I think every single person on the planet should read Yotsuba&! It's a world treasure.

It's not my personal favorite though - that would be The Voynich Hotel. I just love everything about it - great characters, funny as hell, great stories and even a great ending.

Some honorable mentions:

Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku

Kodama Maria Bungaku Shuusei

Food Court de Mata Ashita

Tokedase! Mizore-chan

Curiosity Killed the Schoolgirl

It was... not good.

Everything about the story is potentially awkward - the MC is an awkward loner, the FMC is a literal robot, and their love is awkward on multiple levels - not only is it weird and unsettling in-universe, but they're both just bad at it - not really equipped to express love.

But in the manga, there's a charm that shines through, mostly because they're both so earnest and determined. Even though it's strange and awkward and even though they're not very good at it, they're going to make this work, and they do.

The anime somehow failed to capture that charm, so all that was left was the awkwardness.

Marked - sorry it took me so long to get back here.

And yes - no love triangle, which is good.

And in fact, it struck me with this chapter that a lot of what I appreciate about this is that their budding romance is a lot of the point, but it's not an obsessive focus, either in the story or in-universe. It's not this endless fretting and drama and rollercoastering of so many romances - instead, it's just a thing that's sort of naturally and quietly unfolding, and almost in the background. It's just pleasant and sweet.

Fixed.

Thanks 😅

This is surprisingly impressive.

I didn't expect a lot going into it - the characters and the situations are pretty tropish - but it's all done very well, with very expressive art and enough little story and character details to make it stand out.

Definitely looking forward to more.

Good for her.

An is terrific.

I think the new boss is going to turn out to be a good character too. He seems just the sincere, fundamentally kind but no-nonsense type - just right to cut her a bit of slack or kick her butt a bit, depending on which she needs more of at the moment.

Hmmm...

It seems as if she's actually being sincere for once, but at this point, I don't know if that's even possible - if it's not the case that she's lived in her lies and manipulations for so long that it's literally impossible for her to do anything else.

You're faulting a series for a problem that exists because of assholes.

Every medium has its instances that are provocatice or scatological or otherwise offensive.

The difference with anime is that there's a group of assholes who base part of their identities on their purported superior taste as evidenced by the fact that they hate anime, and there's enough of them that they've formed a fairly significant circlejerk. And they latch onto things like this to which to point as supposed examples of the medium as a whole, while self-servingly ignoring the other 99.9% of stuff out there.

So yes, in a sense, there is a problem with the fact that things like this exist, but the problem isn't really simply that they exist, but that there's a fairly significant group of assholes who can and will dogpile on that fact.

If you want to blame someone or something for the problem, don't blame the series - blame the assholes.

Yeah - An is likely going to do more to bring her out of her shell than anyone or anything else has or could have.

On another note, and as is the norm with this series, all of that stress and drama surrounding the phone call - waiting for it but also dreading it, panicking when it came, stumbling through the conversation, then being exhausted when it was over, was painfully real to me. I know every bit of that all too well.

All sorts of possible flags there, but nothing definitive.

When this was announced, I read part of the manga, then part of the LN original, and thought it might be good. I don't normally watch currently airing anime, but I was keeping an eye on this. And I finally dove in and caught up on it last week.

This episode highlighted pretty much everything I loved about the series as a whole.

Anna is awesome. Let's get that out of the way first. She's easily my favorite FMC in years. And she was especially good in this episode. It's just been so pleasant to watch her and Nukumizu get so comfortable with each other, and it was nice to see that in full flower in this episode. And I couldn't help but laugh when she lost her imaginary boyfriend to an imaginary rival.

Kaju is awesome too, and it was great to see a lot of her in this episode.

And the senseis. I would've liked to see more of them all the way through, but at least they got a bit of extra screen time in this episode. They're both interesting characters in their own right, and they have a great dynamic.

Chihaya was especially good in this episode too, even though she only got a few seconds. She's been a pleasant surprise - she just looks so sweet and naive, and she's so very much not.

Overall, the only criticisms I might have of the series are that a couple of character quirks were a bit too exaggerated (Komari's stutter and Yumeko pretty much as a whole) and that it seems like very little was really settled. The pacing wasn't really a problem in and of itself - I actually quite liked it - but it means that we need at least another season, and preferably a few more.

Overall, I was very impressed, and this was a good cap to the season, assuming another season is coming. Without another season, it'll be a bit disappointingly incomplete, but even then, it was a good slice of life.

Yeah - same here. There's no break of any sort really - just from one panel to the next we go from one timeline to another.

There's actually been quite a lot of that that throughout the series and it wasn't until late, when character connections started to be revealed, that I realized it. And I suspect that there's been even more of it than I realize - that there are still things that haven't made sense yet because I haven't fitted them into the timeline.

And I also sort of suspect that the confusing timeline isn't just a storytelling quirk and is actually going to be plot-relevant eventually.

Hopefully he can also just accept it when she sees his cool side for what it is.

That might be too much for him though, so maybe if he's just a little less down on himself...

Oooh... this is a good one.

Back in a bit - need to catch up...

Yay! 🥰

I'm just relieved that the entire cast treats him exactly as he deserves, and that there's a different and much better prince to serve as the mmc.

And on another note - love the new handle. Your highness. 😌

I don't know where this is headed, and no matter how I search my feelings, I find that I just don't care.

That was more my impression, but I don't follow ratings or reviews much, so wasn't sure. I just know that I rarely see it discussed, but pretty much universally positively when it is.

Is ODDTAXI underrated? If so, then that definitely. It's just quality all the way through.

And Estab-Life: Great Escape. Yeah - it's sort of contrived, but it has so much heart and tells a satisfying story. And Equa is wonderful.

Well, at least Kaede is in the loop now - Kouhei isn't the only one who realizes that this could be something more.