We were basically just in transition territory for this week’s March, as the show swept up the emotional loose ends of the past arc and started arranging some pieces for future conflicts. The show’s rigid adaptation style once again resulted in some dramatic weirdness, but frankly, this week’s material would have been kinda blase regardless of its presentation. They can’t all be standouts!
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episode notes below.
Today I offered a streaming review of Juni Taisen, one of this season’s most fascinating and polarizing titles. The show’s relentless violence and depressing flashbacks often made it seem like it must be a cynical thing, but the last episode was such a clear validation of all of its stars that its underlying empathy seems undeniable. Unsatisfying as a battle royale and inconsistent as an antiwar treatise, Juni Taisen most consistently shined as a character piece; fortunately, those characters were strong enough to carry the day. Juni Taisen is one of those deeply unbalanced properties that make anime so interesting, and I was happy to explore those contradictions at length.
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
I managed to find one more Juni Taisen topic to send the show off this week, and was pretty happy with the result. Juni Taisen’s finale was pretty much exactly what I’d hoped for, an episode that managed to celebrate the show’s excellent cast without undermining the legitimacy and finality of their choices. The show hit a rough patch from Monkey’s death through the twins, but it came together well enough for me to forgive the stumble. I’m gonna miss these murders.
Rating the Wishes of Juni Taisen
It’s time for more Ojamajo Doremi! It’s been about a month in my time since my last Doremi episode, but certainly not due to lack of interest. The last episode of Ojamajo Doremi was possibly the best episode the show has put together yet, and undoubtedly featured the best single sequence of any episode so far. The flashback to Ai and her father coping with her mother leaving was a devastating and phenomenally executed sequence, building on Doremi’s strong familial relationships to arrive at a moment of transcendent catharsis. It was pretty much the definition of beauty through tragedy, demonstrating the strength of Ai and her father’s relationship in the harshest of times. I’m guessing it’ll be some time before we reach another sequence as strong as that, but Doremi has actually gotten consistently more powerful all throughout, so I’m excited for whatever comes. Let’s take it to that friggin’ Majo Ruka!
I apparently forgot to post this one back when episode 31 aired. Whoops!
Rei finally arrived at the Newcomer Tournament finals this week, and was able to pay Nikaidou back for his loss in the semis. Of course, that victory only came after Rei painfully accepted this arc’s main lesson: that sometimes we cannot help the ones we love through direct action, and must exercise emotional restraint. It was a smart narrative embodiment of this arc’s central emotional conflict, and seeing Rei rewarded by actually being able to help Hina was great as well. This show is good stuff.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episode notes below.
We’re clearly in the Just Because! endgame now, with this episode taking us all the way through Mio and Eita’s misguided exams. I’m still too annoyed by their inability to communicate to really root for them, but if you were rooting for them, this episode was extremely gracefully constructed, contrasting their two journeys and smartly building towards their simultaneous exams. BUT ENA, THOUGH.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below.
Let’s continue our journey through A Tale of Memories! Last episode was a serious spirit breaker, with its first half dedicated to the seeming dissolution of Renji and Chihiro’s relationship, and its second half diving deep into Miyako’s heretofore unknown childhood trauma. The sudden reveal and immediate consequences of that trauma were a little clumsy, but the visual execution was terrific, and the episode overall placed us in a fraught dramatic space for this here eighth episode. I’m not exactly sure how things could get worse at the moment, so I’m hopeful we’ll see some actual, much-needed honest communication between our main pairs. But then again, ef is an unabashed melodrama, so things very well could get insanely worse in any number of ways. Let’s find out!
Today I’ve got a streaming review of Recovery of an MMO Junkie! The show was one of the most engaging romances I’ve seen in a while, and in general just a very welcome ray of sunshine in a largely miserable real-world year. It told a tightly written romance well, offered plenty of alternately goofy and sharp reflections on anxiety and adulthood, and pretty much made the absolute most of its ten-episode run. Always nice to see such an altogether accomplished and positive production.
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
Another of our beloved contenders set sail this week, with MMO Junkie ending on a kinda mediocre but still relatively charming OVA episode. Outside of that, the fall season continued to offer nothing but hits this week, with Sunshine managing its second strong episode in a row while all the season’s more stable contenders maintained their usual sheen. I have to admire March comes in like a lion for its confidence in continuously interrupting its excellent Hina arc with diversions that all turn out to be satisfying enough to warrant messing with the narrative structure. March’s choices don’t at all feel like the way this story “should” be told, but at this point, the embellishments feel like expert saxophone solos threaded into a confident jazz standard. Meanwhile, Lustrous continues to surprise in new ways, while Just Because! keeps up its awkward-as-hell consistency once again. It is so very nice when the anime is good. Let’s GET TO IT!
Episode seven opens with the unexpected, unwanted consequences of Cocona and Papika’s emotional meddling. Having “solved” Iroha Irodori’s childhood trauma, it appears they’ve also stolen her passion for artistic self-expression. A need to create is often born in a desire to articulate and perhaps come to terms with your scars; with Iro’s relationship with her childhood friend now resolved without regrets, she currently sees no reason to paint, claiming her works “just take up space, anyway.” Cocona feels guilty for this shift, and the ambiguity of her feelings points to a greater general truth. We don’t need to be ashamed of our unhappiness or our strangeness or our trauma – those are all a part of us, and even if we can’t see anything positive in our pain, that pain may still contribute to our finest qualities in its own way. We shouldn’t fetishize suffering, but also shouldn’t be ashamed of being wounded or imperfect – a fact Cocona herself is only slowly coming to realize.