Updated to finalize
I’m going to try and get a jump on this and actually add shows here after I’ve watched the first episode or two. Theoretically, that will enable me to get the titles (and initial thoughts) here quickly. That is likely to mean, though, that I won’t have the music selections done, nor the “clear winners”. I’ll update those as the season progresses (and, maybe?, note up here what I’ve updated). If I can “stick the landing” on this, I might have to migrate to a “start of season” + “ongoing thoughts” style, but – who knows?
In any event, expect this one (specifically) to be updated as I add more info to it.
Standard boilerplate:
- I have a paid subscription to CrunchyRoll (and Netflix), so I don’t have access to shows on other streaming srevices. Yes, I know I’m missing other stuff, but – this is a hobby, not my job.
- The listing of shows within each category does not indicate any sort of preference for one over the others. It’s typically just the order in which I was reading them from my Watchlist.
Quick Internal Links
- Continuing Shows
- Returning Shows
- The Romance / Rom-Coms
- The Isekais
- Action-ish / Fantasy
- Comedy
- Did Someone Mention Robots and War?
- Reincarnation / Life “Reboot”
- Slice-of-Life
- “Other”
- On Hold
- Music!!!
- The Clear Winners
Continuing Shows
The Apothecary Diaries, Season 2 – Show continues from Winter 2025, so of course I’m still here for it.
Returning Shows
Aharen-san wa Hakarenai, Season 2 – Yep, Aharen-san – the tiny girl who barely speaks and is incredibly shy – is back. As is her classroom “neighbor”, Raido – who has an overactive imagination about everything that could possibly be going on. The first season was hilarious, so I can’t believe S2 would be any less.
Bye Bye, Earth – Season 1 was last year. I recall it was a bit jumbled and took some time to get into it, but that it wound up being interesting enough. I’ll see if Season 2 can hold me. If not, it’ll be dropped.
Fire Force, Season 3 – Seasons 1 and 2 of this were back in 2019 and 2020. I watched both and enjoyed them, so I certainly am expecting to do so again, even if I’ll have to reacquaint myself with the story. This may wind up being another Dr. STONE, where I need to put it on hold until I’ve reminded myself of the story to this point, but I’ll see. I’m writing this without having, yet, seen episode 1 of S3, but this was a pretty much automatic “watch”.
I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years And Maxed Out My Level, Season 2 – Ah, yes … another isekai which tells everything in the title. It’s a slow rolling, slice-of-life isekai where the main character was just doing low-level stuff, but – if you do that for long enough, eventually the XP just keeps building and building and … there you are – maxed out. Was silly fun for Season 1, so I expect the same for Season 2.
Lycoris Recoil -Friends Are Thieves of Time- – Those lovable assassins / spies, Chisato and Takina, are back. These aren’t full episodes, though – just short (3 minute) slice-of-life bits – and there will only be six of them. They appear to be happening during the first series as well, since the series ended with some rather dramatic changes. Still fun to see them and, hopefully, this will mean there’s a second season somewhere down the line.
SHOSHIMIN: How to become Ordinary, Season 2 – An interesting sort of mystery-ish series that really resonated with me because the two main characters are far from ordinary and … well … that resonates with me in soooo many ways. Loved Season 1, and can’t wait to dig into this one.
The Romance / Rom-Coms
Can a Boy-Girl Friendship Survive? – It starts off with a very aggressively hands-on girl and her (seemingly?) oblivious guy friend (“Nope – he’s not my boyfriend!”). They’re in high school, and his passion is making flower-themed jewelry and accessories that she helps him market and sell. No idea where this will lead and I’ll at least give it a few more episodes to see if it stays fun.
Please Put Them On, Takamine-San – Aaaand … I’ve found my guilty trash pleasure. This is definitely the show I am unlikely to admit watching. The basic premise is ridiculous, of course (girl takes off a piece of her underwear to rewind time), but then she uses that antagonistically and abusively to force the classmate who discovered about her to be her “closet” is definitely a bit much. From what I’ve heard, the manga does get “softer” as it progresses, so … I’ll see; but I won’t say I’m watching it.
Witch Watch – A crazy premise here … modern world, but there’s also some witches (few), so magic is real, and there are extremely human-looking ogres – who can be the familiars for those witches. Childhood friends reunited as late teens (witch and ogre), where she is very clumsy with her magic and it’s on him to rescue her from every insane situation she accidentally magics herself into. Light-hearted and lots of fun!
The Isekais
The Beginning After the End – This one almost lost me in the first ten minutes of the first episode. A not-quite standard start with the clear ruler of some sort of evil(?) country killing someone with a sword … and then being bombed out of existence by planes and weird flying ships? Uhhh… And then he isekai’s … into a baby … and has all of his adult levels of cognition. … sigh … Turns out, though, his new existence has magic not science (Surprise!) and he starts working on building up his own magic abilities, even though those don’t usually occur until someone’s tween- or teen-hood. What finally grabbed me was the combination of the small flashbacks to his previous life (where he was clearly “never good enough” and was shunned) compared with his (new) loving parents and, ultimately, his reaction to seeing how they truly care for and about him. I’ll give it some more and see where this is going.
I’m the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire – The start of this was a bit jarring, as it very much starts in medias res. Specifically, in the middle of our main guy starting to obliterate a massive space battlefleet. Then we rewind to pre-isekai, when he’s a salaryman who winds up falling on very hard times – engineered by a manipulative boss and his equally manipulative spouse. (Serious downmarks, though, for having his daughter plot against him as well.) As he’s dying, he gets the isekai offer – complete with catalog of what sort of situation he’d like to swap into. It’s amusing since, by trying to be an absolute selfish bastard as the new “him”, he winds up being an effective leader, etc. Animation is a bit all over the place, with a mix of hand-drawn and almost-eye-gougingly-bad CGI. The studio responsible for it is relatively new and has has an … interesting … mix of titles so far – with one which I dropped as unwatchable, one which I watched and enjoyed and a couple which are … heavy fan-service material. I’ll stick with this one, probably.
Action-ish / Fantasy
The Brilliant Healer’s New Life in the Shadows – “Underground” healer in a fantasy setting (with beastfolk) does what he’s good at, but –gasp– without a license! So, of course, he’s a nice guy and everyone (the females, of course) he’s saved goes out of their way to help him in return as they all seem to envision themselves as the future Mrs. Underground Healer. Interesting enough first episode, but where it goes from here is the big question.
The Gorilla God’s Go-To Girl – Started at the typical “Oh, you get some sort of blessing when you turn sixteen” (or whatever age). From the first few scenes, it looked like the girl in question was about to undergo some sort of bullying at the prestigious school, but – nope – she gets “whisked” off to train as a knight. She’s sure she can just “fail” the exams and can then return to normal life. But, c’mon! That wouldn’t be funny! So, for the first test (dash 100m), she not only runs faster than anyone else, but proceeds to destroy the brick wall at the end because she couldn’t stop. And I couldn’t stop smiling and chuckling throughout.
The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiancé and Sold to Another Kingdom – Two sisters who are saints (magic powers, protecting the country, etc) but the older one – who is clearly extremely good at her job – is generally disliked. Because she’s “too good” and she “never smiles” and … the list goes on. She’s also engaged with the prince who, ultimately, decides to sell her off to a neighboring kingdom. The first episode was forgettable, but the ending (her showing up in the new kingdom) which definitely is more welcoming will probably be the “make-or-break” for this show.
The Unaware Atelier Meister – With just one episode watched, this show already made me think of another one, Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, in one very key element. The main character (who, of course, is tossed from his adventuring party because he’s got no skills) turns out to be super over-powered at just about everything which isn’t fighting-related. However, because all the stuff which seems to be insanely powerful for everyone else is just the way he’s always been and he’s never had anyone else to compare to – he thinks he’s completely incompetent. Yeah, I’m easy, but the first episode hooked me.
Comedy
A Ninja and an Assassin Under One Roof – Silly premise to start with … a (mostly) inept ninja gets suckered into leaving her village and winds up running into an assassin (both young females). The assassin is extremely competent (at her job), but rather incompetent at a lot of other stuff (like, say, hiding the body … or keeping her apartment clean). Ninja to the rescue! It’s silly and funny. Yeah, it’s got stupid moments, but, in some ways, that’s part of what makes them fun.
Did Someone Mention Robots and War?
None this season
Reincarnation / Life “Reboot”
None this season
Slice-of-Life
Catch Me At The Ballpark! – I expected to have zero interest in this show. But I figured I’d give it a shot and was extremely pleasantly surprised. The first episode showed three short stories set in the context of a baseball stadium and the little snips of stories around individuals at the stadium. Great fun, actually! Turned into an instant “watch them all” before the episode was even finished.
Once Upon a Witch’s Death – The instant she turned 17, she’s presented with the unfortunate news that she’s cursed to have a year left to live; but she can save herself if she can make 1,000 people cry tears of joy. I can already tell this series is going to be incredibly emotionally manipulative. I’m willing to be emotionally manipulated, at times – when I am aware of it and know it’s coming. So, yeah, I’ll enjoy it, but it’s not going to be an awesome good story; just some false heart-warming stuff, but I’m good with that.
Summer Pockets – A very slow start to what (upon researching), I found out is a visual novel (/ game). Given the expanding cast the main character meets even just in the first episode, that makes more sense. I’m (almost) always down for a nice slow slice-of-life with (maybe?) some romance elements, so I’m curious about where this is going.
ZatsuTabi -That’s Journey- – A “travel”, or maybe “tourism”, sort of show, almost along the lines of Laid-Back Camp. Our heroine in this case is an aspiring manga artist who, due to rejection of her drafts, decides to start a hobby of randomly traveling around Japan to places she’s never been to before. The artwork in this is stunningly beautiful, almost approaching photo-realistic in some cases. Plus, as a bit of a Japanophile (who should have gone back there after an extended business trip in the late ’80s), I always love seeing more of Japan that isn’t just the well-known locations in Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka.
“Other”
Anne Shirley – Based on the famous book, Anne of Green Gables, this is an anime “retelling” of the story. I have to say – the “look” of the animation is absolutely gorgeous, looking almost Ghibli-esque in how clean and crisp all of the images are. I admit I have never read the original book and was almost ready to just ignore this and not watch it, but figured I would give it an episode and … Wow! I am very glad I decided to give it a try. Definitely interesting and looks like it’ll be fun.
Food For The Soul – I’m (almost) always a sucker for CGDCT, and this one is not one of the exceptions. In this case, the CGs in question are in college. Our viewpoint character is extremely shy in her new (solo) living situation – to the point of being scared of going out to eat by herself. The other three CGs are trying to start an official college “club” … so they have a space, on campus, to be lazy and relax. All clubs need at least four members, and they can’t do it with just three, no matter how much sweet-talking and even outright bribery they attempt. Thus, the meeting (and it turns out our solitary CG is an old classmate of one of the three), and the club happens. However, a “lazy” club isn’t allowed, so it turns into a food-exploration and cooking group. Semi-food-porn stuff shown throughout.
Kowloon Generic Romance – I … have no idea what’s going on here. This isn’t quite a mystery … yet? The female lead works at a realtor in Kowloon Walled City and seems to look exactly like her co-worker’s fiancée – to the extent that a waiter / bartender treats her as such. I’m hooked, though, and can’t wait to see where this is going.
Maebashi Witches – When the show opened with a small plastic-looking bipedal frog saying he “lost at witch gacha”, all I could think was, “Please not a Madoka rip!” Buuut, then it added some eye-gouging CGI and I decided I’d at least give it an episode. Yeah, it’s a magical-girl show … and it’s got them singing as part of their “magic delivery” (as it were). This will probably be the non-ecchi guilty pleasure for the season. Or I might drop it if it takes a serious downturn. I’ll give it good marks for some interesting cast chemistry among the five junior witches (who have to staff a magic shop to grant wishes so they can graduate to being “real” witches).
On Hold
Music!!!
Can a Boy-Girl Friendship Survive?: (opening), “Shitsumon, Koitten Nandeshō ka?” (Question: What is Love?”), by HoneyWorks, feat. HaKoniwalily.
Maebashi Witches: (opening), “Sugo Sugi Maebashi Witches”, by Maebashi Witches.
SHOSHIMIN: How to become Ordinary, Season 2: (ending) “SugaRiddle”, by Nagi Yanagi.
Summer Pockets: (opening), “Alkatale”, by Konomi Suzuki; (closing), “Lasting Moments”, by Konomi Suzuki.
The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiancé and Sold to Another Kingdom: (closing), “Sister”, by Won.
ZatsuTabi -That’s Journey-: (opening), “Tabi Shiyo! Don’t You?”, by Harmoe.
The Clear Winners
Rather than trying to call out the shows I think are absolutely outstanding in each description, here’s a quick list. Think of these as the “If you can only watch a few, go for these!” list. I won’t get into the details on the whys for each one (beyond what I described above), but these are the ones definitely worth checking out. List is purely alphabetical.
- Aharen-san wa Hakarenai, Season 2
- Catch Me At The Ballpark!
- Summer Pockets
Tied For Second
And, if you have a bit more time beyond just those few, here’s others I think are definitely worth having on your own watchlist
- The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiancé and Sold to Another Kingdom
- The Unaware Atelier Meister
