Tag Archives: Anime

Hyouka – Episode 11

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Irisu changed something for Oreki last episode. The whole show had been moving towards his acceptance of his own talents, through Satoshi’s jokes, Mayaka’s frustration, Chitanda’s gentle prodding. When Oreki claimed he was just lucky, they’d each accept this in their own ways without truly believing it. And it’s very likely Oreki didn’t believe it himself, and was simply saying the thing that was convenient, the path of fewest consequences. But Irisu insistently told him he was special, and for once, Oreki seemed willing to accept that weight. Being special means you’re responsible – being special means you can find the truth. Oreki was ready to be special, and by the end of the last episode, it seemed like he was even beginning to like the taste of it.

Well, it turns out Oreki isn’t that special after all.

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Concrete Revolutio – Review

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So yeah, I finally went back and took a second look at the one fall show everyone kept saying was worth watching, and it turns out they were very, extremely right. Concrete Revolutio is excellent – very creative and full of piercing ideas, constantly coming up with new ways to contrast its rich cast of characters against each other. Easily the best new show of its season, and also one of the best shows of the year – if I were to write my top ten list over again, I’d probably put it right above Death Parade. It’s a bit of a shame that I slept on this one while it was airing, but the experience of marathoning it was actually very satisfying, and likely helped it come off as more cohesive given its base complexity, so I can’t really complain. If you missed it too, I’d definitely check it out.

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

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Winter 2016 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

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All of our new shows have turned in their final assignments, and the testing period is over. Who will rise, who will fall, who will entertain us mightily for a few weeks only to slowly sink into a mire of mediocrity and disappointment – all these questions lie ahead, but for now, we can already viciously judge the labor of thousands of animators based on our first impressions of their new creations. I knew from before this season even began that it would be a relatively light one, but with that in mind, the haul here is actually pretty solid. We had a couple truly great premieres, a few more shows that demonstrate either potential or reasonable genre chops, and The Rest. There’s always going to be a The Rest, but as long as anime continues to produce just a couple shows that justify our nostalgic Stockholm Syndrome every season, this unhealthy relationship can keep chugging merrily along. Let’s start right at the top of the list and RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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Winter 2016 – First Impressions, Part Two

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The week keeps chugging along, and mediocre shows keep piling up one by one. It seems this really will be a light season, but I don’t really need that many airing shows to feel content, and it’s looking like we’ll just about manage that. To accompany ERASED’s excellent premiere, Showa Genroku Rakujo Shinji turns in perhaps my favorite first episode so far, and BBK/BRNK pulls off a classic action-adventure opening strong enough to almost make up for its hideous, soul-breaking CG characters. I’m guessing we’ll only get one or two more watchable shows out of the remaining picks, but if that just means more time for Hyouka, I’m perfectly okay with that. Anime may be mostly bad, but “mostly bad” spread out across several decades of releases means we’ve still got plenty of backlog to get through.

Luck & Logic

You can check out the overall list of shows over at ANN, or scroll on down for my new scores and links to individual reviews. Anime ho!

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Hyouka – Episode 10

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Hyouka’s tenth episode opens with one more of those classic sequences where the framing tells two-thirds of the story, in a way you can viscerally feel even if you’re not looking out for it. The intent is to put you in a character’s headspace – Oreki’s, as usual. But this sequence isn’t designed to visually evoke his intimacy with Chitanda, or discomfort embracing the rose-colored life he consistently approaches. This sequence is about establishing How Freaking Scary Irisu Fuyumi Is.

We open with long shots down a well-to-do neighborhood and across a lengthy teahouse, shots that serve a duel purpose here. First, they establish this place as intimidating purely through its class and wealth; second, they create an initial assumption of open space, one that is swiftly countered as we switch to Oreki and Irisu. Our first shots of their meeting focus on Oreki’s intimate, uncomfortable body language, and then we see the small room they actually inhabit. Oreki is visually and emotionally cornered here by a much stronger predator, one who, unlike Chitanda, seems perfectly comfortable using her wealth as an extension of her own power. Extremely brief shots of Irisu from straight-on seem to imply that Oreki has difficulty making eye contact, and closeups emphasize how imposing her presence is. It is only when Oreki is able to establish his issues with each of the three detective theories that some semblance of equality is established.

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Winter 2016 – First Impressions, Part One

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A new season has begun, and I’m already well into the friggin’ preview guide. I mentioned back in my initial season preview that this looked to be a particularly dire season, and the shows so far have unfortunately born that out even more emphatically than I’d assumed. That list of shows only had eight new entries in the first place, and of those eight, two have turned out strong so far, three have disappointed me, one hasn’t been picked up for streaming yet, and one likely isn’t even airing this season. It’s a hard time for all of us, but as long as backlogs exist, I should be the only person who actually has to suffer. There have been a couple strong premieres so far, and there’s always the chance one of the season’s wildcards will impress, so there’s no reason to give up hope yet. Let’s keep the anime faith alive!

Norn9

You can check out the full list of shows covered so far over at ANN, or check below for my list of scores and links to individual reviews. LET’S GET TO IT.

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One Punch Man – Review

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Aw dang, I reviewed the season/year’s big breakout hit. My review turned out roughly how you’d expect if you’ve been reading my weekly thoughts – I felt the show certainly had beautiful animation, occasionally had interesting moments outside of that, and was mostly just a kinda mediocre gag comedy/action thing. I guess it’s become traditional at this point for me to have lukewarm feelings on the year’s big action hit, from Attack on Titan through Kill la Kill up to One Punch Man, and I think that makes sense. Action shows care about action, and I personally think pretty much any show is lesser if it doesn’t provide you with characters or ideas worth caring about – but the sorts of scenes that result in those things aren’t necessarily the kind of scenes people who like action for its own sake want to see in their shows. Pure action shows will continue to come out and electrify the western fanbase, and I will continue to find them kinda mediocre. So it goes.

You can check out my full review at ANN, or… wait, nevermind, I don’t have any notes. So go over there!

One Punch Man

The Star Under Lights: Millennium Actress

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Millennium Actress’s credits open with the view from a train, as light flickers past in a tunnel before giving way to city skyline. It’s fitting that an animated movie about the deception of film begins with those flickering lights; the light of a train on a tunnel is itself one of the simplest forms of animation, a series of starkly lit shots creating the appearance of motion. As the view transitions to a bombed city under blue skies, the image shifts, with a plane overhead melting into first a modern passenger jet, and then a rocket in space. Fluid transitions across time and space are an accepted part of reality in this world; what matters is not the base nature of the world, but the dramatic throughline of the object in flight. What catches the eye is what remains. What we remember is what exists.

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Hyouka – Episode 9

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Hyouka’s eighth episode pulled all sorts of meta visual tricks, using the context of an in-show movie in order to play with character acting and shot framing in a variety of interesting ways. Through its awkward direction and oddly remarkable animation, it pulled off techniques anime normally doesn’t use for very good reasons, in order to make intentionally bad staging decisions. The episode’s middle act was essentially a self-aware interrogation of the nature of visual storytelling; and so it seems only appropriate that the following episode is entirely focused on narrative storytelling, and how our relationship with a theoretical author dictates everything stories could possibly mean.

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2015 – Year in Review

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Aw dang, it’s Wednesday. That technically makes it time for the week in review, but there’s a bit of a problem – most of the shows I was watching have actually ended, so I don’t really have much to talk about. I’ve already written enough words about Beautiful Bones to last several lifetimes, and I even covered IBO on my ask.fm, so in the absence of much to discuss, I guess I’m just gonna pack this one in. Cya next time, guys!

Alright, clearly I’m not doing that. I wouldn’t have written that opening paragraph in the first place if I was just going to end it there. Instead, let’s do the very stupidest and most labor-intensive thing to replace the week in review. It’s December 30th, 2015 has been a pretty interesting year for me, and I might as well take a brief moment to look back. Let’s turn our eyes back to the year that was and RUN IT DOWN.

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