The summer season continued its unrelenting barrage of excellence this week, offering far too many good shows for me to keep up with them all. Seriously, I’m not kidding – I’m totally behind on like half the things I’m watching, and should almost certainly have dropped something last week for my own sanity’s sake. Fortunately, it seems like Dr. Stone is already sort of losing its momentum, or at least proving it’s a series better appreciated in manga form – but aside from that, what summer contenders I’ve kept up with remain strong, and I’ve still gotta catch back up with Astra and O Maidens. Let’s break down what I have managed to get to in one more Week in Review!

After its relatively focused first and second episodes, which were both tied closely to Kohinata’s perspective, Granbelm extended its grasp in its third venture, offering a sprinkling of characterization for all of its young champions as it depicted the lead-up to their second battle. This resulted in a somewhat less immediately satisfying episode, as it basically accomplished all the board-setting that battle royales tend to rely on in order to give their later clashes impact, but which rarely feel like much of a dramatic reward in the short term. The necessity of that setup became clear once the battle actually got underway though, as we veered directly into a bewildering scrimmage featuring basically every robot-wielding hero.

While Ernesta’s prior relationship with Anna feels a little too hastily sketched to carry a huge amount of dramatic weight, their material still went a long way towards fleshing out both their characters – and meanwhile, this show’s incredible color work and richly detailed backgrounds meant even scenes of vague exposition or cryptic prophecies had an inherent sense of beauty and grandeur. On the whole, while this episode was the least inherently engaging of Granbelm’s first three, its failures were more a necessary consequence of its structural needs, while it still consistently demonstrated all of Granbelm’s many strengths. It’s looking like Granbelm may be the surprise star of the season.

On the other hand, Dr. Stone’s third episode failed to really maintain the perpetual novelty of its first two episodes, and without that novelty, the show’s appeal drops pretty precipitously. While Taiju’s goofy lug act was charming enough for one episode, he’s remained a one-note character ever since; meanwhile, Senku seems more like a force of narrative momentum than a character at all, offering no real emotional interiority to latch onto. His lack of interest in the large-scale moral consequences of his actions seems like it could contribute to some really interesting thematic or personal conflicts, but Dr. Stone’s writing just doesn’t seem like it’s working on that level – “science is exhilarating” seems to be where its philosophical imagination begins and ends. And considering the show’s visual execution is a purely functional representation of the manga’s original panels, it seems like watching this in anime form might just be a far inferior experience, since the whole appeal of this story is rushing through the narrative beats to see what happens. I think my visit to this Stone World has likely come to an end.

Finally, Given’s second episode offered a satisfyingly realistic approach to learning guitar, with Uenoyama’s efforts to teach Sato feeling precise and well-observed enough to almost serve as instruction for the audience as well. As a guitarist and general band guy myself, all of this episode’s scenes of idle chatter between bandmates and careful guitar instruction felt totally convincing, making it easy to invest in Uenoyama’s concern and Sato’s progress. Sato himself still doesn’t feel like quite a full person, but the cinematography and sound design still did an excellent job of making Uenoyama’s fascination with him clear, with their scenes of guitar tutoring feeling like an oddly charming sort of courtship dance. On top of that, the humor was a lot stronger this time, with the rare gags striking an understated, deadpan tone that really helped them land. Given was strong from the start, and it remained strong this week, leaving me eager to see this full group finally play together.