Mercuri

Okay, I really liked this episode. Noel plotting and basically being a villain is great. And the dichotomy between Blue Beyond and the Winged Knights is fun to watch.

One minor gripe is that Wilheim from Re:Zero basically pulled the test out of his butt. Even if he's gunning for Noel to be the commander, setting it up as a competition between two B-ranks seems far-fetched. Then again it's just for clan admittance and Noel might be pulling strings behind the scenes.

Another gripe is the Puppeteer guy. We're introduced to him at the start of the episode and then never see him again. Feels like they forced his scene in there because they didn't know where to put it. I'm sure he'll become relevant later but by the end of the episode I had all but forgotten about him.

Episode 9 was a ton of fun, but this one…wasn’t. It had its moments, but it weirdly felt like a bad imitation of episode 9.

Full agree. This episode didn't really bring too much to the table. We got a brief rundown of what happened with Will Seeker and then a whole lot of nothing. Not even very many cool villainess moments. And seriously, ANOTHER rumor of name calling and ANOTHER brainwashing reveal? Felt like a filler episode.

Like, this is Grade A creeper stuff Alicia!

And Creepy Prince does creepy things, surprising no one.

Oh yeah, nothing against him working at the gas station. He wasn't really even a racer in Initial D. But we see all these other Initial D characters doing different things and there he still working the same job he had in high school. I wouldnt be surprised to find out it's the same station. Anyway he's got a wife and kids now so he's definitely happy there and making ends meet no problem.

I am laughing so hard at your description. It's like a crazy parody except the author is trying to be serious.

I remember reading the show description and it was something like "Generations after the defeat of the demon lord, an elven mage takes an apprentice," so I thought it was going to be a lighthearted relaxing little story.

NOPE!

I piked up Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Oh, I love Project Hail Mary. I'd say it's right up there with the Martian for me. If Martian is a 9 out of 10, then PHM is 8 or 8.5 out of ten. I think there's a movie releasing in 2026 or something.

If you want some more Western Sci-Fi recommendations, I'd recommending Old Man's War or Redshirts by John Scalzi. OMW has a more serious tone and is the first in a saga (but stands on its own) whereas Redshirts is a parody on Star Trek. Just depends on what you're in the mood for.

Dagashi-ya Yahagi: Setting Up a Sweets Shop in Another World: Volume 2

Oof... sounds as bad as some indie books I've read on Kindle Unlimited. You can tell they're writing chapter to chapter and whole plotlines go unresolved because the author forgets about them.

Survival in Another World with My Mistress! Vol. 7

Reminds me a bit of one of the indie fantasies I was reading. MC slowly builds a harem (basically one new girl every book) but by volume 9 it was reading like bad fanfiction. The author couldn't properly juggle all the girls so they all ending as one-dimensional caricatures of their former selves.

The rare series I’ve seen as an anime before reading the LN.

I actually go both ways. Sometimes I see the anime and go "wow, that's so cool! I want to know more!" and then get into the LN. Other times, something shows up on my recommended and I get into it that way and then later on the anime comes out and I of course watch it. I love that in this case the anime was so forgettable you forgot you'd watched it before picking up the LN though :D

The cinematography and art direction continues to impress me. Changes in field of view, angles, colors... just everything comes together so well. It makes even the silly dialog scenes stand out.

I also REALLY love this callback to the original Acrobatic Silky:

As for the joke at the end, we all saw it coming and yet they still made it funny with the fisheye field of view, wacky animation, and cartoony art style

Dandadan makes even the predictable impressive.

This sounds terrible. I'm probably going to watch it.

A nice relaxing episode after the race conclusion.

The 86 gets a turbo!

@rikka@ani.social

And Kanata and the Saionji family go to a fancy dinner

And there's even a cameo from Initial D! Unless I'm mistaken, it's Koichiro Iketani and Kenji from the Akina Speedsters as well as Itsuki Takeuchi! I even freeze-framed on their name badges to confirm.

Funny that Itsuki is still working at a gas station after all this time.

What a cool episode. We get the final battle between Rust and Sunraku. And I was TOTALLY right this time! Sunraku DID get end up getting SLF information from Nephilim Hollow and Rust was an SLF player! I thought it was funny that Rust quit SLF because she couldn't find robots in it though, haha.

On top of the great robot on robot action, we got quite a bit of SLF lore too. And three new SLF characters! Rust, Mold, and the teaser of Akitsuakane!

Thanks for the spoiler tag! Now that I read it, it makes perfect sense given the dialog. I'm sure we'll hear more about it next episode.