Anime was good this week! Anime was extremely good this week! ANIME WAS RIDICULOUSLY GOOD THIS WEEK. Kiznaiver and JoJo each had their best episodes of the season, with Kiznaiver offering probably my favorite episode of any of these shows, and JoJo basically just synthesizing all of the things that have made Diamond is Unbreakable great. Concrete Revolutio was right up there as well, as Urobuchi penned one of the most pointed episodes the show has ever seen. And the rest of the lineup was not far behind – only The Lost Village and Luluco had weaker episodes this week, and I’m sure they’ll both survive. That’s enough summary! Let’s get right to it!!!
Tag Archives: Kiznaiver
Kiznaiver – Episode 7
Kiznaiver had its strongest episode of the season this week… in fact, Kiznaiver aside, I think this was just the strongest episode of anything I’ve watched this season. The show has often been a little clumsy in its emotional beats, but you wouldn’t have guessed that from this episode – this one was understated and beautiful and full of smart visual metaphors and purely tone-focused segments. Maki’s story turned out to be a lot more relatable than I’d expected; her fears and resultant feelings of guilt were totally understandable, and the episode did a great job of visually conveying the world she occupied. I was legit tearing up a bit by the end of this one – this kind of beautifully realized melancholy and slight emotional catharsis is exactly the kind of thing I love. Even if the rest of the show stays a little sketchy, I’m happy we got this.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!
Spring 2016 – Week 7 in Review
Our strong spring season continued to chug merrily along this week, offering a few new highlights and a clunker or two, as you might expect. My weekly list has been paired down to the point where even the disappointing episodes are only mediocre entries in fundamentally strong shows, which feels like a real luxury (I dropped Macross Delta, incidentally, which I realized I hadn’t really been impressed with for a good 4-5 episodes). And both Kiznaiver and The Lost Village actually seem to be improving as they go along, which I wouldn’t expect from such shaky and unpredictable productions. Top that off with the reliably competent My Hero Academia and the consistently stunning Concrete Revolutio, and you’ve got a season that never fails to at least entertain. Let’s RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Kiznaiver – Episode 6
Kiznaiver had one of its best episodes yet this week, an episode that was equally satisfying in dramatic and visual terms. Okay, that’s kind of a lie – Kiznaiver’s design and direction are just god dang phenomenal, and continue to elevate what would likely be a pretty mediocre show in other hands. It’s always great to find a show that gives me a new director to keep an eye on, and Kiznaiver definitely qualifies. But that aside, this was still a dramatically effective episode on its own terms, full of nice exchanges between the whole cast. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the show is finding its footing or anything, but it’s still got plenty of nice stuff to offer.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!
Spring 2016 – First Half in Review
The halfway point is here! I’m not the only one who feels like this has been a really fast season, right? I mean, it’s obviously going to feel like I’m running through anime faster if I’m enjoying it more, but it feels like Flying Witch and The Lost Village and My Hero Academia just got started a couple weeks ago, and suddenly here we are. As has at this point shifted from “it’s cute to say some silly blog thing is ‘traditional'” to “wow, this really is a tradition, I’ve been doing this crap for a substantial portion of my adult life,” I’ll be running down my current schedule from best to worst as your seasonal reminder that rankings don’t matter, we’re all going to die, the only truth is the abyss. I’ve got a lot of very fun and very different shows to get through, so let’s not waste any more time in preamble. From top to bottom, here are this spring’s very best cartoon contenders!
Kiznaiver – Episode 5
Kiznaiver wholly embraced its training camp setup this week, whipping out hoary old cliches like the test of courage to put its characters through yet another emotional wringer. The relationship between Chidori and Katsuhira is frankly one of the least interesting to me here – Katsuhira’s personality has always struck me as somewhat contrived, and the ways Chidori interacted with Tenga and Yuta this episode offered far more interesting emotional contrasts. It was also nice to see that Nico isn’t going to be entirely left behind by this whole love polygon scenario – it’s looking like she might have some thoughts on the Chidori-Tenga relationship herself. Passions continue to bubble between these kooky kids.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!
Kiznaiver – Episode 4
A weaker episode of Kiznaiver this week, as it leaned on lousy comedy and archetypal beats and basically the kind of stuff you’d expect from a mediocre character-focused show. There was still good material too, though – the relationship between Yuta and Hanako is great, for example, and the show’s visual design is still top notch. There are still plenty of question marks hanging around this one, since it’s aiming for emotional profundity that it hasn’t yet earned, but the occasional sharp conversation does give me some hope it’ll at least approach a solid ending. Kiznaiver is a creaky show, but I have a lot of difficulty blaming shows for ambition.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!
Spring 2016 – Week 5 in Review
We had a fresh new crop of anime roll in this week, and I’m here to sort out the top tier cartoons from the rest of the cargo. It won’t be easy this time – there were plenty of great episodes this week across the board, with a wide variety of genres and favorites pulling off excellent performances. The Lost Village’s fourth episode more or less cemented it as a ridiculous semi-classic, while Concrete Revolutio had another stunning vignette, and Flying Witch maintained its clean streak of strong episodes. This is the best season I’ve personally had in about a year, and I’m enjoying it to the fullest. Let’s dive right into this pile of nonsense and RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Spring 2016 – Week 4 in Review
God damn is this ever a season of anime. I keep trying to drop shows, but they all keep being too entertaining. And now I check out Macross Delta and find out that’s a lot of fun, too? I really wouldn’t have minded one or two of these shows back a season ago, but it’s also great to log on twitter and see people enjoying such a wide variety of new anime. Even this season’s ambiguous productions are generally coming up solid – Kiznaiver had its strongest episode yet this week, and other borderline stuff like Haifuri is executing well, even if it’s not exactly my thing. It’s a fine time for watching too goddamn many cartoons, so let’s start at the top and RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Kiznaiver – Episode 3
Kiznaiver went a long ways towards alleviating my main concerns in its third episode. The important thing here was that in contrast to the first two episodes’ big, bold declarations of feelings, this one had some legitimately sharp incidental character writing. Obviously Mari Okada is perfectly capable of sculpting fully realized characters, but the first two episodes made me worried this whole show was going to exist at a ridiculously heightened emotional revelation tenor, and this episode avoided that entirely. I’m happy to see this sensitivity and restraint, and I hope it keeps up until the show decides to punch us in the face with emotions again.
You can check out my full writeup over at ANN, or my episode notes below!