Author Archives: Bobduh

Gatchaman Crowds insight – Episodes 1-3

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IT’S TIME. Aw shit yeah, I get to talk about Gatchaman again. This show was always one of the most fun and rewarding to cover weekly, and it’s certainly looking like season two will live up to that legacy – we’re already sharply interrogating all the conclusions and ideals of the first season, shifting Hajime’s role and prodding Rui’s ideals and generally making a mess of the idea that creating a Better World will be in any way convenient or simple. Shit’s tough! People are complicated, society’s a mess, you can’t just force people to be good. Rui’s getting the worst of it so far, but I don’t think this season will be easy for any of our heroes, and it’s already covered a tremendous amount of ground. BIRD, GO!

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

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The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan – Episodes 15-16

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Covered the last two Nagato Yuki-chans together, since Funimation’s “scheduling” is a bad joke. But it was just as well, since barely enough happened in these two episodes to cover one episode review, anyway. Nagato Yuki-chan was obviously a disappointment overall, but it at least gave us the very compelling disappearance arc, so I’m gonna consider that a partial win. Yeah, it was mostly a completely disposable will-they-or-won’t-they slice of life nothing, but hey, four episodes were good!

You can check out my mildly defeated review over at ANN, or read my extremely limited notes below!

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Classroom Crisis – Episodes 1-3

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More streaming reviews! This time we’re covering the summer season’s one reasonably-sized hopeful for me, Classroom Crisis. Honestly, even this show isn’t without its flaws (the third episode in particular was relentlessly unfunny, in spite of actually covering some pretty compelling narrative territory), but in a famine like this season, you take what sustenance you can get. There’s also plenty of good here, from the fun cast to the compelling core drama of dreams versus business realities, so I’m hoping the show leans on its strengths, and doesn’t just become a sort of genre-standard “underdog team wins the big game” sort of thing now that A-TEC are on the ropes. We’ll have to see where it goes!

You can check out my 1-3 post over at ANN, or see my episode three-specific notes below!

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Turn A Gundam, Part One – Review

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TURN A TURRRRNNNN. TURN A TURRRNNN. Sorry. That ridiculous opening song is has been stuck in my head for weeks.

Anyway! I got to review some good ol’ Gundam this time, and really enjoyed the experience. I’m told Turn A is often regarded as the best (or at least most accessible?) of the central/Tomino Gundam shows, and it certainly does have plenty to recommend itself. A compelling world, an engaging cast of characters, and lots of fun/silly ideas. It’s also marked by some really, deeply weird quirks of storytelling, but I’m told that’s just how Tomino rolls, and I’ve kinda gotten used to it. The weirdness of the telling means this isn’t nearly as emotionally strong of a ride as it could be, but it’s still a very enjoyable one.

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

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Summer 2015 – Week 2 in Review

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Summer season has begun! This may turn out to be just a depressing chronicle of me dropping a whole bunch of shows the moment I continue them, but hey, I gotta do what I gotta do. Basically everything I started this season was in the “okay I guess, I’ll give it another episode” range, and second episodes rarely end up being dramatic improvements over first ones. They often give you a better indication of where the show will consistently go now that it’s gotten over its hook/pilot, but they don’t tend to dazzle as much as the premier. So let’s run down a bunch of also-rans, and see if I end up watching anything more than my sworn writeup duties!

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Paranoia Agent – Episode One

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SO. This season I get to do some classic episodic reviews for ANN, diving into Satoshi Kon’s one full-length series. I was excited to start this one, and the first episode definitely didn’t disappoint – we’re already playing in some compelling psychological headspace and front-and-center themes, all elevated through Kon’s excellent direction. Anime rarely managed to do horror well, but Kon makes it look easy, consistently setting an atmosphere of distrust and hinted violence. This should be a fun ride!

You can check out my full writeup over at ANN, as well as my full notes below!

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Summer 2015 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

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Here we go again. With preview week basically over (I’ll add the last couple if/when they show up), it’s time to run down every last goddamn show I’ve watched, including basically every full-length non-sequel premier of the season. That is a disturbing amount of anime, and so today you will be receiving a disturbing amount of High Quality Content. Not high quality anime, mind you, but certainly plenty of Content. Although actually, this season’s premiers largely turned out much less disappointing than I’d expected – there were disappointments and surprises, but the overall crop was fairly reasonable. That comes with a couple caveats, of course. First, there’s the plain that that first episodes lie – they trick you and torture you, stringing you along with one good idea and then collapsing into mediocrity. And second, while there were plenty of “good enough” shows, there were basically no highlights, and many of the reasonable shows are just “good for this genre.” So, like, I gave a three to Monster Musume and Actually, I Am…, but that’s a three harem and a three harem-romcom. Plenty of the shows I think are “generally fine” I will not actually be following – in fact, there’s a decent chance I only stick with the top three.

Anyway! I’ll run things down by broad category, and you can make your own judgments from there. LET’S GET TO IT.

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Summer 2015 – First Impressions, Part Two

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The ridiculous anime onslaught continues! Debuts are popping up faster than I can possibly review them, but review them I shall, and drag back my findings to place gently at your feet. Though my body may be broken by the weight of a thousand cursed MCs and Nii-sans, I shall not falter in my duty. I’m gonna watch a whole lot of cartoons.

We’ve got more hits and misses in this second wave, including a few surprises. Shirayuki unfortunately failed to grab me, in spite of its top-notch production, but I was actually pretty fond of the ostensibly mundane Actually, I Am… (Jitsu wa Watashi wa). Chemistry’s a tricky thing!

Jitsu wa Watashi wa

Here’s a link to all the pieces so far, and you can check out my new ranked listings below. Woo anime…

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Summer 2015 – First Impressions, Part One

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The preview guide has begun! The first couple days were a little slow, but we’re really in the thick of it now, with shows coming out way too fast for me to actually review everything goddamnit how am I gonna do this what the hell I quit anime forever.

ANYWAY. I’m a good eight or so shows in at this point, so it seems like as good a time as any to take stock of what we’ve run through to date. The season has actually been vastly outperforming my expectations so far, offering a few shows I’m likely to keep watching and a number of others that keep up some level of respectability regardless. I was expecting both GATE and Charlotte to be the Worst Things Ever, and at least their first episodes were only Bad and Pretty Alright I Guess. Things could very, very easily be worse!

Charlotte

Here’s a link to the overall preview guide, and you can check out numbers and specific review links to what I’ve hit so far below. Anime, ho!

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Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, Vol. 5-6 – Review

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Back to the manga front, with some more Biscuit Hammer. This story is just getting consistently better at this point, with the story and characters gaining complexity and poignancy as everyone moves towards the endgame. The art is also improving, though it’s still a mix of highlights and lowlights – some of the shots of the horse in particular made me kinda wince. If you can’t draw a horse, it is pretty ambitious to make a Horse Knight one of the main characters of your story. But that’s beside the point – this story is great, and you should buy it. I hear the manga hasn’t been a success for Seven Seas, which is a shame, because they really deserve to be lauded for bringing this one over.

Anyway. Here’s my full review over at ANN, and you can check out my chapter notes below!

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