Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s – Episode 1

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Hello all, and welcome back to another episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha! What, did you think we were finished? Of course not! Influential as its first season may already be, Nanoha wouldn’t be half the institution it now is if it weren’t such an, er, actual institution. The franchise has been receiving new sequels and spinoffs and manga adaptations ever since 2004, making it a fairly unique property within the late night anime sphere. Most long-running shows fall into either children’s anime or shounen adaptation territory, which are always intended to have lengthy and largely episodic running times. Nanoha bucks this trend, adding seasons and properties piecemeal across scattered seasons, kept alive by its own enduring popularity. So what is Nanoha’s second season about, then?

No clue. Pretty much everything I already knew about Nanoha happened in the first season – the combination of magical girl and scifi influences, the clash between Fate and Nanoha, and the ultimate friendship they develop. All I can really say at the moment is that even the context of the first season makes it no surprise this series got a continuation. Nanoha’s first season certainly possessed its own self-contained narrative, but so much of its running time was dedicated to establishing its evocative techno-fantasy world that it also felt like the prologue to something greater. “We must defeat Testarossa” didn’t feel like a meaningful capstone to the world they’d established; it was just Nanoha’s first assignment, and was treated as such. Having established this rich world, underlined Nanoha’s unique strength within it, and just recently yanked Fate over to the light side, the pieces are all set for a thrilling sequel that takes advantage of the original’s careful expository work. Let’s see what awaits us in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s!

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Winter 2019 – Week 9 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome to… wait, week nine? Week NINE? When did that happen? THE SEASON’S ALMOST OVER!

I suppose it’s a good sign, actually, that the end of this season has so completely crept up on me. It’s probably just a reflection of how much I’m enjoying all these shows – basically nothing I’m watching has dragged at all, and shows like Mob Psycho and Run with the Wind are stacked with moments that remind me just how great anime can be. I’ll be sad to reach the end of this season, but I’ll be leaving it having gained a bunch of new favorites, and with Mob Psycho having taken a major leap up my all-time rankings. We once again find ourselves near the end of a winter of riches, and it’s time to assess the spoils. Let’s run this week in anime down!

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Why It Works: Why You Need to Catch Up on Run with the Wind!

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Today on Why It Works, I’ve got a general sales pitch running down the diverse strengths of Run with the Wind. Though I’ve been impressed with this show from the start, I never expected it to be quite this consistent, and certainly not this genuinely moving. The final relay has had me misting up for a few weeks straight now, and As Is My Code, I must do my best to share that blubbering with you all. Here’s the piece!

Why You Need to Catch Up on Run with the Wind!

Spring 2019 Season Preview

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As impossible as it seems, the winter season is already starting to wind down. Final battles are being prepped for, title matches are commencing, and adventures are approaching their end. This is normally a somewhat melancholy time, and it’ll be sad to see this excellent winter pass, but it’s simultaneously impossible not to be excited for the coming season. Every season has both obvious and hidden gems, but in the case of Spring 2019, we’ve got a pile of titans clear from the very start. Spring 2019 is going to kick ass anime-wise, and I’m excited to share all my most anticipated titles with you!

As usual, my list won’t cover every single upcoming show, and also won’t really focus on base premises – you can check out anichart for all that stuff, and I don’t tend to find straightforward synopses particularly useful, anyway. Instead, I’ll be highlighting just the shows I personally have some expectations for, as well as the presumably coherent reasons for that enthusiasm, be it staff or source material or something else entirely. It’s not hyperbole, nor even particularly controversial to say Spring 2019 will be offering shows from some of the best anime directors of all time. Starting with a few of those legendary figures, let’s run down the highlights of the coming season!

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Ojamajo Doremi – Episode 50

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Folks, we are well overdue for another installment of Ojamajo Doremi. Doremi has always been a pretty great show, but it feels like the production has been really swinging for the fences lately in terms of its personal drama and character development, as we’ve run through critical and brilliantly realized episodes focused on both Aiko and Onpu.

Onpu in particular has grown much closer to the main cast over her last several appearances, and last episode even used her magic to ensure she lost in her pursuit of an acting role, once she realized how much the part meant to her strongest competitor. That spirit of empathy seems a far cry from the girl who brainwashed an admirer to avoid actually dealing with him, and when that brainwashing nearly ruined his relationship, flew off with a carefree “not my problem.” Onpu has not just learned to take responsibility for her own actions (as when she resolved that group date catastrophe), but has also seemed to develop a genuine concern for others, and perhaps even a sense of moral obligation to use her powers well.

Given all this recent development, I’m guessing Onpu will be contributing heavily to the season finale. Speaking of which, HOLY SHIT WE’RE AT THE SEASON FINALE! After a rich and rewarding year of Doremi episodes, we’ve finally arrived at the two-parter that ends its first season. I’m told the show actually gets even better in its later seasons (I can’t friggin’ wait to see Mamoru Hosoda’s take on this show), so I’ve got no time for tears – I’m just excited to see what this consistently impressive show whips together for such a major occasion. Let’s dive into another episode of Ojamajo Doremi!

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Bloom Into You – Episode 10

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You know what folks, we’re watching more Bloom Into You. I have been absolutely loving this show’s thoughtful, incredibly sympathetic drama, and its characters have only gotten more rich and human as the show progresses. That goes doubly so for Touko, who just received an unexpected dash of sympathy from outside the show proper. Though I mentioned in the last two writeups that bad subtitles sabotaged Touko’s characterization, I originally watched through those episodes before I knew that – this writeup right here is the first time I’ve been actively aware that Touko’s confession was more “I’m afraid that if I accept my true self, no one will care for me,” and less “if you ever change, I’ll abandon you.” That puts Touko perfectly in line with both of our other leads, afraid that any expression of their true selves will get them cast aside. Though she still has more power in this relationship than Yuu, she’s nearly as vulnerable, and as Yuu begins to embrace her own feelings, I’m guessing that balance will continue to shift.

Speaking of which, holy crap, Yuu’s in love! Or lust, or infatuation, or something – regardless of their specific substance, Yuu is now clearly feeling physical, romantic feelings towards Touko. Though it would have been very interesting to have a genuinely asexual character as a romantic drama lead, it turns out Yuu’s issue was something also quite common to teenagers – it just took her a little longer to feel these feelings than others, and she assumed that meant there was something wrong with her. With Yuu now both intellectually and emotionally invested in moving beyond her current position, I’m guessing her current relationship will definitely run into some friction. Let’s see where this wonderful drama takes us next!

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Winter 2019 – Week 8 in Review

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We’re arriving at the turn, folks! With the season nearly three quarters done, we’ve reached that brief sequence of around two weeks where it feels like every story I’m following is catching fire at once. As reliable as verse-chorus-verse-chorus, stories tend to put their characters through the toughest ringer at around the three-quarters mark, all leading into the triumphant rise towards the final conflict. Whether it’s Run with the Wind’s Hakoden trials, Mob’s Claw attack, or Kemurikusa’s final journey into the fog, our heroes are currently suffering through that ringer, and doing their best to entertain us all the while. Let’s celebrate their journeys as we run down one more week in anime!

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Why It Works: Reigen is Great, But There Are Other Great Anime Parents Too!

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After last week’s parental love letter to a remorseless conman and serial liar, I felt kinda obligated to celebrate some anime parents who don’t necessarily possess quite so much baggage. For this week’s Why It Works, I ran down a scattering of other great parents or parental figures, giving me a fine opportunity to rep shows like March and Eccentric Family once more. Look, if March didn’t want to show up on half of my recommendation lists, it shouldn’t have been so good at absolutely everything.

Reigen is Great, But There Are Other Great Anime Parents Too!

Scorching Ping Pong Girls – Episode 4

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Hell yeah folks, we’re watching Scorching Ping Pong Girls! It has been a ridiculously long time since we last explored an episode of this one – so long, in fact, that I no longer have any idea what our ongoing conflicts are, or what narrative/emotional/thematic threads I should be paying close attention to. BE RIGHT BACK, GOTTA REFRESH.
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ALRIGHT, I’m back! So from what I’m gathering, the last episode was pretty much the end of Scorching Ping Pong Girls’ first act, ending on Agari at last embracing ping pong because she genuinely loved it, instead of simply using it as a vehicle for personal praise. That character turn all came about because of Koyori’s earnest love of the sport, and her desire to use it not as a way to prove her dominance, but as a way simply to communicate with others.

That’s a twist I really like, partially because it seems like a truthful reflection of the ways personal anxiety can express itself, and also partly because “competition as communication” is one of the things I find most compelling about sports drama and competition in general. It’s essentially another way of articulating the tactical appeal of really good competitive games; from fighting games to sports to board games, great contests involve a continuous exchange of proposals and counter-offers, an argument held in a language of tactics. That stuff is all pretty much fundamental to tactical drama, but setting it as Koyori’s signature skill seems to imply this show will be even more focused on tactical repartee than most, like a Mizushima production. But anyway, last episode concluded on the partial introduction of a Mysterious Stranger, and we’ve got work to do. Let’s dive into the next episode of Scorching Ping Pong Girls!

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Simoun – Episode 17

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Simoun! It has been far too long since we explored this fascinating show, particularly since the last episode ended on the cruelest possible cliffhanger. Having at last successfully performed the Emerald Ri Maajon, it seemed very much like Simoun was going to spirit both of my favorite characters up into the sky. I’m not cool with that! Dominura is both the dramatic irritant and iron core that this team desperately needs, and Limoun is both adorable and one of the only genuine friends a good half of this cast still have. Their team is far weaker without them, even discounting the fact that they’re two of the most impressive pilots in Chor Tempest – and ultimately, that may well be the point. What will the team do if they both lose their center and discover the Ri Maajons are a form of self-destruction all at once?

Man, it feels nice just to type out this show’s wacky terminology again. It’s good to be back, Simoun. Let’s see what episode seventeen has in store!

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