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.