This was an exciting week for summer 2024 anime! Several of the series I’m covering here had extra intriguing episodes this time! I was most impressed with Spice and Wolf, Senpai is an Otokonoko, and Yatagarasu. I hope you enjoy my recaps and responses.

The following episodes were released between September 2nd and September 8th, 2024.

Article Contents

1. Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf
2. Delico’s Nursery
3. Twilight Out Of Focus
4. Senpai is an Otokonoko
5. Bye Bye, Earth
6. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Season 3
7. My Deer Friend Nokotan
8. Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master
9. Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin
10. Tower of God Season 2

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Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf

Episode 22: Church Teachings and Memories of Father

Episode Rating: 9/10

This was one of the best episodes of Spice and Wolf so far, in my opinion. This show’s lore has always interested me greatly, and I’ve always wondered about which gods exist in this universe and to what extent they are true to their descriptions. Until now, there have only been a few scenes discussing this. In episode 22, however, Elsa voices her doubt that the Christian God could exist, leading to some interesting discussion.

IRL, I don’t believe in any gods, but I love the idea of them in fantasy. I agree with Lawrence and Father Franz that in this universe, there is a god – originating from the Middle East – who had a divine son. Therefore, Christianity is “true” – but only to the extent that Jesus is one divine being among countless. The monotheistic claims would have to be false, and as Holo said, there would be no reason to believe that any one god created the universe. In other words, a Christian God probably exists, but is not the master of all things.

This discussion was what I loved most, but the rest of the episode was good, too. Lawrence and Holo tricked Elsa into letting them into the church and admitting that it was one and the same with the mysterious Abbey. Holo revealed her ears and tail to Elsa, so she would believe that pagan gods exist. After she calmed down, Elsa led Holo and Lawrence into a secret basement under the prayer room. Inside were letters from Father Franz as well as many books of knowledge – including pagan lore.

Elsa gave permission for Lawrence and Holo to read through the books for the information they needed. After many long hours of reading, Lawrence discovered a book about the bear god with some notes from Father Franz. Just then, the village leader and a bunch of people with sticks made their way into the church. Sem, the village leader, stated that someone from Enberch died from eating wheat grown here. This means Enberch’s support for Elsa’s church is probably canceled. The episode ends on this intense scene.

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Delico’s Nursery

Episode 5: The Second Nursery

Episode Rating: 8/10

Dali and his teammates have gone into hiding after the leak of information about the Vlad Agency. Six members of the agency have now been killed by Pendulum. One Vlad member refuses to go into hiding: Lord Umberton, the second in command of the agency. Thus, Lord Johannes orders Dali and his group to visit Umberton and talk some sense into him. Meanwhile, the children are staying with the old nanny (whose name I still don’t know) in her house.

While they are at Lord Umberton’s, Dali and company were attacked by the five members of Pendulum. Keith captured Lord Umberton and prepared to bite him, predicting that his initiative would be stronger than Lord Johannes’ order to not talk about vampire secrets. Before he could be bitten and commanded, Lord Umberton took his own life, citing his vampire pride as the reason. Pendulum retreated after that.

The episode ends with the nanny calling the children for dinner, only to find the play room completely empty. Where are the kids? In addition to this cliffhanger ending and some decent action sequences, this episode dropped a little more lore. Vampires are most erratic when they are in their “cocoon phase,” which seems to be the rough equivalent of human teenage years. Keith is obsessed with the idea of an eternal cocoon phase, so he frequently gets high on drugs to achieve the effect. There’s still a lot we don’t know, but I’m excited to keep learning!

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Twilight Out Of Focus

Episode 10: Promise Me This Is Forever

Episode Rating: 8/10

Yoshino and Rei finally start dating more sincerely in this episode. After the movie shoot, Yoshino snuck away with Kirito to have a secret talk. Then it seemed like Yoshino stopped paying much attention to Rei. The older boy wondered if he’d been dumped. He asked Jin for advice and received encouragement to keep trying. Thus, Rei ran off in search of Yoshino. He found the younger boy at another film club movie shoot.

When Rei asked if he was being dumped, Yoshino said no. He was just busy with the new project he and Kirito started: filming a movie for the first-years in the film club. Rei made it clear that he wanted to seriously date Yoshino from now on. Yoshino was happy to accept this. Later, the two young lovers shared a sexual experience in Rei’s room. Yoshino also showed Rei his book of poems, which helped the two of them bond more. Good episode.

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Senpai is an Otokonoko

Episode 9: Christmas

Episode Rating: 9/10

Wow, what a heavy episode! I’m surprised I didn’t cry at the emotional moments, but regardless, I think those moments were excellently written and executed. To recap, it’s time for Christmas Eve, often considered a couple’s holiday in contemporary Japanese culture. Saki is alone, without a partner or even any family. On her way home, Saki saw a woman in a taxi who looked just like her mother. She ran after the car, but of course, couldn’t catch up. While running, she tripped and reopened the wound on her knee.

Fortunately for Saki, she was not meant to feel alone for much longer. Makoto saw her on their way to Ryuji’s. Saki tried to act cheerful, but failed. The cut on her knee was very obvious. She broke down cried about how her mother didn’t notice her. Makoto then embraced her and said, “I’ll always be there for you” – just as Ryuji came around the corner looking for Makoto. Neither Makoto nor Saki caught sight of Ryuji. He went home feeling extremely depressed.

The next day, Ryuji and Makoto went to see Saki. Makoto had mentioned that Saki was really down on Christmas Eve. The two boys took Saki to a beautiful mountain hike at night. The starry skies were quite a sight to behold. It was very sweet and wholesome to see Makoto and Ryuji go out of their way to help Saki. I think she will be alright as long as she stays open with these two dear friends.

The last section of the episode shows Ryuji on a day-date with Makoto. After they watched a movie – and held hands for a few minutes – Ryuji finally stood up and said “Let’s end this.” He wants to break things off with Makoto because he feels like Makoto is disgusted by him. (Earlier, when Ryuji hugged Makoto in his sleep, Makoto instinctively recoiled and said “Stop it!”) The episode ends with Ryuji faking a smile to hide his heartbreak. To be continued.

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Bye Bye, Earth

Episode 9: Silence of Keys Unplayed

Episode Rating: 7/10

Content Warning: Sexual Assault (briefly mentioned)

Here we go again. Another episode of pretty animation, great audio, and absolutely incoherent plot. I have little idea what happened, and trying to understand the dialogue is a joke, but I’ll recap what I was able to comprehend. Belle goes to see the two-headed King to become a Nomad. She finds herself standing beside a piano. If she can play the magical instrument, she will be granted the right to leave on her journey.

Unfortunately, Belle fails the test. The King tries to make her swear to stay here forever, but Belle refuses, saying she will try the test again another time. After Belle leaves, Adonis rushes into the throne room, kills the King’s guards, and demands to know the answers to his many questions. The King actually answered most of the questions, but I didn’t follow most of it. The main thing I understood was that solists souls return to the Divine Tree after death and must spend eternity serving Dues Ex Machina. That means Tir and Tiziano are there, as well.

Adonis tries to play the piano to earn the right to escape from this cursed land. However, like Belle, he can’t play the instrument. Despairing, Adonis comes home to Belle and asks her to cut him down so he can die. Belle refuses. Adonis then proceeds to sexually assault Belle, and probably would hae done more if Kitty hadn’t showed up and chased him away. Outside the city, Adonis disappears into a strange red mist.

I wasn’t prepared for Adonis, who I genuinely liked, to do something so awful to Belle. Besides liking cat-boys in general, I also love the concept of a character who dares to doubt god and ask questions in a dystopian world. His curse was also interesting to me. But now it’s harder to like this character. Although I don’t think he deserves forgiveness, I still feel for Adonis and hope he doesn’t become the villain of this story.

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That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Season 3

Episode 21: The Martial Arts Tournament

Episode Rating: 8/10

This episode was simple, straightforward, and very enjoyable. The preliminaries for the fighting tournament were held on the first day, and now that it’s the second day of the National Festival, it’s time to see the contestants face off. The matchups were fairly interesting. We saw the leaders of the Equinoid and Bovoid monsters duke it out. (The bull won, but it was close!) Carrion appeared to fight in Milim’s place – disguised as “Lion Mask” and not fighting at full strength.

I was rooting for Geld the High Orc, as he is a sweet and underrated character. Unfortunately, he lost to Lion Mask. Ultimately, the two winners of the second day were Gobta and Masayuki. Tomorrow, on the third day, they will battle each other. Rimuru acknowledges Gobta’s talents, but he feels skeptical that the little goblin can beat the Lightspeed Hero. Then again, Masayuki has yet to draw his sword. He’s been winning by charisma alone so far. We’ll see who wins next week!

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My Deer Friend Nokotan

Episode 10: Blame it on Spring

Episode Rating: 7/10

The first section of the episode was about Nokotan’s seasonal allergies hitting really hard in the spring. At one point, so infuriated by the cedar pollen, Nokotan said she would blow up every cedar grove in Japan. There was also a mini episode about Nokotan going to the flower arrangement club, which was fairly amusing. I especially liked when Nokotan pulled the guitar out of her head.

The last section was about Bashame finally planting her fields of rice with the help of Tsucchi. Anko made riceballs for them to eat afterward. Bashame is cute and funny, so I was happy to see a little episode about her. I have a feeling her rice patties will be ruined in some future shenanigans, but I’m glad she’s doing what she loves.

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Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

Episode 18: The World Outside

Episode Rating: 9/10

This episode revealed a major plot twist that some viewers have doubtlessly seen coming for a long time. As for me, when it comes to guessing anime plots, I’m very dumb, but I’m okay with that. It makes everything more exciting when I have no idea what will happen. So anyway, this episode revealed that humans exist. Not only do they exist in the world outside Yamauchi, but they were the original humanoids. The Yatagarasu learned to copy their appearance for reasons as yet unrevealed.

Here’s what’s going on. Yamauchi is a small, enclosed world protected by the Kinu’s magical boundary. Humans and modern civilizations are in the outside world. The monkey people live in the spaces between the outside world and Yamauchi. Humans who wander into the monkey domain are preyed upon and reduced to bones like in the cave we saw. Some of the monkeys have also found their way into Yamauchi and were happy to discover the Yatagarasu, with their humanlike forms. More food!

The monkey people entered Yamauchi through a tear in the boundary near the capital city. They got into the Ravine underworld and started blending in. From there, they fled to small northern towns like Taruhi and made a blood sport of hunting Yatagarasu. However, since the monkeys seemingly cannot talk, they needed help to migrate to the north. So they made a deal with a Yatagarasu mediator: Jihei, the father of Koume. In exchange for helping the monkeys move around, Jihei was paid in the form of sagecap, the illegal drug, which he then sold around the Ravine.

The mystery of sagecap was also solved in this episode. The addictive elixir is made of small amounts of human bones. Now that all of this is known – thanks to King Saku – Jihei is a wanted man, and those close to the Prince continue looking for the monkeys. At the end of the episode, we see Jihei strung up in the middle of a town, presumably dead. We’ll have to wait till next week to see how he died and who orchestrated it. That was a crazy episode, but I loved it.

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Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin

Episode 10: Comeback

Episode Rating: 8/10

Sakuna feared that everyone was dead, but Tauemon found her and led her to where he and the other humans were hiding. Sakuna was relieved, but there was still no sign of Kokorowa. Tamaji tried to convince Sakuna to flee to the Capital, and she was close to doing so anyway. However, she decided to stay on the island because of her love for the humans and the fulfilling life of growing rice. Just then, Kokorowa reappeared. She had been hiding in the ship offshore. Everyone was safe.

After the storm passed, Sakuna and company began the daunting mission of starting over again. They would need to gather wood to rebuild the houses and clean the fields of ash so new rice could be cultivated. Kokorowa and Sakuna took a brief trip back to the Capital to obtain a magical fruit called the Orb of Transformation. They brought it back to the island and used its power to speed up time on the rice fields so that the soil got healthier at a faster pace.

One day, Kaimaru went missing. Sakuna, Tama, and Tauemon went to look for him. They found him in a cave giving food to a wounded demon rabbit – the same who led the other demons to the pass, resulting in the loss of everyone’s homes and fields. Sakuna got angry and almost killed the demon rabbit, but she stopped at the last second. She decided she didn’t want to be hateful. Instead, she blessed the demon with forgiveness and told it to live a better life.

The demon rabbit transformed into a normal rabbit, and Kaimaru was so grateful and happy that he remembered how to speak for a minute. He thanked Sakuna for her beautiful act of kindness. Unfortunately, the rabbit was immediately slaughtered by Ishimaru, who appeared in the mouth of the cave with sword in hand. To be continued.

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Tower of God Season 2

Episode 10: The Hand of Arlen

Episode Rating: 7/10

An information broker in the Tent City told Kang he could find Cassano at the Hand of Arlen – the remains of a giant statue and surrounding ruins just outside the town. Kang hurried toward the colossal Hand, only to be attacked by Ran and Novick, who assumed he was the Devil of the Right Arm. Kang narrowly avoided defeat by following Cassano’s voice. Then Cassano jumped out of hiding to help fight Ran and Novick.

Meanwhile, Viole decided to go after Kang and bring him back to the group. He needed a Lightbearer, so he hired the information broker from before – a pretty girl who was hiding rabbit ears under a red hood. That rabbit girl set everything up in order to assassinate Khun in the ruins. A snake/man creature tried to kill Khun while he was unguarded, but of course, the royal boy outwitted the foe. He defeated the snake and knocked it unconscious.

Now, as Viole and the rabbit girl head toward the Hand of Arlen, Kang and Cassano are fighting for their lives against Ran and Novick. If Khun also hurries to the Hand, then he might finally meet Viole. As usual, this episode had great battle music. The actual combat scenes were less impressive than the epic audio, but they were still adequate enough. I hope Viole and Khun are reunited in the next episode. We’ll see!

~Thanks for reading~

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