Management: Sequel to this post. My general thoughts so far on the winners, losers, and casualties of my summer season.
This has been a very good season, and though there hasn’t been anything I enjoy as much as I enjoyed OreGairu in the spring, I think the top show is technically better this time. But the top tier is really good all around. In descending order:
Rui and Hajime, finally meeting! High-Minded Ideals x Informed, Selfless Proletariat OTP. Let’s get to it!
Episode 6
2:12 – Awww, Rui walks away? What a goddamn tease that cliffhanger was
2:27 – Okay, that almost makes up for it. Gatchaman unveiled! For a second there I was worried they wouldn’t shove the plot ten steps forward today
3:52 – Ahh, I see. Even without actually confronting him, this kinda forces Rui’s hand – there’s no way Gatchamen won’t be considered an alternative to GALAX
5:10 – I can never get enough of their sweet pad
5:37 – Pai’s voice is amazing. Aya Hirano is so good
6:32 – Pai can’t decide anything without a higher authority deciding it for him . No wonder Hajime doesn’t respect their rules
7:53 – These two are not the best at conversation
8:43 – “I’m j-just following you so you won’t do anything crazy!” “Oh, that so?” C’mon Hajime, don’t tease the poor boy
9:09 – Hajime’s lack of faith in the primacy of social networking
9:31 – “A whim? I’m not that irresponsible.” And then that long look from him. Nice to see that misconception finally get some resolution
10:58 – Again he abuses his powers for what he perceives to be best for everyone . Constantly contradicting himself and hopelessly naive, but legitimately passionate and high-minded. I really like this character
16:09 – I’m sure Rui was quite proud of his demonstration . Everyone contributes a little bit and great things are accomplished
16:28 – Hajime always makes a point of being referred to by her name, but Rui introduces himself by his title and source of power
18:14 – And he can’t help but seek praise for his own contributions
20:17 – “Were all those heroes yesterday your friends?” “What are you talking about?” Don’t bullshit me . So good. I kind of don’t care if Hajime is too perfect, it’s still fun seeing her kick ass
And Done
Oh man, that was definitely as satisfying as I’d hoped. Hajime not unexpectedly sees both the strengths and failings of Rui’s plan pretty much immediately, and Gatchamen have gone public. And we get a bunch more development of the Sugane-Hajime dynamic, with Sugane finally getting it through his thick skull that Hajime’s easily smarter than the rest of them. I’d say “things will start moving faster now,” but things pretty much always move at top speed in this show. Bring on the next one!
Management: Speculatively calling this the first half of a two-parter on the summer season. This half will focus on the specific episodes that have marked the halfway point in my schedule (I’ll probably add in Monogatari after it airs), and the upcoming one will cover my thoughts on the overall series so far.
So! Halfway through the summer season, and there really haven’t been any crazy upsets so far. My top tier is still Uchouten Kazoku, Gatchaman Crowds, and Monogatari, but I’m enjoying the also-rans as well. Let’s check in on what the crap everybody was doing this week.
Free! 6
This episode felt kinda tedious to me. I think this show has pretty much only three things that make it watchable to me:
Unfortunately, this week focused on the character relationships, and KyoAni’s slice of life characters are always too thin to afford compelling character drama. I mean, I love character-focused stuff, it’s my favorite thing, but for character-focused stuff to be compelling you need characters with a little more depth than “the genki one,” “the glasses-pusher,” etc. Bleh.
Uchouten Kazoku 6
I didn’t like this episode as much as the last two, but its first and last acts were still tremendous and heartfelt and beautiful. However, the centerpiece of this episode was a long conversation that I’m frankly still trying to figure out. Tanukis being eaten by humans (and that just being accepted as something that happens sometimes) has always been the point of greatest disconnect between this show’s fantastical flourishes and sharply grounded character conflicts, and this episode basically dove directly into that disconnect, presenting a long monologue by the mild-mannered but strongly pro-tanuki-eating professor, complete with a flashback where Yasaburou’s father displays absolute complacency towards being eaten, and only professes a hope that he doesn’t ruin an otherwise agreeable hot-pot. And Yasaburou is pretty much charmed by him!
I just don’t know how to square this – perhaps on a thematic level eventually all these contrasting viewpoints will fit into neat holes regarding the value of a life well-lived (we’re actually pretty close to that point, I think), but on a more practical character-empathy level, I just can’t relate to the way these characters treat the tanuki-eating. Which is frustrating, since this show is normally incredibly good at grounding its fantasy in universal human emotion. So while I can’t say this was a “bad” episode, it was certainly a tough one for me to wrap my head around.
C3-bu 6
C3-bu is also turning out to be more slice of life than I could have hoped for, but fortunately this show is more fun in concept, more creative in execution, more regularly funny, more dramatically sound, and populated with much better characters than Free. I’m actually just enjoying this show on its own merits at this point – Yura’s personal issues are being handled with more grace and thoughtfulness than I expected, and it really knows how to handle either a fantasy-world or standard gag setpiece. You’ve won me over, moesoft.
The World God Only Knows S3 6
TWGOK slowed down the pace this week, which I guess is fitting for the Shiori episode. Shiori’s inner monologue was both funny and relatable, and her own fantasy-world imaginings are always great, but this story itself felt far more lazy and convenient than this season has been so far. I feel this show’s strengths are its humor and its habit of pointing out and subverting cliche story structures, but this one just played entirely by the book – Keima’s plan was very simple and it worked perfectly. It was perfectly watchable, but I was still kinda disappointed.
Attack on Titan 18
This episode was definitely a step down from the previous two (which I very much enjoyed), and felt a bit like one of Trost’s renowned “oh shit this story doesn’t correlate to our number of episodes let’s check in with everybody maybe take five for a flashback and move the plot forward seven inches” episodes. The first half was more excitement with the female titan, who’s apparently beginning to favor some style in her kills, but the second half consisted of people getting up into some trees and wondering why they were in them. I’m not worried, since the female titan represents a much more immediate threat than Eren not remembering he was human or the giant boulder ever did, and this show is still leagues better in its second half, but that second half was still not particularly engaging stuff.
Hunter x Hunter 92
This arc has gone totally nuts, and this episode was a nuts cherry on a nuts cake. Desperate giant-ant surgery was witnessed, vows of parenthood and brotherhood were made, and now a minor army of powerful monsters with hallucinogen-prompted designs have begun spreading out to conquer the world. This show is basically my definition of entertainment.
Gatchaman Crowds 5
This show never lacks for ambition, does it? This episode focused on the not-so-secretly most important character, Rui, and had him basically set out his thesis statement on his ideal, communal, utterly crowdsourced society. Showing its usual respect for easy answers, this speech was immediately shut down by one of his subordinates rightly calling him a naive, idealistic fool, and promptly hanging up on Rui to go play with his adorable daughter.
Rui’s plan has always had a number of internal inconsistencies, with his belief in a human nature that’s far less reliable than he thinks certainly being one, but another being the fact that for all his rhetoric regarding the death of heroes and the equality of his system, he is king of his powers. He decides when they’re used, he pulls the trigger, he is judge jury and executioner. This episode was the breaking point on that internal tension, when the collapsing tunnel finally prompted him to make himself the hero-celebrity he’s never wanted to be. Now he’s finally going to come into direct contact with Hajime, who is perhaps the only human being who truly represents the spirit of community his hundred were supposed to embody. This show just keeps getting better and better.
And the rest
Monogatari was a recap this week, and I’ve officially dropped Watamote – the show seems to really not have any aspirations outside of humorously and deservedly dumping on Tomoko, and that’s just not too compelling to me. I’m very excited for next week, though – a new arc in Monogatari, a new day in Uchouten Kazoku, and the long-awaited confrontation of Gatchaman’s two leads promises plenty of action, excitement, and thoughtful understated character drama. My favorite things!
No time for frivolities this week! Rui’s having a breakdown! Joe is in trouble! The ideas are brewing and the plot’s speeding forward and every character has had a dash of elaboration. Screw Titan, this is the adventure spectacle of the season.
Episode 5
0:09 – This is amazing. Again, it’s so rare to see a show this narratively sharp and idea-driven still have such a sense of goofy fun
0:12 – Pai’s tiny chair is also panda-colored . This is also just a great domestic moment. They are a very silly family
0:16 – “Should we spend an episode having them discover the link between the assaults and the alien?” “Nah, let’s just have Hajime infer it in a few seconds. ”
1:13 – “Why are we hiding? What do we have to hide?” Pretty funny how people were calling Hajime a dumb protagonist – her chipper, flighty exterior has the other characters fooled, but I don’t think her smarts are supposed to fly over the audience’s head
1:35 – I love how even her established default response plays into her preference of empowering every individual as opposed to simply melding into a larger structure
1:48 – Pai casually draws the note from his panda-pants
2:29 – D’s avatar also has great heels
2:55 – “The broken child will finally reveal itself to us.” Finally. Rui and Hajime are gonna have the best talks
3:27 – Ahh, this OP. This show is so tightly stuffed with good craft and good ideas. It’s only a couple shows a season that actually impress me, but goddamn are those shows impressive
4:49 – Uh oh
6:33 – That’s a nice sentiment, but…
7:04 – “You want to get all the credit, don’t you?” It’s interesting seeing Rui’s idealism be misunderstood by someone who fundamentally can’t understand his values (and instead speaks constantly in terms of who gets individual credit for accomplishments), but the real problem here is that GALAX being a truly collective power is an absolute lie, and thus Rui’s own values don’t really apply to it. I want to see him answer that complaint
7:43 – It is a pretty serious difference in worldviews
8:29 – There it is. He couldn’t have more disdain for this man’s perspective
9:05 – Are you having fun right now? Shades of Hajime here. She brought up a similar (and similarly vague) interpretation of her preferred form of interaction at the scrapbooking get-together
9:36 – “It is a joy that comes from within, innate to mankind, unrelated to material riches.” We are getting some thesis statement stuff right here. So now the show’s taking a step up to mankind’s capacity to philosophize and imagine a better future versus mankind’s innate self-interest and emotional weakness?
11:08 – He will impose selflessness upon them whether they like it or not
11:52 – “You think Rui’s the ideal angel here? Well fuck you, here’s his opponent sharing a nice moment with his daughter. Rui’s not perfect, he’s just young enough to have never made a real compromise. It’s easy to embrace absolutes when you have nothing at stake.”
Man I love this show
12:53 – Can you carry it all, Rui?
14:12 – Hajime finds it somewhat alarming nobody considered this
15:14 – Hajime still seems to be acting as the “correct” viewpoint here. As opposed to demanding connection from above, she creates it on the individual human level. This show’s ideas are moving so fast I can’t even guesshow they’ll complicate things for her, but having an actually didactic viewpoint in a show like this seems unimaginable, considering how much they’re complicating everything else
15:32 – “You’re acting all feminine, but you totally shoot guns when you have to, right?” Jee, who else do we know like that?
21:17 – “Aren’t there times when you find yourself taking action without even thinking about it?” Like her running to help before checking the mediating level of GALAX earlier – which, ironically, is probably the subconscious human goodness Rui wants to be harnessing
And Done
Oh MAN! DAMN that was great! I have NO FUCKING CLUE where they’re aiming this! That is an AWESOME feeling! This episode was largely “Rui’s ideals versus reality,” which resulted in some solid drama… but it’s not like Hajime’s values work outside of Hajime’s immediate vicinity, either. Her ideas of virtue only really apply to herself, since she is the only person like herself, and she is not an executable system. The writing is still incredibly sharp in this show, so I’m basically only concerning myself with the ideas, since they’re integrated and elaborated with incredible grace. Rui’s philosophy still seems contradictory, since collective intelligence and collective social consciousness isn’t really the same when it has an all-powerful ruler. Hajime still hasn’t made any mistakes, but it’s not like I want her to have an emotional breakdown or something – this show elaborates its characters efficiently, but making the story about their arcs would dilute the thematic focus, when the thematic focus is actually everything in this show. I dunno. It’s hard to put in words. This show is fantastic.
Where is this show going? Last week we switched from generally “grounded” genre satire to a full-on exploration of social media and critique of traditional modes of societal organization and leadership. How did this happen? I amloving this so far – the visual and aural design are great, the pacing and writing are snappy, and Hajime is almost too good of a protagonist. That might actually become a problem, if she continues to be smart and authoritative and empathetic and grounded without any push-back to give her a little more believable humanity, but hopefully her philosophy will end up clashing in some satisfying way with the equally fascinating and seemingly high-minded (asexplained in awesome detail by the irrepressible /u/SohumB [+1]) Rui.
So! This show’s always exciting, but things are now actually building to some ridiculously interesting points. And the Crowds! The Crowds are loose! No more talking time for gatcha
Episode 4
1:13 – Not surprising – the Crowds seem to give the diffused crowdsourcing of talents a physical form. I like that he activates them with that “Play the Game” of the gamification, as well. I can’t wait to see how this all goes wrong
1:47 – “Have faith and wait – GALAX will not abandon us.” Also interesting. Relying on authority figures can be considered a way of shuffling responsibility upwards, whereas crowdsourcing diffuses that responsibility – but both could be considered methods of relinquishing personal responsibility. Not that these people are currently able to take charge of their situation, but too much reliance on this system has already been admitted to be its’ own problem. Hajime seems to understand this very well, and has already personally taken great initiative in a variety of situations – I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop on her unflappability
3:54 – Goddamn that OP is great. Easily my favorite of the season – vivid visuals, great mix of animation and actual footage, and the song is perfect for the show. Also, there has never been a more perfect casting than Aya Hirano as a hard-drinking alien panda. So glad she’s getting work again
5:17 – “I wasn’t the one who saved them. It was Crowds.” No sooner does this show raise an idea than it questions and possibly discards it. Crowds gets exactly one scene as an unquestioned good before Rui ties it in to that point of relying on an outer framework versus being self-reliant.
5:35 – “Gatchamaaaan…” And four episodes in, we’re already messing with our electronic networks to show how reliant we are on our experience-mediators. Robotics;Notes took like fifteen!
6:05 – Their hideout design sure does allow for some lovely shots
7:01 – “I didn’t manage to finish it off this time… but I will for sure next time.” See, in a normal version of this show, I’d figure Joe or at the very least Sugane would be the protagonist. But nope, this show’s got too much actual shit to get to, so we get Hajime
7:20 – Hajime’s deep concentration face
8:05 – “Listen, do not get involved!” Yeah, that’ll work. Hajime’s super good at following orders
9:16 – “That bad Gatchaman said it was our fault, right? That’s super bad!” “I’ll settle the score with it.” “That’s not what I’m talking about!” I wonder how long her silly mannerisms will keep her teammates from realizing she’s always thinking at least a couple steps ahead of them. Who cares if they can stop the thing, the important thing is what it said, and what their leaders’ reactions to that information implied
10:14 – “Exposition exposition , I also lost my best friend because of it…” This scene, eh. This show’s normally much better about implying information than this, and generally assumes the viewer can make intelligent assumptions based on the least necessary information. This conversation’s plenty efficient and written naturally enough, but I feel they could have implied all the salient stuff through two well-chosen sentences and a pointed look between the pair of them
10:45 – “A trigger to cause the humans to destroy each other.” Well, that’s kind of a big clue
11:24 – “You’re the only reason I became a Gatchaman.” “Who knows how long you can have fun drinking?” Yeah,these two are such an intentionally standard hero pair it makes me wince. The show isn’t letting the social media ideas keep it from having fun with this genre
11:59 – “Look at all these sources of traditional authority! Our town is so safe!” Please don’t bait the narrative, Hajime
14:40 – Aaand there’s Rui’s backstory in about fifteen seconds. Efficient storytelling!
15:21 – “If everyone found out their hero was in a contract with someone like me…” That’s too easy. The system’s failure should come from its’ own inherent qualities, not from an outside negative element. Not that I think this show is dumb enough to muddle its’ own ideas like that – but many shows introduce a really compelling “What if?” scenario, only to resolve it in a meaningless way when A MONSTER ATTACKS RAAA
16:36 – “Humanity’s black heart…” What’s the angle here?
16:42 – “We won’t ask for help from any heroes.” Who thought that it’d be a good idea to make a show ostensibly focused on individual superheroes instead focus on the power of collective intelligence and collective action? All the raises
17:33 – “If it’s that amazing, shouldn’t GALAX handle politics and police work?” And the conceit rears forward again
17:55 – “GALAX is amazing, but it’s not good.” That is an incredibly well-chosen sentence, Hajime!
18:12 – “Even if the world went up in a big, red blaze, you’d save people, right?” I like how Hajime is working out the kinks of a philosophical argument no-one but herself is actually having
18:38 – So, the mother acts angrily/selfishly, she is copied into a destructive doppelganger. What was the prelude to the other takeovers?
Also, Rui is looking lovely tonight . Between him (I’m guessing, he/she hasn’t straight-up said what he/she identifies as) and Yasaburou , this is clearly the summer of confused boners
19:42 – It’s finally begun, Rui-Rui! Finally! I was getting kinda bored, what with it being all of seven minutes since these two were established as having a contract.
God this show’s pacing is awesome. So few shows have the glut of plot, characters, and ideas necessary to move events forward this quickly
20:46 – “It’s like our disaster prevention department might as well not exist.” They sure are setting up a lot of dominoes here. I’m just hoping GALAX fails for a satisfying reason
And Done
What a crazy world we live in! Good thing GALAX is there to protect us, eh?
Yeah, probably didn’t need to hear that rephrased by every single citizen. Still, this episode moved at breakneck speed as always, establishing and destroying the link between Rui and the destructive alien, setting up the outside world for its’ coming reliance upon and subsequent betrayal by GALAX, and even sparing a little time to characterize virtually every single member of the central cast. Hajime still has yet to make an actual misstep, and I still have that lingering fear that GALAX’s downfall won’t be indicative of anything beyond the bad guy controlling it (there are plenty of reasons to question an age of crowdsourced responsibility beyond the fear of evil aliens taking it over), but this episode was still fast and exciting and obsessed with its’ central ideas. It is incredibly rare to find a show this thematically focused that’s also this propulsive and watchable – normally you either get the rollercoaster or you get the lecture, and combining them this gracefully is a goddamn impressive feat.
Despite being my second-favorite show of the season, I’m still not really sure what’s going on with this show. I thinkit might be intentionally skewering the self-serious conventions of its’ genre, but it also might just be trying to tell an interesting story, or talk about social networking, or something? Well, regardless of what its’ actual goals are, Hajime clearly stands at the center of them – she’s already successfully initiated diplomacy with the Gatchamans’ main adversary, and in general seems a lot smarter and more self-assured than her manic pixie exterior would lead you to guess. Let’s see what the fuck happens this week.
Episode 3
0:05 – Is it just me, or are we getting an unusual number of visually distinctive and appealing shows this season? My top three – Uchouten Kazoku, this, and Monogatari – all basically have an entirely distinct but uniquely beautiful visual vocabulary, which isn’t usually the case. I’ll take it!
0:22 – Defeat your enemies through arts and crafts. What a heartwarming message
1:47 – I like how he’s reading a magazine about the latest in dart technology
2:01 – “They might be a life form with a hive mind.” Yeah, this social networking/collective consciousness stuff is clearly going somewhere
2:23 – I wonder if she’ll ever serve any purpose beyond looking ridiculous
3:02 – I guess that answers that
5:06 – This OP is so perfect for this show. Stylish, silly, fun.
6:15 – “Filing a civil suit isn’t that difficult.” It’s a really interesting concept they’re playing with here, and not too far from a collection of our current internet/social media resources. Sort of a formalized integration of our LinkedIn skill sets and expertise with a broader version of Twitter that also includes the gamification companies are using with stuff like FourSquare. It’s a simple and completely believable concept, and it’s clearly at the heart of what this show will actually be about – I really, really want to see where they’re going with this
Weird to think a show this upbeat and ostensibly unserious might end up being the spiritual successor to Lain…
7:16 – Another think my top shows have in common: gender-ambiguous central characters .
7:57 – “It’s a matter of connecting job seekers with employers. If they can connect directly, why would they need a middleman?” That makes for a pretty weird parallel with the fact that a dwindling need for middlemen is gonna screw our entire economic system soon enough. Not that I think this show is actually going to discuss the onset of a post-labor economy, it’s got enough on its’ plate
9:10 – “The world’s so complicated now that even excellent leaders might not be able to turn things around.” Is this show going to be about everything?
9:57 – “Are you being stingy with your power?” So it’s looking like whoever’s empowered this guy is a being similar to the old dude powering the Gatchamen
10:45 – “What if their wife just went into labor? When you think about it that way, don’t you feel less angry?” Her philosophy’s always a bit smarter than it looks. Even though she is a naturally empathetic person, she’s not stupid enough to believe everyone has a valid reason for everything – it also just results in a better personal quality of life if you frame these things in a positive way
12:19 – So “X” illegally and intrusively monitored the production of this milk, but because of that they were able to warn people it might be unsafe. Yep, I guess we’re talking about everything
13:07 – “Isn’t it a ruse? We can’t just take stuff from the internet at face value.” This show’s getting serious on its’ ideas. I might have to switch to just recording thematic clues for sorting later at this point
13:32 – “Anyway, we should consult the principle.” Relying on older/central forms of intelligence or authority versus the collective. But of course X isn’t actually the collective, or hasn’t been portrayed as such yet
15:02 – “THE MIIIILK!” And Hajime saves the day again. She is too good at this job
16:13 – “Mission Complete!” “Is that an indication of how many people still don’t trust information from GALAX?” I wonder how long it’ll be before they complicate the worth of the collective, anonymous intelligence. This episode’s clearly pretty dedicated to showing what it can do for good and why people would want to trust it over traditional systems, but that can’t last
16:40 – “Adverse effects of a vertical society.” But that kind of runs contrary to the earlier point of smart leadership being made powerless by the modern world. So the point is then that collective action is the only source of real power, but it can still be stymied by the old systems?
17:45 – “You can’t just blindly follow the internet.” Wait, now Hajime’s even rationally admitting the counterpoint? She’s maybe a little too ahead of the game. But hey, if they can craft a compelling story around an actually intelligent, confident, extroverted, and goal-oriented protagonist, I will be all the more impressed
20:40 – And the crazy teeth lady thing once again gets someone falsely accused. Breeding distrust in strangers…
And Done
“We’ll have to use the Crowds,” huh? Pretty apt name for the kind of power he’s apparently been given.
This show just keeps getting more interesting. This episode heavily downplayed the fantasy-ish elements in favor of the much more interesting near-future social networking stuff. It poked at a lot of very interesting ideas, but it still hasn’t really raised a counterpoint to the value of its’ systems – one quarter in, it’s basically only proposed GALAX as a force for good. Additionally, as the story begins to gain more grounding, Hajime’s superhuman ability to resolve everything will swiftly become less appropriate. I’m not actually worried about either of these things – the show has demonstrated a remarkable ability to play to its strengths so far, and I’m confident the issues it’s raising will be complicated shortly. In fact, I’m only liking this show more and more.
Because evaluating shows before they even reach their halfway point is obviously an intelligent idea, let’s check in on the season so far. Heroes have risen, villains have fallen, and a couple shows have pretty much just done exactly what I expected them to do. It’s time for the
Summer 2013 First Quarter Anime Roundup
This season is actually kinda crazy-good. I was originally skeptical it could even begin to compare to last season, but a couple wild card hits have set it up as an extremely strong lineup. This is particularly exciting because it’s implying there are some great lesser-known creators out there – last season I knew Urobuchi and Brain’s Base made good things, but my two favorite shows this season were basically shots in the dark. Let’s do it in order…
That first episode was pretty great, right? Definitely my surprise gem of the season. The visual design was great and the music was fantastically campy, but Hajime definitely sold it for me – I normally have trouble taking this kind of show seriously unless it really sells itself in some specific way, so having a protagonist who feels pretty much the same way as me (“Oh jeez, I’ve entered a very silly anime! Let’s screw around!”) is quite the breath of fresh air. I don’t know if her irreverent energy will stay as endearing if the show begins to try harder to take itself seriously, and I don’t know how the show would go about not ever becoming more focused on its actual story, but I am as always here as a student myself. Teach me, Gatchaman. Teach me your ways.
Episode 2
0:32 – “Ballets Pastelle!” Is she just making up these names as she goes along? Of course she is
1:20 – “So this is how you respond? That’s kinda different…” Genre savviness is a pretty great secret weapon
1:46 – Forgot how great this OP was
4:46 – “Oh, I live here now.” And then they’re just having dinner. This show certainly doesn’t waste time setting stuff up in a way that would make any kind of sense!
5:56 – “Maybe she was having a really tough time.” “No, it’s because she didn’t value her life.” They’re really hammering the difference between her relative and his hardline morality. I smell a theme!
8:19 – And they allude to but don’t fully explain some “disaster” while actually making the scene about elaborating the guy’s character. I didn’t expect subtlety here!
8:27 – “Yeah, I’m great. I fought a monster!” Pff, secret identities? Who’s got the time for that?
9:51 – “Senpai, let’s make collages!” It’s like a show from the actual perspective of a manic pixie dream girl. Pretty surreal, given anime’s usual female-character fantasies
9:56 – “Isn’t your sword pretty?” He is floored by how pretty it is. Again, it seems like this show is just fast-forwarding through setup and character elaboration that normal shows would linger on for full episodes (establishing the world, getting her to the apartment, creating a dynamic between these two, pushing his development via her enthusiasm). I am actually all in favor of this, since all this stuff is classic genre fare and they’re clearly trying to get to something
13:22 – Finally someone figures out Hajime’s actual game . How dare you insult our silly premise, Hajime!
13:58 – “Pai-pai, are you on Galax too?” And Hajime loses interest in their hero mission to return to her actual priority, social networking for her scrapbooking club
15:02 – “A manifestation of our soul – so that’s why our weapons are different! But why is it a sword for you, and scissors for me?” Yeah, I’m not used to seeing protagonists try and figure out their own visual motifs within the second episode. Loving this show
16:55 – “This place probably isn’t real, right? And we’re JJ’s employees, it’s not like he’d put us in danger. Welp, only one way to be sure! ”
19:30 – “I’m sure it’ll tell us where the missing people went!” Premise: defeated. Now to invite MESS-chan to the collage club…
20:55 – “We don’t need an ambulance. Galax is far more useful.” “The world has been updated. Plus fifty points!” They’re hinting at some pretty interesting ideas here regarding all that “gameification of real life” stuff the kids go on about. I wonder if they’ll go somewhere with it
21:42 – “Man, I’m starving!” as she throws the food, mirroring Hajime’s declaration in the first episode. And it looks like they’re immediately going somewhere with it
And Done
Holy shit, I think this show’s gonna be really good! It absolutely burned down the genre setup this episode, did a great deal of work further establishing the characters, and was just breathlessly paced throughout. The writing is also actually pretty high quality, revealed through the lightly written conversations that achieved both narrative and character purposes, the efficient, understated, and constant subversions of genre staples, and the various hints at a few actual thematic undercurrents. I particularly like how quick the show is to address its own ideas – things like her personality making her predisposed to not immediately believe in their mission, or the natural conflict between her and the guy’s personalities, aren’t just hinted at – they’re built over the episode and then brought to a boil, which fits with Hajime’s “this place probably isn’t real, so I’ll walk off a cliff to test that” philosophy. It’s still pretty breezy fare, but I’m both fine with that and no longer have trouble believing it could actually come together as a story. Surprise gem indeed.
