Mysterious Girlfriend X, Volume 1 – Review

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Today I reviewed Mysterious Girlfriend X, that weird manga with the spit-bond premise. I’d actually watched the anime a while back, and enjoyed it more than I expected too, even though the second half kind of fell apart. But this volume didn’t get to any of the show’s weaker material, and thus was more or less strong from start to finish. At its best, Mysterious Girlfriend X uses its fundamentally uncomfortable premise to explore how adolescent sexuality really is fundamentally uncomfortable, full of weird jolts of intimacy and difficult navigation of personal boundaries. The manga isn’t always able to make good on that premise, but there’s enough strong stuff here to make at least this volume an easy recommendation.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my progressively lazier chapter notes below!

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Spring 2016 – Week 7 in Review

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Our strong spring season continued to chug merrily along this week, offering a few new highlights and a clunker or two, as you might expect. My weekly list has been paired down to the point where even the disappointing episodes are only mediocre entries in fundamentally strong shows, which feels like a real luxury (I dropped Macross Delta, incidentally, which I realized I hadn’t really been impressed with for a good 4-5 episodes). And both Kiznaiver and The Lost Village actually seem to be improving as they go along, which I wouldn’t expect from such shaky and unpredictable productions. Top that off with the reliably competent My Hero Academia and the consistently stunning Concrete Revolutio, and you’ve got a season that never fails to at least entertain. Let’s RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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My Hero Academia, Volume 4 – Review

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My Hero Academia is in absolute peak form all throughout this fourth volume. The school competition premise allows all of the manga’s characters to just wail on each other for eight chapters straight, which is pretty much all I could ever wanted from this series. The setup of the competition’s second round really facilitates having the characters both find new uses of their powers and see how they can work in concert with each other, making for the most consistently thrilling battles of the series. Individual unique powers are cool enough, but forcing these very imbalanced characters to play off each other is just a far better application of the manga’s premise. It’s nice to see an author so aware of what makes their own story compelling.

No notes this time, since I just sped through this one without taking a breath. But you can check out my full review over at ANN!

My Hero Academia

 

Planetes – Episode 2

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I mentioned in my last episode writeup that so far, Planetes was succeeding largely on premise and polish. On top of that, I also briefly talked about how both the show’s genre structure and its ending song somewhat gave away the fact that this was likely Hachimaki’s story, as he reignites the passion that sent him into space in the first place. This second episode reaffirmed all those points, and further underlined how important good storytelling fundamentals can be. On top of that, it was just a fine vignette that stared directly into the abyss of an unfulfilling professional life. For a show about spacemen in a glorious scifi future, Planetes is far more grounded than the vast majority of anime out there.

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Flying Witch – Episode 6

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Flying Witch had a bit of a dud episode this week, mainly because the second half’s big punchline moved swiftly from cute to irritating as the show drew it out. Flying Witch has generally been very good about not letting any given joke outstay its welcome, but this episode used a fairly weak concept as a load-bearing punchline, and the result was kind of disappointing. But hey, I’ve come to expect most anime comedies to have at least a few weak notes here and there. We can’t all be The Lost Village.

You can check out my episode review over at ANN, or my notes below.

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Kiznaiver – Episode 6

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Kiznaiver had one of its best episodes yet this week, an episode that was equally satisfying in dramatic and visual terms. Okay, that’s kind of a lie – Kiznaiver’s design and direction are just god dang phenomenal, and continue to elevate what would likely be a pretty mediocre show in other hands. It’s always great to find a show that gives me a new director to keep an eye on, and Kiznaiver definitely qualifies. But that aside, this was still a dramatically effective episode on its own terms, full of nice exchanges between the whole cast. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the show is finding its footing or anything, but it’s still got plenty of nice stuff to offer.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

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The Lost Village – Episode 7

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The Lost Village was in peak form this week, pulling off an episode that was both consistently hilarious and also legitimately exciting. With the plot kicking into high gear, Mizushima’s strengths as a director were at their most prominent here, as he abandoned the bizarre framing affectation of the earlier debates in order to make Masaki’s near-execution an actually thrilling spectacle. And there were so many wonderful non-sequiturs scattered throughout this episode that it felt almost like this show was intentionally designed to inspire bad tweets. The Lost Village is itself an extremely good bad tweet. I love this show.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

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Puella Magi Madoka Magica – Episode 12

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“Can you hear the bells / Can you hear the alarm / Can you give away your life, like a good luck charm?”
– The Vigilantes of Love

Madoka Magica’s final episode does not end in a climactic battle. Madoka “defeats” Walpurgisnacht, but their confrontation takes all of fifteen seconds, and has little to do with what this episode is about. Madoka opens this episode by telling Homura that she has found her wish, and is going to become a magical girl. Homura despairs at this, saying “if that’s true, what have I been fighting for?” And Madoka’s response to this is the essence of her wish, of the certainty that she wishes to bring to this world. “Believe in me,” she says. “I promise that what you’ve done for me will not be in vain.”

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Dead Dead Demon’s Dededededestruction – Volume 1

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Dead Dead Demon’s Dededededestruction opens with a kooky children’s comic, clearly reminiscent of Doraemon. A child protagonist has a problem, their mushroom-shaped friend has just the invention to solve it, and trouble ensues. The camera then pulls back to reveal this text as an in-universe comic, one of countless objects strewn across a teenage girl’s messy, cluttered bedroom. It’s a fair enough metaphor for Asano’s work, which consistently transposes the purity of tiny emotional fragments against the inescapable messiness of everyday living. And it’s perhaps even more appropriate for this story, given Asano has outright admitted that Demon’s more cutesy character designs are intended to trick young people into reading his work. Dead Dead Demon isn’t exactly Doraemon, but it could well be intended as his version of a story for children.

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Harmony – Review

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So I went and reviewed another Project Itoh movie, and this one was basically terrible from start to finish. Absolutely awful prose, super underwritten narrative, not particularly impressive visuals. It basically felt like an actual teenager’s take on neuroscience and the evils of society and whatnot, but not in a way that made its characters feel any more real. Empire of Corpses was fun because it worked as an adventure even if it failed as a thematic exploration, but Harmony was basically all themey-wemey monologues, and so it just kinda flailed around the whole time. It’s a shame!

You can check out my full review over at ANN.

Harmony