Kiznaiver – Episode 3

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Kiznaiver went a long ways towards alleviating my main concerns in its third episode. The important thing here was that in contrast to the first two episodes’ big, bold declarations of feelings, this one had some legitimately sharp incidental character writing. Obviously Mari Okada is perfectly capable of sculpting fully realized characters, but the first two episodes made me worried this whole show was going to exist at a ridiculously heightened emotional revelation tenor, and this episode avoided that entirely. I’m happy to see this sensitivity and restraint, and I hope it keeps up until the show decides to punch us in the face with emotions again.

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

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The Lost Village – Episode 4

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This week’s Lost Village initiated what I hope will be a consistent trend, where the more the show leans into its actual horror plot, the less it feels like a show that shouldn’t possibly exist. The Lost Village has an absolutely ridiculous cast and ludicrous dialogue, but when those characters are being forced to react to monsters and killers appearing in cracks of thunder and stuff like that, they react pretty much the same way anyone else would. So I guess as long as this cast keeps being continuously attacked and terrified, The Lost Village will continue to be able to pretend it is actually a real show.

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

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UQ Holder, Volume 4 – Review

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We’re there! We’ve arrived! UQ Holder is finally good! For the first time, I actually enjoyed a volume of this manga from start to finish. The conflict was actually engaging, the application of the new version of immortality was really creative, and Tota’s rapport with this volume’s new character was actually engaging. It’s honestly just a relief to see Akamatsu can still write – I was really worried for a while there, and figured this manga might just ride entirely on his polished-but-kinda-sterile art chops, but here we are back in the kind of inventive shounen storytelling that made Negima so much fun. Of course, this volume rode almost entirely on how much Kirie adds to the story, so I guess I’ll just have to hope she either sticks around or the manga finds other ways to stay this fun.

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

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Planetes – Episode 1

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Oh man, what a premise. So, in an age of bountiful space travel, humanity has discovered a new threat lurking in the atmosphere – its own accumulated garbage, courtesy of many decades of letting dead satellites and junked ships and various other machine parts all just kinda float there. So in order to avoid having more and more ships and satellites get damaged by ultra-fast flying garbage, companies begin to create debris gathering departments, the most high-altitude janitors in the business.

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Puella Magi Madoka Magica – Episode 8

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“Like a spent gladiator / crawling in the colosseum ducts / he can count on his remaining limbs / all the people he can trust.”
– The Mountain Goats

Sayaka Miki is falling apart. As she strikes again and again down on the fallen witch, we see a girl who’s completely given in to her anger, because she has nothing else to guide her. In the wake of her fight, she doesn’t even use this chance to protect herself – she tosses the Grief Seed to Kyouko, saying she doesn’t want to “owe” Kyouko anything. Sayaka’s need to be a hero has isolated her entirely now, and Kyouko revealing that they have much in common has actually made things worse for her. Sayaka doesn’t want to believe Kyouko is an older, wiser version of herself – she wants to believe she’s an enemy of justice, and thus foists that identity on her. What Sayaka wanted has spiraled beyond her reach, and with the situation no longer in her control, she reverts to her simplistic “I just have to be stronger to make this work.” But none of these characters are strong enough to make it alone.

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C³ – Review

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You know, I had a pretty fine time with C³. This may at least in part come down to the fact that I watched it directly after Psycho-Pass 2, which was a legitimately repellent experience. In comparison to that, C³ was a breath of fresh air – sure, the writing might have been crap and the fanservice gags tired as hell, but this show actually liked its characters, and was able to have fun sometimes. C³ adolescent grimdark nonsense was limited to stuff like Fear’s ridiculous set of torture-themed attacks, instead of, you know, stabbing puppies to death and exploding people for no reason. Also, Shin Oonuma kinda rolled his weird-ass visual brand all over this one, which at least gave me plenty of neat stuff to look at. As far as bad shows go, C³ is a perfectly harmless one.

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

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Spring 2016 – Week 3 in Review

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With this season’s extended preview week finally over, I found myself left with way too many fine shows to watch. Thus, this week was one more return to The Culling, that fun time of year when shows that would be reasonable watches in weaker seasons all get the axe purely for pragmatic reasons. Between full show reviews, Current Projects work, and other various media, I can only really spare the time for a bit more than half a dozen airing shows, and so anything that isn’t truly noteworthy had to be cut. That still didn’t make this easy, of course – this season is good, I want to watch everything I can. But I was able to trim some hedges here and there.

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One Piece – Volume 5

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I’m pretty stuck on this train at this point. One Piece’s fifth volume concludes the fight with Kuro’s cat-themed pirates, and adds one more member to Luffy’s humble crew. In doing so, it consistently demonstrates the two-pronged atmospheric attack that I assume has made One Piece such an unstoppable institution. The volume opens with Luffy fighting Kuro on the slopes while Usopp’s pirates attempt to stop Django, who react to his new weapons with the wonderfully absurd “he’s not a typical traveling hypnotist after all!” It’s absurdity and action all the way down, a ride that doesn’t let up for the first two-thirds of the volume.

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Flying Witch – Episodes 1-2

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Flying Witch is charming and solidly constructed and just a very easy time all around. I often had trouble thinking of things to say about last season’s Dagashi Kashi, but I don’t think I’m going to have that problem here – Flying Witch’s craft is strong enough that it’s actually easy and satisfying to talk about, giving me just a hint of that old Hyouka high. I’m also really looking forward to seeing the various ways the show integrates its light magical conceit into the storytelling; understated magical realism is one of my favorite things, so Flying Witch is definitely hitting a specific enjoyable note for me. Easily one of the highlights of the season so far.

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

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Kiznaiver – Episodes 1-2

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And continuing this season’s new contenders, we have Kiznaiver, a show that I really, really want to believe can triumph over my serious misgivings. I hate to make another writeup even partially about Okada specifically, but hey, I’m writing up two of her shows and she has an extremely distinctive style. In Kiznaiver’s case, that leaves me worried, because I feel like this could turn out exactly like A Lull in the Sea – great premise, nice setup, and then a bunch of rambling in emotional circles. Hopefully this story has other places to go, because I certainly like the platform they’ve set up here.

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

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