Category Archives: Review

Symphogear G – Review

Posted on by

I mean, did you think I wasn’t gonna keep watching Symphogear? Symphogear is goddamn awesome, of course I’m gonna keep watching it. G is actually even more “focused Symphogear” than the first season, which was really fun to talk about in a review context. The show plays in what might traditionally be considered “so bad it’s good” territory, where I find the drama as presented totally ineffective according to traditional storytelling metrics (I don’t actually care about the emotional problems of the characters, for example), but still brilliantly entertaining as narrative absurdity. And so I basically gave the show’s story a very fond C, where its very issues are what make it great. I could easily see the argument that this means the show’s story is successful, but considering either of these responses amount to “I had fun with it” and my review is overwhelmingly positive anyway, I think that’s a kind of hair-splitting distinction. Symphogear’s great, G was a solid sequel, bring on GX!

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episodic notes below!

Continue reading →

Monster Musume – Review

Posted on by

Yeah fuck it I reviewed Monster Musume. Hey, I’ve already watched the thing, right? It was actually easy to critique this one, since in spite of the hyperbole you may or may not have witnessed on twitter, Monster Musume is a pretty simple show with obvious strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. It’s a harem, but because it’s so absurd, it’s both a much better comedy than most harems and a show you can enjoy even if you’re not identifying with the derpy protagonist. There’s definitely some creepy sequences where it gets into uncomfortably voyeuristic/gropey territory, but most of it’s just a silly fun time, and many of the episodes are also elevated with some really terrific animation. Monster Musume was a light, enjoyable bright spot in a lousy season.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or… wait, I covered this one weekly. I guess that’s it, then!

Monster Musume

Tsukimonogatari – Review

Posted on by

New Mononagatari arc! And this one… well, it sure is an Araragi arc. This was definitely one of the weakest arcs of the show so far – it did attempt to push Araragi’s narrative forward, but accomplished very little within its four episodes, and mainly spent time explaining a story that just didn’t have that much resonance to it. Araragi is far from my favorite Monogatari character, but he can still work well when he’s given the right companions to riff off of. Here, where most of his conversations were either with the straight-laced Kagenui or blank Yotsugi, that really wasn’t possible. The best part of this arc was the final confrontation with Tadatsuru, but that was a small consolation for an arc with little else to recommend it. Hopefully this fall’s arcs are more rewarding!

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my crazy pile of notes below! These notes actually start with notes from when I was first planning to watch this arc, but held off because I knew I’d do it for review, so the first episode has a mix of timestamp writeups from a while back and current notes!

Continue reading →

Turn A Gundam, Part Two – Review

Posted on by

As mentioned in this week in review post, I recently returned to Turn A Gundam, sweeping through the second half and thoroughly enjoying the process. I definitely had some central issues with these episodes – in particular, the moon setting and villains never managed to be half as engaging as the earlier material. But even though you’d think those would be major flaws, this half still felt overall more accomplished than the first. Part of that came down to the fact that the show had real momentum now; in the first half, far too many episodes were given over to episodic stories that didn’t amount to much (with Poe and Will Game’s narratives being the worst of them). Here, even though I wasn’t happy with every choice, things were moving almost all the time. Additionally, this second half also managed to build on and complicate the first half’s best characters, making almost all the dramatic clashes here feel weighted and satisfying. Overall, I’d definitely recommend Turn A Gundam to anyone looking for an easy, satisfying entrance into the Gundam franchise.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

Continue reading →

The Idolmaster – Review

Posted on by

Yep, big surprise, I reviewed The Idolmaster. As I’m sure you know if you’ve been reading the week in review posts, I was a big fan of this show – in fact, its final score ends up approaching Flowers of Evil/Ping Pong the Animation levels, so yeah, this was definitely a favorite. I was actually a huge fan of this show in spite of the fact that neither of its final emotional arcs really worked for me. I couldn’t buy into either Chihaya or Haruka’s drama, and both of their stories struck me as kind of contrived and hollow. But the execution of those stories was remarkable, and the show overall had such an incredible sheen and understanding of quick touchstone character work that I can barely fault the show for failing in its most emotionally ambitious moments. Idolmaster nailed the small moments, the ones where characters were just coming to understand each other through proximity and time, and that stuff does great work in justifying a couple melodramatic overreaches.

Plus, and this bears repeating many, many times, Idolmaster is so friggin’ beautiful. Holy crap this animation, holy crap this direction, holy crap basically everything about this show’s visual and aural storytelling. Christ, I wish I got to complain about storytelling quibbles in shows this beautiful more often. I wish the general problem was “this show is a visual masterpiece, but sometimes it’s not so good at executing on emotional setpieces.” It’s kind of funny to me that a couple years ago, I probably wouldn’t have been able to appreciate this show, but would likely have been groaning about there being no heir of Gainax to take up the legacy of shows like Evangelion and FLCL. Well, Gainax’s children are here, and they’re doing the best they can. Hire a couple better writers and we’ll be right back in the golden age.

You can check out my extremely positive review over at ANN, or run down my pages and pages and pages of notes below!

Continue reading →

Love Live! Movie – Review

Posted on by

LOVE LIVES IN THEATERS. LOVE LIVES ON THE SCREEN. The Love Lives just cannot be contained, and this weekend I finally got to see those Love Lives large and in charge at my local theater. The movie was very much a fanservice-filled victory lap, but I still had a fun time with it – it’s nice to see these characters again, nice to see some new performances, and holy crap was the crowd into it. Pretty much every time I see an anime in theaters, the crowd hangs on every word, but this was something else. Every joke got a full house of laughter, every sad moment a chorus of “awww”, and every performance a rousing round of applause. Seeing something like Love Live in a theater really brings home the communal nature of a show like this – it’s about characters you’ve all invested in together, and that communal investment is paid back in what you get out of the series. Fans in full costume desperately trading a Rin card for a Maki one is as much “what Love Live is” as any of the actual anime.

Anyway, you can check out my full review over at ANN!

Love Live!

A Silent Voice, Volume Two – Review

Posted on by

Back to Silent Voice, which mercifully got a lot less consistently depressing in this second volume! Fortunately the character work stayed just as strong, making this easily one of the most engaging dramas I’ve checked out recently. Strong art, very strong writing, lots of nice background details… just a whole lot to enjoy in Silent Voice. It’s gonna be tough waiting for each volume to get released now.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or read my notes below!

Continue reading →

A Bride’s Story, Vol. 5 – Review

Posted on by

Yep, reviewing more Bride’s Story. It’s nice to have more good manga to return to, so I’m trying to build up a bit of a stable of properties – Genshiken, Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer, etc. This volume was classic Bride’s Story, returning from the high drama of volume three and comedy of volume four to the mellow slice of life that’s the story’s bread and butter. It’s where the manga feels most comfortable, but I honestly wouldn’t mind a bit more direction in the storytelling – but either way, Bride’s Story is an excellent manga with plentiful strengths, and they’re fully on display in this volume.

You can check out my full review over at ANN!

A Bride's Story

My Hero Academia, Volume 1 – Review

Posted on by

Back to the manga pile, this time for something a little outside of my usual fare. My Hero Academia is textbook Shonen Jump, but I can dig that if it’s executed well, and this one’s very polished. It’s extremely readable, the premise offers lots of fun character-design potential, and the art is excellent. I’m guessing/hoping it’ll gain a bit more personality as it goes along, but it’s also just nice to have a more diverse selection of manga to be keeping an active eye on. I’ll be sticking with this one.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

Continue reading →

Symphogear – Review

Posted on by

To the surprise of no one, it turns out I wrote up a review for good ol’ Symphogear. This show was a trip and a half, and I hope I was able to convey some of that in my text. It’s a little weird “evaluating” a show like Symphogear – I mean, metric-based evaluation is always weird, because art doesn’t really work that way, but with a show like Symphogear it’s even more difficult than usual. Normally, I can sort of fudge the reality that the intersection of narrative storytelling and aesthetic execution can only really be discussed in, well, discussion-oriented terms, and vaguely declare that one show is “better at what it’s trying to do” (relative to my valuation of the merit of its inherent goals etc etc) than another. But Symphogear is good because its story is a mess, so it’s a bit tougher to judge.

Anyway. Did my best. You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episodic notes below!

Continue reading →