Chapotraphouse

CW: slavery bullshit, lots of gory violent shit, like literally in the second episode Flum gets her arm twisted off multiple times (I kept going "Ugh! Oh my god! Oh god, ugh!" to the point my partner called from another room asking if I was okay)

just wanted to shill for a cool show I think people here would like. I almost didn't watch it because I read the synopsis and the MC's name is "Flum Apricot" and that makes me go like in so many ways. BUT I watched it and it was actually very good and it's actually been consistently the most interesting and looked-forward-to anime for me this past season, except for maybe Jujutsu Kaisen (I like my action shounen fight slop okay)

It's about Flum Apricot, who was chosen by the church to join the Hero's Party to go fight the Demon Lord. But she's got 0 stats and no useful skills and is, from a combat perspective, entirely useless. Some dickhead asshole she worked with lies to everyone else and tricks her so that he can sell her into slavery, because he's a dickless loser who didn't appreciate all the nice shit she did for him. Apparently this is entirely legal in this shithole pottery kingdom, so she's just like, a slave now, permanently branded

BUT the dumb fucker who bought her used her as part of a sadistic game where he unleashed ghouls on slaves, telling them they can fight to survive, but only giving them a cursed sword that melts them to death if they touch it. Flum isn't just gonna let them eat her, so she grabs it, and it turns out her reversal skill does exactly what it says, reversing status effects, so the cursed attribute malus becomes a bonus for her, and the "melts your body" effect gives her overpowered regeneration abilities

so she frees herself and another slave named Milkit and then the rest of the show is about them overcoming their tremendous personal traumas, loving and supporting each other, building a menagerie of comrade-waifus (no men (I guess Ed and Johnny are ok)), and dealing with the eldritch lovecraftian horrors seemingly being spread by the Church

yea that's right this yuri love fest has some fucked up fucking horror vibes, VERY early on she encounters a chimera that's possessed by some fucked up, incredibly powerful spiral force, with nothing but an Uzumaki-like flesh spiral for a face. Every time it hits Flum, it infuses her with what seems to be rotational energy that starts twisting her limbs off where she's hit. It's super grisly and gross and as much as I find her abilities cool and get that they wanted to show them off, fuck it was fucking gross.

Anyway uh yeah so like that's basically it, emotional healing with the power of yuri love (despite asshole men trying to bring them down) while investigating otherworldly horrors propagated by a powerful state church, who here isn't signed up for that, am I right??