❚ Summer 2025
Watchlist clearing time
Pet Shop of Horrors (ペットショップ・オブ・ホラーズ)
A bunch of weirdos get their karma served in odd ways.
An horror anthology series, sadly too short but enough compelling to enjoy, won't go into each plot covered in their episodes but the general theme is someone has fucked up bigtime, their seek a "pet" to fix that wrong but nothing ever goes right afterwards, karma comes knocking on this person's door and episode ends. The pet shop owner is cryptic and mysterious in a way that serves the story's purpose, you just assume he knows everything all along and he is just an enabler for these weirdos.
Malice@Doll (マリスドール)
P-pinocchio and "There will come soft rains" but prostitutes in a humanless world(?)
Malice, a robot sex worker and their colleagues live in their underground district, their bodies ache with rust and they complain of the oil running out for them, them and a myriad of other robotic workers are the only ones left in the surface of the earth, one day Malice wanders off into a new room, only to find an entity who attacks her, Malice wakes up figuring out it was a "dream", only to realize she became a person, of flesh and blood.
This OVA messed me up for a bit, between the explicit sexual bits and the flesh robot horror animated in this PS2 cutscene quality, I was thinking of it for a while, also showed it to my friends so they can be traumatized as much as me, lol.
Jigoku Sensei Nube (地獄先生ぬ～べ～)
A show that exudes 90's style, a simple plot with a villain of the week situation, goofy characters and dated dialogue at times
Just like the Madoka Magica situation, this show was announced to have a new version around this time, prompted me to look up the original one which was once broadcasted through national channels here, I was intrigued enough to see it up until the end, not because I was entertained but because I never saw the ending of it when growing up.
Nueno is your hero, a teacher who oversees a class in highschool to which their members get in paranormal troubles, ghosts and other otherwordly phenomena hang around the building, all of them get their ass saved by him, and he can thank he demon hand that makes him look cool when it needs to.
I did end up watching the new one for a bit to which I got tired really fast and continued to watch the old one for commitment, including their OVAS and movie.
Belladonna of Sadness (哀しみのベラドンナ)
A woman trades suffering for knowledge and independence in a world that fear people like her.
Recommended through a tiktok, watched it one sitting (it wasn't too hard, their visuals get you hooked), the joke that it's better enjoyed while high it's a bit disrespectful of what it achieves, it's an interesting work which embodies the visual style of the time (1973), tells a crude story that still holds up to today of a woman who wants to be free from the burden the world puts on her, sending her in a spiral of self discovery but taunted by literal demons in the process.
Takopi no Genzai (タコピーの原罪)
Traumatized childhoods made worse by a pink blob who tries to fix everything with magic
Takopi is a pink blob alien from another world who has been exiled to earth for their stupidity, and in their attempt to fix the life of these two girls they end up inflicting more pain to each other, showing the deeply flawed people who raised them and the world who ignores their suffering.
After Malice Doll I wasn't gonna be surprised by this one, but this show is crude in it's own way, this is not for the teens or anyone who might have encountered in their life abuse like the one depicted in it, this show needs to show several warnings of their violent nature before starting each episode, for the better of their audience.
Lazarus (ラザロ)
A show that's all style and substance, but not even the style was even good, shinichirou watanabe only knows how to do one thing and nowadays that's not enough.
The season's big disappointment, a group of talented, skillful folks who also are outcasts of society, to which their lives get forcefully entwined in order to find a doctor who created an all use painkiller without apparent side effects, everyone abuses of it, the guy resufarces to say it actually gonna kill society if they keep using it.
Not even the first episode it manages to land any meaningful impression, the characters are different flavors of the cast of Cowboy Bebop, it's so funny how in interviews they mentioned they didn't want to copy the already existing tropes of the show but they didn't even try. The characters don't have meaningful development, the stakes are high but you kinda know no one is gonna really die and society won't collapse in the end.
Please retire Mr.Watanabe, the world doesn't need your stories.