Tag Archives: Anime

Winter 2018 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

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Hello all, and welcome to the season premiere retrospective! As usual, this is the post where I, having watched nearly every single premiere for ANN’s preview guide, now break them all down into categories based on their relative watchability. It’s looking like this will be the season of comfy, what with the majority of my passing-grade selections all fitting into different shades of slice of life, but there’s still plenty of anime to enjoy even under the iron gaze of the moe police. I’ll be offering increasingly brief summations of my thoughts on the various shows right here, but if you want more exhaustive thoughts, I have a review of basically all of these shows available over at ANN – just click through the title and search for Nick Creamer’s thoughts, that asshole is me. You can also just check out the overall list if you’d like, which is available right here. And with all that preamble covered, let’s not waste any more time in getting to the good stuff. Here’s my Winter 2018 Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective!

Oh wait, one last note. Since this is apparently the season of fuwa fuwa, all of my show tiers will this time be represented by their most appropriate Chaika gifs. ALRIGHT LET’S GO!

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Chihayafuru – Episode 22

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Let’s dive right into Chihayafuru number twenty-two! Last episode turned out to be one of my favorite episodes of the show so far, with both Chihaya’s development as a player and Ririko’s story as her opponent offering strong and emotionally charged drama. “Creating opponents that you also want to cheer for” is pretty much a given when it comes to strong sports drama properties, but by the end of last episode, I was actually tearing up over how Ririko’s efforts reflected her coming to love herself. Ririko’s appearance also made for a clear parallel with Chihaya, her own former play weaknesses embodied in the play style of her opponent.

It was also just very satisfying seeing Chihaya legitimately grow as a player, internalizing the lessons of both her teachers and former opponents, and turning that into a more well-rounded approach to karuta. Chihaya has earned this level up, and I’m excited to see how Chihaya Mk. II plays against her upcoming challengers. Let’s get right to it!

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March comes in like a lion – Episode 35

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Though Trump’s active presidency has reduced some of the humor of dril’s “Trump has no time to fuck” tweet, rest assured, I am feeling exactly that tweet at the moment. Still buried under preview week work, still got many projects to do today. What’s this post about? March! Right, March had an episode. It was fine. Here’s my review, and you can check out my notes below. I’M OFF!

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Why It Works: Five Things I Love About A Place Further Than the Universe

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Welp, bit late in getting this one on the blog, mostly because I’m still swamped by preview week work. I basically took all the craft stuff I found most compelling about A Place Further Than the Universe’s first episode and formatted it into a munchable listicle format. Alright, off to my next piece!

Five Things I Love About A Place Further Than the Universe

Simoun – Episode 6

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It’s time to return to Simoun! Episode five represented a key turning point for the show, in that it was the first time one of our protagonists actually decided they want to do something. It initially seemed like Aaeru would be the driven, goal-oriented character who pulled the rest of this team along with her, but as episode four revealed, the reason she was actually so insistent on becoming a Priestess was because she too was trapped by uncertainty, and unsure of who she wanted to become. With Neviril also paralyzed in the wake of her former partner’s death, the show was left with essentially no one to push the narrative forward – fortunately, Limone was able to step up and remember the passion that sent her down the path of a Priestess in the first place. Limone doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d care that much about shaking other people out of their insecurities, but with Chor Tempest now back on active duty, I’m guessing at least her and Aaeru will continue to keep things moving.

That said, I don’t know if this is the kind of show that could comfortably transition into a quasi-monster of the week mode. The plain fact is, this show’s two biggest weaknesses are its CG ships and its generally poor direction (along with some misguided music cues). You can construct an action sequence to minimize the awkwardness of questionable CG, but I don’t trust this director to manage that. Episode five demonstrated the problems there: Limone’s character turn came off well enough, but the actual fight was almost incoherent. We’ll just have to see how Simoun handles itself as Chor Tempest returns to battle. Let’s get right to it!

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March comes in like a lion – Episode 34

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March comes in like a lion returned this week, offering some welcome narrative progression in Hina’s school bullying arc. I was kinda hoping that Akari would really let the bully’s mom have it, but in retrospect, having this be the moment where Hina steps up to care for her sister was pretty much the only way this could have gone. Hina’s actions here were a perfect progression of her growing strength, while Akari clearly needs to learn that her promise to her mother doesn’t mean she has to do everything herself. A fine episode on the whole.

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

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Chihayafuru – Episode 21

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Let’s get the heck back to Chihayafuru! Our last episode saw Taichi at one of his lowest points so far, vainly scrambling to catch up to Chihaya and then promptly being sidetracked by Arata’s return. The episode demonstrated a real danger of slipping back into mopey Destined Karuta Buddies territory, but Taichi fortunately realized that he’s actually happy to see Arata returning, meaning I’ve got reasonable hopes we won’t be returning to the romantic sulk-fest tone. Chihayafuru’s shoujo romance plot is far and away its weakest material, and Arata has unfortunately not gotten much of an opportunity to do anything outside of that particular dramatic mode.

I’d love to see Arata himself playing in a challenging match, but I get the feeling we’re still some distance away from allowing Arata to show competitive vulnerability. Arata’s demonstrated plenty of emotional vulnerability, but as a karuta player, he remains more a summit to aspire to than an active competitor with his own strengths and weaknesses. But even if strong Arata material is still some distance away, with last episode having represented something of a cooldown from the previous tournament, it’s likely we’ll soon be gearing up for our next big matches. Let’s get right back to Chihayafuru!

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Simoun – Episode 5

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Let’s dive right back into Simoun! Episode four featured a pretty dramatic turn for the series, as Aaeru and Limone found themselves coming face-to-face with the enemy. The show’s execution of that confrontation felt a little wonky, but the sequence did a solid job of bringing us closer to both Aaeru and Limone, and hopefully bringing the two of them closer as well. The episode ended pretty much as soon as the pair returned, so it’ll be up to this episode to reveal exactly how that experience shifted things for this crew. Aaeru was already the one most gung-ho about battling, so what will experiencing some of the true terror and ugliness of battle do for her mindset? Aaeru’s been pretty much carrying this narrative by herself for the past couple episodes, so I’m hoping the scars of this experience finally prompt Neviril or some of the other priestesses to take a more active role in the story. Let’s get right to it and find out!

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Why It Works: Charting Trigger’s Path to Darling in the Franxx

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I’ve got a very Preview Week article up for Crunchyroll this week, basically taking a tour back through Trigger’s catalog in the leadup to their promising new creation. Trigger have been an exceedingly hit or miss studio for me, largely because almost all of Imaishi’s dramatic sensibilities are anathema to my own, but the sense of, well, cartoonishness that permeates all their shows seems hard not to love. I love their sense of visual energy and fun, I just don’t love dick jokes and punches quite as much as Imaishi apparently does. That means I’m in a pretty good position for Franxx, considering its own director, and I hope the show turns out well.

Charting Trigger’s Path to Darling in the Franxx

A Journey Through Kyoto Animation

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I’ve got a big ol’ Anime News Network editorial out for you guys today – my journey through Kyoto Animation, along with a running down of my own top ten shows from my favorite studio! It was really fun writing this piece, as I got to explore more fragmented-than-usual elements of my appreciation for the studio, and spin them into a larger narrative of why all their little choices add up to a studio whose works tend to speak so directly to me. Anime on the whole is often defined by fragmentary strengths, and I’m always happy to celebrate the unique nature of this wonderful medium. I hope you enjoy the piece!

A Journey Through Kyoto Animation