I have at last reduced the summer season’s bounty down to a refined and largely sustainable top shelf, and goddamn is it glorious. After being kind of spoiled by Vinland Saga’s first three-episode premiere, I’ve decided that’s the preferable way to experience viking shenanigans, and held off on watching this week’s episode to build up more of a buffer. Fortunately, even without Vinland Saga, every other show I’m watching was strong enough to give me more than enough highlights to ramble about. Okada’s strong catalog meant I was pretty sure O Maidens would be a hit, but I think this is actually one of the very best stories she’s ever worked on. Meanwhile, Given is serving as an unexpected and highly compelling character drama, while Granbelm is turning out to be the secret action highlight of the season. Let’s break it all down in one more Week in Review!

This week’s Given maintained the show’s usual excellence in terms of its characterization and dialogue, effectively illustrating Mafuyu’s first days of integration into the band. Given greatly benefits from how convincingly Akihiko and Haruki are portrayed, as young men who are both well beyond the insecurities of high school personally, but consistently charmed by the intensity of Ritsuka’s adolescent feelings. The group’s conversation about favorite bands and musical preferences possessed an easy naturalism that has proven to be one of Given’s most reliable strengths, selling the substance of its cast through their effortless interplay of divergent but mutually sympathetic perspectives. On the other hand, this production’s technical limitations came through clearly in the episode’s take on their first “band practice,” which was conveyed purely as a series of montage stills, and lacked the tonal specificity to really evoke any sort of mood at all. Given’s one of those shows whose writing is good enough that I’m a little sad it’s only so-so animation wise; this story could really take advantage of more intricate character acting.

Granbelm whipped out a ridiculously energetic, non-stop barrage of action theater for its fifth episode, offering a remarkably coherent battle royale between six separate robot wielders. Though Granbelm contains clear echoes of shows like Madoka, the show has very different dramatic priorities. Fighting has some thematic significance here, but it’s also intended to be tactically parsable and exhilarating in its own right, as clearly established specialists engage in strategically rewarding “sports show” shenanigans. Nene-nee’s artillery barrages felt like a coherent and engaging riddle to solve, and when Mangetsu finally reached her, I loved how the show so smoothly segued into the more emotionally-driven conflict of “Nene-nee expressing reverence for her mother by embracing her own strengths,” illustrated through her robot’s transformation into a long-limbed martial artist. I felt this episode’s bright beam spam at times made it difficult to actually parse the course of the action, but on the whole, this was a thrilling and intelligent series of duals that I’m pretty sure establishes Granbelm as the premiere action vehicle of the summer. Didn’t really see that coming!

Meanwhile, Carole & Tuesday rallied with a subtle scorcher of an episode, as the band met the legendary musician Desmond while Tuesday’s mother made her grand and unabashedly nationalist speech. The early parts of this episode were lifted by this show’s consistently charming little visual beats, as well as the steady rapport between Carole and Tuesday – I particularly liked how each of their “earth dreams” so clearly reflected their life experiences, with Tuesday mostly just wanting to maintain her current quiet life. That half was full of the incidental charm that has always made Carole & Tuesday a pleasant watch, leaving me totally unprepared for a second half that swung as hard as it could at the show’s heretofore limited thematic pretensions.

First off, in a larger meta-narrative sense, I was thrilled to finally see Carole & Tuesday expressing unreserved, emphatic sympathy for trans and intersex characters through the clearly and winningly sympathetic Desmond. Desmond’s own explanation of his situation felt a little messy and gender-essentialist, but I don’t really need this show to provide a perfect treatise on trans identity – I just want it to embrace humanity and empathy over bigotry, and this episode certainly did that. In fact, Desmond and his songs ended up serving as a living illustration of the beauty of mankind’s capacity for change, and how the changes of mankind’s movement into the future can coexist with and even elevate traditional forms of beauty like music. In contrast, Valerie’s speech embodied everything that is cruel and small about our nature, playing on our most base fears and telling us to greet the unknown with suspicion and selfishness. “Idealist, communal music versus cynical, tribalist politics” is a classic conflict, but Valerie’s politics couldn’t be more relevant to our world, and I’m happy to see this old story illustrated with such grace. Carole & Tuesday still seems to have a few tricks up its sleeve.

And last but absolutely not least, O Maidens in Your Savage Season continued on its roaringly horny way, and seems effortlessly on track to be the best character drama of the year. While Kazusa continues to struggle through personal insecurities that could easily be the highlight of a lesser drama, it was her fascinating clubmates who once again stole the show, with Niina chief among them. I absolutely adored Niina’s date with Norimoto this week, which served as a graceful demonstration that even men with the best intentions can be blind to the trials women experience.

After Norimoto’s breathless rambling about the communal joy of riding the train, Niina recounting her brush with a former abuser felt like a bucket of cold water, emphasizing how not everyone gets to feel safe in public. The sense of social connection that Norimoto enjoys so much is actually a source of danger to Niina, an inversion of expectations that was echoed throughout this episode’s other stories, as characters found themselves introduced to a variety of foreign feelings and perspectives. It doesn’t feel like O Maidens is directly building towards any sort of plot that could be resolved within just this season, but I’m loving this thoughtful and unabashedly messy ride.