The Lost Village – Episode 8

This was sadly a fairly normal episode of The Lost Village – not in that it was an average episode of this particular show, but in that it was a believable episode of an ordinary horror story. Well, as long as you discount the weird, self-destructive genre-awareness expressed during the Masaki interrogation. Aside from that, basically everything that happened here could really have happened in an ordinary show, which is pretty disappointing relative to what I generally expect from The Lost Village. Well, you can’t win ’em all.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episode notes below.

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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!

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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!

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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!

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The Lost Village – Episode 5

The Lost Village convinced me it was an intentional comedy this week, because quite frankly, I couldn’t really imagine the show being this funny if it wasn’t trying to. The show is just too well-constructed as a comedy – there are too many intentionally funny non-sequiturs and deliberate punchlines, too many clever setups and clear running jokes. It’s legitimately one of the most consistently effective anime comedies I’ve seen; basically everything it does lands for me. I wasn’t expecting The Lost Village to be this particular show, but I’m very happy to have it.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episode notes below.

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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!

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The Lost Village – Episode 4

This week’s Lost Village initiated what I hope will be a consistent trend, where the more the show leans into its actual horror plot, the less it feels like a show that shouldn’t possibly exist. The Lost Village has an absolutely ridiculous cast and ludicrous dialogue, but when those characters are being forced to react to monsters and killers appearing in cracks of thunder and stuff like that, they react pretty much the same way anyone else would. So I guess as long as this cast keeps being continuously attacked and terrified, The Lost Village will continue to be able to pretend it is actually a real show.

You can check out my full writeup over at ANN, or my episode notes below!

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The Lost Village – Episodes 1-3

And so my spring writeups begin, starting with what is almost certainly the season’s weirdest production. Three episodes in, it’s still pretty tough to tell if The Lost Village is intentionally bad, accidentally bad, or some mix of the two, and even harder to say if the show’s going to end up being a great time or just a total mess. So far my curiosity is greater than my suspicion, but we’ll have to see how it goes when things get intentionally crazy. I feel like the main characters I’m invested in here are more Mizushima and Okada than any of The Lost Village’s internal inhuman caricatures, but hey, that can be fun too.

You can check out my very puzzled review over at ANN, or my episode three notes below!

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Spring 2016 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

This season is incredibly dangerous, you guys. I know first weeks are always misleading, and that at least a few shows generally fall apart soon after a strong premiere, but there are just so many good shows in so many genres that I feel I’m finally going to be buried in cartoons. There are tons of great action shows, plenty of diverse comedies, dramas and slice of lifes and Concrete Revolutio besides. It really does feel like there’s something for everyone this season – not only is it a diverse crop, but the best shows are scattered across a wide range of potential tastes.

That said, there are certainly both winners and losers among this group, and busy anime consumer that you are, I’m sure you don’t have the time to sift for the best of them. So as usual, I’ll be breaking down this season’s premieres into distinct, precisely calibrated categories, starting with the shows to celebrate and moving on through to the shows that punished me for daring to live. All the links on the show names lead to the ANN preview guide pages, where you can find my more extensive thoughts on every single one under Nick Creamer. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do, so let’s cut the preamble here and RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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Spring 2016 Season Preview

Spring is upon us! Well, technically spring is still almost a month away, at least if we’re talking in anime terms, and when are we ever not talking in anime terms. But still! We’ve only got a few short weeks before the spring season arrives to assail me specifically with way too many shows to watch, and so that means it’s time once more for me to run down the stuff I’m actually excited about. As usual, I’m only going to bring up the shows that actually look interesting to me, and the reasons I specifically find them interesting – there are plenty of resources to give you synopses of the whole list, and besides, the preview guide means that I’ll have exhaustive commentary on even the dregs of the season when they actually arrive. But even limiting the list to shows I’m actively anticipating, we’ve still got a broad and respectable selection of hopefuls this time. There are manga favorites and returning champions and new challengers, a diverse menagerie to suit all anime palettes. So let’s start at the shows I’m most anticipating and run ‘em down!

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