Sword Art Online II – Episode 23

Posted on by

SAO tricked me again this week, pulling off a surprisingly effective episode after last week’s absurdity. The story didn’t necessarily get “better,” but its variables were used more thoughtfully, and the execution was stellar. Even in Fairy Dance, the lion’s share of SAO’s aesthetically effective moments were the ones in the real world – Sugu’s story didn’t land for a variety of reasons, but it was often solidly expressed nonetheless. This episode somehow arrived at a pretty respectable end for Mother’s Rosario, so nice job, SAO.

My full ANN post is right here. Notes below!

Continue reading →

12 Days of Anime #11: MISTER JUSTICE

Posted on by

It was really, really tempting to make this entire list out of moments from Samurai Flamenco. I mean, it’s not like the show’s lacking them – from Miami Ballerina to “THE POLLS GIVE ME STRENGTH” to “actually it’s Flamwenco,” Samurai Flamenco is clearly a rich treasure trove of beautiful, inspiringly ridiculous moments. In the end, I settled on just two moments, and the first clearly had to be the proud, majestic MISTER JUSTICE.

Continue reading →

12 Days of Anime #12: My Neighbor SAO

Posted on by

Hey guys! Yeah, I’m participating in the 12 Days of Anime – an aniblogger project where bloggers put out one post reminiscing on some anime-related moment or memory from the year on each day leading up to our day of pagan tree worship and reverence to our god, consumerism. Considering I already put out basically a post a day, this may not be the most intelligent of choices, but I don’t think anyone’s ever accused me of making many of those. I’ll probably alternating these more or less between personal moments of stuff I either worked on, did, or failed to do and straight-up Perfect Moments in Anime, so look forward to a broad scattering of posts over the next couple weeks. Today I’m starting off with one of my many not-so-bright ideas – going on a journey with Sword Art Online.

Continue reading →

Log Horizon II – Episode 11

Posted on by

Time for this week’s installment of Watching People Narrate Videogames, Triple Threat Raid Edition. This episode was actually pretty great! It couldn’t possibly compare to William Massachusett’s speech (I will never get tired of that speech or that name), but I don’t even really consider that thing a Log Horizon episode. This was a Log Horizon episode, and a very good one at that. Log Horizon is finally getting to describe the actual meat of raid combat, and seems almost giddy to tell us everything it finds fun about these crazy battles.

You can check out my full ANN post here. Notes and such below the cut!

Continue reading →

Parasyte – Episode 11

Posted on by

Parasyte took a moment to catch its breath this week, and so we got little vignettes from a variety of narratives. Which was a lot of fun, actually – Kana’s a pretty endearing mix of confidence and naivety, and that central fight scene was a totally unexpected visual bounty. Almost weirdly so, in fact – so far I’ve felt Parasyte’s atmosphere has generally been more effective than its big action setpieces, but that scene’s action was great. I’ve always liked the way the schoolyard fights generally resolve in one or two quick, brutal strikes, and applying that style to an extended fight made for a really tremendous sequence.

Here’s the full ANN post. Rough episodic notes are below the cut!

Continue reading →

Fall 2014 – Week 10 in Review

Posted on by

Pretty killer episodes this week, at least from the top shelf. KimiUso, Shirobako, and Parasyte all turned in stellar performances, Chaika kept up the dramatic intensity from last week, and Log Horizon suddenly decided to toss off one of the best speeches I’ve seen. The other episodes were middling, but the season’s looking strong as we move into the endgame. Look forward to a pretty stupid amount of content over these next couple weeks – I’m planning on participating in the 12 Days of Anime posts (one post a day for the twelve days leading up to the 25th) along with all my usual review shenanigans, my top shows of the year post will follow that, and even ANN might have some kind of bonus piece to contribute. I hope this is what you want, internet. This is all the blood I have!

Alright, enough of that. Let’s run down some cartoons.

Continue reading →

Aldnoah.Zero – Review

Posted on by

And the hits keep coming! Well… the reviews do, at least. “Hit” might be a stretch.

Poor Aldnoah – you started with such promise, and yet every new episode felt like another brick removed from your Jenga-tower of potential. At least the final toppling was entertaining – like with Kyoukai no Kanata, it was actually pretty cathartic seeing the finale of a show I’d entered with such expectations explode into such absurd, self-immolating nonsense. In the end, a show I’d hoped would be Urobuchi’s triumphant return ended up being just one more strong reminder that most people are not very good at building off his work. Ah well, at least there’s still Expelled from Paradise to look forward to…

You can check out the full ANN review here.

Aldnoah.Zero

The Flowers of Evil – Review

Posted on by

Oh man, this was something. This was actually the first work I was assigned to review on ANN, but it took me a while to get around to it and a while to get through it. Flowers of Evil is a heavy, oppressive thing, but it’s so, sooo good. I did my best to capture what makes it such a rich experience in my review, and would recommend anyone who’s heard mixed things to at least give it a shot. It’s a pretty tremendous show.

Here’s my full ANN review. My copious episodic notes are below!

Continue reading →

Dragonball Z: Battle of the Gods – Review

Posted on by

Yep, another extremely random movie review from me. Hey, they can’t all be winners. This one actually wasn’t so bad – it’s basically a bunch of Dragonball-style jokes followed by some Z-but-with-actual-animation fights, so if you have any lingering fondness for Dragonball, it’s not the worst way to spend an afternoon. The film doesn’t take itself particularly seriously, which makes the whole experience actually pretty enjoyable. And the new villain is a lazy cat, and cats are great, so, uh, there’s your recommendation.

Dragonball Z

Sword Art Online II – Episode 22

Posted on by

Oh boy. This episode. What is there to say? Sometimes Sword Art Online can be pretty okay, and sometimes it tries to get really, really sad. This episode was basically Yui The Doll You’re Supposed to Care About Vol. II, with Yuuki and her Sleeping Knights piling on basically every sad-sack revelation the show could possibly muster. It’s so transparent and inept that I can’t even feel insulted by it – it’s like a little kid trying to tell a sad story. Episodes like this make me marvel at the fact that Sword Art Online is a massive production involving the work of hundreds of people. And all… all for this.

Here’s the full ANN post. Notes/incredulous tweets below!

Continue reading →