It's time to vote on shows for our Spring season and build out our schedule. Much of our schedule time this week will be reserved for that, with time for re-sampling episodes as needed for voting taking up additional time, along with sampling some of the new season's shows (it looks like there are 46 episodes of shows for us to sample this season). I'll also list continuations of some continuing shows we've been watching as placeholders, but with no expectation we'll actually get to them.
You can see a list of what we sampled and other things we watched last season on our Winter 2025 page.
There are a couple animated movies in theaters now. Princess Mononoke has screenings in IMAX based on a 4K remaster through Thursday 4/10, and the Looney Tunes movie The Day the Earth Blew Up also has screenings running through Thursday 4/10.
Comics Factory's last day of business is Wednesday April 23; their clearance sale is ongoing.
6:30 - 10:30 Voting and re-sampling, and in some cases sampling shows added to the voting list that people don't remember e.g. Adam has asked us to consider ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept. (CR).
As time permits, we may watch some episodes of shows we can reasonably expect to continue from last season, such as:
Urusei Yatsura (2022)
13
(HD, BD)
The Apothecary Diaries
37
(CR)
Silver Spoon S2
1
(BD)
We might also sample some of this season's new shows, such as
Attendance:
Notes: Lots of people tonight. We got everyone to vote (Apothecary Diaries had basically everyone vote for it), then moved on to sampling Acca episode 1. Then we went on to Urusei Yatsura and (since we were already on HiDive) sampled Rock is a Lady's Modesty (HD). Then we watched Apothecary Diaries and went to intermission and gave people time to adjust their votes a bit.
After break, we sampled Sword of the Demon Hunter: Kijin Gentosho (HD), then Devil May Cry (Netflix). We didn't make it to Silver Spoon
6:30 - 10:30 schedule-building
After that, we'll probably sample some shows from the new season such as:
We may also squeeze in a few short features:
Attendance:
Notes: We started by sampling before going into schedule-building so that (if we did spend almost the whole night sampling shows), we would have at least broken them up a bit.
Please Put Them On, Takamine-san (CR) - we bailed within just a few minutes, shortly after the first "I didn't know Crunchyroll showed that" shot
Once Upon a Witch's Death (CR)
I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire ep 2 (CR) - episode 2 sampled instead of episode 1 based on Arthur's recommendation
Catch Me at the Ballpark (CR)
Then we worked on the schedule, and came to an agreement in short order.
After break, we went back to samplers:
The Unaware Atelier Meister (CR)
The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiance and Sold to Another Kingdom (CR)
Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers (CR)
The Beginning After the End (CR)
Your Forma (fs)
Our Winter planning looked a bit like this:
We built our schedule. Folks who participated in schedule-building last Saturday night may notice I swapped Sakamoto Days from the 1st half of the season on Saturdays to the back half. That's because I found out the 2nd seasons goes live in July, so we might as well set ourselves up to consider watching both seasons back-to-back.
There are a couple animated movies in theaters now.
Comics Factory's last day of business is Wednesday April 23; their clearance sale is ongoing.
6:30 - 7:20
Urusei Yatsura (2022)
14 - 15
(HD, BD)
7:20 - 7:45
The Apothecary Diaries
38
(CR)
7:45 - 8:35 Samplers:
Attendance:
Notes: Streaming on Amazon is bad - they insist on showing a full 30-second ad before the show, at least now (we don't remember seeing that last season when watching Magilumiere). We also found out Koupen was streaming its 1-minute episodes on YouTube, so we sampled that.
6:30 - 7:20
Daily Lives of High School Boys
1 - 2
(CR, BD)
7:20 - 8:10
Fallback samplers
Attendance:
Notes: We weren't really thrilled by either sampler tonight. At least Amazon didn't show any ads on David's computer - likely due to an ad-blocker.
We got a bit confused with My Hero Academia, since there are 2 batches of episodes that are labeled Season 7: "Season 7: Memories" (the 4 recap episodes shown before Season 7 proper premiered in May 2024), then "Season 7" (the actual episodes that started airing/streaming in May).
There are a couple animated movies in theaters now.
Comics Factory's last day of business is Wednesday April 23; their clearance sale is ongoing.
6:30 - 7:20
Urusei Yatsura (2022)
16-17
(HD, BD)
7:20 - 7:45
The Apothecary Diaries
39
(CR)
7:45 - 8:35 Samplers:
Attendance:
Notes:
6:30 - 7:20
Daily Lives of High School Boys
3-4
(CR, BD)
7:20 - 8:10
Fallback samplers
Attendance:
Notes: Neither sampler was very good.
Brian was reviewing his old DVDs to see which were still working. He was having issues with subtitles on episode 2 of Tenamonya Voyagers. Alan will try to find his disc and see if he can rip it, but he was also able to find still-seeded torrents of various DVD rips of it.
Brian pointed out a kickstarter for an omnibus release of the American Tenchi Muyo comics (not English-translated ones, but US originals).
Speaking of comics: Free Comic Book Day is Saturday, May 3.
6:30 - 7:20
Urusei Yatsura (2022)
18-19
(HD, BD)
7:20 - 7:45
The Apothecary Diaries
40
(CR)
7:45 - 8:35 Samplers:
Attendance:
Notes: Alan's hosting will be in question for the next several Fridays. Steve probably won't make it on June 6 (Friday) due to the junior high graduation. David has a medical appointment scheduled for May 27; he expects he'll be able and inclined to host Saturdays at his place the same week, though we'll have to see how he's doing at that time.
David also posted photos of his car and the one that rear-ended him earlier this week.
6:30 - 7:20
Daily Lives of High School Boys
5-6
(CR, BD)
7:20 - 8:10
Fallback samplers
Attendance:
Notes: We bailed on Shiunji Family in less than 3.5 minutes, so we fell back to sampling Summer Pockets.
Alan will be able to host in-person showings this Friday. The next two Fridays are still in doubt.
6:30 - 7:20
Urusei Yatsura (2022)
20-21
(HD, BD)
7:20 - 7:45
The Apothecary Diaries
41
(CR)
7:45 - 8:35 Samplers:
Attendance:
Notes: People seemed positive on both the samplers, though Apocalypse Hotel definitely stood out as the more unusual series premiere.
6:30 - 7:20
Daily Lives of High School Boys
7-8
(CR, BD)
7:20 - 8:10
Fallback samplers
Attendance:
Notes: We bailed on Compass pretty quickly and had time to sample Can a Boy-Girl Friendship Survive.
Alan is still uncertain if he will be able to host in-person Friday shows on 16, but this Friday (May 9) is fine. May 9 is also Piccolo Day.
We're finishing out the 2022 run of Urusei Yatsura this week, and some other shows next week. There's more Urusei Yatsura produced in 2024, but we can wait until later seasons for those - we have plenty of other things to watch at the moment.
Various anime stores are having sales around now (Crunchyroll Store is using "Ani-May" branding; Robert's Anime Corner Store has an "ANIMAY" coupon through midnight EST on May 15). Sentai also has their typical discounts but with a new addition: the 1st 24-episode season of the Netflix Bastard series at 50% off.
6:30 - 7:20
Urusei Yatsura (2022)
22-23
(HD, BD)
7:20 - 7:45
The Apothecary Diaries
42
(CR)
7:45 - 8:35 Samplers:
Attendance:
Notes:
6:30 - 7:20
Daily Lives of High School Boys
9-10
(CR, BD)
7:20 - 8:10
Fallback samplers
Attendance:
Notes: Alan had an incorrect link to the stream for To Be Hero X. David isn't sure what his availability will be on Friday 5/23, but expects to be available to host on Saturday 5/24. He expects he will be unable to host in-person on at least 5/31 and probably also 6/7.
Turns out Alan can host in-person showings this Friday night. He still expects that on Saturday he'll be remote-only and probably late.
This week we finish 3 shows (Bureaucrat Villainness, Silver Spoon, Daily Lives of High School Boys) and start 2 new ones (I May be a Guild Receptionist, Rose of Versailles).
Attendance:
Notes: We started with episode 1 of Guild Receptions as scheduled (meaning nobody suggested just skipping to episode 2).
It turns out there was no episode of Apothecary Diaries this week - apparently one wasn't scheduled? AniDB indicates episodes are scheduled for the rest of the season, through the end of June. A commenter on the ANN discussion thread for Apothecary Diaries S2 weekly reviews indicates there was a schedule conflict this week (apparently one known about well in advance), so an episode wasn't scheduled in the first place. We used the extra timeslot to start the Konosuba S3 OVAs 1 week early
Bureaucrat Villainess seemed to just…end. Like there should be more of it. It looks like it’s based on a manga which is still ongoing (the 8th volume came out came out in March 2025).
We decided to start with episode 2 of Rose of Versailles, since we'd seen episode 1 not too long ago (albeit from the DVDs instead of the Blu-rays). That let us hit episode 3 (which is set on May 16, 1770) today - 255 years later to the day!
Attendance:
Notes: Alan had an incorrect link to the stream for To Be Hero X. David isn't sure what his availability will be on Friday 5/23, but expects to be available to host on Saturday 5/24. He expects he will be unable to host in-person on at least 5/31 and probably also 6/7.
It's Memorial Day weekend! Which means Friday afternoon traffic is likely to be absolutely horrible. Also, there are a lot of conventions running this weekend, which means a decent chance of industry announcements. One convention that isn't likely to have any announcements but is still of interest (because it's local) is Pasadena Comic-con, running this Saturday 10-5 (9-5 if you pay for the extra $10 for Early Bird admission) at the Pasadena Conference Center.
This week we start Mitsuboshi Colors on Friday, and Sakamoto Days and Zenshu on Saturday. In order to keep Saturday balanced before and after the break, we're watching short samplers, and moving My Hero Academia before the break - we have 1 single-episode week for MHA this season, and this is it.
Attendance:
Notes: David had enough to do today that he wasn't up for driving over. Brian had the day off, so at least he didn't have to deal with Memorial Day weekend traffic.
We had a bit of an unpleasant surprise tonight. Alan was setting up for showings, opening tabs to each streaming service we'd be using: Crunchyroll for most shows, Netflix for sampling season 2 of My Happy Marriage, and HiDive for Mitsuboshi Colors. The surprise came from HiDive: a 404. He used HiDive's search and couldn't find Mitsuboshi, but other shows came up fine in the search. Alan checked the AniDB entry to make sure he was looking at the correct streaming site, and sure enough - it had a HiDive streaming link: the same one we had on the site. AniDB also indicated the show first streamed in Winter 2018 - just over 7 years ago. All this led Alan to suspect that HiDive's license to the show expired - maybe they're working on renewing it, maybe not. So he had to dig up his Blu-rays and start ripping the first one while running showings from a different user account on the same machine that was driving tonight's showings.
Since Gene wasn't in attendance, Alan switched the order of samplers so we could do everything via streaming services before the break and go 100% VLC after the break.
Attendance:
Notes: David said he'd be unavailable even for remote showings next weekend (Friday May 30 and Saturday May 31), and he doesn't expect he'll be able to be in person on Fridays or host on Saturdays through Saturday June 14.
Alan looked at Anime Expo information (including their Instagram posts) and found the Artist Alley appears to have been expanded, from 12 aisles (A-L) of about 60 booths each in 2024 to that amount plus another 10 aisles (M-V) of about 40 booths each - around a 50% increase. The only other thing in Kentia will be the 18+ content area. Probably the Exhibit Hall Annex space is being replaced with additional Entertainment Hall space as Main Events is moved to the Peacock Theater and the former Main Events space is likely reclaimed to expand the Entertainment Hall.
David is unavailable for showings this weekend, even remotely. That means Saturday showings will either be at Alan's or fully remote - we'll hash that out during Friday showings. It also means we're going to try to focus our Friday schedule on shows David doesn't watch or can easily catch up on, and Saturday's schedule will see our regular shows replaced by features (we have plenty of spare time to finish up shows by the end of the season).
There's a similar schedule challenge for next Friday: Steve expects to be very late arriving on Friday night, so we'll look at rearranging the schedule so he doesn't miss much or will be able to catch up easily by the following week.
Attendance:
Notes: Audio seemed stuttery during Mitsuboshi Colors, but not so much during other shows - even Rose of Versailles or Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Kid, both of which we played via VLC.
Attendance:
Notes: Swapped out Sound Euphonium for Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon season 1 because Adam hadn't seen that. But first we started with a short feature Adam had in mind: Don't Lose Makendo (YT). Then we went to Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon 1 (HD).
David showed up around the beginning of Tenamonya Voyagers episode 2, but he didn't stick around too long.
Alan's rip of Tenamonya Voyagers episode 2 from the DVD started having subtitle problems about 19 minutes in - subs would freeze or just not work after that point. So we switched to fansubs by OnDeed. Those had much clener-looking subs (which actually worked) as well as cleaner-looking video. Not HD - just much better than the cruddy old Bandai DVD.
We ended up with time for one re-sampler of an old show. The choice came down to PaniPoni Dash! (another show directed by Akiyuki Shinbo, like Tenamonya Voyagers) or Gun x Sword. Neither Brian nor Adam recalled having seen any Gun x Sword, so we went with episode 1 of that on Crunchyroll. It still has the Funimation vanity logo, and is limited to 480p.
David is unavailable for in-person showings for the next couple weeks, and this Friday Steve will be running very late, which means this week's showings will be online-only. Also, our schedules for this week have been juggled around a bit due to limited availability (and to consolidate streaming vs. VLC-needing show blocks).
Anime Expo's panel schedule is supposed to become available this Friday at 7 PM PDT.
Attendance:
Notes:
Attendance:
Notes:
Friday showings return to hybrid this week. We're beginning the 6-episode ONA (Original Net Animation) Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance. We're restarting from episode 1 so everybody's up to speed - we had sampled episode 1 a few seasons back and only on a Saturday night.
Saturday showings are still fully-remote this weekend. We're going into a bit of catch-up mode for Zenshu this week and next, with 3 episodes each night. That leaves us with 3 episodes before the intermission and 5 after, so we're also watching the Lycoris Recoil short ONA episodes before the break. If we want things even more balanced, we could swap the sampler/feature block with the My Hero Academia block.
Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye is still in theaters locally and is scheduled to keep running through at least this Thursday, June 19. I may try going on Sunday - there's still plenty of showtimes each day.
The Anime Expo schedule is up, and it has a grid view option - useful for spotting schedule conflicts. Unless you're also using the search feature, in which case the grid displayed is very misleading. The search feature also doesn't look at the event description, or really at any field other than the title. It also doesn't try to cover anything other than programming, so it won't tell you that Artist Alley and Exhibit Hall are supposed to be opening at 9 AM every day this year, or help you coordinate with the Cosplay Gathering schedule, or with the Autograph schedule.
Attendance:
Notes: We noticed a lot of audio cutouts during showings. Arthur reported them during Gundam Requiem for Vengeance, while Steve and Alan ran into a lot of them during Rose of Versailles. Alan ran a speed test during break and the numbers didn't seem like there should be any cause for concern. Possible things to try: (1) Use a different video player; (2) update OS; (3) look for updates to audio sharing.
Attendance:
Notes: David stuck around through My Hero Academia, leaving along with Arthur when we switched to Zenshu. David still feels he'll be able to host on Saturday June 21; we'll follow up later in the week to verify.
This Friday we finish up Guild Receptionist. Everything else (aside from Rose of Versailles) finishes up next week.
Saturday showings may be in-person, assuming David feels up to hosting this week. If not, we'll just hold showings on Discord like the last few weeks.
Attendance:
Notes: Surprise! The Apothecary Diaries episode is once again airing later than expected, apparently having been scheduled for June 27, with episode 48 not available until July 4. We filled the empty timeslot with a fansub sampler: Princession Orchestra (fs).
Attendance:
Notes: Saturday showings back at David's this week.
This week we finish up everything except for Friday's court intrigue shows.
Anime Expo is next week. The Dirty Pair Kickstarter may finally be shipping soon. The Call of the Night limited edition actually is shipping. There's probably a lot of other things happening that should go here - let's see if I can put them together in time.
Attendance:
Notes: Alan confirmed in advance that Apothecary Diaries episode 47 was available. However, there was and issue with Rose of Versailles - it looks like when Alan recompressed episodes he recompressed episode 12 twice, once labeling the result as episode 12, and the next time as episode 13. Which means we didn't have episode 13 available to watch tonight.
Attendance:
Notes: ...