watching a predator befriend its prey

Exactly.

Except that we keep getting these little flashes of Kohaku realizing that this is something different - that he’s feeling things for Yoi that he’s never felt for anyone before. But then just when I’m about to relax a bit and wholeheartedly cheer him on, the predator reappears. And 'round and 'round it goes.

This series caught my attention the other day, and in poking around to try to gauge whether or not I wanted to watch it, I read this thread, and wondered what might make someone “anxious” about it.

I caught up on it last night, and now I know. Sort of.

I can’t entirely pin down the reasons why, but this is an oddly stressful series. It somehow goes beyond a standard failure to communicate - it’s as if they don’t even speak the same language.

And in some ways, Kohaku is an unusually dangerous shoujo romance MMC. The norm for the ikemen lead is that he only appears to be a self-absorbed player and he’s actually a decent guy from the start. But Kohaku really is a self-absorbed player, and it’s just that he’s started to realize that he could be something better.

And as far as that goes, Yoi is at least somewhat safe from his worst impulses, at least when she’s not paralyzed by a sense of weakness, since her instinct is to immediately drop into prince mode and stand up to asshole guys.

But then that’s another source of stress, since Kohaku is sort of like an infant, just barely starting to feel his way around this newfound world of actually caring for a girl.

I don’t know - it still feels like I can’t quite get a grip on why it’s so stressful, but it is. I like it all in all, but still…

Current:

Shiboyugi - even more symbolic than past episodes, to the degree that it’s not even entirely clear what happened, though some assumptions can relatively safely be made. And the mystery deepens around the agents - I assume they’re a key to the background and the hidden motive and meanings of the games, and likely to Yuki’s story.

MF Ghost - the formula is wearing a bit thin.

Roll Over and Die - I was especially impressed by this episode. This is shaping up to be interesting and satisfying.

Champignon Witch - I just caught up with this one last week. I’m still not sure about it - it’s promising, but sort of vague. And I hate Claude with the fire of a thousand suns, which makes it sort of difficult to enjoy. Still though… it could turn out pretty good, and I like the basic premise and the art style.

Trigun Stargaze - better than last week’s episode, but still unsatisfying.

Scum of the Brave - finally stated the obvious connection between Yashiro and Jougamine, and finally got some movement in their relationship, and not a moment too soon. This is a sort of turning point for this anime. It was starting to feel like it had lost its way, but it might’ve found it again.

You and I Are Polar Opposites - another excellent episode. This series is pure pleasure.

Journal with Witch - the end was a weird combination of awful and hopeful. It was so hard to see Asa like that, but it’s progress, and it pulled her out of that pointless and self-destructive rage. And I realized that there’s a sort of meta-moral in this series. Makio doesn’t have the foggiest idea what she’s doing - she’s entirely out of her element as a sort of surrogate parent - but she’s doing an overall fine job of it, and her secret is simple - she’s honest and respectful.

In the introduction to the novel Jailbird, Kurt Vonnegut wrote that a student had written him a letter and told him that he’d figured out the underlying message to Vonnegut’s novels - “Love may fail but courtesy will prevail.”

In Vonnegut’s own words:

This seems true to me — and complete. So I am now in the abashed condition, five days after my fifty-sixth birthday, of realizing that I needn’t have bothered to write several books. A seven-word telegram would have done the job.

Seriously

I have to wonder if the author of Ikoku Nikki read that and took it to heart, or independently discovered the same truth.

Anyway - along the way last week, I rewatched Tsuki ga Kirei(As the Moon, So Beautiful), as I’m prone to do with series that unexpectedly impress me that much, just to re-experience it and see if it holds up. And it did - it really is very good. The only fault I can find with it is that the animation is generally only mediocre (though I do quite like the character designs).

Then I finally found it in myself to watch Season V of Danmachi, which was broadly what I’ve come to expect.

And now I’m off to check out Love Through a Prism…

I was already intrigued by this one after Endmaker’s post, since I appreciate vanilla shoujo romance, but impressive backgrounds too? That bumps it up to next on my list.

I’d tend to guess too that it’s something conceptual. At this point, I expect that I won’t figure it out and will be surprised when (if) it’s revealed, but then it will fall neatly into place and make perfect sense.

I keep thinking this series can’t possibly be as good as I’ve come to believe it to be - that I’m somehow building it up in my mind in the time between episodes. But then another new episode will drop and prove again that it really is that good.

I can’t even really pick out anything specific to comment on, since it was all so good - Asa’s lonely rage, Makio’s crunch time distraction immediately replaced by genuine concern, Emiri’s help and Sensei’s unexpected but sensible relief to find out she was only skipping, Shingo’s perfect support, Makio’s unwavering honesty, and of course Asa’s breakthrough.

Everybody cares and everybody pays attention and even though none of them really know what they’re doing, they sort it out anyway, and it touches me like almost nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Razlo the Tri-Punisher of Death? Seriously?

It was actually fairly decent until then. Vash’s defiance of Knives was impressive (much better than his capitulation last episode) and Elendira appears to be starting to figure out that Knives is just a power-mad psychopath who actually couldn’t care less about his “brethren.” We’re moving toward the showdown, and it’ll be interesting to see how the alliances shape up.

For me, this has now graduated from “better than I thought it might be” to “actually pretty good in its own right.”

It’s still an unusual combination of genres - sort of intrigue/yuri/CGDCT/action/SOL - so it’s likely not for everyone, and it’s not groundbreaking by any stretch, but it’s consistently entertaining and the overarching plot is coming together nicely.

Dein’s backstory was a bit of a surprise, but it goes some way toward explaining how he operated with relative impunity. And Ottilie was a good, and amusing, addition to the cast, and hopefully to Flum’s party. Plus I’m sort of weak to twin drills, and especially in red.

And most importantly as far as I’m concerned - I’m already looking forward to the next episode.