Tag Archives: Anime

Summer 2019 – Week 8 in Review

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With a massive backlog behind me and a whole bunch of reader-funded projects and various other freelance works ahead of me, it’s been hard to find time to watch anime for my own enjoyment this week. I wasn’t actually able to get to O maidens in time for this Week in Review, but fortunately, I had more than enough thoughts on this week’s other productions to make up for it. I’m actually watching a lot less seasonal anime than I used to, but the thoughts I’m producing on those shows are both lengthier and better-informed, so that’s an okay tradeoff, right? WATCHING ANIME IS HARD, OKAY.

Alright, enough excuses. Let’s break down what I actually did watch in one more Week in Review!

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Why It Works: What to Expect from the My Hero Academia Anime’s Fourth Season!

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Today on Why It Works, it’s time for some shameless promotion, as I break down just a few of the things to look forward to in My Hero Academia’s fast-approaching fourth season. If you’ve read the manga, none of this will be new to you, but if you haven’t, this post should offer a spoiler-free sampler of the directions the story will soon be taking. Have at it!

What to Expect from the My Hero Academia Anime’s Fourth Season!

A Bright Mechanical Dawn: Patlabor The Movie

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Many giant robot properties are, most fundamentally, about the power and freedom of becoming your adult self. Often centered on young men on the cusp of adulthood, their robotic instruments become vehicles through which those boys can explore the responsibility of genuinely impacting society, and deciding what kind of mark they want to leave on the world. It’s a robust metaphor that gracefully implies the world-shifting nature of adolescence, but the dramatic range of giant robot narratives expands far beyond individual transformation, as the brilliant Patlabor demonstrates. Developed throughout the late ‘80s by the five-artist Headgear collective, and set only a brief decade after its own creation, Patlabor focuses on a very different kind of transformation – not on one boy becoming a man, but on Japan becoming a modern and technologically advanced global power.

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Ojamajo Doremi Sharp – Episode 4

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Pack it in folks, it’s just about time for some more Ojamajo Doremi. Doremi’s second season has been a total joy so far, with the trials of taking care of Hana-chan offering an emotionally rich and consistently rewarding focal point for the show’s continuing drama. It really does feel like the girls have had to grow up a little bit – from the relatively carefree adventures of chasing after episodic Bad Items, they’re now being forced to accept the compromises necessary for embracing adult responsibilities, and putting the needs of their little magical time bomb over their own desires. Last episode saw Pop demonstrating the inherent rewards of accepting such responsibilities, as her time spent caring for Hana-chan ended up giving her the strength to finally pass her witch exams.

That episode also served as a beautiful demonstration of Doremi’s substantial aesthetic strengths, as acclaimed director Shigeyasu Yamauchi lent his unique talents to an episode full of evocative layouts and standout visual sequences. The moody framing of the Maho-dou, Pop and Onpu’s shared lullaby, Pop’s dazzling entrance into the Witch World – Doremi’s always a good-looking show, but Yamauchi’s presence added a welcome touch of dark fantasy surrealism, and apparently he’s directing this episode as well. Let’s see what he brings to Doremi’s wonderful world in episode four!

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The Woman Called Fujiko Mine – Episode 7

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Heck yeah folks, let’s get back to The Woman Called Fujiko Mine! This show’s last episode was a spiraling maelstrom of complex gender politics and confining social expectations, with Fujiko and her various associates serving as gleeful foxes in the henhouse of a girls’ private school. Combining this show’s insightful focus on gendered expectations, social performances, and the nature of feminine power with the classic touchstones of a Class S yuri drama was a masterstroke, and resulted in the most thematically complex and generally gripping episode of Fujiko yet.

On a pure aesthetic level, pairing Fujiko Mine’s ornate, richly textured designs with the stylized and detailed sets of a traditional “boarding school flower garden” resulted in an absolute bounty of beautiful compositions, with elaborate backgrounds sharing space with more metaphorically driven layouts rich in shadow and contrast. And on a thematic level, that episode managed to channel Lupin’s classic reversals and counter-reversals through a nested series of adolescent social expectations, with Fujiko’s manipulation of her love-starved students eventually being countered by an opponent eager to use Fujiko’s own favorite trick – telling your enemy exactly what they want to hear. 

In the context of a deeply repressed private school, Fujiko reveled in assuming the role of sexual aggressor, while Oscar simultaneously gleefully embraced and harshly judged himself for assuming the role of lusted-over “prey.” Their complex roles served as a clever distillation of the emotional contradictions inherent in both repressed adolescence specifically, and how women are assumed to exist in society more generally. And ultimately, Oscar’s contempt for his own actions seemed to echo the contempt society at large serves towards any expression of feminine agency, be they defined as Madonna or Whore. It was a goddamn searing episode, and also somehow light and playful at the same time. I don’t expect another episode quite like that one, but I’m eager to see whatever these charming thieves get up to next. Let’s get to it!

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Why It Works: Drama with All the Senses: The Rich Storytelling of the Anime given

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Jeez, these titles don’t really work when my crunchyroll title also contains a colon, huh? Anyway, today on Why It Works, I dive into the excellent use of visual and sound design in this season’s terrific given, specifically breaking down the tonal tricks and visual metaphors of the fifth’s episode most important scene. Let’s get to it!

Drama with All the Senses: The Rich Storytelling of the Anime given

Neon Genesis Evangelion – Episode 12

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We witness its genesis as a great light, a blinding spark searing the atmosphere, visible even from the surface of the moon. Then comes the furious wind, as our vision cuts in to a snowy hellscape stained rust red, as if the earth itself has suffered some great and terrible wound. A ragged figure trudges with purpose across this nightmare, his arms cradling an unconscious young girl. As we peer down through a shattered bunker, the man sets his cargo down in a metal tube, and she briefly wakes – but her cry of “father” is cut off, their final connection severed by the sealing of the tube. And then the shivering landscape upends entirely, as a great and terrible creature rises to remake the world.

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Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s – Episode 11

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Hello folks, and welcome back for another episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. We’re well into the show’s final act at this point, with Fate and Nanoha already having squared off against first Hayate, and then the awakened Book of Darkness itself. We’ve also resolved the duplicity and betrayal of Chrono’s admiral friend, who managed to successfully fuck everything up just before his plan was discovered. The admiral’s meddling backed Hayate into a corner in order to summon the Book itself, and then the Book’s own trauma prevented Nanoha and Fate from negotiating it out of its apocalyptic plans.

Now, with Nanoha defeated and Fate actually absorbed by the book, success or failure will likely come down to this season’s true heroine: Hayate. Just like how Nanoha’s first season was essentially a Fate story that Nanoha also took part in, so has this season most centrally been about Hayate, and her efforts to maintain and protect her family in spite of her curse. Personality-wise, Hayate is basically a version of Nanoha stripped of all of Nanoha’s easy gifts – she starts out alone, has to work hard to create a family, and even then is plagued by physical frailty, in contrast with the magical power Nanoha is able to use to enforce her worldview. But here at the end, with Hayate already stranded somewhere inside the book, the battle will come down to the one thing they share – their unshakable personal strength, and absolute love for the people they care about. We’ve reached the thesis of the season, and I’m thrilled to see how it plays out. Let’s get to it!

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Summer 2019 – Week 6 in Review

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I’ve been dealing with some close personal tragedy this week, but hey, I’m still here. I thought about maybe taking this week off from the Week in Review, and really couldn’t have imagined watching and enjoying seasonal anime a few days ago, but returning to cartoon normalcy has actually been a big emotional help. And it’s nice that this season’s anime are themselves so emotionally generous, from the rich tonal sympathy of Given to the tangled dramatic knots of O Maidens. I’m still feeling pretty hollow and distant at the moment, but I appreciate the company of all of you, and the comfort of returning to the things I love. Let’s talk about some cartoons.

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Ojamajo Doremi Sharp – Episode 3

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Dear lord am I ever happy to return to Ojamajo Doremi. I don’t yet know when you’ll be reading this, but as of today, I just finished writing my way through a hellish weekish and a half that included around twenty preview guide premieres, a Crunchyroll column on top of that, and two sprawling, confessional essays on Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion. It was almost certainly the most writing I’ve ever done in a single week, and I’m frankly still not through – I can’t really justify pausing the Current Projects for another weekend, so as of Thursday morning, I need to write three Current Projects articles and my next Why It Works column by some time on Sunday.

But as of right now, it is absolutely time for Ojamajo Doremi.

Watching this episode will technically fulfill one of my Current Projects obligations, but more than that, I need something I genuinely love and that always tends to bring me peace, and that is absolutely Doremi. This show is so charming, so visually engaging, so fundamentally thoughtful and kind. Last episode saw our heroes learning just a few of the many complex responsibilities of parenting, as they worked to take care of a baby with more magical energy than all of them put together. Hana-chan’s powers thus served as a clean metaphor for the emotional experience of parenting – you run yourself ragged, while your baby always seems to have more energy, demands, and tantrums ready. Doremi and the girls did the best jobs they could, handling their new responsibilities with diligence and pride.

It was an excellent episode on the whole, but after two episodes of establishing the season two premise, I’m kinda hoping we get to check in with Doremi’s classmates again. Either way, I’m sure we’ve got an endearing and thoughtful journey ahead of us, because goddamnit, this is friggin’ Doremi. Let’s see what episode three has in store!

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