Tag Archives: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

The Best Anime Next Steps

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There are a lot of anime out there! Literally thousands, with over a hundred more being released every year. There are new hits every season, and old favorites that have slowly lost their topical sheen. Given all those shows, it can be understandably hard to pick what to watch next – anime, like every other medium, is full of stuff that will disappoint you, and everyone’s tastes are different.

My own tastes in particular are a little weird – I like arthouse stuff and intimate character studies and occasional cathartic message-focused shows. But fortunately, there is indeed such a thing as “normal” taste in anime, or at least the most common preferences shared by fans outside of Japan. And today, I’m hoping to help that audience – or more specifically, hopefully, You.

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Fall 2016 – Week 9 in Review

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Turns out anime is good, everybody. Who would have guessed! As usual, nearly everything I’m watching this season operated at a level I generally just associate with my seasonal favorite, leaving me with a pile of cartoon riches to luxuriate in. Euphonium rallied from a weaker episode with possibly the strongest episode of the season, March continued to lay sturdy dramatic bricks in between episodic pleasures, and Flip Flappers steered itself right back towards the compelling bonds between the three leads. Even JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure was acting like it had something to prove, working hard to give Hayato’s struggle all the manic energy it deserves. Anime will likely go back to being bad again soon, but I can’t say I mind having barely anything to complain about. But I’m not doing this critic shtick for nothing, so let’s start off with some complaints and then work our way to the fawning praise!

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Fall 2016 – Week 8 in Review

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This week in anime felt a little lonely, courtesy of March taking a sick day, but the rest of our contenders did their best to liven things. Flip Flappers and Euphonium had unexpectedly ordinary episodes (at least for those shows’ definitions of ordinary), but Girlish Number continued to focus on strong character writing over industry commentary, which is definitely where the show shines. Kira found himself with yet another ridiculously specific serial killing-enabling power, and Yuri on Ice decided it was time to introduce a tragic incest narrative and make Yurio a catboy. All in all it was a pretty standard week down on the anime farm, but I still found a thing or two worth talking about. Let’s run ‘em down!

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Fall 2016 – Week 7 in Review

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It was very clear this week that many of this season’s shows took careful notes based on my first half in review post, and adjusted their content accordingly. Normally it takes at least a few weeks for shows to shift gears based on my exact preferences, so I was happy to see the response time so accelerated here. Shows like Girlish Number and Sound! Euphonium clearly took my complaints to heart, and as we all know, being able to accept constructive criticism is an admirable quality. I’m glad we can all agree anime turns out better when it listens to me specifically.

Alright, impossibility of my writing affecting anime production in any way whatsoever aside, this week really did see many shows directly tackling some of my existing complaints. Girlish Number dug in to its cast, Euphonium emphasized the variables that had worked in the first season, Yuri on Ice offered its most well-earned and best-composed personal material yet, and Flip Flappers was just fantastic in all regards. The fall season continues to impress in new ways, so let’s start with those flip flaps and RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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Fall 2016 – First Half in Review

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The season’s halfway point has arrived! Normally this is the part where I’d comment on how quickly time seems to be passing, and probably make some offhand gesture towards our inescapable mortality, but given we just concluded one of the most horrific and dispiriting political contests in my country’s history, it really doesn’t seem like time’s been passing all that fast lately. But if you wanted fatigued political commentary, you’d check my twitter feed – in spite of all else, the world keeps turning, and that means talking about cartoons!

This season has been offering us a terrific bounty so far, presenting close to half the shows that will likely star in my year-end list. The better shows get, the more small-minded and useless it seems to rank them in any kind of reductive list, but what’s the point of a tradition if it’s not celebrated far past the point of reason? So let’s once more do that thing I always do, starting at the top and running down my favorites of the season so far!

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Fall 2016 – Week 5 in Review

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This was a perfectly respectable week in anime! In fact, it was more than respectable – Yuri on Ice managed to grab my interest in a way it never had before, Flip Flappers pulled off a stunning vignette that raised the bar for the show altogether, and Euphonium had possibly the best musical performance I’ve seen in anime. This season is just ridiculous, you guys – normally something like Yuri on Ice, Euphonium, or March comes in like a lion would be the bright spot in a largely weaker lineup, but this season’s crop basically starts at JoJo/Girlish Number and only goes up from there. Given I’m writing this prior to the election results, the world may literally be on fire by the time this gets posted (UPDATE: the world is literally on fire), but at least we’re going out with some pretty cool cartoons. Let’s RUN ‘EM DOWN!

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Fall 2016 – Week 4 in Review

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This was a workhorse week in anime. We’re several weeks out from the premieres, meaning most of this season’s shows have more or less established their tone and structure, but we’re still also some distance from the sort of narrative shakeups that often mark the midpoint of one season productions. That point in the season means many shows are entering a bit of a lean period at the moment – demonstrating their fundamental quality, but not really dazzling with any new talents. Yuri on Ice and Flip Flappers have largely settled into their genre spaces, Girlish Number and Euphonium each hit some mid-sized dramatic turns, and JoJo just kept chugging along. Weeks like this put the onus on me to come up with new stuff to talk about, so thanks a fuckin’ lot, anime. Fortunately, after possibly more than a hundred of these Week in Reviews, I’ve learned how to spend a lot of time talking about basically nothing. So if that sounds like fun to you, pull up a chair and take a seat as we RUN THESE SHOWS DOWN!

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Why It Works: JoJo’s Equal-Opportunity Drama

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I took a few weeks away for the start of the fall season, but I couldn’t stay away from JoJo for long. This week I go into another of JoJo’s general-purpose strengths – the way it’s so genuinely invested in not-so-thrilling adventures that it drags the audience along as well. It’s pretty much a constant for JoJo, but I figured a week where Kira faced down a cat-plant was as good a time as any to discuss it!

Why It Works: JoJo’s Equal-Opportunity Drama

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Fall 2016 – Week 3 in Review

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Anime is so friggin’ good this season. I thought I was lucky last season, given my sturdy crop of half a dozen reliably entertaining shows, but this one is offering a solid handful of shows that could easily be the best anime of a normal season. Yuri!!! On ICE is consistently funny and extremely propulsive, Sound! Euphonium is every bit the equal of its predecessor, Girlish Number is giving Watari Wataru an easy canvas to riff on, and March comes in like a lion might still be my favorite thing I’m watching. With Flip Flappers and Izetta each offering their own very different strengths, pretty much every kind of show I like is solidly represented here. I remember noting in the spring season that all I was lacking was a strong character-focused story – well, I may not be getting a Conrevo-style themey-wemey show this time, but I think I can be content with this embarrassment of character-focused riches. Anime is being very good to me, so let’s stop with the rambling and RUN THESE SHOWS DOWN!

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Fall 2016 – Week 2 in Review

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Preview week has finally concluded, and most shows are already past their second or even third episodes. This season turned out to be even more bountiful than I’d expected, meaning I’ve had to make some ruthless cuts to make the absolutely most efficient usage of my cartoon consumption experience. Magical Girl Raising Project’s second episode killed the sleepy magical girl, so it’s off the list. Keijo’s second episode only had me intermittently laughing through its first half, so it’s gone. With roughly forty or fifty weekly articles to write, I’ve been forced to cut down my list of “leisure anime” to only the fiercest, boldest, most ruthless entertainment machines on the market. It’s brutal work watching all these cartoons, but I can take solace in compressing the painstaking work of dozens of artists and animators into an offhand paragraph for your lunch break consumption. Let’s grit our teeth, clench our bowels, and RUN THIS DOWN!

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