Tag Archives: Anime

The Perfect Insider – Episode 3

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The Perfect Insider returns, and this week we finally dive into some actual mystery meat. That was poorly phrased. Not in the cafeteria lunch terms, but in… well, you get it.

Anyway, this was a fine episode all around. Magata’s alleged death kind of throws a wrench in my ideas about where the story was going – I figured it’d end up being more about the dynamic between Moe and Magata, but unless Magata really is performing quite an impressive magic trick here (perhaps involving her “sister”), it’ll likely be more focused on revealing both Moe and Magata’s past. In spite of losing that thread, I enjoyed where this episode went – the dynamic between Moe and Souhei felt more equal this time, and the mystery stuff never overwhelmed either the character material or the atmosphere. The show still feels very confident in what it’s doing.

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

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Beautiful Bones – Episode 3

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Beautiful Bones has returned! And it’s still garbage, don’t watch it.

Seriously, it’s just garbage. Not even interesting garbage. Just a bad show.

Here’s my writeup of the third episode. Notes below, somehow.

Now to sleep off the headache I get from writing about writing this bad.

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Fall 2015 – Week 3 in Review

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Aw dang it’s the week in review what the fuck do we even have to talk about. Well actually, there’s plenty to talk about now; it’s a relatively new season, there are far more legitimately watchable shows than The Season That Shall Not Be Named, and last week’s awkward halfway point between preview week and the usual fare means we’ve got a sizable glut of anime to get through. I actually surprised myself last Sunday – I was doing my usual accounting of what was about to air, and suddenly realized I had three friggin’ shows to choose between for my first watch, all of which I actually wanted to see. Following a season where “you know what, this snake girl is actually pretty cool” was close to the top end of anime discourse, that’s a pretty nice place to be. Between Owarimonogatari, The Perfect Insider, and… well, I guess any more favoritism than that would be telling. So let’s get started this list of ‘well friggin’ crap these might actually be worth watching’ shows. Let’s RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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September 2015 Patreon Roundup

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Hey all! So I’ve finished answering all of last month’s Patreon questions, and figured it might be a good idea to start linking those mini-essays over here. You may remember I attempted to catalog some of my longer ask.fm answers here a while back, but I think this formatting will be a lot more manageable. I actually put a pretty significant amount of work into the questions I get, and since there’s no schedule to their release, unless you’re checking my ask.fm page consistently you’re very likely to miss a pretty thorough response. Fortunately, on my end I have all the tools I need to keep track of specific Patreon answers, so I figured it’d be good to make them a bit more available. I’ll be starting with the most recent set of answers today, and then going forward I’ll hopefully fill in the older missing ones as I catalog new months.

I’ve included links to all my specific September responses below the cut. And as always, if you’d like a question of your own answered, my Patreon is thataway. Hope you enjoy!

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K-On! – Review

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Stepping back even further than Symphogear and Idolmaster, this week I reviewed the nameless moe beast itself, K-On! I was a firey young jerkoff the first time I watched K-On!, and dropped it a handful of episodes in, but this time I had a pretty good time with it. It wasn’t astonishingly good or anything, but it was a very enjoyable time, full of strong character animation and nice character-based gags. There were even a couple really heartfelt moments – most of these came from simple gestures of friendship between the characters, but the last, when Yui had to run to make it to their last performance, was a genuinely gripping sequence. K-On! probably won’t change your life, but it certainly works as a fuzzy temporary vacation from it.

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

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Owarimonogatari – Episodes 1-3

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We’re in the thick of a new Monogatari season now, and this one’s shaping up to be a fine followup to Second Season. A whole bunch of that comes down to Ougi – Ougi both forces Araragi to consistently confront his own deepest fears and just possesses a great deal of charisma in her own right. This Araragi-Oikura story also has plenty of momentum so far, and seems to be pushing Araragi’s character forward far more consistently than Tsukimonogatari did. What do you know, when you replace Yotsugi lolicon shenanigans with Ougi’s mockery and psychological battles, you can actually make a damn good Araragi arc.

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

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The Perfect Insider – Episodes 1-2

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And here’s my first writeup on the season’s most interesting new prospect, The Perfect Insider. This show’s definitely keeping its cards pretty close to the vest so far, but there’s a lot to like in its winding conversations and carefully drawn characters. It’s interesting to see a show where one of the central characters is so frankly unlikable, and even framed as such by the narrative. We’re kept pretty close to Moe’s perspective, meaning there’s basically no way the professor could come off as sympathetic. I’ll be very interested in seeing how the doctor and Moe interact once Magata escapes from her cage, and also interested in seeing how the show’s tone changes once it shifts from establishing pieces to actually playing out some kind of central mystery. Either way, the show seems confident as hell so far, so I’m on board.

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

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Beautiful Bones – Episode 1-2

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My first episodic review of the season is up! Don’t get excited though, it’s just Beautiful Bones. I end this review by calling Beautiful Bones “watchable,” and that’s exactly what it is – not good, not egregiously terrible, just twenty minutes of fairly bland mystery shenanigans and occasionally really bad dialogue. So far it’s the anime equivalent of white bread soaked in water – I’d like for it to improve and be something actually worth talking about, but we’ll have to see. Hope springs eternal!

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

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Fall 2015 – Week 2 in Review

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Wednesday has come again! And it’s the second week of the season this time, meaning it’s time to a long, hard look at the shows I was iffy on for the first episode and likely drop half of them down the trap door. There were definitely some shows that earned the big red button this week, but also ones that held strong, and I even managed to find a show to pick up since my preview retrospective. I’ll just be covering second episodes here – you can find my impressions on all of the actual premieres back in that retrospective, and it’ll be going forward that all the shows get to share some space again. But it’s looking like they actually will have to share that space, since dear lord, this season might even have four or five solid shows. Let’s start at the top and RUN ‘EM DOWN.

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Symphogear G – Review

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I mean, did you think I wasn’t gonna keep watching Symphogear? Symphogear is goddamn awesome, of course I’m gonna keep watching it. G is actually even more “focused Symphogear” than the first season, which was really fun to talk about in a review context. The show plays in what might traditionally be considered “so bad it’s good” territory, where I find the drama as presented totally ineffective according to traditional storytelling metrics (I don’t actually care about the emotional problems of the characters, for example), but still brilliantly entertaining as narrative absurdity. And so I basically gave the show’s story a very fond C, where its very issues are what make it great. I could easily see the argument that this means the show’s story is successful, but considering either of these responses amount to “I had fun with it” and my review is overwhelmingly positive anyway, I think that’s a kind of hair-splitting distinction. Symphogear’s great, G was a solid sequel, bring on GX!

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

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