Category Archives: Episode Writeup

Simoun – Episode 11

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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now finally arrived into much sturdier territory, where the melancholy and dramatic ambiguity of the first episodes has been replaced by a much more propulsive focus on Chor Tempest actually regaining their throne.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!

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The Woman Called Fujiko Mine – Episode 2

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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!

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Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 5

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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!

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Kuuchuu Buranko – Episode 3

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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!

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Princess Tutu – Episode 4

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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.”

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Simoun – Episode 10

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Let’s check back in on Simoun! Episodes eight and nine represented the show’s first major turning point, as an attack on the ship prompted Neviril to finally redon her leadership mantel, and even choose Aaeru as her pair. Aaeru’s uncertainty seemed to be what ultimately tipped her hand, leaving Neviril resolved to embrace her own uncertainty about the world and society they inhabit.

Having finally returned to the skies, Neviril then brought that heretical uncertainty before the holy council, and was ultimately rewarded for her honesty by the shrine guardian Onashia. Chor Tempest live, but the resolution of episode nine also prompted a variety of new questions about how this society functions. Onashia seems to exist outside of the law – while those beneath her are traditional priests and politicians, Onashia appears to be an actual living embodiment of their religion. It’s clear that Simulacrum is hiding a variety of secrets from its own people, and if Onashia is who she appears to be, discovering her nature and motivation will be crucial to uncovering the truth of this world. That said, I’m not even sure right now if the “scale” of this show will involve challenging Simulacrum society – after all, we’re almost halfway through, and we’ve pretty much just spent this time dealing with Chor Tempest’s immediate personal problems. But with Neviril back in the saddle, I’m excited to see the whole team working together. Let’s see what’s next in Simoun!

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Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 4

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I’m gonna watch more Chihayafuru and you can’t stop me! Having devoted the entirety of this morning to writing over three thousand friggin’ words for a different Current Projects article, this afternoon I’m cooling off with Chihayafuru, my designated comfort watch. So far, the show’s second season has mostly been dedicated to integrating Hanano and Tsukuba into the natural rhythm of the karuta club. It’s been a somewhat bumpy ride to get there; the second episode had to rely on some pretty contrived conceits to solidify Hanano’s membership, and Tsukuba’s personality has only really come into focus in the most recent episode. But that episode also effectively acted as the hard sell of their merger into the group, and at this point, they’re integrated well enough that the natural interactions of them and the other members going forward should finish the job.

With Hanano and Tsukuba-related club integration drama consuming the first day of the team tournament, I’m guessing we’ll now be returning to the original five players, and focusing on the actual tactical back-and-forth of them versus their day two opponents. I’m very excited for this; the previous year’s team tournament was utterly overshadowed by integrating Tsutomu into the group, and so this could be the first time we see our five leads compete together in a purely tactics-driven match, uninhibited by some character’s specific arc-related needs. Chihayafuru’s tactically focused matches often tend to be its biggest highlights, so I’m very ready for what today might bring. Let’s get right to it!

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Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 3

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Alright, let’s jump right into some more Chihayafuru! The show’s last episode saddled itself with an almost insurmountable challenge: integrate Hanano into the overall team in a way that didn’t feel completely out of character for her. Hanano is clearly not the kind of person who’d naturally gravitate towards the karuta team; making her entrance a dramatic hurdle doesn’t require any contrived circumstances, because it’s only under contrived circumstances that she’d even want to join in the first place. Instead, the true challenge of her entrance was basically just justifying its end point. Hanano’s personality would greatly help the team’s overall dynamic, but what series of events could possibly bring her to the point where her presence on the team is already an assumed fact?

Chihayafuru settled on “she’s willing to sacrifice in order to pursue Taichi, and she bonds with Kana.” Those choices don’t really result in clean or entirely believable drama, but that’s basically a tradeoff the show is forced to make in order to justify introducing a character who will clearly improve the overall team dynamic, but has no believable reason to be on a karuta team. One episode of slightly unbelievable drama is a fine price to pay for a character like Hanano, and I’m excited to see how she integrates into the group now that she’s truly joined. Let’s get started on the third episode of Chihayafuru 2!

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The Woman Called Fujiko Mine – Episode 1

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Today we’re starting off on a new show, as we check out the first episode of The Woman Called Fujiko Mine! This one’s a pretty interesting property in all respects – it’s ostensibly an entry in the Lupin III master thief franchise, but its acclaimed director Sayo Yamamoto decided instead to focus on Fujiko Mine, the femme fatale who generally plays more of a supporting role in Lupin’s stories. My experience with Lupin III is very limited – I’ve essentially just seen a couple scattered episodes and Miyazaki’s Castle of Cagliostro, which I’ve been lead to believe isn’t really representative of the mainline series’ less family-friendly style.

My experience with Yamamoto is a bit less limited, but still pretty far from exhaustive. I watched her breakout hit Yuri on Ice!!!, but didn’t really find it that compelling. I felt the story essentially lost its focus after the excellent first few episodes, that lots of irrelevant skating performances killed its pacing, and that the combination of so-so character writing, a total lack of interest in conveying skating as any sort of tactical competition, and consistent animation issues prevented its big setpieces from really landing with much impact. The show’s success makes sense to me, but as an art object, I wasn’t really that moved.

Outside of that, my experience with Yamamoto is limited to a few of her terrific opening/ending segments, as well as her reasonably solid Space Dandy episode and her other collaborations with Shinichiro Watanabe. As for Fujiko Mine’s writer, Mari Okada is one of the great wildcards of anime, equally capable of stirring character-focused melodrama and godawful character-focused melodrama. She undoubtedly possesses one of the clearest voices in anime writing, but unlike the reliable craft solidity of someone like Gen Urobuchi, her stories’ narrative fundamentals can range from bulletproof to wibbly-wobbly nonsense.

Where these two voices and this particularly property intersect, I don’t really know. Fujiko Mine has a cult reputation, but my experience with Yuri on Ice has left me wondering if Yamamoto is simply not my style of creator, and so I’m interested in checking my own reaction here. Let’s start with the first episode and get to the capers!

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Toradora – Episode 2

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Toradora’s second episode is essentially one entirely self-contained love story, though its participants don’t really understand that. I wondered in my last writeup if my memories of Ryuji and Taiga’s rapport were a little rose-tinted, and whether Taiga’s tsundere schtick would get tiresome in the long run. Well, I am happy to report that that’s absolutely not the case – these two are still wonderful together, and through this episode, we see them essentially perform their first dates, first fight, and first reconciliation, ultimately arriving at a comfortable and engaging neutral. I’m always on the lookout for more romances about couples who are already in a relationship, and though Ryuji and Taiga would argue heatedly to the contrary, I’m now realizing that part of this show’s strength is that in many ways, it’s already there.

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