It was nice to see Alicia actually acting like an antagonist.

Also the timing at the end got a laugh from me:

“No, Alicia said all that for my benefit.”

😮 … 😟 … 😠 “Alicia Williams!”

Knowing what I know about why the emperor’s wife’s age is important, I can see that they’re trying to build it up into a mystery that we will slowly unravel, but without that knowledge it definitely seems like just a running gag

I have no knowledge outside what’s been shown in the episodes, but I think it’s fairly obvious that the age is some specific condition from his curse (or similar thing). At the same time, the age gap is definitely pandering to a specific audience. The author knows exactly what they’re doing, it doesn’t matter if there is some in-story pretense. For better or worse, this is the story they wanted to tell.

Jill did establish that their relationship should be platonic, which is nice. Hopefully that’s not just a front. The fact that the Jill is mentally older does help make it a little less gross (but at the same time, it feels like the author is trying to make an excuse for degeneracy).

Huh, I set my expectations pretty low after the first episode, but this episode was interesting. The emperor is hiding some aspect of his curse, which sets up some intrigue that probably isn’t going to be resolved right away.

I wasn’t expecting the FMC to be able to throw a ship. This show seems like it’s going to be a FMC power fantasy (both with physical power and intellectual prowess), which I think I’ll quite enjoy.

Yep, the age gap passes the realm of strange and lands in incredulous. I’m not actually sure how much older Duke is, 5 years? Most of the comments on MAL are saying that Duke is way out of line.

Episode 1 dropped heavy hints, so it’s not so surprising. Reincarnation romance is almost always going to be a little hairy, just not usually in this way.

Makeine is more like Alya in that they romantic comedies. Makeine is heavier on the comedy, with a heavy reliance on failed-romance to drive the comedy/plot forward. Alya has a more prominent non-romantic drama plot that runs alongside the romance/flirting. Both feed a bit into a basic male sexual fantasy (Alya more so, but episode 2 of Makeine had a pretty unnecessarily spicy scene).

Days with my Stepsister is more of a romance / coming-of-age story without much comedy and I feel like it doesn’t excessively feed into a sexual fantasy. There’s like 1 exception early-ish in the season, but even that kinda felt like the main purpose was to shake up the story, rather than getting the viewers horny.

but if you believe AC

Every time I see an AC ranking with shows I’ve watched I’m reminded that I shouldn’t trust AC.

An 86 minute start to the season. You gotta love it. There was a lot of setup, a half-dozen story threads started (or maybe a full-dozen), but they got to a very impactful scene at the end and left us with a good hook.

Absolute banger, highlight of the summer 2024 season.

I liked season 3’s talking around a table more than season 2’s talking around a table, for the most part.

But if things finally shake out in the next season, that sounds like a lot of fun.