Though Trump’s active presidency has reduced some of the humor of dril’s “Trump has no time to fuck” tweet, rest assured, I am feeling exactly that tweet at the moment. Still buried under preview week work, still got many projects to do today. What’s this post about? March! Right, March had an episode. It was fine. Here’s my review, and you can check out my notes below. I’M OFF!
Hunter x Hunter – Volume 34
Hunter x Hunter’s thirty-third volume was entirely dedicated to establishing the base conflict of the Dark Continent arc. Even with a full volume worth of board-adjusting and exposition, those chapters still felt like they were bursting at the seams with pure information. The king’s declaration, and his alliance with Beyond. The Hunter Association’s reaction to that announcement, and their conscription of Kurapika and other potential allies. The background interference of Ging and Paristan, and the concerns of the larger scientific community. The introduction of the king’s succession war, and Kurapika’s subsequent enrollment in the youngest prince’s service. All of that served as meaty but ultimately passive setup, setting the stage for volume thirty-four to come barreling out the gate with the true start of the arc.
Why It Works: Five Things I Love About A Place Further Than the Universe
Welp, bit late in getting this one on the blog, mostly because I’m still swamped by preview week work. I basically took all the craft stuff I found most compelling about A Place Further Than the Universe’s first episode and formatted it into a munchable listicle format. Alright, off to my next piece!
Five Things I Love About A Place Further Than the Universe
Simoun – Episode 6
It’s time to return to Simoun! Episode five represented a key turning point for the show, in that it was the first time one of our protagonists actually decided they want to do something. It initially seemed like Aaeru would be the driven, goal-oriented character who pulled the rest of this team along with her, but as episode four revealed, the reason she was actually so insistent on becoming a Priestess was because she too was trapped by uncertainty, and unsure of who she wanted to become. With Neviril also paralyzed in the wake of her former partner’s death, the show was left with essentially no one to push the narrative forward – fortunately, Limone was able to step up and remember the passion that sent her down the path of a Priestess in the first place. Limone doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d care that much about shaking other people out of their insecurities, but with Chor Tempest now back on active duty, I’m guessing at least her and Aaeru will continue to keep things moving.
That said, I don’t know if this is the kind of show that could comfortably transition into a quasi-monster of the week mode. The plain fact is, this show’s two biggest weaknesses are its CG ships and its generally poor direction (along with some misguided music cues). You can construct an action sequence to minimize the awkwardness of questionable CG, but I don’t trust this director to manage that. Episode five demonstrated the problems there: Limone’s character turn came off well enough, but the actual fight was almost incoherent. We’ll just have to see how Simoun handles itself as Chor Tempest returns to battle. Let’s get right to it!
March comes in like a lion – Episode 34
March comes in like a lion returned this week, offering some welcome narrative progression in Hina’s school bullying arc. I was kinda hoping that Akari would really let the bully’s mom have it, but in retrospect, having this be the moment where Hina steps up to care for her sister was pretty much the only way this could have gone. Hina’s actions here were a perfect progression of her growing strength, while Akari clearly needs to learn that her promise to her mother doesn’t mean she has to do everything herself. A fine episode on the whole.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my episode notes below.
Chihayafuru – Episode 21
Let’s get the heck back to Chihayafuru! Our last episode saw Taichi at one of his lowest points so far, vainly scrambling to catch up to Chihaya and then promptly being sidetracked by Arata’s return. The episode demonstrated a real danger of slipping back into mopey Destined Karuta Buddies territory, but Taichi fortunately realized that he’s actually happy to see Arata returning, meaning I’ve got reasonable hopes we won’t be returning to the romantic sulk-fest tone. Chihayafuru’s shoujo romance plot is far and away its weakest material, and Arata has unfortunately not gotten much of an opportunity to do anything outside of that particular dramatic mode.
I’d love to see Arata himself playing in a challenging match, but I get the feeling we’re still some distance away from allowing Arata to show competitive vulnerability. Arata’s demonstrated plenty of emotional vulnerability, but as a karuta player, he remains more a summit to aspire to than an active competitor with his own strengths and weaknesses. But even if strong Arata material is still some distance away, with last episode having represented something of a cooldown from the previous tournament, it’s likely we’ll soon be gearing up for our next big matches. Let’s get right back to Chihayafuru!
Simoun – Episode 5
Let’s dive right back into Simoun! Episode four featured a pretty dramatic turn for the series, as Aaeru and Limone found themselves coming face-to-face with the enemy. The show’s execution of that confrontation felt a little wonky, but the sequence did a solid job of bringing us closer to both Aaeru and Limone, and hopefully bringing the two of them closer as well. The episode ended pretty much as soon as the pair returned, so it’ll be up to this episode to reveal exactly how that experience shifted things for this crew. Aaeru was already the one most gung-ho about battling, so what will experiencing some of the true terror and ugliness of battle do for her mindset? Aaeru’s been pretty much carrying this narrative by herself for the past couple episodes, so I’m hoping the scars of this experience finally prompt Neviril or some of the other priestesses to take a more active role in the story. Let’s get right to it and find out!
Why It Works: Charting Trigger’s Path to Darling in the Franxx
I’ve got a very Preview Week article up for Crunchyroll this week, basically taking a tour back through Trigger’s catalog in the leadup to their promising new creation. Trigger have been an exceedingly hit or miss studio for me, largely because almost all of Imaishi’s dramatic sensibilities are anathema to my own, but the sense of, well, cartoonishness that permeates all their shows seems hard not to love. I love their sense of visual energy and fun, I just don’t love dick jokes and punches quite as much as Imaishi apparently does. That means I’m in a pretty good position for Franxx, considering its own director, and I hope the show turns out well.
Charting Trigger’s Path to Darling in the Franxx
A Journey Through Kyoto Animation
I’ve got a big ol’ Anime News Network editorial out for you guys today – my journey through Kyoto Animation, along with a running down of my own top ten shows from my favorite studio! It was really fun writing this piece, as I got to explore more fragmented-than-usual elements of my appreciation for the studio, and spin them into a larger narrative of why all their little choices add up to a studio whose works tend to speak so directly to me. Anime on the whole is often defined by fragmentary strengths, and I’m always happy to celebrate the unique nature of this wonderful medium. I hope you enjoy the piece!
A Journey Through Kyoto Animation
Top Ten Anime of 2017
That fabled time has come once again. With four full seasons of anime on the books, it’s time to mark out the true all-stars, the cream of the crop, the shows we just might remember in spite of our recency-mad fandom culture. I normally preface posts like this with a glib assurance that rankings don’t really matter, art deserves to be engaged with in a manner more meaningful than relative evaluation, and thus this whole ordeal is a hopeless exercise. That all remains true, but at the end of a year that’s offered plenty of things to be cynical about in the real world, I’d rather end this introduction on a note of honest positivity. Rankings aren’t bad things. Not only are they fun to read, but to people who actually haven’t spent countless hours poring over the year’s better and worse selections, rankings can genuinely help point people in useful directions. On top of that, simply celebrating the shows I love is one of my favorite things about criticism, and what’s a better venue for pure celebration than a list of my recent favorites? So let’s put the critical knives aside, and appreciate how good some cartoons can be. Here’s my Top 10 Anime of 2017!