So yep, I was on this week’s FAPcast with Kevo and Aeroblip of Desu ex Machina and Kelloggs of Pedantic Perspective. Lots of rambling on recent news (including thoughts about some encouraging western outreach stuff), the year in anime, and this season’s big romance standoff of Golden Time and White Album 2. Here’s the link again – check it out if you want to hear some more off-the-cuff stuff, or just listen to my uplifting, sonorous voice.
I’m guessing it’s time for a Yase episode. Eager to see how her own feelings reflect on those of her siblings – Kurama and Myoe each want out of the Mirror Capital for their own reasons, and I assume Yase will have a still different take. Let’s find out.
It’s pretty remarkable (and, from a writing-about-anime perspective, frankly intimidating) how well this season is holding up. Maybe it’ll just take a couple more weeks or something, but so far virtually none of the shows I initially enjoyed have fallen apart, and some of them have actually improved. Currently I’m impressed by as many shows this season as I was by pretty much the entire rest of the year to date. Running it down…
Alright. I’m not sure this is the episode to do this, and actually hoping it’s that episode probably borders on masochism all by itself. I’m fairly confident this is the show to do this. Fraying anyway, might as well commit, right? “Kill la Kill might be the show that finally drives me crazy!” Haha funny laffs. Yeah. Okay. Let’s see if we can just maybe hold it together.
And we’re back! Excited to see where this goes. Last week’s episode did a lot of work to bolster my faith in this series – I didn’t really care about Mirai’s sadsack past in the first half, but the second established a legitimate bond between the main two, giving Mirai a little substance and retroactively adding some interesting undertones to Akihito’s upbeat facade, pursuit of Mirai, and other relationships besides. A lot of efficient work for one I CAN’T CONTROL THE RAGE INSIDE ME RAAAH light novel sequence.
Speaking of which, yeah, this is obviously all Dark Flame Master as fuck. That doesn’t really matter to me – virtually every plot is a variation on other plots, and all I care about is the execution. Will they sell me on these characters to the point where I care, where I feel? Will the scenes be visualized and directed in such a way to create a compelling mood, tone, or world? Will it be about something, and will what it has to say be articulated well enough to have some resonance, or even some truth? This all seems like a very calculated effort, but in practice it really isn’t – if these things work, I’ll know they’re working because I’ll give a damn. Because in spite of all crustiness to the contrary, I’ll naturally care about what’s happening, and what this piece can show me.
Alright, enough of my own melodrama. I’ll let the show handle that.
Not sure how I’m gonna format this. Kinda just want to watch this show straight through. We’ll see!
That’s three top-tier arcs in a row. Monogatari, I don’t know what they’ve put in your drinking water, but I like it. This arc is ostensibly about Shinobu, who’s one of my favorite characters, but I’ve heard it’s actually heavy on Mayoi, my least favorite, so I guess we’ll see if they keep it up. But this season has given me no reason to expect disappointment – Monogatari is one of the most compelling anime of the last few years, and S2 has been far and away the strongest set of episodes. Bring on Shinobu Time.
Last week’s episode was wonderful. This show has actually jumped over the hypewagons (this week’s incredibly Kill la Kill notwithstanding) to be one of my favorites of the season – hopefully it stays this smart and well-paced. We’ve already run through a massive amount of development for Hikari, and it seems like he’s already gained the maturity necessary to let go of Manaka, so I’m eager to see where it goes from here.
Management: Been a while since I’ve done a general criticism post, eh?
Question:
Are shows starring adults meaningfully different from shows starring teenagers? How about college students versus high school students? I ask because in many shows (Working! versus Servant x Service, etc), the differences seem largely superficial – the humor and character interactions all carry over.
-EDIT- Now that I’ve finished the episode, my original intro seems wholly inappropriate for this ridiculous tone. SO FUCK THAT LET’S KILL LA KILL.