The Vampire Dies in No Time is one of those “odd couple” comedies that could either revel in its own stupidity or just be stupid with no redeeming value, depending on the quality of its writing. Luckily for us, the characters are so loveable and the situations they find themselves in are so absurd that we can’t help but love every second of their antics. This comes to a head in episode 4, when Ronaldo and Draluc are forced to fend off vampiric vegetables that have taken over their apartment kitchen. The entire fight is frantic and ridiculous, but our favorite part has to be when Draluc meticulously prepares a meal from the veggies and serves it to his friends... only for them to spit it out, since there’s no way to make rotten ingredients taste good. It’s a silly little moment, but we can’t say we’ve ever seen anything like it!

The scene in episode 2 in which drag queen Vivi is introduced isn’t anything special by itself—she just appears in the worn-down arcade and establishes herself as the de facto mother of the kids who live there—but it represents something much more important. This is a drag queen/possible trans woman who is not only a heroic character, but one who’s depicted as beautiful and admirable. She isn’t fetishized or made into the butt of a joke (even the otherwise fantastic The Vampire Dies in No Time has a facepalm-worthy “okama” character); she’s just Vivi, a somewhat intimidating but loving adult who helps Muteki throughout his daily life. We’ll take what little victories we can get for LGBT representation!

We didn’t think we’d be crying actual tears at the second episode of Ranking of Kings, much less over the childhood of a character who looks like an inkblot with eyeballs, but we weren’t prepared for the emotional trauma that awaited us. Seeing innocent young Kage be taken advantage of by people he naively trusted, and then watching Bojji go through almost the same thing several years later, made us just want to hug both of them and give them the unconditional love that they deserve. Bojji and Kage understand each other in a way that nobody else in their lives really can, and so they vow to protect each other no matter what. It’s a strong note upon which to start their journey, getting the audience immediately invested in the wellbeing of the two main characters and rooting for them to succeed.

The scene in episode 1 where Tadano first manages to communicate with the severely socially anxious Komi is one that needed to be done exactly right, since it’s the defining moment of an anime that had been eagerly anticipated for years. It looks like Studio OLM knew this, though, and they knocked it out of the park with a rendition of Komi and Tadano’s chalkboard conversation that hits all of the right emotional notes. It starts out timid and awkward, but as Komi realizes that she can actually open up to this new person on her own terms, the music picks up and the pace gets faster until the board is full of words and drawings from not just herself, but Tadano as well. It’s that feeling of being seen as the person you are, being approached at your own level, and not having to apologize for being different that makes this moment so heartwarming. No wonder the manga was so popular before this came out!

This is another moment of joyful discovery that we love from the Fall 2021 anime season. In the first episode of Blue Period, listless delinquent Yatora finally figures out his passion in life when he notices that Shibuya in the early morning is filled with so many different shades of blue. He feels the urge to capture that atmosphere in a watercolor painting; it’s obviously the work of a beginner, but his burning desire to depict the blue he saw that day motivates him to study art from that moment on. It’s one of our favorite motive-establishing scenes we’ve ever seen in anime—the audience experiences with Yatora that fire that ignites within him when he discovers what he’s been put on this Earth to do. It makes us want to make some art ourselves!