Tag Archives: Anime

Paranoia Agent – Episode 10

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Dear lord did Paranoia Agent ever rally back. After tossing off what was easily its weakest episode so far, Paranoia Agent apparently decided it was time to throw out a trump card, and so tossed off an episode that skewered the fuck out of anime production while simultaneously working as a self-contained/beautifully composed horror story and also indulging in some lovely new visual tricks besides. This was an episode I’d heard of – given the current existence of Shirobako, it was probably impossible for someone as weirdly embedded in the western anime subculture as me to avoid having heard of “the Paranoia Agent anime episode.” But even for all the unfortunate baggage I’d carried to this episode courtesy of smug old-school fans shitting on Shirobako (which is a goddamn masterpiece, and will easily outlive the scorn of naysayers), I was pretty blindsided by this episode’s unimpeachable quality. Great visuals, fantastic use of classic Kon-isms, and a biting, passionate take on the anime industry. Couple that with a larger frame that actually fits well into Paranoia Agent’s structure, and you’ve got an episode that easily earned its sterling reputation. Paranoia Agent does not fuck around.

You can check out my full review over at ANN (and I go kinda deep on this one, getting pretty specific in my praising of its various aesthetics tricks), or run down my episode notes below!

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Gatchaman Crowds insight – Episode 10

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Gatchaman Crowds pulled a bunch of threads together this week in an episode that I felt had maybe the season’s first real missteps. The main issue was the handling of Rui’s arc – having X just talk Rui into feeling motivated again just felt way too simple, and Rui’s story felt poorly integrated with everything else that was going on. It made me think the story just kind of didn’t know what to do with Rui for a while, which is a disappointing thought. But there was also a whole bunch of great stuff in this episode, with my favorite parts concentrated in Millione and Rizumu’s choices. The two of them actually seem pretty alike in their assessment of humanity, but Millione embraces going with the flow for ratings, while Rizumu just uses it to make himself feel powerful. Cool guys, cool guys.

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

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Classroom Crisis – Episode 11

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Classroom Crisis is back! After two straight episodes of tedious and emotionally sterile boardroom shenanigans, Classroom Crisis finally returned to what it’s actually good at – demonstrating remarkable humanity in the conversations between its lead characters. And jeez, was this episode’s big conversation ever a stunner. The cathartic reunion between Nagisa and Mizuki here honestly justifies the series for me pretty much single-handedly. Satisfying romance is one of those mystical white elephants of anime storytelling, and these two have all kinds of character-coherent and endearing chemistry. Couple that with the dramatic stakes of Nagisa being at his lowest point and Mizuki dragging him out of it, and you’ve got a scene that will pretty much permanently endear me to this series regardless of all its other (numerous) failings. Scenes like this are what I’m in fiction for – I built my first novel around a scene that was basically exactly like this, and I will probably be always be a sucker for “I know things are bad, but god damnit, I care about you. We can get through this together.” Nice work, Classroom Crisis. You got me.

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

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Summer 2015 – Week 10 in Review

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Wednesday has come again, and with it, one more scraping collection of show reflection fragments pulled together out of my paltry watch schedule. Fortunately, this week I was able to supplement my bare-minimum weekly viewings with a big ol’ ten-inch steak of anime. This week I watched basically the entirety of The Idolmaster!

But before we get to that, let’s run down the usual suspects, whose episodes this week ended up being well…. kinda suspect. But hey, at least the bad shows had good episodes!

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Paranoia Agent – Episode 9

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We got another lighthearted episode of Paranoia Agent this week, though this one unfortunately wasn’t nearly as strong as the last. In fact, this was likely the weakest episode of the show so far – composed around a fairly weak structural conceit and full of stories that didn’t really amount to much, it clocked in a fair degree below the level of quality the show has set for itself. It did have its moments though, and I’ve heard the next couple episodes are excellent, so I’m not worried. They can’t all be winners.

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

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Gatchaman Crowds insight – Episode 9

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SHIT IS FUCKED. Things are a total mess in Gatchamanland, and it will take more than Hajime wearing cute pigtails to sort all of this out. This was another solid episode in a very impressive sequel, and one that made me feel frankly a little awkward to cover, considering how charged the topics it’s dealing with are. Gatchaman is hot-off-the-presses commentary, its thoughts on the dangers of groupthink in more harmony-focused Japan equally relevant to modern online discourse. These conversations have essentially been turned radioactive by recent controversies – there are people looking to start witch hunts all over, and gamergate lurking in the background, eager to either pounce on targets or seize on comments as vindication of their pet issues. It is awesome that Gatchaman Crowds is so relevant to what’s going on this very second, but I sure hope writing these posts doesn’t get me killed.

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

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Classroom Crisis – Episode 10

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This week’s Classroom Crisis was… an episode. For the second week straight, the show focused largely on Nagisa’s political dealings within the Kirishina Corporation, and for the second week straight, those dealings failed to have basically any emotional grounding or sense of coherent internal drama. Nagisa’s stuff here is really just “stuff happening” – it all exists to the side of the conflicts that either have some earned emotional weight or drive at the contrast between pragmatism and idealism (which is a conflict that’s itself largely confined to the conversations between Kaito and Nagisa, since the actual political stuff is way too simplistic to carry much meaning). This episode had one great conversation between Iris and Mizuki that reflected what the show is actually good at, but aside from that, this was a dreary wash.

But anyway. You can check out my breakdown over at ANN, or my notes below!

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Summer 2015 – Week 9 in Review

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Wednesday has come again! It’s time to talk about cartoons and other very serious things.

Uniquely serious things at the moment, it turns out. “Anime is serious business” has lost some of its humor in light of last week being my final week with a day job. Right now, as of this week, anime is my business. My only business.

This is kind of terrifying! I can’t exactly say I’ve reached the point where I can go comfortably full-time on criticism and writing in general, but I can at least fake it for a while. Between my ANN work, my advertising money, and my Patreon support, I’m gonna try to make a go of this. Things are gonna be kinda tight for a while, but this also means I’ll have a whole lot more time to work on writing projects for all you guys, so hopefully this is one big step towards a pretty delightful future. If you’d like to support me in this grand experiment, please feel free to chip in a couple whatevers, though I also accept worried, half-disbelieving “good lucks”, or even confident ones.

A few people have asked if I’d be willing to proofread, edit, or review things on commission, and the answer is definitely yes. I’m going full freelance here, meaning I’m a mercenary with nothing to lose and everything to prove, meaning yes I will take your projects that sounds awesome. I’ll hopefully integrate ways to inquire about such things on the site in a more formal way shortly, but you can message me here, on twitter, on ask.fm, or on patreon if you’ve got anything you’d like to discuss. The one formal project I’m most concerned with getting off the ground is setting up communal support funds for specific shows – like, if ten people want me to start reviewing Eva episodes one by one, they actually have a convenient way to make that happen. I’ve got a whole big to-do list to run down there.

Speaking of formal projects, I’ve got one more surprise! People keep asking me when I’m going to play some videogames again, and that can finally be answered: a couple friends and I have just created 10 Royal Games, a channel where we’ll be playing through all manner of games and shooting the shit on whatever strikes our fancy. We’re starting off with some very classic Zelda and some very fresh Metal Gear (first videos should hopefully be up tonight, and I’ll link them both here and on twitter), but feel free to suggest other stuff we could dive into, or topics you’d like us to bring up. It should be fun!

WELP, THAT COVERS ALL THE WORK STUFF. Now that I’ve sobered everyone up with serious discussion of my financial future, let’s soothe those weary brains with some ramblings about anime. And manga! And maybe some western cartoons! Hell, let’s just randomize the whole damn thing. RUNNING ‘EM DOWN.

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Paranoia Agent – Episode 8

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Paranoia Agent changed gears entirely this week, leaving Shonen Bat behind to tell a heartwarming story about suicide. This was definitely an unexpected choice, but the end result was wonderful – an almost self-contained vignette that basically established a small makeshift family, telling lots of great jokes in the process. It was witty and warm and endearingly awkward, pretty much nothing like Paranoia Agent as I’ve come to understand it. Apparently Satoshi Kon just had some loose ideas or something, and figured this was the place for them. Normally that’d be a problem narrative-wise, but this episode was so very good that I can’t complain, and Paranoia Agent’s spent so much time jumping between viewpoint characters already that it basically came off as a lighter but still vaguely coherent intermission piece. Fair enough, Paranoia Agent!

You can check out my full review at ANN, or my notes after the cut.

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Gatchaman Crowds Insight – Episode 8

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Things sure aren’t looking good for our heroes now. Gelsadra reigns supreme, Tsubasa refuses to listen to anyone, Rui has given up hope, and Hajime is still holding off on taking action. It’s depressing, frankly – this season’s overall been much heavier than the first one, and this was the heaviest episode yet. It was also a really good one, of course, and gave me plenty to talk about, but man. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing our heroes have fun again, hopefully, eventually? I guess we’ll have to see.

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

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