Tag Archives: Anime

Classroom Crisis – Episode 13

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Classroom Crisis comes to an ending with a fairly respectable final episode. I really liked how all the narrative/character/thematic pieces came together in this one – it felt very gracefully composed, which is honestly something this show has often struggled with. There were cute moments and fist-pump moments and some nice silly faces, and overall this finale didn’t quite manage to match the show’s best moments (namely the Nagisa-Kaito and Nagisa-Mizuki conversations from the last few episodes), but still ended things in solid fashion. Of course, it apparently couldn’t end without one more dip into stupid animeisms, so obviously the ending was set up as introducing a possible love triangle between three of the leads. Win some, lose some.

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

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Summer 2015 – Week 12 in Review

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The week in review has come again. We had a pretty serious bumper crop of episodes this week, with basically everything but Classroom Crisis offering one of its best episodes yet. Of course, “best” is a relative term this season, so when it comes to Monster Musume and Prison School, that really equates more to “most absurd/delirious/grotesque/bizarrely well-executed” – but that’s what I’m watching those shows for, so more of what they are definitely isn’t a bad thing. And on the “actually respectable show” front, both Gatchaman Crowds and Paranoia Agent seem to be ending as well as possible, with Gatchaman in particular really pulling things together beautifully this week. This has been a lousy season overall, but it’s looking like the few brave shows that made it to the finish line are going to let it end with some god damn dignity.

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The Intoxicating Lure of Idol Anime

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No escaping it now, apparently. I’m stuck in idol hell, so I might as well document the whole process, to save future generations from this dire fate. This is a sprawling article, one that covers my experience at the Love Live! movie, my time spent with four separate idol anime, some thoughts on that whole Database, Database thing, and more besides. It’s a bit more of a personal reflection than the stuff I normally do, but I hope you enjoy it. This past year has definitely been quite a ride.

The Intoxicating Lure of Idol Anime

The Idolmaster

Paranoia Agent – Episode 11

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Paranoia Agent isn’t quite winding down yet, but it is finally returning to its original core cast. This week we were introduced to one more viewpoint character, but Mrs. Ikari’s story ended up doubling as a visit back into the life of her husband, the former police chief Keichi Ikari. Keichi’s not doing so well, post-firing – he’s juggling several jobs and avoiding his home and generally feeling like a person that the world has passed by. I enjoyed both halves of this episode, though it couldn’t match the highlights of standouts like last week. But the Shonen Bat interview was an engaging device, and Keichi was given some welcome texture through the new perspective his wife provided. Another solid episode for Paranoia Agent.

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

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Turn A Gundam, Part Two – Review

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As mentioned in this week in review post, I recently returned to Turn A Gundam, sweeping through the second half and thoroughly enjoying the process. I definitely had some central issues with these episodes – in particular, the moon setting and villains never managed to be half as engaging as the earlier material. But even though you’d think those would be major flaws, this half still felt overall more accomplished than the first. Part of that came down to the fact that the show had real momentum now; in the first half, far too many episodes were given over to episodic stories that didn’t amount to much (with Poe and Will Game’s narratives being the worst of them). Here, even though I wasn’t happy with every choice, things were moving almost all the time. Additionally, this second half also managed to build on and complicate the first half’s best characters, making almost all the dramatic clashes here feel weighted and satisfying. Overall, I’d definitely recommend Turn A Gundam to anyone looking for an easy, satisfying entrance into the Gundam franchise.

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

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Gatchaman Crowds insight – Episode 11

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AW SHIT THIS EPISODE FUUUUUUU. I was a little worried about where insight would be going at the end of last week/beginning of this one, but man, this was a brutal answer. It’s an answer I’m surprised Hajime would come up with, since it requires an acknowledgment of many of the cynical elements of this season that I figure she’d want to reject. But Hajime’s not stupid, she’s just very reserved with her thoughts, so I guess it’d make sense that she could play this game as well.

Anyway, I already wrote up a storm about this one in my review and notes, so let’s get to it! My review is thataway, my notes are below!

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Classroom Crisis – Episode 12

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Classroom Crisis spent this episode ramping up to a high-speed finale, strapping Nagisa into a jury-rigged X-2 ship just to give Iris a future opportunity to show off her stuff. The road there was enjoyable enough, though having Yuji come back as a newly unhinged villain didn’t do much for the series. Fortunately, this episode also gave Angelina a big opportunity to get mad and kick all kinds of ass, which is always a good time. It’s looking like Classroom Crisis will be ending respectably but not fantastically, which is a fine compromise for a show that’s been a series of compromises from the start.

You can check out my full review over at ANN. Notes below!

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The Idolmaster – Review

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Yep, big surprise, I reviewed The Idolmaster. As I’m sure you know if you’ve been reading the week in review posts, I was a big fan of this show – in fact, its final score ends up approaching Flowers of Evil/Ping Pong the Animation levels, so yeah, this was definitely a favorite. I was actually a huge fan of this show in spite of the fact that neither of its final emotional arcs really worked for me. I couldn’t buy into either Chihaya or Haruka’s drama, and both of their stories struck me as kind of contrived and hollow. But the execution of those stories was remarkable, and the show overall had such an incredible sheen and understanding of quick touchstone character work that I can barely fault the show for failing in its most emotionally ambitious moments. Idolmaster nailed the small moments, the ones where characters were just coming to understand each other through proximity and time, and that stuff does great work in justifying a couple melodramatic overreaches.

Plus, and this bears repeating many, many times, Idolmaster is so friggin’ beautiful. Holy crap this animation, holy crap this direction, holy crap basically everything about this show’s visual and aural storytelling. Christ, I wish I got to complain about storytelling quibbles in shows this beautiful more often. I wish the general problem was “this show is a visual masterpiece, but sometimes it’s not so good at executing on emotional setpieces.” It’s kind of funny to me that a couple years ago, I probably wouldn’t have been able to appreciate this show, but would likely have been groaning about there being no heir of Gainax to take up the legacy of shows like Evangelion and FLCL. Well, Gainax’s children are here, and they’re doing the best they can. Hire a couple better writers and we’ll be right back in the golden age.

You can check out my extremely positive review over at ANN, or run down my pages and pages and pages of notes below!

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Summer 2015 – Week 11 in Review

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Wednesday has come again! Once again, I devoured an absurd bounty of anime this week, all concentrated into one friggin’ show. It turns out when I don’t have a day job, I can really crank through those reviews. Who would have guessed! I’ll probably spend next week working more on site interface stuff and freelance work, working towards establishing ways to make funding specific writeups more accessible, but for now, all I can do is marvel at the fact that I’ve probably watched around seventy episodes worth of anime in the last two weeks.

Fortunately, this week was all upside – not only did I watch the second half of a good show, even the weekly stuff put out some stellar episodes. So let’s start right there, appropriately beginning for the very first time over in this season’s reliable Trash Alley.

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Love Live! Movie – Review

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LOVE LIVES IN THEATERS. LOVE LIVES ON THE SCREEN. The Love Lives just cannot be contained, and this weekend I finally got to see those Love Lives large and in charge at my local theater. The movie was very much a fanservice-filled victory lap, but I still had a fun time with it – it’s nice to see these characters again, nice to see some new performances, and holy crap was the crowd into it. Pretty much every time I see an anime in theaters, the crowd hangs on every word, but this was something else. Every joke got a full house of laughter, every sad moment a chorus of “awww”, and every performance a rousing round of applause. Seeing something like Love Live in a theater really brings home the communal nature of a show like this – it’s about characters you’ve all invested in together, and that communal investment is paid back in what you get out of the series. Fans in full costume desperately trading a Rin card for a Maki one is as much “what Love Live is” as any of the actual anime.

Anyway, you can check out my full review over at ANN!

Love Live!