I don't really like this show. I'll keep going, because it's harmless and moderately watchable on its own terms... but it's not Sherlock Holmes. If they'd just changed the names in the script (and nothing else), no one would have never guessed that there was meant to be a connection and I'd have liked the show a lot more.

This week, astonishingly, Sherlock Holmes is recognisably Conan Doyle's Sherlock in a couple of scenes, in that he produces throwaway logical deductions... but this is just a sweetener for lots of odd backstory. He's only a detective so that it can make him a better rakugo comedian. We knew this, but for the first time we see it. Hurm.

These Baker Street Irregulars are a bunch of little shits, incidentally, but this week it occurred to me that I think I'm supposed to hate them.

It's not a bad episode if you can forget that it's claiming to be Sherlock Holmes. There's important material for Holmes and Moriarty. We see flashbacks to a murdered sister. The prison scenes are pretty good. I still love the cabaret-style opening theme music, especially the singer. But... naaah. I'm only still watching the show because I started and I'm stubborn.

Two friends play baseball, but one of them's moved to the USA. She sends encouraging words to the other.

That's it, really, but it's nice. The animation style is unusual, looking a bit like Flash animation made to look like rather lovely coloured pencils. I have no objection to the series at all.

This is a much-loved show that gets lots of critical praise, but it's not for me.

Kaguya and Miyuki would like to date each other, but are determined not to be the person who cracks and asks the other out first. They're also the super-rich super-elite of a school for the mega-important. Cue mind games and silly battles.

No. Ugh. No no no no. Makes me itch. I can't watch it.

Incidentally, there's a live-action film... but it's from the director of the Nisekoi live-action abomination and uses a similar style, so avoid it if you value your eyeballs. That will undoubtedly be true even if you like this anime.

Kakushi Gotou has a lovely ten-year-old daughter, Hime, but he doesn't want her to know how he earns a living. I was expecting to enjoy this show. I'm sure it's heartwarming. Everyone seems nice, the humour's warm, etc.

Unfortunately, I soon found that I couldn't stomach the premise. I'd have been okay had Dad just quietly not talked about it, but no. He starts ranting and being a twat about his secret-keeping. Stop it. Just tell her.

I watched a random episode on YouTube. The chipmunk has a problem with the little flag he got from a capsule machine. He's a bit rude. I don't like him, although admittedly the shop owner is a bit of a rambling old fart.

They're short spin-offs of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, originally released as twitter posts. The episode I watched starred the five imaginary versions of Katrina who live in her head and occasionally wonder what she should do next. (Or talk about food.) It was mildly interesting to see which was which and learn about each one's personality traits, but they're still basically a committee.

I like the parent show, which is charming and funny. I'm well-disposed towards this and I could imagine watching it. I might one day, but not for now.

INITIAL REACTION: holy shit. I love the art style. I also love the dancing at the start of the title sequence.

AFTER WATCHING THE EPISODE: the style makes sense. It's a show about animation nerds who love, discuss and bring alive their favourite topic. They can dissect what makes a particular moment of animation great. Obviously, the show needed to look special. Oh, and the girls themselves are fun too, with two out-and-out maniacs and one tall, lanky Frankenstein-a-like with a piranha's mouth and a mercenary attitude.

ON GOOGLING THE SHOW AFTERWARDS: oh, it's directed by Masaaki Yuasa. I should have guessed. No one else in the industry plays with animation style like him. I'm definitely going to watch this.

It's based on a Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize-winning manga, which was also 2020's second-best-selling manga series even though this season got put on ice after only four episodes due to COVID-19. (It resumed exactly a year later.)

That said, though, I have absolutely no interest in watching it. Battlefield, big army, war, heroes, fighting, castle, macho, etc. Everyone's very serious and doing their war job. No one has a personality. Enemy forces have appeared in the mountain! What could the Teng Army be doing here? "You do not understand the true terror of war."

It's based on a South Korean mobile phone game, but with an original plot. This episode was sort of okay, but relatively uninterested in characters. It has kings, politics, mercenaries, battles, etc. The main character is Kaasel, but he has no sense of humour whatsoever and came across as a bit of a dick in his training battle with his teacher. Unfortunately, this was his introductory scene.

The people of Orvelia traditionally don't like Dark Elves. The latter are indeed planning something, but they think this will be revenge for 100 years of oppression.

There's a fight in the forest. On the upside, this show is willing to kill people, but it would be a stretch to call them "characters".

The episode isn't entirely without female characters, but they're mostly memorable for their "boob window" jacket design.

The show doesn't look dreadful. I might have watched the whole thing had there only been six episodes. At twelve, probably not. At 26, no way. I don't hate this heroic fantasy genre, but this first episode was bland.

To be honest, I'm not sure what this random episode I watched is trying to do. It's warm, good-natured, endearing, etc. but that's all I got from it. A bunch of schoolgirls are friends and they make pointless videos together to stream online. It's like empty daytime TV, this week being a visit to a theme park. ("Miracle Kiratts Channel! Miracle Kiratts speaking! We will try to find a way to warm ourselves during the winter in Kirajuku! Today, we came to Akagi An-Na-Land! To help us, we invited two elementary school students.")

There's a biker grandad who says "wild" in every sentence and so becomes more annoying every time he speaks. For no reason, there's also an idol dance sequence in a shiny gold dress that could probably blind anyone who looked at it too closely without sunglasses.

I've tried to watch JoJo's Bizarre Adventure several times. I wish I could get into it, but I can't. I didn't even bother with this one, though. I just went "whoops, JoJo" and bailed.

It's about blue stop-motion worms with yellow heads and busy little voices that make them endearing. (I think they're meant to be caterpillars, but these bald, unhealthy-looking things are definitely more worm-like.) They wriggle around the real world. Discarded cardboard, busy overhead bypasses, etc.

Some ants pick up a worm and carry it off, enthusiastically saying "yoisho yoisho". (In English, they'd be saying "heave ho!") This is cute until it becomes sinister in the ants' nest, with a hungry queen and a big saw. The worm wakes up and very sensibly does a runner.

There's also a worm that wakes up in a corn-on-the-cob and eats its way around, only to discover that another worm's head might be as easily camouflaged in the yellow as its own. It gets chased by an angry female sibling.

This show is fun.

An elderly couple are eating breakfast.

MAN: "Dear, how much longer until the food arrives?"

WOMAN: "You're eating it right now." (She's right. They're sitting at the table with fish, rice, tea and miso soup laid out, with the lady having eaten half her fish already.)

MAN: "Oh, okay. Which hand am I supposed to eat food with?"

WOMAN: "Your right."

MAN: "Which is my right hand?"

WOMAN: "You don't even remember that? It's this one."

MAN: "Okay, okay."

WOMAN: "You really are getting senile, aren't you?"

MAN: "I was doing it deliberately."

The woman's heart flutters. Apparently, the show's a comedy about an old man who keeps doing cliched "hot guy" chat-up actions on women of his own age. He's annoying and I hate him already.

This seems aimed at three-year-olds. Food items wander around, burble to each other in Teletubby-speak (with at most the odd word distinguishable) and have pleasant, inconsequential non-adventures. Today, an onigiri goes looking for some furikake to sprinkle on himself, but gets distracted for a while by all the other goodies being sold by the bacon-wrapped-asparagus, aubergine, tempura, takoyaki, etc.

It's indistinguishable from an isekai, except that the heroine (Yuna) is actually playing a VR video game and can log out whenever she likes. (In real life, she supports herself by playing the stock market, sends money to her parents and doesn't go to school.) The main things I took away from the show are:

(a) it's visually unimpressive. Either they had very little money or someone's deliberately aping the vintage kiddie anime look of KonoSuba.

(b) the people Yuna helps are annoying idiots.

A small boy visits the Adventurers' Guild saying that everyone in his village is going to be eaten by a black viper. (It's over 50m long and could probably beat up dragons.) No one's willing to fight it except Yuna... but she's wearing a cute bear costume, so the boy tells her she's weak and not to waste his time. Uh... what? She goes anyway, so the boy's dad tells her the same thing. These people have attitude problems, although they do admittedly apologise afterwards.

Yuna wanders off and pulverises the black viper. Obviously. She's an isekai-ish protagonist. Of course she'll have stupid power levels that destroy drama. Nonetheless, even now the villagers find it hard to believe that an adventurer could be strong and yet also wear a bear costume.

"Did you really defeat the black viper?" asks the village elder, standing a few metres away from its train-sized corpse.

Morons. Not interested.