Shinobu Time – Review

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It’s time for more Monogatari! It’s time for… well, probably the weakest arc of season two, and also one of the weakest arcs of the entire series. When Monogatari focuses on Araragi and Mayoi, bad things tend to happen, and this arc is no exception – fortunately, the arc’s stellar conclusion and beautiful visuals do at least some work to lessen the sting. And hey, at least this gives me the opportunity to take some acid shots at Monogatari’s “witty sense of humor.” No, I’m not petty.

My full ANN review is here. Copious episodic notes on nice shots and character work below!

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Rolling Girls – Episode 3

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As expected, Rolling Girls eased off the accelerator this week in order to transition into what will likely be its standard format – the girls visit a new country, trouble happens, the girls either solve it or are just sort of there, everyone moves on. I’m totally fine with that format given the fun of Rolling Girls’ aesthetics – but as I say in my post, the real trial here will be in making the leads themselves fun people to follow. The show isn’t there yet, which is a shame, but we’ve still got time.

My full ANN post is available here. Notes below!

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Log Horizon II – Episode 16

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Slow episode this week, as we spent time eating lunch, and then dinner, and then lunch again with Tohya and friends. It always seems a little strange to me that the same show contains both Shiroe’s narrative and the Tohya/Minori stuff – yeah, it’s not like the Shiroe narrative is the height of narrative/thematic complexity, but it feels like this material is aimed at an audience significantly younger than the rest of the show. Are the same people going to enjoy watching Tohya figure out how maps work and also be able to sit still for a twenty minute speech on the double-edged nature of MMO fanaticism? I dunno.

Anyway. Here’s my full ANN writeup on the episode. Somewhat exasperated notes below!

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Parasyte – Episode 15

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Parasyte’s kinda just rambling along at the moment, retreading character points and slowly making its way towards exciting plot beats. There’s just a critical mass a show can reach of touching on certain refrains without further exploring them where it starts to drag, and Parasyte’s about there right now. My eyes were kind of glazed during this episode’s middle sequences, but I fortunately perked up at the ending, as it seems the plot’s starting to kick in again. Go kick some ass, Shinichi. Go do something, for chrissake.

My full ANN post available here. Notes are below!

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Winter 2015 – Week 2 in Review

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I am watching too many shows. Way too many shows. Shows on backlog and shows for release review and too many goddamn airing shows. I’ve tried to be ruthless. I cut Saekano because the first few minutes seemed typical. I cut Earth High Defense Club because I just didn’t feel like it. But there’s too much good anime! Too many of the premiers weren’t red herrings, too many of the long shots turned out to be great. I’m not gonna survive this season, you guys. Something’s gonna snap.

Well, whatever. Let’s run ’em down, starting with the last two episodes of Shirobako!

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Yuri Kuma Arashi – Episode 3

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Time for more gay bears! I did an absurd megapost for last week’s episode, and that’s not sustainable, but I should be able to keep up reasonably-sized writeups on this thing. I mean, it’s really up to Ikuhara, I suppose – I feel like I’ve got a decent handle on the flower/bird/bear imagery at the moment, but who knows where we’ll be five episodes from now. All that we’ve seen up til now could very well be a clever trap, and the bears will end up being representative of late capitalism instead of societally villainized sexuality. Stranger things have happened.

But no use theorizing on how exactly this show will make me look dumb in the future. Let’s get to the bears!

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Log Horizon S1 – Review

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Preview week’s done, so we’re back on the review train! I actually watched most of this back over winter break, in a rigorous three-day marathon of Smooth Nyanta and friends. The show remains as compelling in its worldbuilding and lukewarm in its aesthetics as it did the first time around, and is actually about as marathon-able as a show can probably be. This second viewing didn’t really illuminate any themes I missed the first time around, but goddamnit if that was going to keep me from taking a bunch of notes anyway.

Here’s my full ANN review, covering about halfway through the People of the Land conference. Full notes are below!

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Rolling Girls – Episodes 1-2

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These were some lovely, lovely episodes. The animation and art design, the fun world, the whole Riot Grrl theme – it’s excellent stuff. I kinda wish we weren’t forced to watch it in Funimation streaming quality, but what can you do. These first two episodes largely just set up the premise, and we still don’t really know what these rolling girls are after, so the real work starts here – but if this show can keep up the idea density and visual flare of its start, we’re in for a fun ride.

My full ANN post is available here. Notes on episode two are below!

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Log Horizon II – Episode 15

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Welp, we’re back with the kids again. This was a slow, slice-of-life style episode, with lots of gags and enjoying food, but it did establish a new character conflict for Isuzu and new overall goal for the younger team. It’s hard to really feel much enthusiasm for a quest that doesn’t have any inherent tension to it, but hopefully the character conflicts will give it some weight. And “go get quest materials to make a bag” is such a boring starting narrative that I have to assume this will go somewhere else eventually… or it could just focus on the concert stuff, I guess.

Anyway. Here’s my ANN post on the episode, and you can check out my rough notes below!

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Parasyte – Episode 14

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This episode felt kinda unfocused, with a bunch of general plot movement taking the place of one focused conflict. The plot movement was decently engaging though, and it’s nice to see basically all our principles continuing to evolve – Shinichi, Migi, and Ryouko all exhibited new wrinkles in their evolution this week, and it’s always pretty great seeing Ryouko handle her baby like a sack of potatoes. Parasyte chugs along.

My full ANN post is available here. Notes below!

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