Tag Archives: Anime

Summer 2015 – First Half in Review

Posted on by

The summer halfway point has arrived! As per long-hallowed tradition, the season halfway point is always celebrated with my first and only show ranking of the season, emphasizing the fundamental ridiculousness of lists through the double-stacked ridiculousness of listing shows that are only halfway over. This is perhaps (definitely) a meaningless exercise, but hey, it gives me a reasonably coherent topic to cover when shows are generally just sort of durdling around and gearing up for their final push. This season’s a bit unusual ranking-wise, in that as far as “actual real serious-business shows go,” it’s basically just Gatchaman Crowds insight versus an empty field. Classroom Crisis has its moments but is far too inconsistent to consider great, and everything else I’m watching falls somewhere into “enjoyable popcorn garbage.” Can you… rank… garbage?

Yeah, of course you can fucking rank garbage. I may be watching Prison School, but I’m certainly not watching Sky Wizards Academy, and there are damn good reasons for that. So let’s take a fine-tooth comb to this season’s pee jokes and snake-fucking and RUN THESE SHOWS DOWN.

Continue reading →

Paranoia Agent – Episode 5

Posted on by

Paranoia Agent took a weird detour into fantasyland this week, offering an episode heavy on pratfalls and silly faces. This turned out… okay, I guess? It was definitely much weaker than Paranoia Agent’s usual material, and in no way leaned into the show’s usual strengths. As a one-off episode, I guess it was entertaining enough, but it still makes for an odd fit within a show that’s normally focused on such a specific and separate tone.

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

Continue reading →

Gatchaman Crowds insight – Episode 6

Posted on by

Welp, we’ve entered Local Girl and Alien Ruin Everything territory. Tsubasa’s a child, Gelsadra’s a terrifying force of faux-unity, and together they’re doing a pretty great job of making Japan the most fragile country imaginable. This episode basically hung around those two the entire time, as they attempted to put their plan of “making everyone happy” into action. Jou can’t be feeling good about this situation – CROWDS may be gone, but replacing the diet with constant popular votes is actually a far more dangerous system of forced horizontal engagement. I imagine things will begin falling apart more or less immediately.

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

Continue reading →

Classroom Crisis – Episode 6

Posted on by

Classroom Crisis rallied back with an excellent episode this week, revealing Nagisa’s full past in an episode full of the small character moments that make even this show’s weakest episodes at least somewhat compelling. This is definitely a pretty lopsided show, but it’s the kind of lopsided I can get behind – its best elements are unique and very valuable, and it having a bunch of obvious failings along with them is just how it goes with a lot of anime. And second halves are generally more conflict-focused anyway, so there’s a fair chance Classroom Crisis will average out to a very solid show.

Here’s my full ANN writeup, and you can check out my notes below!

Continue reading →

Monogatari is a Disaster

Posted on by

New article-essay thing! This one’s less of a thematic essay and more of a breakdown of why Monogatari is basically destined to be divisive, going into the various core elements that make it so weird and both repellent and appealing at the same time. It’s one of my favorite shows, but I completely understand why other people wouldn’t like it, or why other people who like it would have entirely different feelings on it even if we both “like Monogatari.” It’s quite a strange mess of a show, and that’s actually part of why I like it so much.

Anyway, I get to all that in the article. AND HERE IT IS:

Monogatari is a Disaster

Nisemonogatari

Paranoia Agent – Episode 4

Posted on by

The paranoia continues, this time visiting trusty Officer Hirukawa. This was less of a mood-focused episode than the last couple, but gave us a better look at the police chief’s philosophy, which was a nice tradeoff. I also just loved Hirukawa’s ridiculous face. This show has extremely expressive character designs in general, and Hirukawa’s among the best of them – his bulbous nose, beady eyes, and utterly untrustworthy grin make for a perfect cartoon face that can squash and stretch into all sorts of absurd expressions. Hurray for Hirukawa’s silly face.

You can check out my ANN writeup over here or my notes below!

Continue reading →

Gatchaman Crowds insight – Episode 5

Posted on by

This was a big one! Gatchaman basically crammed every idea it could think of relating its central themes to the election process into one jam-packed episode, and the result was stunning. As I say in my review, this episode could have felt busy or cynical, but the way the show made use of its characters very understandable motives to center each of their perspectives made it feel as poignant as it was dense. This is the way it is, but nobody’s happy about it. Idealists are used, pragmatists make cynical steps for the greater good, and relying on anything more than the base tides of public opinion will likely get you swept away. This was a stern dressing-down of everything Rui hoped for in the first season, and likely insight’s best episode yet.

Here’s my full review at ANN, and you can check out my notes below!

Continue reading →

Classroom Crisis – Episode 5

Posted on by

Well, it was bound to happen. You can’t have a show with “classroom” in the title and avoid a derpy beach episode at some point, I suppose. And this episode certainly was Beach Episode As Fuck, which I used as an excuse to largely talk about how this show can sometimes feel at war with itself. It feels like the pitch for this show went “we can let you get away with this corporate struggle between simplistic but bold ideals and the necessities of business, but you’ll have to stick in at least one classroom setting, three ‘I’m not an old woman’ jokes, and a beach episode.” Hopefully the devil has now been paid his due, and Classroom Crisis can be strictly good from here on out.

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

Continue reading →

Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 – Review

Posted on by

Time for another review, and this time we’ve got… a random-ass show from the late ’90s. And boy is this show EVER from the late ’90s. This might the most “from the ’90s” anime I’ve ever witnessed, absolutely dripping with a specific cyberpunk aesthetic, sound, and idea of “cool” that at this point comes across as more quaint than anything else. And as I say in the review, once you get past that, the show really doesn’t give you all that much else to talk about – Bubblegum Crisis is a very simple scifi-action thing full of very simple characters acting out a very simple story. Overall, I’d basically describe it as “harmless enough.”

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or read some of my frankly unnecessary notes below!

Continue reading →

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders (Egypt Arc) – Review

Posted on by

And we’re back for the second half of Stardust Crusaders! This one won’t be a huge surprise if you’ve been following my week in review posts – I found SC’s second half to be a huge improvement over the first, and a legitimate return to form for the show overall. Lots of exciting fights with far better narrative composition, some really great visual tricks echoing the style of the first season, and even better music. The last dozen or so episodes of SC in particular were almost all the series at its best, from Pet Shop through Vanilla Ice and on to Dio himself. Egypt Arc has me eagerly awaiting the third season/fourth arc, whenever JoJo returns to us.

You can check out my full JoJo review right here!

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure