Today I’ve got a review of the Steins;Gate movie, which was… well, pretty bad. Also tedious, superfluous, and dramatically inert. It was somewhat nice just to see these characters again, but watching them go through the motions of a clearly uninspired story just wasn’t a particularly good time. Ah well.
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
Hello all, and welcome back to the Week in Review! This was another strong week in what’s turning out to be an all-around excellent season, marked by great shows in a pretty broad spread of genres. I’d kinda figured this season would be Eccentric Family and The Rest, but given My Hero Academia’s improvements and the unexpected strength of shows like Tsuki ga Kirei and Re:Creators, I really don’t have anything to complain about. Let’s not waste any time then, and get started RUNNING THIS WEEK DOWN!
And so Kokoro Connect’s first arc comes to its irreputable close. I’ll spare you the suspense: I didn’t really like this episode.
I didn’t like it for reasons that are likely predictable at this point, but still really harm the show’s emotional grasp. For one thing, Taichi is still just too damn good at what he does. While listening to him effortlessly disarm Iori’s lifelong anxieties, I wasn’t filled with respect or admiration – I mostly just wondered if the show was really going to make it that easy for him. It’s rare that a show prompts me to think “I wish Araragi were here,” but Kokoro Connect actually demonstrates how much Araragi’s myriad flaws add to his narrative. Araragi’s attempts to “help” his friends actually demonstrate his weaknesses, and thus his humanity. Taichi’s attempts are all successful and all based in “I just want to help people, okay,” which really doesn’t offer me anything to hold onto outside of imagining myself as his eternally competent self. Thoughtful character dramas can’t have Kiritos as their protagonists.
The Eccentric Family had another terrific episode this week, which, I know, big surprise. Though I guess it would have been just as easy for this season to have somehow lost the spark of the original, so I can’t complain that things are as heartfelt and magical as ever. I’m still waiting on something like the “flying teahouse above the Kyoto skyline” moment, but this week’s love story between Yaichiro and Gyokuran was so cute that I can’t really complain. Good shows are good.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below.
Today I finally reviewed the first Bakemonogatari print volume, which was… well, not great. Pretty much everything that’s good in this novel was conveyed as well or better in the anime, and there’s plenty here that was mercifully cut in the adaptation. Monogatari is one of my favorite anime franchises, but I’m not really compelled to continue reading these.
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
For this week’s Why It Works, I dig into the established world of Sakura Quest, which is basically just the crumbling world we already live in. I’m not totally confident this show will ultimately go to interesting places with its narrative, but it’s certainly established a solid starting line. I hope you enjoy the piece!
Why It Works: Sakura Quest Doesn’t Have the Answers
It’s time for more Ojamajo Doremi! Last episode saw Doremi learning a fair amount about responsibility through the perils of fairy ownership, which once demonstrated both her goofy general personality and her admirable willingness to admit fault. Doremi’s ability to acknowledge when she’s wrong is likely her greatest quality, a terrific “power” in the context of dealing with this show’s true challenges – growing up and coming to understand the lives and feelings of others. Let’s see how she screws up and how she eventually fixes it this time!
Welp, this was an episode. Tsuki ga Kirei’s fourth installment was nearly as laudable for its storytelling as it was deplorable for its visual execution. Seriously guys, those CG character models just aren’t cutting it. At least try to hide the damn things in the background, don’t have them walk right in front of the camera!
Anyway, I get into all of that over on ANN. You can check out my review right here!
Alright, let’s get started on Chihayafuru. I’ve had the show recommended to me a number of times, and even briefly started it a couple years back, but never really got into the meat of the drama. As far as I understand, it’s a combination of thrilling sports drama and shoujo-inflected love triangle shenanigans. I don’t actually have all that much experience with sports dramas, but the ones I’ve enjoyed (Girls und Panzer, Cross Game), I’ve really enjoyed. Setting up a kind of “fair,” parsable contest and then letting your characters clash in it is a natural recipe for impactful drama, something that smart shounen properties like Hunter x Hunter also understand. I’m also perfectly on board for romance, so pretty much the whole package here seems good to me. Let’s dive right in to the first episode!
Holy crap guys, it’s time for the Week in Review! Once again, this post turned out to be far more unmanageable than the usual standard, largely because I had so much friggin’ catching up to do. This week saw me burning through episodes of SukaSuka and Re:Creators along with my existing schedule, and yeah, I had a couple thoughts. And jeez, I still need to catch up on Rage of Bahamut… anyway. It feels like I’m still kinda sweeping up the wreckage of preview week, but hey, my untenable personal schedule equals EVEN MORE CONTENT for you guys. Enjoy it, ya bastards. Let’s run these shows down!