I had virtually nothing to gawk at in this week’s Seiren, which was certainly a change of pace. Instead, this was just a remarkably grounded and overall successful slice of adolescent romance – understandable conflicts, multidimensional characters, and satisfying resolutions. I was pretty surprised! I certainly don’t mind, though – if Seiren permanently jumps from a weird oddity to a reasonable show, I’d be very happy.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below.
Natsume himself is the focus of this third episode. As we open, twilight colors and suburban sprawl return us to Natsume’s childhood, as he cries over his strangeness beneath a playground slide. As he laments his isolation, a girl comes up to console him, and asks the question he most wants to hear: “can you see them too?” Perhaps Natsume is not so alone after all.
Mawaru Penguindrum’s fourteenth episode has sex on the brain. After a cold open revealing the last of Yuri’s performances, we cut to Yuri and her costar in a private moment, where we learn that the hero of Yuri’s play is actually a heroine. Their sexuality is emphasized here to the point of performance, and their words feel like theater as well – Yuri’s partner seems to feel no embarrassment tossing off lines like “you can only share this feeling with another woman.” Happy to play the role of callous seductress, Yuri plainly states that “I’ve grown tired of you,” and abandons her lover. And after we hear a strange hint about Yuri’s “secret,” she drives off, leaving her paramour behind.
We’re back with the end of Mayoi Snail, and I’m back with another episode post that’s basically an essay in its own right. What can I say – Bakemonogatari steadily introduces pretty much all of the concepts that will become pillars of the franchise, and so there’s a whole lot to dig into. This time we get more on the strange nature of Mayoi arcs, a fair bit about Araragi’s personality, and plenty on Senjougahara as well. Let’s get right to it!
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episode notes below.
The minutes tick by, SDF agents steering humanity’s “future” towards the Sea of Tranquility City. Suspended in darkness between the earth and moon, the Von Braun has never looked so fragile. At a time like this, it’s easy to forget the human cost of such a grand, breathtaking achievement. A million lives lost is a crime too vast for us to conceive of, while monuments are easy to believe in. A symbol can mean more than any number of innocents.
March continued its streak of excellent episodes this week, bringing great visual flare to the show’s consistently thoughtful conversations. This episode’s beauty frankly took me a bit by surprise – March is a pretty show, but I haven’t come to expect this level of fresh visual invention for each new episode. Hopefully it’s a sign of good things to come!
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below.
Seiren continued in its weird, rambling way this week, offering more bizarre one-liners and not all that much else. There was actually a pretty satisfying robot duel between Toru and Tsuneki this episode, but the pleasures are pretty thin on the ground in this show. I can’t really imagine enjoying this show as a romance, which is a pretty damning flaw for a, uh, romance. Ah well.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below.
And we’re back with more Ojamajo Doremi! The witch trio has already been established at this point, and with the perils of childhood already solved, it’s time for our three heroes to dive into the spirited world of witch capitalism. Look, if you’re going to pay off your witch mortgages, sometimes you gotta make some hard witch calls.
I actually am pretty thrilled to see how the salesman life works out for our trio. I’ve apparently arrived at the level of anime fandom where I’m basically done with shows that are cruel for the sake of it, and ready to embrace the upbeat but legitimately thoughtful children’s shows of the truly unsalvageable anime lifer. God help us all.
And we’re back with more Casshern Sins! The show’s last episode was one of my favorites so far, offering the most evocative setpiece yet in the form of that lonesome belltower in the sands. “Evocative” is really the word when it comes to Casshern Sins – the show is layered with vague thematic and visual ideas that gesture towards greater meaning without entirely solidifying into clear messages. The result is an anthology of melancholy fairy tales that perfectly strike at the show’s intended tone, vignettes instilled with biblical significance. Let’s see what this new episode brings!
We’re in deep Mayoi Snail territory now, meaning I finally was able to get away with a reasonably sized episode review. This episode wasn’t really any more exciting than I remembered it being – I enjoyed it more now because I already know the characters, but basically nothing of consequence happened at all, and even the character-establishing banter was pretty mediocre. Mayoi Snail continues to dare any potential audiences to fight through the series.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below.