Every week, I visit over 245 anime sites looking for posts that celebrate amazing moments in anime or otherwise blow me away with their wit and charm. These are my five favorite posts for the week. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
You can see a list of the sites I check here: Massive List of Sites!
Anime Evo
Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian – 12 [Final]
The good news is that we’re getting a second season. The bad news is that I’m sad to see Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian end. Or maybe that’s also good news? I mean, if I hated the show, I’d celebrate it ending, or just ignore it. So missing it is better! Do you know who else will miss the show? FlareKnight from Anime Evo! Every week, his reviews glowed with enthusiasm for the show. FlareKnight’s coverage has helped me wring even more enjoyment out of each episode. Fingers crossed that FlareKnight decides to cover season 2 when it arrives!
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DoubleSama
Tower of God Season 2 Episode 11 Review
Tower of God Season 2 has been a challenge for me to watch this season. I so much enjoyed the animation style of the first season that the dramatic change in the second threw me for a loop. I can usually compensate by adjusting my expectations, but even now, it’s tough. So much so that it’s distracted me from thinking much about the drama. No worries, though. DoubleSama, from the site of the same name, had broken down the important bits in a way even I can understand. I also enjoy reading DoubleSama’s conjecture — especially about Rachel! Did you have the same idea about what Rachel’s up to?
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Japan Powered
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU Explains the Crisis of Middle-Aged Men
We hear a lot toxic masculinity. So much so that it’s almost lost its meaning. But it’s a symptom, not the root cause. Human society has undergone stunning levels of change in the last hundred years. So much so that the social cues have not caught up. Even when I was younger, the social cues indicating success for me as a young man seem quaint today, though they were clear and easy to understand: be physically strong; don’t show weakness; be the key wage earner in my household. At my current stage of life, I understand that those expectations are artifacts of a civilization at a certain stage of development. More importantly, I understand those expectations change.
I credit my love of science fiction with helping me understand this. I also credit my study of theology (I’m theologically an Aristotelian Thomist). Both exposed me to ideas of evolving cultures — and the pressures culture exerts through those expectations. I mean, it’s impossible to study early Christianity and miss how violently some males reacted to feminine leadership in some churches. After all, how many of you have read the Gospel of Mary? The implication of the answer most of you will give (i.e., “no”) makes it clear that violating expectations, even in the company of the divine, carries a cost.
Obliterating social expectations for males without any replacement, and what happens? Some of us adapt rapidly; many do not. Some cling to hard to the “old ways” (which themselves are young, depending on your perspective). Chris Kincaid’s post on Japan Powered explores this topic through the lens of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU. I appreciated how Chris Kincaid approached the question and did not try to disparage men who are struggling with this. It’s a real issue; it’s an issue that unscrupulous parties can exploit for their demagoguery. Understanding the problem is a critical step to solving the problem, and Chris Kincaid’s post is a solid step in the right direction.
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Merlin’s Musings
My Top Ten Best Anime Fights
Merlin, on the site Merlin’s Musings, is on a role with lists. That’s not easy. Creating a gripping list is hard. First, you have to pick a topic that folks will find interesting. Then, you have to populate it with entries that readers will react to strongly — else, they’ll just skim it and move on. This list succeeded on both counts! It got me thinking with #10 (I might have picked another fight from the same series, but I can’t found Merlin’s selection). But number 8 really appealed to me. Number 7, too! Heck, the rest of the list brought back a ton of positive memories. See if you have a similar reaction!
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The Otaku Author
Delicious in Dungeon (Season One) – Dungeon Meshi
Delicious in Dungeon is one of those series that didn’t last long in my backlog. I watched the first episode, then binged the rest over the period of a week or so. There were a lot of reasons I liked the series, both as a viewer and as a writer. Lynn, on the site The Otaku Author, spoke to those reasons and more. I have to endorse his favorite moment and favorite character — as well as agree that the series’ craftsmanship made selection difficult! See if you agree with Lynn’s selections.
More Posts from The Otaku Author
Want to Read More of My Favorite Anime Post Lists?
Want to explore more amazing anime blog posts? Check out the previous editions of My Favorite Anime Community Posts!
Want to Read Favorite Posts from Other Sites?
- Anime Feminist: Weekly Round-Up, 11-17 September 2024: Animator Dormitory, Watase Yuu Health Update, and #DRCL
- Lesley’s Anime and Manga Corner: Anime and Light Novel Blog Posts That Caught My Eye This Week (September 20, 2024)
Emilia and Satella are 99.999% not the same person.
Roswaal said that Emilia shares the same lineage as the Witch of Envy and that of course she would also become a witch ’cause of that, meaning that they share a common ancestor who was most likely also a witch.
This next point will have some relevance to what came before. When Echidna said that Satella, the Witch of Envy, consumed the other Witches of Sin and used them for sustenance, common sense would show that that is inaccurate info as if Satella had actually done that there would be no corpse of Echidna at the Sanctuary. Perhaps there was a nugget of truth in there that all of the other Witches of Sin aside from Pandora and Satella herself died in the age of Satella 400 years ago.
Minerva indicated that she knew Emilia’s mother well, whether she is her mother, whether one of the other dead Witches of Sin are, or whether Emilia’s physical body is a clone of Satella’s. This suggests that Emilia and Satella co-existed 400 years ago and that the reason Emilia was so young in the flashback with Pandora and Petelgeuse, ’cause she had been in cryo-stasis for a long period of time like Ryuzu Meyer had been.
All this points to Emilia and Satella being two different people even if their bodies are somehow physically identical. I do not believe they are one and the same from a different timeline.
I haven’t seen anything I’d interpret as evidence for them being the same — beyond just a visual similarity, which I’ve put down to coincidence or lineage.
The consumption part — I don’t know what that means, either. If Satella consume their essence, then how did Subaru meet them at all, even in that magic space? And if she consumed just their forms, as you said — where’d Echidna’s body come from?
The show has a lot of explaining to do, but I have a lot of confidence in Tappei Nagatsuki. I think the questions we have are exactly the questions he wants us to have at this point.
In one of my theories that I posted on your blog, I put it out there that Echidna was just lying about the consumption part and that there is a long game to deceive the public about what the other Witches were capable of partially ’cause the other Witches will be revived, possibly as a test for Subaru to overcome, that last part being something I recently thought of and wasn’t posted on your blog.
The reason I believe there is a certain degree of deception is that it seems the world at large prejudiced toward blaming most of the world’s evils on Satella, much like how Crusch thought that the White Whale and mabeasts were created by Satella even though they were actually created by Daphne, the Witch of Gluttony.
There were hints of the truth in Season 1 with how Subaru realized that mabeasts chase after his scent, which is how he concluded that the White Whale was also a mabeast. It wouldn’t make sense for Satella to have made them since they would be constantly chasing after her to eat her. Puck also called the White Whale “Gluttony” in Season 1, probably to refer to the White Whale of Gluttony.
If you recall from my favourite theory, what Subaru refers to as Return by Death should likely be called “More Than Just Return by Death” since not only does he get to reload to at a savepoint of Satella’s choice, he also seems to warp reality as if he arrived at that point a few minutes early, meaning his Authority of Envy should affect time more weakly (a few minutes tops) without Satella’s involvement.
Where I’m going with this is that if it indeed ends up with Subaru defeating Satella after she possesses Emilia to save the world from what comes out of the Seal, More Than Just Return By Death will no longer be a factor since Satella will be dead, and Subaru will possibly have to defeat the other Witches and the final boss that cursed the world to be biased towards repeating the failure of a past hero.
He will have to do that with just his own power and none of Satella’s help, and I believe his long journey of self-improvement will enable him to succeed. Whether or not he also finds about what I believe to be the long-running plan from characters who lived centuries ago to steer the world to a free future that ends the cycle of the world being destroyed and reconstructed remains to be seen.
I lean towards Subaru finding out the truth if it’s as I’ve presented. Whereas past heroes were doomed to let the world burn for their lovers, it’d be cathartic for Subaru to make the choice to overcome his fatal flaw of latching on to Emilia due to his fear of abandonment even if it were due to mental conditioning by others showing that it’s still his choice to make even if he was guided to that choice.
Thanks for the mention. I was enjoying Delicious in Dungeon so much that I added an extra run a day just to watch another episode…
It’s one of those rare shows that’s complex and rich and so much fun to watch it just zips by. I can think of a few other shows as complex, but their presentation made them feel plodding. Not Delicious in Dungeon!
Whoo! Two weeks in a row! 😀
You’re putting together some of the most enjoyable lists I’ve seen in a while! And number 8? That alone got my attention! Though the rest were very cool, too.