Kyoukai no Kanata – Episode 3

So I guess there are a lot of tragic backstories to go around. Akihito with his hands all bloodied up, Mirai with her murderings… life ain’t easy in this neighborhood. I’m hopeful the story continues to press forward at this pace – I think the first two episodes did a great job of setting up the central world and cast, and I’d hate to see a Free-like situation where one single thread of drama gets dragged out over twelve episodes. Granted, we already have much more going on than Free’s narrative ever did – we’ve got two separate lines of tragic backstory, we’ve got the romantic drama surrounding the central cast, we’ve got Mitsuki’s warnings about Mirai (which may just be related to Mirai’s past, granted), and we’ve got literal dark clouds on the horizon. So yeah, I think we’ve got a solid stew brewing. Let’s see what bubbles to the surface today.

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Fall 2013 – Week 1 in Review

Dear lord. Alright, let’s… let’s try to do this.

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Kyoukai no Kanata – Episode 2

Oh man. Get hyped. Loved the first episode – it was as gorgeous as always, rife with KyoAni’s trademark animation (applied both to small character gestures and actual action sequences) and once again making use of a blooming, nostalgic purple-pink color scheme. But there was actually a lot else there, too. We’ve got self-aware banter lightly poking at storytelling in general (a clear weakness of mine). We’ve got those very distinct shots of Mitsuki trying to use her sexuality against Akihito, both echoing Monogatari in framing style and gracefully establishing some relationship dynamics. We’ve the well-integrated exposition, sandwiched in jokes and patter, establishing a world without dictating that world to the audience. We have that interesting world itself, leaning towards dark fantasy but focused on character drama. We’ve got all those great horror-movie shots, setting this show in a tonal place very distinct from KyoAni’s general aesthetic. And of course we’ve still got derpy moe, for better or for worse – though Mirai has seemed more just inept than truly blobbish so far, which is definitely a good sign.

And there’s the timer. Alright, I’m excited. Let’s do this.

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Kyoukai no Kanata – Episode 1

I am seriously steaming in anticipation here, and I’ve had to wait six freaking hours to get off work and watch this, but let’s just take the briefest of moments to cover what we’ve got here.

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Fall 2013 Season Preview

I am kind of absurdly hyped for this upcoming season. My favorite studios, my favorite writers… basically the only way to improve it would be if Gen Urobuchi personally gave me a new show and a puppy. This lineup is stupid. I guess I’ll run it down in order of personal hype intensity?

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