Category Archives: Episode Writeup

Log Horizon II – Episode 15

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Welp, we’re back with the kids again. This was a slow, slice-of-life style episode, with lots of gags and enjoying food, but it did establish a new character conflict for Isuzu and new overall goal for the younger team. It’s hard to really feel much enthusiasm for a quest that doesn’t have any inherent tension to it, but hopefully the character conflicts will give it some weight. And “go get quest materials to make a bag” is such a boring starting narrative that I have to assume this will go somewhere else eventually… or it could just focus on the concert stuff, I guess.

Anyway. Here’s my ANN post on the episode, and you can check out my rough notes below!

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Parasyte – Episode 14

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This episode felt kinda unfocused, with a bunch of general plot movement taking the place of one focused conflict. The plot movement was decently engaging though, and it’s nice to see basically all our principles continuing to evolve – Shinichi, Migi, and Ryouko all exhibited new wrinkles in their evolution this week, and it’s always pretty great seeing Ryouko handle her baby like a sack of potatoes. Parasyte chugs along.

My full ANN post is available here. Notes below!

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Yuri Kuma Arashi – Episode 2

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Hey guys. I don’t know if I’ll be keeping this up, but I really can’t resist doing a writeup or two for a new Ikuhara show. Almost nothing else in anime lends itself to close reading as consistently and necessarily as his work – he’s basically always constructing a conversation on the level of metaphor and theme, and Yuri Kuma Arashi seems to have almost disposed of the base narrative level entirely in preference to that stuff.

Yuri Kuma Arashi is also a show about bears who are lesbians having fun naked times together. So… yeah. Ikuhara’s definitely decided to embrace his own niche, but I certainly don’t have a problem with that. You can check out my writeup of the first episode if you’d like, as we’re already knee-deep in plenty of potential thematic threads, but who knows where this will all end up. Let’s hang out with some lesbian bears!

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Log Horizon II – Episode 14

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Once again, one of Log Horizon’s one-off diversions ends up being one of its best episodes. This one wasn’t an unexpected character study like William’s speech, though – it was just all the stuff Log Horizon normally does, except executed way better than usual with an entirely new cast. Natural worldbuilding, fun characters, a very cute riff on Journey to the West, and some actually solid fight scenes. If this is a sign of things to come, we’re in for a real treat in this Kanami-Nureha-Shiroe conflict.

Here’s my full ANN post. Notes are below!

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Yuri Kuma Arashi – Episode 1

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Hey guys! So, this isn’t exactly a classic time stamp writeup, but I took a whole damn lot of pictures during the first episode of Bear Storm, and plenty of notes besides, and so I figured I might as well assemble what I do have. What writeups I eventually settle on is still an open question – I might actually be covering this show for ANN (you can check out my more structured thoughts on this episode over there), I might do my own writeups, or I might collapse in a heap if I try to do any more work than I’m currently doing. We live in a world of uncertainty.

I will say I loved this first episode, and that there’s plenty of rich stuff to dig into already, and that it’s clear that Ikuhara hasn’t given up on any of the stuff that makes his work so compelling. Watching an Ikuhara show feels like some kind of thematic symphony – different repeating refrains and meaning-infused symbols all flow past each other and reflect on one another, the variant ideas charging all of his points with the depth of interconnectedness that only narrative can achieve. It’s a hell of a ride. Let’s run this first episode down!

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Parasyte – Episode 13

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And we’re back, with a real sad-sack episode for Shinichi. Kana’s dead, his girlfriend doesn’t trust him, Tamiya is sending private investigators after him… things aren’t going so great for our hero right now. We also got some pretty interesting developments on the parasite side, which I end up spending most of this episode’s article rambling about. Doing a lot of rambling in general at the moment – preview week’s in full swing, I’m alternating between sleeping, doing ten hour shifts, and writing about cartoons, and the weather outside is approaching the opposite of livable degrees. I might be hallucinating, because I’m pretty sure I also watched a show about lesbian bears. G’bye everybody…

Here’s my full post on ANN. Hopefully lucid notes below!

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Log Horizon II – Episode 13

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Today’s episode was a derpy Valentine’s Day thing. Not much you can really say about it – sometimes Log Horizon has silly episodes, this was one of those days. The most notable thing this week was Serara’s adorable outfit – I guess there was also some plot-relevant stuff with Nureha, but that story hasn’t gotten interesting yet, so I’ll just pay attention to the main characters eating cake.

My full ANN post is here, and notes (such as they are) are below!

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Parasyte – Episode 12

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Not the best episode this week – Kana’s story just didn’t feel that well-integrated into the rest of the narrative, and this episode in particular was not that gracefully constructed. The Shinichi-Migi material was stellar, though, and the ending was quite good. I’m certainly excited to see the larger-scale questions of the parasite politician and the government response come into focus again.

Here’s my full ANN piece. Notes are below!

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Log Horizon II – Episode 12

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Largely an epilogue for the season’s first half this week, though Shiroe’s resolution to the money problem was very well-considered. I don’t really have any idea what they’re planning to do with the Tetra reveal, or if that’s just a thing that happened I guess. I am certainly looking forward to seeing Nureha’s empire return to relevance, though. Log Horizon II’s first half definitely ended on a strong note in this last arc, so hopefully that momentum carries through into our next adventure.

Full ANN post is here. Notes below!

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Sword Art Online II – Episode 24

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It’s over. Dear lord, it is finally over. I know that it’s not actually over – I still have to review Extra Edition for ANN, and the looming threat of a third season always hangs overhead. But for what it’s worth, SAO ended on about as high of a note as the show has ever reached – not only was this episode sharp aesthetically, it actually legitimately tied this arc’s themes together in a graceful way. I’ve had problems with SAO, I am very sure you know, but even with a couple serious dud episodes, Mother’s Rosario has turned out to easily be the show’s best arc. Plenty of reasons for that – a lack of Kirito, an actual character focus, a new perspective on the show’s central ideas – but the sum total of it means I can’t really complain. It’s been quite a ride, Sword Art Online. Now get the fuck out of here, you little scamp.

My full ANN post is here. Notes below!

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