Seasonal Catch-Up Post! Fall 2020!

Happy Monday! Welcome to the first real post since I moved the site over to FUNKDAFIED.MOE! Today will be the first of a series of posts that will make up for the lack of ewink’s FUNKDAFIED seasonal reviews! I missed a bunch, and I am going to blame COVID, because why not.

At any rate, the last seasonal post was the Summer of 2020 recommendation post, so we’ll start off with Fall of 2020 and work our way up to this season, Spring of 2022! The catch-up posts will contain only my five ‘favorite’ anime of the season, and assuming my scheduling works properly, will be posting on Mondays and Thursdays!

Thanks for your patronage and for allowing me to overuse exclamation marks! Now, on to the post.

Majo no Tabitabi

Majo no Tabitabi, also known as Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, is a cute story about a witch named Elaina, who goes wandering. I bet you didn’t see that coming.

As a little kid, Elaina read books about witches and their travels, so as she grows up, she becomes a local witch’s apprentice and finally, a real grown-up witch. She takes off to explore the world and have a ton of adventures!

Elaina is adorable and is a really great character, one who is very easy to root for. There’s what I assume is a mandatory younger, female witch who is obsessed with her and as a yuri fan I kind of wish that would have gone somewhere. At the end of the day, Majo no Tabitabi is a great slice of life anime for people who like some magic and adventure in their day-to-day activities. If you’ve not seen it yet, I recommend that you do. It’s on Crunchyroll!

Ochikobore Fruit Tart

Our Cute Girls Doing Cute Things nominee is Ochikobore Fruit Tart. This show is about a group of girls who want to be idols, some of which come from acting backgrounds, some are models, and one looks suspiciously like Nadeshiko from Yuru Camp.

The group moves into a dormitory that is scheduled to be torn down. Their manager has them create an idol group, Fruit Tart, in order to pay off debt and save the struggling Rat Productions and keep their dorm from becoming a pile of rubble.

Cute things then happen. Our Nadeshiko wannabe, Ino, was a big fan of the child star Roko which leads to a lot of blushing. There are some cute singing scenes, and like most shows in this genre, everyone is loveable, even if they’re an annoying tsundere. Check out the show on Funimation!

Maoujou de Oyasumi

One would think that if you’re a princess, and you’re captured by evil demons and thrown into a prison cell, you’d be looking forward to the hero rescuing you, and looking to find a way to break out. That is unless you’re Aurora Suya Rhys “Syalis” Kaymin, the protagonist of Maoujou de Oyasumi.

Syalis seems to be less concerned with her imprisonment, and more about the fact that she can’t seem to have a good night’s sleep. The Princess manages to constantly break out of her cell, but only to search the demon lord’s castle for things to help her snooze.

Those things are objects she finds, as well as the demon lord’s army itself. She literally murders creatures and demons to make pillows, sheets, blankets, and whatever else she needs. For as light-hearted as this show is, it’s got some seriously dark things going on.

It’s been a while since I have watched it, so I can’t remember if she ever did get a full 8-hour sleep in, but that shouldn’t stop you from watching! It’s streaming on Funimation.

Kamisama ni Natta Hi

Kamisama ni Natta Hi aka The Day I Became A God is a story about a little girl, Hina Satou who claims that she is the God ‘Odin’. She makes this claim to high schooler Youta who despite her insistence, doesn’t really believe her.

However, as they spend more time together, it seems like more and more of her alleged precognitions are coming true. Maybe, perhaps, possibly she is a God, or a psychic or something?

Regardless, she claims that there are only 30 days left in the world and that she, Youta, and the miscellaneous background characters friends they have should live life to the fullest and make as many wonderful memories they can in the time they have left.

I won’t spoil anything here, but once you get towards the end of the series, prepare to have your heart ripped right out. There are a ton of feels. It’s a great series and Hina is just a wonderful character. It’s streaming over on Crunchyroll.

Honorable Mention

Some other shows I watched this season were Adachi to Shimamura, Assault Lily: Bouquet, Senyoku no Sigrdrifa, and Strike Witches: Road to Berlin. If you only choose one, choose Adachi!

Tonikaku Kawaii

I cannot seem to stay away from these romance anime. It used to drive me nuts, but then I remembered that I am a human with a soul, so it’s no wonder I like stories about love. It doesn’t hurt that the female protagonist is cute as fuck either.

Tonikaku Kawaii is a story about a boy named Nasa. Yes, his parents had high hopes for him. It kind of works as Nasa is determined to be somebody, someday. All of that is nearly cut short when he sees a pretty girl (who we later learn is named Tsukasa) and is so entranced by her beauty that he doesn’t notice Truck-kun bearing down on him. Somehow, Tsukasa saves him and then starts to wander off. Nasa, thanks to the power of love and what I assume is at least 50cc of opioids from the paramedics, chases her down and confesses to her. She accepts his confession but only if they can get married.

Time jump some number of years and Tsukasa shows up at Nasa’s door. Being a heterosexual man who sticks to his word, he takes the beautiful woman to the all-night marriage office they apparently have in Japan and the pair get married.

The rest of the season is a cute slice-of-life of their married life. There are good times and bad times, but all in all the pair grow closer and it’s pretty obvious that they are totally over the moon for each other (that’s funny because the English name of the series is TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You).

This is one of these shows where you go and get the LN or manga after the series ends because there’s a lot left unanswered. The first episode seems to imply that Tsukasa has some kind of superpower. I may be misreading things, but that never seems to be answered. I assume she’s from the moon since there is a LOT of moon imagery in the series. There does seem to be a second season planned, which is awesome.

Whatever the case, you should watch it. Was my favorite series from this season! It’s on Crunchyroll.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave feedback and I’ll catch you next time!