Category Archives: Episode Writeup

Ojamajo Doremi Sharp – Episode 4

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Pack it in folks, it’s just about time for some more Ojamajo Doremi. Doremi’s second season has been a total joy so far, with the trials of taking care of Hana-chan offering an emotionally rich and consistently rewarding focal point for the show’s continuing drama. It really does feel like the girls have had to grow up a little bit – from the relatively carefree adventures of chasing after episodic Bad Items, they’re now being forced to accept the compromises necessary for embracing adult responsibilities, and putting the needs of their little magical time bomb over their own desires. Last episode saw Pop demonstrating the inherent rewards of accepting such responsibilities, as her time spent caring for Hana-chan ended up giving her the strength to finally pass her witch exams.

That episode also served as a beautiful demonstration of Doremi’s substantial aesthetic strengths, as acclaimed director Shigeyasu Yamauchi lent his unique talents to an episode full of evocative layouts and standout visual sequences. The moody framing of the Maho-dou, Pop and Onpu’s shared lullaby, Pop’s dazzling entrance into the Witch World – Doremi’s always a good-looking show, but Yamauchi’s presence added a welcome touch of dark fantasy surrealism, and apparently he’s directing this episode as well. Let’s see what he brings to Doremi’s wonderful world in episode four!

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The Woman Called Fujiko Mine – Episode 7

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Heck yeah folks, let’s get back to The Woman Called Fujiko Mine! This show’s last episode was a spiraling maelstrom of complex gender politics and confining social expectations, with Fujiko and her various associates serving as gleeful foxes in the henhouse of a girls’ private school. Combining this show’s insightful focus on gendered expectations, social performances, and the nature of feminine power with the classic touchstones of a Class S yuri drama was a masterstroke, and resulted in the most thematically complex and generally gripping episode of Fujiko yet.

On a pure aesthetic level, pairing Fujiko Mine’s ornate, richly textured designs with the stylized and detailed sets of a traditional “boarding school flower garden” resulted in an absolute bounty of beautiful compositions, with elaborate backgrounds sharing space with more metaphorically driven layouts rich in shadow and contrast. And on a thematic level, that episode managed to channel Lupin’s classic reversals and counter-reversals through a nested series of adolescent social expectations, with Fujiko’s manipulation of her love-starved students eventually being countered by an opponent eager to use Fujiko’s own favorite trick – telling your enemy exactly what they want to hear. 

In the context of a deeply repressed private school, Fujiko reveled in assuming the role of sexual aggressor, while Oscar simultaneously gleefully embraced and harshly judged himself for assuming the role of lusted-over “prey.” Their complex roles served as a clever distillation of the emotional contradictions inherent in both repressed adolescence specifically, and how women are assumed to exist in society more generally. And ultimately, Oscar’s contempt for his own actions seemed to echo the contempt society at large serves towards any expression of feminine agency, be they defined as Madonna or Whore. It was a goddamn searing episode, and also somehow light and playful at the same time. I don’t expect another episode quite like that one, but I’m eager to see whatever these charming thieves get up to next. Let’s get to it!

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Neon Genesis Evangelion – Episode 12

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We witness its genesis as a great light, a blinding spark searing the atmosphere, visible even from the surface of the moon. Then comes the furious wind, as our vision cuts in to a snowy hellscape stained rust red, as if the earth itself has suffered some great and terrible wound. A ragged figure trudges with purpose across this nightmare, his arms cradling an unconscious young girl. As we peer down through a shattered bunker, the man sets his cargo down in a metal tube, and she briefly wakes – but her cry of “father” is cut off, their final connection severed by the sealing of the tube. And then the shivering landscape upends entirely, as a great and terrible creature rises to remake the world.

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Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s – Episode 11

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Hello folks, and welcome back for another episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. We’re well into the show’s final act at this point, with Fate and Nanoha already having squared off against first Hayate, and then the awakened Book of Darkness itself. We’ve also resolved the duplicity and betrayal of Chrono’s admiral friend, who managed to successfully fuck everything up just before his plan was discovered. The admiral’s meddling backed Hayate into a corner in order to summon the Book itself, and then the Book’s own trauma prevented Nanoha and Fate from negotiating it out of its apocalyptic plans.

Now, with Nanoha defeated and Fate actually absorbed by the book, success or failure will likely come down to this season’s true heroine: Hayate. Just like how Nanoha’s first season was essentially a Fate story that Nanoha also took part in, so has this season most centrally been about Hayate, and her efforts to maintain and protect her family in spite of her curse. Personality-wise, Hayate is basically a version of Nanoha stripped of all of Nanoha’s easy gifts – she starts out alone, has to work hard to create a family, and even then is plagued by physical frailty, in contrast with the magical power Nanoha is able to use to enforce her worldview. But here at the end, with Hayate already stranded somewhere inside the book, the battle will come down to the one thing they share – their unshakable personal strength, and absolute love for the people they care about. We’ve reached the thesis of the season, and I’m thrilled to see how it plays out. Let’s get to it!

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Ojamajo Doremi Sharp – Episode 3

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Dear lord am I ever happy to return to Ojamajo Doremi. I don’t yet know when you’ll be reading this, but as of today, I just finished writing my way through a hellish weekish and a half that included around twenty preview guide premieres, a Crunchyroll column on top of that, and two sprawling, confessional essays on Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion. It was almost certainly the most writing I’ve ever done in a single week, and I’m frankly still not through – I can’t really justify pausing the Current Projects for another weekend, so as of Thursday morning, I need to write three Current Projects articles and my next Why It Works column by some time on Sunday.

But as of right now, it is absolutely time for Ojamajo Doremi.

Watching this episode will technically fulfill one of my Current Projects obligations, but more than that, I need something I genuinely love and that always tends to bring me peace, and that is absolutely Doremi. This show is so charming, so visually engaging, so fundamentally thoughtful and kind. Last episode saw our heroes learning just a few of the many complex responsibilities of parenting, as they worked to take care of a baby with more magical energy than all of them put together. Hana-chan’s powers thus served as a clean metaphor for the emotional experience of parenting – you run yourself ragged, while your baby always seems to have more energy, demands, and tantrums ready. Doremi and the girls did the best jobs they could, handling their new responsibilities with diligence and pride.

It was an excellent episode on the whole, but after two episodes of establishing the season two premise, I’m kinda hoping we get to check in with Doremi’s classmates again. Either way, I’m sure we’ve got an endearing and thoughtful journey ahead of us, because goddamnit, this is friggin’ Doremi. Let’s see what episode three has in store!

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Scorching Ping Pong Girls – Episode 8

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You folks ready for some Scorching Ping Pong Girls? Alright, that’s what I like to hear. Our last episode saw the long-awaited commencement of the team’s brutal, no-holds-barred (practice) match against Kururi and her teammates, opening with Hanabi getting thoroughly thrashed by the scorpion-striking Sasorida. Along with that, we were dazzled by such scintillating dramatic highlights as “Koyori got stuck and she can’t get down,” making for an altogether thrilling, might I even say scorching dramatic tableau.

That episode also featured more hints as to where this battle will be going thematically, which isn’t really much of a mystery at this point. Though it has many goofy embellishments that give it a whole lot of personality and charm, Scorching Ping Pong Girls is fundamentally pretty straightforward in its embracing of sports and shonen narrative conventions, and its big thematic points are basically “friendship is good” and “play for the things that bring you joy, not because you feel obligated to win.” Koyori’s relationship with Agari reflects their true, unconditional feelings, and the ways they play off each other make each of them stronger. In contrast, Kururi seems to believe that Zakuro’s friendship is reliant on her continuously offering “friendship fees,” a belief that also plays out through her insecure physical possessiveness of her friend. It’s an obvious conflict, but Scorching Ping Pong Girls isn’t really about themey-wemey stuff – it’s about having a great goddamn time, and its themes are a natural reflection of the joyous, loving relationships at its heart. I’ve been greatly enjoying this thrilling, creative, and very silly sports show, and I’m eager to get into the heart of this (practice) tournament. Let’s get to it!

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Girls’ Last Tour – Episode 6

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Everyone feeling ready for some poignant, atmospheric adventures in a beautiful decaying world? I certainly hope so, because it is absolutely time for more Girls’ Last Tour. After two episodes that explored such heavy topics as our search for meaning in life and our fear of being forgotten in death, Girls’ Last Tour’s most recent episode shifted its focus, instead exploring such resonant, universal questions as “what if Chi was huge” and “what if Chi was huge and also a fish.”

That was fine with me, to be honest. Girls’ Last Tour was already very satisfying as a warm, quirky travelogue even before it started dabbling in the Big Questions, and this kind of story demands a balance of philosophical inquiry and intimate, relatable character vignettes. The personal stuff is what lends the thematic stuff the weight of emotional investment, and beyond that, Girls’ Last Tour’s little vignettes are just really charming and satisfying in their own right. Watching Chi and Yuu find joy in this strange world, and in each other, expresses Girls’ Last Tour’s empathy and faith in humanity more clearly than any purpose-of-living monologue ever could. Let’s see what mischief they get up to in episode six!

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Rilakkuma and Kaoru – Episode 1

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I don’t think anyone really warned me how stressful and tiring adult life would be. Perhaps some of that might come from having unwisely turned so many of my hobbies into sources of income, but on the whole, I think most of us are unprepared for the compromises, disappointments, and general fatigue of adult living. At a certain point some time in your twenties, the natural energy with which you used to greet the day seems to dry up, with responsible living somehow no longer feeling like enough to keep you moving, and extravagances like excessive drinking leaving you flat-out exhausted. Days start to feel shorter and shorter, filled up with mundane tasks that are so reliable and unending that there’s no real sense of accomplishment in completing them. Your relationships with others begin to shift, forced to accommodate increasingly demanding personal schedules, and often maintained in spite of your actual desire to simply get more sleep. And beyond that, the future doesn’t necessarily offer any call for optimism – our planet and economy have been crumbling for all of my adult life, and it seems naive to imagine things might ever improve.

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Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s – Episode 10

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The end times are coming, folks. With Hayate’s guardians having been either banished or absorbed, and Hayate herself transformed into some kind of human avatar for the Book of Darkness itself, we’ve officially entered the endgame of Nanoha A’s. The show hasn’t overtly revealed the identity of the masked man, but given we’re run out of time to introduce any new characters, there’s simply no one else it could be aside from the admiral. The rules of narrative congruity are pretty insistent on figures like this eventually proving themselves to be known characters; otherwise there would have been no reason to hide his identity in the first place, and the reveal of that identity would carry no dramatic weight at all.

Meanwhile, Fate and Nanoha are trapped in some kind of cramped magical kennel, while our masked man takes their forms in order to turn Hayate against them. This season has basically been about fundamentally decent people talking past each other ever since the beginning, but by deceiving Hayate specifically, A’s seems to have set up the finale to hinge on Hayate’s ability to believe in her friends, and understand that she’s being tricked. Though I’m not normally a fan of devices like this one, since they tend to feel like artificial drama, Hayate’s generosity of spirit has been the fulcrum of A’s drama since the start, so it seems right to conclude by testing that spirit once more. That said, we’re only on episode ten, so there’s clearly a few more bumps in the road before us. Let’s see how this dramatic confrontation ends!

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Ojamajo Doremi Sharp – Episode 2

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Heck yeah folks, it’s time for more Ojamajo Doremi! The Doremi sequel’s first episode was largely taken up by reintroductions and the establishing of a new hook, as our heroines’ despair at relinquishing their wands was soon replaced by trepidation at the idea of actually raising a baby. It was a necessary episode, but also necessarily not a highlight – there was just too much board-establishing work to be done for the episode to also include one of Doremi’s usual madcap adventures or poignant vignettes. But with that episode concluded, we are left with a truly absurd situation, as Doremi and her friends struggle to raise a child who is also a tiny little magical time bomb.

Considering I’d be hesitant to let Doremi take care of a rubber plant, I am eager to see how her stewardship of an actual living baby somehow doesn’t end in disaster. And with introductions done, I’m guessing we’re in for a full episode of baby-related catastrophe, as all our girls struggle with a responsibility greater than any before. In spite of being a perpetual ojamajo, the Queen’s faith in Doremi and her friends is not misplaced – they’re kind and generous people who have grown tremendously over the course of their training, and who probably don’t even realize just how capable and considerate they are. Let’s see how they handle this new adventure in the second episode of Ojamajo Doremi Sharp!

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