Category Archives: Episode Writeup

Scorching Ping Pong Girls – Episode 8

Posted on by

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!

Continue reading →

Girls’ Last Tour – Episode 6

Posted on by

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!

Continue reading →

Rilakkuma and Kaoru – Episode 1

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading →

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s – Episode 10

Posted on by

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!

Continue reading →

Ojamajo Doremi Sharp – Episode 2

Posted on by

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!

Continue reading →

Princess Tutu – Episode 25

Posted on by

After twenty-four long episodes of painstakingly restoring the prince’s heart, and a cruel turn where the raven’s poison saw Mytho transforming into some kind of hateful, raven-crossed beast, it is ultimately not Ahiru’s efforts that see Mytho freed and restored. Instead, on the cusp of submitting to the raven entirely, it is Rue’s honest expression of love that frees him. Though Rue was told merely to trick Mytho, her feelings of obligation eventually shifted to affection, and ultimately honest love. Even our lies can contain partial truths, and a lie which is believed can change us until it becomes truth, for better or for worse. Rue’s curse is of the same kind that has tormented Mytho, the same lie that has hung grimly over all our characters, fostered by their creators – the lies we also know as “fiction.”

Continue reading →

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s – Episode 9

Posted on by

Hell yeah folks, it’s time for more Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha! The show’s second season is moving towards its third act at this point, with recent episodes having clarified the stakes of our drama in ever more pressing terms. As last episode’s Hayate-side drama revealed, Hayate’s body is being continuously stressed by the Book of Darkness, and she’s at this point got perhaps a month to live. And as its Nanoha-side drama revealed, completing the book won’t actually save her – the book has been programmed to devour its master until they’re nothing, either through consuming them in lieu of receiving new pages, or turning them into some kind of magical bomb if its pages are filled.

That second reveal will likely come as a great surprise to Hayate’s family, who’re clearly operating under the presumption that finishing the book will save their master. Vita at least seems on the verge of remembering their book’s true nature, but it seems clear that they’ve been programmed to consistently forget its current state, leading to a life defined by cyclical tragedy. Seeing Hayate and her family care for each other has been one of the greatest strengths of A’s, making the knowledge that they’re actually killing her feel like a loaded gun waiting to go off. Whether we’re about to witness that bomb drop, learn more about the masked man, or simply share time with Fate and Hayate as they recuperate, I’m ready for whatever awaits us in A’s ninth episode!

Continue reading →

Girls’ Last Tour – Episode 5

Posted on by

Alright folks, settle in, settle in. This may be the post-apocalypse, but that’s no reason to be impolite. Today we’ll be returning to the altogether excellent Girls’ Last Tour, whose last two episodes have gone well and above the standard set by the show’s introduction. Girls’ Last Tour has been an enchantingly atmospheric and poignantly personal story from the beginning, but the show’s last two episodes both dove into heavy and complex themes with remarkable grace.

In the show’s third episode, the introduction of fellow traveler Kanazawa served as an opportunity to explore the things that drive us to keep living, and the importance of some sense of purpose. In a world like Yuu and Chi’s, you can’t simply drift through life in a comfortable neutral – every day is a struggle to maintain the necessities of life, and thus every day is a fresh question as to why you struggle at all. Kanazawa’s hope lay in the map he was building, but when that map was lost, he was forced to reconsider his perspective – and ultimately, Yuu’s offhand “sometimes good things will happen” provided the answer. Hopes and goals are important for keeping us focused and moving forward, but life has its own rewards even in the absence of a specific purpose, and as long as you keep living, you will eventually find new experiences that were worth living for.

In its fourth episode, Girls’ Last Tour tackled the purpose of living from a different angle, as it questioned what we can hope to leave behind. Yuu and Chi’s acquisition of a camera naturally facilitated a conversation on impermanence, as the girls reflected on how a photograph might hope to outlast their own adventures. That in turn lead into their discovery of one of mankind’s most enduring wards against oblivion – the gods and temples we create, and the tales we tell of living for eternity in those gods’ favor. Yuu and Chi’s idle theorizing on the tenets of that temple served as a natural illustration of the fact that even our most sacred truths and impressive creations will eventually lose their meaning, and no longer serve as a reminder of anything but themselves. But Yuu and Chi don’t need gods to find purpose; sharing lunch in the shadow of an old god, their conversations once again emphasized that simply living and caring for each other is meaning enough, no matter how impermanent.

In short, Girls’ Last Tour has been directly grappling with some of the heaviest and most fundamental questions of human existence, and doing it in such a way that it never abandons the aesthetic wonder and personal warmth of Yuu and Chi’s journey. I don’t expect every episode to be such a piercing thematic treatise, but I’m very impressed by the show’s ability to navigate these topics gracefully, and always tether its points into the active adventures of its heroes. Let’s see what’s in store in Girls’ Last Tour’s fifth episode!

Continue reading →

Blue Flag – Volume 1

Posted on by

The first thing that struck me about Blue Flag was its attention to detail in terms of how clothing hangs on the bodies of its characters. For a great deal of manga, those classic school uniforms might as well be attached to the characters themselves, moving neatly in sequence with their own movements. But in Blue Flag, the unique stresses and hanging edges of clothes that don’t quite fit you are always apparent. You can see where the cast’s clothes stretch, see the lines of bone beneath the fabric, and see how different characters either successfully transform their uniforms into an expression of self, or resign themselves to the shapelessness of clothes that never quite fit them.

Continue reading →

Hugtto! Precure – Episode 9

Posted on by

I’ve checked the stars, sifted through the tea leaves, and consulted with the Old Ones, and it is abundantly clear that it is time for more Hugtto! Precure. In the show’s last episode, the introduction of Henri prompted Homare to reconsider the trajectory of her life, and her decision to step back from the rigorous training demands of a classic professional skater trajectory. Henri frankly and convincingly argued that taking a break at this point could easily be detrimental to her career prospects – and in response, Homare argued with equal certainty that it was the close support of her friends that had given her the courage to return to the ice at all, and that their continued support gave her a kind of strength unreachable through personal effort alone.

Henri ultimately ceded to this argument, because Henri’s a pretty great character. The episode’s treatment of Henri was likely its greatest strength, from its positive framing of his androgynous, multiracial identity to the way it managed to cast him as an “episode antagonist” while still keeping his position consistently sympathetic. It was an episode that clearly demonstrated the strengths of Hugtto’s storytelling, and I’ve been eager to watch the next one for far too long. Let’s see what’s in store in the ninth Hugtto! Precure!

Continue reading →