2025 - Year in Review, Shows

Alli Grant Est. 8 minutes (1522 words)
year in review shows 2025
My standard year in review for what shows I watched! 2025 Edition

I’m bad at movies, but shows? I can watch an episode of a show while falling asleep, or while eating dinner, or … any number of other smaller tasks. Much easier! Even if you watch a movie-length number of episodes at once, well, that’s still easier to start and stop than pausing a movie and trying to not lose your place. I’m going to be a lot more loose with spoilers here than anywhere else, so if you see a series mentioned at the start of a paragraph and DO NOT WANT SPOILERS for it, skip that one.

Our youngest is watching more One Piece and still in the process of catching up, so that was a common thread throughout the year. We were also watching it for ourselves, including (somehow) the season one finale after decades of the show running nonstop. Egghead’s adaptation was fantastic overall, I’m a huge fan of what they did – Kuma’s mini arc in particular was a great place for the pause for additional effort, and getting that right is the emotional core of the entire island’s story. The crayon drawings and use of colors just made me smile! Even with all the horrible things happening! Everything about it. Pipipi was a delightful ending, even if the other opening couldn’t keep up with US! – to be fair, I think US! might be my favorite anime opening of all time.

We watched a lot of Gundam. I had never actually finished the original Mobile Suit Gundam (as far as I can remember) despite having started it several times and having a lot of familiarity with the Universal Century overall. Going from it to Gundam Wing, which borrows a lot of its beats except in another setting, was practically hilarious when it comes to the comparisons. Almost even more shamefully, though, I finally watched Witch from Mercury.

Reader, I should not have slept on actually doing so. In my defense, I listened to the talk of it “just being queerbaiting” a bit too much. Ah yes, queerbaiting, the thing that it is for two women to get engaged in one of the first episodes of a show and be married in the epilogue. The thing it is to have the relationship of two women be shown as important to both of them, as a major driving plot point, repeatedly. Could they have had more physical affection? Sure, I’m not arguing that, but, like, it’s Gundam. Gundam doesn’t really do that in general. I wish the series was a bit longer – the second act felt rushed in a way that a 30 episode run wouldn’t have had, even if I understand why it only got a standard 24. That first act ending scene gives me chills to just think about it.

Anyway, Witch from Mercury slaps. GQuuuuuuuX (I do not know how many u’s) started up around when we finished it, so we started to watch it, and my first thought was “this is Gundam FLCL.” I did not know that it had the FLCL staff working on it when I had that opinion. If I thought Mercury was too short, GQuuX is … sigh. Gundam, like Star Trek, needs room to breathe. I’m not saying that shows need bad episodes, but we need time to really develop connections and see how the trauma develops for the cast. GQuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuX felt like there were 10 episodes that they just didn’t release towards the latter part of the series, but instead gave us a quick montage. Absolute tragedy. That said, more Challia Bull is always a positive thing for a series.

Vaguely speaking of FLCL, City the Animation is… well, nothing like it, except that it also leaves me confused and smiling every time. If you need to cheer up, just put on an episode of City. If you want to see some of the best animation you will ever see in your life, put on an episode of City. It isn’t flashy animation, it’s just stunning, hiding so much detail and care in plain sight. Could only be improved at all by a Pillows soundtrack/10, and honestly, I’m not even sure that would actually make it better.

Apothecary Diaries is great in all its forms. I do think season 2 is a bit weaker than season 1, but the adaptation is solid. Those light novels (3-4) are simultaneously covering the biggest “reveal” of the early series and ALSO expanding the worldbuilding rapidly to set up, effectively, the next 10 novels. They did a great job with that, and keeping the foreshadowing where it needed to be. The openings / endings continue to be top notch, no complaints on that front, but I did like part one’s slightly more.

In terms of other light novel adaptations, I haven’t actually read Ascendance of a Bookworm yet. I’m very excited for season 4 to be handled by a better studio, though, because if this is what a bad adaptation of the series looks like, there’s almost no way it won’t be anime of the year. It really speaks to how strong the story is that it can be so much fun to watch / follow along with even when the animation regularly drops into slideshows or underanimated endcaps, but there were some nice touches in there too. Being able to tell which characters are using shampoo based on the hair texturing? Clever, I like that.

Another “under-animated” show that stood out was Toilet-bound Hanako-kun. It looks like Scott Pilgrim even more than Scott Pilgrim Takes Off did! The vibes are immaculate, the voice work carries it so well.

Our Flag Means Death is so, so very gay. I don’t know what I expected but what a gift.

Hazbin Hotel is… I think a lot of the songs fall flat, but they don’t feel like they ever tried to hold back on just going for it with them. I appreciate that, since it makes none of them really feel wasted even if they don’t become something I’d want to listen to outside of the show without making them completely forgettable. Angel Dust did so many things wrong (unlike Vriska) but is my favorite all the same.

the shows

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