It's time for another Anime Roundup!
(Warning: major spoilers to follow)
The Apothecary Diaries
Set in an alternate-reality version of 15th-ish-century China, this one follows a young girl who is kidnapped and sold to the Imperial Palace as a servant, where she proceeds to prove herself smarter than everyone else there (she was raised by an adoptive father who used to be a doctor, and apparently he's passed all of his knowledge and then some on to her). Because of this, she's quickly promoted from servant to a job that seems to informally combine the tasks of apothecary (kind of like a pharmacist), food taster, forensic pathologist, and private detective, and she goes about solving crimes and mysteries in a somewhat Scooby-Doo-meets-Wednesday Addams-like manner. Also, between you and me, I swear she presents as autistic; she appears to have difficulty with social interaction and expressing emotions, and she has a special interest in herbs and poison that borders on obsession. This was a fun show that for some reason gave me Legend-of-Korra-without-the-bending vibes, probably because of the animation style, music, and Asian-inspired setting.
Oshi no Ko
Okay, this one was totally not what I expected. I thought it was going to be a light and breezy story about a J-pop idol group as they rose through the music business from relative unknowns performing in divey live houses to huge stars selling out the Tokyo Dome.* As it turned out, it was sort of about that, but then there was also a reincarnation storyline (a subgenre of anime in itself) and a Madoka Magica-level (or Game of Thrones if you're not familiar with Madoka Magica, although you really should be) shocker at the end of the feature-length premiere episode. All subsequent episodes after that, even during moments that actually were kind of light and breezy, carried a dark and sinister undertone that kept me on edge the whole time. So yes, even though it wasn't what I expected, I really enjoyed this one (probably even more than if it was what I expected). There's also a live-action adaptation that I watched immediately after and is, despite some pretty major changes, equally delightful (and awesomely meta - the part where the characters were obviously mocking their own show was incredible and hilarious).
* although I suppose the somewhat edgy opening theme song, which I had been hearing for a while before I ever watched the show, should have given me some clues about the true vibe of the show
Witch WatchA teenage witch (no, not Sabrina) starts living together with her childhood friend, a teenage ikemen (hot guy)-looking ogre whose ancestral duty is to protect her from harm. As you might expect, this premise lends itself to light and breezy rom-com territory, which is where the show lives most of the time, but every so often it veers off into serious, dramatic areas before course-correcting. At one point (episode 14, to be exact - see, I'm taking notes!) it even goes off the rails altogether, as it begins as a completely different anime called "Uron Mirage" (complete with its own theme song and opening credits) that made me wonder if I had clicked on the wrong thumbnail in Netflix until I remembered that "Uron Mirage" is an in-world show that the Witch Watch characters are, um, watching. Speaking of Netflix, they are doing the slow-drip, one-episode-per-week thing with this one, so I think I have about 4-ish? episodes left to go - lots of time for the show to do more weird stuff.
Tonbo!
A light-hearted, feel-good show (why does it seem like all movies and shows about golf have a lighter tone? Why not a dark, dystopian tale about people killing zombies with 5-irons? Hmm, I may be on to something here...) about a washed-up pro golfer who discovers a young prodigy and takes her under his wing. I'm a golf fan, even though I haven't picked up a club in what feels like forever, so I enjoyed this one. It has a similar premise to the Apple TV+ series
Stick, which I watched concurrently (or maybe I should say
Stick has a similar premise to this show, since the manga that it's based on started back in 2014). I also recently watched
Happy Gilmore 2, so my life has been kind of full of golf-related stories lately. A sign from the universe that I should dust off my clubs? Eh, probably not.
My Deer Friend Nokotan
This was another one that wasn't what I had expected. Ostensibly, it's about an overachieving high school girl with a hidden delinquent past who meets a hybrid deer-girl (which reminded me of the Netflix show
Sweet Tooth) who threatens to reveal her secret unless she starts and runs an after-school "Deer Club." And I guess it is sort of that, but then it veers off into all kinds of strange directions, sometimes within the span of the same episode (or even part of an episode). This is not to say I didn't enjoy it; I actually found it quite entertaining, especially after I had moved it to my evening watch slot (which takes place after I've had a couple of beers). It was
very meta, which I always appreciate, and all the constant deer-related references brought back memories of the time I went to Japan for a college study tour and was mobbed by a herd of deer in
Nara Park. Good times!
