Winter 2019 Season Preview

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It’s a miracle, folks – for once, I can’t really say “how are we already approaching the winter season.” By all accounts, 2018 has been one of the longest years on record, spanning for actual decades and leaving us all withered and creaking. Remember Violet Evergarden? That actually came out this year. Hell, remember Planet With? That only ended a couple months ago! With each new day in the real world offering some fresh disaster and further hastening the End of History, it feels like I’ve lived fifty years over the last ten months, and 2018 still isn’t over. Fortunately, though the real world may be perpetually on fire at this point, anime seasons have maintained a welcome solidity, and given us all something to look forward to.

On that note, let’s get to the shows! Winter anime seasons seem to have a tendency to have the lightest schedule and fewest heavyweight releases, but this one’s actually looking pretty rich on potential pickups. And with both JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Run with the Wind continuing into the new year, we’re certainly not going to be having an anime shortage any time soon. As usual, I won’t run down every show of the new season here – you can check out anichart for a list like that. Instead, I’ll just be covering the shows I’ve got genuine expectations for, along with whatever tipped me off to their potential quality. Starting with my most anticipated new shows, let’s see what winter 2019 has to offer!

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Ojamajo Doremi – Episode 40

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Settle down kids, it’s Doremi time and that’s final. In our last episode, Ojamajo Doremi proved it can actually weave Onpu’s ongoing antagonism into the show’s usual classmate-focused mode, as she brainwashed a hapless upperclassman into briefly falling for our orb-haloed heroine. “Doremi in love” episodes are always a bunch of fun, and this one was no exception, while also benefiting from one of the strongest sets of layouts the show has put together yet. Between last episode’s love drama and the episode before’s kaiju shenanigans, it feels like Doremi’s visual mastery of its own drama is improving over time, which is almost frightening to me. If Doremi gets too much more visually appealing, I’m not sure any of us will have the power to stop it.

Beyond its own inherent appeal, last episode also ratcheted up the urgency of dealing with Onpu’s witch delinquency (witchlinquency?). She’s not casting constant illegal spells at Ruka’s command – she actually just is That Bitch, and even Ruka is totally unable to control her. She’s also made it perfectly clear that she feels no guilt or responsibility for her actions, so it’s probably going to take a disaster closer to home to make her realize what a turd she’s being. Whether this week sees us challenging Onpu directly or rambling through more classroom drama, I’m eager to see whatever’s in store. Let’s dive into another episode of Ojamajo Doremi!

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Bloom Into You – Episode 3

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Buckle up folks, it’s time for another episode of the altogether excellent Bloom Into You. The show’s first episode offered a poignant and consistently convincing glimpse into our heroine Yuu’s worldview, and the followup extended that grace of illustration to her “friend” Touko and the greater world around them. So far, director Makoto Katou’s fondness for rich colors and saturated lighting have aligned perfectly with Bloom Into You’s dramatic intentions, creating a world that can alternately feel lonely and claustrophobic or as fancifully beautiful as a shoujo confession scene. The careful execution of sequences like Touko kissing Yuu have created a consistent and fascinating tension between the world as Yuu experiences it, and the world as she’s been led to believe it’s supposed to be. The conflict playing out in Yuu’s thoughts is thus beautifully echoed by the world around her, resulting in a show whose visual style perfectly mirrors its dramatic priorities. When you couple that compelling aesthetic holism with the show’s generally strong dialogue and compassionate approach to its core conflict, you end up with an altogether excellent high school drama. If the show can keep this up, we’re in for a very rewarding journey. Let’s embark on our next episode!

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Fall 2018 – Week 8 in Review

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As we continue into the second half of the season, all my anime contenders seemed to have settled into themselves at this point, offering a variety of sturdy and compelling episodes. The highlight this week was Yamada’s star turn on Tsurune, but there was plenty to enjoy in Gridman as well, and Run with the Wind is still probably the most consistent new show of the season. I was sad to bid goodbye to the Mistress of Cruelty over in puppet theater country, but outside of that admittedly personal complaint, I really don’t have much to gripe about. It’s a good season, folks! Good dramas, good action, good anime all around. That might make for repetitive Week in Review intros, but it also makes for a very happy Nick. Let’s get right to it then, and see what we’ve got to celebrate as we break this week down!

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Why It Works: It’s Time to Catch Up on the Thrilling Mob Psycho 100!

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Today on Why It Works, I’ve got a big ol’ pitch for Mob Psycho 100, the terrific spectacle that I’d personally place as the best action show of the last five years. I loved Mob Psycho while it was airing, and I’m very excited to return to it this winter season. It’s nice to have at least one show you’re basically certain is going to kick ass, and Mob Psycho feels as sure a bet as basically anything. Here’s the piece!

It’s Time to Catch Up on the Thrilling Mob Psycho 100!

Chihayafuru Part One: The Movie

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The opening scene of the Chihayafuru film embodies something utterly fundamental to karuta as a sport: the constant, thrilling sense of tense anticipation. Karuta is not a game of continuous action. Its energy and appeal build up over strained moments of anticipation, waiting for the next card to be called. Karuta embodies the thrill of the silence just before a decisive play in any sport; the ball aloft, players’ eyes trained, all voices hushed as victory and defeat hang in the balance. Karuta bottles that thrill, and unleashes it again and again, as its contenders rush for glory on the tatami mat.

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Ojamajo Doremi – Episode 39

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Pack it in folks, it’s time for more Ojamajo Doremi. The show’s last episode featured a welcome return to the show’s most reliable and rewarding mode, as we were introduced to Doremi’s classmate Ryota and his profound love of giant monsters. Like many of Doremi’s best episodes, there was no clear moral hook to Ryota’s tale – it was simply a quiet story about the hurt we can cause each other as friends, the legitimacy of all our passions, and the need to forgive. Its conclusion may have been boosted a bit by the introduction of a magically summoned kaiju, but that didn’t make it any less of a sensitive human story.

That episode also demonstrated that the presence of Onpu and Majo Ruka won’t necessarily be dominating our ongoing narrative. Onpu is basically just another classmate now, and though Majo Ruka is obviously up to no good, whatever good she’s not getting up to is apparently transpiring somewhere else. I’d like to see some stories that rope Onpu more directly into Doremi and the others’ lives, but so far she’s been pretty much an entirely antagonistic figure, and I’m not sure the show is going to make her sympathetic before we formally clash with her and Ruka. In light of that, I’d be fine with basically any direction this episode could take – classic classmate drama, Onpu-centric story that humanizes her a bit more, or direct confrontation with Ruka that also gives Onpu more substance. As long as it’s not more witch frogs, I think I’m good.

Alright, that’s enough preamble. Let’s see what’s in store for Doremi and her long-suffering friends!

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Bloom Into You – Episode 2

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Today we return to the so-far excellent Bloom Into You, and take another stab at surviving the teenage experience! The show’s first episode demonstrated a variety of unique strengths, from its attractive backgrounds and purposeful direction to its fairly convincing characterization and dialogue. Yuu’s insecurities and overall personality already feel reasonably well established, though she’s still mostly been characterized in terms of her feelings towards romance. Touko is a bit further away from us, but that’s expected and intentional – episode one was largely from Yuu’s perspective, and Touko is a mystery to Yuu.

The show is also demonstrating an extremely welcome sensitivity when it comes to gay relationships. I’m used to the inherently salacious “this is such a scandal” approach of shows like Citrus or Love To-Lie Angle, but here, two girls potentially being in love is treated with genuine sensitivity. Not only are Yuu and Touko’s feelings treated with respect, but the show has already naturally illustrated the inherent social pressure to conform to your assumed sexuality. Scenes like Yuu’s friends lamenting that her lack of interest in boys means they “can’t have girl talk” demonstrate how young gay people aren’t just beset by out-and-out bullies and bigots; the base assumptions of a heteronormative society can leave us isolated even from our closest friends.

Finally, I’m also very intrigued by Bloom Into You’s fractured relationship with shoujo storytelling. The show opened with Yuu outright declaring her fascination with love as depicted in adolescent fiction, and the first episode constantly presented a negotiation between interrogating shoujo storytelling and outright embracing it for its own purposes (like for Yuu’s fairy tale introduction to Touko). I’m fascinated by the uneasy relationship between not just our lives and our expectations, but also reality and the fictions we make of it, so Bloom Into You’s restless dance with fantasy is also very compelling to me. With all that said, let’s dive into another episode!

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Fall 2018 – Week 7 in Review

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We’re into the proving grounds at this point, folks. With the season over halfway over, we’re now entering the episodes that demonstrate whether our seasonal crop are merely capable of pulling off a couple great episodes, no more than a strong aesthetic sensibility, or a genuinely lasting work of fiction. Our various contenders are all answering this question through whatever means they can muster, but so far, it’s the action team-up of Thunderbolt/JoJo and the relentless consistency of Run with the Wind that are setting the pace. Both Gridman and Tsurune are still perfectly engaging shows, but they haven’t really presented that hard sell yet – Tsurune’s emotional drama still feels a little underwritten, while Gridman’s many mysteries haven’t quite congealed into a thrilling whole. Still, it’s the messiness of fiction that’s often most satisfying to write about, and we’ve got plenty to celebrate even in the season’s shakier shows. Let’s run down one more week in anime!

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Why It Works: The Spectacular Boat Battle of Abbacchio

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Hell no I won’t stop talking about JoJo. This week’s Why It Works article is basically a piece I was destined to write at some point – a breakdown of the various style shifts apparent in the move from Diamond is Unbreakable to Golden Wind. I was initially hesitant to embrace Golden Wind’s style, particularly after I so adored the compositional glory of Diamond, but the show has absolutely sold its unique identity at this point. New JoJo is grosser and closer and more focused on movement than Diamond, and all those qualities are resulting in a very engaging production. Here’s the piece!

Golden Wind’s Manifesto: The Spectacular Boat Battle of Abbacchio