A few months ago, I told a friend I was getting back into watching seasonal anime. Although it’s something that sounds a bit like a joke, I was serious. After about a year and a half away from the seasonal grind, I finally found the desire to watch things again—and how I was rewarded!
These are the best anime of the summer 2022 season.
It was a simple question—”Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon?” But simple questions don’t always have correspondingly simple answers, and so it is with Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?‘s ridiculous titular query. And why? Because Danmachi, in specifically calling attention to the issue of how one ought to interact with girls met in a dungeon, actually intiates a strange sort of dialogue with the question. Now, really, watching Danmachi for the answer to the question of whether or not it is morally permissible to attempt to hit on and/or physically pick up girls while traversing the depths of a monster-filled dungeon isn’t necessarily the way I’d suggest watching it, but it does provide an interesting lens with which to view the way the show.
I’ve been thinking lately about the difference in my personal response to the first couple episode of Danmachi (aka Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?) from the reaction of the wider anime-watching public. If you’ve been pretty much anywhere online where discussion (or, in this case “discussion”) about anime happens, you’ve probably seen the Hestia fanart craze that blew up pretty much from the moment the first episode of Danmachi finished airing. The reason? Her, uh, unconventional method of supporting her breasts—known around the fandom as the “boob string.” But, for me, the blue ribbon encircling Hestia’s torso was never something that really caught my attention before the fanart craze and meme running started and I found myself actually a bit peeved by the intense focus on a relatively inconsequential element of a show I liked for other reasons. But why should this be so?
Whoa, highlights are on a different day this season! That’s right, they sure are! Due to Ore Monogatari!! being a blog show and airing on Wednesday, Wednesdays are going to be pretty tight for me schedule wise, so I’m bumping highlights back to Tuesday for Spring 2015. This actually works pretty well, as it means the majority of shows will be on the same episode number, with a few shows (Nisekoi:, Punchline, Pleiades, Ore Monogatari!!) being an episode back. For full disclosure, there’s also a matter of search rankings: the Ore Monogatari!! posts will rank better if there’s been posting on the blog in the days prior. So, that’s that! Hope it doesn’t bother anyone much! Let’s get to it!
I got a little tied up in January with everything that was going on, so this was a lighter month for reviews—a lot of time went to the start of the new season and getting up first impressions here and over on Otaku Review. But, I still got to review two really fun pieces and I’m set to tackle a few more in February!
“Bro before holes?”
A transparent attempt to cash in on the popular tropes and trends of the day, but Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is not without its charms.
Mage in a Barrel 