It was time for a recommendation roundup this week on Crunchyroll, and this week we explored great cooking shows! The most fun part of this piece was just trying to find enough of those precise “oh my god this meal looks so good” low-angle reaction shots to fill the article, but fortunately I prevailed, because I am a professional. The people need to know the truth, and the truth is food is good.
So Good You Can Taste It: Anime That Make Eating Look Great
Today on Crunchyroll I’m basically just hyping the hell out of My Hero Academia’s third season, which was easy to do, considering I myself am hype as fuck for this one. My Hero Academia’s second anime season was a dramatic step up quality-wise from the first, and with the material this third season’s covering offering an even more significant quality jump, I’m pumped to see whatever Bones can pull together. It’s awesome to have a tentpole shounen like My Hero Academia receive such a strong episode-to-episode adaptation, and can’t wait to see Midoriya punch stuff good one more time.
What’s in Store for My Hero Academia?
Today on Why It Works, I took some more time to explore all the stuff that makes Laid Back Camp so great. This time, my focus was on how Laid Back Camp accomplishes the rare task of celebrating introversion in a slice of life shell, a genre that naturally trends towards emphasizing time spent with friends as the natural goal of life altogether. Laid Back Camp is very good at not just respecting Rin’s preferences, but also capturing many of the things that make time spent alone so uniquely appealing. Thanks for that, Laid Back Camp!
Why It Works: Rin and Her Space
Today on Crunchyroll, I dug into the intangible sense of absence and longing that seems to guide so many of the stars of A Place Further Than the Universe. The show’s fixation with this ineffable something that will grant all our lives some greater significance is my favorite thing about it, so I was happy to dedicate a piece to specifically that. Hope you enjoy the writeup!
What Awaits in a Place Further Than the Universe
“There’s a violence in everyone.”
– Typhoon
Liquid drips from a metal basin, pooling on the tiled floor. The sound comes from some distance away, which helps – at that distance, it is simply an anonymous liquid, not an actual, vital, absent part of Kaneki’s body. Closer at hand, the truths become harder to bear: his scar-crossed wrists, his grinding teeth, the half-formed toes ever growing in, ever being torn away. Ghouls who feed on humans possess great powers of regeneration, but right now, that regeneration is only denying Kaneki the release of death. His body gives and gives, and yet his tormentor keeps coming back, keeps demanding more. Having lived his life by the conviction that suffering pain yourself is preferable to inflicting that pain on others, Kaneki can only wonder how he reached this metal chair, how things ever got so messed up.
It’d been a while since my last recommendation grab bag, and Crunchyroll have picked up a pile of stellar shows these last couple months, so this week I dove into that pile and emerged with a selection of old favorites. I am very happy to have basically any excuse to rep Spice and Wolf, as the show is pretty much my gold standard for anime romance, and it was also fun to revisit Starmyu’s exemplary performance sequences. I’ve already watched all this friggin’ anime, I might as well try and lead other people to the good ones!
Fresh Highlights of the Crunchyroll Catalog
For today’s Why It Works, I focused on how Laid Back Camp manages the very different goals of its Rin- and Nadeshiko-focused segments, an interesting contrast that I felt nicely illustrated the dramatic range that exists within the larger slice of life genre. This discussion actually helped me sort out my own feelings on the genre a bit; I definitely prefer the Rin-style material exemplified by shows like Flying Witch, but can still enjoy really exemplary articulations of Nadeshiko’s style, like a lot of K-On! Always fun to learn something new about your own tastes.
Two Kinds of Camping in Laid Back Camp
Today on Crunchyroll, I finally took some time to poke at Darling in the Franxx’s big thematic contrast, the conflict between the sterile world of Franxx’s overseers and the intimacy its actual stars attempt to bring to that world. As far as this conflict goes, the show is doing a pretty solid job of establishing a coherently puritanical society, and the ways the kids push back against that order feel natural as well. The main problem so far is that the character writing just isn’t there yet – shows predicated on a concept like this need the “human element” of the kids’ interactions to dramatically sell their perspective, and Franxx’s stars still feel too archetypal to get there. But if Hiro can be turned into an actually compelling protagonist, there could be a reasonable show here yet!
My Number is My Name: Finding Warmth in the World of FRANXX
Got another sort of peripheral-to-ongoing-shows article today, considering I already wrote initial pieces on my other two airing Crunchyroll shows, and Franxx hasn’t yet given me enough in-show material to write about. It’s always nice to find a season to rep great old shows, and hitting both Toradora and Idolmaster made me feel pretty good about this one. The nice thing about watching too much anime is you’re always full of recommendations!
Past Classics from the Voices of Darling in the Franxx
Today on Why It Works, I basically went through a craft grab bag of interesting tricks Laid-Back Camp uses to make its wide-open settings feel as familiar and approachable as the classic slice of life club room. The show has a stunningly good control of tone, an effect that’s communally fostered by all its various aesthetic choices. This is a tremendous season for slice of lifes, but even here, Laid-Back Camp feels like something special.
Making Camping Cozy in Laid-Back Camp
