Is this lap pillow not to your liking?

When I started watching Dr. STONE and Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu (Re:ZERO ‑Starting Life in Another World‑) in 2019, it didn't really occur to me that I would still be following both shows seven years later. If my arithmetic is correct, Dr. STONE will finally finish this season with nearly 100 episodes. That, of course, assumes it really will end in the next two episodes. That hardly seems possible, so perhaps we can expect multiple epilogue-type specials in the future, or maybe we'll just have to deal with lots of loose ends. I dunno.

Nearly any screenshot from a recent episode will include spoilers for earlier seasons.

I see the current (fourth) season of Re:Zero listed as being 19 episodes, but I'm unsure if that means it will continue airing during the Summer 2026 anime season or if we should expect split cours. In any case, that will bring its episode count (minus the shorts) up to 85, but with the source material still unfinished. In fact, as I understand it, both the light novels (which the anime is adapting) and the original web novels are still ongoing. (I'm not sure how to reconcile this, but I assume it makes sense to regard the web novels as a first draft and to treat the light novels and the anime as canon, if you care about that sort of thing.)

I'm starting to like Shaula.

Thankfully, I continue to find both Dr. STONE and Re:Zero entertaining. Although Dr. STONE has been doing the "any sufficiently advanced logistics, production capabilities, and resilient supply chains are indistinguishable from magic" thing for a long time now, it still manages to continue including the elements that I like most about the series. With regard to Re:Zero, it's now back to CRAZY SHIT HAPPENING again, as it is wont to frequently do amid swings from calmer stretches that establish lore and develop backgrounds or whatever, and bouts of high-tension, stressful scenes. Sure sucks to be Subaru sometimes.

They actually do like each other. P.S. Spoilers.

Ponkotsu Fuuki Iin to Skirt take ga Futekisetsu na JK no Hanashi (The Klutzy Class Monitor and the Girl with the Short Skirt) is one of those school comedies where most of the characters are caricatures. If you watched Komi-san wa, Komyushou desu. (Komi Can't Communicate), it's sort of the same idea, although Ponsuka doesn't take things to quite those extremes. A lot of the characters have exaggerated attributes, though, and those quirks end up taking the place of actual personalities. It's not an objectionable arrangement, and it should work fine for a romantic comedy, but I can't help but think there's something missing from the execution.

These two are basically just tropes.

Specifically, the series has mostly been just sort of okay, with no obvious faults that bother me. There's certainly no issue with the production values or the level of effort displayed all around. If I had to pick something, I guess the comedic timing probably isn't lining up quite right, but that's just a guess based entirely on vibes with no fumbles I can readily identify. I'm not familiar enough with the source material to judge if there are any issues with the adaptation, either. In any case, Ponkotsu Fuuki Iin to Skirt take ga Futekisetsu na JK no Hanashi has been good enough that I'm going to finish out the season, but there's no guarantee I'll still remember anything about it in a few years down the line.

Can you believe there are problems that can't be solved with violence?

As I've previously observed, it seems I sort of developed a taste for villainess-themed anime in general at some point. This interest now apparently also extends to shows that are merely villainess-themed-anime shaped. Nigashita Sakana wa Ookikatta ga Tsuriageta Sakana ga Ookisugita Ken is about a brash young lady who is not a villainess, not disliked, and not widely misunderstood or falsely accused of wrongdoing. Rather, she is merely a nice girl who is quite literally simply trying to catch a husband, hence the various English-language titles for the series, The Fish I Missed Was Big, but the Fish I Caught Was Too Big; Always a Catch!: How I Punched My Way into Marrying a Prince; and Always a Catch! Nevertheless, it still sort of feels like a villainess-theme anime, probably because the heroines in those shows are usually similarly pleasant, overpowered, and quirky. Or maybe it's because of internalized misogyny. I dunno.

That boy was lucky a little girl with a big stick did not whale on his bossy ass.

Nigashita Sakana wa Ookikatta ga Tsuriageta Sakana ga Ookisugita Ken (Nigetsuri for short), is a reasonably pleasant series which benefits a lot from the high-effort production values that TROYCA has devoted to it. This is an attractive show that probably looks way better than it needs to. (In contrast, consider Tenkuro which looked ganky most of the time, but in ways I found endearing.) Really, I should be comparing Always a Catch! with Saigo ni Hitotsu dake Onegai Shite mo Yoroshii Deshou ka (May I Ask for One Final Thing?) instead, because both feature ladies in ball gowns socking deadbeats. SaiHito didn't look bad, but it clearly had to accept compromises. Nigetsuri isn't "overanimated," but it does feature a lot of flourish that probably elevates my opinion of the anime, even despite its dearth of villainesses.

TWO hair clips? Too much.

With a title like Class de 2-banme ni Kawaii Onnanoko to Tomodachi ni Natta (I Became Friends with the Second Cutest Girl in My Class), I basically had no expectation for Kuranika. I assumed it was going to be yet another example of the wish-fulfillment school-romance sub-genre involving a comely, popular girl who is inexplicably drawn to Potato-kun. And, yeah, it basically is that, but I'll still give it credit for at least incorporating two things that other stories in this vein don't bother to do.

Those are not cute uniforms, though.

First, Class de 2-banme ni Kawaii Onnanoko to Tomodachi ni Natta actually explores what it means for Umi to be "the second-cutest girl" and how it affects her friendship with "the cutest girl" and their social circle. This is not a tremendous achievement given that it's the literal premise, but I feel as though some shows don't even make a token effort to expand on the setups described in their exceedingly long titles. Potato-kun also neither prematurely throws himself at Umi, nor does he immediately sabotage their friendship while it's in its nascent stages, and the anime provides a coherent reason for what he's working through, mentally. I can't claim this is the best character writing I've ever seen, but there was still more effort put into this than I expected.

I also like that Maki's mother smokes.

Second, there are parents in I Became Friends with the Second Cutest Girl in My Class. Not only do they exist, but they actually have things going on in their lives not directly related to their children. Look, I understand that allowing teenage characters to have on-screen parents who affect their lives complicates things when a story requires convenient melodrama (sure, I'll take the opportunity to pick on Chitose-kun wa Ramune Bin no Naka and its self-fellating bullshit for a third time this month). Consequently, it's no surprise most of these sorts of shows employ flimsy excuses to keep adults out of the room, so I almost admire Kuranika for including them in its plot.

It's fine. He gets better. It's in the ED.

Snowball Earth has all the elements it needs to be a campy, fun, sci-fi anime, but watching it is a drag. Near as I can figure, it feels as though the episodes have about 16 minutes of material, but end up filling 23-minute run times. At least, that's the way it appears when I'm watching the show. The pacing seems really off, but it's not as if there's nothing happening. Lots of things happen, and they're even interesting, but then the shots continue to hold while various characters ruminate over the events for a while, and it drains all the energy out of the show.

NOT NOW, NEW GIRL.

The thing is, the first episode didn't suffer from this problem. If the following six episodes had been more like the first episode, I would probably be calling Snowball Earth one of the best shows of the Spring 2026 anime season. Instead, it enjoys the dubious distinction of being the one currently at the bottom of my rankings. Sure, it's got weird, over-the-top antagonists, and no shortage of shounen jive, so I'm already biased towards disfavoring it, but I would be okay with all of that if the show didn't somehow also manage to feel so dead the time. C'mon, now.