Toradora’s third episode opens with cherry blossoms blooming in sunlight, their petals shaking free and dancing in the breeze. A bright blue sky and the sounds of birds chirping complement the petals, leading into Taiga yawning as she wipes the sleep from her eyes. Every element of this episode’s first moments convey a firm sense of rebirth and growth, a new beginning. After the torrential drama of the show’s first two episodes, Toradora has at last established its neutral mode, leading Taiga and Ryuji through calamitous confessions to arrive at an honest, genuine friendship. Ryuji and Taiga are no longer “partners in crime” or otherwise forced to share space; they’re just friends, and so they hang out.
Category Archives: Episode Writeup
Summer 2018 – Week 7 in Review
Well folks, it’s Wednesday again. With the season’s halfway point behind us, my airing schedule has settled into a comfortable neutral at this point, as three very entertaining shows each continue to impress in their own ways. This was a particularly good week for Planet With and a mediocre one for My Hero Academia, but bumps and divots like that are basically expected from all shows, and on the whole my airing schedule is consistent as heck. In fact, with only one season left in the year, we’re actually reaching the point where I could even start to plot out what will end up on my end-of-year top ten list. My Hero Academia’s likely to settle somewhere around the bottom of the list regardless, but both Planet With and Revue Starlight have the potential to fall almost anywhere within that list, depending on how they resolve. It’s anyone’s game at this point, so let’s do some thorough sifting as we RUN THIS WEEK DOWN!
One Piece – Volume 17
As always, Eiichiro Oda opens One Piece’s seventeenth volume with a brief personal anecdote, one of the many ways this manga creates a personal relationship between reader and storyteller. Oda mentions how he and his assistants often visit a raucous family restaurant, full of loud children and their parents. However, if you visit on Sunday at 7:30, the restaurant is quiet. All children are turned to the television, all eyes on Oda’s One Piece. Oda understands the responsibility inherent in that – that he has an opportunity to teach and inspire, and that few possess the platform he does for reaching young people. There are few jobs more noble or significant than inspiring the next generation’s dreams, and Oda’s understanding of that responsibility is clear in his every page.
Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 22
Let’s get back to more Chihayafuru! We are now perilously close to the current end of Chihayafuru’s anime adaptation, but given the show’s been such a profoundly joyful addition to both my personal and professional life over the past year or so, I’m trying to avoid thinking about that. Instead, we’ve got the singles tournament to discuss, where Chihaya just finished besting two opponents left-handed only to run into a Shinobu-shaped wall. With the last episode having ended on Chihaya methodically unwrapping her right hand, it’s clear she knows this is her last round in the tournament – or at least, that without going full strength against Shinobu, she has no chance of fighting Arata. But Chihaya beating Shinobu with a broken finger would be totally absurd in a viewer sense, so regardless of whether or not Chihaya thinks she can win this, her journey ends here.
That’s fine, though – just because Chihaya’s not beating Shinobu doesn’t mean this won’t be an exciting fight (pardon the triple negative). Chihaya played well enough to catch Shinobu’s attention a year ago, and injury or no, her fundamental skills and understanding of the game have improved so significantly over this past year that I can’t imagine Shinobu will be waltzing through this one. Chihaya’s second nationals are leading towards their climax, and I’m thrilled to see it. Let’s hope Chihaya doesn’t hurt herself too badly!
Princess Tutu – Episode 12
Princess Tutu’s twelfth opening fable doesn’t require much interpretation to connect it to the show’s narrative: presented as a sort of setting of the stage for the first half finale, it portrays Rue (or Kraehe)’s current actions as bluntly as possible. “Once upon a time, there was a handsome slave. What bound him were not heavy chains, but the princess’s love. Every day, every night, the princess whispers her love to the slave, and the slave responds in kind. Bound body. Bound emotions. The slave or the princess? Which of them is really the one who cannot move?”
Simoun – Episode 15
Let’s continue our journey through the captivating Simoun! The show’s last episode was one of its all-time best so far, an unexpectedly focused exploration of the relationship between Morinas and Wapourif that doubled as a very personal articulation of the show’s conflicted thoughts on faith and duty. Once again, the contradictory framing of sybilla as holy icons and sybilla as soldiers resulted in painful friction, this time for Wapourif, as he was forced to grapple with his feelings on both Morinas personally and the nature of the simoun more generally. A tender romance was thus naturally contrasted against a brutally pragmatic order from Dominura, resulting in an episode whose major dramatic beats played into the show’s character arcs, thematic conflicts, and overt narrative all at once. It was a phenomenal episode, and I only hope it’s not the last we see of Morinas and Wapourif growing closer.
That episode was great in its own right, but its implications for Simoun’s ongoing narrative are just as exciting. The episode concluded on Wapourif eventually consenting to dismantle a simoun, which he saw as empty except for its central helices, but which Dominura apparently saw as something truly horrifying. Based on the episode also casually hinting that a sybilla’s body disappears if she dies in combat, it seems reasonable to assume that the sybilla themselves somehow provide fuel for the simoun, in a manner that’s much more gruesomely literal than any of them expected. How this will tie into the fact that simoun work better when their partners are in love, I don’t really know, but I’m excited to continue discovering where all these mysteries lead. Let’s jump right into another episode of Simoun!
Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 21
Let’s get back to more Chihayafuru! I know it feels like I’ve been uncharacteristically giddy for a good dozen or so episodes now, but that’s only because I’ve definitely been uncharacteristically giddy holy crap this season has been so much fun. Chihayafuru has always been a warm and engaging show, and I’m clearly weak to many of the things it prioritizes, from its tactically grounded matches to its general love for its own cast, but the second half of this second season has just been one killer match after another, cashing in on dozens of episodes of competitive and personal growth for all our leads. And even after all these match episodes, the excitement still isn’t over – in fact, the show’s last episode was essentially all dedicated to hyping up this next tournament, where all of Chihayafuru’s stars get to demonstrate their own unique strengths.
How this whole individual tournament will shake out, I can’t possibly say – I had a hard enough time gauging where the team tournament was going, and now we’re apparently spectating around fifteen parallel matches at once. It seems easy to guess that the secondary characters’ matches will be reduced to one or two dramatic moments, and obviously Chihaya’s fights will be pretty significant, but beyond that we’ve got a wide array of potential spotlights. Shinobu’s vendetta against team karuta doesn’t seem like it could stir much conflict in an individual setting, but I’d very much enjoy watching her fight against non-Chihaya opponents, particularly if those opponents are people like Megumu or Sudo. It also feels like Nishida is overdue for a little personal drama, but given this is the first time we’ve seen Arata play in nearly forever, I’m guessing he and Taichi will probably stay in focus instead. However it shakes out, we’ve got around twenty competitors we already know well, and separate rank tracks to give a wide swathe of them a real chance at glory. Let’s get right to the Chihayafuru!
Ojamajo Doremi – Episode 31
Let’s settle in for another episode of Ojamajo Doremi! The show’s last episode was pretty much textbook Doremi, balancing goofy adventures within the main cast around a sturdy character study featuring Yamauchi, one more of Doremi’s consistently well-realized and multifaceted classmates. That in turn resolved into a simple but solidly articulated lesson regarding the nature of grief and guilt, offering comfort for anyone who’s said something cruel or regrettable to a loved one in a difficult moment.
Yamauchi’s story was a little more abridged than many of Doremi’s character stories, but there was a very good reason for that: a great deal of the episode was mostly just about reveling in the fun relationships between Doremi’s various classmates. One vignette at a time, Doremi has steadily built up a roster of well over a dozen unique and engaging classmates, and at this point, simply putting a group of them together in a new setting like “graveyard test of courage” offers inherent dramatic rewards all by itself. We know and like all these kids, and throwing one person we know and like next to another one just to see what happens has been a time-tested formula for character drama since characters experienced drama in the first place. Episode twenty-nine (the Doremi horse episode) offered a terrific example of what happens when Doremi just leans into its ensemble nature for madcap thrills – in contrast, episode thirty demonstrated that Doremi’s increasingly ensemble nature can be just as useful for more somber and personal stories. Ojamajo Doremi just becomes richer and richer the more it builds up its larger cast, so I’m happy to see it putting that investment to use, and ready for whatever’s next. It’s time for some mediocre magic with the ojamajos!
Precure Hugtto – Episode 1
Holy crap folks, we’re watching some Precure. If you’re not in the know, Precure is short for Pretty Cure, one of the most enduring magical girl franchises of recent years. Pretty Cure isn’t a Madoka or Nanoha-style property aimed at older audiences – like Ojamajo Doremi, it’s genuinely intended to be a show for children. Also like Ojamajo Doremi, it has a pretty sturdy reputation among anime fans as a genuinely great property, with its many seasons varying in quality, but always attracting a solid crowd of western fans.
As one of Toei’s signature series, Pretty Cure has turned out to be the proving ground for a wide variety of talented anime creators, from creative action animators to Rie Matsumoto, whose Heartcatch Pretty Cure film is considered a resounding highlight of her early career. Many key artists on works like One Piece and Dragon Ball have also contributed heavily to Pretty Cure – hell, the show’s first season was directed by the same guy who directed the first two hundred episodes of Dragon Ball Z.
Personally, my own experience with Precure is very limited. I basically know what I know via osmosis from more knowledgeable friends on twitter, and though I’ve long been interested in checking the series out, its substantial length and the implausibility of turning this into a work project made that a tough prospect. Fortunately, you generous readers are picking up the slack this time, and so we’re at least watching through the first episode of Precure’s highly regarded current season. Let’s check out Precure Hugtto!
Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 20
It is absolutely time for more Chihayafuru! We return to the show on the heels of one of its most thrilling episodes of all time, a team tournament finale that saw Chihaya, Taichi, and Nishida all pushing themselves to the absolute breaking point. Quite literally, in Chihaya’s case – her determination to succeed alongside her friends meant she kept playing with either a sprained or genuinely broken finger, compounding her injury and ultimately passing out the moment she won. Granted, Chihaya always passes out when she wins, but an injury is an injury. If this is anything more than a sprain, she likely won’t be able to compete in tomorrow’s singles tournament.
That said, it seems unlikely to me that the show will actually go in that direction. Not only would it be dramatically unsatisfying, as well as a repeat of Arata’s conflict from a few episodes ago, but it feels like the show has been building Shinobu’s situation up with the intent of paying off her character growth during the singles tournament. In order to follow through on the evolving perspective she demonstrated during the team finals, I’m guessing her eventual match against Chihaya will be something of a breakthrough, and possibly even the moment she realizes karuta doesn’t have to be a lonely activity.
Then again, Chihayafuru is nothing if not methodical, so that character turn might have to wait for a future tournament. But as I’ve said before, the nature of professional karuta tournaments means these characters only have so many opportunities to interact, and last episode left Shinobu dangling in a kind of personal arc limbo. I hope you’re okay Chihaya, and I promise that’s not entirely because I just want to see more Shinobu material. Let’s get to the karuta!