Seasonal Switch: The Gang Watches Anime
Winter 2024 Round Up & Spring 2025 Watch List
A new season is upon us!
The lumbering limbs of pine and oak wave to birds migrating home for Spring. I am averse to the cold, but I have come to appreciate the slow. I’ll miss the gentle way Winter reflects sorrow, and holds me. But, with the turn of the season comes a new list of ongoing anime! I’ll be posting my thoughts for the week on Mondays ♡
All of us in the System love anime, but we all have different tastes. That makes watching them a hit or miss, depending on my mood.
Alya likes death game, horror, and supernatural.
Claudia likes slice of life and anything set in the feudal or edo era
Lyru like shonen, high stakes action, magic, and fantasy.
Before we get into the new stuff
Last season wasn’t a long list for me, but the ones I watched were immaculate.
Solo Leveling Season 2: Okay, I know the hype train around this has gone off the rails, and everyone is mad about aura farming; HOWEVER, I picked up this series as a Webtoon when Jeju Island (the source material for season 2) was ongoing. I didn’t think I’d see the day this series got animated because it was tucked away in the corner of the Internet, surviving on forums rather than manga platforms. So, I have personal reasons for being obsessed with this show. But also, if you get over power scaling and being a meathead, it’s objectively good so ( ¬ ᴗ ¬)
Apothecary Diaries Season 2: This is everything I want in a crime drama and romance series. Not to mention, it’s hilarious. Everything about the characters, the settings, and storyline are perfect; and no one can tell me otherwise (sorry friends). Also, they animated the frog scene, so I’ll be thinking about that for the rest of my life.
Toilet-Bound Hanako Kun Season 2: I wasn’t as into this season as I’ve been in the past. A HUGE story plot was dropped in this season, so I’m interested in the conclusion still… but this may get stalled when new seasons drop depending on what else is airing alongside it.
Spring 2025 Watch Party!
Without further ado, let’s dive into what looks good (to me) this season! Anime I’m most excited for are at the top, then they’re in alphabetical order.
One Piece: I’m a manga reader when it comes to OP, which means I only watch my favorite arcs in the anime. The upcoming arc is Kuma’s story, and if you are an OP fan, you know that Kuma is one of the most enigmatic characters to date. Reading this arc weekly was devastating because I wanted to consume it all in one sitting. I’m ready to have my heartbroken again but in 4K.
Fire Force Season 3: I was a huge fan of Soul Eater, and when Fire Force came out, I was immediately hooked. Aside from the compelling storyline, Benimaru alone makes the series worth watching.
Wind Breaker Season 2: I was unexpectedly shaken by season one. It's the wholesome, angry fight club energy I enjoy about working through toxic feelings, intersected with the growth of self-awareness and personal vs communal justice.
The Beginning After the End: I started reading this on Tapas soooooo recently. The beginning is adorable, but I’ve seen chatter about how insane this series gets. Solo Leveling type hype, so… I’m intrigued.
Okay, alphabetical time.
Descriptions are sourced from www.anime-planet.com when available! If you wanna keep up with me this season, you can follow me there.
Apocalypse Hotel: I’m a sucker for apocalyptic slice of life-esque anime. I don’t know much about this one, but it hits the right genre boxes.
“Set in a solitary hotel in Tokyo's Ginza district in a time when society has collapsed, humanity has disappeared, and nature has begun to reclaim most of the land.”Black Butler: Emerald Witch Arc: I was an OG Black Butler fan, so I can’t skip this one.
Jujutsu Kaisen: Kaigyoku/Gyokusetsu: I stopped reading JJK after the Shibuya arc. Things got messy and text-heavy leading up to the Culling Game, which made sense because A LOT was happening. That said, I’m still into the world and characters, and Mappa does an amazing job bringing them to life.
Kaiuru One Piece: It goes without saying… I’ll watch anything One Piece related. The Fan Letter wrecked me.
”In this meta parody series revolving around One Piece. Three high school students form an after school club dedicated to the series as they go through their mundane lives, which looks similar to the stories they read from the manga.”Lazarus: Delving into the world of healthcare, pharmecueticals, greed, and human well-being, I’m hesitantly excited for this one. The only reason it didn’t get thrown in the “most excited” list is because I’m a hit or miss fan when it comes to science fiction. But this one could be the one this season.
”The year is 2052 - an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity prevails across the globe. The reason for this: mankind has been freed from sickness and pain. Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist Dr. Skinner has developed a miracle cure-all drug with no apparent drawbacks called Hapuna. Hapuna soon becomes ubiquitous… and essential. However, soon after Hapuna is officially introduced, Dr. Skinner vanishes. Three years later, the world has moved on. But Dr. Skinner has returned - this time, as a harbinger of doom. Skinner announces that Hapuna has a short half-life. Everyone who has taken it will die approximately three years later. Death is coming for this sinful world - and coming soon. As a response to this threat, a special task force of 5 agents is gathered from across the world to save humanity from Skinner's plan. This group is called "Lazarus." Can they find Skinner and develop a vaccine before time runs out?”Summer Pockets: I am not sure how much slice of life I’ll get form Apocalypse Hotel, so this one made it on the list to fill that space. It’s got small town energy, a group of friends, quirky lifestyles, and possible conflict. So I’m in.
”Summer Pockets is set on an isolated, rural and peaceful island on the Seto Inland Sea called Torishirojima, which has a population of about 2,000 people. The protagonist is Hairi Takahara, a young man not native to the island. Hairi grew up in an urban setting, but after an unpleasant incident he uses the recent death of his grandmother as an excuse to come to the island to take care of her estate sale. Once there, he gets to know four girls who are the focus of the story. They include Shiroha Naruse, who forgot her summer vacation; Ao Sorakado, who is pursuing the legends of the island; Kamome Kushima, a high-class girl looking for a pirate ship; and Tsumugi Wenders, a younger girl trying to find herself.”Sword of the Demon Hunter: Kijin Gentosho: I love anything from the feudal and Edo Japan era. Add in demons and existential crisis? H’OKAY.
”In the Edo period, there was a shrine maiden called "Itsukihime" in the mountain village of Kadono. Jinta, a young man who acts as the shrine maiden's guardian despite being a stranger, encounters a mysterious demon who speaks of the far future in the forest where he went to defeat it. From Edo to the Heisei era, this is a fantasy series about a demon man who travels through time while continuously questioning the meaning of wielding a sword.”Your Forma: There is SO MUCH news, opinions, etc. surrounding AI. This anime takes AI concepts and explores what happens when we rely too heavily on convenient devices with a mysterious and powerful leading lady. I’m optimistically eager for this.
”In an alternate near future, the Your Forma, a miraculous “smart thread” technology initially developed to treat a massive outbreak of viral encephalitis, has become an integral part of daily life. But these convenient devices also record every sight, sound, and emotion their users experience. For Electronic Investigator Echika Hieda, diving into peoples’ memories via the Your Forma and hunting for evidence is all part of a day’s work. The problem is, she’s so adept at what she does that her assistants literally fry their brains trying to keep up with her. After putting one too many aides in the hospital, the top brass finally furnish Echika with a partner on her level, a brilliant yet cheeky android named Harold Lucraft. But can Echika put her prejudices against robots aside to solve the most complex case of her career?”
What are you watching this season?
I love chatting about anime. I pull inspiration from shows, episodes, scenes, and themes that speak to me, and this season is packed with way more shows I’m interested in versus the Winter list. Every now and then I host watch parties on Discord. If you’re an anime fan, let’s nerd out together ♡
Thank you for reading!
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In 2024, I self-published a book! After having my work featured in anthologies and textbooks nationwide, I took printing into my own hands and created bound evidence of my existence.
Content warning: this book contains the following triggers sexual abuse, sex and alcohol addiction, molestation, rape, miscarriage, domestic violence, emotional and mental abuse.
The Secrets My Skirts Keep is a love addiction poetry collection that takes the unturned stones left in one girl's past and flips them, exposing the filthy underbelly of sexual abuse, addiction, passion, and rage. We've all kept secrets that are too dirty to speak. We've all been strangers to ourselves. We stumble through life making the best decisions we can, and sometimes, even good people make bad choices. This collection of poetry and prose is a walk through time, personal space, and obligation; a exposition of the messiness of love.
This collection includes over 40 original poems featuring love, sex, addiction, abuse, and the lines we cross between humans as well as a list of poetry prompts based on individual pieces and themes.
You can read the description below:
I am a love addict.
Twelve-year-old me would read that and think “what a slut.” How can I blame her? She came from the you look prettier when you smile generation and grew up digging her nails into her dimples to hold her cheeks up.
That’s what happens when boys are boys.
For a long time, I refused to believe anything was wrong with me. How can there be anything wrong with love? Like fate, love comes with a line. You can twist and bend that line like a body. You can even convince the body that abusing it is love. It’s not long until the lines between love, abuse, fate, and the body become so blurred, there’s no way to tell them apart. After enough time, you can’t help but wonder:
at what point does one stop chasing love?
at what point do we stop needing it?
Review by Grey Coven Publishing
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