Well with 2022 wrapping up tomorrow I thought that it would be a good time to have a look back at some of the television shows that I have watched this year and that I really liked. Spoiler alert, like last year this list is most likely going to be anime themed.
Bonus – Were-Wolf by Night: Starting this off with something a little bit different since this was the Marvel Halloween special that they put out where we got to see more of what the ‘horror’ side of certain Marvel characters. With the feature of Elsa Bloodstone (previously seen on here in the Venomized Review), Man-Thing (DC answer to Swamp Thing) and of course Were-Wolf by Night. I really enjoyed this for a few reasons, the first was that it was advertised a lot like a Universal Monster Movie and the second is that the majority of the film is in black and white which to me make it more visually interesting compared to say Moon Knight or Ms Marvel. But there is one big question that has me wondering about this is, where is this going to go since we are going to be having Blade appear at some point in the MCU, are we going to be getting more supernatural shenanigans and introduced more obscure characters to smaller screens.
My Dress Up Darling: What happens when a shy high-school student that designs Hina Dolls ends up befriending one of the most popular students with a desire to be a cosplayer, you get this.It’s weird when I first saw this being advertised, I really wasn’t sure if I would have actually liked this, and after watching the first two episodes I thoroughly enjoyed this series. I really do like the concept of cosplay since it is something that I would like to do at some point for a convention, but this show also does rather push the boat out since it shows how much detail that Gojo puts into each costume since all of them are different. Marin, like Gojo is also passionate about cosplaying as well since that she helps procure the items needed for it, along with a bit of teasing when it came to buying some certain items, which I do expect since it is a very rom/com series. But the thing that I like the most about this series is that both of them have feelings for each other, however neither of them say anything about it, even after one of the most unexpected moments that I have seen in a series like this. Since in episode eleven when they are in a ‘love hotel’ for a photo shoot and getting the best angle ends up with both of them in a rather awkward and intimate position in which it seemed that the two of them would finally kiss each other, but a cock-blocking phone call stops that and the two of them then awkwardly leave the hotel. Episode twelve, the final episode of the series doesn’t bring anything up about it, but it’s an episode that ends happily with the two of them going to a festival where the two of them enjoy the festivities and it ends with Marin being too scared to sleep after watching one to many horror movies and she calls Gojo so that she can calm herself. Then with this we end up getting the best ending that I could have hoped for a series and that is, even if Gojo fell asleep before her, she admits that she loves him. Another thing that I like about this series is that this is the second anime that has made me go out and buy the manga since I liked watching the show that much and since that it’s going to be a while until season two drops.
Spy x Family S1 Pt1: With this I’m only going to focus around the first twelve episodes since the second part is still currently airing (in addition to this both Chainsaw Man and the latest series of My Hero Academia won’t be making this list). From the first time I saw the trailer for this as well as a synopsis I knew that it was going to be interesting. A spy trying to stop a war from happening between two countries leads him into a mission where he has to try a get a meeting with a reclusive leader of the National Unity Party where he has to have a fake family. There he ends up adopting a daughter called Anya and she has a rather interesting ability, she’s a telepath thus meaning that hijinks around her abilities since she is afraid for others to know since that she was part of an experiment when she was younger, and she worries about being experimented on again if her abilities are shown to others. And finally, we get to the mother of the family Yor, and she’s got her own history, that being she is an assassin called the ‘Thorn Princess’ and she is probably my favourite character of the show. She is shown to be really caring coming from that she ended up raising her brother, Yuri, from a young age and strives to be a good mother for Anya. She also seemed at first to be the target of others with a memorable moment from the second episode in which Yor says to her co-workers that she’s actually married, meeting Loid a few days before agreeing to a false marriage, and when her co-workers end up making fun of her. They even make small, veiled threats to have her reported as being a spy, but when Loid shows up, they are all shocked and they try to reveal that Yor was doing questionable things when she was younger, when it actually turns out those where actually her taking out targets. The series is also really fun as well with a lot of interesting scenes, with one of my favourites being when they are taking Anya to Eden Academy for the interviews and somebody doesn’t want the Forgers to be there so a lot of things end up happening from their outfits being splashed with mud and then revealing a quick change into new clothes to Yor stopping a bull from stampeding by using pressure points to take it out quickly. The show is fun and I’m enjoying so far from what I have seen of the second half of the series.
Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie: It’s weird when you watch a rom-com and discover that the couple that the series is focused around are already together. The series is really cute, and it does do somethings rather differently than from what I have seen from other series, you have your main characters where one Izumi has the absolute worst luck (usually getting hurt in some sort of way) and his girlfriend Shikimori who ends up being pretty much a perfectionist, but it does seem that deep down she does have some sort of self-doubt. They are also a really good couple as well, though I nearly got worried that the relationship was going to go down the route of a love triangle when we get introduced to Kamiya, who we discover has feelings for Izumi and is a bit heartbroken when she finds out that he is already dating, and it does take her back quite a bit. Never would I have ever sympathised with a character more that Kamiya since I have been in that boat for quite a while and it’s never easy when you’re trying to express those feelings alone, but at least with her she is still friendly with both Izumi and Shikimori.
Love After World Domination: What happens when you mix Super Sentai with a rom com you get this, another series which I’m surprised that I really liked watching. But instead of this being either two highschoolers in school this ends up focusing on the leader of Gelato Five, Fudo Aikawa, and Desumi Magahara who under the alias of Reaper Princess. Their relationship is rather cute since that Desumi starts off a bit resistant to the relationship but they both start to get more comfortable about their relationship even though they have to keep it a secret since she has been the one that has been leading Gekko soldiers attacking them. The thing that I liked the most about this is that through the different episodes they went through different challenges, for instance Fudo being blackmailed by a girl that Desumi knows called Hojo and wants them to break up because Hojo has feelings for Desumi. But what is more interesting about this is that Hojo is also a part of Gekko as she is Heat Princess. Another cool scene was when Haru, Pink Gelato, ends up discovering that the two of them are in a relationship so what does Haru do, she challenges Desumi to a fight which she ends up losing and in defeat she says that she is going to do her best to make sure that no-one else knows about the relationship. This is also another series that I am hoping does get a second series but with the way that it had ended it’s a good way to make it a one and done.
The Boys S3: Now time for something that finally isn’t an anime, which being Amazon Prime’s The Boys. I remember that a few years ago I did watch the first series and I liked it since that it was quite a dark superhero series, then I remember hearing that there was going to be another series and totally forgot about watching it with the notion of watching it later that year. Which I did not, instead I decided to wait until the third series started to air and the fact that a lot of people where I work was talking about what happened in the first episode. And oh boy was that first episode opener a doozy and it makes me glad that I wasn’t in that position. I thought that this series had a lot of rather interesting things happen in it, from the revelation that Vaught had been creating Supes, Homelander showing that he isn’t as bulletproof as he looks and that The Boys end up discovering a weapon to take out Homelander that being Soldier Boy. Now there were a few things that I didn’t like about the series and that came more from the point of other fans when it came to light that one of the episodes that was going to be in this series was going to be called Herogasm. The way that fans where hyping this up I decided to take a look to see what it was about and reading what had happened in the story I was wondering how they would end up adapting it. But like shows before this it more adapts certain things and this is for the better since we get a cool standoff and fight scene with Homelander, Soldier Boy, Hughie, and Butcher (both now enhanced with V24) and the fight is rather cool, but unfortunately, they are unable to stop Homelander and Solider Boy manages to also escape. But for me the highlight of the series also came in that episode, but at the end when Annie reveals the truth in what had happened along with revealing that Vaught were the ones that created heroes like her in the first place. Hopefully, the next series is going to be as good as what has happened this year.
Obi Wan Kenobi: I, like the majority of fans of Star Wars, have been waiting years to see if there was going to be a possibility that Ewan McGregor would ever come back to play Obi Wan Kenobi in some way focusing on what happened between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, since there is a lot that we don’t know about Kenobi during this time. Then we it was announced that there was going to be a limited series released on Disney+, there was a rejoice of fans who were looking forward to the series and the additional reveal that Hayden Christiansen was revealed that he too would be returning and the possibilities in what could happen. At first, I was a little bit sceptical about the series since that I thought that it would have focused on Luke and Tatooine, instead it ended up being focused on Leia, in which Kenobi comes out of his hermit life and also faces the wrath of the Sith Inquisitor, with one of them, Reeva, having a massive hate boner for Kenobi. In all honesty I really didn’t like Reeva’s character since it seemed that she did have some ulterior motives that had to do with getting back at Vader, revealing in flashbacks that she was a youngling when the Jedi Temple fell during Order 66, but other than that I really didn’t care that much about her or thought she was interesting. Now what I did find interesting was both fights with Kenobi and Vader since the first time that he sees Vader, he’s visibly shaken and scared seeing his former friend before him and the fact that Kenobi had become a hermit his skills aren’t that sharp anymore and he just manages to escape him. But it’s when they have their second fight is when things get interesting as Kenobi is able to re-tap into the force, he is able to overwhelm Vader, showing that he still not as strong with the force as his former master, with his surroundings so much that he was able to shatter his helmet and Kenobi seeing his friend’s face for the final time. And then when the episode ended, we got something that I think a lot of Star Wars fans would have liked to see, the return of Qui-Gon Jinn as a finally reveals himself to Kenobi revealing that he still has some lessons to teach him. I’m also quite glad that this series is actually a one-and-done since I don’t think that there is much more they could have done with the series since that Rebels then filled in the next gap with Kenobi’s story.
Stranger Things S4: Stranger Things for me through each series has had a lot of hit and miss moments, since it took me about three attempts to try and get into watching the series since there are some main characters that I really didn’t care that much for. Luckily for this series all the characters that I really didn’t like were all condensed into their own storyline since that with this series there were three stories going on all at once. The first to get it out of the way is when Mike flies out to California to visit Eleven, Will and Johnathan and I really didn’t care that much about this arc since it seemed to be quite boring since it revolves, Eleven getting her abilities back. Now the reason I say that I don’t like this is that it doesn’t really seem to progress the story that much until the last couple of episodes when we discover that all the bad things that have happened up to this point is Elevens fault since she ended up setting everything up by accident. The next arc that I thought was okay was with Joyce and Murray finding out that Hopper is alive and that he’s been imprisoned in a Soviet Prison, where it turns out that they have been experimenting with the Upside Down since they have been able to bring Demogorgon’s into the prison for the prisoners to fight. Luckily enough everyone was able to survive this. Now one of my favourite parts of this series is the third story that’s going on in which we get introduced to the villain, Vecna as well as his backstory. But my favourite parts of the series resolved around the Hawkins gang with a new character being introduced, Eddie Munson, and trying to prove that he isn’t responsible for the death of several people. It also seemed that this story also had the most stakes as well since that they were dealing with threats from two different sides, you had the gang being tormented by Vecna with Max being a main target since she ends up encountering him and managing to survive thanks to the power of music. But they are also being tracked down by the residents believing that their group, dubbed the Hellfire Club, is linked to satanism even though they were just a group that played Dungeons and Dragons which is hilarious because this actually happened in real life with Christians believing that the game was a work of Satan. Another thing that I like about this series is how it ended since that after the past three series it ended with the group managing to defeat the villain, but it usually ends up being a bit of a monkey’s paw, however this time it ended with Max in a vegetative state after being attacked by Vecna and saved by Eleven, yet things got worse as Vecna was able to bring the chaos by being able to bring his influence through the Upside Down and afflicts Hawkins. But the best thing that happened was the reunion of everyone with the big one coming between Hopper and Eleven and it was one of the nicest scenes to happen with all the misery that has come before. Now with series five being in pre-production the biggest questions are who is going to die and who might come back.
Demon Slayer: The Entertainment District Arc: Now back over to the anime for the list and possibly one of the most over the top fight scenes that I have seen so far in the series. The series does start off on a bit of a weird note and I think that it would have been better if it ended the last arc since it sort of wraps up with Kyojuro’s family and the revelation that he may be a descended of the first Breathing technique called ‘Sun Breathing’. Then from there we get introduced to Tengen Uzui, the Sound Hashira, who tries to kidnap Aoi and Naho from the Butterfly Estate for a mission until Tanjiro volunteers along with Inosuke and Zenitsu. From there they go undercover in the Entertainment District to look for a Demon who has been lurking there for some time as well as trying to find what had happened to Tengen’s wives. They do manage to find one of the demons, but from there is where a lot of shit starts hitting the fans as when Daki reveals herself, she gets into a fight with Tanjiro to which it looks like that he was going to kill her, however he forgets the important of Breathing Techniques and that is to breath and collapses. Then here is where we get the next step for Nezuko as she arrives after being stored in a safe place as her box was damaged in the fight and she starts to tap into her demonic side by being able to regenerate quicker as well as starting to change her body, making appear more mature as well as giving her more demonic features. Interestingly with Nezuko turning more into a demon, she also starts to lose her humanity and sensing blood from an injured civilian, Tanjiro does everything he can to stop her, and he manages get her out of her Demon mode, by singing a song from their childhood. But while this is happening Tengen ends up getting into a fight with not just Daki, but also her brother Gyutaro and it’s revealed that he has killed 15 Hashiras and it looks like that he plans on making Tengen his 16th. Gyutaro has so far been one of my favourites from the Upper Six/Twelve since his design makes him look like a nightmare and his demon ability being able to make sickles out of blood as well as being able to use poisons to weaken the Slayers. Also, with the introduction of Gyutaro we get some of the most amazing visuals in the series with the fight between Gyutaro, Tanjiro and Tengen, especially in the penultimate episode where it looks like they have defeated the duo once and for all, Gyutaro’s body ends up exploding sending waves of blood blades destroying the city. I am looking forward later this year to see what happens in the next arcs since it looks like that it’s going to an interesting place.
Power Rangers Dino Fury S2: Next year is going to be the celebration of thirty years of Power Rangers, I still can’t believe that a show that came out around the time I was born is still going. Something else that I found to be quite amazing is the fact that Dino Fury may be one of my favourite series that has came out in a while. The first thing that I really liked about this show are the villains since there is a lot that is going on with them first with Void Knight, later we find out that his name is Tarrick, who is using the Sporix to help heal his wife, Santaura who then become the lead villain now dubbed the Void Queen. There is also a lot of development that also happens with the Rangers as well, Izzy ends up revealing to her girlfriend that she is a Power Ranger, we then see that there’s another relationship developing this time within the Ranger team as Amelia and Ollie start dating with the old trope of opposites attracting and Zayto and Aiyon finally manage to find Rafkon… until it ends up being destroyed by Lord Zedd. But for me what I liked the most about this series was that there was finally some payoff as we find out something rather interesting about Amelia and her Pop-Pop, that being Amelia isn’t related to him and that she is an alien, a Rafkonian, meaning that she is the same race as Zayto and Aiyon. But that’s not the interesting thing about this, her parents are Tarrick and Santaura meaning that the villains that she has been fighting all of this time have been her own parents. It does make some sense as well since both Tarrick and Santaura wanted revenge against humanity for what had happened when they were imprisoned in Area 62, but they try to get their daughter to safety, not knowing if she was safe. It’s a really nice ending to the series, but the interesting thing is that this is the first show since Mighty Morphing Power Rangers where when we get to the next series, the main Ranger team will not change, and they will be facing a returning threat as Zedd managed to free himself as we head into space(?) for Cosmic Fury and the return of some old Rangers.
Wednesday: I really didn’t know what to think of this show when I heard that it was going to be made and I wasn’t even sure if I was going to even watch this at all. But then I ended up getting COVID at the end of November and really didn’t have that much else to do and I finished it within a day, and I think that this was better than what I thought it was going to be. I found this to be rather enjoyable to watch and it ended up filling in that gap that the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina had left with it being quite teen/supernatural based. For me what I liked the most was more the characters since they were quite interesting, first there is Wednesday who is starting to develop visions with the first one being of Rowan (a student at Nevermore) being killed, for him to then be killed by creature about three minutes later. Now it’s up to Wednesday to find out who was behind the attack and a lot of things end up happening from her being kidnapped by a secret society, to having visions of her ancestor Goody Addams. The next character that I liked was Enid, Wednesday’s roommate and possibly one of my favourite characters in the show besides Wednesday. She was funny and witty but one thing that a lot of fans may have noticed is that she may have an attraction towards Wednesday since Wednesday tended to do a lot of things that she wouldn’t really do herself, but she would if Enid said it. Also, her wolfing out scene was really good, and the visuals weren’t too bad considering that this being a show for Netflix the quality was really good. Another character that I liked was Principal Weems, played by Gwendoline Christie, since it is really nice to see her look beautiful since that all the roles that I’ve seen her in she’s either looked really rough and tough or wearing a helmet. One thing that I am hoping is that this does get another series since this was a good series, but I do hope that it starts to develop more since there did seem to be a lot of hanging thread lines that could easily be more developed with a second and hopefully a bit longer of a series.
And that is it for 2022 a year that has had a lot of ups and downs, and I’m hoping that 2023 is going to be a better year. I know that for me next year is when I am going to be doing a lot of different reviews and some rather, for me ambitious projects. But for the first blog of 2023 I am going to cover a post that I was supposed to write a few years ago in the start of most likely a multi-part series in which I am going to cover my favourite wrestlers. To everybody who reads takes their time to read these and even like them, thank you so much and it means a lot to me. Happy New Year.
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