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I do think the animation for the Anaak/Ran fight was a step up from some earlier low points, but that is a pretty low bar to clear. I wholeheartedly agree about the rules of these games though. I have stopped trying to keep track of the rules for these things since that team-building game earlier in the season. The rules always end up getting changed, people exploit some loophole, or they are just ignored entirely.

The second half of the episode (post fight) felt like three episodes in one it moved so fast. They literally only showed one panning shot of Endorsi before she was sneaking around again. Like, what is the point of even showing that party if nothing happened there. Then we conveniently have a group of major characters literally run into each other. For elite warriors, they seem to be pretty clumsy.

As for Lero Ro, I was waiting for him to show back up at some point. At the end of last season, he had quit his role of administrator because he knew something wasn't right with how that last test went down. He took Quant with him and decided to climb the tower to try to find answers. As an aside, what does climbing the tower mean to somebody that is already a ranker? Anyway, after this season got underway and we learned more about FUG, I figured he was going to be investigating them behind the scenes since they are the ones that organized Bam's apparent death in season 1. So, I am pretty excited to see him return.

For research into this subject, Anime Herald was fortunate enough to interview...prolific anime writer and critic Borealis Capps

Haha, I feel like you posting this article is a bit of a humblebrag.

Thanks for sharing though. I think that Dumbbells was a really fun show and I would love to see newer, better takes on a series like it, since I feel some of the things discussed in this article are totally fair. The one in particular that you brought up is how much the girls don't want to be too muscular, but rather just slim. This is something that is a recurring joke with Darkness in Konosuba as well. I mean, her role is to absorb damage for the party, muscles are kind of a prerequisite. That hangup of Darkness's never really made much sense to me.

I think it is interesting to compare Dumbbells to a series like Plus-Sized Elf. They both are ecchi as well as try to be educational, but they take things in very different directions (and not just the body-types). I eventually dropped the manga, but as it went, Plus-Sized Elf seemed to lean more into ecchi and less into education, probably because none of the characters hardly even tried to put those lessons into practice. Also, when the anime adaptation released, it was even more ecchi than the manga was.

Weekly ranking roundup:

1. Anime Corner - Full Results - Weekly Winner: Bleach TYBW
2. Reddit Karma - Weekly Winner: Dan Da Dan

Credit to /u/Abysswatcherbel for making the chart for reddit karma and /u/Nooble5 for the Anime Trending chart.

Lots of karma drops on the reddit chart this past week. I am glad to see Orb still gaining karma. Hopefully that is a sign that more people are picking up the series and catching up. It also doesn't surprise me that Villainess in History gained karma this past week as the episode was a lot between the antics of the heroine and the prince.

Some quick thoughts on what I watched this past week:

• Dan Da Dan - Continues to be the standout of the season. Lots of intense and unpredictable fun.
• Orb - More amazing drama this past week. More people should watch this. Hopefully after getting lots of praise in the recent Gigguk Nutshell video, more Western audiences will check it out.
• Tower of God - I am up through episode 18 and it has not been great, even after the start of the workshop battles. Maybe it will get better after the early rounds? Right? Right? Please...
• Appraisal Isekai - I have continued to enjoy my time with this show. It has done enough to keep my attention though I wouldn't call it a standout in any particular way.
• Loner Isekai - This is my guilty pleasure for the season. It's pretty dumb and super tropey, but if you turn your brain off, it is fun to laugh along with the stupidness.
• NegaPosi Angler - Really great episode this past week. We seem to be just starting to scratch the surface of the more serious thematic elements of this show.
• Villainess in History - Another stupid fun show. If you are able to either laugh at or look past the skeeviness of the prince courting a child, then this is a pretty humorous villainess series.

Non-seasonals:

• Look Back - A visually beautiful and touching movie that is worth checking out now that it is globally released. At only ~1 hour long, it isn't too much of a commitment and it justifies every minute of its runtime with beautiful animation and an excellent soundtrack. The story might not connect with everybody, but I enjoyed my time with this movie.
• Trigun (1998) - Just finished the series this past week with my wife. I haven't read the manga, but based on the show, the end is...alright. Overall, the show is really kind of split into two parts. The first half of it is basically all goofy villain of the week episodes. Then, after we meet the character of Legato, the whole story transitions into a serious sci-fi story about humanity's role and place as it explores the stars and the human will to survive (trying to avoid spoilers). The two parts of the show just felt disjointed.

The last thing I wanted to write about this week is that there is a new community for sharing anime videos, [email protected], founded by @[email protected]. There have been a couple videos posted already, so make sure to check them out and contribute if you have anything you want to share. I have added a link to the community in the sidebar of this community as well. In an effort to help out, I will be crossposting at least the next several clips that I make for this community over there as well.

isekai...not being relevant

This happens all the time in the isekai genre and it bugs me too. It's obviously just so that they can slap the isekai tag on a series to try to get some segment of audience that seeks that out. A lot of isekai series are functionally indistinguishable from a fantasy series once you get past chapter 2.

Licia is just as cute as a button and was completely caught out by her maid in the midst of her celebrations. @[email protected]

It's been a long time since I read this portion of the manga, but based on hazy memories, I think they motivated the reveal of the expecting wife a bit better than the manga did. I remember reading that portion and thinking that the deduction Ars comes to in that moment really came out of nowhere. Also, I don't remember exactly how they go about rescuing this guy's wife, but I am sure it involves more Pham cheat codes.

Congrats! I really like the icon/banner. I have banked a couple clips I have been meaning to post to the anime community. I can crosspost them for a while to try to help more people find the community. The other thing I would recommend is subscribing to the community from a couple of the larger instances so that it federates over (at least world).

You might want to edit your post titles so that people know what series you are talking about since this isn't the Haruhi community.

I don't think any of us should be too surprised that this new girl, Jolenta, is the daughter of Nowak since he has previously talked about how much he loves his daughter. I know they hid his face during their discussion, but one of the key differences between anime and manga is the voice talent; and there is no mistaking his voice. Watching her put herself in mortal danger for even a morsel of information is pretty harrowing. I await the inevitable confrontation between Nowak and Jolenta when he is asked to torture her due to her heresy.

Seeing Jolenta's plight this episode made me want to write about some of the women of science I am aware of through my studies, work, or just came across randomly on wikipedia over the years. I tried to pick a handful that are probably lesser known (sorry Marie Curie). Unfortunately, it is impossible to know how much science of the past may have been done with significant contributions made by uncredited women. As you will see on this list, many of the early women scientists were actually placed in an assistant role to some other prominent male scientist.

• Hypatia

This is the earliest female scientist that my brain could think of, dating back to the 4th century CE in Roman Egypt. The reason I have come across her name before is because she is a mathematician that contributed to the Ptolemaic model of the universe (extremely relevant to this show). Sadly, her life ended prematurely at the hands of an angry mob due to some politically motivated violence.

• Sophia Brahe

Keen-eyed followers of my posts for this show might recognize the surname Brahe as belonging to famous astronomer Tycho Brahe. I have written about him in previous discussion threads. Well, Sophia was the younger sister of Tycho and aided in his astronomical studies. Much like Rafal in the show, Tycho tried to prevent his sister from studying astronomy, instead training her in other disciplines like chemistry. So, she ended up teaching herself astronomy through studying the published literature of the time. Truly a story of dogged pursuit of knowledge driven by the insatiable curiosity of the human spirit. Very fitting for this show.

• Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier

This woman was married to French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, but arguably is the reason that her husband's work was so impactful. In the late 18th century, the field of chemistry was a bit adrift. It had largely sprung out of the practices of alchemy and was often rooted in philosophical principles as much as anything else. The Lavoisiers were some of the most influential researchers of the time to help chemistry transition to a quantitative field of study. Marie-Anne served multiple roles in the work. She translated much of the existing literature into French to aid her husband to understand it, helping him to design the experiments and apparatus. Then, when documenting results, in addition to detailed note-taking, she used her artistic training to very precisely document equipment and procedures through drawings in a way that helped other researchers replicate and improve their work.

• Agnes Pockels

This is a scientist that probably nobody reading this has ever heard of before since her contributions were in the very obscure field of surface science. I just happen to have done some professional work in this area and have used modern versions of the equipment that she invented way back in the late 19th century. She is an example of another completely self-taught scientist. In her case, she was stuck at home, taking care of domestic tasks and her parents. Her brother was studying physics at the time and would share his textbooks and other published literature with her.

While doing dishes, Agnes became fascinated with soap bubbles/films and it drove her to devise ways of measuring their properties. The result of which saw her come up with an experimental technique of measuring the surface tension of a liquid-air interface. She would continue on in her scientific career describing numerous surface phenomena. The instrument she devised would later be improved by an American chemist named Irving Langmuir, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contributions to surface science. Notably, Pockels was still living when Irving won the award which, can be argued, should have probably been shared between the two of them.

• Emmy Noether

This mathematician is probably one of the most influential figures in physics that people outside the field don't know about. Working in the early 20th century, she was the daughter of another mathematician and ended up becoming a professor at the University of Göttingen. Noether's theorem which has been so incredibly influential is kind of hard to describe in a way that is easy to understand. In short, when you are mathematically describing a physical system, any symmetry in the equations corresponds to a conserved quantity in the physical system. Using this theorem lets you show things like the conservation of energy or momentum. You might just have to trust me (or do your best to make sense of that wiki page), but her work has proven to be phenomenally powerful.

So, hang in there Jolenta and you might get your brilliance recognized. Just don't let your dad know. @[email protected]

This was a bit of a weird episode. There was almost no interaction between our main couple because Honjoji is just shutting down. Instead, the bulk of the episode focused on a coworker and his divorce. I get why a show that is about an impending (fake, but maybe not fake) wedding would bring up divorce. However, the way it was handled this episode didn't really work for me.

The show couldn't seem to make up its mind about whether to treat this with humor or with seriousness, and it kind of ended up not succeeding with either tone. The whole acting like a gorilla thing was just bizarre. Meanwhile, we see glimpses of Honjoji's memories of being a child to divorced parents. I feel like it is a missed opportunity to spend less time chasing a grown man-ape around and more time on either her or the child. I just didn't think that chasing this guy around Scooby Doo style really served any purpose other than an attempt at humor that didn't really land for me.

In any case, George was a nice discovery this episode. He is that one person in any workplace that has been around forever and no problem ever phases them. They've seen it all before and are the person that you turn to when you need to rely on that experience.

I am hoping that we get more of the main pair next episode. I mean, at least talk to each other.

Personally, I think Kyomoto is a couple things at the same time. She is a fellow artist that inspires a mangaka to do better and at the same time is a stand-in for the fans that provide the satisfaction that all that work that went into the art/story was worth it. I know some artists irl that are really good, but they are always comparing themselves to other's art and think that they could do better.

I haven't watched I Want to Eat Your Pancreas either, so I can't directly compare the two. I think Look Back was touching for sure, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it reached the top tier of emotional anime movies for me. I ended up not needing my box of tissues for example.

By comparison, when I want to watch something like Tale of the Princess Kaguya, I prepare a fresh box of tissues and go ahead and clear my schedule for the whole weekend. That movie destroys me when I watch it.