Category Archives: Episode Writeup

Ojamajo Doremi Sharp – Episode 1

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I hope you folks are ready. Today we’re embarking on a journey both new and familiar, as we begin the second season of the ambitious, heartwarming, and stunningly executed Ojamajo Doremi.

As I’ve already rambled my way through fifty episodes of this acclaimed children’s show, I’m sure you know my general feelings on it by now. Ojamajo Doremi demonstrates that great children’s entertainment need not be dramatically or emotionally simplistic – in fact, it reveals that children’s anime that doesn’t talk down to its audience can actually broach a wider array of topics and emotions than many shows aimed at more general audiences. There is no artifice or bravado in terms of Doremi’s presentation – the show is honest, perceptive, and brimming with sympathy for its young cast. Over the course of the first season, Doremi has explored topics as sensitive and wide-ranging as love, divorce, bullying, family, creative passion, professional ambition, and even death, elevating its nuanced dramas through its strong visual sensibilities and plenty of fantastical flourishes.

Not only are Doremi’s various adventures all funny and heartwarming in their own right, but the show’s strength is also cumulative. Within our main crew, Doremi has grown from being a perpetual screwup to a genuine leader, and though she’s still unreliable in many ways, her growing confidence, strength, and compassion are clear as day. Having admitted her own fundamental loneliness, Onpu has learned to look outside of herself, and found both friends and a greater sense of purpose through helping others. Aiko has taken great strides in coming to terms with her parents’ separation, and Pop has become a formidable witch in her own right. And outside that crew, we’ve come to know and love dozens of Doremi’s classmates and teachers, making each new episode a testament to the power of ensemble storytelling.

All that, and I’m told Ojamajo Doremi actually improves as it continues, with the contributions of anime titans like Mamoru Hosoda still to come. Ojamajo Doremi has been both an aesthetically rewarding experience and a genuine source of comfort to me, and I hope all of you are enjoying this winding journey as well. Let’s see what awaits us in the first episode of Ojamajo Doremi Sharp!

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Neon Genesis Evangelion – Episode 9

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While Neon Genesis Evangelion’s eighth episode served as Shinji and Asuka’s formal introduction, any camaraderie they might have developed during that adventure was more or less necessitated by circumstance. In the wake of that explosive field trip, their initial impressions seem stable: Shinji finds Asuka mean and terrifying, while Asuka considers Shinji weak and childish. Their ability to work as a team outside of any but the most desperate of circumstances is basically negligible; thus we enter Evangelion’s ninth episode, an episode famous for being the most ridiculous, farcical, and unabashedly Super Robot-influenced episode of all Evangelion. Get ready folks, it’s time to dance like you want to win.

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Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s – Episode 7

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Get ready folks. It’s time to continue our journey into Nanoha, and see what those dastardly Velka Knights are up to now! A’s prior episode was a very important one, as it centered on the long-awaited reveal of Hayate’s true family history. As the family’s many idle interactions have made obvious, regardless of what evils the Velka Knights performed in the past, at this point they are entirely dedicated to preserving Hayate’s idyllic family life. To that end, they’re even willing to disobey their master’s own wishes, and work to complete the book of darkness in order to keep her alive.

The reveal of the Velka Knights’ history went basically as expected, and did great work in further illustrating the moral contrast between these foes and the first season. While Hayate feels ever more like a direct parallel for Nanoha, her knights have been defined as essentially the opposite of Fate.

Condemning Testarossa, and drawing Fate from her side, was a pretty morally straightforward proposition – Fate was being abused and mislead by her mother, and Testarossa’s own goals were catastrophic in both nature and intent. In contrast, the Velka Knights are actually working to help their master in spite of her own wishes, are fully aware of the stakes and consequences of their actions, and are working in service of a goal that, while dangerous, is still fundamentally sympathetic. While Testarossa was responsible for basically all the pain Fate both inflicted and endured, Hayate has been nothing but good to her knights, and they’ve done nothing but become more human and sympathetic in turn. They’re frankly getting far more sympathetic framing this season than our actual protagonists, who are very nice people, but also technically Space Cops.

With their history finally revealed, A’s is prepped and ready for another confrontation between our main teams. Whether this episode focuses on that or Yuuno exploring a friggin’ library, I’m ready for whatever may come. Let’s dive into another episode of Nanoha A’s!

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Scorching Ping Pong Girls – Episode 6

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Alright folks, gather round, gather round. Lower your paddles and set your ping pong balls at rest. The hour is nearly upon us, and already the machine gun clatter of balls against boards can be heard humming in the distance. It is absolutely time for more Scorching Ping Pong Girls!

When we last left off with the ping pong girls, Agari and Koyori had just proven their mettle against the team’s intimidating captain, Kiruka. Of course, their “victory” came in the form of winning exactly one point each against her, after she’d already exhausted herself defeating every single other member of the team. The episode thus offered a natural mixture of “our heroes have leveled up” and “our heroes still have a long way to go,” along with persistently seeding the overhanging promise of Nationals as the true prize.

That repeated emphasis on Nationals may reflect Ping Pong Girls’ structural constraints more than anything – we’re almost halfway through the season, and we’ve still just finished introducing our own main team. Ping Pong Girls isn’t wasting our time at all – the reason its overarching narrative has moved slowly is because it was too busy dazzling us with fun matches, which is the story’s true purpose. But that pacing does mean we’ll only have time for maybe one tournament, and “earning a spot at Nationals” will likely be the point of that tournament.

Meanwhile, Ping Pong Girls continues to be very charming in terms of its fluffy slice of life material as well. The show’s jokes are hit or miss, but Kiruka and Munemune being extremely married was a very endearing turn, and helped flesh out each of them as sympathetic people. Let’s see what our champions get up to next in Scorching Ping Pong Girls!

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Simoun – Episode 18

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Folks, it is absolutely time to watch some more of the graceful, mysterious, and altogether captivating Simoun. It’s been a little while since we last checked in on this story, but we left on a thunderous series of worldbuilding reveals. Entering forbidden religious ruins with enemies in pursuit, the sybullae discovered that the spring which forms the cornerstone of their religion actually has multiple entry points across the world, seeming to exist in multiple places at the same time. Additionally, more simoun craft were discovered within this ruin, one of which contained a familiar face – Angulas, the young priestess who once sacrificed herself to tear the holy empire down.

Angulas’ presence here could well indicate that the various religions all of this world’s political bodies worship all stem from one communal root, one which doesn’t pick favorites in distributing its holy favor. Angulas died in a moment of selfless religious ecstasy, a description that could just as easily be applied to priestesses inscribing their Ri Majoons in the skies. Given that, what is the purpose of all their struggling, and what goal does Onashia actually seek? And at the same time, does Angulas’ presence here mean Dominura and Limone might be similarly cocooned, waiting for their friends to retrieve them?

Whatever the answers may be, I’m thrilled to explore this thematically rich property once more, and spend some time with its very sympathetic cast. Let’s see what lies in store!

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Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s – Episode 6

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Alright folks, let’s dive back into Nanoha A’s! This season has been establishing Hayate and her “family” as clear echoes of Nanoha’s crew all season, and never was that more apparent than last episode, where the show essentially assigned all of the beats normally reserved for the protagonist (opening monologue, closing statement, mid-battle reflections) to Hayate’s party. Though the episode ended on the reveal that all of Hayate’s companions are magical creatures summoned by the Book of Darkness, the rest of the episode was largely dedicated to emphasizing how little that mattered – they are as loving of a family as Nanoha’s, mutually supporting and utterly willing to sacrifice for each other.

That episode also featured a whole bunch of sweet fights, further solidifying Nanoha’s chops as an all-purpose action platform. While the show’s first season had some exciting clashes, cool animation flourishes, and a generally unique aesthetic, its fights were generally just emotional clashes of laser bursts – what sense of weight and consequence that existed was mostly contained in the dramatic casting and leadup to each major blow. With the Velka knights in the mix, Nanoha is now striving for more tactically diverse battles, with their own internal dramatic arcs. The show’s results on that front have been a little mixed – these fights still seem to be driven more by dramatic necessity than tactical back-and-forth, and devices like each team splitting into pairs for battle feel a little hackneyed. But weightiness of the physical exchanges aside, they’re still exciting as heck, and a great visual spectacle in their own right. Whether we’ve got further investigation of Hayate’s perspective or simply a bunch of sweet laser fights ahead of us, I’m ready to get back into it. Let’s see what’s what in the next episode of Nanoha A’s!

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Princess Tutu – Episode 24

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With only three episodes remaining, the time for cryptic allusions and shrouded metaphor is largely behind us. Princess Tutu’s latest opening monologue emphasizes that clearly, as we are greeted by the image of a grave scattered with pages, and a pendulum swinging in the background. The narrator tells us, “once upon a time, there was a man who died. The story the man wrote was about a happy prince who loved everyone and was loved by everyone. The people fought, each wanting him to love them and them alone, and an evil raven pecked at their loving hearts one after another. The more the prince loved them and tried to save them, the more the people’s love just fed the raven. In the end, the raven thought ‘I’d like to try eating the prince’s heart, the most delicious one of all.’”

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Scorching Ping Pong Girls – Episode 5

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Hell yes folks, we’re back to Scorching Ping Pong Girls! Among the many excellent shows you readers are currently steering me through, Scorching Ping Pong Girls is almost certainly the most dedicated Fun Things Are Fun production, and I truly love it for that. Ping Pong Girls is the kind of show Tsutomu Mizushima likes to make – a loving genre riff defined by consistent high energy and a keen understanding of dramatic fundamentals. Conceits like the various characters’ visual motifs play into the show’s overall sense of genre-savvy irreverence, but Ping Pong Girls isn’t self-aware in order to parodize; it understands the dramatic appeal of great sports drama done right, and it’s here to provide.

With last episode essentially serving as a twenty minute hype session for this episode’s match, I’ve been sitting on my hands and grinding my teeth ever since I finished that one. Ping Pong Girls’ matches have consistently demonstrated a great talent for grounding their drama in clear tactical variables, and the show’s fluidity of action cuts has regularly impressed me as well. With Agari and Kiruka about to clash paddles, let’s dive right back into Scorching Ping Pong Girls!

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Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s – Episode 5

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MAKE WAY CLEAR A SEAT IT’S TIME FOR NANOHA WE’RE STARTING THE SHOW. After our last episode so rudely dangled a potential full-scale battle before our faces, only to spend its full running time detailing the leadup to that battle, I feel I am basically owed an awesome fight sequence this time. Yes, Nanoha has always done that weird thing where its cold opens act as spoiler-heavy previews for the episode to come, but you can’t end a cold open on a fight pose, name your episode something like “New Powers Activate!”, and then regale us with… a perfectly reasonable but decidely non-action packed episode of character setup and exposition.

Grievances about that bait and switch aside, Nanoha A’s has by now established a sturdy platform for faceoffs between our young heroes and these Velka knights, while maintaining a great degree of mystery regarding these knights’ motivation, as well as their relationship with Hayate. My assumption all along has been that unlike Precia, these knights will end up having a pretty reasonable motivation, to go along with their clearly loving counterpoint to Nanoha’s found family. Nanoha’s first season illustrated the diverse potential influences of families in pretty stark terms, so I’m interested in seeing if the show is attempting to illustrate a more subtle distinction this time, or use its general family theme to tackle some other subtopic entirely. With so many characters in the cast at this point, it’s taken a little longer to get through initial setup, but I think A’s is ready to spread its wings. Let’s see some sparks fly!

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The Dream and the Dark – Planetes, Volume 1

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The first image of Makoto Yukimura’s Planetes features protagonist Hachimaki in a bulky space suit, staring up at nothing, standing on nothing. The earth lies vast and silent beneath him, but his eyes are drawn upwards, towards something we cannot see. Without the earth in frame, the scene would feel almost peaceful; in light of its presence, Hachimaki seems terribly vulnerable, as if he’s suspended on a glass surface over an endless abyss. The shot is likely Planetes’ most defining image; a composition that simultaneously conveys the vastness of space, our fragility as we hang in its grasp, and the mundanity of turning this inspiring, terrifying expanse into your garbage removal workspace.

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