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Finding a good ole medieval, high-fantasy anime can be difficult, especially if you're someone who shuts off their screen at the mere mention of a demon king. But with a mysterious dungeon, and a world rich in history and magic, Dungeon Meshi is an immediate standout in its genre, and with its conclusion, it's become apparent that this is easily up there for AOTY.

So... the premise may be refreshing for a fantasy anime, but what is it that actually makes Dungeon Meshi so good?

First of all, it's by studio Trigger. The art style's distinct, and the occasional fights are beautifully animated—that much is ... a given. But what truly blew me away about the series is the clear effort and heart that went into crafting everything about it. This isn't another anime that begs viewers to feel something by relying on its soundtrack. It naturally evokes sadness, sympathy, and laughter with its meticulous writing and the way it allows you to connect with the cast.

Finding a show that balances its characters, plot, and world-building this efficiently can be rare. In that regard, Dungeon Meshi steers away from blatant exposition dumps by utilizing its setting to reveal important details. By introducing magical paintings that depict the past, it shows a glimpse of history. By introducing a nightmare-inducing bug that reflects a person's fears, it explores a character's psyche. Everything is creatively and seamlessly woven together allowing multiple facets of the story to flourish at once.

As it portrays a ragtag group of adventurers, Dungeon Meshi relishes in its magical scenery and meaningful "calm before the storm" moments. Starting on a streak of "calm", with relaxing, meal-of-the-weak type episodes, got it labeled as slow for some time. Admittedly, those episodes are easier to appreciate in hindsight, but even on a first watch, they're not bad. The anime just appeared to be meandering because the story took its time to build a solid foundation and escalate at an authentic pace. This may not be the type of show to barge in, axe swinging while demanding your attention, but it's certainly a show that rewards you for it.

The compliments don't stop there, as it's hard to disregard the likable and diverse cast that's also been presented. All of the recurring characters feel like they have lives outside the confines of the screen. Even in the final episodes, there's still more to learn about them as the show offers more unexpected, yet oddly fitting tidbits, and then finishes things off with deeply moving backstories.

Overall, this is a great series that I would highly recommend to fantasy lovers or anyone willing to give it a chance. It may take the scenic route as our main cast gets involved in their usual shenanigans, but beneath it all lies a surprisingly grim plotline. Despite this, Dungeon Meshi still masterfully blends a wide range of emotions into an uplifting story centered around the beauty of sharing a good meal with your friends.

Oresuki starts its first episode by presenting our black-haired, run-of-the-mill high school boy and his two love interests: airheaded childhood friend, and student council president. You'd assume this is another harem anime doing its thing, but that facade quickly shatters when the two love interests come up to our MC Jouro to confess. Because there's a catch; the person they like is his good-looking, baseball player of a best friend. Then there's another catch; Jouro isn't actually a run-of-the-mill high school boy. Deep down, he's a massive asshole who thinks he can get girls by playing up the harem-protagonist persona.

As a concept, this is ... funny. A dig at harem anime and their bland-ass protagonists getting girls for no reason is satisfying to see. Plus, it's presented in an entertaining, sassy manner, embellished by the greatest antagonist in anime, bench-kun, along with our MC Jouro calling everyone a "bitchii" in his head.

It's all fun and games, but then fast forward a few episodes, and the show is doing exactly what it was making fun of in episode 1. The two girls who had confessed to liking baseball boy wake up one day and decide that, nah, Jouro's looking good now, and there's no real reason for this switch-up.

Moreover, the second aspect that Oresuki was parodying, the protagonist himself, gets thrown out the window. Because ACTUALLY, Jouro has an alter-alter ego, so deep, deep down, he's a kind, run-of-the-mill harem protagonist.

What was the point of making him an asshole then?

The occasional comedy. That's it.

This here is the entire show in a nutshell. It parodies the harem genre, but that's exactly what it is. The few jokes it makes every so often exist in a vacuum, and are only there to spice up an otherwise unapologetically trashy show. I didn't mind the comedy in this series, but Oresuki separates itself from the humor bit by bit, filling in that void with forced drama, while developing character relationships in the most ridiculous way possible. Nothing is dealt with properly, and by the end, you're left asking yourself, why? Why is Jouro amiable with the girl who purposely isolated him from his friends and ruined his reputation? Why is this girl having lunch with the guy who threatened to rape her last episode?

All this does is make every character super unlikeable. They exist to act annoying and cause conflict when the plot wills it, only for them to be rewarded for their psychotic behavior. There's a limit to the absurdity I can tolerate because "it's trashy, comedy anime, the characters don't need to make sense 24/7", but when Oresuki's humor falters, it takes away any room for excuses.

I did mention a lot already, but is any of this even a big deal? Maybe I went into this with unreasonable expectations.

To that, I say, yes! I did expect more.

What truly bothers me about Oresuki is that it had the potential to be a good, satirical rom-com with harem elements sprinkled in there for the fun of it.

The first episode laid out everything well. It even introduced Pansy, who challenges everything Jouro wants and doesn't fit his idea of an ideal girl. Pansy is our bespectacled, disheveled-looking love interest who admits to stalking Jouro, and then admits her non-mutual feelings toward him, only to get immediately shut down. As far as their initial interactions/arguments go, they were entertaining to watch together, and dare I say, they had chemistry. All Oresuki had to do for the next 12 episodes was have Jouro continue his desperate harem protagonist act, have him fail in haha funny ways because the world doesn't work like that, and develop his hate-to-love relationship with Pansy as they both realize their flaws and become better people. But no, let's disregard the fact that the story writes itself because that would be too consistent, and god forbid this anime has any form of redeemable takeaway.

Transported to a war-torn desert in another world (supposedly), our MC Shu sets out on a rough journey to return home. The grim universe Now and Then, Here and There paints is brought to life through its sufficiently good production and art. Some people may fault the still-frame-ridden animation, but honestly, considering some of the shows that come out these days, it's more than decent in comparison.

While the world of this anime managed to suck me in from episode 1, accompanied by an interesting premise that quickly builds up the tension, as I kept watching, the setbacks it suffered from became more apparent.

This ... sort of setting requires a cast of flawed characters who have been impacted by the hopeless world around them, but that type of decent characterization was surprisingly sparse. We have people like Abelia who spend their days enacting the nefarious whims of others even when they're not as bad as those above them. But how did she get to that point? Why does she act so servile? You'll be asking these questions even after the series ends because, despite her unique position in the conflict and plot, Abelia's never truly given the time of day. She's merely another tool for a genocidal dictator who is so incompetent and irredeemable that you'd want to punch your screen every time he shows up. The lack of nuance in portraying anything beyond a villainous, screeching man-baby as the main antagonist in this supposedly "mature" anime is astounding, and these are just two examples. This issue persists in other facets of the show as well.

At some point, the core question that drives the narrative is revealed. Fight back against the dictator, or live in peace, ignoring the atrocities around you because you want your children to have a good life. From there, motherhood is brushed over, giving value to protecting children who are blameless in war and don't deserve to suffer if conflicts were to escalate. Overall, it's a nice mesh of thought-provoking ideas that can elevate any show to a masterful depiction of humanity and their urge for violence... if executed correctly.

Well, that's too bad.

In this anime, the narrative is slanted in favor of a pacifistic yet complacent view, which in itself is not a bad thing. I can think of a few other series that also do this (most notably Vinland Saga). But where Now and Then fumbles and Vinland succeeds is the execution and the nuanced portrayal of the opposing mindsets. Another thing that sets them apart is that the people preaching for peace in Now and Then, Here and There are nobodies. They hold no power or leverage. How would doing nothing be a solution in that situation? Their mindset, while not unfounded, has issues that the series crashes into but refuses to address.

The opposing force to our pacifists, a rebellious group that aims to take down the dictator is mostly portrayed as bloodthirsty kidnappers who are in the wrong. But when aiming to kill one irredeemable man to save millions of innocents, can this dilemma really be reduced to "They're resorting to violence, therefore they're bad"? There's a singular scene where they're spared any sympathy. Just one. The rest of their depiction hinges on them being unreasonable douchebags.

Another clear pitfall to the pacifism is the fact that the big, bad dictator's main military resource is children from villages he's decimated. How can we act like living peacefully in a hidden place protects children when many of them are suffering on the ship, under his rule? All the kids on that ship should have trauma - not just the select few that the writers decided would be good friends with the MC. While the situation did highlight one of the few well-rounded characters in the show (Nabuca), we also had characters like Tabool, who again, boils down to an unsympathetic "bad guy" yearning to assert his power over everyone. The show goes as far as vilifying these kids when they should have been handled with more care. They've struggled due to the brutality of war just like everyone else, and maybe by the time they've encountered Shu, they've reached a point where violence is second nature to them. Now and Then, Here and There doesn't negate the possibility of them being molded by their circumstances, but it also presents them in a grossly simplified way, while giving them some of the most cartoonish Disney villain lines in existence. They eventually get somewhat disregarded by the narrative, which puts an end to any interesting exploration before it gets the chance to begin.

Overall, Now and Then, Here and There's solution to a lot of its conflicts is waving away all the antagonists through a series of conveniences, and proclaiming the protagonist and his friends as the ultimate good guys. The gruesome things shown early on don't amount to much as our MC insists on forgiving and forgetting. They're there to make the show seem darker and more mature when thematically, it's none of those things. All it did was resort to the most juvenile kind of black-and-white moral grandstanding. One of the MC's sidekicks (Lala Ru), is even indirectly provoking the persistence of war and leading to many deaths due to her refusal to do anything despite her immense power. This is never addressed. She never acts violently, and she never directly tries to harm people. So in the writers' eyes, she's a great person and there's no need to question her behavior when it's clearly very questionable.

TLDR; This anime may get sold as a gritty portrayal of war, as it handles serious subject matters like child soldiers, brutal authoritarianism, and rape. But by the end of it, it didn't feel like any of its themes were given the weight they deserved, and all it did was resort to a juvenile black-and-white presentation of characters and their morality. This is something you'd expect from a children's show with some "dark subjects" sprinkled in there to add some spice. Its saving grace is that it's short enough, and has a good amount of moving parts to where it doesn't get too tedious. You could also find around two decent characters in there if you squint hard enough. I didn't get much from watching it, but it's also not a complete waste of time. If you happen to like artistic, philosophical, and "dark" series to begin with, you can give it a go. I did find it thought-provoking albeit in all the wrong ways.