Pardon the Intrusion, I'm Home!

 Pardon the Intrusion, I'm Home! (ただいま、おじゃまされます!) is a 12 episode slice of life romance based on the manga of the same name by Watomura.  The series originally aired during the Spring of 2026.

    Nakama Rinko is a 20-something office worker who keeps to herself and hides the fact that shes an anime otaku.   One of her favorite shows is the Bunny and Cat Club.  She has found recently that if she watched other anime than that one her next door neighbor pounds angrily on their adjoining wall.  Her other neighbor, the kindly man named Satsuki Akito comes to her aid one day when he notices the disturbance.  He brazenly calls out the unruly person, hoping to put an end to the trouble they give Rinko.  Instead the neighbor angrily busts a hole in the wall to have a face to face confrontation with the person pushing against his aggression.  The unruly neighbor...nothing less than the other of the Bunny and Cat Club manga, Usada Haruma.  Rinko professes her worship of him as the creator of one of her favorite media franchises.  He understands this adoration and explains that he doesn't appreciate her enjoying anything other than his creation.  Satsuki can't stand by and let the belligerent manga author dictate Rinko's life and decides to step in to try and protect her.

    One thing leads to another and another hole is broken in the wall separating Rinko and Satsuki's apartments leading to Usada demanding that she cook all of his meals for him, in order to maintain his creative focus.  Unhappy with the abuse of power Satsuki has Rinko pretend that they are dating, so he can more easily keep an eye on the tyrannical Usada.  Satsuki fears that the author will take further advantage of his worshiper and wants to protect the innocent woman.  Yet, Satsuki himself has an ulterior motive.  After their casual interactions over the time they have become neighbors, he has begun to develop feelings for Rinko and hopes that this will give him an opportunity to win her over.  Usada is skeptical of the situation but continues to coerce Rinko into becoming a sort of assistant to him...on top of her actual job.  As the trio spend more time together the men begin to realize that they are actually battling each other for the same thing, Rinko's love and attention.  But what does Rinko want?

 The premise is fun but quickly it stalls and largely becomes devoid of development and progress.  For all of the primary characters being established adults and professionals, they sure act like teenagers in every aspect of their daily lives.  I quickly lost interest in the series a few episodes in and only completed it out of boredom, hoping that something would happen that would be interesting.  Unfortunately nothing really pans out and the minimal obstacles peppered in ended up posing no real threat to anything.  The only thing keeping Rinko from choosing her suitor or either guy being honest is their own unwillingness to change anything.  There were small windows into potentially deeper story, with the potential to create more development for the characters.  The most glaring is Rinko's childhood of what appears to be abandonment by the rest of her family.  Instead of this being used as a way to explore sadness in her, it is instead used as a way to really just explain her tendency to love being alone/otaku.  Though it does a little bit to show her sadness at being alone...but too little way too late.

    On top of the wasted space and time with the story just spinning its wheels for most of its run the artwork is a little bad.  Especially when it comes to Usada's parents.  Terrible terrible character design work.  The backgrounds and lived in space is also way to clean and devoid to deeper context.  In general, I was not really happy with this series.  It could have been a ridiculous comedy or a deeper story with some casual drama.  Instead it spun the same concepts again and again, refusing to push the characters into any sort of growth or progress.  Would not recommend honestly. 

The series was simulcast on Crunchyroll. 

Kirio Fan Club

 Kirio Fan Club (霧尾ファンクラブ) is a 12 episode romantic slice of life based on the manga of the same name by Ponchan Chikyū no Osakana.  The series originally aired during the Spring of 2026.

    Miyoshi Aimi and Sometani Nami are best friends who both have a deep infatuation with their classmate Kirio Ken.  His very existence fills their day with wonder and yearning.  They have decided to fight each other to see who will be the first to ask him out on a date.  Their game borders on problematic stalking as they do things like take selfies with his sport coat or write songs about loving his body parts.  Kirio doesn't really notice their existence, interacting minimally in class, largely with his friends Momose and Satsuki.  Realizing they need to up their game, to make Kirio notice them, the employee the expertise of their occult expert classmate, Manda.  Manda, uncomfortable with the sudden attention, begins to expose the pair to his arcane knowledge.

    Their supernatural approach appears to work as they begin to be brought into Kirio's small circle via Momose inviting them.  One thing leads to another and they gain access to Kirio via messenger, unlocking their chance to confront him with their feelings.  What they don't realize is that Kirio is living in a world of darkness and pain.  Prior to high school he watched his best friend die slowly from an unspecified ailment.  Since then Kirio has existed in a state of ennui as he struggles with his loss.  He has convinced himself that he has no right to be happy when his friend can no longer be happy with him.  The interactions he has with people are school are instigated by them, as he does the minimum to exist, contemplating whether he should continue doing so.  As the girls work at getting closer to him their blindingly loving friendship begins to work against their efforts as Kirio begins to resent them.

    This was my pick for the Spring Season of the podcast and I chose it based on the apparent insanity of the trailer.  I was anticipating something as unhinged as Asobi Asobasi.  What we got instead was a story about believable teenagers, focusing largely on their awkwardly flawed nature, as they exist in their own insular realities.  While Aimi and Nami's behavior and fascinations feel exaggerated, lets be honest, we all said similar dumb stuff while teenagers.  The characters being largely blinded by their own self interests is something that usually doesn't become a major factor in similar shows.  Until the very last minute, no one really knew that something was gravely wrong, something that is far to real.

    While I was disappointed the show was not insane and off tilt, what we got was a surprisingly real story about love, friendship and grief.   It was just masked under a thick layer of antics and comedy.  The artwork is probably the weakest portion.  I was not a fan of the character designs over all and there was a lot of simplicity to the detail work.  The series did the thing I greatly enjoy, facial features were over the top to enhance certain emotions.  One other negative aspect is that out main characters don't really see any growth through the story.  How we are introduced to them in the beginning is largely how we see them at the end, which is a bit of a shame, but it only has so much room I guess.  Honestly well worth the watch if you're a fan of slice of life romantic comedies and want something a little outside of the norm.

The series is available on HiDive. 

Ranma 1/2 Remake - Season 2

 Ranma 1/2 (らんま⁠1/2) season 2 of the remake is continuing with the manga by Takahashi Rumiko.  Season 2 initially aired during the Fall of 2025.

      The second season kicks off with the introduction of a character who barely made an appearance in the original anime adaptation, Gosunkugi Hikaru.  Gosunkugi is a loner occult otaku who is obsessed with Akane.  He decides to use his dark arts knowledge to remove Ranma from the picture.  In the process he discovers Ranma's one weakness, cats, and attempts to use that to destroy him.  Instead he unleashes a secret power that is the result of Ranma's cat trauma, the cat fist technique.  Unfortunately for Ranma he struggles to stay away from the felines, especially one in particular that is revealed to be Shampoo.  The amazon has returned, with her grandmother, and reveals that she was forced to endure training at Jusenkyo.  She was unlucky enough to fall into the spring of drowned cat.

    In addition to the two women, a man from their village, Mousse, has come to Japan as well.  He believes he is the true suitor for Shampoo and decides to use Akane as a foil in his efforts to defeat Ranma, hoping to use that victory to win Shampoos hand.  Too compound matters more, a friend from childhood shows up as another fiance, the feisty okinomiyaki chef, Ukyo.  She realizes how much Ryoga likes Akane and uses this as a way to get her out of the way so she can take Ranma for her self.  With all this insanity and scheming how will Ranma ever get the training in to return to being a full boy...especially when the master of anything goes martial arts begins to cause a problem in the city.

     The second season of the remake is a welcome continuation of MAPPA's fantastic vision for Ranma.  This season is packed with introducing all of the characters that will become permanent players for the rest of the story...however long they decide to keep it going.  But...from here on out things can tend to take on a repetitive position.  From the knowledge of the original anime adaptation, there is really no more important characters introduced and it becomes a series of similar plot lines revolving around martial arts competitions and schemes.  This season however, we are eating good!

     MAPPA continues to do fantastic work in breathing new life into this story, with high quality animation and well placed comedy.  Its great that almost all of the original cast has returned to do this series, some of who got their start with the original.  The third season was announced after season two ended and they chose an interesting way of promoting it.  It looks like we will be kicking off with the breaking point technique.  The trailer goes hard to present Ranma as a serious and dramatic story...but we all know its slap stick comedy, so it will be fun to see how they actually translate this story and how far the next season brings us into the manga.

This season and the first are available on Netflix.