Pack it on in folks, it’s time for the Week in Review! We’ve somehow arrived at the season’s halfway point, and though this year’s increasingly rapid succession of days is a source of constant terror for me, it’s also a source of NEW CARTOONS! Today I’ve got plenty of new episodes to talk about, having finally caught up on Vinland Saga, and I’m eager to share all my hip-fired opinions with you fine people. From My Hero Academia at last starting its engine to Stars Align demonstrating some remarkable sports drama finess, we’ve got plenty to discuss regarding this week’s episodes. Let’s get to work!

This week’s Legend of the Galactic Heroes opened with some extreme “last day on the force” vibes for Kircheis, which along with the title (“Tragedy”), left me pretty nervous this would be the end of Reinhard’s old friend. Fortunately, that title turned out to refer to a different tragedy entirely: the senseless deaths of two million rebellious citizens, a preventable mass murder that Reinhard instead used as a propaganda victory.

That act served as a pretty stunning underlining of the lengths Reinhard will go to to achieve his goals, but the rest of this episode was mired in the same shapelessness that’s plagued much of the Empire’s civil war. Throughout this whole arc, the overall stakes and strategic linchpins have been so vaguely defined that it’s basically felt more like a series of boss fights than a coherent conflict, with Reinhard’s men often winning simply because their enemies are too stupid to avoid falling for any possible trap. Legend of the Galactic Heroes can at times turn its massive conflicts into tactically engaging events, but it’s a tricky effect, and generally requires both Reinhard and Yang to be present.

Meanwhile, after half a season of muddling through setup, My Hero Academia at last started ramping up into the meat of its Overhaul arc. Opening with a beautiful Yutaka Nakamura cut seemed to be the show’s way of announcing its intentions, and I furthermore loved the jagged-lined animation that accompanied Kirishima’s transformation. Kirishima is likely the closest thing this show has to a “traditional shonen protagonist,” and watching him analyze his own powers and receive some key advice from Bakugo emphasized once more the strength of My Hero Academia’s ensemble storytelling.

The rest of Red Riot’s fight unfortunately seemed to confirm my greatest fear regarding this arc. The recent My Hero Academia manga material tends to center its big moments on lavishly illustrated two-page spreads, single moments that capture all the beauty and terror of heroes in combat. Unfortunately, the anime’s simplified designs can’t really match the impact of those panels, while its extreme panel-to-panel loyalty to its source material mean its fights tend to feel like pale imitations of the originals. I’m really hoping the Overhaul arc proper steers away from attempting to directly replicate the manga’s strength, and instead embraces sequences that capture the spirit of the original while being better suited to their own medium, but this has been a problem with the anime for long enough that I’m not exactly holding my breath.

Thankfully, Stars Align maintained its usual excellence this week, as it demonstrated it’s just as confident executing on sports drama as it is on character drama. Considering the show’s illustration of characters simply practicing their swings against a wall already had me drooling with its precise and character-rich animation, you can probably guess how much I enjoyed this week’s lovingly animated matches. In contrast with My Hero Academia, Stars Align seems to understand the strengths of its medium exactly – it uses its fluidity of movement to greatly limit the necessity of match-explaining exposition, and each main pair’s strategies naturally reflect their personalities, strengths, and distinct relationships.

Outside of perhaps a slight overuse of certain repeated layouts (like the back-of-the-court shots of two characters each watching the ball soar between them), this episode felt like a pure celebration of how fun and energetic sports drama can be, built off a genre-best foundation of character work and seemingly untethered by the natural limitations of TV animation. What the heck is this show.

Finally, I at last caught up on Vinland Saga this week, which is unfortunately still mired in what has almost certainly been its weakest stretch of episodes. Vinland Saga’s production is clearly having trouble keeping up with the pace and scale of this production, and though the show has rarely been genuinely beautiful, it’s also rarely looked as ugly as this. Clumsy CG horses and crowds, extremely limited animation, and the general aesthetic blandness of recent episode’s snowy battles have made for a disappointing visual experience on all fronts, even as we barrel through fights that should theoretically be some of the show’s most exciting.

In terms of the actual storytelling, while I enjoyed the prince and priest’s discussion of morality in the abstract, I couldn’t really buy the prince suddenly transforming into an avatar of regal confidence and compassion in a character sense. Thematically, he seems to be becoming exactly what a figure like Artorius needs to be: a person who loves all human beings equally, untethered from the kind of personal feelings the priest described as “discrimination.” It’s a philosophy that seems to reject Christianity’s promise of salvation in favor of something closer to zen spiritualism, and it’s precisely the kind of measured, discrimination-minded philosophy I’d expect from a writer like Yukimura.

But while I like the concept, it doesn’t feel like the prince actually followed a convincing path to arrive at it; instead, it feels more like he’s suddenly been possessed by the actual spirit of Artorius. Yukimura is definitely an author who tends to prioritize his thematic arguments over his individual characters (and many of his characters are more or less designed to embody certain philosophical concepts), but here I feel he may have taken that instinct a step or two too far, resulting in a character journey I find difficult to emotionally invest in.