Summer Pockets debuts:

My long-awaited Summer Pockets anime has arrived.  After watching the first episode and confirming that the production quality was up to par and the plot was following the original source I instantly upgraded it into my top anime rankings.  I kicked out Kitakubu to make room, another thing I'd been planning to do for a long time.

Now all 200 of my top anime are represented in '100 Waifus,' which had always been the plan.

Summer Pockets was so beautiful.  Shiroha, Umi, even Hairi look great.  The backgrounds look great.  The music is perfect, as expected of Jun Maeda.  The voice acting was great -- I wouldn't be surprised if all the voices are the same as the voices in the visual novel.  There's just nothing to criticize in this amazing production.  This will probably be the best anime of 2025, and the only debuting great anime of 2025.  It's impossible to overstress how momentous today was.  This could well be the last great anime to ever make my rankings.

The next anime slated for the chopping block in my rankings is Sora no Otoshimono -- but that series made me cry, is 25 eps long, and even has some good philosophical questions and answers embedded within it.  It will be very difficult to surpass it -- and that's my last place ranked anime.  Every other series is better than that.  Given that Japan never takes my advice and never animates the new works that could surpass Sora no Otoshimono, it's just hard to see how anything ever will.

Once Summer Pockets finishes airing I'll give it its true ranking, not #200 like it currently sits at.  But I don't know when that will happen.  Will Summer Pockets run all the way to its conclusion in one go?  Or will it have sequel seasons?  Or will it be canceled halfway through?  There's no telling from the limited info we've been given so far.

Speaking of Jun Maeda's music, I also promoted 'Back from the Brink' and 'Judgement Day' to 3-star, and 'Zetaku Na Kanjou,' 'Sayonara no Sokoudou,' 'Overkill' and 'Autumn Howl' to 2-star, demoting classical music to keep the tiers even.  Now every vocal piece from Heaven Burns Red is rated at least 2-star, which is well deserved, because Jun Maeda is not to be mocked.  I'd rather listen to the worst Jun Maeda compositions than Mozart, Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.  Now my ratings reflect that.

Houston choked at the end of the game against Florida, making three mental errors in their last three possessions and turning the ball over.  Bleh.  And they led almost the whole game too. . .