This is me. I love mangos so much…

To elaborate: injesting testosterone is such an inefficient way to obtain it that you’ll end up with liver failure long before you see any other effects

Wait, so is this series about how corporal punishment in schools is good and banning it is government overreach? Gross.

The thing is, Maomao is absolutely of the correct sort of lineage to marry into the royal family. Lakan is one of the Emperor’s most trusted advisors and the head of an important family; he’s on par with Shishou, whose daughter is one of the Emperor’s highest ranking concubines. Maomao may have been born a bastard, but her parents are married now and Lakan considers her a daughter, which (to my understanding) would have been enough at the time to retroactively make her a legitimate child. If she were to wear her lineage openly, she would be of higher standing than almost everyone she interacts with.

If someone is open to the idea of replacing liberal democracy with a different system, that is them being open to not being a liberal. If they want to replace out current system with an extremely similar system with the hope that it won’t turn out like this again, that’s still conservative at its core.

I’m just not really sure what point you’re trying to make. Why are you bringing up people who have been dead for hundreds of years? Their context was so radically different than anything we have ever or will ever experience that their liberalism is a fundamentally different movement than the liberalism of today.

They are, though. Liberal is often used in American politics to imply progressive/leftist, but that’s not what it means. Liberalism is pro- status quo and, like the heroes of HP, supports the idea that our current system would work great if not for the Bad People messing it up.

Uh, sure, I guess I’ll agree it’s less conservative than feudalism, but I’m not sure what that has to do with whether HP is conservative? It’s not as if the story is about overthrowing a monarchy to establish modern capitalism (a different common story structure with its own problems); it’s about removing all the bad people in positions of authority so that the good people can make society work like it should while changing nothing systemically.

I agree, but liberalism is by nature conservative.

In non-OP/ED stuff:

I realized late that I’d missed a few anime because (for whatever reason) I thought they were sequels/spinoffs that required prior knowledge:

• Hero Aca Vigilantes - turned out pretty good and fun, but I got really frustrated with how the whole franchise continues to be weird about women (and also I liked Shinsetsu Man when he was just helping people in mundane ways)
• Umamusume Cinderella Gray - It seemed like a decent sports girl anime, but I don’t really like sports girl anime lol
• Gundam GQuuuuuuX - (I thought it started with a movie but later learned that was just the first few episodes bundled together or something) This is definitely stylish, but I feel like the lore is a little dense for beginners, even if veterans keep telling me it’s fine. There was way too much jargon I did not understand at all
• To Be Hero X - Absolutely stunning visuals mixing 2d and 3d animation, and I’m hooked on the story, but I’m not confident it will be able to keep it up. It’s interesting that its premise is very similar to the central lore conceit of Hanako-kun (which was on my mind because the season just wrapped up)

After a lot of deliberation and some unfortunate cuts, I trimmed my list to show my friends down to: Apocalypse Hotel, Catch Me at the Ballpark, Gorilla God’s Go-To Girl, Ninja and Assassin Under One Roof, To Be Hero X, and Too-Perfect Saint. And after a lot of deliberation and some unfortunate cuts, we ended up with an overloaded schedule with: Apothecary Diaries S2, Wind Breaker S2, Apocalypse Hotel, and To Be Hero X (we usually try to stick to 3 shows)

This doesn’t really bode well for next season for us, since Dan Da Dan, Dress-Up Darling, Reborn as a Vending Machine, and Hanako-kun are all coming back, and To Be Hero X will be in its second cour.

Went through them all again and here are my favorites this time:

OPs

• Black Butler: Emerald Witch Arc - I love the storybook aesthetic and the overwhelming use of green. I have my issues with this series, but this OP hits a dark and oppressive tone that I think works very well.
• Hero Aca: Vigilantes - this show is a love letter to american superhero comics and the OP exemplifies that very well (and is also a bop)
• Shoushimin S2 - on the surface it’s got tons of impressive art style shifts, a fun song, and interesting visuals, but I’m sure that deeper in there are clues to the mysteries that i don’t have the context to decipher, lol.
• To Be Hero X - this shows off the show’s mix of animation styles and also its mix of superhero action with hints of darker mysteries
• Witch Watch - I love this OP so much and it makes me wish I liked the show more, lol. The characters are so expressive and them having fun is infectious

EDs

• Classic Stars - I really like the song they put together for this, and I think the boys’ singing goes well with the instrumentation.
• Gundam GQuuuuuuX - they made the interesting choice to have a bunch of shots with one camera angle and I think it worked really well. The backdrop is so detailed and we get to see a lot of really cute little scenes of their daily life (I like it when the cube falls down)
• Ninja and Assassin Under One Roof - fun and colorful, and gets extra points for heartlessly deleting characters from the ED after they die
• Rock is a Lady’s Modesty - while it’s mostly just pans across static images, the stylization and coloring really give a strong vibe
• To Be Hero X - very moody and emphasizes the way that becoming a hero often becomes a tragedy rather than a dream come true.

Mentions (honorable or otherwise)

• Normally I really like EDs with a rougher style like Ann Shirley’s, but the color flashes made this really hard for me to watch
• I wanted to like Fire Force S3’s ED, since the animation and rap parts are really good, but the autotune on the singing is just too much, it hurts to listen to.
• Himitsu no AiPri’s ED has some extremely scary live action versions of the main characters. No thank you.
• Miru’s ED features the robot character doing what looks like a tiktok dance ??
• Princession Orchestra’s OP’s melody strongly reminded me of D.N.Angel’s
• I think it’s funny that almost none of the characters in To Be Hero X’s OP or ED are in the first three episodes (I’m a bit behind) of the anime basically at all, lol. Nice gets some screen time in the OP, but I have no idea who anyone else is.

Shade from what? Yall don’t even have the sun, lol

That’s rapunzel from Disney’s tangled

I’m a bit late, but this was too good not to add

@rikka@ani.social

I suspect many of the uncut ones are less obvious and thus may have had their purpose misidentified. Also, it’s unclear if these are cut or merely retracted

I don’t know if Suirei understands exactly how many powerful and capable people she’s bringing down on herself by kidnapping Maomao, but she’s about to find out, lol (and it’s more than usual with Luomen in the palace). Not sure if it’s related or just a simultaneous scheme, but Lakan’s taunting of Shishou was great - it’s clear he’s testing some theories (like with the juice) and setting up some bait to see if he’ll take it (I don’t believe for a second that the interrogation was botched).

Meanwhile, I’ve been suspicious for a while that Shisui has some connection with Loulan (they look too similar), but now we’ve got a more direct hint. My guess currently is that she’s Loulan’s alter ego she uses to run around the palace freely, but she may instead be her sister or some other relative or a backup/body-double or something.

I don’t know if Suirei understands exactly how many powerful and capable people she’s bringing down on herself by kidnapping Maomao, but she’s about to find out, lol (and it’s more than usual with Luomen in the palace). Not sure if it’s related or just a simultaneous scheme, but Lakan’s taunting of Shishou was great - it’s clear he’s testing some theories (like with the juice) and setting up some bait to see if he’ll take it (I don’t believe for a second that the interrogation was botched).

Meanwhile, I’ve been suspicious for a while that Shisui has some connection with Loulan (they look too similar), but now we’ve got a more direct hint. My guess currently is that she’s Loulan’s alter ego she uses to run around the palace freely, but she may instead be her sister or some other relative or a backup/body-double or something.

I hope Himari sticks around in Mia’s half of the story for a while. I think she could use an ally and a character to play off of (and maybe a girlfriend? They did have a meet-cute, after all). Meanwhile Philia is getting more used to people being nice to her, and it’s very cute to see.

I suspect that the thing Osvalt was alluding to is that the first prince may have been in love with, or even engaged to, the previous saint who recently died. At least, that’s what I’m guessing from the shot of him staring at the vase of flowers.

No joke. This is orders of magnitude more sincere and touching than any of the generic isekai slop its title is parodying. I’m eager to see more of our best boy Boxxo.

Squirrel-senpai saying “I think I can see why you were chosen” is such a refreshing reaction to OP main character powers. Like, he isn’t complimenting the blessing, but her as a person and how she’s been using it. Unrelated, but the boy sure loves his nut-based desserts, lol.

I’ve been having fun trying to work out everyone’s powers, and this week was especially easy because their names were mostly just regular words, lol.