Another update...
The Ancient Magus' Bride was as good as I hoped. I guess some more of it will appear in due course.
My Hero Academia was also fine, and a new season is under way which I'm happy with so far.
I didn't bother to finish Kino's Journey - it's not a patch on the original.
Black Clover continues, and is my guilty pleasure. It's complete nonsense, but really quite fun...
On to new stuff. I watched March comes in like a Lion, a story about a schoolboy who is also a professional shogi player (shogi is a game somewhat like chess). We are shown his progression, along with family and friendship issues, and a gentle hint of romance. There have been two seasons so far, and the story calls for more. Recommended.
Approaching its climax is Darling in the FranXX. I didn't start this when it appeared, because I saw poor reports of it, but later I was persuaded by a friend to catch up on it. Well, after a slow start, it gets to be quite a lot of fun, BUT... First let's get the perceived fan service out of the way: the FranXX (robots, if that's what they are - it's turning out they may be more like Evangelions) have proportions like exaggerated female bodies, and can only be piloted by a male/female pair, with the design of the cockpit placing them in a relationship which looks exploitative - but this is in the eye of the beholder, and it's up to you whether to find it offensive or satirical; there are hints at pilots trying gender reversal (worked) and two of the same gender (failed). But anything suggestive in this is trivial in the context of the whole, in my view. Anyway, the latest episode has just turned everything upside-down, and lays the whole series open to being accused of some of the worst pacing in recent memory, as well as some really dubious plot decisions, and excessively crudely inserted exposition. I shall watch the last four episodes, just to see, but on the basis of how things are at the moment, I have to say that I can't recommend this one.
The Piano Forest (Piano no mori - the Wonderful World of Kai) is a manga that ran from about 2004 to 2016. In 2009 there was an animated film of the first seven volumes (of 26 eventually). This film was superb, with magnificent animation, even of serious keyboard playing. An anime adaptation is currently running, and is nearly halfway through; it's been licensed by NetFlix, so won't be available in the West until completed, i.e. in the autumn. The story follows a boy, Kai, the son of a prostitute in a "red light" district, who has taught himself to play a grand piano abandoned in the forest behind his house. We start in when he is eleven, and another boy, Shūhei, transfers into his school and turns out to be a talented player, the son of a famous pianist. The boys become friends, and their friendship causes them to discover that their music teacher was once a famous pianist whose hand was injured in a car crash. Kai is shown to be a true prodigy, and the teacher takes him on as a pupil. The story is about the boys' rivalry, both in a school-level competition (where the film ends), and subsequently six years later in the Chopin Competition in Warsaw. There is a lot of serious thought about the nature of performance, competition, and rivalry; also about judging in competitions and the ways in which the result might get distorted (all the way up to pressure from international sponsors). The manga (also never licensed in English) is a compelling read, though some of the more extended descriptions of individual performances could be described as the graphic equivalent of purple prose! The film, I can obviously recommend. The anime is doing OK, but the animation simply isn't up to the level of the film; it'll do, though. They are, inevitably, leaving out some bits of the manga (they seem to have excised Kai's girlfriend and how they met entirely), which leaves me to wonder how they're going to fill out all the episodes with sensible pacing - but I'm hopeful they'll get it worked out. Recommended.
