on the bright side, they’re giving the girls more coverage. Which is more interesting than Our Newbie Player’s discovery of how to handle status screens, skill points, and Daily Quests. Spoiler alert: Int is his dump stat.

Verdict: the rules require that we grind through this.

Slow Waifu & Sister, episode 3

In which Our Bountiful Waifu is eating for three, Our Neighbor’s Wife is working up a sweat, Our Haven’t-Seen-In-Forever Guild Girl remains competitive, Our Friendly High Elf Maiden is sticking around, Our Almost-Forgotten Muscle Dude returns, Our Masked Assistant has an unsurprising secret identity, and Our Observant Assassin is the only one to notice that something’s up.

Verdict: I think I want a spinoff show in which Tisse leads hot-springs tours for the rest of the female cast.