Spring 2021 Summary – Week 4

Super Cub – 03

Wooper: Is it just me, or did this episode feel like the conclusion to a three-part OVA? Koguma’s closing monologue neatly closed the book on her lonely Cub-less life without creating the need for a sequel. It was nicely-written, especially her reflection on how it felt to receive a classmate’s phone number versus a motorcycle license, but there wasn’t much of a “tsuzuku” vibe to it. And yet we know, thanks to the magic of the Internet, that there’s another main character who’ll be introduced at some point during the next two months. I’m looking forward to it, especially since she might be unfamiliar with motorbikes, giving Koguma a chance to pass on what she’s learned to a novice rider. That would be great for her self-esteem, which has grown bit by bit during Super Cub’s first “arc,” but is still miles behind where it could be. She doesn’t have the guts to claim use of the microwave at lunchtime, and she’s still hesitant to call Reiko a friend, even though they eat together every day at school. That timid personality continues to receive good visualization, since Koguma’s movements are slow and deliberate – I just wish the CG bike scenes would ride into the sunset and never return.

Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song – 05

Helghast: Is Vivy going to have a different animated OP every week now? That transition from her concert to the opening just hits in such a smooth and delightful way. What is more pressing is the fact that their successful exploits within this timeline have only accelerated the evolution of AI to the point where the coming conflict of the future may be not too far off. The existence of the Metal Float that draws parallels from the Nation of Zero One in the Animatrix is proof of that. It does a good job in presenting itself as a pretty benign and well-intentioned place in serving humanity as shown by the cute little WALL-E robots. The little time that the show spends on them is enough to make me feel bad for what happens in the final minutes. Seeing M’s dream of tending to children being shattered by Vivy was heartbreaking to say the least. I think that seeing Vivy slowly realizing that she must destroy the dreams of other AIs in order to realize her dream of bringing happiness to everyone through her song is such an interesting theme going forth. Just how will the rest of the world react to the island of AIs actually preemptively wiping out the human attackers and what the hell did that virus do? There are so many ways that this can all end and that’s the fun thing about original shows. I just don’t know what’s going to happen next.

 

Mars Red – 03

Lenlo: Part of me wants to be really happy for Mars Red because this episode was, for the most part, pretty good. The character bits about dealing with still living family members, meeting them and helping them move on from their death, all that jazz was pretty good. Mars Red changed a few things and made the scenes a lot weaker than the manga in my opinion, shifting it to the beach instead of his house for instance and cutting out a lot of stuff with our A-Class vampire, but eh. The core of the story was still there. But another part of me remembers that this is probably the best episode of Mars Red left. From here on its politics intercut with vampire power level bullshit all the while Mars Red plays it out like it thinks its something more than vampire monster hunting stereotypes. Suffice to say I’m just not that excited by Mars Red anymore. Unless it makes a major departure from what I read in the manga in episode 4, this is probably where I stop.

Back Arrow – 16

Wooper: I take my eyes off this show for a single week and suddenly the balance of power in Lingalind is totally inverted. The one-time underdogs have declared themselves to be a sovereign nation, developed a robust agricultural system, and won the loyalty of Lutoh’s top military officials – and it was all glossed over during a two month timeskip. An ordinary show would spend a whole episode detailing those two months, but not Back Arrow, which jumped forward to bigger and punchier things. Speaking of which, there were some nice bursts of action involving Arrow’s character this week, first as he descended into Rekkan territory in his Briheight, then during his brief hand-to-hand combat with Ren. The quick cuts during that second scene were disorienting, but playing it back a couple times revealed strong animators’ hands behind the chaos, which is impressive for a two cour production that’s just hit the two-thirds checkpoint. All of Rudolph’s scheming and Kai’s research into dreadnought-related prophecies are important too, but given Back Arrow’s dizzying style of storytelling, I’ll wait until the dust settles before discussing them.

Bakuten – 03

Lenlo: Bakuten continues to surprise me, in a good way. Visually I would say it’s one of the better looking and more consistent shows of the season, with the CGI dances in particular being used well. I really like the stylized coloring done on those sequences. As if they knew they couldn’t make them match the 2D and embraced that. If it’s going to look out of place anyways then you might as well go all out and do it on purpose with heavily stylizing, you know? It was also cute to see the characters marveling at the CGI of their dance that they are CGI for. A bit of meta commentary I found amusing. Beyond that the characters and story are still what you would expect. Bakuten hasn’t done anything unique there but what it is doing is solid and the visual presentation has made it fun for me. I don’t think we will really see how Bakuten will hold up until it has to handle their first major competition.

Mashiro no Oto – 04

Wooper: Lots of shamisen playing ought to equal a good installment of Mashiro no Oto, but even though the show featured two long-ish pieces this week, the hints at a school-oriented future made me apprehensive. Even in this episode, Yui and Kaito’s incessant bickering was a scene-killer, and since they’re now members of the shamisen club, we’ll have to hear a lot more of it going forward. Setsu’s mom is scheming to enter her son and his friends in a national tournament, as well, so we can add amateurish playing to the pile. But hey, at least Mashiro took its foot off the angst pedal – the perspectives of both Setsu’s brother and the elderly woman who knew his grandfather were instrumental in that change. I also liked the cutaways to snowy post-war Japan during his performance of “Shungyou,” which fulfilled the incomplete visions he’d seen while listening to his grandpa’s version. That progression gave us a clear look at one of the series’ clearest ideas – that live music is able to transcend not only recorded music, but all other sensory experiences.