My Wrap-Up of the 2025 Spring Anime Season

This season was on the short-side for me which is fine given all the anime I plan to watch for the Summer 2025 season). I did binge-watch these shows in the last week of June, so that may play a part in how I view these anime. Of the 7 I have completed (I dropped one that I had actually been curious about: Kowloon Generic Romance), I will give my Top 5 below and do a little sum-up on each:

1. Aharen-san wa Hakarenai Season 2
2. KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! Season 3 OVA
3. Lazarus
4. A Ninja and an Assassin Under One Roof
5. Fire Force Season 3

So "Aharen-san" season 2 was my pick of the season and was a nice way to wrap-up the anime franchise. It brought back the space-brained, but sincere humor of season 1 with all the surrealism and heart that I remembered with the twist of our couple being officially a couple.

I feel like I am cheating by including an OVA, but this is my list in my blog so I make the rules lol. KonoSuba OVA s3 gives you the comedy of the regular season 3, but in two episode specials. One downside was that the animation was noticeably downgraded from season 3, but the writing is what you come to expect from the franchise.

Lazarus was a mixed bag for me. I feel like if it was 24-25 episodes, it would've got its message across better. I think Watanabe was saying something profound about the healthcare industry and human nature, but 13 episodes was not enough time to say it. The aftermath of Luigi Mangione should've made this anime connect a lot more. Still it was not a bad anime: just incomplete by Sinchiro Watanabe's standards. I will still always be anticipating any project he comes out with.

A Ninja and an Assassin Under One Roof is an anime about amoral lesbian contract killers doing slice-of-life/CGDCT stuff. It was a lot funnier than I thought given how it started-off for me and would actually do a little pathos in between the killer-shenanigans. Unexpectedly solid yuri comedy.

Fire Force season 3 is the penultimate anime season of the franchise and one of the last (new) action shounen anime I plan to watch along with My Hero Academica (and I guess Demon Slayer, though I have completed the manga). I have really outgrown that particular genre of anime now given that I started watching DBZ around 1996-97. It was a bit of a chore to get through this season (the first time I have felt that way about FF) and I will be happy when I complete the last season. This and Lazarus were the two anime I watched dubbed in English.

Well that is my look at this season. It may feel like slim pickings, but given the amount of anime I watched in 2024 and the anime I have to look forward to in the second-half of 2025—I am not complaining at all. I may do a write-up of my first impression of Summer 2025 at the end of the month.

2025 Mid-year Anime Watching Update

 I have not done a post on any anime in a hot-minute, but I will try to bring folks up-to-date here. I tend to regularly choose between seasonal watching shows as they come out each week or binge watching a anime for a season if there is not a lot of shows I am interested in. In 2024, I think I spent most of the year watching shows as they came out from the spring season onwards (note: Anime seasonal airings are done within' the calendar year in the usual 3 month division with the winter season beginning in January). During 2024 I also was on an anime website and forum for the first time in 10 years to see what the online anime community looks like in 2024 and it was interesting how much more Zoomers are afraid of each other compared to the millennials of a decade ago. I had to leave the forum after I ran afoul of a moderator over my "controversial" take that the Endless Eight arc of season 2 The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was bad. They weren't fans of that take and nearly ran me off the site over it. I decided to go back to just using that site to track and went elsewhere. It was an interesting interacting with others over a hobby, but in that case it was not meant to be—though I had fun while it lasted. 

I did a seasonal watch for winter 2025 and completed 9 anime. Of those 9, my top 6 were: 

1. Season 2 of The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You
2. This one is sort-of cheating, but I will list Blue Box even though it technically is a Fall 2024 anime, but it ran between years because it was 25 episodes.
3. This is a three-way tie between Flower and Asura, Honey Lemon Soda, and Re;Zero season 3
4. I Have A Crush at Work

I decided to binge-watch the Spring 2025 season sine there wasn't a lot that I was particularly interested in. I caught the KonSuba season 3 OVAs which were ok story-wise, but the production was noticeably on the cheap (even for that franchise). I actually kept-up with Lazarus since it was airing on Toonami and it is a Sinchiro Watanbe joint. I may talk about it if I decide to do a wrap-up of Spring 2025 after I catch-up on everything. Besides Lazarus, the three anime I was most looking forward to from this season were Aharen-san wa Hakarenai Season 2, Kowloon Generic Romance and Fire Force season 3. I am currently catching up on Aharen which I am enjoying as much as the first season (it is a solid absurdist slice-of-life romance that is just post-modern enough without loosing its charm). KGM was a series I was very curious about, but besides from its art I am more mixed on it. I decided to watch Fire Force season 3 through the English dub so I may catch-up to it before it ends. I have 2 more anime that I may or may not watch.

Thoughts on John Q (2002) directed by Nick Cassavetes starring Denzel Washington

 

Ever since I first heard the news of ol' Luigi Mangione, this film has stayed in my mind and so I decided to watch it again. It is amazing how even in a world after Obamacare that the United States lags so behind in the basics of healthcare. That Cuba, under one of the most destructive economic embargos this side of Gaza, still has a better healthcare apparatus than the United States is incredibly sad and depressing. I suppose that John Q and Luigi may have different political leanings, but they are celebrated folk heroes all the same. Their respective martyrdoms as much products of civil and political negligence and corruption as anything else. 

This movie may be one of the few I have seen where James Woods isn't the final boss villain. As corrupt as his character is as the fancy doctor, The hospital represented by the character Rebecca Payne and the health insurance company are the true villains of this film. The continuing inequality of healthcare in the USA is the true villain of this film. 

Ray Liotta as a cop will never not be jarring as he will always be Henry Hill to me😄

Miss Juneteenth (2020) directed by Channing Godfrey Peoples

 "Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on 'til victory is won."

Well today is as appropriate as ever to finally watch this movie. I had been aware of it since it made its way to home release, but did not have the interest to watch it then as a lot was going on. This is ironic as a lot of folks did watch it for the very same reason. Channing Godfrey Peoples film was made on location in Fort Worth in August-September 2019 and had it's theatrical-run in January of 2020 with a planned home-release for Juneteenth of that year. And then events in the world took a turn that is stranger than fiction and suddenly for a brief moment folks were clamoring for a film about Juneteenth. This is an indie film about a relatively-young single-mom that wants to get her daughter out of the poverty of Forth Worth, Texas that she finds herself in and figures the annual Miss Juneteenth pageant and its promise of a full-ride scholarship to an HBCU is the best chance. The film's title is a clever misdirection as it is referring to a particular Miss Juneteenth—just not the one we are thinking of coming into the film. 

I really don't watch enough of these sort-of "quiet drama" films. It was refreshing to watch a film that, while dramatic (and almost melodramatic in the first third) ends with hope and victory. A victory that was shown to be very necessary over the course of the film. I loved all the supporting characters in this film who could've been my very neighbors in certain instances, but Nicole Beharie was the tour de force actress of this movie. While she never truly spirals into a broken-blob, you are fully convinced as her character's daughter is at how much Turquoise Jones wants Kai Jones to win the Miss Juneteenth pageant and we're all holding are breath until the very end as the protagonist as to come-up against so many challenges and sacrifices for this one little dream. When the ending play out, the hope one feels that things might start to turn around is palpable.

I guess this year saw me really needing to make sure I celebrate and commemorate this holiday in my own way, and not rely on others to do it for me. I am certainly happy I finally got a chance to watch this movie and I wish everyone reading this a Happy Juneteenth!

My Review of El Norte (1983) directed by Gregory Nava

 In the current times of genocide and migrant hysteria, I thought it was time to re-visit a film that deals with the United States government's role in both. El Norte is an epic film that is told about the trials and tribulations of two Kʼicheʼ Mayan siblings named Rosa and Enrique Xuncax caught up in the U. S.- backed genocide of the Mayan population in Guatemala that occurred during the Guatemalan Civil War and make their way through Mexico to the United States. This is a tough film to watch, but a necessary one to show truth and perseverance of humanity in dark and hopeless times. This is one of the first films to make extensive use of magical realism and one of the first films to use Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings in its soundtrack.

I think this is the first narrative feature film to document a genocide while it was ongoing (and being funded by the United States). The first act of this three-act film looks at this Kʼicheʼ Mayan village called San Pedro as it is being destroyed during the Guatemalan Genocide. The daily life of the people living there and the their exploitation by wealthy planters is sown before we quickly see horrors of the genocide with magical realism playing a big role in telling the story of what is going on. It is ironic that some of the most beautiful imagery of the film is shown in this part. Because the actual place where the first act of the film takes place was undergoing the actual genocide, much of this film was shot in Southern California with some shots in Mexico until hostile locals and government agents of Mexico's then-PRI dictatorship forced the production out of Mexico. One benefit of moving production to Southern California was being able to use actual Mayan refugees as supporting cast and extras. The characters of Don Ramon and the mysterious twins represent Mayan deities to Enrique and Rosa, respectively in very interesting ways.

The second act details Rosa and Enrique's journey through Mexico to the United States and it is based on the story from Mayan folklore of the "hero twins" Hunahpú & Xbalanqué from the Mayan text Popol Vuh. They stay in an immigrant shanty town in the boarder city of Tijuana, Mexico which is directly south of San Diego, California. Though the siblings encounter various forms of anti-Indigenous prejudice in Mexico, it is not on the level of literal genocidal hate that they encountered in their own country (but this particular form of mestizo anti-Indigenous racism will remain a constant in this film and his something rarely highlighted in films about Latin America that are made for gringos). Luckily, there are also mestizos who help them—no matter how cynical they are about it. We see the first of that here when we meet a Mexican truck driver who takes them halfway through the country and we will see that again when we meet Don Ramon's friend who helps them get across the boarder. With all the horrors we witnessed in act one, it is here in act 2 that the most intense and dramatic scene in the movie takes place and we have the tunnel crawl from hell (I won't spoil it anymore than that, but it would have grave consequences for the remainder of the movie). One other thing two note is that many of the "coyotes" (the name for fixers and smugglers that help people across the boarder) and refugees we see in this part of the film are real and it adds a neorealism to this magical-realist film. If the film had ended here it would be the beautiful ending of many a Hollywood film of human perseverance, but Nava wants to make a film that shocks his audience into action not comfort them. 

In act 3 we are in Los Angeles, California. We now see Rosa and Enrique set-up in a motel for undocumented immigrants ran by a Mexican called Monte Bravo played by the late-Trinidad Silva (the second time he has played a critical supporting role in a movie about migrants). As the Xuncax siblings settle into life in Los Angeles, they take English classes and hustle from the ground-up. Rosa starts in a sweat shop and makes a friend who gets her a job in as a domestic after Immigration agents raid the sweat shop. Enrique works as a busboy until an envious Chicano co-worker calls immigration and he nearly gets caught. Meanwhile, Monte gets Enrique a job offer for good money in Chicago and Rosa's journey to across the boarder catches-up with her...

"To the rich, the peasant is just a pair of strong arms." That is said by Rosa & Enrique's father at the beginning of the film, and it is book ended at the end of the movie. The tragic tale of Rosa and Enrique is the modern Grapes of Wrath. It is a much more pessimistic film than that earlier film of migrant workers. In El Norte, the chances for good things to happen are available if people try to make the choice. It is tragic that while people do make good choices in regard to the Xuncax siblings, it's not enough. But I suppose the best the audience can do is think back to the end of act 2 when our protagonists emerge from the abandon tunnel and look out at the San Diego skyline with Mahler's 4th symphony playing in the background and take that one clear win in a movie about losses. Folks need that moment of victory to give them a reason to keep going. We certainly all need that now.

My short Review of ¡Alambrista! (1977) directed by Robert M. Young

[I wrote this on December 8, 2020]

 ¡Alambrista! was one of the first feature films to look at the issue of Mexicans crossing the border for work. This was the era before NAFTA, border walls and cages, but after the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Even so, migrant workers trying to make money to send home or find a better life made this dangerous journey any way and Robert M. Young made this movie to document the life of one such person. Interestingly enough, and what some folks don't take into consideration, is that the main character is a migrant in the truest since of the word: he is on the run and on the hunt for any work he can get, but ultimately he ends up going back to Mexico voluntarily. The story of his time between crossing and re-crossing the border is the story here.

My Review of The Lion King (1994) directed by Rob Minkoff & Roger Allers

When I was 4 years old, the earliest film I remember seeing in the movie a movie theater was The Lion King, It was the Marlow Heights Community Theater and I went to the upstairs theater with my mom and we sat in the theater. I will always remember the stampede scene and how it felt to 4 year old me when the sound made the whole theater shake and I felt it and the impact of that never left me. It was the moment when the movies became real to me.

This movie came during the legendary Disney Renaissance and was pitched as Bambi in Africa. It merged Kimba the White Lion with Hamlet along with Pan-African and Biblical themes. It is three acts where we see the hero's journey of Simba as he goes from crown prince to prince-in-exile, to finally defeating his evil uncle and earning his father's inheritance. The music here is some of Disney's most memorable and Timon & Pumbaa would become the breakout characters getting their own tv show and a spin-off movie re-telling the events of this film from their points-of-view a la Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. The KiSwahili phrase "hakuna matata" entered the English-language lexicon based on the song from this film. 

The voice acting in this film has to be the best assemblage of actors from this era. This is the defining James Earl Jones character for my generation (imagine how confused I was when I saw Coming To America (1988) and Star Wars for the first time). Jeremy Irons as Scar was as diabolical a sounding villain as you can imagine. The hyenas were one of the more controversial features to the movies when they were initially introduced as they reminded certain folks of the crows from Dumbo, but you can't deny that Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, and Jim Cummings brought their A-game as henchmen. Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella as Timon & Pumbaa are again the breakout stars of the movie. 

I can't think of anymore to say than that this has been the only Disney Renaissance movie that I still come back to 31 years later. It is a defining part of my experience as a cinephile as it is for me the defining origin point of my relationship with cinema.