Nerd Vibes
This is a Podcast dedicated to the culture surrounding Anime and Comics from the perspective of a life long fan.
Nerd Vibes
2025 Wrap Up Pod
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I break down the anime, comics, shows and movies that defined the year—highlighting the biggest moments, standout releases, and what kept fans talking all year long.
What's going on, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Nerd Vibes. This episode is gonna be quick, simple, easy. It's gonna be the 2025 wrap-up. So, what I have here for you guys is a list of the anime that I watched in 2025, as best as I can remember, as best as I could write down, this is a combination of things that premiered in 2025 and things that have been were ongoing in 2025. So season two, season three, or something that I just watched in 2025, but it could have been out already. But this is just what I watched in 2025. We're gonna pause on some of the things that uh kind of stuck with me, whether that be in a good way or a bad way, and then we'll have a conversation about those. But pretty much we're just gonna go through the list and see how much I actually watched of anime in 2025, and then later on we'll do the comic book list. That one is much shorter because again, we've talked about it on this pod. There's not a lot of comic book properties out right now in terms of animation or movies or anything like that, so um that list will be much shorter, but uh, that's gonna be the pod. I'll see you guys on the other side. Alright, so this is gonna be the list of things that I have watched in the year of 2025, and as I was writing it down, I realized how crazy, at least in my opinion, it is, that I've watched this amount of different properties. Okay, so let's go through it. We're gonna go through some other ones uh that I watched, but I don't really remember. So Blue Exorcist. I watched the newest season of that, don't remember it. It was way beginning in the of the year, one like January, February. I watched that. That whole time is a blur for me. So I don't remember watching it, but I did watch it. Let's see. Uh the Demon Slayer movie, it was eh to me. I know that's kind of a hot take. I didn't really enjoy it too much. I felt like the Demon Slayer movie was. I think I talked about it on the pod, but if I didn't, uh here it is again. I just felt like the the movie was four to five different anime episodes all shoved together with no real cohesive like editing to like make them flow and transition together. Uh so I didn't feel like it was very good in that way. I didn't think it was a movie, I thought it was just a cash grab, ultimately. Let's see, Water Magician season one. I liked it, it's not super memorable, but it was good. I need to mark these off so I'm not talking about these multiple times. I have a I have a list here. So boom. Boom. Boom. Old Country Bumpkin trains the a master swordsman or something like that. That was a really good season. Uh it ended kind of in a weird spot for me. Uh where I didn't think it was gonna end, and so it kind of just left me hanging. Um, so I was a little disappointed by that, but overall pretty good. A fire force season three, part one. I said this before, it was it was just slow. Season three part two that we talked about in the previous pod is gonna turn up like crazy. So I'm assuming that all the payoff from part one is gonna be paid off in part two, but part one was pretty slow for me. I didn't really like it too much. Sakamoto Days part one and part two. Hot take here. I don't think it was that good. I I didn't think Sakamoto Days was that good. I found myself not being super interested in it. I think it was just okay. Like some of the fights were really interesting, but overall I don't think the story captured me in the way that it was supposed to. I just think it was pretty mid. Let's see. What else do we have to what else? Apothecary Diaries, season one and season two. Apothecary Diaries, season one and season two. That one was special this year. Watched it with my wife, she loves it. We're gonna be watching the movie at the end of 2026 when it comes out. Season three is already on the way at some point, so we're gonna be watching that together. It's always special when I have an anime I can watch with my wife, so that one's really good. Gundam G Clucks. Now, this anime I watched, it's a Gundam uh Gundam one, so it's a mecha anime. A lot of people don't really like mecha anime, I love it. Uh I watched this one, and my wife can attest. I was watching the last episode with her, it just like in the background, and I literally said in out loud, I finally understand what's happening in this anime. Because before that, I had no idea what was going on. I was just watching it because I love Gundam, but until the very last episode of this anime, I had no idea what was going on, and then it it all got tied up right at the end, so I guess it's good. I just personally love Gundam, so I am always uh a little bit more lenient on the on the grading, but in general, I think this one was good, the action is good, it's just the storyline is really hard to follow, and it's like outside of any of the other Gundam continuity, it's its own contained storyline, it has some ties to some of the other characters, but it's very like its own thing, so it was very hard to follow, but I just love Gundam stuff. The Red Ranger in Another World is an Isekai. I've been watching, it's ongoing right now. It is mid, it's very mid, but I'm watching it because I'm locked in on it. I don't know why. It is very cheesy, very corny, not good, but I'm locked in on it. Uh the other thing that is kind of in that same vein, but is a lot better, is Tojima Wants to be Common Rider season one. That anime, I don't know why I started watching it either, but I'm I'm into it, I vibe with it. I think it's good. The fights are very intense, but they're also very corny because it is essentially grown-ass adult cosplayers, cosplaying as these different common rider people, uh, and actually fighting crime. It's the wildest thing. So but I don't know why I enjoy it, but I do. Um what's the other thing? Sandra. I've watched a couple episodes of that. It's on Amazon Prime. I don't really get to Amazon Prime too much to watch it, but a couple episodes I have watched of Santa have been very interesting. I like the concept, uh, but I don't want to give a wholehearted uh review on it yet because I've only watched a couple episodes. Um, we're gonna run through some other ones. My Hero Vigilante, we talked about that one. I ran through that one super quick, loved that anime. My Hero Academia, the final season. Beautiful, beautifully animated. Character development all the way around was great. A lot of the storylines got closed up cleanly. Um, we're getting another episode in 2026 that's gonna show like where a lot of the class A heroes went and like how they have progressed and stuff like that, where they're at the believe it's an eight-year time skip or something like that. So we're gonna get that special episode in 2026. But my hero academia, absolutely beautiful. I cried at that one. Solo leveling season two. We've talked a lot about solo leveling on here, just absolutely fantastic. I love it. Season three is gonna be great. I don't know how much longer they're gonna take it because I have the entire manwa collection up to date right now. The newest one, the newest volume just released yesterday as of recording. This is December 31st. Um, so I'm up to date on it. So I don't know how much longer after a season three they're gonna do unless they like elongate a lot of these fights. Uh maybe a season four if they like elongate it, but after that, I don't really there's not that much story to it, to be honest. Don Don season two, great. Kaiju number eight season two, great. Apparently, kaiju number eight is only getting three seasons. I didn't realize it was that short, but it makes sense. Uh so we're looking forward to that next year. I believe it's next year. Somebody can fact check me, but I believe it's next year. Uh, Don Don season two, obviously great. Uh, we're gonna talk in depth about a couple of these other ones coming up here. Oh, I think we okay, yeah. So we have one. Okay, four more left. And I want to talk in depth about these four here. So the first one I want to talk about Rising of the Shield Hero Season Four. Okay, and I know I'm missing some anime on here. It's it's inevitable that I'm gonna miss some. Um I'm there's one I'm missing right off the top of my head I can think of. But Rising of the Shield Heroes season four. After the season was over, I loved the season. First of all, I love the season. It was a Japanese-themed season, it was themed all around Raftalia, finding her getting back to her roots, finding where she's going. The overarching uh plot is them getting ready for the for the battle against, I believe it's the Phoenix this time, and then, you know, Naufumi getting all his you know, ducks in a row. So Rhtalia had some assassins sent after her. So basically, Naufumi was like, yo, we gotta go rectify this situation. They went to her homeland, figured out she was royalty, and a battle for the throne ensued, all that kind of stuff. Great, great season. The reason I'm I want to talk in depth about this is because after I after this season, I was like, you know what? Rising of the Shield hero, Isekai. Isekai, if you don't know, transported to another world. Essentially. Um could be video games, whatever, fantasy. It's usually a fantasy world, but anyway, I was like, I love Isekai, or this particular Isekai. I haven't really dabbled in a lot of Isekai's before this, but I was like, I really enjoy this Isekai. So I'm gonna watch more Isekai, which is how we got the Red Ranger in another world, which is how we got another one that I left off the list, is uh my skills as an assassin clearly exceed the heroes, or something like that. That's another thing about these Isekai. Why are the titles so long? I that's crazy to me, but I digress. So I was like watching Shield Hero, and after Shield Hero, I was like, man, I really want to just get into some more Isekai. Let's take a look at some of these. Oh, my cat, my cat decided to join me on recording. She usually doesn't come up. Oh, she's here anyway. Um, I usually don't watch Isekai, but I was like, I wanted to watch some. So I realized, and which is why we're talking about Shield Hero, I have a greater appreciation for Rising of the Shield Hero as a story, because some of these other Isekai are not good. Like Red Ranger in another world is not good. It's fun, it's campy. I think the story might heat up a little bit more, but the pacing is off and it's like kind of weird. Same thing with my assassin my skills as an assassin. It the pacing is really, really weird on it. It it's the fights are not really fights as so much as they're like clashes, so there's really not a lot of not a ton of action. The romance part of this Isekai is very rushed and very forced. So in Rising of the Shield Hero, I really have an appreciation for the world building, for the character development, for the overarching story that's being told, along with all the other side stories that are being told in any given season. I I just have a much greater appreciation for Rising of the Shield Hero because it's just that much better than a lot of the other Isekai's that I've watched. The next thing I want to talk about Digimon Beatbreak season one. It's on a break right now. The next episode comes out January 4th, I believe. And man, this has been an incredible ride for Digimon Beat Break. The game is fun. Digimon Time Stranger. Digimon Beat Break has been hit after hit after hit. There was a small lull in the episodes in season one, but they came back with a vengeance. That little lull like went straight straight up the charts into a high climactic moment, which is when we get the uh Krapomon Digiv Digivolution into Night Kropomon. Krappomon, I can't say that name, and then you follow that up with a little mini arc for Gekomon, who everyone has been wanting to get a Digivolution. He gets the the dark power up and Digivolves and then has to digivolve back to his rookie form before he can digivolve to his champion form in the next episode. So, which is where we're we're left off. The Digimon the Digivolution sequences have been great, very unique. I love them. We haven't got any weird Digimon yet, uh, in terms of like the oversexualization that seems to be not going in that direction, but it's only been 12-13 episodes. But um, the story's great. The trailer for the next arc, which is the uh the elemental five arc or something like that with the Digimon Tamers, uh, it looks really good. Digimon has just been on a heater the last part of this year with the game and with the anime at this point. And I believe they also came out with a mobile something having to do with a mobile TCG, but I don't I don't play those. But people love it. So the DLC for Digimon Time Stranger already came out. Digimon Time Stranger DLC Pack number two, I think, is gonna come out early January. If it hasn't already come out by now, I haven't finished the game yet. I I'm gonna be going on vacation, and that's gonna be one of the things that's on my vacation is to finish the game. Um but yeah, Digimon just the whole brand of Digimon has been has made a crazy comeback, and I am here for it, and I love it, and I'm glad that it's happened. I've long said Digimon is better than Pokemon, and I think the end of this year kind of proved that for that. Now we're gonna switch to the negative before we go, we end off on the positive for things that we watched in 2025. One Punch Man, season three. Now, I was very, very, very excited to watch this season. It's been a long layoff for One Punch Man since we got season two. And for season three to come back with this level of animation is terrible. The discourse around season three has not been good. The there have been multiple instances of the animation just being lazy, people accusing the animation of being AI. There have been characters that have been misgendered, there's been extra fingers on characters, there's been extra like frames used. Uh, I think someone counted in in an episode, and it was 18 seconds of a steal of still frames in in an episode at one in one sequence, which is crazy. The director for One Punch Man, I believe, had to step down or deactivate his social media because he was getting so many like hate comments. That's not a it's not a plus, I'm just saying. And it's um, it's just not good. The season is not good. The animation is just not good. There's supposed to be a lot of these fights that are like high octane, epic, you know, one-punch man style fights, and they're just not delivering those fights. The fights with Garu and I forget the the characters' names. I have in the beginning, the League of Villains, the murderer guy and the bug guy. Um that was one of the that was one of the animations things. They misgendered the murderer guy who as a female who is a male. Um, and they also gave him boobs. So there's that. But yeah, it's just been an abomination from an animation standpoint. Has been great. I was like literally like once you start to see, once you see one, you start to see them all. And it's it's definitely a killer on the viewing experience, for sure. I haven't watched One Punch Man in probably like three weeks at this point because the animation was so bad. And yeah, it's it's just utterly disappointing. And I I hoped it would be better. I was wanting it to be better. Because I love One Punch, I love One Punch Man, I think it's so funny, and it it's the it's like the perfect mix of action and comedy, and they hit on neither one of those things in this season. So it was literally one of the worst things I watched in 2025. But, you know, with that being said, we're gonna end this list with probably the best thing I watched in 2025, and that is Gachyakuda or Gachiakada. Gachiakuda. My favorite character of the year, jabber, came out of that. You know, the uh there's the sound that keeps playing in my head from the English voice actor. There's glue glue toxin and row toxin you know I'm saying when he's dancing over bro when he's dancing over homeboy's body like after he beat him it's just great like I love that character it's an unapologetically black character and I and I love that the mannerisms everything about it his character is just amazing the story I'm enjoying I bought volume one of the manga which I'm reading right now uh because I I love the story so much I think it is an interesting concept specifically with the the concept of trash being reused as materials that can get a second life and a second use. I think it the the the meanings behind that those kinds of things are very meaningful to people. Um especially if you were like you have like a kind of background similar to Rudo where he's like an orphan or you're in like the foster system or something like that. I can see someone with that sort of background really relating to this. Um yeah, I and I think that the animation was beautiful, the overall story of the actual anime, not the the um overarching story, but the actual story of the of the anime I think is very interesting trying to get back to the sphere, what's the what's going on between the surface and the sphere, what's going on, you know, on the ground with all the different factions, why is there certain why is there certain, you know, uh vital instruments, that's what it was. Why is there certain vital instruments that everyone can use? The Watchman series, what is that? We need more information on that. I just think everything that's going on in the anime right now is very, very interesting. The animation is on point, everything about it is great. I don't have a single bad thing to say. Character development is is there for multitude of characters. Excuse me, had to take a drink, and then so I think Gachiakado is the best anime in 2025. And I'm sure I'm missing some things. I I'm I'm I know I'm forgetting some things, but right now on this list we have I'm gonna count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. We got 20 anime on this list, and I know I'm forgetting a bunch because I didn't name one piece. I didn't have I named another one that I didn't have on the list. Um, Shangri La Frontier might have been in 2025, I can't remember. But there's there's other things that I've watched that's not even on this list. So I'm 20, 20 to 25 plus anime deep this year. And I think that's pretty good for someone who is talking about anime. So, you know, uh I'm always looking for suggestions. So if anyone has suggestions on anything that I should talk about or cover or introduce on the podcast, you can always let me know. All the ways to contact me are in the podcast description. So we're gonna take a break. I'm gonna do a special segment about One Piece, and then we're gonna talk about the comics that comics stuff that we watched and consumed this year. So quickly, last thing I want to talk about, anime related, is One Piece is finally going on a hiatus after 20 some odd years of being on the air as a weekly anime. 1155 episodes. Not coming back until April 5th. So, with that being said, I am gonna start my rewatch starting January 1st. So, April 5th, I'm gonna start my One Piece rewatch. We're hopefully gonna be making some YouTube content out of the out of the YouTube or out of the uh rewatch videos, so hopefully we can look forward to that. But uh, this is just an anime I love so very much, and since it's been on weekly, I haven't been able to go back and watch it really. So now that it's on a pretty long break, I can go back, watch episode from episode one, you know, fall in love with my characters all over again. We got the live action for season two coming out in March, I believe. So that's also a good time to refresh uh and get more familiar with the arcs that are gonna be touched on in season two of the live action. You know, so because I watched that with my wife, so you know, I want to be the guy that's like, oh yeah, you know, this, this, this, this, this, you know, the know it all when we're watching the the live action. So it's good to brush up on that stuff. But just wanted to say, man, I love One Piece. One Piece is phenomenal, it's the greatest story ever told. 1,155 episodes. And counting, just taking a break right now, which is crazy. But I love that. I love it. Uh, One Piece has been a huge part of my life, obviously. I probably started watching it in in I want to say 2000, maybe. If it started in probably 98, I I would say I started I started probably watching it in 2000, if not right around 98, 99, something like that. So One Piece has been around in my life for a long time. So for it to finally be on a break is kind of crazy. Like this long of a break is kind of crazy, but yeah, I just wanted to special shout out to One Piece, man. It's literally it sometimes it's literally been the the beacon of light, you know. I mean, you just sit down, watch some watch some One Piece, everything is right with the world, at least for those 20 minutes that you're watching it or whatever. So, shout out to One Piece. Just wanted to uh do a little special segment for for One Piece, man. Not there will never be another story or anime like it. This is truly the end of an era. Alright, finally, we have the comics of 2025 that I've watched. All the comic book properties. We're just gonna run through them. The list is quick, and then I'm just gonna run through the list. It's a list of ten, and then I'll pick out the ones that I want to talk about. So we've got Fantastic Four, Superman, Craven the Hunter, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Eyes of Wolconda, Peacemaker, What If Season 3, Iron Heart, Marvel Zombies, and Captain America Brave New World. Those are all the ones we talked about, or I watched in 2025. Some that are missing on the list that I didn't watch, Daredevil Born Again, uh, just didn't see it, forgot all about it, and I didn't see the Thunderbolts movie. And similar reason as Daredevil, forgot all about it, didn't see it. Anyway, couple I want to talk about. First off, Superman. The movie, loved it, it's a great movie, one of the best things comic book or anime-wise I've seen in 2025. I think that they did a great job with the storyline making Superman not only accessible, but powerful, relatable. Uh, the story was politically on point for the time that it came out. It's just overall a great experience going to the theater as well. So that was just overall, the Superman experience was just overall great. I'm happy that DC is getting their their crap together, and we can hopefully expect higher quality going forward in the DC EU. Eyes of Wakanda on Disney Plus. Uh a bunch of short stories having to do with the history of assassins or shadow agents working throughout history and for Wakanda doing certain things. Um, it was a great show. I wished it went on longer than it than it did because it was so good, very well executed. The animation was crisp, clean, the story was great, it had an overarching story that connected directly to the MCU, which I did not see coming. Great twist on that. Um, so Isaac Wakanda, definitely one of the highlights of 2025 in terms of animation. Uh Peacemaker. I didn't know what to expect from Peacemaker. I watched season one and season two this year. Overall, great experience, fun ride. Uh, I like what's coming out of the DCU for the shows as well, especially their animated stuff is really, really good. Uh, Peacemaker was a fun, a fun time for me. Uh, and I'll leave it at that. Uh, let's get to some of the negatives. What if season three? Absolute garbage. Trash can. I was upset that I watched it. It was not good. The story was very convoluted. I the whole overall idea of the what if series was good. The direction that they took it was terrible. I don't think it was good. I'm upset that I watched it. Craven the Hunter. I knew this movie was bad when I turned it on, but I wanted to watch it because I was hoping that there was people out there that were just um haters. I don't know. I like Kraven as a character in Spider-Man's Rogue Gallery, but it seems that they just cannot get it right when it comes to Spider-Man villains. Because golly, man, it's it's not that hard, but they seem to mess it up every time. And I just don't get it. I really don't. I wish that they just did better. Because Sony is such a big company that they have no excuse not to do better, and it's just garbage that they put out. It just wasn't the movie wasn't good. The dialogue was very sloppy and simple. The fight scenes were okay, not good to carry it, and then the way that the movie ended was absolutely just stupid, just really, really dumb. Um cool thing though about when you write down all the things is you get to see, you know, I wrote down 10 10 things for comics. I had 20 plus for anime stuff, you know, so that's kind of interesting to look at as well. Just the distribution of things that I'm watching. Uh, and obviously it doesn't take into account print media, which we're gonna be doing a little bit more of next year. Uh, reading a little bit more comics, more more books, bringing you more stories on the comic book side, not necessarily from animation or from movies, so that we can truly live up to the name Nerd Vibes, which is anime and comics. But we've been mostly anime the rest this uh end of the year here. But I did want to leave you guys with this episode going into the new year, um, saying I love you guys and I appreciate you guys. We're gonna try to make 2026 a big year for nerd vibes. These endings are always really tough for me because I don't really know what to say. I don't really like the self-promo stuff where I tell you to go follow all the socials and and subscribe and download and share and all that stuff. Like, I really just don't like doing that. I really just do this for the love of the game. Obviously, you know, you want people to like and subscribe and to download and to follow all your social medias and stuff, but and it would be great if you guys did that, don't get me wrong. But I I do enjoy just sitting down and being able to put my pot, my my thoughts into a podcast and to be able to send it out to people, and just knowing that there's any amount of people who are out there downloading and listening to anything that I have to say on any type of consistent basis is just much appreciated. Um, and I love everyone, I love you guys for that. So thank you. I'll see you guys in 2026. Have a happy new year, be safe if you're listening to this after the new year. I hope you had a happy new year, hope you were safe. Enjoy, I appreciate you guys, love you guys, and I'll see you on the next episode.
