Glad you came to visit at Anime Rants! Before jumping right into the episode reviews, let me make a quick note. This season, I have also started watching Horimiya and so far I love it! I don’t have time to add it as another weekly entry, but at the end of the season, I will post a series review for Horimiya. All that aside, here are the seven anime series I’m covering!

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Attack on Titan Final Season

Episode 5 (64)

In AoT, Reiner and Eren talk underground while Willy Tybur’s play goes on above. What Willy reveals is the truth about King Fritz and his decision to stop war and keep the titans confined to Paradis. But since now Fritz’s plans were destroyed by the revolution in season 3, Willy is announcing war on Paradis. The whole episode was tense, leading up to the moment where Eren transforms into the Attack Titan, making the first strike in the war.

Interestingly enough, Eren admitted he is just the same as Reiner. He insists that he, like Reiner, had no choice but to cause carnage to try to protect his people and “save the world.” Reiner confesses that back then, his motivations were selfish. He takes the blame for killing everyone in Wall Maria, begging for Eren to kill him. Even then, just before transforming, Eren restates that he is no different from Reiner. It was a heavy episode indeed.

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Beastars 2nd Season

Episode 2

It was a thrilling episode of Beastars! We got to meet Rokume (Hexeye) the snake security guard, as well as watching Legoshi begin his attempt to solve the mystery of Tem’s murder. In the last five minutes or so, the scene changed majorly to the black market. It was revealed that Louis is the new boss of the Shishigumi (Leo Group). To be honest, I don’t understand Louis yet or what he is trying to accomplish. It’s certainly food for thought. Anyway, I enjoyed everything about this episode, and I like the direction the series is taking.

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That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime 2nd Season

Episode 1

I enjoyed this first episode, but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Rather than having an arc focused on Rimuru teaching the kids, it skips ahead to where Rimuru has just finished his time as teacher. The next thing on the agenda for the nation of Tempest is to work on foreign relations. Specifically, they must meet with delegates from the nation ruled by a Demon Lord. Youmu and his companions, the heroes, show up to visit Rimuru just before the negotiations.

Once the delegates arrive, there is conflict at once. Shion the horned lady fights the tiger-like lycanthrope from the demon country. Youmu fights another lycanthrope, one of the Demon Lord’s top three ranked generals. It seems like the fights are relatively supervised and without an air of hatred. So once they have fought it out, they should be able to talk together normally.

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Re:Zero 2nd Season (Part 2)

Episode 15 (40)

Alright, so. This is my favorite episode of Re:Zero so far. I really like Otto, and I also love characters who can talk to animals, so the combination is fantastic. Otto did extremely well dealing with Garf, and it was great that Rem helped out. I was surprised by how intense the argument was between Subaru and Emilia. The dialogue was really good. There were definitely some moments where Subaru said stupid shit, but overall, he did extremely well making Emilia believe him. The kiss was so sweet. I still don’t know why Subaru broke his promise to Emilia, but it seems like he has some reason. We’ll see next week.

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Dr Stone: Stone Wars

Episode 1

Dr. Stone is back and as usual it’s a bit childish in themes and content. Honestly I find it refreshing sometimes to have a more kidsy anime on the list. I love the characters in Dr. Stone as well as the pro-science perspective, so I’m quite happy that we get another season. Senku and company made dehydrated ramen to serve as light, easily packable supplies for the upcoming mission. Ren came up with a plan to trick Tsukasa’s army into thinking that the world hasn’t ended and American forces are on the way to restore order. With this plan, the supplies, and the cell phone devices, the group is finally ready to carry out their mission.

My favorite moment in this episode was when Senku said, “Don’t worry; God hasn’t been present in science for ten billion years.” For an atheist with a background in biology, this was delightful to hear. Imagine if a character said that on a kid’s show in the United States! I hope that one day, such a thing will be allowed. Good episode all around.

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Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – Gou

Episode 15

This was easily among the top 5 most disturbing episodes of the Higurashi franchise. It was disgusting, upsetting, and of course, thrilling as hell. We had to watch Rika (and various friends and villagers) die four times in a row. This means that Rika will only try one more time. But despite the discomfort of so much death at one time, this episode and its various worlds provided important clues as to what the fuck is going on.

Here’s what I think. For some reason, the Hinamizawa Syndrome changed so that it can infect anyone anywhere in the village. It is also likely spreading among villagers. This is very similar to what we saw in the OVA Higurashi Outbreak. The question is, why would the disease suddenly change? It could be natural evolution, but since this is by and large a supernatural type of anime, there is almost certainly another reason. It could be that Takano took different actions in these worlds, but there is still no sense in infecting random people. Another possibility is that Rika has somehow lost the ability to keep the disease in check with her “Queen Bee” power. I’ll keep thinking of ideas and theories while I wait for next week’s episode!

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The Promised Neverland 2nd Season

Episode 2

This episode has already raised my appreciation for The Promised Neverland immensely (not that I didn’t like it before). I have waited for so long to see something like this: an anime that perfectly handles the issue of killing animals for food. At Emma’s request, Sonju taught her how to hunt. It was very hard for Emma to take a life, but she did it, and with all the respect that was due. I think it’s important for all meat-eating humans to respect the life of an animal that they are taking, including indirectly. We also, as a society, should consider the ethical depravity of large-scale factory-farms, particularly when we don’t need nearly as much meat as we like to eat.

Anyway, the two demons are Mujika (female) and Sonju (male), and they refuse to eat humans due to their religion. They are considered heretics by demon society. It seems that religion is very important among demons, evidenced by the traditional execution method using the Gupna flower. (Or rather, it once was important. We saw sister Krone mercilessly pierced through the heart while still alive, and there was no sign of respect concerning her life.)

This episode was also great because it revealed the truth of the world to the children. Though the world is as Emma said, the worst case scenario, there is another world to hope for. The goal of Emma and Ray is now to save all the children from the farms and find a way to cross into the human world– the promised Neverland. There are a lot of interesting implications to the information we received. I’m more excited and more in love with this anime now than ever!

That concludes this week’s episode reviews! Thank you so much for reading and please take care! 🙂

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PATREON