Seasonal Anime Wrap-Up: Winter 2025

Ach ja, looking over the seasonal chart at the beginning of the season, I was rather… skeptic, to say the least. While I had my doubts about last season as well, this one took the cake, with being filled to the brim with sequels to other series I haven’t watched, enough fantasy slop to feed an entire army through a famine and all-around uninspired takes on better stories. I didn’t even bother with Sakamoto Days, because it looks so underwhelming, especially compared to its genre contenders. Also, lLooking at the chart, it makes me almost sad, how most of the anime I have seen this season were basically watched by no one, though I have no doubts about this being in part due to all of them being only available on less popular and available streaming services. Maybe this is the prize to pay for all the anime I finished to be pretty fucking good. Anyway, it is time to wrap up the anime of winter 2025.

The ones that didn’t make it

Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective feels like a rather solid setup for a medical detective series with the most sauceless execution imaginable. It presents the viewer with superficially very interesting mysteries, as I have no doubts the medical world is full of possible weird occurrences worth writing about, but seemingly doesn’t know where to go from there. The protagonist is an eccentric bundle of knowledge and workplace violations, but with no actual inside into her mind or how she intends to solve the aforementioned mysteries, she mostly comes off as an obnoxious child with a medical degree, which the series desperately tries to constantly make the smartest person in the room, which nullifies both the medical and mystery aspects of the anime for me. This might be a weird line of thought, but Ameku feels like the classic overpowered protagonist of your generic nondescript isekai in this regard… just as a doctor. Add to the fact that all the other characters have been less than useless so far, especially with the supposedly Sherlock-Watson dynamic of Ameku and Kotori, and the anime has yet to dive into the non-detective aspect of its setting, I am way more inclined to just watch The Apothecary Diaries again, or go out on a limb and maybe take a look at some episodes of House, M.D. instead, which this anime was so often compared to. At least the Opening is a banger on all fronts.

If I were to describe Übel Blatt in just two words, it would be juvenile and incompetent. I have no doubts it is filled with ideas I would very much like and I am glad we get a “proper” dark fantasy series in what is currently mostly a sea of indistinguishable and safe LitRPG slop, but it is just… not good. It really feels like a relic of the mid-2000s, where being dark and serious was mostly conflated with sex and violence and it surely would have been at the forefront of examples to show how weird anime is. In this sense, welcome back Elfen Lied, I guess. And even on its own merits, it simply fails for me at being a coherent story. I literally didn’t understand its in medias res at the beginning of the first episode, it constantly jumps around without any proper connective tissue and the pacing feels both too fast and too slow at the same time. Add some other elements I am not too big a fan of, such as a weirdly sexist portrayal of its female characters or an incredibly lame take on corrupt religious institutions and we get the complete package of “Nah, I’m good” from me.

Lastly, I May Be a Guild Receptionist, but I’ll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time. Now, any reasonable person would have taken a quick glance at the trailer or even just the main visual and come to the conclusion it took me seven epi… actually, no, it didn’t take me seven episodes to realize I deluded myself into the belief the anime would be about something it never even had the slightest intention to be in the first place. This much was obvious barely half an episode into it. By all means, it is your generic story about an RPG party clearing dungeons, a rather bland one at that, except the blurb and title might give some people the false hope of a new take on an already told story. I want to watch the anime the Opening belongs to. The story of someone that does solo any boss, but works as a receptionist instead, because it is a widely overlooked role that is simply assumed to exist as is and nothing more. Maybe we should just burn Narou to the ground (I don’t care that it wasn’t even published there, it’s the spirit that counts).

Medalist

At first, I was rather unsure whether I would even vibe with Medalist in the first place. I am personally not the biggest fan of stories featuring children when the cast is also filled with adult characters, because the little ones often feel like mouthpieces and plot devices to me and less than characters on their own. Fortunately, Medalist is very much aware that, as much life experience the children miss, it is not like they don’t have agency, lack dreams on their own or are missing any kind of emotional understanding. In fact, I would go as far as to say it is one of the best anime in portraying young children as proper characters and seeing them improve in both ice skating and on a personal level was a delight.

I don’t particularly care about ice skating as a sport, but, like most good sport narratives, it is seldom just about the sport and more about all the feelings involved. Inori grows from a bundle of despair and pity into someone with the drive to strive further and finally find something to look forward to in life. Similarly, the web of the other children and their trainers make for some really interesting interactions between them. From how Hikaru is able to motivate and inspire, to Rioh’s complicated feelings surrounding the adults around him and especially how Tsukasa is able to internalize his own past to help and ground his trainees.

I am so glad a second season was announced, because I feel like Medalist has not shown all its cards yet and it can go so much farther beyond. Also, I’d like to issue an apology to Studio Engi, because I was not familiar with their game. Some of the ice skating performances were truly breathtaking and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of them.

Zenshu

In its simplest form, Zenshu is an unapologetic love letter to anime and the stories and tropes that have defined it for so many people and I highly suspect especially the artists that eventually found themselves in the industry creating new ones. In the larger picture, Zenshu is about love and the different forms it can take. Not just the first love so many people yearn to experience, but also the love for a story that, despite being filled to the brim with despair, is still able to give you hope.

With that being said, week for week, I kinda struggled to really formulate what I think about the actual story. Like a lot of people, I was a bit disappointed that the anime wasn’t primarily about anime production, but also turned out to be an isekai on top of it. Then again, it being an isekai arguably had a purpose and made the entire conclusion have more impact, which already puts it above most of its genre contenders… then again, to be honest, this bar is buried six feet under ground, so it won’t mean a lot. Also, as much as I like the cast, I never really got that attached to them. I mean, Natsuko is great and all and I also learned to appreciate Luke for the specific role he plays, but that’s about it. Given that the ending, which tied everything in a neat little bow, is still missing something for me to make it properly click, means that Zenshu will most likely go down as a competent anime I will probably not think much about anymore in a season or two, despite having enjoyed every second of it. Sure looked absolutely stunning though.

Flower and Asura

Flower and Asura might be a prime example for why I don’t really think the basic premise of a story to be that important. Did I particularly care about recitation before? Not really. Do I care about it now? Also no. But it is also not really about recitation, right? It is about the appreciation of art, how it can move someone and bring yourself to grow and strive further in your own story and this anime has such a firm grasp and respect for all kinds of performing arts, from the way it beautifully visualizes and presents the feelings of both the performers and listeners to valuing all the different skills to everything adjacent to either recitation or announcing.

While subtle, it also features some incredible character writing and drama. Not necessarily in the way that everyone wants to cry their eyes out at the end, but more specifically tuned to the varied mindset of the cast, how they relate to their art and the competition, as well as some internal character growth. Honestly, this is some of the most well-rounded cast of characters I know, despite most of them barely getting one or two full episodes for themselves. Too bad the final two episodes were a bit of a letdown for me, but this will not overshadow how consistently great the anime turned out to be on a weekly basis. While I doubt it will happen, I would gladly accept another season. We had our debut, now it is time for the main act.

Also, if not girls love, why so gay?

From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated!

Someday, I will write the most incomprehensible post ever, use words like “Aesthetic Pluralism” and other concepts no one understands, only to reveal that it is about me figuring out why I adore the villainess trope so much. Then again, it is not like I actually have seen that many “normal” villainess anime and instead go for either straight-up comedies or whatever I’m in Love with the Villainess can be classified as. But also, who can blame me? There is a certain inherent comedy in someone stumbling their way through all kinds of situations by severely misunderstanding the villain’s role they are supposed to play.

Our man Kenzaburou is also just a treasure trove of hilarious hijinks. From his utter misunderstanding of the story and tropes he finds himself surrounded by or the fact that he is also just a really supportive dad, whose instincts get triggered constantly by the younger people around him, the story takes full advantage of the fact to heighten mostly inconsequential happenings and to give a ton of flavor to details I normally couldn’t care less about. Truly a testament to how a fun cast of characters make or break a series, especially when they too completely misunderstand everything around them. Praiseth be episode 8.

Lastly, this is finally an anime for old people like me. Sure, let’s sing a cover of this one song from Galaxy Express 999, reference old anime and generally just accept that you don’t get young people… What do you mean I’m only 25 years old and shouldn’t talk like this?

Orb: On the Movements of the Earth

There is a certain philosophical nuance and grace in how Orb tells its story. It is not just a fictionalized passing of the torch in how we eventually came to understand the cosmos as we do today, but also a potent tale of curiosity, of the eternal drive to search for truth in spite of danger, about making sense of the world around you and rationalizing your place in it. It is about the freedom to pursue thoughts, about questioning both dogma and progress, about the very intention and mindset that makes humans yearn for and fear further knowledge equally, about coming to terms with how religion and science can go either hand in hand or end in bloodshed… or even put more simply, it is about looking up towards the sky and gazing at the beauty of the stars, because each character in this story finds meaning in it.

I’m gonna be honest here, I am not smart enough to explain and contextualize the subtleties and not-so-subtleties of Orb. The story has a lot to say about the way we think about science, how it influences society and the many forces that push and pull the discussion around it and Orb is fully committed to the idea of exploring both the good and the bad, otherwise we would have gotten a group of bright-eyed idealists as our point of view characters instead and not such a diverse cast, which is seldom a stranger to morally ambiguous actions or opinions that will challenge a modern viewers assumption of what the hero of such a story should be…. except Oczy, he did nothing wrong and effortlessly put himself onto my list of favorite characters. Add a potential antagonist of the year in the form of Nowak into the mix, and you’ve got yourself the perfect package for a semi-historical drama, which, as much as I hate to use this rhetoric, really resonates with the current rise in anti-intellectualism going on right now.

If you want to take all this as an endorsement and recommendation, just be sure enough to approach this series with an open mind and the expectation, that it is neither specifically about astronomy, or an accurate depiction 15th century social climate, but rather the idea of what must have motivated the real people to walk the path they chose, while fully indulging in its themes. In this case, doubt and believe. But if you vibe with it, Orb serves you one three Michelin star dish after another and then has the audacity to ask in its last two episodes if you still have some room for dessert. Absolute Chi-nema. Thaumazein in its purest form. Also, the full version of the Opening finally dropped, so please enjoy some peak music.

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You Season 2

I’ll make this one short. 100 Girlfriends is actually just peak harem with essentially no competition as far as I am aware of what it does. Sure, it is primarily a straight-up comedy à l’excellence, but Rentarou gives his all to make more than sure we do get our genuinely sweet and romantic moments for literally each girlfriend, because he is just him. The him-est of hims, in fact (Especially after that one page). But it is not just the guy that carries his weight, but each girlfriend does so too and it is such a joy to see such a fun cast interact with each other, rather than just the leading man. Graph theorists are eating good with this one. Also, please look at how adorable the ED is this time.

What’s left?

Honestly, pretty much nothing. This season wasn’t really filled with a lot I would be even interested in to check out. There is Sorairo Utility, which I never got the opportunity to get around to, but I am also not that interested in going out of my way to watch it now.

And that’s it for the first season of 2025. Bit of a rough start, but I have a slight suspicion the spring season might pick up the slack.