Tag Archives: Parasyte

Winter 2015 – Week 2 in Review

Posted on by

I am watching too many shows. Way too many shows. Shows on backlog and shows for release review and too many goddamn airing shows. I’ve tried to be ruthless. I cut Saekano because the first few minutes seemed typical. I cut Earth High Defense Club because I just didn’t feel like it. But there’s too much good anime! Too many of the premiers weren’t red herrings, too many of the long shots turned out to be great. I’m not gonna survive this season, you guys. Something’s gonna snap.

Well, whatever. Let’s run ’em down, starting with the last two episodes of Shirobako!

Continue reading →

Parasyte – Episode 14

Posted on by

This episode felt kinda unfocused, with a bunch of general plot movement taking the place of one focused conflict. The plot movement was decently engaging though, and it’s nice to see basically all our principles continuing to evolve – Shinichi, Migi, and Ryouko all exhibited new wrinkles in their evolution this week, and it’s always pretty great seeing Ryouko handle her baby like a sack of potatoes. Parasyte chugs along.

My full ANN post is available here. Notes below!

Continue reading →

Parasyte – Episode 13

Posted on by

And we’re back, with a real sad-sack episode for Shinichi. Kana’s dead, his girlfriend doesn’t trust him, Tamiya is sending private investigators after him… things aren’t going so great for our hero right now. We also got some pretty interesting developments on the parasite side, which I end up spending most of this episode’s article rambling about. Doing a lot of rambling in general at the moment – preview week’s in full swing, I’m alternating between sleeping, doing ten hour shifts, and writing about cartoons, and the weather outside is approaching the opposite of livable degrees. I might be hallucinating, because I’m pretty sure I also watched a show about lesbian bears. G’bye everybody…

Here’s my full post on ANN. Hopefully lucid notes below!

Continue reading →

Fall 2014 – Week 13 in Review

Posted on by

We got a few show endings this week, which were scattered between great and mediocre. Amagi’s real ending was last week, which allowed this episode to be… well, a kind of lukewarm one-off. But Bahamut ended well, and Fate Stay Night at least had good scenes within a weaker overall episode. So I guess what I’m saying is Shirobako saved Christmas, like we always knew it would. Let’s run ’em down!

Continue reading →

Parasyte – Episode 12

Posted on by

Not the best episode this week – Kana’s story just didn’t feel that well-integrated into the rest of the narrative, and this episode in particular was not that gracefully constructed. The Shinichi-Migi material was stellar, though, and the ending was quite good. I’m certainly excited to see the larger-scale questions of the parasite politician and the government response come into focus again.

Here’s my full ANN piece. Notes are below!

Continue reading →

Fall 2014 – Week 11 in Review

Posted on by

This was a somewhat hit or miss week in animeland, with the usual top tier turning in great episodes, but everyone else varying from solid to blargh. Amagi Brilliant Park, Chaika, and Bahamut are looking like they’ll fall somewhere under my initial expectations, the top four of Shirobako, KimiUso, Parasyte, and FSN are all keeping it together in solid form, and the MMO contingent are both doing their best to end the season on a high note. Let’s see what we got!

Continue reading →

Parasyte – Episode 11

Posted on by

Parasyte took a moment to catch its breath this week, and so we got little vignettes from a variety of narratives. Which was a lot of fun, actually – Kana’s a pretty endearing mix of confidence and naivety, and that central fight scene was a totally unexpected visual bounty. Almost weirdly so, in fact – so far I’ve felt Parasyte’s atmosphere has generally been more effective than its big action setpieces, but that scene’s action was great. I’ve always liked the way the schoolyard fights generally resolve in one or two quick, brutal strikes, and applying that style to an extended fight made for a really tremendous sequence.

Here’s the full ANN post. Rough episodic notes are below the cut!

Continue reading →

Fall 2014 – Week 10 in Review

Posted on by

Pretty killer episodes this week, at least from the top shelf. KimiUso, Shirobako, and Parasyte all turned in stellar performances, Chaika kept up the dramatic intensity from last week, and Log Horizon suddenly decided to toss off one of the best speeches I’ve seen. The other episodes were middling, but the season’s looking strong as we move into the endgame. Look forward to a pretty stupid amount of content over these next couple weeks – I’m planning on participating in the 12 Days of Anime posts (one post a day for the twelve days leading up to the 25th) along with all my usual review shenanigans, my top shows of the year post will follow that, and even ANN might have some kind of bonus piece to contribute. I hope this is what you want, internet. This is all the blood I have!

Alright, enough of that. Let’s run down some cartoons.

Continue reading →

Parasyte – Episode 10

Posted on by

Goddamn bulletproof episode this week. The conclusion to Shimada arc was the show’s best material yet – for once, the execution actually elevated the material, and the episode was filled with gorgeous shots and legitimately effective musical cues. Really, really hoping this is the turning point for Parasyte – this felt like the show it’s always just barely fallen short of reaching, and if it can keep this up, we’ll likely have an actual classic on our hands.

As I’ve been doing, all my breathless mid-episode notes are available after the cut. They’re a big garbled mess, but maybe you’re into that sort of thing!

Continue reading →

Fall 2014 – Week 9 in Review

Posted on by

This was kind of a slow week overall, outside of nuts-good episodes from usual highlights Shirobako and KimiUso. Although both Chaika and Fate Stay Night also pulled out very fun episodes, Rage of Bahamut and Amagi were kind of subdued, and the bottom tier of Log Horizon and SAO both fell below average. But I mean, I’ve had seasons where I was happy to see one show keeping it together… I should probably be able to take it in stride when only four of the six shows I really like put out top-notch episodes. And this was the first great Chaika in a while, a very important Chaika in fact, so let’s start right there. Running it down!

Continue reading →