#2025 fall

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[hardworkandguts]

Cat's Eye

キャッツ♡アイ

(Anime, 2025 remake)

Action / Crime by Tsukasa Hojo

Era: 2020s

Rating: B

Plot: During the day, the Kisugi sisters run the Cat's Eye cafe, but during the night they work as Cat's Eye, highly skilled art thieves who are recovering art by their father, Michael Heinz. Rui, the oldest, is the strategist, Ai, the youngest, works with the gadgets, and Hitomi, the middle sister, is the one who executes most of the heists. She is also dating her high school sweetheart Toshio, who has since become a detective, and was tasked with capturing them.

Length: 6+6 episodes (covered #25 to #30, #38 to #43)

Thoughts: On writing about the original show I mentioned how Cat's Eye was something ripe for a modern remake: it has three strong leads, there isn't much in the time frame beyond their 70s disco-aerobics catsuits and Toshio's haircut, and the format is loose enough it could fit in a couple of 12 episodes cours pretty easily - both manga and original anime were a bit repetitive, and you could condense the story into that in a pretty satisfying way, so I was happy when last year it was announced it would be making a return, although it was vague enough not to know if it was a movie or a show, traditional 2D or 3D animation. But, what matters is that they actually did it, and I can look at it.

The story is the same as described in the plot above and there really isn't much more else to it, it is a very straightforward and episodic manga, where three sisters work work as art thieves to recover the artworks of their father, one of them being in a long relationship with the lead detective on their case. The main difference in this adaptation compared to the original is including some of the characters that were missing, Toshio has the rest of the police squad, only mostly as secondary or background characters (and honestly, better that way) except Hirano, but most importantly Kamiya, a rival/ally of the Kisugi sisters (and would later become the basis of the design for Ryo Saeba) makes his appearance, correcting one of the biggest flaws in the original adaptation and meaning stories could be adapted much closer to the source material. It does not slavishly tries to recreate the manga, but mostly identifying they key parts in the story and giving the writers some wiggle room on how to reach those points. It does some bigger changes, one of the best examples being the episode where Toshio is chasing Cat's Eye and he and Hitomi fall on a cave, him with concussion blindness, she with twisted ankle, and it is used to the highlight some of the insecurities Hitomi has in their relationship - they were together long before Toshio decided to join the police and being assigned to stop her and his sisters, and while the manga has a few (maybe even too many) plots on that, in here it conveys much of those initial feelings in the same episode

Giving the writers some leeway also allows for some smaller things like modernising the show on some areas, a nice example of adapting things to the modern age is in Asatani's introduction episode, where in the manga she is deceived by mannequins (an animatronic in the anime) and a tape, in here it's a video call with a full motion capture gig with Ai posing as Rui and some pre-recorded video. Sure, in both it stretches credibility a bit, but it's not like this is a drama about art thieves or some very accurate hobby show, it's basically Lupin III only with three cute sisters in leotards. One thing that did got me thinking from shifting the time frame of the show from the early 80s into modern era is that Heinz was a child prodigy in the late Weimar/Nazi Germany era, and now, likely born sometime the 1960s, his contemporaries are people like Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Banksy, the gallery fire happened possibly around the time the whole world economy went poof in 2008. Better not think too much of that and turn off my brain, but I kinda think updating his work to be a bit less romantic would have been a nice touch. But, you know, overthinking.

On the negative side, the one thing that jumps to pretty quickly is the character design could have looked a lot better (not that the original was much better in that aspect). In some scenes in the first two episodes, it's hard to tell Hitomi and Rui apart not because they're sisters but because both are off. Ai sometimes looks out of a shoujo parody with eyes too big for her face. I know this was Hojo's first work and he was still figuring out his style, but after seeing their cameo in Shinjuku Private Eyes, where they are drawn to fit with modern City Hunter, it's hard not feel this as a huge step down. It looks the part on some scenes in isolation, but in motion the show feels a bit cheap. It improved on the later part of the first half of the season to the point it was still kinda cheap but no longer distracting and even started to fell more closer to a Hojo adaptation, but I really kinda feel the show deserved just a bit better in technical terms.

While I started with a very low opinion of it, even with a soft B I think this is the best way to enjoy Cat's Eye now, as the manga suffers from being somewhat repetitive and occasionally weird in a bad way and the original adaptation decided to cut so much from the source material it kinda threw itself into a corner. In the same way I ended the post for the original show wishing that it got a modern remake, I'll end this one wishing it gets a second season to wrap up the story.

Plus:

A more faithful adaptation

Introduction of Kamiya solves one of the problems in the original

Minus:

First episodes could look better

[hardworkandguts]

SPY×FAMILY

(Anime Season 3)

Spy comedy by Tatsuya Endou

Era: 2020's

Rating: A (previous seasons: S, A)

Plot: Tasogare continues Operation Strix with the help of Anya and Yor.

Length: 13 episodes (covered from #26 to #37)

Thoughts: As seen with the Ranma½ post a few days ago, these new season of a show posts are kinda hard to write when they maintain the same level of quality and continue the story of the previous season, not everything is Kaiju no.8. Yet, rewatching for first two seasons for their own post a few weeks ago in the middle of the season, I kinda felt the focus on more individual stories around each of the three Forgers this season rather than as a family was a bit of a step down, particularly how Yor is mostly absent at the start outside her own episode, although that comes in the context episodes 5 to 9 of the previous season (the cruise ship arc) were focused on her, and it restored some balance as the season went on, culminating with the most dangerous situation Loid had to face so far, along other highlights, such as explaining his backstory as a war orphan, a second avenue for the missions as Yor befriends Damians' mother and Anya getting her second Stella during her heroics in the bus hijacking and going full Double Starlight Anya to everyone's annoyance. And... you know, I had an whole paragraph saying how it would be unfair to say this is the worst (or, well, less good) season yet, but reading on what I wrote there's just not much to complain, there were a lot of fun moments, and on a continuity, this is pretty much the same show it always was, yes, maybe this should have ran for two consecutive cours where you wouldn't look at the fun one off stories and think "I want the story to move a bit", but looking at each weekly post made me realise the show had a bit of a slow start, but picked up the pace very nicely and ended in a good place: Tasogare, after being close to capture or death, and only saved by Fiona (who finally got a big moment) showing how much she cares, finds himself questioning if he lost a step, and looks at his family that is probably feeling a bit less fake at the end of every season.

There's not much else to add to the post a few weeks ago. It remains one of the best ongoing shows around, and with plenty to offer, from Anya, the humor it finds on the rest of the characters or the actual occasional spy shit.

Plus:

Great as always

Fiona getting her big moment

Minus:

First few episodes might feel a bit sluggish

[hardworkandguts]

A Mangaka's Weirdly Wonderful Workplace

笑顔のたえない職場です。

(Anime)

Workplace comedy by Kuzushiro

Era: 2020s

Rating: B

Plot: Nana Futami is a young shoujo magaka who got her first serialised manga thanks to her editor Kaede Sato, after years of rejection at the hands of her previous editor. Unfortunately for her, the pressure of deadlines for both the next chapters and preparing her first tankobon is not doing wonders for her mental state, even with her trusted assistant Mizuki Hazama making sure she does not enter a tailspin and turns everything in time.

Length: 13 episodes (covered from #27 to #39)

Thoughts: I like hobby anime, and Monochrome Days is a manga about making manga I've been following since pretty much the first chapter and covering regularly, so,you put in front of me a slice of life hobby anime about an overtly anxious mangaka that looks both cute and with a lot of good faces, and I'll probably watch it, which turned out to be a good decision. One thing that kind of concerned me early on was that it could end up relying on scenes of Futami losing her mind and freaking out a bit too much, but it did a pretty good job of balancing this with other stuff. While she's in a constant state of worry, it is ver much implied that the seriousness of her problems mostly exist in her head, and that creates a vicious cycle where she starts overthinking or gets paralysed after hitting a hurdle, and then the problems become real. Hazama often plays the "normal one" of the cast, although not without her own sets of issues - a popular online yonkoma author, she felt completely overwhelmed by the possibility of working in her own, preferring to work under Futami even if the bigger part of her job might be to bring her back to earth anytime she's spinning out of control, she's (at least in this point of her career) more comfortable doing that than having to deal with the sort of problems she sees Futami and her serialised friends go through. Futami's editor, Sato, is very much devoted to her but has a very tough time with some of the niceties of her job, like calling her and saying she did a good job, which contributes to part of Futami's insecurities early on, but her relationship with her really highlights the importance an editor has on the work of mangaka. The other two who complete the rest of the core cast are Shogi prodigy Touko Kakunodate, a properly polite and calm lady who acts as Futami's consultant anytime she has doubts about the inner workings of the shogi world and and Arisa Nashida, a former co-worker in their assistant positions who quit earlier than her after being picked for serialization, who is the complete opposite - often very loud, very very drunk, and who decided to very much move in with Futami after hearing the news her manga was being cancelled and feeling depressed about her future prospects, because as she points out, not having a series means she's unemployed, and being an unemployed mangaka might mean she needs to change careers. Did she ask if she could move in? Of course not, gremlins don't ask permission.

It's the kind of show I find a bit hard to talk about - Not knowing much about how the sausage is made (I mean, this is an hobby anime, so the mileage you might get from this depends on how interested you are about a handful of cute girls in the manga publishing business), from what I do know it feels a lot of what happens is believable: doing the proper research to make sure your subject matter is realistically portrayed, the stress from the constant crunch to turn in drafts and finished pages in schedule, the importance of editors to keep things going along, the recurring doubts about your own work, or how friendships are often formed with people who are in the same assistant gigs as you are, and much of the rest is just your usual cute girls doing cute stuff fluffiness, from Nekonote, the second assistant who's working remotely because she's a 16-year old shut-in from a different prefecture, Nagomi Hayachine, another former co-worker who made it big in the world of ecchi manga, and has maybe the best line in the whole show, "A fan wrote to me saying, all kinds of bodily fluids came gushing out of me", or Tatsunami, a rival editor to Sato. It's the usual can't-miss combination of personalities for a show of this type, it's not breaking any new grounds but sticking to a formula that pretty much guarantees a solid B in here, and while there isn't much to say about character design or in terms of animation quality (it's perfectly fine in both), it's a goldmine if you want reaction images. If there's one thing I would probably remark on, I wonder if there are some things lost in the adaptation - official descriptions mention Futami struggling with her weight, although that isn't even a plotline from half an episode, literally the cold open to the ninth episode just as an excuse she and Hazama can run into their second pet. Might pick up the manga later on, but I say this so often and end up not doing it I don't know who am I fooling.

So, what can you say about this workplace where you can't avoid smiling? It's a perfectly good workplace comedy / hobby show, nothing too spectacular but with loads of good faces. Are you looking for a good single cour show about cute girls working in the manga business? Well, here's one.

Plus:

It loves a good face

Generally funny and the episodes fly by

Minus:

Feel it might be one of those shows you watch, have a lot of fun but move on and not think about it again.

[hardworkandguts]

Ranma ½

らんま½

(Anime Season 2)

Martial arts romcom by Rumiko Takahashi

Era: 2020s

Rating: A (previous season: A)

Plot: Ranma continues to avoid cold water as his harem of fiancées grows one bigger, to Akane's perpetual annoyance.

Length: 12 episodes (covered from #26 to #37)

Thoughts: Well, ain't this a tough one to write when I'm not doing episode-to-episode comparisons to the original show or the source material, and don't want to repeat what I've said about the first season, and this might have well have been the back 12 episodes of a 2-cour show. So, because there's not much to say, this is pretty much an addendum to the post of the first season, where I did say I would have preferred this to be those 24 episodes at once.

Sure, there's the wet fart that is Happousei (funny how a show that has some of my favourite Rumiko Takahashi characters also has two that are immediate 2x speed let's move on, him and Dad Kuno), but in here he's limited to one episode rather than being the focus of too many episodes like in the original show. Granted, one was already too much, but if he was Rumiko Takahashi's attempt at calling out the "old molester sex pests" in both manga and real life, I'm not too sure the writers for the filler were aware of that and really liked him for some reason. On the other hand it introduces Ucchan who's one of my favourite characters in the show as she's the only character Ranma acts normal around, even if she can be as bad as the others, so, you know, taking the good with the bad. Characters aside, it's a season that put out a few very good episodes: catboy Ranma is always a strong choice for an opener, return of Shampoo as a catgirl and bringing Mousse behind, the delivery girl race, the introduction of Ukyo (and one of the most evil things Genma ever did), and the two-episode story that closes it, the others (excluding the Happousei episode) are generally good, so for the little it matters, I'm keeping the rating for this season.

Reiterating what I've said of the first season, the problem with the original Ranma½ adaptation isn't the first episodes, it's the final third with cheap, low production quality filler so we're still at the "good" part of the original show. At this point it's pretty much in the air if we're getting a third season, there's a few rumours about a March announcement so we'll see. Also in March, the adaptation of Rumiko Takahashi's Mao, the first debut of one of her works since Rin-ne in 2015 or so.

Plus:

If you enjoyed the first season, it's all back.

Minus:

You can still ask yourself if this remake is actually necessary, but it would be weird to start where the original adaptation dropped the ball.

This was supposed to be a 24 episode show, wasn't it?

[hardworkandguts]

Style of Hiroshi Nohara Lunch

野原ひろし 昼メシの流儀

(Anime)

Gourmet by Yōichi Tsukahara

Era: 2020s

Rating: B

Plot: Hiroshi Nohara, husband of Misae and father of Shin-chan and Himawari, is your typical office worker. Between endless meetings with clients, drafting new proposals and dealing with daily office life, he finds solace in getting the best meal possible for his meagre daily allowance.

Length: 12 episodes (covered from #27 to #37)

Thoughts: While I only have a passing familiarity with Crayon Shin-chan, mostly from catching a glimpse and thinking to myself "this is wild", I really like Wakakozake, a story about a office lady who after work winds down by finding a restaurant and having a quiet meal, and on previews, this looked like Wakakozake with Shin-chan's dad, but since you can watch the whole run of that show in roughly the same time it takes to watch a single regular length anime episode, it adds a bit more story and some characters to air two lunches in each episode. Instead of Wakako pairing the perfect drink for the dish she picked and look cute doing it, Hiroshi can't drink because it's the middle of the work day (although he wishes he could) but is hyper-focused on the details of choosing his meal, the order of eating each part of the meal including sauces to get the most of it, and he's occasionally joined by his junior at the company, Kawaguchi, and new hire Takagiri, who like Hiroshi is a proper foodie and even has a popular social media account. My favourite character, however, is Haruka, a college student who comes across Hiroshi a few times, and every time she's jumping to conclusions which get more extravagant the more time passes, I've mentioned I'd watch a show of her and her two friends and I'm sticking with it. While it might be the same show at heart, there's a bit more to it that allows each meal to take half an episode, even if they generally follow the same structure: It's lunchtime (sometimes we get a glimpse of what his morning at work was) and Hiroshi is going through his thought process of where to eat and then what what to order, then getting marvelled at the food in front of him, and going through his process of checking how each main and side-dish tastes like by itself and with condiments and describing in very much orgasmic fashion, and then it usually ties up the segment with the first part of the story. It's funny and extremely silly all around.

Visually, while there isn't much in terms of animation - this is at level with a flash cartoon,and where it lacks in actual animation it makes up for it with the incredible reactions shots. Keep in mind, while it looks, simple and basic, it's very well executed, and likewise, character design is solid for what it needs to do. Rather than the iconic doodles Crayon Shin-chan is known for, everyone here looks like a character for a PSA poster on the subway. All this is helped by having Toshiyuki Morikawa to voice the main character and he just runs with it, one of those I'd really like to see footage of a recording session. Finally, while the portrayal of food in anime is a decades-long tradition and every season it feels like there's at least one show the focus is on the food or having meals, the idea of using live-action footage of the actual dishes is a very fun touch, anime food obviously always looks better than it's real counterpart, but here not only the real food is presented in an almost instagram-ready fashion, it feels the anime version was drawn using it as a reference.

This is a show that proves you don't need to have fantastic animation for a comedy show as long as you don't make accidentally bad and have a VA carrying the show the way Morikawa does here. I'm not going to say it's a hidden gem or anything like that, Wakakozake, had it been a more fleshed out show, would probably get closer to it, but as a show to watch one episode here and there? You could do a lot worse, don't let the initial impression of being a very basic-looking show stop you.

Plus:

I was shocked to find how consistently funny this was.

Toshiyuki Morikawa carries the show

Please someone give Haruka and her friends a spin-off.

Minus:

While I'd like to see how this would look with more traditional animation, I also wonder if it would actually improve it.