Summer 2016 – Week 8 in Review

Dear lord it’s week eight. We are almost three quarters of the way through the summer season. August is practically over. What the hell is going on.

Well, anime is going on. Outside of our communal existential dread at somehow being yet another week older, things haven’t changed much in anime land – Aqours are still doing their best, Urobuchi’s puppets are still being delightfully ridiculous, and Tsumugi is still hungry for new snacks. This was another placeholder week in anime, with its various low points being balanced out by some unexpected highs. So let’s start with the good news then, and get right into Love Live Sunshine’s big episode!

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Why It Works: Yukako’s Fairy Tale

I returned to JoJo again this week, unable to avoid the temptation of talking about a Yukako episode. Unfortunately, this article isn’t really about how Yukako herself is awesome – it’s more about the framing of her Cinderella story, and the influences it’s drawing on in both a narrative and visual sense. Hopefully that still sounds pretty entertaining!

Why It Works: Yukako’s Fairy Tale

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Summer 2016 – Week 7 in Review

We’re in the settling now. Shows have established themselves and fallen into comfortable rhythms, massive narrative changeups are either far in the past or waiting in the last act, and most productions are just doing their best to pretend scheduling and creating twenty minutes of animation is just as easy the seventh time as it is the first or second. There are highs and lows, but they’re smaller bumps – Love Live has a somewhat weaker episode, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure tries on a new style hat, etcetera. These are the dog days of summer, where we’re all more concerned with the fact that global warming is now a lived reality than we are with which waifus most recently prevailed. But anime endures, and like a barnacle on that great cartoon vessel, so does the Week in Review. Let’s run ’em down.

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Summer 2016 – First Half in Review

It may be mid-August, but the summer anime season is convinced we still have half a summer to go. I appreciate that kind of optimism, and appreciate even more just how sunny this season has been in general. While this summer has lacked a character drama with the poignancy of Rakugo Shinju or a message show with the complexity and spirit of Concrete Revolutio, it’s made up for that by being stacked with shows that are just damn good entertainment. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Thunderbolt Fantasy are both excellent camp-action spectacles, Mob Psycho 100 is consistently elevated by solid writing and terrific execution, Love Live Sunshine is consolidating everything that is fun about Love Live, and Sweetness & Lightning is a consistent dose of heartwarming family moments. It seems silly to rank a set like that – they’re all so different, and all such positive experiences, that classifying them as “better or worse” than each other seems pointless and inherently jaded.

Of course, I’m gonna do it anyway. That’s what traditions are for! As usual, I’ll be ranking the summer’s shows for the first and only time here at the halfway point, where it should be inescapably obvious that any sort of ranking is an entirely meaningless gesture. Like a series that makes its point in the first season and then just sort of staggers on through mediocre renewals for a while, the halfway point season rankings will proudly continue. Let’s start at the top and RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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Why It Works: Anatomy of a Rat Fight

I took another stab at JoJo this week, breaking down some of the genre craft stuff that made one of the recent episodes so effective. JoJo’s just a really easy show to talk about, particularly this season – it’s got a wide variety of clear strengths, and yet tends to be strong in ways that make it quite different from most anime. I’m sure I’ll find my way back to covering it again!

Why It Works: Anatomy of a Rat Fight

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Summer 2016 – Week 5 in Review

Oh god how are we already nearing the halfway point what the fuck. Soon enough we’ll be past that and entering the final stretch and I can’t even imagine how I’m gonna handle Why It Works and preview week at the same time what the fuck have I done to my life. It’s all out of my hands. I can’t hold onto it anymore. It’s slipping away and I can’t write fast enough and I need to sleep but when I sleep I fall behind and then I wake up and it’s all there again and what am I going to DOOOO.

Hey guys! Wednesday again. You know the drill. LET’S RUN ‘EM DOWN.

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Summer 2016 – Week 4 in Review

This was a week of mild but pleasant surprises in anime land. Over in the Sunshine Islands, Love Live demonstrated that this season might actually have a better handle on its own drama than either of the first two, nailing Hanamaru’s introduction without giving up on the physical comedy that makes the show great. And down in Mob Psychoville, Mob proved himself to be just as strong a character as his show is a visual showcase. With everything else performing pretty much as hoped, this is looking to be another surprisingly sturdy season of anime. My preview chart was short, but nearly everything on that chart has ended up impressing, leaving me with a fine lineup all around. Let’s RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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Summer 2016 – Week 3 in Review

Dear lord, one week after the retrospective and we’re already a quarter through the season. This season ended up offering a stronger collection of shows than I was initially expecting, meaning I get to be fairly discerning in choosing what I actually keep up with. At this point, I’m legitimately excited about everything I’m watching – we’ve got a great mix of pure fun (Love Live, Thunderbolt Fantasy) and engaging drama (Orange, Planetarian), with Mob Psycho offering a dash of action and visual creativity. Let’s start with those new Love Lives and run this week down!

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Spring 2016 – Week 13 in Review

The spring season came to a full end this week, finishing off with a double helping of Flying Witch to help make up for our dearly departed Lost Village and Conrevo. Most of the other shows I’ve been watching have been pretty consistent, and this week confirmed that – Kiznaiver’s conclusion was the best it could be given the circumstances of its existing narrative, My Hero Academia finished a fairly simple arc with as much passion as it could muster, and Flying Witch charmed for every dang minute. Luluco was probably the biggest upset, as its fairly strong conclusion raised my overall impression of the show a tick. And heck, if I just pretend the cameo episodes never happened, it’s even better!

Anyway, enough preamble. Let’s sweep up the season’s loose ends and RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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Spring 2016 – Week 12 in Review

We had a bunch of very fun episodes this week. Rallying from a weaker start, the conclusion to Red Hot Chili Pepper was one more power episode of Diamond is Unbreakable, and My Hero Academia refused to give any ground in its big All Might battle. And we also had a pair of solid season endings, with Concrete Revolutio and The Lost Village both impressing in their own extremely, extremely, extremely incomparable ways. No Flying Witch did result in a bit of a comfy shortage, but I hear there’s a comfy surplus coming up next week, so things should even out in the end. Let’s get right to it and RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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