Author Archives: Bobduh

Ping Pong – Episode 3

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Management: I know, this is highly irregular. I was just writing my usual week in review blurb for this episode and then just kept writing, so I guess I kind of accidentally wrote an episodic post. Apologies.

Not content to be impressive merely for its merits in writing, art design, and direction, this episode helped demonstrate that equally important to Ping Pong’s magic is its wonderful sound design. This should have been obvious, actually – after all, the first episode’s highlight was a scene where Wenge and his trainer tracked the course of a match through the sound of rackets alone. But this episode got even more ostentatious about this strength, opening with that beautiful crescendo of rackets and ping pong balls leading into the tournament qualifiers. The effectiveness of that moment is pretty much how it goes with Ping Pong – like with Tatami Galaxy, basically every quality I turn to and focus on is clever and creative and uniquely effective.

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Sekai Seifuku and the Island of Misfit Toys

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“So they make it back and when everybody hears their story, they start to realize… maybe they were a little hard on the misfits. Maybe misfits have a place, too.”

My mother loves Christmas. Not for any religious reasons – my family has pretty much always been a bunch of godless heathens. But because it’s a family holiday. Because it means time spent together, and the opportunity to express how much you care about those you love. I’ve always had a loving family, for which I count myself lucky. And one memory I always associate with Christmas is that old stop-motion Rudolph movie, where Rudolph meets an elf who wants to be a dentist and goes on all sorts of strange adventures.

The movie’s pretty great, actually – it’s whimsical and endearing and clearly made with a great deal of heart. But at the center of a movie that with every fiber of its existence wants to stress the importance of being together with those you love, the main characters find themselves visiting a strange place that threatens the exact opposite – the Island of Misfit Toys. On this frozen, forbidding rock, toys gather that have been rejected by the world – toys that don’t fit into the roles they’ve been assigned, toys that fail to live up to their owners’ expectations. Though strange and laden with melancholy, these toys end up gathering together in the wilderness, making a family of their own and awaiting the day the world will accept them once again.

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Spring 2014 – Week 3 in Review

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It’s sink or swim time this week, and fortunately for my own sanity, a whole lot of shows are obligingly gurgling their way to the bottom. This tendency for the chaff to vote itself off the island is being nicely counterbalanced by solid episodes from all the shows I give a damn about, so right now I couldn’t be happier about this season. At this point, it’s looking like I’ll cut down to between six and eight shows that are all roughly as good or better than my top two from last season – last season was weak, but that’s still a fantastic place to be. Running them down…

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Spring 2014 – First Impressions, Part Two

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This season is way too good. The shows I was hesitant about are great, the shows I was confident about are fantastic, and pretty much every genre I like is being represented. I haven’t even gotten to Mushishi yet, either! I’ve fortunately found a couple shows I can actually drop, but honestly, it’s looking like it’ll be really tough to maintain my cynical hipster cred this season. Damn you, anime.

Incidentally, I’m also heading off on vacation starting tomorrow, so this will likely be my last post until next week. I’ll also be kind of limited in my ability to respond to comments in that time, but don’t worry, I will get to them when I can. Anyway, on with the shows!

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Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei – Episode 2

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Management: I didn’t really intend this to be so brutal, but now that it’s finished and I’m looking over it… yeah. This one’s kinda merciless, and posting it makes me a little nervous. I don’t mean to directly attack anyone with this piece – it’s mainly about being aware of the subtext of media, and not letting things that appeal to our base needs trick us into bad attitudes. I wrote it both because I find the psychology of media interesting and because I think Mahouka is a perfect representation of some of media’s more questionable powers. If you like Mahouka, that’s totally cool, I’m not saying you’re wrong to enjoy it. If you’d rather have something more positive, please enjoy this delightful gif and check back next time.

There are a number of different ways to approach criticizing a text. You can criticize the beauty of the execution itself – how it obeys certain agreed-upon rules of aesthetic execution, and how it exists purely as an object to marvel at. You can try to put it in a given historical or social context, or explore the life of the creator to see what demons the text may be working to exorcise. You can isolate certain details, or try to fit the overarching structure into a certain aesthetic or psychological framework. You can talk about themes, both intended and unintended. You can work off your gut, your training, or some arbitrary ideal of perfect beauty.

Normally, I try to come to shows open to however they may strike me. If a show strikes me as entertaining, I’ll try to critique it as entertainment. If it strikes me as insightful, I’ll try to engage with its insight. All of this is deeply colored, of course, by my own priorities – I wouldn’t recommend myself as the premier source for critiques of action shows, for example. But Mahouka already seems like it will reward one specific, fairly compelling exploration, and so that’s what I’m probably going to focus on here.

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Kill la Kill and Grounded Conflict

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So. Kill la Kill.

Alright, I guess we gotta start this one right at the beginning. Kill la Kill is the first full-length production by Studio Trigger, a new studio whose claim to fame is sucking Gainax dry of all the talent they had left during the Gurren Lagann/Panty and Stocking era. Or, well, at least the one piece of talent most closely associated with that era – Hiroyuki Imaishi, the director of both those shows. Imaishi’s style, frenetic and impressionistic and somewhat uniquely indebted to western cartoons, is really friggin’ popular – Gurren Lagann in particular is one of the most beloved shows in the western fandom, and in spite of its recent mud-dragging, the Gainax name still conveys nostalgia and magic for a lot of fans.

So Kill la Kill came out of the gate with some pretty heavy expectations on its shoulders. With the writer and director of Gurren Lagann reunited for a show that gave every indication of being as hot-blooded and stylish as its predecessor, it’d be difficult for any show to really please everyone.

Fortunately, Kill la Kill is extremely good at pleasing people.

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Sword Art Online – Episode 7

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You thought this would be some fancy concept writeup. BUT IT WAS ME, DIO!

Glad to be back covering this fairly silly show. Sorry it’s been a while – I’ve been busy with all sorts of crazy projects and essay stuff recently, so I haven’t had the time to sit down and Sword Art Online.

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Spring 2014 – First Impressions, Part One

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A new season is upon us! That’s always pretty exciting, and this season in particularly looks extremely strong. So let’s start with that wonderful seasonal ritual of finding petty reasons to drop shows so our lives aren’t consumed by anime altogether. Hurray!

Incidentally, in light of my recent Samurai Flamenco essay, Mr. Justice will be handling all final assessments of this season’s new shows. PREPARE FOR JUSTICE.

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Samurai Flamenco and the Might of Heroes

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We live in a world beset by evil.

Thieves and murderers. Vile governments and villainous tyrants. Loiterers and litterers. Wherever you turn, evil is lurking, waiting, ready to spring.

Samurai Flamenco

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Sekai Seifuku – Episode 12

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Sorry I’m so very late on this one – I decided to space out the finales of the three shows I’m writing essays for so that I’d actually have a first draft of each done before I checked out the finale of the next, and Sekai Seifuku unfortunately drew the short straw. That’s not its fault, though – of the three (Kill la Kill, Samurai Flamenco, and Sekai Seifuku), I’d say this is easily the best show, and I’m very excited to see it end. All of its ideas and characters have bounced off each other, exposed new reflections, and finally come together, and it’s looking like everything will end with the father who spurned his family and the little girl who accepted everyone into hers. A bright spot in a very lousy season, Sekai Seifuku has always maintained a great sense of wonder and magic buoyed by both a general atmosphere of melancholy and the sharp edges of the truths it’s toying with. I’ve come to really care about this family, and though the show itself is basically a living demonstration of how often families don’t work out, I’d like to see a happy ending for these characters.

So let’s conquer the world.

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