This week on Why It Works, I finally start on a big craft breakdown for Megalo Box, exploring the many smart decisions that made its recent Aragaki fight so spectacular. Megalo Box has always been a stylish and entertaining show, but the storytelling here felt the most sturdily constructed and rewarding so far. I hope you enjoy the piece!
Junk Dog Vs. Soldier: MEGALOBOX’s Finest Fight
In trying to collect my thoughts on Annihilation, my mind kept returning to that earlier scifi/horror “humans are overrun by a new order” classic Jurassic Park, and that film’s own relative optimism. Putting aside one-liners like “must go faster” and “clever girl,” I feel like that film’s soul was captured in the line “life finds a way.” It’s unsurprising that a heart-on-sleeve director like Spielberg would make a movie about dinosaurs eating people into something life-affirming, and I can’t help but shiver at the contrast between that and Alex Garland’s comparatively soul-destroying Annihilation. Life might find a way in Annihilation, but it’s highly doubtful that we’ll be finding a way along with it.
My Hero Academia followed up on what basically felt like its first act climax with some cooldown in this volume, focusing on lots of nitty-gritty tactical fights and introducing a whole country’s worth of new heroes in training. It’s a good time, you can check out my further thoughts through the link below, etc etc.
Today I’ve got a review of one of Monogatari’s strangest properties, the mini-season of vignettes known as Koyomimonogatari. This season’s certainly pretty different structurally from Monogatari’s usual fare, but if you’ve made it this far in the series, I can’t imagine you wouldn’t enjoy its rambling nonsense. Here’s the review!
At long last, we’re back for more Chihayafuru! Well, maybe “at long last” from where you’re standing – from my position, I actually just finished writing up the previous episode a few hours ago, and simply couldn’t wait to continue the group tournament. I tricked you into thinking an equal amount of time had passed for both of us by feigning familiarity, a little bit of “movie magic” for all you folks back home.
Anyway, yes, Chihayafuru. The previous episode was indeed a can’t-put-down tier one, and not even because it was centered on any particularly climactic or stressful match – it was just a well-articulated team battle from start to finish, making the absolute most of a lopsided team of opponents with one very specific strength. “This team has mastered quiz games so well they’re natural card memorizers” wouldn’t seem like the most dramatically fertile of gimmicks, but it ended up resulting in a fight that highlighted both Chihaya’s greatest strength (her buzzer-beating speed, now defined more as a trainable skill than a natural talent) and her greatest weakness (her emotional flappability and inability to handle unexpected situations). And with that match concluded and Arata’s tournament eligibility confirmed, it seems likely we may get a more bare-knuckle brawl this time, involving the entire team in a generally close match. But first, let’s see what Nishida has to say about Tsutomu!
Princess Tutu’s seventh episode represented a serious break from the show’s initially episodic nature, offering a sequence of revelations that each undercut the simplicity of “Tutu must spend each episode seeking a shard and ultimately returning it to Mytho.” We learned that Drosselmeyer truly has been dead for a long time, and that his goal in setting up this narrative was nothing more lofty than finding a way to amuse himself. We also witnessed the first sequence of actual, meaningful communication between Mytho and Tutu, where Mytho’s initial fear of her ultimately gave way to a genuine desire to see her task completed. And finally, we received direct confirmation that Rue and the raven are at the very least dramatically linked, if not the same person. As Tutu nears the end of its first half, it seems clear that the magical girl template which sustained its early episodes is beginning to fray, and its characters are starting to test their narrative bonds.
The anime was good this week, folks. Actually, the anime’s been pretty damn good these past two weeks, with Megalo Box pulling off what was easily its most satisfying fight yet, Hinamatsuri finally establishing what feels like a confident balance between its various modes, and Legend of the Galactic Heroes just chugging away as consistently as ever. If Megalo Box can maintain the standard set by the second half of Aragaki’s fight, it could easily end up being my favorite show of the season – of course, that also depends on how My Hero Academia handles its upcoming highlights. We’ve basically got a seasoned pro squaring off against an energetic young gun here, and whoever wins, we in the audience get to enjoy all of it. Let’s settle back and run these past weeks down in one more week in review!
For this week’s Crunchyroll article, I used Hinamatsuri as a platform to celebrate another of my favorite topics in fiction: found families. As I say in the piece, I think this world could use far more validation of the families we choose for ourselves, and it’s always nice to find more reasons to recommend shows like Sekai Seifuku or March comes in like a lion. There are only so many ways as an anime critic to strike my “I did a good deed today” itch, but I think leading more people to Rei Kiriyama’s story hopefully qualifies.
Family is What You Make of It in HINAMATSURI!
Let’s check back in with Ojamajo Doremi! Doremi’s show is one of the few good things in this sunblasted hellscape of a modern world, and I’m always happy to have a chance to stop in with her and the girls. The show’s new arc hasn’t really proven itself yet, and has in fact made some pretty awkward choices so far, with the most glaring being “adding a second annoying mascot character who’s also a horny old man.” “Horny old man characters” and “inspiring and emotionally educational shows for children” don’t really seem like a natural mix to me, but everyone who’s watched Doremi says the show actually improves over its running time, so I’m not worried this will really derail anything. I’m more just curious as to when this new “Bad Item” arc will actually start paying off, and what form that payoff will take.
The main issue I have with Doremi at the moment is that all of its witch world conflicts are far less interesting than its mundane classroom conflicts, because they’re invented magic-centric conflicts with no relevance to anything outside of themselves. Issues like “Majo Ruka has stolen the shop” and “we need to seal these Bad Items” possess no inherent thematic or emotional weight – the show can give them that weight, but it’s starting from a more arbitrary position than a conflict like “Hadzuki needs to learn boundaries regarding making her friends’ choices for them.” But Doremi has found resonant emotional material in unlikely places before, so I’m eager to see how it handles this new challenge. Let’s get right to the next Ojamajo Doremi!
Captain’s Log: I am currently five days into preview week, and team morale is approaching dangerously low levels. If the crew have to struggle through one more awful isekai or rote otome adaptation, I’m not sure what might happen. In light of this, I’m requisitioning one (1) episode of Chihayafuru to raise team spirits, reminding everyone that anime can also be good and fun and not an exhausting, spirit-breaking experience. Give my regards to the folks back home, and pray for our safe return.
Folks, it’s time for Chihayafuru. Our last episode turned out to be an unexpectedly important digression from Chihaya’s team tournament, as Arata arrived and found himself roped into secretly helping an entirely different team. In base narrative terms, the only major takeaway from that digression was “Arata is now in danger of being disqualified from the singles tournament” – a dash of fairly arbitrary drama, and a threat that I’m really hoping is just there to be an empty cliffhanger. On the other hand, in connecting-with-the-cast terms, Arata’s match was an absolutely essential bit of relationship building for Arata and the audience. Arata doesn’t need to connect with the other characters – he needs to connect with us, and join his costars as an approachable human being. Last episode did an excellent job of furthering that goal, and I’m very ready to see the show follow through on his newfound relatability. Let’s get to the karuta!