What if keeping your relationship a secret is less about being sneaky, but more about how bad you and your lover are at hiding your love for each other.

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The show ran from January to March 2025, produced by studio Blade and directed by Naoko Takeichi. It's adapted from a manga by Akamaru Enomoto, serialized in Kodansha's Morning magazine from 2019 to 2023, running for 15 volumes in total.

There was a cute detail that I found while researching for this newsletter was that the manga was semi-autobiographical. Enomoto based it on her own real experiences as a company employee, which was probably why every office scene felt like it was written by someone who has survived a mandatory all-hands meeting with a secret boyfriend three seats away.

The story

Masugu Tateishi is 28 years old, works in accounting at Tsuda Confectionery, a sweets manufacturing company, and he is quietly, helplessly in love with Yui Mitsuya, his coworker from the planning department. They joined the company at the same time. They bicker constantly. Everyone calls them “mortal enemies.”

In reality, however, they are a couple. They have been for a while, about 3 months at the start of the show. And they have agreed, mostly at Yui’s insistence, because she’s terrified of workplace gossip, to keep the whole thing completely secret.

That premise alone was the golden sauce of the show because these two lovable adults were terrible at keeping their love a secret.

This was a sleeper show because it was only picked-up by Medialink which licensed it for Ani-One Asia’s YouTube channel in Southeast Asia, which is how many viewers in the region got access like me, and it was not available on the main English platforms: No Crunchyroll. No Netflix. No Hidive. This was why to me it is a sleeper.

My Breakdown

When the show opened, Masugu and Yui are already a couple. The tension in most romance anime were not there; you know the “will they or won’t they”. Instead we got “will they blow their cover today, and how badly?” They had to pretend to hate each each other, well not really hate more like bickering.

This meant that we didn’t get the usual slow burn 12 episodes that forced you to read the manga to find out how that relationship started because you won’t get a season 2. The show got to ask the funnier question by using this angel: what does it actually look like, day after day, to maintain a lie in an office full of people who know you?

What I got was a bunch of cute situations that poorly hid the fact that these two; it was a wonder why they have not got caught. Wait no. They did get caught by Yui’s junor, Somei at a drinking party.

One of the things Kono Kaisha did very well in my opinion was treating the workplace as a real place, and it was not just a backdrop for romance. The office had its politics. People talk. There were bosses with their own personalities, coworkers with their own subplots, like for example Maria Mizono a junior in the accountant department who was a famous sweets reviewer online or Masugu's boss, Shizuno Hayakawa, who is a heavy drinker has been through her own failed relationship.

Let’s talk about Shizuno Hayakawa for a bit here because she was in a secret relationship like our main couple, but sadly that relationship didn’t work out. However, she did became 1 half of the secondary couple with Yui’s junior, Keisuke Somei, after eating with him at a cafe a few time. She managed to overcome her pain to try again for happiness despite the age difference and positions of hers and Somei.

I love it when a show gave time for a secondary couple, and I wished we had more time with this group of characters because they felt like real people with each character existing for a reason beyond just adding bodies to the scene. Instead of the 12 episodes, we should have had 24 episodes for a 162 chapters manga like this.

Kono Kaisha was smart enough to know that you can’t run on comedy alone; you needed moments where the secret doesn’t feel like a punchline, but like something genuinely worth protecting. The after-hours scenes deliver exactly that. For example, there was this night scene at the office when Yui was still at her desk. When Masugu found her, and for a few minutes, just a few mind you, neither of them had to pretend. He sat beside her. She leaned into him. That is love. The small moments.

it never goes melodramatic. There are no betrayals, no misunderstandings stretched across three episodes, no moment where someone almost gives up on the relationship over a solvable problem.

I watched this and it felt like watching a couple who genuinely like each other which was rarer in anime than it should be. It was warm with being too hot. It was funny without being mean. Its characters behaved like adults, and it trusted me and you if you give a go to enjoy watching them try and mostly fail to act normal around each other.

If you love office comedies, the kind with real workplace texture, and it is not just a set dressing; then, this is for you. If you want something short, complete (12 episodes, fully adapted from a finished manga), and genuinely funny without being stupid; this is absolutely for you.

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This was a cool 4 episodes as we got the whole team on the mission. . For much of this season, Do-gi has been the solo ace. He was undercover, in disguise and usually the last man standing in the fights with the bad guys. Kyung-koo led the early investigation. Go-eun goes undercover as a hacker. Jin-eon shadowed suspects on the mainland. Sung-chul played the reluctant investor and fisherman. Even Reporter Bong, a journalist hiding in the island’s forest for six months got folded into the plan. It felt like the show remembered it had a team not just Do-gi.

The Samheung Island arc officially began when Kyung-koo who for once was stepping into the lead role without being Do-gi’s shadow. He took on a case that initially read as a nuisance complaint. Maria introduced a girl name Dosom who lost money buying gloves for her father to keep his hands warm after an accident. A small case, so Kyung-koo tried to handle it quietly, lost his own money in the process, and only came clean to the team a week later. He was visibly broken.

Episode 12 had a recorded viewership of 19.1%, a peak record for the show. The case of Yoo Min-jung, the pregnant woman harassed into a miscarriage by the scam ring’s retaliation machine, was handled with restraint rather than melodrama. The show let the facts spoke for the victim. There was no swelling music or slow-motion breakdown. Just a woman telling her story to people who finally listened.

The investigation that followed was one of Season 3’s more thoughtful case constructions. The scam operation isn’t run by thugs. It’s was ran by teenagers who have never met their boss, managed through anonymous proxy servers, and defended by a legal firewall thick enough to stop any conventional complaint. Go-eun eventually cracks the outer ring by posing as a hacker, but by Episode 12’s midpoint, the team realized the true scale of the organization. The General Manager was not just a local fraudster; he was connected to Samheung Island, a remote location that turned out to be a franchise hub for cybercrime operations across the country.

Samheung Island was one of the best location in the series. Its geography was beautiful to me; it was a remote fishing island that house a community, and this community turned hostile when Do-gi and Mr. Kang asked the wrong questions. This gave a texture of conspiracy. Do-gi and Sung-chul arrived by ferry, immediately clocked three suspicious figures (a photographer, a police officer and a fisherman), and spent the first half of Episode 13 playing the criminal group con. They posed as aspiring criminals looking for startup capital.

The moment Do-gi finds the temple's hidden CCTV bank, the fake government IDs, and the burner phones, the case shifts from scam investigation to criminal network takedown, and then the show threw its curveball with Reporter Bong; a journalist who has been hiding in the island’s forests for six months, emerged from the trees and handed the team six months of evidence it couldn’t have obtained any other way.

Reporter Bong was an interesting addition because he and his senior were indirect victims to this criminal network, so the information provided to the team was both for revenge and justice. Nevertheless, it still felt a little like cheating, but I think the idea of the victim taking part in the revenge was cool and fresh.

Next let’s talk about the main part of the arc, the takedown. It was shot very similar to a heist film with each member creating different distraction, so that Go-eun could find the secret server that hosted all the information about the groups of scammers in this network and neutralized everyone. They also took the network’s fund in cash and gold.

The team acted independently here which is cool to see play out,. Every member has a simultaneous job. Go-eun was alone at a laptop, racing through a firewall. Sung-chul was in a room with a monk who wanted to kill him, pretending to want the same man dead. Jin-eon and Kyung-koo acted as drunk gamblers as a delay tactic; WE got to see Kyung-koo gambling hands at work again here. Do-gi took a ride in the taxi with Writer Go, money on the seat, and he waited for Go-eun’s signal. The parallel cutting between these storylines was tighter than anything Season 3 has attempted before.

Onto the big action climax when Do-gi taxi was chased and shot at by this criminal crew. They all rammed into his taxi after chasing him through the island; they wanted to push him down the pier. Do-gi and the taxi was losing the push even when he pushed the nitro to the max, and then he remembered Jin-eon telling about a electron-magnetic pulse installed into the taxi; he used it and destroyed the criminals’ cars (maybe kill most of them).

Writer Ko tried to escape on a boat only for Do-gi to shoot the fuel tank, and, boom, the fireball was exciting; however, writer Go was a sophisticated antagonist who deserved a more personal defeat, and that ending didn’t feel personal enough for a man who destroyed dozens of lives through spreadsheets and servers.

Episode 14 closed with the line that has been buried in Season 2’s finale for years. Whatever the final two episodes have planned about Do-gi's military past finally surfacing; these four episodes were a worthy runway.

The 4 episodes had more deception; the main weapon of the scammers and the Rainbow team. Do-gi didn’t punch writer Ko, but he tricked him instead. He made a criminal resume of the roles he played that happened in season 1 and season 2 into a dinner conversation, and he made himself into a crazy scammer that could become a recruiter to this criminal network. The question of who was playing whom hangs over every scene. That tension was what makes Episode 14 feel like a compressed heist film.

A case that started personal, expanded into something institutional, and wrapped up in an action sequence that earned its fireworks. Writer Go (played with quiet menace by Kim Sung-kyu) was a compelling upgrade from a typical K-drama villain . He was a former prosecutor who turned crime into a franchise business, rational rather than theatrical. However, the show didn’t allow writer Ko to grow into a true threat to Do-gi. I think if this was the final arc of the show with 6 episodes rather 4. The "great villain" promised by the setup didn’t fully arrive. What did arrive, though, was one of the season's best ensemble sequences; a car chase that genuinely surprised, and a dock standoff that earned its explosion.

Episodes 11-14 were Taxi Driver bring its A-game. The story was confident, propulsive while still finding ways to surprise us, the viewers, The action erupted in ways I didn’t not expect, and the team was finally, properly assembled. The Samheung Island arc was the season’s most complete story so far. That island deserved a longer visit, yet what it gave us in four episodes was still more than enough.

2 episodes left and the meter is still running folks.

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Jeeg is part of the Super Robo sub-genre of mech; this means that there more sci-fi and liberties taken with the robot. Prime examples are Mazinger Z and Getter.

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Review

In Jeep’s case, it seemed they threw everything at the wall which meant we had archaeology, mythology, tragedy, body horror and one of the most quietly devastating origin stories in early mecha anime. The shape all these parts on the wall made was unforgettable.

If Mazinger Z was the older brother who taught you to fight, Koutetsu Jeeg was the cousin nobody talked about, who read too many books about ancient civilizations and somehow turned that into a superpower. I think that this awesome, and I hope you do too, dear readers.

First, what is Koutetsu Jeeg? Koutetsu Jeeg was an anime that aired on NET (the network now known as TV Asahi) from October 5, 1975 to August 29, 1976, produced by Toei Doga (now Toei Animation), created by Go Nagai and Tatsuya Yasuda, and directed by Masayuki Akehi. It ran for 46 episodes. Unlike Cutie Honey, Devilman or Mazinger Z, it remained under the radar. There was no major dub, limited availability and modest fan translation work. However, in Italy it gained a cult following and remembered with affection.

The story of this show: Hiroshi Shiba is a young car racer who was reckless and undeniably cool; he was mortally wounded in a laboratory accident. His father, Professor Shiba, a scientist and archaeologist researching the ancient Jamatai Kingdom, restored him to life using a mysterious bronze bell relic, transforming him into a cyborg in the process. Not a man in a suit. Not a pilot in a cockpit. Hiroshi’s head literally detached and magnetically fused to the body of the giant robot Jeeg. He did not control Jeeg. He became Jeeg. This was unique compared to other shows of that time; it had much more in common with Devilman.

Mazinger Z (1972) established the pilot-in-cockpit formla that would define super robot anime for decades. Getter Robo (1974) added combination mechanics. Koutetsu Jeeg took a different fork: the hero was the robot, all in one. His identity and his weapon were one and the same object.

Again if we compare Jeeg to Devilman, both heroes could take damage directly from their fights and not just the mechas. There was also some body horror elements not addressed when Jeeg is assembled from separate magnetic components, it is Hiroshi being reconstructed; was he in pain? Was there any psychological damage? Questions that never answered in a kid’s anime.

The enemy faction, the Jamatai Kingdom (led by Queen Himika, ruler of an ancient underground civilisation), draws directly from Japanese Yamatai-period archaeology and Haniwa clay figure mythology. This was an unusual and interesting choice that gave Jeep a folkloric texture. The villain Queen Himika is operatic in the best sense: grand, ruthless, but she was given just enough humanisation to be interesting rather than cartoonish. Her foot soldiers, the Haniwa Phantoms, were clay giants unearthed from Japan’s soil, monsters with genuine mythological weight behind their design.

Hiroshi Shiba died in the first episode of the show. He actually died before he got into into the robot. The racing accident should have killed him, but he was fine. There was something special about his body, one of the show’s mystery. I think this was is genuinely audacious for a show aimed at children.

Every super robot show has its combination sequence. Koutetsu Jeeg’s was strange, and strange was the only word I could use to describe it when I saw it for the first time.

Hiroshi’s body got folded into a head and launched; it flew through the air, and magnetically locked onto Jeeg’s body as the separate components assembled around it. It was visually arresting and, if you sat with it, kind of horrifying. A human skull, flew and becoming architecture.

The music, however, showed a sequence of triumphant, not eerie. The show was telling you to feel proud and energised. And you do. There was a dissonance in tone because the body horror was made heroic. Horoshi’s transformation was the show’s central tonal achievement; he was fighting for humanity and his family. Jeep’s transformation held two contradictory emotional that registered simultaneously and made both true.

I have watched a lot of transformation sequences. This was the only one where I can never decide if it was beautiful or disturbing. It was both. That was why it stays.

The Super Robot era of the 1970s is usually told as a straight line: Mazinger Z created the template, Getter Robo added combination, Grendizer expanded it internationally, and then Gundam in 1979 arrived and everything changes toward realism. Koutetsu Jeeg rarely appeared in this narrative. It should because Jeep introduced 2 ideas:

1. idea 1 was The cyborg-as-robot concept blurred the boundary between human identity and mechanical body; years before Ghost in the Shell made that philosophical territory famous. Hiroshi’s existential condition, am I still human? The question was never explicitly dramatised in the show, but it structured every episode he appeared in.

2. Idea 2 was the mythological villain framework. Enemies drawn from actual Yamatai archaeology and Haniwa clay figure mythology rather than generic evil empires. This anticipated the more grounded worldbuilding that later Tomino-era shows would explore. The Jamatai Kingdom felt like a civilisation, real people, well monsters not just a threat level.

Neither ideas were fully addressed because the show was still a children’s property in 1975, with all the episodic-monster-of-the-week constraints that implied. But the seeds were there, plainly visible if you looked for them like me.

There are 3 reasons I believe that reasons Koutetsu Jeeg slipped through the cracks:

• First, it was timing: It aired between two Go Nagai juggernauts, Grendizer launched the same year, same network. Grendizer won internationally. Jeeg got squeezed.

• Second, it was availability because fordecades there was no official English release. Western mecha fandom was built on the canon that was accessible. Jeeg was not.

• Third, the theme was hidden underneath; it looked like every other 1975 super robot show. The innovations were structural and tonal, not visual. You have to watch it to find them.

Through my research, I found out about the Italian cult audience found it anyway. In Italy, Jeeg became a touchstone. There was even a 2015 Italian superhero film, Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot, directly inspired by it, which received seventeen David di Donatello nominations and won eight, making it one of the most decorated Italian films of that year. Japan made the original, and then Italy turned it into art-house cinema. English-language fandom has largely missed out on the show.

I would recommend Jeeg to viewers who are interested in the prehistory of cyberpunk the cyborg identity questions that Jeeg raised without fully naming. Next, viewers who appreciate mythology-based worldbuilding and want to see it deployed in a completely different context, and finally viewers who are mecha fans who have done Gundam, Evangelion, and the obvious classics and want to go deeper into the genre’s roots.

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Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is the first mainline Dragon Ball film rendered almost entirely in computer animation, so I can definitely see the difference in quality between it and Daima.

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Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is a mixed bag with a beating heart. The film makes genuinely bold choices; it sidelines its most iconic characters: Goku and Vegeta, and it gives Piccolo a proper arc, and leaning into character comedy more than any Dragon Ball film in years. The best part of the movie for me are: The Gohan Beast transformation. It is one of the most emotionally earned power-ups in the franchise’s history. Orange Piccolo is a delight, and Pan is charming. When it works, it is a great time.

Nevertheless, the film also stumbles a few things. Number 1, Cell Max was such a great villain while he was a spectacle, he didn’t feel menacing as the final boss because of the CGI; the CGI oscillates between stunning and stiff within the same scene. The final scenes were a dragged and tested my patience, and finally for all its visual ambition, resolves in a way that feels slightly hollow because there was a huge explosion and the movie ended.

I feel that this will be improve upon when we reach this arc in the anime; at least I hope so. A man can dream.

Now first let’s talk about Orange Piccolo while initially a villain, he has become a great supporting character. He was the reliable mentor to Gohan, the stoic backup in fights and the fearless one back in the original series, DBZ. However, with more powerful enemies showing up and the saiyans getting more hair colors ( more powerful), he has been reduced toward irrelevance. The Orange Piccolo was an answer and a statement that he still mattered.

I felt the relief of watching a character find themselves again because that’s what living is about. The animation here was some of the film's best work: Piccolo's silhouette expanding, the orange glow hitting his dark green skin and the almost disbelieving look on his face. It was genuinely moving.

Next was the emotional moment for the strongest fighter, Gohan. Gohan has been Dragon Ball’s great unfulfilled promise for over twenty years. He was introduced as potentially the most powerful fighter in existence, who then spent two decades of storytelling being systematically depowered in favour of his father and Vegeta, Super Hero finally made good on that promise, and it did so in the right way: not through training or determination, but through rage and love. This showed that Gohan’s potential showed in the Cell Saga was still there.

When Gohan lost control, at seeing his mentor closed to dying. When the Beast awakened, it was because something he loves was threatened. The white hair, the red eyes and the sudden tonal shift in the score: the scene was constructed with real craft and care. More importantly, it felt earned by the film's emotional logic, not just its power-scaling arms race.

The problem with movie was Cell Max; as a final boss, he was conceptually, a strong antagonist who was suppose to be a nightmarish, incomplete version of one of Dragon Ball's most iconic villains, all raw destructive power with none of Cell's calculating intelligence. However, the lacked of intelligent and character turned out to be a demerit. The final fight was destructive, crazy and full of beams everywhere, but Cell Max’s lack of personality made the fight emotionally flat.

The CGI was at its best here; it was massive, and had a lot of dynamic camera movements and gigantic explosions. On the other hand, this impressiveness was not consistence because some shots were stunning while others looked unfinished. This led to a final fight that was visually satisfying, yes, but missing a depth unlike when Gohan defeated OG Cell with a kamehameha.

In the end, Dragon Ball Super Superheroes was a comfortable fun watch that had a lot of humor going for it. If you are not a serious Dragon Ball Super fan, this movie will be a comfortable, enjoyable watch. Piccolo was great throughout the movie, and his love for Pan and Gohan was hearth warming, Pan’s relationship with her father was wonderful and cute.

The CGI takes some getting used to. Give it twenty minutes and you will either make peace with it or you will not; it is up to you whether you can enjoy it or not, but it term of technical performance; it can surprised at times, just not all the time.

Again the main villain, Cell Max, didn’t live up to the Cell name at all. . Cell Max should have been terrifying. The finale should have hit harder. The pacing in the middle section should have been tighter.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero was a film made with affection for its characters; it had a willingness to take small risks, and it had enough good sense to keep things consistent with the rest of Super. It did skip a great many arcs after all.

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Hi everyone,

If you’ve been reading my posts over the past couple of months. Thank you. I started this space in January with a simple idea: to share my thoughts on anime and K-dramas, one post at a time, about once a week. Nothing too big, just something consistent and honest.

Somewhere along the way, I realized this space is becoming more than just reviews.

It’s also slowly turning into a place where we can learn English naturally — through stories, emotions, and characters we already care about.

So… what’s new?

I’ve added a small Ko-fi button to this page.

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If you’ve never seen it before, Ko-fi is just a simple way to support creators. Just buying them a coffee.

I am from Vietnam, and Stripe isn’t supported here, so through google I decided to use Ko-fi instead. Also thank you to this post:

Sunday Ripley

I'm adding a "Buy Me a Coffee" button and why you should too

I love sharing my writing with you, and I don’t want a paywall standing between us. Stories and posts should be read, not locked away…

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a year ago · 3029 likes · 410 comments · Sunday Ripley

Why I added it

I want to be transparent about this.

Writing these posts takes time — watching, thinking, writing, editing — and I genuinely enjoy it. But I also want to grow this into something more sustainable.

More importantly, I want to start building:

• English-learning sections in my posts

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• Content that helps you enjoy and learn at the same time

If you’ve ever thought:

“I wish I could learn English in a more interesting way…”

That’s exactly what I want to create here.

No pressure, really

Everything I write will stay free.

The Ko-fi button is just there if:

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Even just reading, liking, or sharing my posts already helps more than you think.

What’s coming next

I’ll continue with:

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• You will see the button on this post and my Dragon Ball Super Superheroes newsletter.

Thank you for being here, especially this early on.

This is still a small space, but I’m excited to see where it can go.

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— Phuong

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These feelings in that opening scene only intensify after each arc, from to gun warehouse to the final confrontation at the hospital. And when it ended, I sat in silence for a while, the way you do after something genuinely great.

John Woo is the reason “gun-fu” exist; furthermore, he is the reason so many of the action sequences we love exist in anime and movies.

If you've watched Trigun and felt something stir during Vash's slow-walk standoffs, that's Woo. If Black Lagoon's gunfight choreography ever made your pulse spike and your heart pumping, that’s Woo. the Cowboy Bebop movie's frantic warehouse sequences hit differently than other action anime, still Woo. The man crafted a visual language structure with guns, slow-motion and camera- angles that spread across international cinema and animation alike.

Hard Boiled (1992) was his last Hong Kong film before moving to Hollywood. It was a love letter to the genre that he defined, the “heroic bloodshed,” and he wrote it with gunpowder and EXPLOSIONS.

The plot of the film goes like this: Inspector Tequila (Chow Yun-fat) is a jazz-playing, toothpick-chewing cop who leads with his chest and shoots from the hip, sometimes literally. He’s hunting an arms smuggling ring after his partner is killed in the opening raid. Along the way, he crosses paths with Tony (Tony Leung), an undercover cop so deep inside the triad that even his own grief has gone underground.

The plot of the movie isn’t complicated, and that is intentional. Woo just wants men with guns in hand and bullets flying. Under all those flying bullets and blood, can loyalty, identity and moral mean anything? Can these men protect those who can’t protect themselves?

The core theme of the movie to me is: what are the cost of being weapons? Both Tequila and Tony are deadly weapons, but they are also paying for it with their morality, their bodies and their sanity.

The last 30 minutes: a cop, an undercover and an arms dealer walked into a hospital. I want to talk about this because I have heard Youtube video essays talking this arc; however, there is a huge difference between hearing about and watching it myself.

The setup was this: the triad has taken over a hospital. A full hospital of patients, staff, corridors and wards because they built a basement full of illegal weapons. Tequila and Tony went inside. They had two objectives: stop the gunmen and evacuate the patients. That was it. That was the entire final arc, ladies and gentlemen.

The immortal feat of John Woo: the centerpiece of the finale is a single, uncut, two-and-a-half-minute tracking shot that followed Tequila and Tony through a burning hospital corridor as they fought their way through armed men, dodged explosions, kicked open doors, and, in the middle of all of it, stopped to protect a newborn baby. It was 2 minutes 30s long with no cuts in between.

The emotional core of the movie was Tony. Tony Leung played an undercover cop that was under for so long; he didn’t know when the acting began and when he began. He killed for the triad, and he buried pieces of himself with those kills. Only oragami birds remained.

There was a moment near the end when Tony made a choice that would cost him everything. Leung plays it without a word of dialogue, with a single look at Tequila across a smoky corridor, an amazing work of acting.

Now then there was a baby; Chow Yun-fat, covered in blood and gun smoke, cradling a newborn infant through an exploding hospital. It should be ridiculous. It isn't. Somehow, Woo makes it the emotional center of the entire film.

If you come to this from anime, you'll feel the DNA immediately. The duality between Tequila and Tony maps directly onto the rival/partner dynamics that anime has explored endlessly: Vash and Wolfwood, Spike and Jet, Revy and Rock to name a few. The idea of a man defined by his weapon who is quietly asking whether that's all he is, and the male friendship that expresses itself entirely through action and never through words.

Hard Boiled (1992) is the film that proves action cinema is capable of genuine art. Chow Yun-fat is effortlessly magnetic. Tony Leung is heartbreaking. John Woo is operating at the peak of his powers. You need to see this film if you like action, guns and bloody men.

Dennosuke Uchimura dies in a hit-and-run and wakes up in a throne room. Standard opening for an isekai except it wasn’t a god/goddess giving out a prophecy, or a system that appeared like in a video game. It was a job interview from the demon king, himself.

The Demon King doesn’t want a hero or a supporter. He wants a manager. Someone who understands logistics, who can read a room, and knows how to handle people who are more powerful than him without flinching in the slightest. Uchimura while still processing his death, asked 3 questions of his employer: What were his responsibilities as one of “The Big Four.” What was considered success? What was failure, and what was the cost of said failure.

This opening subverted the common isekai opening, and made argument for the salaryman. The skills considered commonplace in the workforce were transferable into a fantasy world, and the were important. The MegaCorp didn’t see him clearly. The Demon King did.

That inversion that the fantasy world could see a diamond in the rough while the Megacorp who have had years of experience managing people couldn’t.

The main conflicts of the series came from the conflicting personalities, race and aims of the 4 Heavenly Kings. Uchimura has to navigate between them without the one currency everyone else is trading in: raw strength. He has no magic, systems, or strength to level the discussions. However, what he does have is that is fluency in a different language. He reads the room. He manages upward. He understands that any army runs on logistics before it runs on power.

The first few episodes showed him earning the respect and trust of the other three Heavenly Kings; the show is at its best here. It thrives in the friction and momentum of four people who shouldn’t work together slowly learning to have faith and understanding in each other strengths and weakness, and where to apply them best.

If you loved the strategic council scenes in Realist Hero, for the ones where Kazuya is explaining monetary policy to a room full of skeptical nobles. This is the closest the isekai genre has come to replicating that feeling. The 4 Heavenly Kings are colleagues in this company/kingdom.

The main flaw of the show is its length of episodes. It doesn’t have enough time to develop each of them as fully as the material demands. There are only brief outlines to the other 3 Kings, but it is just enough to make them unique and compelling.

The best moment in show for me was the exporting of the magical beasts deterring devices to the Gold kingdom. After a failed work order collapses due to a merchant stealing the items and sold at lower price. The resources wasted, effort lost, a product that will go unsold. Uchimura planed a full apology tour. To the Demon King. To the other generals. To everyone involved. He absorbed the failure completely, regardless of whose fault it actually was.

The generals don’t let him. They talked to him and encouraged him in their own ways. Here it lands differently, because what the show is actually depicting is a man who spent his entire working life in an environment where failure, regardless of cause was his to absorb. He internalized the punishment so completely that he couldn’t accept absolution even when it’s freely and sincerely given.

But This one of the most interesting ones. And interesting, in a genre this crowded with competent-but-forgettable entries, is genuinely rare If you loved Realist Hero’s strategic register but wanted something with more heart in the ensemble: this is the closest the genre has come.

And if you’ve ever sat in a meeting, done everything right, and still ended up apologizing for something that wasn’t your fault?

This show was made for you. The Demon King’s army is just where it found you.

Let’s first make it clear what type of movie Deadpool and Wolverine is and isn’t. It is a gloried, absolutely humorous and a love letter to fans of a simple stand-alone superhero movie that Disney abandoned and buried in favour of multi-verse connected movies with the same type of humor and plot beats; D&W is fanservice love. On the other hand, D&W isn’t and doesn't really pretend to be, is a well-told story.

Wade Wilson can't die. In his scuzzy corner of the Marvel universe, that's less a source of tragedy and more a catalyst for relentlessly off-color comedy. After years of waiting, we fans finally get the buddy-movie team-up between the Merc with a Mouth and the man with adamantium claws, and the result is exactly as chaotic, loud, and oddly endearing as you'd expect.

Base on my googling, this movie was made because Huge Jackman is a big fan of Deadpool. He retired the Wolverine role with Logan in 2017, but he wanted to return to team-up with Deadpool in a R-rated buddy-duo action straight from the 1980s. The final movie we got was full of n energy and spirit, yet the story seemed to struggle to keep up.

Sidenote: Yes, I had hope a team-up for Deadpool eventually, but I was hoping for a Spider-Man and Deadpool team. The mercenary with a mouth and the wise-cracking hero. I love the team-up in the animation series.

Ryan Reynolds makes himself at home in the MCU with his wit, while Hugh Jackman is the adamantium backbone to proceedings. The duo embarked on a romp that had a soft-loving hand for old-school superhero movies. Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds’ chemistry is the catalyst of the movie; When these two bicker, bleed, and reluctantly bond, Deadpool & Wolverine is electric.

The film’s plot isn’t great on the other hand. Things just happen because they need to happen. The multiverse mechanics: sacred timelines, anchor beings and time rippers are vaguely defined. It was the last 40 minutes that Hugh Jackman got some character development. Wolverine was allowed to sit down with his mistakes, and he forgave himself to become the hero Charles knew him to be.

Emma Corrin makes a frightening villain as Cassandra Nova . She was equipped with a predatory stare, bird-boned frame, and long elegant fingers. The movie pushes some of her acts to the point where they feel like spiritual violations as much as physical ones. It's one of the film's stronger creative choices, even if her motivations remain frustratingly thin; she is a deep-cut the comics, and her origin had been retcon to become Charles’ twin sister that would stop him from becoming Professor X; her hate for the Time Ripper and the world seemed not developed enough.

The cameos, and there are many, range from genuinely thrilling to borderline overwhelming. I won’t spoil them for you readers. You need to experience them yourselves, dear readers.

There's enough gory mayhem and genuine zingers to make Deadpool & Wolverine a fun ride especially in a packed, up-for-it cinema viewing. This movie is a community experience; unfortunately for me, I watched it by myself, so I missed our on that experience.

Ultimately, Deadpool & Wolverine is less a movie and more a collection of fan service, references, and Easter eggs. However, it was a must needed injection into MCUs. It knows exactly what it is, wears its ridiculousness proudly, and occasionally, in its quieter moments between the carnage; it manages to earn genuine emotion.

Point one: your readers will open your newsletter, but they won’t interact much on the app. The people who engage most with your posts are the ones already living on Substack. People will be browsing the notes feed, leaving comments or following writers they like. Your email subscribers are loyal, but they’re quiet. If you want conversation, you have to go find the community yourself. Leave comments and show up in other people’s notes. Be a reader, not just a writer.

Point two: writing on Substack is like any other social media platform. You will talk to the void most of the time. A post goes out, and the silence is loud. That’s not failure, but that’s just how it works, especially early on. Which means you need a reason to keep showing up that has nothing to do with likes or restacks. For me it’s the practice. of writing. The act of putting something into words every week, whether ten people read it or a hundred.

Four months in, I’m still figuring this out alongside you. But those two things — find your community, and have your own reason to stay — feel like the most honest advice I can give right now.

More reviews coming. Thanks for being here.

Until next time folks, I will brew something good and always watch something that stays with you.

Please refer to this post for a more detail analysis: The guide

The Anime Analyst

The Substack Roadmap: Lessons from The Anime Analyst

On January 19th of this year, I launched my Substack with exactly zero followers. All I had was a laptop and a passion for analyzing anime. Specifically, I wanted to find the life lessons hidden in these stories…

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3 months ago · 30 likes · 12 comments · The Anime Analyst

If you enjoy my review, please consider buying me a coffee.

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This is not a review post. I wanted to write about my experience indexing my substack onto Google, but first I recommend that you read this:

Anime & Manga Chronicles

How to Make Your Substack Searchable: A Guide to Search Engines and Growth

We all want to be seen and read. Most of us spend our time trying to get noticed within the Substack ecosystem, but today I want to talk about the world outside that bubble…

Read more

3 months ago · 39 likes · 15 comments · N Senpai

Ok, are you done? Let’s continue with my story and guide. So if you read N Senpai’s post above like me you would get be and I am quoting her post here:

• Step 1: Log into Google Search Console.

• Step 2: Use the “URL Prefix” box and paste your full Substack homepage link.

• Step 3: Look for the “HTML Tag” verification method. You’ll see a code that looks like content=”XYZ123”. Copy only the letters and numbers inside those quotes.

• Step 4: Go to your Substack Settings and find the field labeled “Google Site Verification.” Paste that code there and save.

• But dear readers please look at this:

  

  Google Site Verification is no longer with us apparently, so I panicked. Then I decided to do some googling. Apparently Substack has removed it for domains created on January 2026 like myself. Here the quote article

So back to the drawing board for me. Here was what I did and I hope it can be useful for you:

Step 1: Get your Google Tag Manager ID

1. Log in to Google Tag Manager and create a free account if you haven’t already.

2. When asked for a container name, type your Substack URL (e.g., yourname.substack.com) and choose Web.

3. Once created, look at the top-right corner of your dashboard to find your ID (it starts with GTM- followed by letters and numbers). Copy this ID.

Step 2: Connect GTM to Substack

1. Go to your Substack Dashboard and click on Settings in the left sidebar.

2. Scroll down to the Analytics section.

3. Paste your copied GTM ID into the Google Tag Manager ID box and click Save.

Step 3: Verify in Google Search Console

1. Go to Google Search Console and log in with the same Google account you used for Tag Manager.

2. Select Add Property and use the URL Prefix option (enter you substack domain.

3. For the verification method, select Google Tag Manager and click Verify. It should auto-verify instantly (though it may sometimes take a few hours for the system to process the link).

4. Once verified, you can manually submit your Substack sitemap by heading to the "Sitemaps" tab in Search Console and submitting sitemap.xml to help Google index your articles faster.

And there you have it folks. If you run into any problems, please comment below or sent me a dm.

If you enjoy my review, please consider buying me a coffee.

Buy a Coffee for me

After the credit rolls for this movie, I felt gratitude for the animators and script writer. This was still Bokuto station; still (relatively) normal men and women serving the common folks. The movie gave me what I didn’t know I needed from this series, and it did it without betraying a single thing I already loved about it.

The movie opens with Miyuki and Natsumi returning to Bokuto Station after stints at other departments. It is homecoming episode scaled up to film size, and before everyone can celebrate their return the city of Tokyo is put into a gridlock. A hacker has seized control of the traffic system. Every light, every signal, every artery of the city locked down by an unseen hand with a very specific grudge.

This was something important about this because with the city being on locked-down Miyuki and Natsumi had to go through absurd lengths to drag their petrol car around a dead Tokyo. First by boat, and then by helicopter. I was thinking why don’t switch to bikes, but it is a charm of the show. Now writing this newsletter, a thought occurred to me; Miyuki’s car is fine tune to perfection and has nitro installed. It is not a normal car by an stretch of the word.

These two policewomen will find a way. The obstacle doesn’t matter. The scale of the chaos doesn’t matter. Natsumi and Miyuki moving through an impossible city is the thesis of the series. Two civil servants doing mundane jobs at an unremarkable station, but when the going gets tough; they become heroes.

The movie upgrade gives the series space to stretch its legs and pull off crazy antics like this.

Something that hit me hard in this movie was that Miyuki and Natsumi were the main eyes we followed through most of the movie. We get the full ensemble of the station on this.

Midway through the film, the entire Bokuto crew, every familiar face, every recurring cast member, came together on this crisis. I was given a brief moment that showed everyone doing their jobs: the chief, the mechanics, the support staff, everyone operating in their lane, trusting each other, keeping the machine running under impossible pressure.

I have seen this kind of scene many times before. The coming “together moment” to fight a threat, but this feels real. This feels like what would happen at a “normal” mundane police station. It felt earned. Because the series spent years showing you these people in small moments with all their quirks, their loyalties, their running jokes, and the movie collects all of that and pays it out at once.

This is how you adapt a beloved series to film; keep the core, the heart and soul of the original and dial everything to 20.

The ending answered a important question for an average joe like myself. These men and women with their ordinary jobs; what are they? Who are they? Do these people matter beyond their cases? Do their relationships, their dedication and their small daily acts of showing up at work. Do those things add up to something real?

The movie says yes. Clearly. Without melodrama or without an overwrought speech. It says yes the way the best anime endings say things like this, through action, through a look and through the camera lingering on those smiling faces a beat longer than needed.

If you have seen the TV series and ova then this movie is for you. It was made for you. It respects your investment and rewards it without condescension or nostalgia-bait.

This show is ridiculously funny while also gutting about the systematic abuse abuse in the Korean entertainment industry. And yet. Here we are.

We see Do-gi doing his day job as a real taxi driver with Girls’ Generation’s Genie playing his radio that a sign for things to come.

A young woman named Romi gets in. She hears the song and her whole body shifts — she tells Do-gi it makes her feel like she’s on stage. For a few seconds, the cab feels like possibility. And then she asks to be dropped halfway across a bridge. She says she wants to walk.

He makes a U-turn to pick up his next fare.

She’s gone.

Do-gi sees her stuff next the the bridge railing, makes the the connection and jump in to save her.

All this take place within 3 mins of the show; the k-pop music, broken dreams and hero Do-gi.

The three minutes is crazy efficient because I know nothing about Romi. There was no flashback, no tape recording or backstory, but I can pick up on the cues that is something relating to k-pop or at least the music industry.

The next half of episode 9 is Romi’s story told in full: the audition, the contracts she didn’t understand, the training that was more like controlled starvation, and the night she woke up in an unfamiliar room surrounded by empty bottles with no memory of how she got there. The CEO used that footage as a leash. Date this man for a year and we delete the video. Or your whole group’s debut collapses. Your choice.

She was just a 17 year old girl. She was just following her dreams, and she trusted these people.

This case like most if not all of Taxi Driver’s cases were based on or inspired by real event, and the show didn’t soften the evil and edge of the story, and it sent Do-gi in.

In episode 10 was where the magic happened.

Ji-an collapsed minutes before the group’s stage run-through. One member down, the stage team refused to approve the performance. The debut was at risk.

And Kim Do-gi , a manager on paper, Rainbow Taxi operative in practice and man of approximately zero documented emotions looked at the remaining four girls, looked at the stage, and steped up.

He performed Ji-an’s part. Every move. With full commitment. The rehearsal was approved.

Like I mentioned at the top of this newsletter, I nearly fell off my chair laughing at this. Do-gi character was suppose to be this crazy wooden man who only followed orders, but then he break out the moves, and it was wonderful to see.

Do-gi did this because he spent a lot of time with the girls. He wanted them to debut successfully. He genuinely cared for and love these girls with all his heart. The fact that he was able to perform the moves so flawlessly showed how much he was paying attention to those girls.

This scene will forever live rent- free in my heart forever.

Do-gi made a choice; he could not save Romi or changed her past, but he made sure the girls could debut and wait for the return of their captain. The dream will reignite again with the Rainbow Taxi.

We are treated to another flashback in episode 10, and the reason for all this, Kang Ju-ri’s Leg. The origin story that almost made me sympathize with her. CEO Kang Ju-ri was once a trainee herself.

Before a live performance, she told her manager her leg hurts. He pushed her onto the stage anyway. There was a technical failure, some mismanagement or just an freak accident, and Ju-ri fell. Hard. She woke up in the hospital to find her leg has been amputated. The idol dream, gone in a single moment of institutional negligence.

Jang Nara played the young Ju-ri with this devastation that she never accepted. You could see her anger in what she did next; she stabbed a nurse in the face after discovering her amputation.

That is the mastermind of this idol-prostitution scam, its architecture.

She was a victim of the k-pop system that chewed her out and threw her away, yet she managed to rebuilt her life and rebranded herself as a CEO of a talent agency. However, instead of mentoring the girls to not follow her tragedy, she decided to control it using favors, blackmails and selling her talent as escorts. She wanted to destroyed the dreams of others; making them felt her resentment. It never went away after all these years; rather it just found a new outlet.

Jur-ri is a unique villain compare to those we saw before her. The show gave her a more sympathetic backstory, and developed it very well. So well in fact that it made me thought “I can see someone doing this; I can see where she is coming from.” Nevertheless, the show then showed her arranging for the girls to be sold like things, and I snapped back. Her past doesn’t excuse her actions in the present. The show and Rainbow Taxi wouldn’t forgive her.

I think this arc needed more episodes, 4 like the volleyball arc. Ju-ri was also the only villain so far that Do-gi tried to save which I found confusing, and the show never explained it.

Where is Taxi Driver season 3 taking me? This arc to me has been the most compelling so far. The case is self-contained, the villain is layered and action sequences were precise: Do-gi ramping the manager car twice, and Go-eun hacking the broadcast systems.

Where is season 3 going? Taxi Driver Season 1 built toward something. There was a long-form villain, a personal thread for Do-gi, an accumulating sense of stakes. Season 2 was uneven but still had connective tissue. Season 3 seems to dealing with a villain of the week formula with no main villain for the team.

We still have 6 more episodes for a big bad to come in to create internal tension and raise the stakes.

The idol industry arc is Taxi Driver at its most emotionally purposeful — a case that connects systemic horror to individual humanity, and the dancing scene that will define Lee Je-hoon’s legacy in ways he probably did not anticipate.

Second Stage aired from October 1999 to January 2000, running for 13 episodes. That's about half the length of First Stage, that may seem like a negative, however, to me this wasn’t the case. You sat down to watch, things happened, races are raced and 13 episodes flew by; what’s next? (a movie apparently).

Second Stage picks up right after where first left us; no recap, no reintroduction or flashbacks. Takumi Fujiwara is still delivering tofu in his dad's beat-up Toyota AE86 at the crack of dawn, and still unbeatable as a racer in Gunma area. Nevertheless, his reputation is spreading, and there is attention on him.

The new challengers are the “Emperors” racing team from outside the Gunma region who drive Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions and operate with the kind of cold, systematic ruthlessness that makes them immediately more threatening than anything Takumi faced in First Stage. Koyoichi, their leader, is a racer who looks down on mountain path racers, He is efficient, calculating and ruthless; the man has three different racing systems for different (4 with the one he made for Ryosuke Takahashi),

The main reason he wants to dominate the Gunma area was because he was defeated by Ryosuke Takahashi, Red Suns leader. Ryosuke was the final race of First Stage, and he now acts as ally this season rather a rival.

My only issue with the 13 episodes was that the conclusion didn’t feel complete. Second Stage is a middle chapter; existing plots and characters get developed. It is a thread of things escalate, a race happens and everything is resolve, fast and to the point. I think the production committee knew the movie was happening, so the serialized storytelling method works. You definitely needs patience to enjoy it, but for me it mostly works.

Takumi himself is marginally more present this season; he is still his calm and instinct based driver, but there are moments of focus and thinking as racer happening for him. He does suffer a personal crisis when he found out Natsuki Mogi, his girlfriend was a sugar-baby to a salaryman. He races with Koyoichi and as a result and ending up blowing the 86’s engine.

Our best dad, Bunta, is at it. The man always has a cigarette between his fingers; he is still gruff and a man of few words to both his son and his friends, but as the viewer who is looking in I get a sense that he knows more than he letting on, however, he is content to let Takumi figure things out and learn by trial and error. He did have to debate whether to upgrade the 86’s engine when his son lost a race or when the engine couldn’t handle Takumi driving anymore. Takumi lost to Koyoichi and engine blow force his hand in the end.

Itsuki, Takumi best friend and supporter, has a cute romantic plot this season that I won’t spoil, but I will say that interactions that Itsuki had were endearing and bittersweet flavors of youth.

I want to honest about something. I don’t know the first thing about cars. I can’t tell you why this car’s configuration beats another. Most of Ryosuke’s explanations about the races go over my poor head, and I just wait for the races to start.

Luckily, you don’t need car or racing knowledge because that knowledge is just a setup for the drama, nothing more. There is no need to why the 86’s old engine couldn’t keep up with Koyoichi’s misfiring system; all the characters thought so, and you have a sense of anticipation whether Takumi can compensate that gap with skills. The sense if tension and anticipation are the show’s hooks.

The races are structure well. Some follow the same beats of the First Stage: early pressure, a moment of doubt, and then a turn that resolve everything; though there are a lot of variety, so they don’t feel formulaic.

The Eurobeat which is the heart and soul of the anime. When I saw First Stage, I felt in love with the way those driving synths and pounding beats transform every race from a mountain road duel into some kind of transcendent high-speed experience; well I was a happy camper while watching Second Stage, for it had more Eurobeat.

Tracks like Dave Rodgers' "100" hit at exactly the right moments. The Eurobeat is the backbone of the show, a load bearing infrastructure making these races into legend.

The ending theme, "Kimi Ga Iru" by Galla, is a softer, more melancholic piece that provides a nice emotional cooldown after each episode.

There was a step-up in animation of Second Stage compare to first stage. The character art is brighter and more polished, and the CGI used for the cars is noticeably improved. They look like cars rather PS1 car models. There was more confidence in the show’s production.

Should you watch Second Stage? If you've seen First Stage: yes, without hesitation. Second Stage delivers exactly what you'd want from a continuation. There are better production, more great races, more Bunta, a great antagonist in Koyoichi and a brilliant soundtrack to beat to, get it? It does what it needs to do very well.

It is a good middle chapter that leads to better things.

The Eurobeat does not stop and neither should we.

Let’s talk story first, Cheon Ji-hoon (Namkoong Min) is a former prosecutor turned defense attorney with a flair for the theatrical; he hair is complete with a stylish perm, and he charges only 1,000 won in legal fees despite being one of the most skilled lawyers around the block. His clients are the people who can't afford anyone else: the poor, the overlooked or the falsely accused. In comes Baek Ma-ri (Kim Ji-eun), a confident young attorney fresh from the Judicial Research and Training Institute and granddaughter of the head of a prestigious law firm. Their collision sets the show's central dynamic in motion.

The main theme of the is that despite a growing number of lawyers in South Korea, ordinary citizens find courts increasingly inaccessible, while the wealthy can hire expensive legal firepower to make problems disappear. This set-up has the potential to established and address the holes in any court system, and shows that justice can deliver.

There's no version of this show that works without its lead, and Namkoong Min knows it, and so does the show. His performance as Cheon Ji-hoon is a high-wire act: the character is eccentric to the point of absurdity in one scene and quietly devastating in the next. We have a suit wearing, sunglasses tipping and perm lawyer who looks more like a playboy, but is a bloodhound lawyer who chase his mark. The comedic timing is sharp without becoming cartoonish, and when the drama pivots toward darker territory in its second half, he handles the weight convincingly. It an amazing experience to watch him in all his scenes.

Kim Ji-eun does solid work as Baek Ma-ri, and her chemistry with Namkoong Min is natural and fun to watch. However, the material for her character is problematic. She is a love-interest, but a support character to boost up Ji-hoon and provides some comedic moments such as her getting drunk, and Ji-joon having to deal with it. An avenue that was not developed at all was her relationship with her grandfather and the Baek-Law firm

The first 6 episodes of the drama is is a breezy, satisfying legal procedural. The cases are varied, socially engaged, and resolved with enough cleverness to feel earned rather than convenient.

Then episode 7 and 8 roll in and the entire tone shifts. These episodes function as a prolonged flashback, a near-180-degree tonal shift into thriller territory involving corruption, intrigue, and murder. The backstory to Ji-hoon life as a prosecutor, his two devastating loses that drove him to move to his current office was earned, and there were hints beforehand. Nevertheless, the execution is abrupt, and a stretch of two to three episodes noticeably stalls the momentum built earlier. The show recovers, but it takes a beat to find its footing again.

The recurring theme of conflict between institutional power and ordinary people trying to navigate a system stacked against them gives the show a moral spine that keeps it from feeling lightweight. Maybe that was the reason, Ji-hoon made a cameo appearance in Taxi Driver season 2; both shows are about delivering justice for those abandoned by the system. Ji-hoon’s 1,000-won fee is a daily rebuke to a legal system that prices justice out of reach for most people.

One Dollar Lawyer is a flawed but entertaining drama that earns more goodwill than it probably deserves, mostly on the strength of its lead performance and the genuine charm of its early episodes. If you aren’t looking for a tight legal drama, but a fun a time with a eccentric lawyer then this is for you.

But I think I had it wrong.

Because now, when I think about what consistency really means, I don’t picture a perfect record or an unbroken streak. I picture the small act of coming back. Saying hi. Saying thank you. Showing I’m still here. I haven’t forgotten you. I haven’t forgotten this. Even if you never read this post.

Consistency, to me, has started to feel like a love language.

It’s the way a friend texts you not because something big happened, but just because they were thinking of you. It’s the way someone saves you the last piece of something good. Quiet. Unglamorous. But over time, it builds something that nothing else quite measured up to. It can be the feeling of being held, every day.

That’s what I want this space to be. Our space. Not perfect. Not always brilliant. But here. Returning. Reaching a hand toward you, even when the words come slow.

Because I think, on some level, we’re all just trying to say the same thing to the people we care about: I see you. I keep choosing to come back to you. And that, more than anything, is what love looks like in practice to me.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for being someone worth coming back to.

Episode 5 opens with a warm, almost playful detour: the Rainbow Taxi team visits Maria at an orphanage, a touching callback to Season 1, and we even get a small fanservice moment where Do-ki's old taxi, now retired, sits in the orphanage yard while children take turns pretending to drive it home to their families. It's the kind of quietly heartstring-tugging detail the show sneaks in before pulling the rug out from under you. This shows the benefits and the good that is created from Rainbow Taxi and Blue Bird Fund.

The case starts when Director Jang gets a call from Dong-su, a man from his past. Dong-su's son, Min-ho, was a promising volleyball player who disappeared after a locker room altercation with a teammate fifteen years ago. The perpetrator served only five years for assault, and Min-ho's body was never found; Sung-chul gave Dong-su Rainbow Taxi's very first business card back then; a fact that lends the case a meaningful historical weight for the team. We also realise the man searching for the business card in the clock store was Dong-su, and the people he wanted to take revenge on wasn’t our team, but the people who took his son.

By the time we get into episodes 7 and 8, the full picture is grim: an illegal sports betting and match-fixing operation in the university’s volleyball team; cold-blooded villain in Gwang-jin who takes genuine pleasure in others’ suffering, and a race against time to recover Min-ho’s remains before the evidence disappears entirely.

The Rainbow Taxi teams after investigating and gathering evidence makes its move to dismantle the illegal betting ring which ends in a death game for Do-gi and the reunion of a heartbroken father with his son's remains. Do-ki driving Dong-su into the sunset with his son's ashes in the backseat, Min-ho's spirit joining them for the ride; a bittersweet ending to a dark and evil case that earns my tears.

The success of this arc comes from the time it takes to develop Min-ho. We first come to know Min-ho through his father's grief, and then through flashbacks that reveal him as honourable and principled young man who decides to to do the right thing in front of temptation. This investment gives episode 8’s ending a lot of weight.

Do-gi remains the team’s glue. His equally brilliant in goofy undercover disguises and the acts of the near-invincible vigilante dispensing justice with his fists. His fight scenes this season are sharper and more precise than ever. Episode 8 death game style where 1VS many delivers some of the most kinetic action the series has produce.

The villain, Gwang-jin, deserves special mention. Unlike antagonists whose crimes stem from desperation or greed, Gwang-jin is a full-fledged psychopath who takes visible pleasure in others' suffering. This makes him out to be full evil rather cartoonish unlike the previous ones.

Episodes 5–8 of Taxi Driver 3 represent the series at its most emotionally resonant. The volleyball arc is personal, well-plotted, and anchored by genuine feeling.

Taking the human alias Sorato Okida, Omega must piece together who he is while simultaneously figuring out why his instincts keep compelling him to fight monsters he shouldn't know exist. There are two storylines in the series, a kaiju of the week arc and the mystery of Omega.

Unlike the Legendary Monsterverse where the audience can just enjoy the monsters showdown even when the human cast is weak. Ultraman and other Japanese Toku main draw is the human cast, and Omega largely succeeded here. orato is intentionally designed to be immediately likable : warm, a little bewildered, instinctively decent, curious about the world and large appetite while leaving room to grow as a human. Flanking him are Kosei and Ayumu, who form the show's central trio, and the chemistry between them is where much of the series' heart lives. Kosei is serious, kind, brave and a great cook; while Ayumu is the big sister and scientist that studies Kaiju. The three leads feel like genuine friends, and that the show balances its comedic moments without tipping into slapstick.

Omega himself is a striking figure. His face draws directly from the archetypal original Ultraman but is painted red to make him subtly alien and less immediately familiar, while his signature weapon, the crescent Omega Slugger worn on his head evokes Ultraseven's iconic Eye Slugger.

Most of the show's monsters are reimagined as Earth natives: creatures that evolved or mutated over vast stretches of time into their current kaiju forms. The exceptions are the Meteokaiju, extraterrestrial beings who serve as Omega's combat companions and the source of his armored power-up forms. We have Tricagon, speed claw; Rekiness, pysch sword form; Valgeness, staff form with 4 elements.

The CGI has drawn praise for being among the better-looking entries in recent Ultra history, and the 25-minute episode format keeps things brisk.

Ultraman Omega is confident, warm-hearted tokusatsu that uses a simple but effective hook; an Ultra who doesn't know he's an Ultra. This is done to ask bigger questions about identity, change and the impulse to protect others. For a newcomer like myself the kaiju- free world and Shorato’s memory lost make it a easier starting point and welcoming series. As 60th anniversary celebrations go, Ultraman Omega earns it.

sidenote: This premise of turning Goku young again reminds me of GT key difference is that in GT only Goku became younger, and he traveled with Trunks and Pan while here anyone who fought Maijin Buu got turned into gdemon realm rade-school kids, and Goku traveled with the Supreme Kai; demon realm Glorio and Panzee. 2 new characters from the demon realm.

The animation of Daima is definitely its strongest point. It made huge jumps compare to the TV series. From the opening scenes we see the Majin Buu saga's climactic scenes are completely reanimated with theatrical-level detail, elevating this above the usual TV anime. Toei Animation assembled a dream team of key animators, including Chikashi Kubota from One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100; the animation team also committed to 2D animation, and only use CGI when needed.

The fight choreography deserves special mention. Unlike Dragon Ball Z's tendency to blur combatants into speed lines or Dragon Ball Super's inconsistent moments for the sake of budget, Daima allows viewers to see every punch land, every dodge executed, every energy blast ripple through the air. he use of impact frames—those split-second still moments when a hit connects—combined with minimalistic shading creates a distinctive visual identity that honors Toriyama's manga art style while pushing it into modern animation territory.

Episode 19's battle against Gomah earned recognition as the highest-rated anime episode of 2025 on several platforms, and for good reason. The animation team delivered a masterclass in sustained action sequences without quality degradation, and the most impressive thing was that the animation was consistent in all 20 episodes.

Daima story beats were different to Super; in Super we saw constant power-ups for our heroes which was expected. Our heroes faced constant new and more powerful threats. Daima abandoned that and returned to adventure style of OG Dragonball. When villain Gomah uses the Dragon Balls to transform Goku, Vegeta, and the Z-fighters into children, it gave reasons for our heroes to explore the demon realm. The journey was about rescuing Dende and obtaining the demon realm Dragonball to undo Gomah’s wish. Daima invested time in establishing detailed hierarchies among Majins, exploring the origins of Glinds (Supreme Kai's race) and creating a sense of place with distinct villages, cultures, and political structures. Goku’s wide-eye appreciation of the journey felt organic to OG Dragonball.

Nevertheless, the show only having 20 episodes does create pacing problem; in particular, episode 5-12 feels slow and losing traction. Some episodes contribute frustratingly little to the main plot, featuring repetitive patterns of "arrive at new location, encounter local problem, solve it, move on" without meaningful character development or narrative advancement.

When comparing Daima to GT, Daima has the advantage of animation and better world building, but falls into the same pacing issues. . The finale compounds these issues by even more by rushing through its resolution because it dedicated screen time to transportation mechanics and comedic detours while compressing the climactic battle against Gomah undermines the dramatic weight the series needed to stick its landing.

Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta's debut midway through the series ranks among the best transformation moments in Dragon Ball history. When Vegeta powers up and declares his new form "Ultra Vegeta #1" rather than accepting Goku's "Super Saiyan 3" label, it encapsulates everything that makes the character compelling: his pride and his need to differentiate himself from Goku, his relentless drive to surpass his limits. Bulma's explanation that Vegeta achieved this through intense training while everyone else was de-aged provides narrative logic without feeling like an random power-up.

Daima created a continuality problem, in Super, Goku told Beerus that SSJ3 was his strongest form up till that point, but then in Daima with help from Neva the Namekian, he managed to gain SS4 which was right after the Buu saga. He told Vegeta that after fighting Buu he was continuously training, but couldn’t activate that form till now. So then where is it in Super?

Vegeta SSJ3 which I mentioned above faced the same problem. Vegeta mastered SSJ Blue in Super, and never use SSJ3 in Super. His explanation was just “ I trained a lot.” One possible explanation is that Daima exists in timeline 3; timeline 1 is Super and timeline 2 is GT.

With the recent announcements from Toei. We are getting Super’s Galactic Patrol arc, and no Daima continuation. With Toriyama Sensei passing, Daima maybe just a way to celebrate his legacy, and maybe it was a way to bring SSJ4 into canon, but then is Daima truly canon because it is Toriyama last work?

Maybe as fans, we should allow Daima to exist on its own free from Super. Until Toei decides to come back to it when Super needs a second break, or maybe not. With One Piece also opting for a seasonal format going forward. I think Super will take breaks as well and we will anime like US T.V shows with seasonal breaks.

Daima is complicated addition to Dragonball’s legacy. If we just look at the animation alone, it represents the best Dragon Ball has looked on television, period. The consistent visual quality, fluid fight choreography, and faithful recreation of Toriyama's art style create a viewing experience that honors the source material while pushing technical boundaries. Individual moments: Vegeta's Super Saiyan 3 transformation, the Demon Realm's intricate world-building, Goku's relationship with new companions are the reasons why Dragonball is an enduring tale.

When it doesn't work, the problems prove impossible to ignore. The pacing lurches between filler episodes that contribute nothing meaningful and rushed climactic moments that needed more development.

Dragon Ball Daima works best when approached as a standalone "what if" rather than essential canon. Daima is perfectly imperfect, a fitting final note from a mangaka who always prioritized imagination and fun over continuity and structure. For better and worse, that's pure Toriyama,

I think I will try to stick to this goal; Ok I might be able to fire up the pan by myself, but if I am more honest with my parents about my food request; my parents would accommodate me.

My plan is simple: ask m in my parents for steaks on special days: A birthday dinner request, a Sunday afternoon. For a newcomer like myself after some research, I will go for sirloin. It is known as the everyman steaks. There will be pressure, no high price-tag and no complexity when my parents cook it.

Budget is a huge consideration for me as well because during the Tet Holiday celebration my parents bought Wagyu steaks for the party. I am noob, but even I know it was a lot of money. It was tasty, but definitely it won’t become a daily thing.

Hence my plan will be asking my parents for pan-fry medium sirloin steak, This newsletter is my little diary of that journey. One steak at a time, one meal at a time, one memory at a time. To 2026 everyone. Cheers.

The new case spanning episodes 3 and 4 happens when an old taxi driver of the Rainbow company day operation comes to director Jang for a loan. We discovered that he bought a used car to become a ride-share taxi driver as traditional taxi spots are limited, yet the car is being taken away because the previous owner was involved in an accident. We also found out Mr. Oh was liable for repairs of a foreign car rented under his name.

Guest star Yoon Shi-yoon delivers an absolute masterclass in villainy as Cha Byeong-jin, a disgraced lawyer who turned into predatory car dealer. His scam operation is disturbingly clever because it exploited the grey areas in government bureaucracy and taxi license shortages to trap desperate drivers in debt while also selling dangerously defective vehicles that were submerged in water to unsuspecting customers. Also the team's old van was stolen by Byeong-jin's crew.

Watching Do-Gi play a naive, soft-spoken trust-fund baby who throws money around without a care is both hilarious and impressive. It is amazing to see our Mr. Kim plays these cons. His disguise works perfectly; letting the con artists see him as an easy mark, a "whale" loaded with cash ready to be exploited. His repeated car purchases, complete with a fake vending machine "investment scheme," brilliantly bait the villains into their own trap. Then the finishing blow was making them purchase 36 taxis that were “submerged” in water to con out Byeong-jin’s money.

The car chases and the fights sequences are always awesome to watch. The finale is darkly poetic: Byeong-jin and his crew, beaten and unconscious, are locked inside one of their own defective cars. When Do-gi stands in front of the vehicle, Byeong-jin panics and starts driving to try to kill Do-Gi only to discover the brakes don't work. They become victims of their own crimes, a fitting form of justice that feels earned.

These two episodes are a great critique real-world issues. The show highlights the inefficiency of government bureaucracy, the exploitation of legal loopholes, and how everyday people suffer when systems fail them. The existence of Rainbow taxi ‘s crew is validated in these situations.

There are some loose ends not address at the end though. We never get confirmation whether the villains died or were arrested, what happened to all those flooded cars, or whether the team recouped their money spent on the case. There's also a noticeable imbalance while guest characters get extensive backstories, our main cast sometimes feels underserved. More development for characters like Park Jin-eon and Choi Kyung-koo would be welcome to us viewers.

Episodes 3-4 showcase Taxi Driver 3 at its best: thrilling action, clever schemes, satisfying justice, and genuine character moments. The addition of budding romance adds sweetness to a good soup.