The winter season has begun! Yes, it certainly has done that. So far, this season is pretty much confirming my initial impressions – we’re in for a ridiculous new anime dry spell, and it’d probably be best to open your backlog binders now. I say “Part One” in the title, but this may well be the only one of these roundups I get to before the final list – shows have just been coming out too fast for me to put one of these together, and so we’re starting off with about half the season already behind us. There have been a couple shows I might just maybe continue, though, so I guess it’s not all bad. Anyway, you can find the whole list of shows that have been covered right here, or click below to get a rundown of each of my scores with individual links!
Tag Archives: Anime
March comes in like a lion – Episode 12
March returned this week with what was honestly a pretty disjointed episode, mixing Rei’s thoughts on the Kawamoto family home with the first stages of a tournament and even a brief showdown with a new nemesis. Gotou isn’t anything but a one-note antagonist so far, but March has very good about avoiding that sort of character in the past, so hopefully he’ll gain some complexity before the Lion King finals. Either way, it’s nice to have this show back.
You can check out my full review over at ANN or my notes below.
Why It Works: A Worlds Tour of Flip Flappers, Part One
I’m still crushed under preview week at the moment, but the Why It Works show must go on! Unsurprisingly, I’m sending off the fall season with a two-part episode on Flip Flappers’ various mindscapes. It becomes much harder to map these worlds to specific characters as the show goes on, but they all reflect Cocona in their own ways, so I think I’ll manage. Here’s the piece!
Why It Works: A Worlds Tour of Flip Flappers, Part One
Ef – A Tale of Memories – Episode 1
Hey everybody! Today I’ll be running through some notes for a new series: Ef – A Tale of Memories. I’ve heard this franchise was one of Shin Oonuma’s greatest contributions to studio SHAFT, before he went off to reign over Silver Link for all eternity. I’ve also heard that it’s both extremely visually compelling and exactly my kind of thing, full of sharp character writing and romance and visual storytelling that actually elevates those things. Either way, the die has been cast for the first couple episodes, so we’ll see what Ef has to offer. Onward!
Casshern Sins – Episode 5
Let’s dive into another episode of Casshern Sins! I should be a bit more familiar with the show’s style at this point, given the gap between watching episodes has shifted from around ten months to about six hours. The last episode offered perhaps the first glimpse of lasting hope for the series – in contrast with the doomed church of two and dying human of three, Sophita provided both friendship and hope to Casshern, giving him someone to return to in this wasteland. Given that dash of optimism, I’m expecting this episode to counterbalance with some oppressive, beautiful sorrow. This world won’t decay into forgotten tombstones all by itself, so let’s get right to it!
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable – Review
Today I reviewed the latest of JoJos, Diamond is Unbreakable! This one ultimately rose to be my favorite season, in spite of not really matching the continuous, breakneck entertainment of Battle Tendency. Diamond is Unbreakable just offered so much good stuff, so many great ideas and characters and battles, and all of it framed within the most strangely compelling premise the show has found. I’ve heard both good and bad things about the coming season, but I’m happy this one turned out so well.
You can check out my full review over at ANN.
Fall 2016 – Week 13 in Review
Welp, only half my shows even aired this week, so I guess we’ll be keeping this one brief. It was all endings this time, which pretty much went down as expect – while Girlish Number’s last episode as a bit underwhelming, both Euphonium and Flip Flappers nailed the dismount, which was a great relief. As extremely good shows near their end points, I often feel more anxious than excited; when you’re competing for the big leagues, all I’m hoping for is an ending I’ll be happy to return to over the years. Euphonium and Flip Flappers both more or less managed that, so I can’t really complain. Let’s start Girlish Number and run these three down!
Wandering Son – Episode 7
Wandering Son’s seventh episode opens with the turning leaves, as the late summer warmth of the school festival fades into the bundled coats of fall. Those leaves don’t just give us an indication of the time passing, though – they also directly echo this episode’s focus. Alternately titled “Rosy Cheeks” or “Growing Pains,” this episode hones in on the unwelcome shifts of adolescence, as Nitori finds her body changing in new and unwelcome ways. As the rich summer leaves shift into crinkly reddish paper, Nitori’s own rosy cheeks are turning red not with passion or beauty, but with the pimples of puberty.
Natsume’s Book of Friends – Episode 2
Natsume’s second episode opens with a distant shot portraying Natsume’s school, along with more of the rural scenery that has already proven to be one of the show’s central characters. I love that scenery, beautiful even in this show’s simply drawn, low-resolution format. Rural Japan is one of my favorite anime settings, along with that “vaguely medieval Mediterranean countryside” employed by shows like Kino’s Journey and Haibane Renmei. Perhaps it’s simply a natural tendency towards exoticism, but something about Japan’s rolling hills and sprawling farmlands naturally puts me at ease. Continue reading
Top Ten Anime of 2016
And somehow, another year has come to a close. This has been a strange year for me – as my first full year of wholly anime-related employment, it’s been often terrifying, sometimes uplifting, and always exciting. I’m not sure it means anything that my move to freelance coincided with the world catching fire, but hey, things happen. At least I also write for Crunchyroll now!
As far as anime itself goes, this has been a very solid year in general. The industry is currently at a somewhat unsustainable level of production, and though foreign streaming and other forms of revenue are putting the industry in a more stable place financially, that still hasn’t adjusted the workflow mechanisms that keep animators so terribly underpaid. That will have to change eventually, but as far as the actual shows go, there were plenty of anime I had a great time with this year, and solid hits in a wide variety of genres. In fact, this year’s crop was so good that I even have some honorable mentions! That’s honestly kind of unusual for me – I generally struggle getting to ten shows without including stuff I’m not totally sold on. So let’s start right there, and run down the shows that just barely missed the list before we count off the final ten!