Spent part of last week trying to slog my way through Kimi no Iru Machi. I had watched the first episode years ago and thought it looked promising, but had since forgotten the title, though the memory of seeing the episode came back to me from time to time. I finally stumbled on it last week and thought that was serendipity. But it wasn't.

More than anything else, I just couldn't work out how it was that a love polygon had built up around a guy who was such an asshole. He's one of those maddening prideful and self-absorbed male romance leads - thankfully more common in anime's past than its present - who, when he's assailed by the predictable doubts, insecurities and embarrassments of young romance, gets angry and takes it out on the girl. I made it through about four episodes and just couldn't take him any longer.

After poking around a bit, I learned that the anime is a notoriously awful adaptation and the manga is supposedly MUCH better, but I'm not sure I care enough to bother. I'm going to no longer try in vain to remember the title of that anime I just vaguely remember about the guy who moves to Tokyo to pursue the girl who he was sure was the one until she suddenly and inexplicably dumped him, and that's good enough.

As for current stuff:

I'm dropping Nippon Sangoku, sort of. I like it a lot and still plan on watching it, but it's just so packed with intrigue and secrets and is such an unusual universe that I'm not enjoying it episodically as much as I know I would binging it, so I'm going to do that when the season's over.

Akane Banashi is looking like it's going in an unfortunate direction. I don't want to drop it, mostly because I really like Akane herself and the rakugo setting is interesting, but part of the initial appeal was the whole idea of Akane dedicating herself to rakugo at least in large part so that she could get good enough and influential enough to at least figuratively kick the ass of that bitter old prick who expelled her father. But it's looking now like they've just waved the magic wand of incoherent storytelling to transform the bitter old prick into a sweet old guy who just has an undeserved bad reputation, and I can only guess that that's so that the story wouldn't effectively reach an end with Akane's revenge, and will instead settle into a shounen sports style cycle of mini-arcs of new challenges and new challengers with never an end in sight. And that won't hold my interest.

The Ramparts of Ice keeps loading on more and more complication, as this sort of loose group of friends morphs into some sort of love... circle? It sort of reminds me of Kokoro Connect in that it seems that everyone is in love with someone who's in love with someone else who's in love with someone else who's... Except it's thankfully better overall, mostly because the characters are intriguing and complex rather than just fill-in-the-blank stereotypes. I'm really enjoying it.

The Klutz and the Skirt is still a treat. It's just consistently cute and funny and it looks great, so it's just a pleasure to watch.

My Ribdiculous Reincarnation is a pleasure too. It actually pains me to type out that godawful localized title, but the series, aside from that, is a barrel of fun.

Agents of the Four Seasons still has too much unrevealed for this late in the season. At this point, I'm hoping that it's going to keep going at the same pace and get a second season, or better yet a second cour, because the alternatives are that it's going to accelerate to an info-dump end or it's going to just peter out, and I'm enjoying it and don't want that to happen.

The highlight of the week for me, as it has been for most of the season really, was An Observation Log of My Fiancee Who Calls Herself a Villainess. It starts with tropes, but most of the tropes are either lampshaded or defied, the characters, and Bertia especially, are very engaging, it looks great, and it makes me laugh and keeps me interested to see where it's going.