Seiren’s third arc ended in typically Seiren fashion, leaving me once again scrambling to describe this show in some way more evocative than “okay, I guess.” I actually did chance on a pretty decent hook for this writeup, as the episode’s legitimately successful climax gave me a chance to talk about the pluses and minuses of its distinctive writing style. I’m taking my victories where I can find them!
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episode notes below.
Time to finish the Kyoko arc
“An erect doe tail.” Oh my god this show
Shoichi gets to save the venison stall
Kyoko can now take care of kids, instead of just being one. Character development!
Of course, we pretty much just fast-forwarded over that character development, so…
Shoichi just keeps pushing. It’s supposed to parse as romantic, I think, but eh
The festival offers plenty of opportunities to show off all the other focus characters
There are a bunch of scenes focused on Miu, who isn’t even a character yet. Once again the show eschews traditional narrative structures for not much payoff
That might be the fundamental problem – it’s breaking rules, which makes it interesting, but it’s not breaking rules for good purposes, which makes it bad
Another low-key conversation about the Home Ec Club’s trials
“Give me back my undies and my time!”
“I want you to see me as a man. I really don’t want things to stay the same as always.” Excellent
Kyoko decides to think about how to respond while they eat. Dang
Kyoko’s so shy about her own confession. This is a pretty great scene
Both of them weren’t sure how to deal about the shift in their feelings towards each other. They were used to considering each other as harmless friends
I more or less gave up on Seiren a couple weeks back. My take on it is essentially “If you want to know why I was excited about this show, watch the first season of Amagami SS instead.” While not perfect (reading old forum discussions make it clear that the first episode got mixed reviews) it’s generally a much better show.
Between the new Utawarerumono, Macross Delta, Izetta and now Seiren I have not had much luck with sequels over the last year and a bit. (Technically Izetta isn’t a sequel, but the first three episodes reminded me of two older series I really love that its writer was involved with before the whole Guilty Crown fiasco. You can imagine my disappointment when later parts of the show ended up feeling phoned in.)