Otome Mob 1 - The 'reverse gender' politics aspect, and how it made the protagonist miserable, sounded/sounds a little red-pill-y at first glance, but so far at least, it just seems like a 'rich do whatever they want' just like more nobility/middle-ages power structure, only with the women establishing marriages/power lineage, rather than men.
We'll see if anything else actually comes of the gender 'reversal', as so far, it just seems that the girls are 'in charge' relationship-wise - I imagine that the little step-sister will be in charge of making the MC miserable, but the OP/ED make it seem like he somehow grabs the attention of both the 'otome villainess' and the 'heroine' both, so idk.
Him using a pay-2-easymode spaceship seems like an odd choice given his desire to quietly find a girl to marry and remain a 'mob'/background character, but that seems more evidently window dressing for his 'initial' backstory, at this point.
Kuroitsu-San's ending wasn't...amazing for me, but I enjoyed it in the sentai 'temporary team-up' sense.
Overall, the series felt more like a mish-mash of ideas rather than an actual plot a lot/most of the time, but I suppose that between discussing different office politics/day-2-day living, and the sentai 'monster/problem of the week', it made sense for what it was trying to do.
It maaaaaaybe could have been better served by having the last-episode be a two-parter, both to give it more time to breathe (it felt super-rushed), as well as to give it a proper 'to be continued' motif, but it was still aight.
Meanwhile, IDK why I watched it all the way through, but
Arifureta s2 was trash, but 'dumb fun turn-off-the-brain while exercising' trash that never reached the insanely bad S1 moments....save for his vaguely-adopted mermaid daughter asking skeevy-AF questions walking in on him and his vampire girlfriend in bed together, and asking about sex and the like, as well as insinuating she wants to join his harem/be with him when she grows up.
...Though them immediately ditching her after that (as well as her mom, who of course wants to ban the MC as well) in a 'let's forget that happened' kinda was a bit humorous.
There was zero sense of tension about the MC ever losing or getting beaten at all throughout the entire season, or heck, even trying to really 'pretend' there was even a chance he'd get hurt, aside from one clearly manufactured cliffhanger that still lacked any sense of a death flag.
I can't imagine this gets a s3, but I couldn't imagine it getting a S2 either, so who knows.
Marin-chan 4
I hope this show breaks out of the manic dream pixie girl thing soon.
I didn't particularly love that overwork was kind of treated as this weird inspiring thing? But also self-destructive, so I guess that's progress of a kind. I felt like the episode couldn't decide if the focus was on the communication fuckup or whether ganbare-ing through was good or bad
At the very least, the 'manic pixie dream girl' aspect becomes less....prevalent/noticeable, as Gojo comes into his own as a cosplay designer, and seeing himself in a more positive/self-confident light, and Marin has some development of her own that impacts how she interacts with Gojo to make her seem less.....of a trope.
IMO it's still there on some level throughout the rest of the season, if on a lessening degree as things progress romance-wise.
