Princess Tutu’s sixth episode opens with a new fable, a story about a princess trapped in an eternal sleep. The story is a familiar one; Sleeping Beauty, the tale of the princess Aurora and her noble savior. But in this version, when a young man arrives to wake Aurora, a voice whispers “awaken the princess from her sleep? What a cruel thing to do. Is the princess not wishing for the kiss of awakening, but rather to continue to sleep forever?”
Category Archives: Episode Writeup
Flip Flappers – Episode 11
Flipflap has been destroyed! Mimi has revealed herself! The end is nigh! With three episodes left to go, it appears that Flip Flappers is already barreling towards the finish line. So what bombshells are dropped in this, Flip Flappers’ second-from-penultimate episode!?!
Well, mostly a bunch of sad stories from long ago. Though we open with the direct aftermath of last episode’s Mimi reveal, the better part of this episode is spent elaborating on the shared history of Mimi, Papika, and Salt, giving us context for both the modern Flipflap organization and their nefarious nemeses. As with the last episode, this context often feels dramatically rushed, and the show’s structural messiness continues to add a sense of “and then this happened” shapelessness to the dramatic proceedings. We’ve reached the point where characters don’t necessarily exist in a shared physical reality so much as they inhabit a shared dramatic space, and thus characters like Salt will jump from vaguely defined location to vaguely defined location in whichever way the narrative demands.
Ojamajo Doremi – Episode 27
We return at last to Ojamajo Doremi! It’s been a little while since I spent time with these ojamajos in the real world, and I am beyond happy to return. This is my first Doremi post of 2018, a year that I’m hoping will somehow turn around the global inferno that was 2017, but considering this year started by the heat dying in my apartment followed by a blizzard sealing me in my apartment, I’m not entirely optimistic.
Enter Doremi as a ray of sunshine, a show that’s still charming and well-crafted and full of heart no matter how bad things are out there. Doremi’s last episode saw the show seemingly jumping subgenres entirely, as the introduction of “bad items” and “bad cards” offered Doremi a dash of Card Captor Sakura. I’m not yet sure what to make of Doremi and her friends being dubbed Pureleine card-hunters – I generally prefer when the show’s drama focuses more on grounded human problems than fanciful issues specific to the witch world, and this whole bad item business seems as fancifully arbitrary as they come. But I highly doubt Doremi could have given up its moral ambitions partway through its first season and still be considered such a classic, so I’m less worried and more intrigued as to how these new elements will interact with the existing formula. And either way, Pop is still a magical girl, so I don’t really get any more narrative requests for at least another season. Let’s dive right in to one more episode of Ojamajo Doremi!
Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 6
HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS THEY APPROVED A SEASON THREE WE GOT MORE CHIHAYAFURU COMING WOOOOO. After a five year break for some live action adaptations, it is somehow miraculously time for more animated Chihayafuru. Having already passed the halfway point of the existing material, I was already getting a little misty-eyed about my upcoming goodbyes; but now there’s a new season coming, everything is wonderful forever, and Chihayafuru will continue to brighten our days for many seasons to come.
No need to thank me, incidentally. I’m well aware of all the buzz these writeups have been generating, but it’d be a little gauche of me to take all the credit for getting this one greenlit. It’s just something that comes with the territory, after all.
Anyway. Marvelous news about Chihayafuru The Franchise aside, right here in Chihayafuru The Show we are currently in the midst of a heated battle with Chihaya’s first rival Retro-kun and his merry men. Our last episode didn’t have any one clear focus, and instead dabbled in some bouncing around the board, offering some unexpected character development for the key Hokuo rivals while also progressing Chihaya, Taichi, and Kana’s ongoing narratives. There was a lot of setup, but not so much payoff, and I’m guessing that means this episode will hone itself into a tighter showdown between Chihaya and Amakasu. Frankly, there are just only so many opportunities for these characters to clash – if they’re spending all this time building up Amakasu’s weaknesses as a player, I have to assume they’re also going to cash in on those weaknesses for character development here, and not keep following him as a parallel thread through nationals. That means this is likely to be a Chihaya-focused match episode, and those are always a treat. Let’s get right to it!
Princess Tutu – Episode 5
Princess Tutu’s fifth episode poses one central question: “are you afraid of the dark?” This question is framed in literal terms through its ghost story embellishments and light-emitting focus character, with Mytho himself moving from a dark and lonely library to a warm yet sterile tomb. But it also speaks to more metaphorical concerns, like the ambiguous nature of Mytho’s memories. Darkness is security, in a way; darkness is nothingness, darkness is inaction, darkness is the absence of pain. Light and understanding can bring us joy, but they can also bring us suffering. Those who know nothing may be the happiest of all.
Simoun – Episode 11
Let’s get back to the fascinating Simoun! With the show’s episode nine peak having represented its first major turning point, we’ve now finally arrived into much sturdier territory, where the melancholy and dramatic ambiguity of the first episodes has been replaced by a much more propulsive focus on Chor Tempest actually regaining their throne. Of course, Simoun is far from a straightforward action platform, and the ambiguity of Simulacrum society, along with its thorny class dynamics, lent a welcome moral complexity to last episode’s conflict between Mamiina and Rea.
In my mind, the first act of this show ended up serving as a somewhat awkward demonstration of the fact that a show needs to make you care about its cast before it can accomplish anything else. Simoun’s concepts have always been interesting, but they haven’t always been grounded in relatable emotional stakes tied to characters we’re actually invested in. With the team now having pulled together and pretty much every episode celebrating one of its internal relationships, Simoun has finally arrived at the emotional grounding necessary to drive its very compelling themes home. Whether this episode continues to bolster the show’s relationship dynamics or returns to interrogating the assumptions of its world, I’m excited to see whatever’s next!
The Woman Called Fujiko Mine – Episode 2
Today we’re returning to The Woman Called Fujiko Mine! The show’s first episode was pretty stunning in all regards, from its gorgeous and utterly idiosyncratic art design to its sharp-edged spin on the Lupin mythos. Lupin isn’t a dreamy, dashing rogue here – he’s kind of a shithead actually, a dude who gleefully refuses to see Fujiko as a legitimate rival, and who simultaneously condemns her for relying on her beauty while lusting after that beauty at all times. Basically, this Lupin is exactly the kind of guy you’d expect to be a self-obsessed master thief, and Fujiko is a weary but driven heroine in a world designed to deny her. From its echoes of Belladonna of Sadness to its over-the-top heist sequences, Fujiko Mine is defined by a salacious arthouse-slash-grindhouse kind of cool, and though I could easily see the production toppling under the difficulty of consistently animating these wild designs, everything in that first episode was carried out with beauty and style. Let’s dive right into the second episode of Yamamoto’s The Woman Called Fujiko Mine!
Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 5
Let’s trample through another Chihayafuru! Our last episode was one of my favorites of the show to date, a terrific tournament episode that married an excellent team battle to some resonant emotional drama for Taichi. The conflict was essentially “Taichi as team general versus Taichi as individual player,” and he shined in both those roles, giving the audience some real payoff for his overarching role as leader. The balance of setup and payoff can feel a little more prominently visible in sports dramas than many other genres; the show essentially pays in emotional explication and tactical exposition, and then that work eventually pays off through the conflicts that grow out of our understanding of those variables. Last episode was basically all payoff for Taichi’s journey so far, and it was some glorious payoff indeed.
With the semifinals match having been totally consumed by Taichi’s struggles, I’m guessing that means we’ve saved a Chihaya episode for the last match. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Chihaya actually compete – her last defeat was to Yumin back in the first season, and since then we’ve been spectating Shinobu fights and building up the new recruits. This team tournament is essentially the only time in a year that the club gets to fight as a group, so I’m guessing they won’t lose to Retro and company in the regionals, but am interested in seeing what emotional spin they put on this match. And hey, if they for some reason want to give us two General Taichi Addresses His Troops matches in a row, I certainly wouldn’t complain. Let’s get right to it!
Kuuchuu Buranko – Episode 3
Let’s dive into the third episode of Kuuchuu Buranko! My relationship with this show is still a somewhat unsteady one, a fact that’s at least partially due to the show’s incredibly loud, garish color palette. A loud color scheme can certainly work for a show (see Kyousogiga, or even Nakamura’s own Gatchaman Crowds), but this show’s combination of abrasive neons seems designed to clash, and the integration of traditional animation and various other visual styles is a tough pill to swallow. Fortunately, the show’s second episode was able to direct all that visual madness towards a story that actually derived some benefit from it, even if the writing is still pretty so-so. There’s certainly a potentially fascinating show here, so I hope the stories continue to improve and the visual experimentation continues to find greater dramatic purpose. Let’s see what episode three brings!
Princess Tutu – Episode 4
The story has changed. No longer does Princess Tutu open with the tale of the prince and the raven, the tragic and unfinished final story by Drosselmeyer. Princess Tutu’s fourth episode instead introduces us to a “sad love that would never be requited.” But, the narrator tells us, “that alone does not make a story. The man with the task of spinning this tale of love was no longer of this world. The story lives on with its love forever sorrowful. Having lost its storyteller, the story is now wandering in search of its conclusion.”