Terrific news, everyone – the anime wasn’t universally great this week, and so for once, I actually have something to talk about in this opening blurb. It’s frankly gotten harder and harder to come up with new ways to say “these cartoons kick ass, everything is awesome” every week, so I’m grateful for a little inspiration courtesy of this week’s contenders. While Run with the Wind and Kemurikusa pulled off a pair of their strongest episodes yet, Mob Psycho took a narrative turn that seemed weirdly out of sync with its prior material, and The Magnificent Kotobuki basically coasted on its fundamental strengths. Neither of those are particularly serious Anime Crimes, but in a season that features three of my favorite directors and JoJo besides, I’m going to take whatever quibbles I can get. Let’s get on with the grumping then, as we run down another week in anime!
I think this week might have featured my favorite episode of Kemurikusa so far, though this one wasn’t really categorically different from those that have come before. It was more steady continuation of Wakaba and the sisters’ journey to find water, but I felt like this episode’s various scattered scenes pretty much exemplified all the things that make this show great. There was plenty of weirdly charming gallows humor courtesy of the Rinas, lots of naturally illustrated reveals about the nature of this world, an assortment of evocative vistas as they crossed island five, and a necessary seasoning of brilliantly concise character moments.
I feel like Tatsuki’s work gets undersold in terms of its writing because his scripts tend to stick to very plain language, familiar speaking tics, and dramatic beats that echo more routine narratives – but all that stuff also conceals the fact that his character writing is tightly composed and highly sympathetic, his worldbuilding is both bold and remarkably well-realized, and his shows can handle complex, emotionally resonant topics at basically any time. Kemurikusa’s visual and timing-based comedy work hard to downplay the fundamental hopelessness and pathos of this situation, but scenes like Ritsu finally admitting she feels she’s letting her sisters down, only to be assured by Rin that the things she loves matter to them as well, ring out with profound impact and emotional authenticity. I feel like I’m learning more about what truly matters in writing with every episode of this show.
On the other hand, this week’s The Magnificent Kotobuki definitely felt a bit weaker than the show’s usual standard. Reona’s past experiences with the Soaring Magician were too underdeveloped to really lend this episode’s character story any dramatic weight, and the magician himself was a one-note gag character who wore out his welcome pretty quickly. Kotobuki’s floor of episode execution is still fairly high, though – in spite of me not really caring for this episode’s ostensible plot in any way, it was still full of great, punchy gags courtesy of idiots like Kyrie and Chika. As long as those two are constantly bickering and celebrating and generally making noisy nuisances of themselves, The Magnificent Kotobuki will remain a pretty entertaining show.
The latest JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure seemed oddly determined to demonstrate the breadth of modern JoJo’s quality, opening with the conclusion to one of the weakest fights in this arc, and closing with one of its best. The second half of the fight against Babyface wasn’t quite as unsettling as the first, but it did offer some of the firmest evidence yet that Golden Wind is just a totally bullshit Stand. JoJo fights tend to use melodramatic visual theater to turn absurd tactical contrivance into something resembling an “earned” victory, but Golden Wind is just so flexible and so strong that at the worst times, it can make fighting against Giorno feel like a pointless exercise. It’s an odd balance at the best of times, but “I turned this bike into a fake hand which I then turned into a piranha, which is now going to make you explode” definitely felt like it crossed the line.
On the other hand, the second half’s battle against a far more straightforward power (“I can control ice in all its forms”) was terrific. Mista and Giorno are a great pair, the fight escalated naturally through a thrilling series of coherent stages, and the high-speed setting gave everything a much greater sense of immediate tension. I suppose it’s a good thing that sequences like that feel like the standard now – there are still not-great JoJo battles, but Araki’s understanding of dramatic setup and tension feels like it’s nonetheless growing all the time.
Run with the Wind pulled off another absolutely stunning race episode this week, as our boys competed at last to qualify for the Hakoden. Though this episode was forced to rely more heavily on CG runners than the first big meet, that was to be expected – the scale of this race was far greater than the first, and it basically consumed this episode’s entire running time. And in spite of the CG background characters, this episode was still absolutely brimming with beautiful, convincing animation, bringing the unique gaits and overall body language of all our stars to life. The episode also did a phenomenal job of instilling this race with lots of internal arcs and payoffs, ranging from Haiji’s tense injury to Kakeru’s race for third to the way the group’s hand signals helped reinforce the fact that this was a truly communal victory. Run with the Wind certainly isn’t resting on its established strengths; episodes like this demonstrate that it’s a formidable production in all regards, and will undoubtedly have more surprises for us before we reach the end.
It’s been hard to sort out my overall thoughts over this week’s Mob Psycho 100, though it was certainly an impressive episode in many regards. The illustration of both Mob’s growing social confidence and Reigen’s meltdown was beautiful, but the episode’s turning point just felt terribly out of character for Reigen. In retrospect, it’s clear that the feared isolation Reigen was ranting about regarding Mob was coming from a very personal place, but Reigen has been so supportive of Mob for so long that having him return to ragging on his employee felt like a betrayal of his growth. Of course, one of Mob Psycho’s many subthemes is its acknowledgment that personal growth is a complex and often circuitous process, as illustrated through Ritsu’s wandering path in the first season. Reigen has been trying his best to be a mentor for Mob, but he’s still an overly proud and controlling young man who papers over his vast personal failings with outbursts of bravado. In light of all that, I can at least believe Reigen could fuck up like this… but it still felt more like narrative invention than organic drama, coming so abruptly after so much “Reigen is growing as a mentor” material.
completely disagree on Reigen’s asshole-ness feeling like narrative invention rather than organic drama. Since the very beginning the series has laid out enough breadcrumbs to point to the fact that Reigen’s supporting of Mob doesn’t necessarily come from a genuine respect for the kid, but rather because Mob believes in him so much that he feels compelled to be his mentor (and of course that he finds use in the boy’s esper abilities). You can easily extrapolate this from Reigen’s comment to dimple in last week’s episode where he says to him: “you’ve never had someone believe in you so much huh?” This is essentially Reigen voicing his own reasons for why he is so loyal to Mob despite the fact that he ultimately manipulates the kid, which he outright admits to dimple as well (this was not Reigen trying to be aloof about his intentions; this is how he truly views his relationship with Mob). While Reigen cares for Mob, he doesn’t necessarily respect him, and this is the aspect of their relationship that needs introspection and evaluation
In addition to what you said, the flashback that appears in this arc in the manga instead happens at the end of Season 1 and the show has shown that Reigen mentors Mob and keeps him close out of a selfish desire because he has no other friends. Mob gave him a purpose in life that he didn’t really have before and his insecurities and fear of losing that purpose drive him to keep Mob close to the point of mimicking Mogami and trying to drive Mob away from his social life because he doesn’t think Mob has grown. Reigen’s stubborn perspective about Mob is reinforced and this episode’s events are foreshadowed in the Ghost Family episode when Reigen is surprised about Mob being able to think on his own and says he miscalculated so to speak. Reigen is like a parent who doesn’t want their child to leave them and grow up and can’t fathom their child becoming an adult. Reigen has been holding Mob back throughout the entirety of the show up until now and this is what is being explored in this arc. The rest of Reigen’s psyche, his insecurities, etc. are being revealed and explored in full now after being foreshadowed and teased. Even if he is a mentor to Mob, Reigen is still his own person and he has allowed his necessity of Mob’s company to define him and that’s why he questions who he actually is when Mob is no longer around.
Exactly this; well said.
I for one quite agree wit bobduh on Reigen. It’s not like we didn’t know he is manipulative and exploitative of Mob, but he always strikes a balance of goodwill and has a sense for returning back a favor/refusing reward where he feels he is undeserving of it etc. With Mob and also his customers. He scams them of money but they would 100% come back again, not because they are crazy, but because he actually provides a value. We can debate how moral it is to con them into it, but he is not selfish.
In this episode his personality changed. He is selfish and lashing out and downright blind towards Mob’s growth – really? Reigen is like the last person who would have problem noticing a change in Mob… Also the episode tried to pull our heart strings by portraying him as pitiful lonely guy and a tried to make moral dilemma out of this (whether to feel sorry for him or hate him).
Also if the show was little bit sensible, it would actually push for Reigen and Mob not getting back together, because that is actually the most plausible and absolutely not an incorrect solution. Their codependence is over and they should move on. Instead I feel like this is portrayed as terrible situation and that viewers should want Mob to go back to Reigen (provided the latter would fix the error of his ways).
completely disagree for the reason both I and JonymeBoy have stated. Reigen’s personality does not change whatsoever in this episode. The fact that people believe this baffles me