Paranoia Agent – Episode 11

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Paranoia Agent isn’t quite winding down yet, but it is finally returning to its original core cast. This week we were introduced to one more viewpoint character, but Mrs. Ikari’s story ended up doubling as a visit back into the life of her husband, the former police chief Keichi Ikari. Keichi’s not doing so well, post-firing – he’s juggling several jobs and avoiding his home and generally feeling like a person that the world has passed by. I enjoyed both halves of this episode, though it couldn’t match the highlights of standouts like last week. But the Shonen Bat interview was an engaging device, and Keichi was given some welcome texture through the new perspective his wife provided. Another solid episode for Paranoia Agent.

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

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Turn A Gundam, Part Two – Review

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As mentioned in this week in review post, I recently returned to Turn A Gundam, sweeping through the second half and thoroughly enjoying the process. I definitely had some central issues with these episodes – in particular, the moon setting and villains never managed to be half as engaging as the earlier material. But even though you’d think those would be major flaws, this half still felt overall more accomplished than the first. Part of that came down to the fact that the show had real momentum now; in the first half, far too many episodes were given over to episodic stories that didn’t amount to much (with Poe and Will Game’s narratives being the worst of them). Here, even though I wasn’t happy with every choice, things were moving almost all the time. Additionally, this second half also managed to build on and complicate the first half’s best characters, making almost all the dramatic clashes here feel weighted and satisfying. Overall, I’d definitely recommend Turn A Gundam to anyone looking for an easy, satisfying entrance into the Gundam franchise.

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

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Gatchaman Crowds insight – Episode 11

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AW SHIT THIS EPISODE FUUUUUUU. I was a little worried about where insight would be going at the end of last week/beginning of this one, but man, this was a brutal answer. It’s an answer I’m surprised Hajime would come up with, since it requires an acknowledgment of many of the cynical elements of this season that I figure she’d want to reject. But Hajime’s not stupid, she’s just very reserved with her thoughts, so I guess it’d make sense that she could play this game as well.

Anyway, I already wrote up a storm about this one in my review and notes, so let’s get to it! My review is thataway, my notes are below!

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Classroom Crisis – Episode 12

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Classroom Crisis spent this episode ramping up to a high-speed finale, strapping Nagisa into a jury-rigged X-2 ship just to give Iris a future opportunity to show off her stuff. The road there was enjoyable enough, though having Yuji come back as a newly unhinged villain didn’t do much for the series. Fortunately, this episode also gave Angelina a big opportunity to get mad and kick all kinds of ass, which is always a good time. It’s looking like Classroom Crisis will be ending respectably but not fantastically, which is a fine compromise for a show that’s been a series of compromises from the start.

You can check out my full review over at ANN. Notes below!

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The Idolmaster – Review

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Yep, big surprise, I reviewed The Idolmaster. As I’m sure you know if you’ve been reading the week in review posts, I was a big fan of this show – in fact, its final score ends up approaching Flowers of Evil/Ping Pong the Animation levels, so yeah, this was definitely a favorite. I was actually a huge fan of this show in spite of the fact that neither of its final emotional arcs really worked for me. I couldn’t buy into either Chihaya or Haruka’s drama, and both of their stories struck me as kind of contrived and hollow. But the execution of those stories was remarkable, and the show overall had such an incredible sheen and understanding of quick touchstone character work that I can barely fault the show for failing in its most emotionally ambitious moments. Idolmaster nailed the small moments, the ones where characters were just coming to understand each other through proximity and time, and that stuff does great work in justifying a couple melodramatic overreaches.

Plus, and this bears repeating many, many times, Idolmaster is so friggin’ beautiful. Holy crap this animation, holy crap this direction, holy crap basically everything about this show’s visual and aural storytelling. Christ, I wish I got to complain about storytelling quibbles in shows this beautiful more often. I wish the general problem was “this show is a visual masterpiece, but sometimes it’s not so good at executing on emotional setpieces.” It’s kind of funny to me that a couple years ago, I probably wouldn’t have been able to appreciate this show, but would likely have been groaning about there being no heir of Gainax to take up the legacy of shows like Evangelion and FLCL. Well, Gainax’s children are here, and they’re doing the best they can. Hire a couple better writers and we’ll be right back in the golden age.

You can check out my extremely positive review over at ANN, or run down my pages and pages and pages of notes below!

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Summer 2015 – Week 11 in Review

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Wednesday has come again! Once again, I devoured an absurd bounty of anime this week, all concentrated into one friggin’ show. It turns out when I don’t have a day job, I can really crank through those reviews. Who would have guessed! I’ll probably spend next week working more on site interface stuff and freelance work, working towards establishing ways to make funding specific writeups more accessible, but for now, all I can do is marvel at the fact that I’ve probably watched around seventy episodes worth of anime in the last two weeks.

Fortunately, this week was all upside – not only did I watch the second half of a good show, even the weekly stuff put out some stellar episodes. So let’s start right there, appropriately beginning for the very first time over in this season’s reliable Trash Alley.

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10 Royal Games Plays MGSV, Parts 3-4

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More videos! There was a little gap after that first set, but we’ve got a few more already in the pipeline after this, and should be clearing up the audio issues various helpful commenters pointed out to us (the first of this set still has the annoyingly loud intro, but everything from there on out should be adjusted). Anyway, BACK TO THAT FRIGGIN’ HOSPITAL.

Part Three and Part Four!

Love Live! Movie – Review

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LOVE LIVES IN THEATERS. LOVE LIVES ON THE SCREEN. The Love Lives just cannot be contained, and this weekend I finally got to see those Love Lives large and in charge at my local theater. The movie was very much a fanservice-filled victory lap, but I still had a fun time with it – it’s nice to see these characters again, nice to see some new performances, and holy crap was the crowd into it. Pretty much every time I see an anime in theaters, the crowd hangs on every word, but this was something else. Every joke got a full house of laughter, every sad moment a chorus of “awww”, and every performance a rousing round of applause. Seeing something like Love Live in a theater really brings home the communal nature of a show like this – it’s about characters you’ve all invested in together, and that communal investment is paid back in what you get out of the series. Fans in full costume desperately trading a Rin card for a Maki one is as much “what Love Live is” as any of the actual anime.

Anyway, you can check out my full review over at ANN!

Love Live!

Paranoia Agent – Episode 10

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Dear lord did Paranoia Agent ever rally back. After tossing off what was easily its weakest episode so far, Paranoia Agent apparently decided it was time to throw out a trump card, and so tossed off an episode that skewered the fuck out of anime production while simultaneously working as a self-contained/beautifully composed horror story and also indulging in some lovely new visual tricks besides. This was an episode I’d heard of – given the current existence of Shirobako, it was probably impossible for someone as weirdly embedded in the western anime subculture as me to avoid having heard of “the Paranoia Agent anime episode.” But even for all the unfortunate baggage I’d carried to this episode courtesy of smug old-school fans shitting on Shirobako (which is a goddamn masterpiece, and will easily outlive the scorn of naysayers), I was pretty blindsided by this episode’s unimpeachable quality. Great visuals, fantastic use of classic Kon-isms, and a biting, passionate take on the anime industry. Couple that with a larger frame that actually fits well into Paranoia Agent’s structure, and you’ve got an episode that easily earned its sterling reputation. Paranoia Agent does not fuck around.

You can check out my full review over at ANN (and I go kinda deep on this one, getting pretty specific in my praising of its various aesthetics tricks), or run down my episode notes below!

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A Silent Voice, Volume Two – Review

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Back to Silent Voice, which mercifully got a lot less consistently depressing in this second volume! Fortunately the character work stayed just as strong, making this easily one of the most engaging dramas I’ve checked out recently. Strong art, very strong writing, lots of nice background details… just a whole lot to enjoy in Silent Voice. It’s gonna be tough waiting for each volume to get released now.

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

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