Winter 2026 Season

Ikoku Nikki (Journal with Witch) Wasn’t planning on watching this one. Didn’t really look interesting to me. However, I needed to kill some time waiting in the ER and watched a few episodes. For a drama it was a lot better than I expected. If you’re an introvert, you’ll probably find the aunt’s family situation really relatable. As extrovert family members rarely understand their quarks. It’s also an interesting take on dealing with loss. The teenage girl seems to be handling it on the surface, but in reality she’s not. She’s subconsciously escaping and avoiding her emotions.

Yuusha-kei ni Shosu (Sentenced to Be a Hero) Still enjoying this one. I felt the goddess was kinda 'meh' at first, but now she's growing on me. The guy that keeps sentencing everyone. They kind of paint him as a creepy bad guy, but I don't think that's the case at all. Rather it seems like he's actually the good guy here. Why would you give your most dangerous enemies immortality? That is, unless you're building an army to eventually fight your own side.

I feel like we’re really getting some seriously trash writing this season. Are all the editors on strike? Or are they just competing to see who can make the most cringe episodes.

Geez... Such bad writing. You just solo'd a black dragon boss monster that none of us could defeat and was about to wipe a few dozen members of our guild. We want you to join us... But first, "Will you sacrifice your life for our guild?"... "No?! How dare you!!! You're not fit to join us!!" It went from a low-stress, friendly, casual guild. To super intense, swear to sacrifice your life for us... Who writes this crap? That in no way added to or enhanced the story at all. That whole scene was just a huge waste of time that did nothing for the plot and should have been edited out.

I know already said it, but geez... soooo much cringe writing... Random plots. No plots. Horrible lines. Characters with no depth or consistency. Filler scenes just to kill time that have nothing to do with the story. Random narration to explain the scene because they utterly fail to portray it with the art, voice acting, or the script. It feels like they decided to make this seasons anime out of a middle school writing contest.

Oshi no Ko S3 I had been saving this one to binge watch. The previous seasons were all really good. But alas, I got too bored and thought I'd sneak in an episode this morning... Now I'm on episode 5... I really didn't see that twist coming. I should have waited for the rest.

The top 5 “Scoring” anime this season. Scores averaged from multiple sites. 1st. Sousou no Frieren 2nd Season (Frieren: Beyond Journey's End) 2nd. Jujutsu Kaisen: Shimetsu Kaiyuu - Zenpen (Jujutsu Kaisen: The Culling Game) 3rd. Oshi no Ko S3 4th. Ikoku Nikki. (Journal with Witch) 5th. Medalist 2nd Season (wasn’t expecting that one to make the top5)

Oshi no Ko S3 I knew this anime had a fairly dark story line, but dang. They went from pretty lighthearted to pitch black so fast. Talk about an emotional roller coaster. Maybe binge watching it wasn't a good idea. You need the time in between the episodes to emotionally digest it... Sheesh... I need to go watch something soft fluffy and lighthearted just to bring myself back to an even keel