With the spring season at last in full swing, I can finally return to mostly ignoring spring’s airing anime, and instead gorging myself on a variety of other films and television shows. In this season’s case, there’s not really much choice, anyway; the coronavirus is delaying productions left and right, and with everyone stuck inside anyway, what better time to power through shows you missed the first time? Personally, I’ve been finally getting around to Avatar: The Last Airbender, and discovering I missed a goddamn treasure back when it first aired. All that and more as we return to the Week in Review!
Why It Works: Fighting With Impact: The Brilliance of Hunter x Hunter’s Nen System
With the already-limited spring season now experiencing a necessary wave of delays and cancellations, my Why It Works columns are at last able to assume their final form: weekly odes to Hunter x Hunter, each column celebrating a different aspect of its collective majesty. Alright, that’s probably not actually going to happen, but I really could write about Hunter x Hunter’s excellence forever, and I was happy to ramble about the nen system this week. Let’s get to it!
Fighting with Impact: The Brilliance of Hunter x Hunter’s Nen System
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha – Reflection
Hello all, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’ll be returning to a franchise that has at last transcended the boundaries of TV anime production, as we continue our post-A’s journey into Nanoha with Nanoha Reflection. As with the two seasons that preceded it, I’m seeing this film for the first time myself, and eager to see how the Nanoha universe expands beyond Hayate’s narrative. Though I’m watching them in reverse order, it’s easy to see how Nanoha’s villain-redeeming structure would go on to set the blueprint for shows like Symphogear; and at this point, the recruitment of Hayate and her Belkan Knights mean this is truly an ensemble narrative, demanding ensemble narrative-scale conflicts.
Reflection isn’t a direct followup to A’s, though, at least in terms of its release schedule. A’s was actually directly followed by Strikers, which jumped the timeline ten years forward, and then ViVid, which takes place four years after that. Those TV productions pushed the Nanoha universe past the point of Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate all working together as young magical girls – but ten years later, Reflection and Detonation would reverse the clock, establishing a “movie timeline” that would allow the franchise to return to that immediate post-A’s dynamic. In an artistic sphere that often seems hamstrung by its reverence for worldbuilding, it’s nice to see a franchise saying Fuck It, we’ll establish a new timeline to justify returning to this franchise’s most promising dramatic template. And if this is just an excuse to see Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate be badasses, that’s fine with me too. Let’s dive into Nanoha Reflection!
Chihayafuru S3 – Episode 24
Well shit, guys. We’re really in the depths of it now, aren’t we? Taichi at last confessed, was rejected, and responded in the most dramatic possible way: by dropping out of the karuta club completely, and not even telling anyone. Chihaya had to actively chase him down to get any answers out of him, and even then, nothing was fixed or resolved; the club has suffered a dramatic splinter, and it’s questionable whether it can even recover.
This schism was certainly dramatic, but it’s a conflict that’s been brewing since the very start of the series. Taichi’s present relationship with karuta has almost nothing to do with karuta itself; though he also shares fond memories of playing with Arata and Chihaya, neither those memories nor a genuine, personal love of the sport are what drive him to compete. Taichi competes for Chihaya’s sake, making for a situation that is both consistently painful and unfulfilling for him personally, and also utterly unfair to Chihaya herself.
Chihaya does not owe Taichi anything; he has persistently been the one to make personal sacrifices in pursuit of an entirely theoretical romantic relationship, placing selfish expectations on Chihaya that would likely already have destroyed their relationship, if Chihaya weren’t so romantically oblivious. And now that he’s finally admitted the truth, and Chihaya has responded, he is taking back all the support he has provided to Chihaya’s entire team, even though he’s the team captain. It’s a very selfish act, but also an understandably human one, and a decision likely necessitated by the unhealthy attitude and romantic expectations he’s brought to this team all along. Taichi’s self-destructive behavior, overwhelming insecurities, and tendency to bottle up his unhappiness are all parts of him we’ve come to know; it’s painful to see them result in such a negative end, but that’s the pain of seeing a convincingly human character take a convincingly human fall.
Of course, “Taichi falls into despair and quits karuta forever and that’s the last we see of him” wouldn’t make for a particularly satisfying drama, so the question now is, where does Taichi go from here? I doubt he even wants to look at Chihaya right now, but one of his other rivals or clubmates might be able to reach him – or even Suo, who could likely relate to his current bleak perspective. Wherever Chihayafuru goes from here, I’m thrilled to at last be excavating the thorny relationship at the heart of this series, and eager to see what this shattered team do next. Let’s get to it!
Neon Genesis Evangelion – Episode 14
It’s a strange thing, how the process of describing history seems to fundamentally transform it. Fitting the events of Evangelion’s first half into a historical record lends its battles clarity, coherency, perhaps even a sense of purpose. New trials are announced through stark title cards, and their resolutions are conveyed just as cleanly, twenty minutes of hardship transformed into thirty seconds of recap. The picture that emerges depicts an inexperienced but talented team, rushing to improve their defensive capabilities, but handling each new challenge with absolute professionalism.
Why It Works: Sing “Yesterday” For Me is this Season’s Must-Watch Drama!
The title for this one pretty much covers it – Yesterday’s premiere was fantastic, and also happened to be on Crunchyroll, so today I wrote an expanded article breaking down the show’s excellent staff and apparent strengths so far. I’ll definitely be keeping up with this one, though my seasonal schedule beyond that is currently an open question. Anyway, here’s the piece!
Sing “Yesterday” For Me is this Season’s Must-Watch Drama!
Spring 2020 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective
Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you – this is looking to be a pretty light season in the land of anime. Even in the lead-up to this season, it was already clear that most of the larger hits would be long-running sequels, and series like Re:Zero and Food Wars lost my interest years ago. Then, of course, the coronavirus started sweeping the globe, leading to a number of entirely justified and frankly welcome delays for some of the season’s key properties. Between those extenuating factors and the season’s inherently limited number of high-profile productions, this is turning out to be a light season on the whole, and a fine time to dig into your backlog.
That said, most anime being crap hasn’t stopped me before, and it certainly didn’t stop me this time. I have successfully waded through this season’s mountain of garbage with my mouth wide open, and having sampled all of its sweetly molding flavors, I am now prepared to spit out the choicest morsels for your collective enjoyment. My list here will run from the season’s top contenders down to its worst offenders, with handy tiers and links to longer reviews over at ANN’s preview guide. Let’s review some cartoons!
Oh shit, right, I always do some gimmicky naming scheme for the quality tiers. Uh, let’s do… tiers based on… colors? I guess? Fuck it.
My Hero Academia, Volume 22 – Review
My reviews of the My Hero Academia manga continue today, though I’m personally far more occupied dealing with the final challenges of preview week. To be honest, I’m mostly linking this review here as an excuse for a general check-in; it’s currently looking like new premieres will be more or less concluded by Sunday, so you can expect my Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective the Monday after that. That’s right, I am TIMELY motherfuckers, and will be back on the Current Projects circuit right after that. In the meantime, this volume of My Hero Academia was great, and I hope you enjoy my review!
Spring 2020 First Impressions – Part One
The spring season has already begun unloading its cargo, and I’ve got a fresh pile of hot takes on everything that’s been screened so far! The season is actually looking pretty reasonable at the moment – there’s been nothing that’s truly surprised me, but Listeners’ premiere turned out to be just as good as I was hoping, and Kakushigoto’s aesthetic strengths really surprised me. You can check out the full list of reviews over at ANN, or scroll below for my scores and links to individual reviews. Let’s anime!
Winter 2020 – Week 12 in Review
Way to fucking go, Nick. Normally, the loosely defined Week 12s and 13s of a given season are the point where most of my watch schedule has already concluded, and I can thus get away with only writing a couple paragraphs for the Week in Review. Of course, now that I’ve transitioned over to writing about all the films and games I’ve consumed, rather than just the streaming anime, I’ve got a whole damn pile of crap to talk about, even though the anime season has largely ended. I am persistently excellent at giving myself more work than I really ought to, but fortunately, these new Week in Reviews have actually turned into one of the highlights of my weekly routine, and I’m frankly only complaining here because I will use literally any available narrative device to fill the space of these openings paragraphs. And with that space now fully occupied (nice going, me), let’s dive into the actual Week in Review!