I briefly considered listing Wotakoi in my comment, but then
like you said, Hirotaka was assertive only when it comes to games. After the first episode, he just went with the flow and as such, Narumi was taking the lead 90% of the time.
Being a parody, it subverts most tropes of isekai anime. Its humor is exactly my type too.
Honorable mentions:
Most other isekai anime have the same cookie-cutter plot, making them so predictable and boring. Or they have an interesting premise, but waste it with poor writing and dumb characters.
Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai is a good choice
best romance animes with an assertive male protagonist
Since the question used “animes” (though I’ve heard plural of anime is “anime”), looks like it’s fine to list multiple shows😈 In no particular order:
In fact, my top favourite romance anime tend to have an assertive male protagonist. I can’t stand wimpy, indecisive, weak-willed male protagonists.
This really is a good time to add to this counter, Subaru.
By now, he should have a good idea of how his restarting ability works.
Makes me wonder why he doesn’t keep a weapon for ease of suicide with him like the MCs of Edge of Tomorrow and Webtoon Character Na Kang Lim.
The simplest guess I have is that he is too dumb to realize it.
Moral of the story: revenge (and war) is no good.
Just binged season 1 of Attack on Titan.
IMO it is overrated.
Thankfully, the story and world-building is good, which is not surprising considering it is Gundam but with meat robots.
So I’m going to give it a 8 / 10
Also, now that I watched AoT, Kaiju No. 8 feels like a dumbed-down knock-off.
Watched GUNDAM: Requiem for Vengeance and enjoyed it. The messaging behind the show is very typical Gundam (i.e. war is bad).
The animation style (?) isn’t like the usual anime style which is a nice change of pace. It makes it look like a live action show.
Yep, typical gundam. I like it.
This animation style (?) isn’t the typical anime style, but I liked it too. Looks kind of like a live action show.
Last week, I have only been watching anime that are airing this season.
Just want to point out that Murai In Love is the unexpected hit of the season for me. I haven’t laugh so hard from an anime in a while. If the story doesn’t become dogshit towards the last few episodes, there’s a pretty good chance this would be my top anime of the season and become one of my top favourites.
Maybe How I Attended an All-Guy’s Mixer?
The crossdressing girls had the guys confused / questioning their sexuality. They are ultimately straight though.
Completed Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku
This solidifies josei romcoms as being top tier for me at least. We have childhood friends entering into a romantic relationship, and they did so in the first episode. The characters here are mature and level-headed too unlike many shounen / shoujo romcom characters. I like the relationship dynamics not just within the main couple, but also between them and the other couples and within the secondary couple. The tertiary couple could use more development, but I guess that’s what the source material is for.
It’s a pity that the premise of josei anime tend to be boring. In fact, Wotakoi is the perfect example: the premise is simply two nerds falling in love with each other! I probably passed over many good josei anime because they don’t have the hook to draw me in.
On the bright side, at least I discovered this one, which deserves a solid 9/10.
Re:Zero season 3 - I find a lot of the dialogue between characters - not just Subaru’s - kinda cringe like in previous seasons, but that’s just me being nitpicky. As usual, once Subaru starts looping, I’m hooked.
Dan Da Dan - It certainly lives up to the hype. Looking forward to more of it.
Murai In Love - This is way funnier than I expected. The humour just clicks with me. It’s an unfair comparison due to the 4-episodes headstart it had, but I found it funnier than Dan Da Dan at the moment. I have caught up, and would like finish it.
How I Attended an All-Guy’s Mixer - It’s entertaining enough for now. Shall see how it goes.
All of these induce some degree of boredom for me.
You are Ms. Servant - Male lead sucks.
365 Days to the Wedding - Just watch Wotakoi instead.
I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History - In addition to flaws that others have already pointed out, I find that this is just a generic villainess isekai, which is too boring. Watch Villainess Level 99 instead.
Magilumiere - Looks poorly executed.
Acro Trip - Just watch Gushing Over Magical Girls instead.
Puniru is a Kawaii Slime - The humour is not hitting it for me.
This is just capitalism applied to magical girls.
Anyway, one thing that seriously annoyed me is the ammo-control app on the tablet. Since ammo-reloading and the likes are controlled via software, why don’t they just do it remotely? If - for some reason - it must be near the magical girl at all times, why not put it on a smart watch or use voice recognition or something for the magical girl to reload ammo more easily? Better yet, how about automatically reloading upon detecting a low ammo count?
It just doesn’t make sense. The only explanation I can think of (that I will be satisfied with) is that the world of Magilumiere is affected by enshittification as well, and whatever I just suggested requires them to pay more.
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Wow, someone who actually follows conventions for flowcharts: ellipsoids for terminal nodes, diamonds for decision nodes and boxes for other intermediate nodes.
Completed / caught up to two shows that entered my top favorites:
Take the reflexes of Spiderman, the moral compass of Batman / Kira Yamato and the pistol-handling skills of John Wick, put them in a cute, happy-go-lucky girl in a setting similar to Minority Report, and you’d get Chisato.
She embodied so many of my favorite characters for the right reason, making me come to like her right away.
Beyond the MC, I found many more resemblances to my other favorites.
Majima is pretty much a one-man Celestial Being, though he played the antagonist here. I can see him joining force with Chisato in a sequel.
The politics, as well as the manipulation of children into fighting / murdering others by adults is just like most Gundam series.
In fact, it passed a number of my lax criteria for being a Gundam show, so I’m just going to consider it one. (As of current writing, it is top six on AniList’s anime recommendation after watching Gundam: Witch from Mercury
I hope it gets a sequel. The anime left multiple plotlines unresolved (intentionally, it seems): Majima survived, the authorities are still in charge and LilyBell was set-up to be the next antagonist.
Speaking of LilyBell, I’m glad they exist. Some shows would just handwave away the fact that the entire cast is girls (or in some cases, guys) when there is no good reason for it to be so.
Anyway, it is a 10 / 10 for me.
I’ve been putting off watching this one, because I know that I would get emotionally invested and binge the whole show. I finally decided to bite the bullet and lost some sleep along the way; totally worth it.
As others pointed out, the first episode is essentially a movie and was so impactful - so much so that I caved in and gave it a 10 / 10 from the outset (which I rarely do).
The story, the drama, the plot twists and characters are all so well-written. Between this and Kaguya-sama, Akasaka Aka is a genius. And being meta, we have the anime studio and the rest of the team to thank for bringing this story to life.
I was no stranger to the opening and ending songs (Idol and Mephisto) of Oshi no Ko even before watching it, but watching it gave me the context to appreciate the lyrics. These two songs are now part of my playlists. I don’t find season 2’s songs as memorable though.
Thanks to my binge, I’m all caught-up, in time to catch the last episode of this season with everyone else. It also meant that Makeine got dethroned as my top anime of the season at the last minute.
My only regret is that I started watching it before the source material is complete, which means I’m unable to binge the manga to completion.
Well deserved