I’m starting to think there may actually be fewer ways to say “the anime was good again” than there are to say “anime was a mistake.” While Run with the Wind experienced a little roughness in its integration of various genre influences, it still offered a strong episode on the whole, and both our other character-focused dramas knocked it out of the park. Gridman did a phenomenal job of humanizing its heroine Rikka, while Tsurune carried us through a bevy of tiny, well-observed scenes that demonstrated exactly what Kyoto Animation does best. We are getting absolutely spoiled this season, and I’m doing my best to savor every moment. Let’s run down all these worthy cartoons as we explore another week in anime!

Koichi and Giorno finally teamed up in this week’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, an episode suffused with classic JoJo appeal while still demonstrating Golden Wind’s unique perspective. “We have to defeat a ranged Stand that attacks from shadows” is an inherently meaty premise, naturally lending itself to creative tactical gambits like Giorno transforming the banister, or the Stand itself hopping a ride on a bird’s shadow. The more a Stand forces our heroes to treat their environment in a fundamentally new way, the more likely it is to inspire a memorable fight, and this week certainly qualified. And in more overarching narrative terms, I appreciated that Golden Wind didn’t draw out this team-up for all that long; it’s been fun watching Koichi stumble through Giorno’s ongoing narrative like a well-meaning wrecking ball, but I feel like Golden Wind employed that trick for precisely as long as it could before the concept would get aggravating. With Giorno’s own resolute goals and violent streak continuing to set Golden Wind apart among JoJos, and Araki’s Stand inventions only getting more powerful and multifaceted as we go, I’m still thrilled to see wherever this gang-star saga goes next.

This week’s Run with the Wind was an interesting episode, one that I felt directly stressed the sometimes tenuous union between the show’s principle modes. Though the show has conducted itself more like a character drama than a traditional shonen sports narrative, Kakeru’s feelings this week, and his old friend Sakaki in particular, felt ripped from a familiar and not terribly engaging shonen template. In terms of Kakeru’s feelings, I actually liked that his trauma was based in a fairly mild history; frankly, if he had stronger reasons to not want to run, it’d be hard to maintain much sympathy for Haiji. Framing it as A Friendship Thing certainly isn’t novel, but it made his current path feel a lot more credible, and I also liked the sequence where Kakeru literally ran away from his past.

As for Sakaki, his crowing through the end of this episode felt a little broadly written, and he himself came across as an entirely stock character. That itself might have been part of the point, though; I’m not sure if it was actually intentional, but I appreciated the farcical contrast between Sakaki’s textbook “WHO ARE THESE SLOW-RUNNING FOOLS HO HO HO” villainy and Kakeru’s dorm mates all being like “who is this and why is he being a dick for no reason.” It was also great seeing Haiji genuinely get through to and support Kakeru, so I guess in the end, all the things I had reservations about in this episode ended up ultimately facilitating things I really liked. I guess that works for me!

I was overjoyed to see this week’s Thunderbolt Fantasy essentially present the hard sell, after a series of episodes that couldn’t quite reach the peaks of season one. Lang and Lin’s journey into the Wasteland of Spirits was absolutely peak Thunderbolt, from the absurd visual spectacle of their dragon battle to the wide array of wonderful lines provided by resident asshole Lin. Lin’s greatest power is essentially “make people get incredibly angry at me,” and watching him carefully deploy that power (along with a dragon-on-human guitar duel) to win this fight was a real treat. I also appreciated Lang’s choice to betray him the moment he wasn’t needed, because c’mon, this is the Enigmatic Gale we’re talking about. While Shang might be too much of a softy to actually kill Lin, Lang has no such hangups, and watching Lin halfheartedly defend himself before exiting with a “that’s cool, just remember to keep Shang alive” was wonderful. It does not surprise me that the Enigmatic Gale has gotten entirely used to people trying to kill him, and does not take it personally in the slightest.

The latest SSSS.Gridman might have been my favorite episode yet, and went a long ways towards addressing my biggest complaint with the show so far. I mentioned last week how Rikka and Yuta’s relationship didn’t really have enough substance to carry any dramatic weight, and while this episode didn’t necessarily sell their actual relationship, it did a phenomenal job of humanizing Rikka specifically, while also adding at least a little texture to Yuta. I really loved that while Yuta and the gang were obsessing over the romantic potential of Rikka’s group date, Rikka herself was only, solely there because she’s lonely, she remembered Akane used to be one of her good friends, and she wanted to become friends again. The awkwardness of all of Rikka and Akane’s interactions throughout this episode felt totally convincing, somehow balancing Rikka’s grounded teen drama, Akane’s psychotic menace, and Yuta’s farcical surveillance. Rikka herself is undoubtedly Gridman’s greatest asset right now; her mix of overt indifference and underlying loneliness is totally convincing, putting her head and shoulders above the rest of the cast in terms of characterization so far. The rest of the cast have some serious catching up to do, but the grace of this episode gives me plenty of hope we’ll get there eventually.

After the tonal tour de force of its first episode, Tsurune settled down with a followup that was a bit less of an aesthetic wonder, but went a long ways towards solidifying the narrative and emotional substance of this story. Specificity and subtlety were the keys here, like how Minato’s lightly sketched relationship with his father both humanized him and offered natural context for his ongoing anxieties. Scenes like the two of them sharing dinner demonstrated what a clear influence his absent mother still holds on him, and pointed to a potential connection between that and his archery woes without implying the two are truly the same thing.

Other scenes, like Minato’s bitter “I don’t need your compassion this late,” felt convincing and very earned. The sports drama-standard role of convincing a traumatized former player to compete again is frankly a pretty awful part to play, and I like how this episode handled that by letting Masaki be totally understanding and sympathetic, while Seiya leaned into his quietly brutal and unsympathetic nature. And this gentle touch was exemplified by the episode’s climax, where Minato’s target panic didn’t disappear at all, but shooting with a trusted friend still allowed him to find the joy in archery again. Tsurune’s overarching narrative beats are pretty genre-standard, but it’s elevating this story through a specificity of personal experience and beauty of execution that makes it all feel naturalistic and gripping throughout. And with Minato’s first arc basically completed, I’m excited to see how we handle his integration into the full team.