If Isekai Slime has taught me anything, is that I need to be careful with heaping praise on a show that is only halfway done. While Slime started strong and had great moments, the remaining second half was never able to recapture those highs and overall seemed to meander to the finish line. I still like Slime and I love that first half, but I fear I should have held back my praise just a little bit until the whole picture was done. Yet once again I find myself in a difficult position because so far, Shield Hero has been an EXTREMELY fun ride.

In a sense, Shield Hero and Slime can be seen as sister series, in that both are adapted from light novels that are already completed, and both represent a standard Isekai experience but polished to a mirror shine. Yet while Slime was seemingly content in being the usual “shut-in loser becomes the god-king” story, Shield Hero opts to try something new within a familiar formula, and though Shield Hero has all the markings of standard Isekai, Naofumi’s journey has so far been different enough that it helps the show stand out.

While Shield Hero is not the Isekai break-down that has propelled ReZero to a masterpiece work (and a second season!) in my eyes, Shield Hero is at least not afraid to throw a bit of mud in the face of expectations among viewers. Naofumi’s struggles and how he deals with a nation who has turned his back on him are interesting (and controversial), but so far are things that have not been seen in mainstream Isekai anime before. His bitter attitude, to the point mannerism and overall distrust of everything around him, help set him apart from the myriad of other leads and helps paint a stark contrast between him and the other heroes, who believe that they are in a world that makes them gods.

Furthermore, the slow pace and “filler” episodes between waves have been excellent in building up character and atmosphere. Like Slime before it, having 25 episodes gives this show time to establish a world that too often other anime either ignore or blitz right through. The relationship between Naofumi and Raphtalia feels real as it can be in a show like this, with enough time spent building it up that it can feel understandable why she is so loyal to him. Both she and the adorable Filo are so far fun characters that help lighten up a show that could have just been Naofumi being an emo edgelord the whole time. Additionally, the show has a killer OST that feels lifted right from a golden age JRPG game, and the use of game mechanics feels built into the world and not something that was just thrown in there for kicks.

Now don’t let the anime opening trick you. The Devil Is a Part-Timer! or as I tend to mistakenly say: The Devil works Part-Time is not a drama or an action show. It’s a comedy, and it is probably one of the funniest anime comedies in years that doesn’t have to rely on fanservice. With great characters, a unique premise, and a heart-warming look at something almost anyone can relate to, we have an anime that is frankly almost good for its premise.

The premise itself is simple, we follow Sadou Maou and his servant Alciel who have fled their world after being supposedly defeated by the great hero Emila. Winding up in current day Tokyo, Sadou must struggle with new challenges like paying rent and bills the only way a demon lord could: working a fast food job.

Part-Timer is hilarious, absolutely truly fucking hilarious. Seeing Sadou and later Emila and the other characters have to deal with living in our world is such a genius and refreshing move in the Isekai genre, I’m shocked it has taken this long for it show up. While other shows have dealt with something similar, it has normally always been with one character and rarely ever the central point to the plot. Here though it takes center stage and benefits the show at every level. From things like Emila struggling up a set of stairs, Alciel refusing medical treatment cause he’s stingy with money, to Lucifer becoming a shut-in NEET is wholesome loving humor and the show plays it completely straight. Even better Part-Timer has one of the strongest English dubs around, with everyone bringing an A-game that one would have expected only from shows like Full Metal Alchemist or Attack on Titan. 

However, it is Sadou who runs away with the show and give it its heart. His sheer love of working at a Fast Food restaurant, his passion and an almost insane idea of “conquering the world by climbing the hierarchy at McRonalds” is played so well and because us viewers relate to his work, it makes everything only more funny, sweeter and more enjoyable. Look, we’ve all worked shitty “McJobs” once or twice in our lives, food service or not. The work is hard, pays little and there is no honor or accomplishment in it. So to see Sadou embrace something our society dismisses as “shit work” so warmly and with such love is a little ray of sunshine, even if Part Timer can be seen in a sense to be romanticizing the idea of flipping burgers. Special mention again needs to be made to Josh Grelle, who delivers his hands down best performance ever in a pitch-perfect casting as Sadou.

In a sense, Part-Timer can be read as an immigrant story, as Sadou, Emila and the rest are coming into a new world and experiencing the things we take for granted for the first time. While we have long since gotten used to things like fast food and turn our noses down at the work, Sadou and the others don’t have that, and they instead embrace it as a way to make money and simply live, even if their standard of living almost laughably sad. There are people in this world who come into the West and embrace jobs and things we have long since dismissed, and Part-Timer, while obviously not addressing the downsides of those jobs, seems to endorse that maybe flipping burgers isn’t the worst thing in the world.

Ohba and Obata’s names should be familiar to anyone who has been in the Shonen world for some time, as they are the writer and artist responsible for Death Note, long considered to be one of the best “gateway series” for people looking to get into the genre. Death Note’s impact on the Western fandom is significant and so it was a welcome surprise to see that both Obata and Ohba would be returning for new, very different series.

Bakuman is quite simply, a manga about making a manga, and it represents probably the most honest, open and revealing look into how Japanese manga is created, published and maintained. The story follows aspiring creators Moritaka Mashiro and Akito Tagaki as they navigate the cut-throat and work intensive life of creating a popular shonen manga series. Furthermore, Moritaka has promised his longtime crush, Miho Azuki that they will get married once his work becomes an anime, and she becomes the voice actress for the main heroine.

It’s a simple story, but it is also an incredibly interesting one, as again this is probably the only real look thousands of fans have gotten into an industry that is unknown to many outside of Japan. Instead of life or death villains, Mashiro and Takagi deal with things like meeting deadlines, difficult editors, creative differences, rival authors and balancing the intense pressure of being a serialized author. While there is a hint of a larger than life view of the manga industry being painted, and now and again the story feels it needs to create a “bad guy” for the sake of wrapping up a plot point, Bakuman is very much about the path of an artist, the dreams of youth and how you achieve them, and it’s very grounded look helps the series be as successful as it is. So your reception to the series is based very much in how interested you find a behind the scenes look into the manga writing world. This isn’t like Food Wars where the story doesn’t have enough confidence in just being a story about going to a cooking school and has to keep upping the ante. Bakuman is comfortable being exactly what it is.

However, the one major flaw (in my view) of the series that I feel I need to mention is that the overall storyline of the Mashiro and Miho romance. The start of the series paints them as innocent youths, who want to achieve their dreams and make a pledge to be together once they do. However as Bakuman takes places over years, chronicling their days in high school to their mid-late twenties, their plotline becomes more and more unbelievable as it goes on. The romance is pretty much forgotten for vast swaths of the story and only comes back right at the end of the series to wrap everything up. While that conclusion is fitting for the story, Bakuman very much falls into the same trap that other series have suffered from: The longer your story goes on, the stupider some of your plot ideas become. I had a very hard time suspending my disbelief that Mashiro and Miho would voluntarily choose to remain apart even after both of them achieve reasonable levels of success and that they are holding themselves to a promise made when they were kids. Is it a dealbreaker? Absolutely not, but during my time reading the series weekly, I found myself getting more and more frustrated and it remains a sore sticking point in what is otherwise an excellent piece of work.

Build Fighters doesn’t take place in a world torn apart by war with Giant Robots. It takes place in a future version of OUR world, where Gundam and Gunpla model building has taken the world by storm. People create their own Gundams from model kits and use a computer-based interface system (think Duel Disks from Yugioh) to battle as if they were actually piloting the suits themselves. It’s all the action of a classic Gundam series, with none of the collateral damage.

The concept for Build Fighters is so simple and so brilliant that I am shocked it took Sunrise this long to figure it out. Instead of trying to shoehorn a kid-friendly plot into the tried and true Gundam Formula of “Colonies vs Earth” they instead to toss it away completely for an easy to understand, and established plotline of what is essentially a sports anime. Instead of the same worn out plots that have been done to death in previous Gundam series, instead, we have ideas like friendly competition, the honor of battle, and gaining the confidence to fight and compete. If this had been a normal sports anime and not tied at all to the Gundam Franchise, it might have been seen as boring and done before. However because it is done with the Gundam brand, it feels new and exciting and probably represented the biggest breath of fresh air Gundam has gotten since the much-maligned (but now beloved) Mobile Fighter G Gundam, whose influence can be felt both in Build Fighters, and it’s sequel Try.

Additionally, and to its great benefit, Build Fighters is LADEN top to bottom with references, cameos, and callbacks to all the Gundam series before it. There are scenes where you find yourself pausing the camera to just take in all the characters from so many series in one scene or another. If you are a Gundam fan in the slightest, you’ll understand why many people call Build Fighters “Gundam Valhalla.” Considering that many characters throughout the Franchise often mean gruesome and sad ends, it is good to see them in a happier light here. Suit designs and famous Gundams are stuffed in one scene after another, and several of the main characters mechs are homages or personal variations of the lead Gundams from various series. Mobile Suit Gundams Wing, X, and Astray are given time to shine here where they might have not had it back when their own series was on the air. 

Special mention should also be made to the cast. While Sei and Reiji’s characters have been seen before many times in other anime, they are a first for the Gundam franchise, and they carry the story well. Female lead Aila  Jyrkiainen walks away with the story though, and her personality and play on the Gundam Trope she represents is as heartwarming as it is a light riff on something Gundam is infamous for (the mysterious female pilot love interest)

There are a few minor issues though, as there are for most series. The attempt to insert some mystery magic with Reiji never really pans out and feels like something the writers tried to do but decided to toss out halfway through. The music and opening themes are decent at best, and you might find yourself wishing for better suit cameos, but these are minor issues at best, which is surprising for a series such as this.