Normally I’d write a music round-up at this point in the year, but 2024 was kind of dreary for my music library. I bought a new album by PSB (the boys from the shop full of pets) and a new album by PSB (the broadcasting that is a service for the public) and neither of them really stuck in my mind very well. (Sorry, gentlemen.) So let’s talk about anime instead.

I don’t do that here very often. Which is odd because I used to have an entire secondary blog about it. And: Why didn’t I just fold that content into the main blog instead of deleting it? Dingbat.

Anyway.

So, 2024. What kind of year was it for watching Japanese animated TV shows?

Eh? Much like with the music of the year, “Not as good as 2023” is a valid answer. (Your mileage will, of course, vary. I am led to believe that for pop music at large, 2024 was bountiful. I’m happy for y’all enjoyers!) I mean, last year we had the start of both Frieren and Apothecary Diaries, each of which will probably feature on best-of lists for years to come yet.

A lot of what I watched were continuations, such as the 3rd season of Yuru Camp (“Laid Back Camp”) or revamps such as the rebooted Spice & Wolf. I enjoyed them, but they’re in the “more installments of a known quantity” category.

And then there’s a show that should’ve been right in my lane, Alya Hides Her Feelings In Russian. From the promotional material and initial episodes, you’d think that it should center on the titular Alya. However. It is, in fact, a by-the-numbers milquetoast harem romp complete with “secretly super-competent dude from rich family” actual-protagonist. That’s right… Alya’s just a side character in the show with her name on it.

Ugh. Bait-and-switch, get outta here.

I’d also like to be able to recommend Whisper Me A Love Song, a girl-band high-school-yuri bit of fluff that started airing in spring and only finally got its last two episodes (11 and 12) out the door a few days ago (as I write this in late December). Unfortunately it was cursed with budget issues and production delays (obviously) and is for the most part a PowerPoint slide deck of an anime series. Just… read the manga instead.

On the positive side, I can make some wholehearted recommendations if you’re looking to catch up on a few shows that weren’t making big waves with mainstream fandom but that I found adorable as heck in one way or another.

Let’s start with Dungeon People, which plays a bit in the popular “what if a game was real” space… sort of. It’s not a portal fantasy (“isekai”) but it does involve adventurers going into a dungeon to fight monsters and gain loot and such. And it is about that, while also… not really being about that. More than anything else, it’s a character piece about an adventurer trying to navigate the world hidden behind the world she thought she understood. It’s cozy, it’s cute, and then occasionally there’s a bloody dismemberment.

Look, I can’t sugar-coat this. The show is tonally weird sometimes. But I love it nonetheless. Give it a chance.

Next up? ‘Tis Time For “Torture,” Princess. Not entirely unlike the (also delightful) Sleepy Princess In The Demon Castle show from a couple years back, this is just one long string of comedic subversions of the “oh no, the princess has been captured by terrible demons” setup. You know the quip, “Don’t threaten me with a good time”? One could argue that, well, that’s the entire show.

Or to put it another way, maybe the real friends were the demons we met along the way. This show is an absolute delight through and through, a pick-me-up when you’re feeling chained down in the dungeon of life. As a bonus, this show has the most wholesome father-daughter family togetherness portrayal seen in anime for years. I am not joking about this. Hell-Lord is Dad Goals. Take it from an actual Dad.

I want at least two more seasons of such “Torture.”

I’ll close out my recommendations with a light novel adaptation that I’d love to see get more seasons, because there’s definitely more good source material to adapt: 7th Time Loop. (Full additional title:The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! What a mouthful. Damned modern light novel naming conventions, oof.)

The full title’s kind of misleading, as while one could be led to think this is yet another “villainess in a video game” riff, it’s not really an isekai and Rishe isn’t a villainess. (Honestly, I’m not sure why that’s in the title at all.) There is a time loop, though, and that’s part of the hook. See, Rishe keeps getting killed (uh, spoilers?) and each time she dies she loops back to the day her engagement is ended with the prince of her home country. On her 7th go-around of this several-year stretch of time, her stated goal is to use all the knowledge she gained from other previous “lives” to carve herself out a luxurious, “carefree life”.

She is… not good at being lazy and carefree. Nor is she particularly self-aware about this fact. Her lack of laziness is our gain, however, and it also ends up benefiting Arnold, the prince of the foreign nation who’s fated, loop after loop, to result in Rishe’s death (indirectly or, in the most recently completed loop, very directly).

Oh, and he’s the love interest for this story.

I won’t claim that this is the best story, or the best animation, or the best whatever. It is, however, great fun watching the leads dance around one another, literally or metaphorically. It’s a romp through a fantasy land, centered on two characters who are extremely competent but also just a bit blindsided by one another. I’m here for it.

At any rate, here’s to more fun stuff (like the imminent continuation of Apothecary Diaries!) coming down the pipeline in 2025… provided the anime industry doesn’t implode along the way. Fingers: Crossed.