Chihayafuru S3 – Episode 14

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The karuta hour has come again! We return to Chihayafuru at the climax of an incredibly intense battle, as Arata and Harada grapple for the right to challenge Master Suo. Though I expected this match to be a dramatic highlight, I could never have predicted how much time and energy Chihayafuru would dedicate to this battle. In a season that’s seen entire tournaments come and go over the course of an episode and a half, Harada and Arata’s battle has already taken up two full episodes by itself, and now seems poised to consume a third.

I’m certainly not complaining, though – this battle, and its Haruka/Megumin compliment, feel like like the culmination of season three’s most central and compelling themes. What it means to grow up or grow old with karuta is a question all of Chihayafuru’s stars have been asking themselves, whether they’re nearing retirement, hoping for a late-career comeback, or simply wondering how karuta can fit into a post-high school lifestyle. In Harada and Arata’s battle, karuta’s past and future collide, with Arata calling his grandfather’s spirit back to the playing floor, and Harada responding with a vigor that argues however our bodies age, our passions need not be diminished. It’s been an riveting battle, and I’m eager to see how it ends. Let’s get to it!

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Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – Episode 1

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NEW YUASA NEW YUASA NEW YUASA. If you’ve been around this site long enough, you probably know that Masaaki Yuasa is one of my favorite directors, and frankly one of the most noteworthy anime directors by any reasonable metric. Yuasa’s works melt and weave between visual styles, embracing animation’s ability to convey a sensory experience through visual transformations. They tend to be both visually astounding and also far more compelling as narratives than most of the medium – Yuasa never writes down to his audience, and generally picks only the best source material to transform into animation. And here at the start of 2020, this animator’s animator is tackling an even more animation-celebratory work, as he adapts a story that overtly celebrates the miracle of animation, and the joy of collective artistic discovery. Let’s dive into the first episode of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

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Pokemon Sun and Moon – Episode 4

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As winter approaches my drafty New England apartment, there’s nothing I’d like more than to escape to somewhere warm and sunny, where the beaches are plentiful and the Pokemon always happy to see you. Pokemon Sun and Moon’s anime has been a relaxing and very charming adventure so far, and really does feel like a little slice of anime vacation. The show’s first three episodes have possessed little sense of urgency, and I actually really appreciate that; instead, the show has held closer to something like a slice of life tone, simply reveling in Ash’s process of getting to know the Alolan residents, and going on adventures with his new friends. The show’s narrative trajectory embodies its ethos: enjoying Pokemon is not about winning or losing, but about the fundamental joys of friendship, discovery, and competition. Let’s see what new adventures await in the next episode of Sun and Moon!

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Chihayafuru S3 – Episode 13

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Folks, it is wonderful to see you all again. After an end of December dominated by family activities and an early January consumed by the preview guide, I can at last return to my regularly-scheduled reader projects. And you know what that means: it’s time for more goddamn Chihayafuru.

When we last left off, Chihayafuru’s two most senior competitors had each pulled off victories of inches, just barely defeating their much younger opponents. But along with speed and reaction time, youth also blesses us with tremendous stamina – and as Harada and Haruka’s own stamina is used up, their chances of securing a second win become that much slimmer. Harada’s response to this reality is to immediately forfeit the second round, thus giving himself a chance to recover his strength for the deciding match. That leaves Haruka to face Megumin alone, as her anxieties about aging, guilt regarding her children, and complicated relationship with her own professional legacy all collide.

Haruka has become this season’s breakout star, with her and Harada’s feelings expanding Chihayafuru’s emotional scope from the pains of adolescence to the compromises and disappointments of adulthood. Her fear of aging out of karuta is palpable, and though this season has consistently emphasized that change is inevitable, I can’t help but really really hope she wins. Let’s see how she fares against Megumin in the second round!

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Rilakkuma and Kaoru – Episode 3

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June arrives in Rilakkuma and Kaoru, heralded by a torrent of cool, unending rain. Though most narratives are guided by the course of their protagonists’ journeys, Rilakkuma and Kaoru instead follows a month-by-month schedule, a choice that can feel either comforting or anxiety-inducing, depending on your perspective. Adult lives don’t necessarily follow “protagonist’s journeys,” or really clear narrative arcs in general. After a first act defined by the guiding trajectory and lofty promises of education, we are thrust out into the world, and forced to accept that we are no longer main characters.

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Winter 2020 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

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Well, 2020 has arrived, and we’re somehow all still here. Along with our own continued existence, it seems the anime industry has also persisted into the new decade, and has already blessed us with an unceasing spray of mostly mediocre productions. Fortunately for all of you, I have found a way to convert my increasing disillusionment regarding this art form into cold hard cash, a process that, as a byproduct, results in a staggering number of premiere reviews. Seriously, I’ve been doing this for over half a decade now, so that’s like… well into the hundreds… hmmm…

Alright, don’t really want to think about that. Instead, let’s get on to the day’s critical business – breaking down the 2020 winter anime season! Having reviewed nearly every single new premiere for ANN’s preview guide, I’m at last prepared to sort the season’s attractions from best to worst, grouping them into handy-dandy categories along the way. I’ll be including brief breakdowns of my thoughts here, and you can also click on any of the titles to be linked to the full ANN review page, where you can find my thoughts under Nick Creamer (which is my name). Without further ado, let’s run down the new anime season!

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Winter 2020 First Impressions, Part One

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Preview week has begun, and 2020 is starting off strong! I’m currently still riding the high of Masaaki Yuasa’s Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, a premiere I watched twice yesterday and will likely watch again today. But even beyond Yuasa returning to dazzle us once more, the season’s been quite impressive so far on all fronts – Somali and the Forest Spirit turned out to be just as charming and beautiful as I’d hoped, and Ei Aoki’s ID: Invaded had an impressively inventive premiere. As usual, you can check out the full list of reviews so far right here, or look below for my own scores and links to individual reviews. Let’s bring in the new year with some great new cartoons!

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Chihayafuru S3 – Episode 12

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Alright folks, buckle in for more Chihayafuru! We’re a week behind after I foolishly took a week off for holiday affairs, and the challenger tournament finals won’t wait. Chihayafuru’s last episode set us up for a fairly unusual pair of matches, with the contrast of eastern and western representatives also neatly falling upon generational lines. In the east, two separate generations of older karuta players are fighting to demonstrate they’re still just as talented as any of their younger peers. Dr. Harada must battle not just his opponent Arata, but also his failing knees; meanwhile, Haruka’s attention is unavoidably divided by her obligations to her family, and as Sakurazawa noted, her reaction time and game sense can’t match her talent in her prime.

Over in the western corner, we’ve got a pair of snot-nosed upstart kids who should really accept they’ve got all the time in the world to become champions, and let their long-suffering elders take the crowns this time. Both Arata and Megumu are obviously sympathetic characters in their own right, but neither of them need this the way Harada and Haruka seem to, and both of the older contenders are such sympathetic characters that it’s hard not to root for them. Regardless of how the matches play out, we’ve got a thorough understanding of the strengths of all of today’s contenders, and I’m eager to see how their styles collide. Let’s get back to Chihayafuru!

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One Foot in Front of the Other: A Year of Death Stranding

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At scattered moments during your journeys across the rocks and rivers of Death Stranding, your player character Sam Porter Bridges will mutter little encouragements to himself, or simply scattered half-thoughts. “Sam, Sam, he’s our man,” a slogan uttered with an edge of bitterness, as he was essentially manipulated into this job of carrying endless packages of cargo across a broken America. Sometimes it’s more straightforward motivational exercises, like “one foot in front of the other,” or at one point, “I’ve scaled higher mountains than this.” And sometimes it’s a rare acknowledgment that he actually finds joy in this work – checking in with the companion strapped across his chest, or staring out across a forbidding yet beautiful wasteland and remarking “I always liked the quiet.”

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Top Ten Anime of 2019

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Hello all, and welcome to the end of another year in anime. This has been an undeniably difficult year, both in the world at large, and within our smaller sphere of Japanese animation. The Kyoto Animation arson stole dozens of lives, leaving a studio that embodied all the brightest hopes of this industry in ruins. From its artist training programs to its full-time employment opportunities to its gorgeous and moving productions, Kyoto Animation is a shining star in anime, and I can only find solace in the massive groundswell of support its employees have received, and its leaders’ commitment to maintaining their irreplaceable vision and place in the industry. This has been a year of tragedy, but I pray that we can end it with hope, and seek to right some of these terrible wrongs in the coming months.

This has also been a year of anime, and that’s what I’m actually here to share with you. My tastes have changed to some extent over the last year, but I still tend to value the same basic things in art: rich characters, engaging thematic arguments, inventive, expressive art design, and a sturdy narrative center. Not all of my top ten shows this year embodied all those qualities, and some of them were frankly just a really fun time, but I enjoyed all of them, and I hope you find something to enjoy among them too. I tried to at least check out every show I thought had a chance of making it into this list, but as usual, a couple fell through the cracks – in particular, I still need to catch up on O Maidens in Your Savage Season, burn through Symphogear’s final seasons, and get started on Beastars. Those aside, I at least checked out nearly all of this year’s shows, and have plenty of thoughts to share with you all. Without further ado, here’s Wrong Every Time’s Top Ten Anime of 2019!

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