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  I spoke about it in my first post, but Jaadugar is definitely my favorite of the season so far. The location and time it is set in is pretty interesting and VERY unique for anime, the art style is beautiful, the animation is amazing at times, and the music complements the visuals really well. I'm starting to realize I really like historical fiction sometimes. I remember having to read historical fiction in middle school and stuff, and, honestly, I never really liked it. I remember liking The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, but I think I was always sort of turned of by it. Turns out, the books I was forced to read just had boring plots, I guess. I don't really remember much I learned about the Mongolian empire, or really anything from history class save the Battle of the Bulge, but it's been pretty compelling to follow.

  I do have to be honest, though. The way this show frames slavery so far has been a little offputting. At the beginning of the first episode, the main character, Sitara, is sold to the family that ends up raising her. I don't know much about what slavery was like in 13th century Iran, but hot take! Owning another human being is bad! I know, crazy. Maybe the show will tackle it more later on, but Sitara's mistress, Fatima, is never portrayed in a negative light for, like, owning her and her other slaves.

  To play devil's advocate, this show just isn't about the injustices of slavery in the 13th century. It's about the rise of the Mongol empire and how Sitara moves through stuch turbulent times (at least that's what it seems to be about, I'm only 4 episodes in, maybe I'm wrong), and tackling slavery would be a distraction from the focus of the show. I think that would be a fine excuse if the main character's primary motivation didn't revolve around satisfying her former mistress. Sitara is treated pretty well by her mistress. She's treated well, she's educated, she's basically a part of the family. Hell, Fatima dies jumping in front of a sword to save her life. Even if that's the case, though, even if she was treated with empathy and kindness, she was still their property, and the other slaves continue to remind her of that. I can see how being taken care of at such a young age by this woman, especially right after her mother's death, Sitara could form a strong bond with Fatima and feel a special connection and a sense of loyalty to her. I'm probably not the right person to be weighing in on this, and I'm curious what others would have to say.

  Well, I talked about that way longer than I though I would. I've been enjoying the show so far, and from the way things are developing, I'm looking forward to seeing how Sitara works her way up the Mongol Empire. I'm very curious what her real endgame will be. I'd honestly recommend this show to any history nerd. Even if you're not really into anime, I think you could find something to enjoy here!

  I've owned a DVD of the original Ghost in the Shell for like 2 years now and I'm still yet to have watched it. I have no way of comparing this new adaptation to the original or the manga, but I have to say, this adaptation has a much different vibe than I had expected from Ghost in the Shell. The original movie always seemed so moody and serious. This adaptation has it's moment's, but it's pretty fun and light at times. I feel like, normally, adaptations of manga don't really change much, but from discussions I see online, each adaptation of Ghost in the Shell differs pretty substantially.

  I don't know why, but when I watched the first episode, it felt kind of... weird? I assumed I was just tired, so I just went to sleep and figured I'd finish it the next day. Well, the weird vibe kinda continued the next day. I think it's because things are just immediately and rabidly HAPPENING, with little to no explanation, which is kinda cool! Maybe this adaptation expects you to already know a good amount, sort of like the beginning of FMA: Brotherhood, but it's kind of interesting having to slowly pick up information based on context and hints. I'm 3 episodes in and I still don't fully understand what a Ghost is, or what the deal with micromachines and androids are. Maybe I just need a rewatch, or maybe this show is more for longtime fans than new viewers. Still, it's really cool and well animated. The opening song is pretty sick. The bit at the end of the chorus is really sick, with all the different scenes they show and the rising feeling or whatever. I don't know what it's called, maybe I'm stupid.

  I've also REALLY been loving this trend of new adaptations of old manga keeping their older art style. Urusei Yatsura is STILL one of my favorite slice-of-life anime, such an amazing new adapatation of a classic manga. I wish they'd made even more instead of skipping chapters. I probably need to go read more Rumiko Takahashi manga, she's such a legend. Anyway, I hope they keep doing stuff like this! I don't know about a ton of classic manga to be honest. The only things I can think of off the top of my head are, like, Fist of the North Star and City Hunter. Those probably haven't have aged as well though.

  It's crazy that Science Saru is putting out Jaadugar and this IN THE SAME SEASON. They really came out of nowhere for me, I hadn't heard of them until they adapted Dandadan. They're a contender for, like, my top 5 favorite anime studios right now (Trigger at #1, you know it).

  This is another great example of good historical fiction anime. I'm not sure how based in reality this story is. Apparently Sitara and a lot of the other characters in Jaadugar are based on a real people. Obviously, I know that Ghengis Khan's sons were real people, and probably their wives to, but I just assumed a character like Sitara would've been fabricated for the story.

  I'm not super well versed in the different eras of Japanese history to be honest. I know they were unified sometimes, sometimes they were a bunch of smaller states, sometimes they had an emperor, a shogun, a president, or some combination of the three, but I don't really have an idea of when. A lot of pre-WWII Japanese history has sort of blended together in my head. Yeah, there's katanas and clans and shoguns and stuff, it's Old Japan. I should probably educate myself better. It doesn't feel right to be so interested in Japan, yet still blend together almost 1000 years of history into one vague conception of samurai and katanas.

  Dang, I really can't stay on topic, can I? Well, anyway, Elusive Samurai is pretty good. Season 1 came out in the Summer 2026 season, right before I was started my freshman year of college. Crazy how time flies I feel like it came out just yesterday. It was probably my favorite show of that season, maybe behind Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines. I've always been a sucker for slice-of-life/romance type shows. I'd heard about the manga for a while before the anime came out, so my expectations were set pretty high. I think after season one, I just thought it was kind of interesting. I should add that this is one of those anime where there's a billion characters and they're all amed, like, Masayumi Kitsutame, so it's kind of impossible to remember everybody. Not a saying that's a flaw, Akane-Banashi is the same way and I love it. Just prefacing that I'm not really going to refer to anybody by name.

  The anime is beautifully animated, but the story didn't really seem that interesting, to be honest. I think my main issue is the characters. From what I remember from season 1, the introduction of the main cast feels sort of heavy-handed outside of Tokiyuki and Yorishige. The show acts like they're the fun supporting cast, everything about them feels half-baked. Like if I remember correctly, for the strong girl and the grey sword boy, Yorishige's just like "yeah this is your crew now." Maybe this is just a case of me not really remembering backstory or development, I don't know. I do remember that the fox mask guy and the older sword dude had whole arcs focused on recruiting them, so it's kind of lame that the other three (small girl, strong girl, sword boy) never really get that. Like, as far as I'm aware, the three of them don't really have backstories? Maybe the sword boy, but I don't remember much at all about the girls. It sort of feels like the show wants to have its cake without baking an actual cake. It wants to have the marketable main cast that love each other, like every shonen, but they never put in the work to make me care about these characters' connections. Industry plant vibes, not in the sense that the anime is an industry plant, just the cast feel like they haven't earned their position.

  Also, maybe this is just me being cynical, but 80% of the characters in this just feel like tropes duct-taped into the shape of a character. I get it, though, most anime rely heavily on the same tropes, but it feels like each author is able to inject their own special flavor into these tropey characters to make them feel unique. In this case, however, these characters feel so plain, they make me feel nothing. Yorishige is pretty fun, the primary antagonist is menacing in a pretty unique way, and many of the minor antagonist are pretty fun and gimmicky. Outside of that, they've all been kind of boring.

  Wow, I'm being pretty negative on this show I enjoy. Some things I enjoy that I haven't mentioned: I really like how they give their protagonist/antagonists anime-ass powers without deviating too much from reality. The way they're able to conceptualize different swordsmanship skills and stuff into sort of powers is pretty sick. I don't really love when they deviate too far from reality, though. Like in S2E1, the antagonist do, like, an air slash to kill some people on the other side of a river? That's typical anime stuff, but it deviates a bit too far from reality for me. I love the unrestrained gore. It's never that gross, but for how vibrant and happy the show seems on the surface, it really doesn't hesatate to show fountains of blood and people being cut in half. The blood is always so vibrant and beautiful, too. This is a beautifully vibrant anime, it's firing on all cylinders in the color department.

  I've enjoyed the first few episodes of the new season, but, honestly, with how stacked this summer is and how busy school is gonna have me, I may end up dropping before the end of season 2. Already, in episode one, I felt like I was forcing myself to watch it. May just be the doomscrolling urge though. I need to get my brain right.

  I don't remember when I first heard about this one, but it sounded like the sort of silly slice-of-life stuff I eat up. It was not that, apparently. This is one of the rawest, grossest anime I've seen. Not necessarily a good or bad thing, but sort of surprising. The juxtaposition is part of the charm, I guess. I have to admit there have been some scenes I did find pretty funny. Favorite so far is when Yani Neko walks into her neighbor's apartment and she's just straight up shooting up heroin. It was so shocking to see even in a show like this, I just didn't expect it. Other than that, it's been pretty passable. Pretty good opening! The main reason I heard about the show and decided to check it out was because of people on Twitter arguing about the opening. People were saying stuff like "This is the consequences of Chainsaw Man's success", and while I agree with the comparisons to KICK BACK's opening, I don't see it as a negative. From what I've heard about the production quality of the latest episodes, the opening may end up being the show's most redeeming quality. That always sucks. I hate it when a bad show has an amazing opening. You don't deserve that, man. Pass the controller. Anyway, I don't think I would recommend this to anyone. It's decent, but I don't think the average person would enjoy it. I may end up dropping it. It's a novel idea, but I don't know if the writing has the legs to keep me watching for a full season.

  I really liked Polar Opposites season 1. As I've said many times on these, I love a good rom-com, slice-of-life type anime. Give me fun characters, decent writing, and good vibes and I'll go home happy. Going into episode 1 of this season, though, I'm not sure if I'm feeling it this time. This new season would probably be my favorite show of a weaker season, but Summer 2026 is so stacked, I think Polar Opposites is definitely going to fall by the wayside. The art and animation is passable, but simple. The characters are nice, and the connections they share do have a unique vibe compared to other slice-of-life shows. They feel very real compared to something like Witch Watch or, idk, Too Many Losing Heroines (not sure why I thought of that first). I don't know. I'll try to keep up, but it's a crazy season.