It’s so nice to only be watching good shows. I think One Week Friends kinda stumbled this week, but other than that, I don’t really have any complaints about anything. I should drop shows more often!

Hitsugi no Chaika 7: Well this episode was derp as fuck and I loved it. It’s such a relief to know this show has two seasons – it can ramble its way through these small adventures, building the characters and indulging in awesome gags and slowly building the themes, without any concern of not pulling itself together. Chaika’s always a pretty funny show, but this episode kinda proved how much action scenes and physical comedy have in common – the timing of gags like Chaika falling off the cliff, or the way Frederica managed to convey perfect sulking in her dragon form, were fantastic. And Chaika waving goodbye to Toru with her father’s decomposing arm… yeah, this show is pretty great.

We got another little tidbit of the grieving/moving-on process from this week’s “hero,” with the man so consumed by the pain of betrayal that he wished to inflict the same pain on others. But this week was mainly just really funny, and I’m perfectly happy with that.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders 8: No need to do a “most ridiculous Jojo moment” this week – this week was action Jojo, and that action was firing on all cylinders. The battle between Polnareff and Soul Sacrifice (SOUL SACRIFICE, WHO SUGGESTS THE DEVIL?!?) was fast-paced and visually stunning – there were a couple tremendous animation standouts this week, and the framing of the fight overall really successfully maintained a horror movie atmosphere while also working as pure action. Nice choreography, a fun progression of stakes, and a suitably ridiculous premise – personally I enjoy Jojo just as much when it’s just being silly, but it’s nice to get a reminder of how strong Jojo can be as an actual action show. This is the second week in a row the episode’s gimmick has betrayed Jojo’s love of horror movies, and if I’m all for it if they can stay as compelling as this one.

Knights of Sidonia 7: Goddamn. There’s “dick move,” and then there’s, well, “intentionally fucking up your command orders and potentially dooming the human race just to make one of your subordinates look bad.” Get some perspective, guy!

Anyway. The dickest of dick moves aside, we actually got the big battle this week, and it was pretty great. Although the CG makes everyone look like terrifying plastic-faced aliens outside of battles, it also allows for some very ambitious work in the setpieces. The big pans across the gauna with multiple squads fighting, the many layers of debris, the tricks they pull using reflections on glass – all of this stuff would be either impossible or financially unfeasible in traditional animation, so it’s nice to see them getting real value out of this choice.

Outside of the battle, this episode pretty much played out in predictable fashion – Nagate felt guilt for Hoshijiro’s death, Nagate was built back up by his friends, Nagate returned to combat. I guess the main thing I was happy to see Yuhata moving into a bridge position – I like her character, and it seems less likely the show will find a way to murder her up there.

Also, this show has some very lovely shots.

One Week Friends 8: I was a fan of a lot of scenes in this episode, but I can’t say I was a fan of the episode overall. This show kind of excels in small slice-of-life moments – its conversations generally progress pretty naturally, and scenes like Hase and Fujimiya by the water have a natural flow to them that seems more interested in conveying an honesty of character interaction than an economy of scene purpose. There were a good number of scenes like that this episode.

That said, for the first time, this episode made me feel like the Hase-Fujimiya relationship was being dragged out in a somewhat artificial-seeming way. This episode shifted them from just being sort of oblivious to their growing emotions to either actively denying them or not recognizing what they were, and that kind of endangers my suspension of disbelief. I like these characters, but I don’t like being screwed with – at the first hint of Nisekoi-style shenanigans, I generally start to feel like a show is no longer respecting me as a viewer. In light of that, the introduction of an ominous New Challenger in the last scene seems even more awkward than it might otherwise be – although we probably do need to address whatever Fujimiya’s initial memory-block was about, and that probably does require introducing a variable from her past. So I’m still on board for now, but this episode definitely raised my suspicions a little.

Those sunset shots sure were nice, though.

Ping Pong 7: Aw snap, wrote another full episode post. Can’t help it, Ping Pong too good. I particularly loved the ending of this week’s episode, but as usual the whole thing was pretty great.