Tag Archives: Anime

Owarimonogatari – Episode 9

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Monogatari returned to top-tier form this week, with an episode whose visual theatrics were somewhat reminiscent of Shinobu Time’s gorgeous full-episode tapestry. And in fact, the visual tricks here were even more diverse than that, with shots mirroring that tapestry sharing space with some cut-paper images, creepy black and white interpretive shots, and great visual compositions done in Monogatari’s house style. Plus this episode featured a mix of Araragi and Shinobu bantering and Gaen just totally dominating everybody, so the narrative end was solid too. We’re not really in anything approaching the emotional turmoil of Sodachi’s material, but this was a fantastic episode on the visual end, and that’s more than enough to satisfy me for now. It even ended with a genuinely thrilling cliffhanger, implying a number of eerie possibilities regarding the nature of Shinobu’s old friend. We’ll have to see where it goes from here.

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

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The Perfect Insider – Episode 8

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The Perfect Insider pulled out another great episode this week, cementing the rally it began in last week’s episode. Instead of working to push the overt narrative forward or give us lots of new information, this one instead honed in on the relationship between Moe and Souhei, offering up some of their most compelling exchanges since the very first episode. Between last week’s reveals and this week’s behavior, Souhei is actually somehow coming into his own as a character, coming across as pretentious for sure, but also legitimately dedicated to Moe in a familial way. Now that it seems clear there’s never going to be any romance there, and for a very good and understandable reason, their relationship is much more engaging. I hope the show can keep this up through the ending.

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

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K-On! The Movie – Review

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And to the surprise of no-one, my return visit to K-On! ends with the girls’ trip to London. This film wasn’t as strong as the show’s second season, but it was still relatively enjoyable; there was some retreading of material and some kinda awkwardly stretched-out sequences, but also a bunch of great jokes and some legitimately moving moments as well. Some of the London gags were great, like the very silly room-switch joke with Azusa and Yui. And the last two performances, along with the girls’ run across their school’s rooftop in between them, were extremely strong. I particularly liked Yui leaping off the stage into her classmates and then turning to play right back to the band – that reprise of the first season finale felt like a pretty beautiful capstone to their journey. K-On! is good, and this movie was pretty good too.

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

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Beautiful Bones – Episode 8

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I am incapable of expending any more energy writing about this incredibly, tediously mediocre show. Instead here is a gif of Mugi, who is much better than this boring anime.

Mugi

Much better. If you’re still interested in Beautiful Bones for some reason, you can check out my writeup over on ANN or my notes below.

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Symphogear GX – Review

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And we’re back! After a brief detour to watch every friggin’ episode of K-On!, I’ve returned to finally catch up on the summer’s most symphogear of attractions. I had fun with this one, but honestly didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the last two, and for pretty predictable reasons. The most structurally understandable reason is that this season went for something Symphogear has historically not been terribly good at – more investment in its actual narrative and character journeys. But even that would have worked well enough if the show had stuck the landing, and personally I felt the last few episodes of this season were some of the weakest of the show so far. It particularly hurt that the show knocked off all the Autoscorers before the finale – they were always more fun to battle with than Carol herself, who basically just battled with DBZ beams. But still, Symphogear is Symphogear. I enjoyed this season well enough, and I’ll probably enjoy the next one too.

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

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Casshern Sins – Episode 1

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Casshern Sins is a weird one. Coming out in 2008, it got in at the front end of our recent “heavier reinterpretation of classic cartoon” trend, which has more recently given us Gatchaman Crowds and Yatterman Night. Casshern Sins takes off a ‘70s anime about the android Casshern, who fights evil robots; this new version seems more focused on ambiguity and melancholy than justice. The writer, Yasuko Kobayashi, has a resume that mixes a bunch of tokusatsu shows and recent hits like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Attack on Titan (as well as 2014’s Garo, which splits the difference). The director Shigeyasu Yamauchi’s credits are more scattered – he’s handled a number of DBZ and Saint Seiya movies, but beyond that it’s mostly episodic directorial work, including the, er, Ami/Mami Detectives episode of Idolmaster. Perhaps his most notable credits I’m familiar with are two of the most visually compelling episodes of Shinsekai Yori – the controversial fifth episode, where people originally complained about the divergent visual style, and the transcendent tenth, where his evocative interpretation of Saki and Shun’s conversation represented one of the clear highlights of the series overall.

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Fall 2015 – Week 8 in Review

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It’s Wednesday again, which means time once more for the ol’ week in anime! And this week in anime was… well, it was a week in anime. Not really all that much to report, frankly – pretty much everything maintained a fairly even keel, acting more or less in the ways you’d expect them to act. The biggest outlier this time was The Perfect Insider, in that it was both very good and good in ways that defied standard expectations, but everything else existed within its expected parameters. That said, there’s still plenty of finer details to sift through, and I actually watched a fair amount of non-weekly anime this week, so don’t worry, I’ll make today’s tour worth your while. So pull up a comfortable chair and let’s RUN ‘EM DOWN.

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Wolf Children and the Wilderness

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I wish I had more interesting things to say about Wolf Children. I wish I could dedicate a spiraling essay to unpacking its secrets… but that’s not really the kind of movie it is. The film doesn’t hide anything – it’s a movie about mothers and their children, about struggling and making it through, about time and patience and joy and grief. None of these themes truly dominate the film, because the film is about the lives of a few people, and life has a lot of themes. But they work beautifully in concert, garnishing the sturdy core of a quietly perfect story.

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Owarimonogatari – Episode 8

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Owari picked up to some extent this week, with this episode at least having some nice reflections on Araragi’s journey so far. It’s not like we really need more reflections on Araragi’s journey so far, but if they’re illustrated in the way they were in this episode, where a couple offhand lines are just totally loaded with subtext, I can accept that. Araragi and Yotsugi interacted pretty much like Araragi and Yotsugi always do, and Gaen got to steal the show with a couple infinitely smug lines to Araragi. And we finally arrived at Shinobu near the end, which is definitely a good sign. If you’re going to have an Araragi arc, adding Shinobu to the mix is one of the best ways to make it interesting – their relationship is funny and endearing and legitimately tragic, and the two of them make each other more compelling by their presence. Here’s hoping the arc’s second half makes the most of that.

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

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The Perfect Insider – Episode 7

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The Perfect Insider rallied back in style this week, speeding up and digging in and whatever other cliche term you want to use for something that wasn’t doing well no longer continuing to do that. We got great scenes with Moe, Magata, and (amazingly) Souhei, a bunch of compelling visual ideas, and more plot/character movement in one episode than we’ve seen in half the series so far. Moe’s journey in Magata’s dream-machine was probably the highlight – those CG legos seemed questionable when they were just sitting there in Magata’s room, but if that concession was necessary to allow for this visual trick, I am all for it. Watching young Moe crying in the hanger as the background disintegrated behind her is one of the most compelling anime images I’ve seen in a while. Nice work, Perfect Insider.

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

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