Oh god it’s happening. We’re already halfway through September, final episodes are beginning to broadcast, and the season is well and truly ending. While I’ve gotten somewhat used to the seasonal panic of the preview guide, I certainly haven’t gotten used to the fact that we’re all that much closer to death. Fortunately, that’s exactly what anime is good for – frittering away the idle hours with cartoon entertainment to avoid the lurking specter of our own inevitable mortality. So let’s set aside our dreary, perpetually fraying existence for a while, and RUN DOWN SOME SHOWS!
Category Archives: Week in Review
Summer 2016 – Week 11 in Review
Surprise surprise, another fine friggin’ week in anime. With this season leaning so heavily into pure entertainment shows over emotional or thematic blockbusters, it can be easy to take weeks like this for granted – I laughed and cheered throughout, but wasn’t truly surprised by anything. But as I said in this week’s Love Live editorial, the craft of fun should never be taken for granted. This season’s shows have worked hard to keep me entertained, and the fact that basically every show this season fits into the “goofy good time” slot doesn’t make it any less impressive of a collection. So let’s run down this season’s silly shows once more, as another strong season begins to come to a close!
Summer 2016 – Week 10 in Review
Well heck dang it’s Wednesday again. Anime was pretty alright this week – a couple clear standouts, a couple weaker entries, an overall par performance. JoJo’s fundamentally great art design is unfortunately still trembling under the weight of several consecutive seasons, and Orange is beginning to lose me with its circular conflicts, but Love Live pulled off a spectacle that was just as funny as last week was successfully dramatic, and even if JoJo wasn’t prepared to be top JoJo, Thunderbolt Fantasy certainly was. It frankly makes me a little sad that I have to scroll all the way down the streaming titles page to reach Thunderbolt’s spot on Crunchyroll – I can kinda understand that its inherently camp nature makes it less appealing to many fans seeking action shows, but it’s seriously so, so much better than 9/10 of the shows in its genre. Surely one day the Thunderbolt Fantasies and Lost Villages of the world will get their due!
Anyway. LET’S TALK ABOUT SOME CARTOONS.
Summer 2016 – Week 9 in Review
Alright, now we’re actually three quarters of the way through the season. That generally tends to align with shows’ second-to-last dramatic peaks, and this season was no exception – both Mob Psycho and Love Live had huge episodes this week, and the JoJo/Thunderbolt Fantasy pairing had pretty key turning points as well. Orange is starting to look a little long in the tooth at this point, but other than that, I’d say the season’s crop are holding together quite well. I’m perfectly happy to have two seasons in a row conclude with dignity intact!
Summer 2016 – Week 8 in Review
Dear lord it’s week eight. We are almost three quarters of the way through the summer season. August is practically over. What the hell is going on.
Well, anime is going on. Outside of our communal existential dread at somehow being yet another week older, things haven’t changed much in anime land – Aqours are still doing their best, Urobuchi’s puppets are still being delightfully ridiculous, and Tsumugi is still hungry for new snacks. This was another placeholder week in anime, with its various low points being balanced out by some unexpected highs. So let’s start with the good news then, and get right into Love Live Sunshine’s big episode!
Summer 2016 – Week 7 in Review
We’re in the settling now. Shows have established themselves and fallen into comfortable rhythms, massive narrative changeups are either far in the past or waiting in the last act, and most productions are just doing their best to pretend scheduling and creating twenty minutes of animation is just as easy the seventh time as it is the first or second. There are highs and lows, but they’re smaller bumps – Love Live has a somewhat weaker episode, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure tries on a new style hat, etcetera. These are the dog days of summer, where we’re all more concerned with the fact that global warming is now a lived reality than we are with which waifus most recently prevailed. But anime endures, and like a barnacle on that great cartoon vessel, so does the Week in Review. Let’s run ’em down.
Summer 2016 – First Half in Review
It may be mid-August, but the summer anime season is convinced we still have half a summer to go. I appreciate that kind of optimism, and appreciate even more just how sunny this season has been in general. While this summer has lacked a character drama with the poignancy of Rakugo Shinju or a message show with the complexity and spirit of Concrete Revolutio, it’s made up for that by being stacked with shows that are just damn good entertainment. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Thunderbolt Fantasy are both excellent camp-action spectacles, Mob Psycho 100 is consistently elevated by solid writing and terrific execution, Love Live Sunshine is consolidating everything that is fun about Love Live, and Sweetness & Lightning is a consistent dose of heartwarming family moments. It seems silly to rank a set like that – they’re all so different, and all such positive experiences, that classifying them as “better or worse” than each other seems pointless and inherently jaded.
Of course, I’m gonna do it anyway. That’s what traditions are for! As usual, I’ll be ranking the summer’s shows for the first and only time here at the halfway point, where it should be inescapably obvious that any sort of ranking is an entirely meaningless gesture. Like a series that makes its point in the first season and then just sort of staggers on through mediocre renewals for a while, the halfway point season rankings will proudly continue. Let’s start at the top and RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Summer 2016 – Week 5 in Review
Oh god how are we already nearing the halfway point what the fuck. Soon enough we’ll be past that and entering the final stretch and I can’t even imagine how I’m gonna handle Why It Works and preview week at the same time what the fuck have I done to my life. It’s all out of my hands. I can’t hold onto it anymore. It’s slipping away and I can’t write fast enough and I need to sleep but when I sleep I fall behind and then I wake up and it’s all there again and what am I going to DOOOO.
Hey guys! Wednesday again. You know the drill. LET’S RUN ‘EM DOWN.
Summer 2016 – Week 4 in Review
This was a week of mild but pleasant surprises in anime land. Over in the Sunshine Islands, Love Live demonstrated that this season might actually have a better handle on its own drama than either of the first two, nailing Hanamaru’s introduction without giving up on the physical comedy that makes the show great. And down in Mob Psychoville, Mob proved himself to be just as strong a character as his show is a visual showcase. With everything else performing pretty much as hoped, this is looking to be another surprisingly sturdy season of anime. My preview chart was short, but nearly everything on that chart has ended up impressing, leaving me with a fine lineup all around. Let’s RUN ‘EM DOWN!
Summer 2016 – Week 3 in Review
Dear lord, one week after the retrospective and we’re already a quarter through the season. This season ended up offering a stronger collection of shows than I was initially expecting, meaning I get to be fairly discerning in choosing what I actually keep up with. At this point, I’m legitimately excited about everything I’m watching – we’ve got a great mix of pure fun (Love Live, Thunderbolt Fantasy) and engaging drama (Orange, Planetarian), with Mob Psycho offering a dash of action and visual creativity. Let’s start with those new Love Lives and run this week down!