The anime was good this week, folks. Actually, the anime’s been pretty damn good these past two weeks, with Megalo Box pulling off what was easily its most satisfying fight yet, Hinamatsuri finally establishing what feels like a confident balance between its various modes, and Legend of the Galactic Heroes just chugging away as consistently as ever. If Megalo Box can maintain the standard set by the second half of Aragaki’s fight, it could easily end up being my favorite show of the season – of course, that also depends on how My Hero Academia handles its upcoming highlights. We’ve basically got a seasoned pro squaring off against an energetic young gun here, and whoever wins, we in the audience get to enjoy all of it. Let’s settle back and run these past weeks down in one more week in review!
Author Archives: Bobduh
Why It Works: Family is What You Make of It in Hinamatsuri
For this week’s Crunchyroll article, I used Hinamatsuri as a platform to celebrate another of my favorite topics in fiction: found families. As I say in the piece, I think this world could use far more validation of the families we choose for ourselves, and it’s always nice to find more reasons to recommend shows like Sekai Seifuku or March comes in like a lion. There are only so many ways as an anime critic to strike my “I did a good deed today” itch, but I think leading more people to Rei Kiriyama’s story hopefully qualifies.
Family is What You Make of It in HINAMATSURI!
Ojamajo Doremi – Episode 28
Let’s check back in with Ojamajo Doremi! Doremi’s show is one of the few good things in this sunblasted hellscape of a modern world, and I’m always happy to have a chance to stop in with her and the girls. The show’s new arc hasn’t really proven itself yet, and has in fact made some pretty awkward choices so far, with the most glaring being “adding a second annoying mascot character who’s also a horny old man.” “Horny old man characters” and “inspiring and emotionally educational shows for children” don’t really seem like a natural mix to me, but everyone who’s watched Doremi says the show actually improves over its running time, so I’m not worried this will really derail anything. I’m more just curious as to when this new “Bad Item” arc will actually start paying off, and what form that payoff will take.
The main issue I have with Doremi at the moment is that all of its witch world conflicts are far less interesting than its mundane classroom conflicts, because they’re invented magic-centric conflicts with no relevance to anything outside of themselves. Issues like “Majo Ruka has stolen the shop” and “we need to seal these Bad Items” possess no inherent thematic or emotional weight – the show can give them that weight, but it’s starting from a more arbitrary position than a conflict like “Hadzuki needs to learn boundaries regarding making her friends’ choices for them.” But Doremi has found resonant emotional material in unlikely places before, so I’m eager to see how it handles this new challenge. Let’s get right to the next Ojamajo Doremi!
Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 10
Captain’s Log: I am currently five days into preview week, and team morale is approaching dangerously low levels. If the crew have to struggle through one more awful isekai or rote otome adaptation, I’m not sure what might happen. In light of this, I’m requisitioning one (1) episode of Chihayafuru to raise team spirits, reminding everyone that anime can also be good and fun and not an exhausting, spirit-breaking experience. Give my regards to the folks back home, and pray for our safe return.
Folks, it’s time for Chihayafuru. Our last episode turned out to be an unexpectedly important digression from Chihaya’s team tournament, as Arata arrived and found himself roped into secretly helping an entirely different team. In base narrative terms, the only major takeaway from that digression was “Arata is now in danger of being disqualified from the singles tournament” – a dash of fairly arbitrary drama, and a threat that I’m really hoping is just there to be an empty cliffhanger. On the other hand, in connecting-with-the-cast terms, Arata’s match was an absolutely essential bit of relationship building for Arata and the audience. Arata doesn’t need to connect with the other characters – he needs to connect with us, and join his costars as an approachable human being. Last episode did an excellent job of furthering that goal, and I’m very ready to see the show follow through on his newfound relatability. Let’s get to the karuta!
Spring 2018 – First Half in Review
Alright folks, let’s all buckle in for the spring season’s first half in review! Usually, this is the time where I rank all the things I’m actively watching, using this informal halfway point marker to plot out how I feel about the season as a whole. But at this point, I just don’t watch enough airing shows to make that feel meaningful, and I haven’t for a while. That’s not to say I’m watching any less anime – I’m actually watching more anime than ever, it’s just scattered across airing shows, full releases for ANN, and independent projects for you guys. And personally, I’m significantly happier this way – keeping up with shows just because they’re hits wasn’t ever very fun for me, arguing about whether some megahit is great or terrible is mostly exhausting to me, and cutting down to the shows I’m genuinely really enjoying has led to a far more positive relationship with anime in general.
Unfortunately, all that reflection and self-growth doesn’t really help the old-fashioned, extremely arbitrary First Half in Review. So for at least this edition, I’m going to keep what works and toss what doesn’t really make sense, and run through some overall thoughts on my shows so far without implying those thoughts are any kind of ranking or evaluation. I’ve never been a person who cares to evaluate what makes an 8.74/10 show better than an 8.72/10 show – I want to know what makes either of those shows interesting in their own right, and hopefully me digging at that is a little interesting for you too. So let’s start with My Hero Academia for the hell of it and run this season down!
Why It Works: Oh Right, You Guys Are Here Too: The Unsung Heroes of Class 1-B
Sometimes this job is so damn great. I had a lot of fun with this week’s Why It Works, as I looked back to catalog pretty much everything My Hero Academia’s second-most-heroic class roster have accomplished. As it turns out, the answer is Not Much, and a pretty hilarious Not Much at that. I hope you enjoy the piece!
Oh Right, You Guys Are Here Too
Flip Flappers – Episode 12
Flip Flappers’ twelfth episode opens with Papika in an entirely new setting, trapped in a strange cave with bars over its entrance. Don’t expect any airtight explanation for this situation – we’re visiting the purgatory where she apparently spent time after colliding with Mimi in the past, but that’s about all the justification we’re gonna get for Papika’s age regression and strange current self. Like Yayaka’s nefarious organization, this setting underlines Flip Flappers’ clear lack of passion for narrative connective tissue; unlike Yayaka’s benefactors, Papika’s origin story actually is a pretty key element of this narrative, and so this cavalier handwaving certainly smarts. It essentially feels like a reprise of Penguindrum’s cages, devices the story placed a few of its characters for some nebulous amount of time because damnit, we gotta pull this story together somehow.
Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 9
Today we’re diving back into Chihayafuru! I was expecting last week’s episode to get us into the meat of the team tournament, but instead it used the first round more to celebrate the individual strengths of all our leads in a very low-stakes competitive situation. The charming team of ostensible foreigners were a fun group, and I appreciated how Tsutomu has naturally settled into a support role for the team, but I’m frankly ready for some blood. This annual team tournament is perhaps the only time Chihayafuru can fully make use of its ensemble, team-focused setup – every member of the team is simultaneously crucial here, leading to matches that can sometimes struggle to highlight everyone, but are always rich with drama worth mining. The regional matches leading up to that showdown with Retro were some of the most exciting the show has pulled off yet, and considering how well the show has built up Chihaya’s teammates over these thirty-some episodes, pretty much every team match episode feels like a direct payoff for all the training they’ve suffered. With the opening match cleared and Tsukuba having already gotten his chance to shine, I’m ready for the original five to turn some heads. Let’s get right to the action!
Hunter x Hunter – Volume 35
Togashi, what the hell are you doing.
I had assumed, upon reading and critiquing Hunter x Hunter’s thirty-fourth volume, that I’d essentially covered the gist of Togashi’s schtique – his tendency towards creating impossibly convoluted tactical setups, and his skill for resolving them as a series of dramatically coherent action beats. The fight between Chrollo and Hisoka was essentially that instinct in isolation, split between half a volume of expository notes on Chrollo’s powers and half a volume of evaluation time “I hope you got all that” payoff. Surely the complexity would let up just a tad for the next volume?
Laid-Back Camp – Review
I’ve got another full show review up today, this time covering last season’s coziest of camping exposes. Laid-Back Camp was a great time, offering a unique blend of different styles of slice of life, and nailing its more atmospheric material basically every time. Not a perfect show, but a pretty perfect slice of comfort food all the same.
You can check out my review over at ANN.
