I’ve hit my limit, folks. With Vinland Saga actually returning this week, I have officially passed my sustainable viewing schedule capacity, and thus will be performing some harsh cuts between this and next week. Fortunately for all of you, I arrived at that realization only after watching way too many goddamn shows, and so you get to enjoy at least one mega-sized Week in Review, by way of apology for last week’s relatively brief article. The season continues to be goddamn fantastic, with O Maidens, Given, and Granbelm impressing me every week, and Vinland Saga maintaining its usual excellence after its time away. We’ve got a whole bunch of shows to get through, so let’s not waste any more time dawdling. It’s time to break down some cartoons in the Week in Review!

Granbelm remained as entertaining as ever in its fourth episode, which offered an even mix of giant robot action and personal drama. Nene-nee was the star this time, who in addition to possessing one of the most adorable character names imaginable, also offered a compelling, sympathetic counterpoint to the Shingetsu/Mangetsu pair in a variety of ways. In the episode’s first half, the unique powers of her artillery-focused mecha gave the latest Granbelm fight a clear sense of stakes and dramatic progression. Even though no one was actually defeated, the unique interplay of the distinct mecha powers on display made for a tactically coherent and consistently exciting battle.

Later on, I appreciated how well the show illustrated the incidental differences between the different mages’ approaches to magic, with details like Nene’s talismans and Kuon’s ability to sense magic naturally implying the existence of diverse schools of magic without ever burdening us with direct exposition. On top of that, the whole cast remains charming as heck, and nearly every outdoor scene is embellished with sumptuous color work and beautiful backgrounds. Granbelm is some high quality entertainment.

Meanwhile, Fire Force doubled down on its most excruciating qualities this week, introducing its new heroine Tamaki Kotatsu boobs-first, before revealing that her gimmick is “men grope her, but it’s her fault apparently, and this is supposed to be funny.” I always knew the writing was going to be the thing that potentially killed my interest in Fire Force, since the writing of Soul Eater also put me off within a few chapters, and I think we’ve gotten there. Looks like Yuki Yase will be jumping into that tragically well-stocked “directors who desperately need material that’s worthy of them” category, because I believe my journey with Fire Force is at an end.

Astra: Lost in Space’s third and fourth episodes maintained a perfectly even course, never really rising towards the cohesive emotional and thematic heights of the show’s premiere, but still offering an energetic and polished series of space adventures. Astra’s storytelling continues to affect an interesting balance of grounded, “realistic” conflicts and old-fashioned adventure serial pacing, with its characters navigating crises that take full advantage of its dramatically fertile premise. The show is clearly pretty good at what it does, and yet what it does isn’t really thrilling me – I generally latch on to media for character or theme-centric reasons, whereas Astra is mostly just a series of urgent plot beats adding up to a sequence of episodic adventures. It’s a perfectly fine show, and remains one of the shows I’d most recommend for the season, but I think I can accept at this point that it’s just not quite my kind of thing.

Carole & Tuesday offered an entertaining grab bag of narrative beats across its whole cast this week, with the production of their first actual record sharing time with familial drama for all three of our leads. Carole & Tuesday’s storytelling and characterization can at times feel a bit too broad for its big emotional beats to land, but I was totally sold by this episode’s resolution of Carole’s drama with her father, which maintained a light touch throughout, and used that shared memory of the snowy church to great effect. That material made for a natural contrast with the jump to Tuesday’s mother, whose quest for power sees her accepting whatever populist promise might raise her polls, and in the process steadily building an unabashedly nationalist campaign platform that embodies all the most selfish instincts of her electorate.

I was uncertain as to how this story would tie Valerie’s political narrative into its music-focused story, but it now looks like the show is drawing an intentional parallel between how both Valerie and Angela are forced to deny any specific selfhood in order to better embody what their markets desire. Valerie’s deference to her campaign advisers seemed to emphasize how modern public life ferociously punishes original thinking – either you give the people what they want like Angela and Valerie (and therefore become replaceable, as Tao demonstrated), or you strike out on your own path, and become invisible (like our penniless leads). All that, and we also got a sweet performance session that actually paid off last episode’s weaker song, by demonstrating just how much Tobe’s production could improve it. Pretty good show, this one.

Moving along, Given’s third episode was just as strong as the first two, and most importantly, finally paid off all of Sato’s unusual characterization from the first two episodes. For most of Given’s first act, Sato has carried himself in such a passive way that it’s been hard to get a grasp on who he truly is as a person – but here in this episode’s finale, we learned that he’s actually hyper-aware of how he comes off as dispassionate or even potentially “empty,” and carries a deep feeling of shame regarding his inability to express his feelings. Meanwhile, Ritsuka’s anxious responses to being rejected made for a consistently funny first act, as he found himself dealing with pretty much the opposite problem – an overwhelming surplus of feeling, but no clear way to express it. Channeling his passion into an emphatic defense of Sato’s emotions was a perfect capstone to the episode, making it clear how much each of these two gain from their relationship, and also how much they’re each overwhelmed by the other. Given is looking to not just be a satisfying band drama, but also one of the most thoughtfully executed romances of the year.

After a two week break, Vinland Saga returned with the action-packed payoff for its extended cliffhanger, as Thors and Askeladd faced off with Thorfinn’s life hanging in the balance. In spite of this being the show’s first major action setpiece since that opening salvo, I hadn’t really found myself eagerly anticipating this clash – Vinland Saga’s anime production hues so closely to the manga panels’ examples, and the action it’s conveying is so grounded and straightforward, that I wasn’t really expecting anything beyond an extremely faithful reproduction of the manga’s sturdy, tactically coherent choreography. And this episode provided exactly that, with the flow of battle and fluid animation clearly conveying the differences between Askeladd’s roguish tricks and Thors’ absurd strength.

It feels like a strange credit to Vinland Saga’s thematic focus that action-packed episodes like this don’t actually feel like a significant payoff; the whole point of this story is that violence is senseless, and that proving your strength in battle is ultimately a meaningless quest that will never change the fundamental conditions of your life. I felt this episode struck an effective balance of keeping its fighting energetic without it ever feeling genuinely heroic, leaving the audience feeling exactly as unsatisfied as they’re supposed to. Vinland Saga is a pretty weird choice for this season’s premiere action vehicle, but I’m happy to see such a high-profile show asking viewers to reassess their relationship with violence.

Finally, O Maidens in Your Savage Season continues to be the best goddamn show of the season, in a season that’s practically overflowing with excellent productions. O Maidens is as effortlessly funny as it is brutally well-observed, with this episode’s focus on the ambiguous results of Sonezaki’s change in appearance feeling painfully true to the high school experience. Whether you change or you don’t change, the people who pick on you in high school are always going to sense your weakness; Sonezaki’s wail of “they say it when I don’t change my look, and then say it when I do!” rang wincingly true to my own high school years, and yet the show was still careful to demonstrate that even the kids who are “bullying” Sonezaki are more just inconsiderate and ignorant of her insecurities than genuinely malicious.

Misunderstandings sparking conflict in spite of mutual good intentions popped up again and again throughout this episode, and I appreciated how even O Maidens’ many boy characters weren’t presented as one-dimensional sex maniacs – they’re as ignorant and insecure as the girls, they just happen to be suffering under a different set of social expectations. Every member of the literature club is now fully realized enough to carry a story all by herself, and yet the way these stories intersect consistently elevates all of them, emphasizing the shared nature of their pain. It’s always a treat to run into a character drama this rich, perceptive, and compassionate.