Hear me out on this: Omagoto can be thought of as a rebuttal to Shield Hero. Flum and Naofumi are both ostensibly heroes who are treated terribly and put through hell for no reason beyond cruelty. Both discover their own power and use it to claw their way back to a stable life. But Naofumi becomes an embittered, cynical jackass who trusts no one and treats every interaction outside his circle as transactional. He fights only for himself, and those he deems valuable to him. Sure, he fights to defeat the "waves" as a Hero, but that's also a self-interest thing. And he exacts vicious revenge on those who wronged him.

Flum meanwhile retains a positive and healthy outlook and basically overcomes through the POWER OF GAY. She doesn't openly seek revenge on the asshole who kicked her out of the party and sold her into slavery. Her one goal after escapaing slavery is to legitimately earn her way to a normal life. The only revenge she takes is on those who hurt her beloved Milkit, it's never a defining thing for her, and she doesn't relish it or draw it out to maximize the pain for the offender.

It's almost as if it's trying to say "Hey, Naofumi, you don't have to turn into a jackass just because some people hate you, and did horrible things to you. You don't have to sink to their level."

And that makes Omagoto infinitely better.

#anime #Omagoto #RollOverAndDie #ShieldHero

Already talked about the worst, and I feel like talking about the Best Of for Winter 2026 is kind of a foregone conclusion: the top 3 are Oshi no Ko, Frieren, and Medalist, and this outcome was pretty much obvious before the season even started. So, excluding those, what are my picks for the best shows? (Caveat: I did not watch Journal with Witch, though I have noted the buzz around it)

Top 3: Champignon Witch, Omagoto (Roll Over and Die), and, surprisingly, The Darwin Incident (which hasn't yet had its last ep but pretty much everything else I'm watching has)

Champignon Witch has a real fairy tale feel to it, complete with the dark, tragic undertones that characterize most classic fairy tales and which only get darker the closer you get to the original telling. I've watched a lot of anime, and I consider this one to be a fairly unique and standout example of anime storytelling.

Omagoto/Roll Over and Die: How could I not love this one, with its yuri, its cute girls, its yuri, its sweet action scenes, and its yuri. At first I thought it was going to be a mildly yuri-scented revenge-porn, but far from it. I'm gonna write another post specifically about this one later.

The Darwin Incident: Previously, I waffled on just what this show was trying to be. My first impression turned out to be quite wrong, although I do still think it was pretty ham-fisted in a lot of ways, and some of the depictions of small town life are laughable, there's still a lot to unpack here and the show's main characters are all well-developed. The main antagonist exudes appropriately creepy, and sometimes terrifying, vibes. Props to the voice actor. Whatever message the show was actually trying to tell got lost in the sauce, but the story remained compelling at least in my opinion. Certainly a dark horse!

Honorable Mentions go to Jigokuraku Season 2, which sure is a shonen battle anime, but I really dig its eastern mysticism-infused aesthetic, Gabimaru's personal growth, and the interplay of the criminals and the executioners as they are forced to work together to survive the island; and also to Kaya-chan Isn't Scary, which had one hell of a final act.

And a Dishonorable Mention for Sentenced to be a Hero, which IMO, is completely let down by two things: Teoritta's unstoppable macguffin which basically kills any stakes in what should be the most desperate battles, and the animation in those same desperate battles turning into an unreadable mush. Just...kills any interest. I will give the show props for tying everything neatly together in the end with a certain character's fate, befitting its name, "Sentenced to be a Hero".

#anime #ChampignonWitch #Omagoto #RollOverAndDie #TheDarwinIncident #SentencedToBeAHero

Omagoto – Episode 12 (END)- Saving Milkit and The Truth about “Origin”

https://chikorita157.com/2026/03/28/omagoto-episode-12/

Tags: #Omagoto #action #drama #FinalImpressions #RollOverAndDie #yuri
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Episode 12 of "Roll Over and Die" should just have been called "Here's a Massive Exposition Dump, Go Buy The Light Novels"

#Anime
#RollOverAndDie

Omagoto – Episode 11 – Flum’s Reversal Surprise

https://chikorita157.com/2026/03/21/omagoto-episode-11/

Tags: #Omagoto #action #drama #RollOverAndDie #yuri
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One nice touch about #RollOverAndDie is that it wasn’t the ENTIRE hero’s party that betrayed Flum…it was one very specific asshole in particular, and as the story goes on and more of the rest of the party are cluing in to that, they’re coming to HELP.

And are clearly sincere about it too.