Author Archives: Bobduh

The Idolmaster – Review

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Yep, big surprise, I reviewed The Idolmaster. As I’m sure you know if you’ve been reading the week in review posts, I was a big fan of this show – in fact, its final score ends up approaching Flowers of Evil/Ping Pong the Animation levels, so yeah, this was definitely a favorite. I was actually a huge fan of this show in spite of the fact that neither of its final emotional arcs really worked for me. I couldn’t buy into either Chihaya or Haruka’s drama, and both of their stories struck me as kind of contrived and hollow. But the execution of those stories was remarkable, and the show overall had such an incredible sheen and understanding of quick touchstone character work that I can barely fault the show for failing in its most emotionally ambitious moments. Idolmaster nailed the small moments, the ones where characters were just coming to understand each other through proximity and time, and that stuff does great work in justifying a couple melodramatic overreaches.

Plus, and this bears repeating many, many times, Idolmaster is so friggin’ beautiful. Holy crap this animation, holy crap this direction, holy crap basically everything about this show’s visual and aural storytelling. Christ, I wish I got to complain about storytelling quibbles in shows this beautiful more often. I wish the general problem was “this show is a visual masterpiece, but sometimes it’s not so good at executing on emotional setpieces.” It’s kind of funny to me that a couple years ago, I probably wouldn’t have been able to appreciate this show, but would likely have been groaning about there being no heir of Gainax to take up the legacy of shows like Evangelion and FLCL. Well, Gainax’s children are here, and they’re doing the best they can. Hire a couple better writers and we’ll be right back in the golden age.

You can check out my extremely positive review over at ANN, or run down my pages and pages and pages of notes below!

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Summer 2015 – Week 11 in Review

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Wednesday has come again! Once again, I devoured an absurd bounty of anime this week, all concentrated into one friggin’ show. It turns out when I don’t have a day job, I can really crank through those reviews. Who would have guessed! I’ll probably spend next week working more on site interface stuff and freelance work, working towards establishing ways to make funding specific writeups more accessible, but for now, all I can do is marvel at the fact that I’ve probably watched around seventy episodes worth of anime in the last two weeks.

Fortunately, this week was all upside – not only did I watch the second half of a good show, even the weekly stuff put out some stellar episodes. So let’s start right there, appropriately beginning for the very first time over in this season’s reliable Trash Alley.

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10 Royal Games Plays MGSV, Parts 3-4

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More videos! There was a little gap after that first set, but we’ve got a few more already in the pipeline after this, and should be clearing up the audio issues various helpful commenters pointed out to us (the first of this set still has the annoyingly loud intro, but everything from there on out should be adjusted). Anyway, BACK TO THAT FRIGGIN’ HOSPITAL.

Part Three and Part Four!

Love Live! Movie – Review

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LOVE LIVES IN THEATERS. LOVE LIVES ON THE SCREEN. The Love Lives just cannot be contained, and this weekend I finally got to see those Love Lives large and in charge at my local theater. The movie was very much a fanservice-filled victory lap, but I still had a fun time with it – it’s nice to see these characters again, nice to see some new performances, and holy crap was the crowd into it. Pretty much every time I see an anime in theaters, the crowd hangs on every word, but this was something else. Every joke got a full house of laughter, every sad moment a chorus of “awww”, and every performance a rousing round of applause. Seeing something like Love Live in a theater really brings home the communal nature of a show like this – it’s about characters you’ve all invested in together, and that communal investment is paid back in what you get out of the series. Fans in full costume desperately trading a Rin card for a Maki one is as much “what Love Live is” as any of the actual anime.

Anyway, you can check out my full review over at ANN!

Love Live!

Paranoia Agent – Episode 10

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Dear lord did Paranoia Agent ever rally back. After tossing off what was easily its weakest episode so far, Paranoia Agent apparently decided it was time to throw out a trump card, and so tossed off an episode that skewered the fuck out of anime production while simultaneously working as a self-contained/beautifully composed horror story and also indulging in some lovely new visual tricks besides. This was an episode I’d heard of – given the current existence of Shirobako, it was probably impossible for someone as weirdly embedded in the western anime subculture as me to avoid having heard of “the Paranoia Agent anime episode.” But even for all the unfortunate baggage I’d carried to this episode courtesy of smug old-school fans shitting on Shirobako (which is a goddamn masterpiece, and will easily outlive the scorn of naysayers), I was pretty blindsided by this episode’s unimpeachable quality. Great visuals, fantastic use of classic Kon-isms, and a biting, passionate take on the anime industry. Couple that with a larger frame that actually fits well into Paranoia Agent’s structure, and you’ve got an episode that easily earned its sterling reputation. Paranoia Agent does not fuck around.

You can check out my full review over at ANN (and I go kinda deep on this one, getting pretty specific in my praising of its various aesthetics tricks), or run down my episode notes below!

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A Silent Voice, Volume Two – Review

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Back to Silent Voice, which mercifully got a lot less consistently depressing in this second volume! Fortunately the character work stayed just as strong, making this easily one of the most engaging dramas I’ve checked out recently. Strong art, very strong writing, lots of nice background details… just a whole lot to enjoy in Silent Voice. It’s gonna be tough waiting for each volume to get released now.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or read my notes below!

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Gatchaman Crowds insight – Episode 10

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Gatchaman Crowds pulled a bunch of threads together this week in an episode that I felt had maybe the season’s first real missteps. The main issue was the handling of Rui’s arc – having X just talk Rui into feeling motivated again just felt way too simple, and Rui’s story felt poorly integrated with everything else that was going on. It made me think the story just kind of didn’t know what to do with Rui for a while, which is a disappointing thought. But there was also a whole bunch of great stuff in this episode, with my favorite parts concentrated in Millione and Rizumu’s choices. The two of them actually seem pretty alike in their assessment of humanity, but Millione embraces going with the flow for ratings, while Rizumu just uses it to make himself feel powerful. Cool guys, cool guys.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

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Classroom Crisis – Episode 11

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Classroom Crisis is back! After two straight episodes of tedious and emotionally sterile boardroom shenanigans, Classroom Crisis finally returned to what it’s actually good at – demonstrating remarkable humanity in the conversations between its lead characters. And jeez, was this episode’s big conversation ever a stunner. The cathartic reunion between Nagisa and Mizuki here honestly justifies the series for me pretty much single-handedly. Satisfying romance is one of those mystical white elephants of anime storytelling, and these two have all kinds of character-coherent and endearing chemistry. Couple that with the dramatic stakes of Nagisa being at his lowest point and Mizuki dragging him out of it, and you’ve got a scene that will pretty much permanently endear me to this series regardless of all its other (numerous) failings. Scenes like this are what I’m in fiction for – I built my first novel around a scene that was basically exactly like this, and I will probably be always be a sucker for “I know things are bad, but god damnit, I care about you. We can get through this together.” Nice work, Classroom Crisis. You got me.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

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A Bride’s Story, Vol. 5 – Review

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Yep, reviewing more Bride’s Story. It’s nice to have more good manga to return to, so I’m trying to build up a bit of a stable of properties – Genshiken, Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer, etc. This volume was classic Bride’s Story, returning from the high drama of volume three and comedy of volume four to the mellow slice of life that’s the story’s bread and butter. It’s where the manga feels most comfortable, but I honestly wouldn’t mind a bit more direction in the storytelling – but either way, Bride’s Story is an excellent manga with plentiful strengths, and they’re fully on display in this volume.

You can check out my full review over at ANN!

A Bride's Story

Summer 2015 – Week 10 in Review

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Wednesday has come again, and with it, one more scraping collection of show reflection fragments pulled together out of my paltry watch schedule. Fortunately, this week I was able to supplement my bare-minimum weekly viewings with a big ol’ ten-inch steak of anime. This week I watched basically the entirety of The Idolmaster!

But before we get to that, let’s run down the usual suspects, whose episodes this week ended up being well…. kinda suspect. But hey, at least the bad shows had good episodes!

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