This Just Anime!

This week is a single topic for once, we're talking all things Ooku The Inner Chambers. This is a new title coming to us in Netflix based pretty faithfully on the popular manga by the same name. It's a historical drama but with a pretty major caveat that really asks a lot of great questions. With 10 episodes covering roughly half the manga's story we've got a solid look at what if gender roles were reversed in feudal Japan. It's a really interesting idea that's presented pretty beautifully, so we're giving you our honest opinions on the series as a whole, things we found most effective and maybe a couple of things we were unsure about as well. If you're looking for your next historical drama, this episode might be able to point you in the right direction. 

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

Long titles are the trend now in case you didn't know. This is our normal powercast though, you probably know how it goes by now. We're gonna rank all the new and returning titles this season, we're gonna put them in a less than arbitrary tier system, and then we're gonna pick one or two  from each tier to talk about in a little more detail and maybe figure out why they landed where they are. As always these rankings are pretty likely to change over the course of the season, so you can stay up to date over on instagram if you're curious about how your favorite show is doing. 

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

We actually mean it this time we do have a slightly shorter episode for y'all this week. We're still in awe of the most recent episode of Jujutsu Kaisen so we wanted to dig into it a little bit. Does the show deserve the hype? Is season two stacking up how we want it to? Some shit went down this week so you bet we gotta talk about it. We're getting all up in there and unpacking it for the first of probably many times over this 24 episode run. From there we're taking a look back at last season's bold Nailed It predictions before repeating the same cycle of tomfoolery for Summer 2023 and making our buy it or deny its for the season. 

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

No for real though, it's actually not bad. The Summer season can be kind of a mixed bag aside from big flashy shonen titles, but we're pleased to report there's a little bit of something for everybody this season. We're not going to  be able to hit every new show this season for first impressions, but we've highlighted a couple that might be worth your time for good or maybe more nefarious reasons. No matter how you slice it there's plenty to watch this summer whether your jam is lovesick high schoolers, or badass battle dudes there's a lot to like in new series. Returning titles also get a couple of nods, the season is a little less stacked than some recent ones but with the return of Jujutsu Kaisen and Horimiya along with a few other big names rest assured your favorites are bringing it as well. 

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

All jokes aside, Oshi No Ko was really damn good, but so were a bunch of other shows this season so we're gonna tell you about em. You probably know how it works at this point, we're gonna go through our rankings for the season, highlight the top 5 new and returning series and then give you the bullet points for the rest of them. From there we've got our awards to hand out, some recognizable categories you might see in another awards thing, and then a bunch of categories we made up because we felt like it. This spring had a lot on offer, and definitely something for everyone, so if you want to talk about your favorite titles one last time before being buried by the summer rush then this is the place to do it!

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

As you may or may not know Demon Slayer Swordsmith Village arc just concluded with its hour long epic finale episode for the season. We've talked a lot about it this season, but we're summarizing our thoughts here as well as getting into some good details about the finale itself, so spoilers are inbound you have been warned. Before we can get to that though, we've got a sneak preview at the summer season. We've got a whole bunch of really great looking returning series, cough cough Jujutsu Kaisen, as well as others to be stoked for, and a handful of new titles we're getting hyped for. There are some pretty strange looking shows to look forward to as well so come along as we figure out what's got us excited or maybe just confused.  

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

Hey We've got a whole bunch of news dropping this week and  Cory is particularly excited for both personal and podcast related things, so listen in to find out what. We got new Persona news, Misfit of Demon Kin Academy, Rascal Boy Does Not Dream of Various Things, as well as a whole slew of new premieres announced and feature length finales to boot. From there we're diving into anime villains and what makes them good. We've had kind of an ongoing discussion about shonen action series so we wanted to look at how to do an antagonist well and what we value in our bad guys. Finally Nick made a game you can play along with at home this time, Guess My SR is back and this time we give the quotes before the answer. Cory did decently for once so see how you stack up!

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

Spring is pretty rapidly drawing to a close and we've been eating pretty good this season. We've had a lot of solid shows to keep up on, but this episode is largely dedicated to shows that maybe still had the jury out on them or maybe didn't get the hype they deserved. We're still talking about some of the big names this season like Hell's Paradise and Demon Slayer but we're also revisiting some of those titles that may have slipped under the radar or quietly faded into obscurity as the summer season closes in. As always this is our somewhat biased opinion, but it you're in your mid season slump and looking to catch up on something between episodes of Rokudo's Bad Girls or whatever the hell else you're watching then hey we got you covered fam. 

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

We have sort of a Yuri double feature for you this week as we'll be talking about Yuri is My Job which definitely counts and Mobile Suit Gundam Witch From Mercury which in our opinions should also kind of count at least for the purposes of naming this episode. Both of  these titles have left quite an impression on us this season so we're doing a deep dive to figure out just why GWitch is so appealing to us. From there rather than just talk about Yuri is My Job we're taking a look at Studio Passione as a whole. They're a super small studio with only 25 employees or so, but they've cemented a reputation for having a couple of decent titles under their belt as well as a plethora of maybe indecent ecchi shows, but is there more there than just jiggle physics? Maybe we had this studio all wrong.  

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

Power Rankings are done and we can breathe a brief sigh of relief. This week on the show we're going in depth on Oshi No Ko, the new idol show that is taking the internet by storm and demanding a great deal of our attention. A lot of people are pretty hype on this show, but we're particularly interested in its portrayal of the idol and entertainment industry in general as well as what separates it from all of the other idol type shows that have come before it. From there we get into Nick's personal gripes with Demon Slayer or maybe just hero type shows in general, is he being crazy or does he have a point? You be the judge. We're also celebrating the return of Golden Kamuy and Kubo Won't Let Me Be Invisible both of which suffered a delay but are finally back. We've also got a funny little hacking incident featured on this last week's one big thing. 

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

It may seem weird to jump straight from first impressions into the Powercast, but whatever we're doing it and there's nothing stopping us. This season has some absolute banger new titles, and enough heat in the returning section to really demand all of our free time. There are a ton of shows to watch this season and at least half of them are pretty good. With the likes of Oshi no Ko and Demon Slayer there's truly something for every kind of anime fan and we are all eating good this spring. It might be time to finally get a Hidive account if you don't already have one though, because 2/3 of the top new titles aren't on Crunchyroll. We've got a stacked season ahead of us, so if you're looking for recs we've got you with our usual one sentence summaries and a few deep dives thrown in as well. 

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

That's right not only are we giving you our review of Makoto Shinkai's newest work, Suzume, we're also covering the Kaguya-Sama movie that dropped a couple of weeks ago. I think it's pretty obvious we were enthused about both Suzume and Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War- The First Kiss That Never Ends, but did they live up to the hype? We'll let you know. We also have the remainder of first impressions for everything for this season except the two titles that haven't dropped yet in this episode. There's a lot in this one whether you're looking for a movie to watch or a new show we've got you covered. Stay tuned for this season's power rankings real soon! 

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

We've got a pretty stellar season shaping up this Spring, and we've got a boatload of titles already hitting our queues. This episode brings you our first impressions of the first episode of another 12 new titles as well as 6 of the returning titles for the season. This is part 2 of 3 for this season's first impressions before we culminate in the eventual powercast. There are plenty of new fantasy and romance titles as well as some pretty crazy idol shows, so there's plenty for everyone regardless of what kind of genres you're into. We're also talking about Oshi No Ko this episode which probably deserves its own special mention because there's some serious hype there. Rankings will be live soon, but this is plenty to keep you busy in the meantime!

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

Spring has sprung it would seem and we already have a metric shit ton of new and returning titles eagerly vying to monopolize all of our free time. It's the start of a new season so as is tradition we're catching the premiers of everything we can and giving you the elevator pitch on a selection of them before attempting to put them all into one glorious ranking. There's a lot of hype going into this season already, and we've immediately got a few pretty great shows, and one or two that maybe are a bit more of a reach. If you're curious about the new season here's a good little bit to get you going. 

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

Two Awardscasts in a row! Another season has come and gone, and new shows are already threatening to eclipse the titles we just finished watching. All jokes aside Winter was a pretty solid season, and maybe the first time ever we had an isekai show in the top five which feels like personal growth on our end. As always we'll run through our tier list telling you where all your favorites shows new and returning ended up before moving on to the awards part of the show. We've got a couple of categories that would be at home on any awards show, and a few that we made up because we can. Join us to crown the first bgbfg of the new year and look back on a good start to the year for anime.

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

Finally it's here. 2022 is over and done for real, and we were this close to beating Crunchyroll to the punch and proving our awards show to be the coolest one. In all seriousness due to a couple of titles still finishing their runs and us wanting to include as much as we could we waited until we were good and ready to put this one out. There were a lot of standout titles from 2022 and overall we'd call it a solid year for anime as a whole. This episode is a look back on some of our favorite shows, some that grabbed our attention or made us think, or just plain entertained us. As always we have a handful of the normal categories you'd find on any awards show as well as a good few that we made up too just for good measure. What did  you think of anime in 2022? We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

Jim and Pam ain't got nothin on this episode, because we're ranking the top 5, plus a few extra, of the best office romance in anime. Ok real talk this is a somewhat specific genre with only like ten shows that fit the category, but hear us out, there's some good shit in the land of office romances and we want to talk about it. We're also talking the bizarre and potentially frustrating release schedule for Attack on Titan The final part part three the first once removed on its mother's side and a half. Is it ruining the ending? Is it just for ratings? We don't know but we sure as hell can speculate. We're also bringing back the episode of the week/weak to get you up to speed on the titles we really enjoyed or maybe didn't this weekend. 

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

What can we say? February kind of got away from us and between dog health problems, people health problems and some other stuff we took a couple more weeks off than we planned. But we're excited to be back and talking about more anime! This episode we're starting off with a Vibe Check for a bunch of titles we were maybe unsure about in the beginning of the season. We're talking Tomo-chan, Angle Next Door, Tokyo Revengers, and Trigun-Stampede just to name a few. We're a good ways through the season so we wanna see how we feel about these now that they've had some room to breathe. From there it's all things Aggretsuko Season 5! We got surprisingly political with this last season, which may have been the final season period. We're giving our takes on it as well as the series as a whole and our undying respect to the death metal red panda that captures the spirit of millennial rage. We've got a little glimpse into the anime awards for 2022 to round out the episode, Crunchyroll has dropped their winners so we'll be doing the same soon!

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

It's still the middle of winter for us here in the midwest, but a ray of warmth and sunshine has finally arrived it seems. Summertime Rendering has been out for almost a year in Japan and finally Disney has decided to get its act together and release it in the west. We're both pretty stoked on the show and feel it was well worth the wait, but if you need convincing we've got an in depth spoiler free review to get you to watch it. We also had the release of Junji Ito Mainiac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre over on Netflix. This one's maybe a little more up in the air, but if you're curious we have our thoughts on it as well. Lastly we had a fair bit of little news come out this week, some cool and some not so cool, but we'll do our best to keep you informed and give you our take on current anime events as well. 

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram

It's here! Winter 2023 is in full swing and there are 37 new titles and another 18 returning. If you're bad at math that's 55 shows that we watched at least 3 episodes of  and are now ranking based on our own personal preference with a questionable degree of objectivity. If you want to know what we're watching this season as well as a little bit about every new title out right now then this massive episode is a great place to start. Since it's the new year  we'll remind you how this goes, we've got a one sentence summary for every new show this season as well as a select few that we've singled out in our tier system to talk more about why we rated it where we did. There's a lot of solid titles on offer this season, and plenty that are enjoyable despite their lack in quality as well, so here you go! What are you watching this season?

Power Rankings live @tjapod on instagram