After several weeks of navigating various relationship crises, Akane and Kotarou finally got to have a genuinely good time for most of this episode. Their relationship blossomed very naturally across the course of this episode’s lengthy date, drawing them closer together in a way that felt totally true-to-life. These kids are alright.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my brief notes below.
Natsume’s tenth episode opens with a lovely forest shot and gentle piano, a picture of serenity before we return to Natsume’s daily troubles. Reflecting once more on how he’s kept his secret close, we first see Natsume once again navigating the difficulties of his isolation, as he plays off noticing a lost umbrella that none of his human friends can see. This umbrella isn’t actually lost, though – it’s harboring a youkai, the dedicated umbrella bearer Akagane. And along with Akagane is another youkai trapped in a small gourd, the gentle koto player Asagi.
The anime… is good. Really, if anything, I can only complain that this season’s incredibly consistent quality has made it a whole lot harder to come up with reasonable topics for these intro paragraphs. I’ve been leaning on the meta well a bit too heavily, but given I’ve dropped everything that ever caused me any pain whatsoever, it’s just hard to stay even-handed here. Sakura Quest has shrugged off its early messiness, My Hero Academia is slam dunking its brilliant source material, and The Eccentric Family 2 likely had its best episode yet. I try to stay impartial, but folks, it might be time to recommend you try Anime. I’ve heard it’s pretty okay.
Alright, I think that’s around my required word count. Now let’s both of us escape this preamble and RUN THIS WEEK DOWN!
And we’re back with more ef! I’m actually really enjoying this show at this point – it’s far from perfect, but it’s exactly the kind of messy I like. Chihiro and Renji’s narrative is legitimately great, and the other narratives continue to swing for the fences, even if they sometimes end up in the cliche romcom nonsense infield. The show’s visual style matches its narrative ambitions – consistently throwing everything against the wall, succeeding at least as often as it fails. Messy shows that try really hard are pretty great. Let’s see what this episode brings!
This was a terrific episode of The Eccentric Family, but I’ve already written basically every word I could think of to describe it, so just head on over to that review there. Writing about this show may kill me eventually, but I think that’d be a pretty okay death.
You can check out my full megareview over at ANN, or my notes below!
We’re back in the training arc mines with today’s UQ Holder, but at least this volume gave me a chance to roughly cover the manga’s trajectory to date. UQ Holder is perhaps more interesting as a dramatic problem to solve than an actual story, with “how do you make a compelling shounen drama when your hero’s already an extremely powerful immortal” its central puzzle. The manga’s solutions to that puzzle are inconsistent, but it sure is fun to talk about!
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
Today on Why It Works, I basically let myself geek out and do all that in-universe theorizing that really isn’t actually criticism. I’ve already read through the whole sports festival arc, but I tried to just rely on exactly what we know so far to inform this article, which meant my terrible memory actually came in handy for once. I really enjoy doing more flavor-focused articles, and I hope you all like them too!
Why It Works: My Hero Academia Quarterfinal Roundup
Wandering Son’s ninth episode opens with Takatsuki waking up and putting on a boy’s school uniform. The show spends significant time on this ritual, varying its shots and emphasizing his specific sequence of motions, like dressing in this uniform is some delicate and critical thing. This moment is delicate and critical – it is important to Takatsuki, and has significance far outside of its immediate, physical difficulty.
Tsuki ga Kirei’s leads took a trip to the amusement park this week, giving them a chance to sigh and fumble and generally not be sure what to do with their hands in an entirely new setting. This episode also saw the show at its most thematically focused, as basically everything here was designed to articulate one more specific and very relatable moment in adolescent love. Good stuff all around!
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below.
Today I finally got a chance to review one of the stranger anime films I’ve seen in recent memory. Miss Hokusai essentially doesn’t have a plot, but consider I’m me, that really didn’t impact my enjoyment. I’ve often said “plot is details,” and Miss Hokusai seems to agree – it presents a series of idle vignettes that never really try to justify themselves in any larger sense, and simply bring us closer to these characters and this world. It’s a lovely time.
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
