Time to figure out our Summer schedule this week! Also finish out that last episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba on Saturday night, talk about Anime Expo, maybe even sample some of the new Summer shows...
But voting and schedule-building comes first. Which means we don't have a real fixed schedule this week, since we'll need time to sample or re-sample shows on the voting spreadsheet, time for people to advocate for some of the older shows, etc.
6:30 - 7 Sampler: The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies(CR)
7 - 10:30 Voting on shows, re-sampling old shows as needed
Sampler ideas:
Quality Assurance in Another World (CR)
Narenare -Cheer for you!- (CR)
Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: We started off by voting, then based on people’s curiosity we watched
Banished from the Hero’s Party S2 ep 1
Kaiju 8 ep 2 (CR)
The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies(CR)
Girls Band Cry ep 2 (fs)
Then we went through and adjusted votes a bit so we had a clear cutoff at 4 votes. Afterward, David was leaving (and Gene had already left at break), so we decided to hold off on the better-rated new shows and do the HiDive samplers, since Steve didn’t have access to them on his own. That led to
Plus-Sized Elf (HD, half-length)
6:30 - 7:15 Kimetsu no Yaiba - Demon Slayer: Hashira Training Arc 8 (CR)
7:15 - 8:15 Schedule-building
8:15 - 8:35 intermission
8:35 - 10:30 Samplers or a feature
Feature ideas:
Mars Express (BD)
Sampler ideas:
A Journey Through Another World: Raising Kids While Adventuring (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: We spent some time scheduled-building, then moved on to samplers (since Adam said he’d be about an hour late we didn’t want to rush into the final episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba). We sampled:
A Journey Through Another World: Raising Kids While Adventuring (CR)
Then after Adam connected we watched the final episode of the Hashira Training Arc. Victor showed up partway through that episode. After intermission we talked about this year’s Anime Expo a bit. Then Arthur connected and we returned to samplers with:
A Nobody’s Way Up To an Exploration Hero (CR)
Why Does Nobody Remember Me In This World? (CR)
Our Summer planning ended up as follows:
week 0: 7/13 and 7/14
1. 7/20 and 7/21
2. 7/27 and 7/28
3. 8/3 and 8/4
4. 8/10 and 8/11
5. 8/17 and 8/18
6. 8/24 and 8/25
7. 8/31 and 9/1 - Labor Day weekend, Alan calling in for jury duty
8. 9/7 and 9/8
9. 9/14 and 9/15
10. 9/21 and 9/22
11. 9/28 and 9/29
11 weeks * 17 eps/week = 187 episodes
Fridays
Saturdays
No special announcements this week aside from our new season schedule, above.
6:30 - 7:20 Girls Band Cry 3-4 (fs)
7:20 - 8:10 Delicious in Dungeon 13-14 (Netflix)
8:10 - 8:35 Sampler: Quality Assurance in Another World (CR)
8:35 - 8:45 intermission
8:45 - 9:10 Sampler: MAYONAKA PUNCH (CR)
9:10 - 9:35 Sengoku Youko: The Thousandfold Chaos Arc 14 (CR)
9:35 - 10:25 Devilman Crybaby 1-2 (Netflix)
Fallback Samplers:
Narenare -Cheer for you!- (CR)
Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: Mayonaka Punch wasn’t particular all well-received. People seemed more interested in Quality Assurance In Another World.
In discussions after showings, Adam suggested Alan should add columns to the schedule’s sampler worksheet so everyone could rate samplers instead of just having Alan guess at a composite rating.
6:30 - 7:20 Slayers (DVD/fs) - 1-2
7:20 - 8:10 Samplers:
8:10 - 8:30 intermission
8:30 - 9:20 Train to the End of the World 2-3 (CR)
9:20 - 10:10 Kaiju No. 8 eps. 3-4 (CR)
Fallback Samplers:
The Strongest Magician in the Demon Lord's Army was a Human (CR)
2.5 Dimensional Seduction (HD)
Attendance:
Notes: Rising Impact didn’t make a particularly positive impression, but at least we finished it - we bailed on My Wife Has No Emotion right after it transitioned from the pre-opening to the OP, and went to our first fallback: The Strongest Magician in the Demon Lord’s Army was a Human. We also bailed on that one, albeit halfway through.
San Diego Comic-Con is this weekend. None of us is attending, but there's a good chance of some interesting announcements coming out over the weekend.
6:30 - 7:20 Girls Band Cry 5-6 (fs)
7:20 - 8:10 Delicious in Dungeon 15-16 (Netflix)
8:10 - 8:35 Sampler: Senpai is an Otokonoko (CR)
8:35 - 8:45 intermission
8:45 - 9:10 Sampler: Grendizer U (fs)
9:10 - 9:35 Sengoku Youko: The Thousandfold Chaos Arc 15 (CR)
9:35 - 10:25 Devilman Crybaby 3-4 (Netflix)
Fallback Samplers:
Narenare -Cheer for you!- (CR)
Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: David was remote tonight, and had to log off early.
6:30 - 7:20 Slayers 3-4 (DVD/fs)
7:20 - 8:10 Samplers:
TASUKETSU -Fate of the Majority- (CR)
2.5 Dimensional Seduction (HD)
8:10 - 8:30 intermission
8:30 - 9:20 Train to the End of the World 4-5 (CR)
9:20 - 10:10 Kaiju No. 8 eps. 5-6 (CR)
Fallback Samplers:
The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: Alan and Arthur attended remotely tonight. We went all the way through both samplers, so didn’t really need any of the fallbacks. David feels he’s going to have to sample a 2nd episode of TASUKETSU...
Otakon is this Friday August 2 - Sunda August 4, so we can expect to see some announcements coming out of there. For those of us who can't wait for summaries, there will be a pre-recorded stream of Discotek announcements. Gencon is also this wee, but I don't think we'd expect as many announcements from that con.
ANN has an article comparing Japanese and US anime viewership for Spring 2024.
6:30 - 7:20 Girls Band Cry 7-8 (fs)
7:20 - 8:10 Delicious in Dungeon 17-18 (Netflix)
8:10 - 8:35 Sampler: Twilight Out of Focus (CR)
8:35 - 8:45 intermission
8:45 - 9:10 Sampler: Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (CR)
9:10 - 9:35 Sengoku Youko: The Thousandfold Chaos Arc 16 (CR)
9:35 - 10:25 Devilman Crybaby 5-6 (Netflix)
Fallback Samplers:
Narenare -Cheer for you!- (CR)
Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: ...
6:30 - 7:20 Slayers 5-6 (DVD/fs)
7:20 - 8:10 Samplers:
The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible (CR)
8:10 - 8:30 intermission
8:30 - 9:20 Train to the End of the World 6-7 (CR)
9:20 - 10:10 Kaiju No. 8 eps. 7-8 (CR)
Fallback Samplers:
Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: Alan attended remotely again this week.
A shocking amount of Fall season shows have leaked. Not the titles - whole episodes. Lots of episodes (the first 12 episodes of Ranma, for example).
6:30 - 7:45 Girls Band Cry 9-11 (fs)
7:45 - 8:35 Delicious in Dungeon 19-20 (Netflix)
8:35 - 8:45 intermission
8:45 - 9:10 Sampler: Wistoria: Wand and Sword (CR)
9:10 - 9:35 Sengoku Youko: The Thousandfold Chaos Arc 17 (CR)
9:35 - 10:25 Devilman Crybaby 7-8 (Netflix)
Fallback Samplers:
Narenare -Cheer for you!- (CR)
Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: No Brian this weekend. Steve mentioned that he watched Konosuba season 3, so we might want to swap that from Friday to Saturday and bring Little Witch Academia or Go Go Loser Ranger to Fridays.
6:30 - 7:20 Slayers 7-8 (DVD/fs)
7:20 - 8:10 Samplers:
Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian (CR)
8:10 - 8:30 intermission
8:30 - 9:20 Train to the End of the World 8-9 (CR)
9:20 - 10:10 Kaiju No. 8 eps. 9-10 (CR)
Fallback Samplers:
Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything WIth Low-Level Spells (CR)
SHOSHIMIN: How to become Ordinary (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: We ended up with enough time at the end for a 3rd sampler (Failure Frame) even though we actually watched the other sampler to completion. We bailed on Failure Frame after just a couple minutes.
Alan won't be able to stream any of the shows tonight due to technical issues.
We're starting Konosuba S3 this week - on Saturday, since Steve's already seen it. We can move one of our Saturday shows to Friday in its place (I'm suggesting Little Witch Academia TV).
6:30 - 7:20 Girls Band Cry 12-13 (fs)
7:20 - 8:35 Delicious in Dungeon 21-23 (Netflix)
8:35 - 8:45 intermission
8:45 - 9:10 Sampler: Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines! (CR)
9:10 - 9:35 Sengoku Youko: The Thousandfold Chaos Arc 18 (CR)
9:35 - 10:25 Devilman Crybaby 9-10 (Netflix)
Fallback Samplers:
Narenare -Cheer for you!- (CR)
Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: Alan wasn’t able to stream tonight due to electrical issues with the room where the business internet router is located. We started with David streaming.
David and Gene took off at break, so we switched to Adam streaming. He tried Firefox at first, but video acceleration settings or something were preventing video from being shared, so he switched to Chrome. That seemed to work OK. However, Adam is running on a free Crunchyroll account, so while he could stream the 1st episode of Makeine, we couldn’t watch the most recent episode of Sengoku Youko. We were running about a full episode late anyway, so we decided to skip it this week and go straight to Devilman (via Alan’s account shared to Adam).
On discussion, we decided to move Little Witch Academia to Fridays to make up for Konosuba moving to Saturdays.
Reaction to the sampler Makeine was pretty positive.
6:30 - 7:20 Slayers 9-10 (DVD/fs)
7:20 - 7:45 Konosuba S3 ep 1 (CR)
7:20 - 8:10 Samplers:
SHOSHIMIN: How to become Ordinary (CR)
8:10 - 8:30 intermission
8:30 - 9:20 Train to the End of the World 10-11 (CR)
9:20 - 10:10 Kaiju No. 8 eps. 11-12 (CR)
Fallback Samplers:
No Longer Allowed In Another World (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: Shoshimin feels like it already wanted us to know what it's about even as we watched it, rather than feeling like it should reveal that information itself.
Lots of stuff going on this week.
First, I should be back to streaming as usual - the electrical problem that left my better internet connection unusable last week has been resolved.
Second, this week’s schedule is a bit unusual. We’re transitioning to the back half of our Summer season, with some shows ending (Delicious in Dungeon, Train to the End of the World), other shows beginning (Go! Go! Loser Ranger, Rascal Does Not Dream of a Bunny Girl Senpai), and in the middle of it all a feature this Friday night.
Third, I figured I should mention that AnimEigo’s Kickstarter for Dagger of Kamui on Blu-ray is scheduled to go live this Saturday at noon.
6:30 - 6:55 Delicious in Dungeon 24 (Netflix)
6:55 - 8:45 Feature: Knights of Sidonia: Love Woven in the Stars (BD)
8:45 - 8:55 intermission
8:55 - 9:20 Sengoku Youko: The Thousandfold Chaos Arc 18 (CR)
9:20 - 10:10 Rascal Does Not Dream of a Bunny Girl Senpai 1-2 (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: We talked about Knights of Sidonia a bit after watching the movie, and looked some things up: We watched Knights of Sidonia in club when it came out on Netflix, in Summer 2014 (for the 1st season) and Summer 2015 (for the 2nd season). The last volume of the manga came out in the US in April 2016. This movie came out in June 2021, 6 years after the series, and we ended up watching it 10 years after we first started watching the series, and 9 years after we last watched it. So there was a lot we couldn’t remember. The movie held up well despite that, and seemed like a good ending to the series.
6:30 - 7:45 Slayers 11-13 (DVD/fs)
7:45 - 8:10 Sampler: VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral after Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream (CR)
8:10 - 8:30 intermission
8:30 - 9:20 Konosuba S3 ep 2-3 (CR)
9:20 - 9:45 Train to the End of the World 12 (CR)
9:45 - 10:10 Go! Go! Loser Ranger 2 (Hulu/fs)
Fallback Samplers:
No Longer Allowed In Another World (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: Alan barely remembered to provide the Dropbox links to Slayers in time. However, he completely forgot to source Go! Go! Loser Ranger episodes since he cancelled his Hulu subscription due to the whole Disney arbitration agreement scandal. We decided to swap in our fallback sampler.
Late email this week - I had a full day that was made just a bit more full when my phone up and died.
Aside from that, we finish transitioning to the 2nd half of our season. I currently have us set to restart Yatagarasu from episode 1 in case people need a refreshere - I think I might.
Also, it’s Labor Day weekend (and the weekend after Judgement Day - see Friday sampler). We're finally getting some further updates on the Dirty Pair Kickstarter. And the Dagger of Kamui Kickstarter has fully funded.
6:30 - 7:20 Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master 1-2 (CR)
7:20 - 7:45 Sampler: Terminator Zero (Netflix)
7:45 - 8:35 Little Witch Academia TV 1-2 (Netflix)
8:35 - 8:45 intermission
8:45 - 9:35 Sengoku Youko: The Thousandfold Chaos Arc 19-20 (CR)
9:35 - 10:25 Rascal Does Not Dream of a Bunny Girl Senpai 3-4 (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: We decided to re-watch episode 1 of Yatagarasu. Just as well - there were enough details and most of us had forgotten at something that seemed likely to be important later. As for samplers, Terminator Zero...didn't really sell itself, I guess. The most central character seems like a bad person in a way that just makes him (and thus big chunks of the show) unpleasant to watch.
6:30 - 7:45 Slayers 14-16 (DVD/fs)
7:45 - 8:10 Sampler: ATRI -My Dear Moments- (CR)
8:10 - 8:30 intermission
8:30 - 9:20 Konosuba S3 ep 4-5 (CR)
9:20 - 10:10 Go! Go! Loser Ranger 2-3 (Hulu/fs)
Fallback Samplers:
Love Is Indivisible by Twins (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: ATRI wasn't boring but we strongly disliked it anyway.
Not a ton of anime news this week - at least, nothing as immediately interesting as the LA area finally hitting peak summer temperatures for the weekend. It’s currently forecast to start cooling off on Tuesday…
Crunchyroll added the movie Spy x Family: Code White, which they’d released theatrically earlier this year. It’s almost 2 hours long, so we can’t easily squeeze it into what’s left of this season, but we can put it on the voting spreadsheet for Fall.
6:30 - 7:20 Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master 3-4 (CR)
7:20 - 7:45 Sampler: Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools(CR)
7:45 - 8:35 Little Witch Academia TV 3-4 (Netflix)
8:35 - 8:45 intermission
8:45 - 9:10 Sengoku Youko: The Thousandfold Chaos Arc 21 (CR)
9:10 - 10:25 Rascal Does Not Dream of a Bunny Girl Senpai 5-7 (CR)
Attendance:
Notes:
6:30 - 7:45 Slayers 17-19 (DVD/fs)
7:45 - 8:10 Sampler: Love Is Indivisible by Twins (CR)
8:10 - 8:30 intermission
8:30 - 9:20 Konosuba S3 ep 6-7 (CR)
9:20 - 10:10 Go! Go! Loser Ranger 4-5 (Hulu/fs)
Fallback Samplers:
Kinnikuman: Perfect Origin Arc Episode 0 (Netflix)
Attendance:
Notes:
Friday the 13th weekend. GKids has Dan Da Dan in theaters through Sunday - these are the first 3 episodes of the series, which premieres in October. Some of us will try going. We probably won't try to coordinate a trip to Ninja Scroll, which also has an even-more-limited theatrical run at the moment.
6:30 - 7:20 Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master 5-6 (CR)
7:20 - 8:35 Little Witch Academia TV 5-7 (Netflix)
8:35 - 8:45 intermission
8:45 - 9:10 Sampler: Narenare -Cheer for you!- (CR)
9:10 - 9:35 Sengoku Youko: The Thousandfold Chaos Arc 22 (CR)
9:35 - 10:25 Rascal Does Not Dream of a Bunny Girl Senpai 8-9 (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: No Gene tonight, so we went with our conventional show order (that is, not breaking up Little Witch Academia), which left our sampler after the break.
6:30 - 7:45 Slayers 20-22 (DVD/fs)
7:45 - 8:10 Sampler: Days with My Stepsister (CR)
8:10 - 8:30 intermission
8:30 - 9:20 Konosuba S3 ep 8-9 (CR)
9:20 - 10:10 Go! Go! Loser Ranger 6-7 (Hulu/fs)
Fallback Samplers:
Kinnikuman: Perfect Origin Arc Episode 0 (Netflix)
Attendance:
Notes: Adam couldn’t make it tonight. We bailed on Days with my Stepsister quickly, and fell back to True Beauty instead of Kinnikuman. True Beauty defaulted to the English dub - we're set up to prefer a Japanese dub with English subtitles, but while we got the subs we also got the English dub - likely because there was no Japanese audio available for the show. We quickly switched to the original Korean audio
Nothing too crazy in the penultimate week of our Summer season, but that 1st week of October looks packed with events. One of those is the premier of Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto, creator of Chainsaw Man. The October 4 screening at the Burbank AMC 16 will feature a Live Q&A with the director, but when I checked a few hours ago it was almost entirely sold out.
6:30 - 7:20 Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master 7-8 (CR)
7:20 - 7:45 Sampler: Bye Bye, Earth (CR)
7:45 - 8:10 Little Witch Academia TV 8 (Netflix)
8:10 - 8:20 intermission
8:20 - 9:10 Little Witch Academia TV 9-10 (Netflix)
9:10 - 9:35 Sengoku Youko: The Thousandfold Chaos Arc 23 (CR)
9:35 - 10:25 Rascal Does Not Dream of a Bunny Girl Senpai 10-11 (CR)
Attendance:
Notes:
6:30 - 7:45 Slayers 23-25 (DVD/fs)
7:45 - 8:10 Sampler: Kinnikuman: Perfect Origin Arc Episode 0 (Netflix)
8:10 - 8:30 intermission
8:30 - 9:20 Konosuba S3 ep 10-11 (CR)
9:20 - 10:10 Go! Go! Loser Ranger 8-9 (Hulu/fs)
Fallback Samplers:
Murai in Love (Hulu/fs)
Attendance:
Notes: People enjoyed the Kinnikuman sampler - not as something we’d want to watch, but as a spectacle of both incredibly-compressed recap as well as the sort of story one makes for 8 year-olds.
Last week of our Summer showings. Some shows continue, assuming we vote them onto our Fall schedule next week. But before we do that: now is the time to review our voting spreadsheet and see (1) if there are any shows you want to add there for the club to vote one; and (2) which shows - particularly older ones - you'd want to advocate for when it comes time for voting and re-sampling next week.
We have a schedule posted for this year's Animation Is Film festival(we already knew it was running Friday October 19 - Sunday October 21, but now we have the list of films, as well as days and times).
6:30 - 7:20 Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master 9-10 (CR)
7:20 - 7:45 Re-sampler: VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral after Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream (CR)
7:45 - 8:10 Little Witch Academia TV 11 (Netflix)
8:10 - 8:20 intermission
8:20 - 9:10 Little Witch Academia TV 12-13 (Netflix)
9:10 - 9:35 Sengoku Youko: The Thousandfold Chaos Arc 24 (CR)
9:35 - 10:25 Rascal Does Not Dream of a Bunny Girl Senpai 12-13 (CR)
Attendance:
Notes: There wasn’t a new episode of Sengoku Youko this week, just a recap of the 2nd season arc to date. We skipped that, and since we were running a bit late and didn’t have a lot of other things to watch we just ended shows a bit early.
6:30 - 6:55 Slayers 26 (DVD/fs)
6:55 - 8:10 Go! Go! Loser Ranger 10-12 (Hulu/fs)
8:10 - 8:30 intermission
8:30 - 8:55 Sampler: Murai in Love (Hulu/fs)
8:55 - 10:30 Feature: Mars Express (BD)
Fallback Samplers:
Loner Life in Another World (HD)
Attendance:
Notes: The schedule only showed episode 10 of Go Go Loser Ranger, but we were actually planned to watch episodes 10-12, and did. However, since we got a late start and had a significant interruption due to smoke / carbon monoxide detector issues, we decided to drop the feature and watch both the samplers. We still had some time after that, so we sampled a 2nd episode of TASUKETSU -Fate of the Majority-.