We may already be halfway through August, but fortunately, it appears the anime season shares my overwhelming fear of death, and is dealing with that by denying the summer is ending altogether. I respect that, and will honor the season’s wishes by today placing all of the shows I’m watching in a reductive, nigh-meaningless hierarchy of Objective Worthiness. Unfortunately, it turns out I got tired of most shows’ shit even more efficiently than usual this season… so to pad out my list, I’ll also include the unlucky casualties of the first several weeks. Let’s run them down!
Zankyou no Terror – Episode 5
Back on the terror train! Last episode was definitely a stunner – it started off with its usual slow-boiling, atmosphere-heavy thriller antics, but ended in a triumphant flight from the cops, from the city, from the world altogether. This is a show about abandoned people – people who’ve been given up because they either don’t fit into or are unwanted by a fairly rigid social system. In response to this assault on identity by the world they inhabit, Zankyou seems to spend equal time exploring both Fight and Flight. Lisa initially tries to run from her world, to get “somewhere outside it” – and episode four’s conclusion was a gorgeous articulation of this instinct. But you can’t really escape the world – no matter where you run, you’re still living within it. And so Nine and Twelve seem to have their own plan – either destroy the world that has abandoned them, or at least make some kind of statement against it. And against both these choices, there is constantly dangled the desire for human connection – apparent in Lisa’s story, but also evident in the increasingly personal games our young terrorists are playing with Shibazaki. That may ultimately point to a way out that doesn’t require destroying the world altogether.
Incidentally, one of my favorite details from last episode was the offhand mention of “fake IDs from Russia or China” that allowed the terrorists to gather the resources for their plot. This is generally a very tightly focused story, and the scale is “our young terrorists, Lisa, and Shibazaki versus the inescapable system they are facing in Japan.” However, that one throwaway line gestured at the exact same problem on a much larger scale – the Japanese system of justice and peace versus a world community that is unwilling to play by the same rules. It seems that even if you play within the rules of this story’s general system, you’re still a victim of a larger truth – even Japan itself can’t dictate the terms of how its society truly functions.
I’ll avoid going further on that thread for now unless the show actually engages with it, but I’m excited to see whichever direction this story chooses to go. Let’s get back to it.
Sword Art Online II – Episode 6
And we’re back! Last episode was fun, lightsabers are pretty cool, DEATH GUN IS NIGH. Apparently Desu Gan is someone we already know from Sword Art Online, so it’s looking like it’s time for a good old friendly witch hunt. Is it Lisbeth? Is it KLEIN? I bet it’s Klein, we should kill him just to be sure. And then kill everyone who helped us kill him, it could be them too if they’re just willing to kill a dude like that. And then kill everyone who helped us hide the bodies oh god oh god DEATH GUN WAS ME.
Look, I’d watch that show. Whatever. Let’s watch episode six.
Zankyou no Terror – Episode 4
Oh shit what’s this a timestamp breakdown of something that isn’t Sword Art Online?!? I know, crazy. The reasoning’s pretty simple – unlike with Ping Pong, my thoughts on this show seem to take the form of tiny “oh, nice” moments throughout, and not larger thematic/character thoughts on the episode as a whole. Meaning it seems appropriate to get out the blackboard and slide ruler once again, and sift my way through an episode of this shiny new thing Watanabe has given us. Let’s blow up some city monuments!
Summer 2014 – Week 5 in Review
So I guess what happens when you drop all your mediocre shows is you end up with only good shows to talk about every week. Fascinating. Let us explore this phenomenon at greater length.
Aldnoah.Zero – Episode 5
Like the second episode, this one started off by bouncing an idea from a few angles – this time, it was “what you gain from fighting.” The defeated martian knight was probably the most childish in his desires here, scoffing at Slaine’s reasons for fighting while bemoaning his loss of “honor” on the battlefield. The childishness of this desire was then pretty much immediately highlighted by framing it in the actual voice of a child, as Inko mused over how nice it’d be to get a medal in battle. Their instructor was quick to provide the cynical counterpoint there – “dying for honor isn’t so bad when you’re living in misery.” He’s talking about his own regrets, of course, but if you’re not living in the war-story dreamland of the martian knights, “using yourself for the cause” may be the only way to actually gain the will to fight.
Imperfect Beings: Hunter x Hunter and the Chimera Ant
Humanity is an imperfect species. Actually, that’s putting it very generously – humanity is a deeply flawed species. We’re selfish and self-destructive, ignorant to the point of blindness, arrogant to the point of madness. It’s almost a wonder we’ve come so far, or at least that we haven’t destroyed ourselves along the way. For all our triumphs, every advantage of our intelligence and self-awareness is also reflected countless times in insane invention, in total megalomania. We are our own worst enemy.
In light of this, it seems somewhat reasonable to consider the possibility of a do-over. Perhaps another species could do better than us – perhaps a species more interested in its own collective survival, and more able to coherently absorb the lessons of its forebearers. Perhaps a species somewhat more animal, more willing to be part of a grand organism than a wild, unpredictable individual. Perhaps such a species deserves that chance. Or perhaps such a species doesn’t even need to be offered a chance – if we were ever put against a creation that combined humanity’s intelligence and strength with an animalistic unity of purpose, would we even stand a chance?
Chimera Ant is a story about that question – or at least, about that question and a number of others. It catalogs the rise of the (surprise) Chimera Ants, a species that continuously evolves, absorbing the quirks and powers of any species it consumes. The queen of the Ants wishes to build a Perfect Being – the ultimate animal, destined to rule over all others. In order to do that, she constructs her child out of the best pieces available – and in the first of Chimera Ant’s many strange reflections, the construction of a Perfect Being end up requiring a great deal of flawed, self-involved, self-destructive human beings. As her army of Ants grows, their human DNA becomes more and more prominent, and the “imperfections” of human nature become more and more apparent in their behavior. “Fortunately,” this intermingling of human and ant instincts isn’t restricted solely to one side – as Chimera Ant unfolds, even the humans begin to demonstrate that ant nature isn’t perhaps quite so inhuman as it seems. And by the end…
Well, I’ll get to that. For now, let’s start by setting the stage.
Sword Art Online II – Episode 5
And we’re back! I wasn’t really that enthusiastic about last episode, but I think we’re through the exposition now, so things may be smooth from here out. Will there be action? Will there be adventure? Will Kirito overwhelm the narrative tension and drag the whole show down with him? Who knows! Hopefully we jump right into this Bullet of… bullets…
Like, goddamnit, SAO. I know “DEATH GUN” is supposed to be all 2chuuni4u because it’s written in English letters and thus is automatically mysterious/romantic/always fucking ridiculous, but “Bullet of Bullets”? You couldn’t think of, like, one word that compliments “Bullets” there? I’m pretty sure my comment section thought up at least three (Ballad, Ballet, Battle), and they were hardly scraping the bottom of the Barrel of Bullets. Or subbers, even if that’sactually the translation, couldn’t you just, you know, perform a little corrective surgery on this writing here? I doubt anyone would complain.
Alright, forget it. Starting this episode with an open heart and an open mind. Let’s do this, Sword Art Online.
Summer 2014 – Week 4 in Review
Good episodes all around this week! “Sacrifice all mediocre performers to your dark god” is serving me well this season, as I’ve now reduced my lineup to “the shows that consistently impress me plus Sword Art Online because I apparently don’t actually value my time in the slightest.” Barakamon has proven itself generally consistent at this point, Zankyou continues to be the most ‘flawless’ show I’m watching, and Aldnoah has apparently taken it upon itself to be both a satisfying Urobuchi show and my replacement popcorn entertainment. Good work, cartoons.
Sword Art Online II – Episode 4
It’s that time again. I’m actually kind of excited at this point, you guys. Episode two was a solid action vignette, episode three was an okay character-building episode – this season is showing off a whole new side of Sword Art Online! I originally picked up the first season in large part due to an abiding appreciation of schadenfreude (which paid off both through the show itself falling apart and me falling apart watching it), but if season two just wants to be a reasonable adventure show with high production values, I am very ready for that as well. STRIKE UP THE BATTLE MUSIC.
…that’s the battle music? Alright, sure. Let’s Sword Art Online.