Oh god it’s happening. We’re already halfway through September, final episodes are beginning to broadcast, and the season is well and truly ending. While I’ve gotten somewhat used to the seasonal panic of the preview guide, I certainly haven’t gotten used to the fact that we’re all that much closer to death. Fortunately, that’s exactly what anime is good for – frittering away the idle hours with cartoon entertainment to avoid the lurking specter of our own inevitable mortality. So let’s set aside our dreary, perpetually fraying existence for a while, and RUN DOWN SOME SHOWS!

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Surprise surprise, another fine friggin’ week in anime. With this season leaning so heavily into pure entertainment shows over emotional or thematic blockbusters, it can be easy to take weeks like this for granted – I laughed and cheered throughout, but wasn’t truly surprised by anything. But as I said in this week’s Love Live editorial, the craft of fun should never be taken for granted. This season’s shows have worked hard to keep me entertained, and the fact that basically every show this season fits into the “goofy good time” slot doesn’t make it any less impressive of a collection. So let’s run down this season’s silly shows once more, as another strong season begins to come to a close!

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Well heck dang it’s Wednesday again. Anime was pretty alright this week – a couple clear standouts, a couple weaker entries, an overall par performance. JoJo’s fundamentally great art design is unfortunately still trembling under the weight of several consecutive seasons, and Orange is beginning to lose me with its circular conflicts, but Love Live pulled off a spectacle that was just as funny as last week was successfully dramatic, and even if JoJo wasn’t prepared to be top JoJo, Thunderbolt Fantasy certainly was. It frankly makes me a little sad that I have to scroll all the way down the streaming titles page to reach Thunderbolt’s spot on Crunchyroll – I can kinda understand that its inherently camp nature makes it less appealing to many fans seeking action shows, but it’s seriously so, so much better than 9/10 of the shows in its genre. Surely one day the Thunderbolt Fantasies and Lost Villages of the world will get their due!

Anyway. LET’S TALK ABOUT SOME CARTOONS.

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Alright, now we’re actually three quarters of the way through the season. That generally tends to align with shows’ second-to-last dramatic peaks, and this season was no exception – both Mob Psycho and Love Live had huge episodes this week, and the JoJo/Thunderbolt Fantasy pairing had pretty key turning points as well. Orange is starting to look a little long in the tooth at this point, but other than that, I’d say the season’s crop are holding together quite well. I’m perfectly happy to have two seasons in a row conclude with dignity intact!

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We’re in the settling now. Shows have established themselves and fallen into comfortable rhythms, massive narrative changeups are either far in the past or waiting in the last act, and most productions are just doing their best to pretend scheduling and creating twenty minutes of animation is just as easy the seventh time as it is the first or second. There are highs and lows, but they’re smaller bumps – Love Live has a somewhat weaker episode, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure tries on a new style hat, etcetera. These are the dog days of summer, where we’re all more concerned with the fact that global warming is now a lived reality than we are with which waifus most recently prevailed. But anime endures, and like a barnacle on that great cartoon vessel, so does the Week in Review. Let’s run ’em down.

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