Yearly Archives: 2016

Puella Magi Madoka Magica – Episode 12

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“Can you hear the bells / Can you hear the alarm / Can you give away your life, like a good luck charm?”
– The Vigilantes of Love

Madoka Magica’s final episode does not end in a climactic battle. Madoka “defeats” Walpurgisnacht, but their confrontation takes all of fifteen seconds, and has little to do with what this episode is about. Madoka opens this episode by telling Homura that she has found her wish, and is going to become a magical girl. Homura despairs at this, saying “if that’s true, what have I been fighting for?” And Madoka’s response to this is the essence of her wish, of the certainty that she wishes to bring to this world. “Believe in me,” she says. “I promise that what you’ve done for me will not be in vain.”

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Dead Dead Demon’s Dededededestruction – Volume 1

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Dead Dead Demon’s Dededededestruction opens with a kooky children’s comic, clearly reminiscent of Doraemon. A child protagonist has a problem, their mushroom-shaped friend has just the invention to solve it, and trouble ensues. The camera then pulls back to reveal this text as an in-universe comic, one of countless objects strewn across a teenage girl’s messy, cluttered bedroom. It’s a fair enough metaphor for Asano’s work, which consistently transposes the purity of tiny emotional fragments against the inescapable messiness of everyday living. And it’s perhaps even more appropriate for this story, given Asano has outright admitted that Demon’s more cutesy character designs are intended to trick young people into reading his work. Dead Dead Demon isn’t exactly Doraemon, but it could well be intended as his version of a story for children.

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Harmony – Review

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So I went and reviewed another Project Itoh movie, and this one was basically terrible from start to finish. Absolutely awful prose, super underwritten narrative, not particularly impressive visuals. It basically felt like an actual teenager’s take on neuroscience and the evils of society and whatnot, but not in a way that made its characters feel any more real. Empire of Corpses was fun because it worked as an adventure even if it failed as a thematic exploration, but Harmony was basically all themey-wemey monologues, and so it just kinda flailed around the whole time. It’s a shame!

You can check out my full review over at ANN.

Harmony

Spring 2016 – First Half in Review

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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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Garo, Part One – Review

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Today I dipped back into one of the few shows I slept on in 2014, a show whose CG suits and slightly hair metal aesthetic initially put me off. As it turns out, Garo’s first episode wasn’t really indicative of the production overall; Garo is a confident and polished adventure serial, full of solid drama and compelling fight scenes. It’s a little too purely archetypal for me to say I was all that emotionally invested, but it’s certainly a well-told story, perfect for anyone starved for fantasy that falls outside of the usual light novel wheelhouse. A fine time all around!

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

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Texhnolyze – Episode 2

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Texhnolyze certainly doesn’t make it easy on you. The show’s pacing is almost unbelievably slow, its storytelling cryptic and uninviting. There’s virtually nothing you could describe as exposition here, and many events go beyond the unexplained and into the realm of the wholly symbolic. You get the impression the show is almost sneering at the idea of being engaged with; like the audience needs to earn its approval. And the overall experience is so stifling that it feels most evocative of The Flowers of Evil; not that the two have anything in common story-wise, but because they are both utterly dedicated mood pieces, and that mood is Oppressive.

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Flying Witch – Episode 5

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Chito was the star of this week’s Flying Witch, as both Chinatsu and Makoto let him take the lead on a pair of walks around the neighborhood. It takes a special kind of show to make “follow a cat around for a while and then take a nap” a compelling episode premise, but Flying Witch’s excellent cat animation and cat behavior won the day. I agree, Flying Witch. Cats are pretty funny.

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

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Kiznaiver – Episode 5

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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!

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The Lost Village – Episode 6

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The Lost Village got as weird as it’s ever been this week, introducing giant boobs and evil trains and all manner of horrible subconscious monsters. But through all the chaos and madness, Lovepon stayed strong. Her childhood may have been rough and her future may look bleak, but Lovepon will hold on to her love of executions through it all. Executions have never steered her wrong before now, and even through this trial, executions brought her safely through. Hold close to what you believe in, Lovepon. All of us believe in you.

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

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Puella Magi Madoka Magica – Episode 11

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Kyubey has learned the truth of Homura now, and as this episode opens, he reveals one more awful secret. Apparently, it was precisely Homura’s efforts to save her that have made Madoka such a perfect target for Kyubey’s mission. By converging so many worldlines into one Madoka-focused reality, Homura has given her friend an inescapably huge karmic destiny. Just like Sayaka came to believe, it seems that everything balances out – for every breath Homura expended in attempting to save her friend, an equal amount of power was added to her tally, giving Kyubey that much more reason to pursue her. “Excellent work, Homura,” Kyubey tells her. “You’ve raised Madoka up to be the most powerful witch we’ve ever seen.”

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