It was really, really tempting to make this entire list out of moments from Samurai Flamenco. I mean, it’s not like the show’s lacking them – from Miami Ballerina to “THE POLLS GIVE ME STRENGTH” to “actually it’s Flamwenco,” Samurai Flamenco is clearly a rich treasure trove of beautiful, inspiringly ridiculous moments. In the end, I settled on just two moments, and the first clearly had to be the proud, majestic MISTER JUSTICE.
Author Archives: Bobduh
12 Days of Anime #12: My Neighbor SAO
Hey guys! Yeah, I’m participating in the 12 Days of Anime – an aniblogger project where bloggers put out one post reminiscing on some anime-related moment or memory from the year on each day leading up to our day of pagan tree worship and reverence to our god, consumerism. Considering I already put out basically a post a day, this may not be the most intelligent of choices, but I don’t think anyone’s ever accused me of making many of those. I’ll probably alternating these more or less between personal moments of stuff I either worked on, did, or failed to do and straight-up Perfect Moments in Anime, so look forward to a broad scattering of posts over the next couple weeks. Today I’m starting off with one of my many not-so-bright ideas – going on a journey with Sword Art Online.
Log Horizon II – Episode 11
Time for this week’s installment of Watching People Narrate Videogames, Triple Threat Raid Edition. This episode was actually pretty great! It couldn’t possibly compare to William Massachusett’s speech (I will never get tired of that speech or that name), but I don’t even really consider that thing a Log Horizon episode. This was a Log Horizon episode, and a very good one at that. Log Horizon is finally getting to describe the actual meat of raid combat, and seems almost giddy to tell us everything it finds fun about these crazy battles.
You can check out my full ANN post here. Notes and such below the cut!
Parasyte – Episode 11
Parasyte took a moment to catch its breath this week, and so we got little vignettes from a variety of narratives. Which was a lot of fun, actually – Kana’s a pretty endearing mix of confidence and naivety, and that central fight scene was a totally unexpected visual bounty. Almost weirdly so, in fact – so far I’ve felt Parasyte’s atmosphere has generally been more effective than its big action setpieces, but that scene’s action was great. I’ve always liked the way the schoolyard fights generally resolve in one or two quick, brutal strikes, and applying that style to an extended fight made for a really tremendous sequence.
Here’s the full ANN post. Rough episodic notes are below the cut!
Fall 2014 – Week 10 in Review
Pretty killer episodes this week, at least from the top shelf. KimiUso, Shirobako, and Parasyte all turned in stellar performances, Chaika kept up the dramatic intensity from last week, and Log Horizon suddenly decided to toss off one of the best speeches I’ve seen. The other episodes were middling, but the season’s looking strong as we move into the endgame. Look forward to a pretty stupid amount of content over these next couple weeks – I’m planning on participating in the 12 Days of Anime posts (one post a day for the twelve days leading up to the 25th) along with all my usual review shenanigans, my top shows of the year post will follow that, and even ANN might have some kind of bonus piece to contribute. I hope this is what you want, internet. This is all the blood I have!
Alright, enough of that. Let’s run down some cartoons.
Aldnoah.Zero – Review
And the hits keep coming! Well… the reviews do, at least. “Hit” might be a stretch.
Poor Aldnoah – you started with such promise, and yet every new episode felt like another brick removed from your Jenga-tower of potential. At least the final toppling was entertaining – like with Kyoukai no Kanata, it was actually pretty cathartic seeing the finale of a show I’d entered with such expectations explode into such absurd, self-immolating nonsense. In the end, a show I’d hoped would be Urobuchi’s triumphant return ended up being just one more strong reminder that most people are not very good at building off his work. Ah well, at least there’s still Expelled from Paradise to look forward to…
You can check out the full ANN review here.
The Flowers of Evil – Review
Oh man, this was something. This was actually the first work I was assigned to review on ANN, but it took me a while to get around to it and a while to get through it. Flowers of Evil is a heavy, oppressive thing, but it’s so, sooo good. I did my best to capture what makes it such a rich experience in my review, and would recommend anyone who’s heard mixed things to at least give it a shot. It’s a pretty tremendous show.
Here’s my full ANN review. My copious episodic notes are below!
Dragonball Z: Battle of the Gods – Review
Yep, another extremely random movie review from me. Hey, they can’t all be winners. This one actually wasn’t so bad – it’s basically a bunch of Dragonball-style jokes followed by some Z-but-with-actual-animation fights, so if you have any lingering fondness for Dragonball, it’s not the worst way to spend an afternoon. The film doesn’t take itself particularly seriously, which makes the whole experience actually pretty enjoyable. And the new villain is a lazy cat, and cats are great, so, uh, there’s your recommendation.
Sword Art Online II – Episode 22
Oh boy. This episode. What is there to say? Sometimes Sword Art Online can be pretty okay, and sometimes it tries to get really, really sad. This episode was basically Yui The Doll You’re Supposed to Care About Vol. II, with Yuuki and her Sleeping Knights piling on basically every sad-sack revelation the show could possibly muster. It’s so transparent and inept that I can’t even feel insulted by it – it’s like a little kid trying to tell a sad story. Episodes like this make me marvel at the fact that Sword Art Online is a massive production involving the work of hundreds of people. And all… all for this.
Here’s the full ANN post. Notes/incredulous tweets below!
Log Horizon II – Episode 10
God damn. This episode nailed it. The entire thing was one long, rousing speech from friggin’ William Massachusetts, laying out his philosophy on games and basically entire life story. And it was inspiring stuff! This is the kind of stuff SAO continuously tinkers with, but isn’t really self-aware enough to intelligently engage – here, the validity of virtual realities is established in strident terms through the degree to which William has invested in and learned from them. The sense of isolation and other-ness he feels in the real world is honestly exactly the kind of thing that prompts stuff like GamerGate (I almost felt tempted to offer some kind of “this is an unhealthy place to be, this can lead to very destructive attitudes” disclaimer to my ANN post), but the base emotions themselves are very earnest and understandable. This episode was basically a self-contained essay on the psychology of gaming, framed as a rousing call to arms. It was a hell of a thing.
Here’s the full ANN post. Jumbled, breathless notes below: