Anime I Watched in 2025

A Ninja & an Assassin Under One Roof | 8/10

Fun, hilarious and off-kilter. I can’t believe they committed to the gag of introducing all these episodic characters with unique designs and character quirks then killing them as a cutaway punchline.

Chainsaw Man | 7/10

Finished watching Chainsaw Man in preparation for the movie in a few hours. It was fine. Not mindblowing or genre-defining (for me), but a nice 7/10 I guess. Not at all the tryhard grimdark gore show I expected it to be, or, well, at least not in the exact way since I didn’t anticipate it being so quirky. How they frame Denji’s character flaws is interesting too. Kinda feels like not much actually happened in the storyline across these 12 episodes though (bit of worldbuilding with maybe 3 big battles), and there are so many secrets and conspiracies swirling around so I’m definitely looking forward to more. Additional seasons would probably have made better sense than one of them arc movies, but I guess that’s just the meta now. There were some cool tracks, and I tried to pay attention to it after noticing that it’s a Kensuke Ushio OST, but idk even with my good headphones I feel like the music didn’t really pop. Maybe the sound mixing had it a touch too quiet, or maybe it’s a consequence of watching the entire cour in one day making me pay less attention. Who knows. With that said, I am left with the same feeling that action anime often give me, where I would have liked this ten times as much if it was just Denji and Power goofing off and being dumb the entire time. Take the final episode’s ED showing Aki, Denji and Power going on a walk to the grocery store and make it a proper cohabitation slice of life spinoff. I need it.

Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc | 8/10

After watching the CSM TV anime in preparation, I said that Reze surely would work better as part of an S2 as well. But now that I’ve seen it I think it benefitted from being a movie. Pretty enjoyable. I want more Chainsaw Man. Story-wise it’s effective in spotlighting Denji’s toxic approach to women, with how quickly falls head over heels for Reze, then later has no hesitation in saying that they should kill her to protect himself. I liked Reze herself as well. We didn’t have her for long, but that little moment of her mourning that she’d never gone to school either did make me feel for her, so it sucks to then watch her bleed out only moments later. It’s a shonen film so I didn’t expect her to last beyond this self-contained piece, but still sad. Animation-wise, I think Reze’s explosion barrages lend uniquely well to the overload of slo-mo, particle effects and impact-frames. Although these animation techniques are high-effort, sometimes I think can be a bit excessive, or too disorienting, with how they’re plastered throughout action anime films. But it suited really well here, witnessing how they kept pushing Reze’s effect animation further and further. The fight progression felt dynamic as well. That was something the film made me take conscious note of. I thought it was cool how it started close quarters, eventually went aerial to show off Reze’s true capacity, and then flooded the area so that Beam could really show off his shark nature. Yet then also Reze is experienced enough in combat to accommodate the shift in arena and fluidly switch into the depth charges. Reze’s powers were very cool with how she zips around through the sky or turns her legs into missiles for those catastrophic kick combos. She makes me think of Bakugo (MHA), who makes me think of Tsuna (KHR). This is good. As well, coloured explosions always bring to mind TTGL and that puts a biased smile on my face too. I think the OST stood out more here as well, though it was often hard to actually hear behind the absurdly loud explosions. I haven’t sat through the album yet, but based solely off the film my favourite track was probably Typhoon Devil. The section from 0:21 to 0:50 vaguely gave me Vectorman vibes.

Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone | 7/10

I do love where Dragon Ball Z eventually goes, but there’s something refreshign about coming back to the early days where Goku was using more distinct karate against demons.

Dragon Ball Z: Super Android 13 | 7/10

One of the more hilarious dubs. Self-aware and silly, accompanied by nostalgic DBZ action. It’s a fun film.

Fuuto PI: Kamen Rider Skull | 7/10

Look at me. Watching anime, in the year 2025. For some reason I’ve just really been hard-stuck for years now, where I worked like a single day in my life and abruptly lost fervour for a lot of my otaku passions. There are so many things I want to watch…but I just don’t. One of the most egregious examples being me watching seven episodes of Dirty Pair and seeing the makings of an easy 10/10…then just, like, forgetting to open the next episode for six years. Time sneaks by you so fast in these post-pandemic days. Making a concerted effort to cut down on my reddit & youtube time this year has benefited my time spent with games and manga, but trying to find the right mood and motivation to start tumbling down the anime aisle again is still a work in progress. I’ll watch five episodes of Dog Days and adore it…then forget about it for months on end. Rewatch 20 episodes of Urusei Yatsura and then…wait it’s been weeks now.

I enjoyed this film, but somehow also felt it dragged on quite a bit? Could have sworn it was two hours long while actually watching it. Perhaps if I had seen the series the world may have meant more to me. For what it did offer as a first-time viewer: Snappy, well-animated choreography and a great soundtrack. The watching experience is awesome, it is a real spectacle to watch the Riders out-karate their enemies. But some of the lamer elements of Kamen Rider’s writing as an annual show aimed at younger demographics do inevitably crop up. Like, as much as they try and paint it as earnest or endearing I still really don’t care about how much the duo love the city in which they live and how it becomes their point of connection. Dude, it’s just a city. Seriously who cares. The disassociative boy genius being morally beaten by a fixation on the hard-boiled masculine role model is the kind of thing you have to be in the right mood for, to determine whether it swings into heartfelt or cringe. But nevertheless, I enjoyed this film and it does push the Fuuto PI tv series ever so slightly up my (entirely frozen) backlog.

Kannagi (rewatch)

Fun.

Milky Highway & Milky Subway | 8/10

Incredible CGI and fun banter.

OKITSURA: Fell in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Know What She’s Saying | 8/10

Very cute show. I enjoy that Kana is just as much the perspective character as Teru, letting the show mostly frame its romance from her perspective instead. Because it’s all laidback daily life vibes, her crush on him feels very genuine. Usually when a show has a singular gimmick like this with its Okinawan culture shock & lectures, that gimmick would become grating almost immediately. But here it never got in the way of the me enjoying every episode.

Puniru is a Kawaii Slime 2 | 9/10

More Puniru. More goodness. Sorry lads I have actually become a Puniru-type seasonal anime viewer, wherein I only watch animes that is another season of Puniru. Very good. Gelee was an interesting shakeup to the formula. She was not at all the character I expected her to be; Horny, psychotic and with a few scenes that may genuinely constitute body horror. Fantastic addition to the cast, and the way her blind sexual obsession with Kotaro drives S2’s story for how the slimes relate to themselves and the world around them was way more compelling than I would have predicted. S1 was already a great gag comedy with Urusei Yatsura DNA, S2 takes that further by introducing Gelee as the two-faced Ran equivalent, then uses her for some genuinely hard-hitting emotional messages told through surprisingly scary imagery and a harsh treatment of its main characters.

Tis Time for ‘Torture’, Princess | 8/10

It’s a pretty cozy gag comedy with a nice art style. I enjoyed watching it.

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