Spring 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 4

Dungeon Meshi – 18 [Shapeshifter]

To absolutely no ones surprise, Dungeon Meshi continues to be great. This week it brought us the classic Doppelganger encounter, but with the usual Dungeon Meshi twist. Not content with just one Doppelganger, we had nine, three for each of our cast members. And as if that wasn’t enough, each Doppelganger’s appearance was based on the mental image another party member had of that person, which Dungeon Meshi so helpfully drew in slightly different styles and details so a perceptive viewer could pick out the real one on their own. So for Laios? Each of Marcille, Chilchuck and Senshi view him as some brand of moron or weirdo, leading them to easily pick out his fakes. Meanwhile for the others we have poor attention to detail resulting in inaccurate clothing and tools, as well as a complete misunderstanding of magic resulting in a silly spell book. There’s a lot of good stuff in here, all of it leading to a fun finale where Laios figures out who the real ones are by their awareness of the dungeon around them, as well as how they talk. Of course Chilchuck wouldn’t sit on a box that might be a mimic, he hates them, and of course Senshi would never disrupt an ecosystem so carelessly by stealing and egg, and of course Marcille would be so stubborn as to not eat a humanoid egg even if it might save Falin. All of that culminating in Laios barking like a dog to face down a monster, only for Marcille to blow it up since she was completely dun with the situation, made for a fun episode. I’m not sure about this Ninja girl or why she’s following them, was she ordered to kill Marcille or something? I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Dungeon Meshi hasn’t lead me astray yet, somehow staying fresh and fun for two whole cores, I’m not going to start doubting it now. Oh and one more thing, Laios barking was hilarious and exactly the kind of comedy I’ve come to expect from this utterly ridiculous show.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim at Night – 4 [Double A-Side]

Another good episode of Jellyfish, our crew finally came together and met up in person, Kano and Kiui bonded over shared issues, we learn about Kano’s fucked up family, and everyone else does their best to pump out another song because they know how much this means to her. Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting the famous producer of her old Idol group to also be her mother, that makes Kano getting kicked out a whole lot worse, I understand why it’s so affecting for her. Speaking of her old idol group, it looks like Jellyfish is setting up some sort of conflict or competition between them and our squad. That’s probably because Kano wants to show them up and not anything on their part, but they do come off as kind of disingenuous and more concerned with the business side of things than the actual art, which conflicts a lot with the spirit of Jelee. I’m curious what Jellyfish is going to do with all of this, where our squad will develop now that they are all together and interacting, what sorts of interpersonal issues they will have to push this story forward. Because right now the only conflict Jellyfish has is Kano wanting to upstage her mom/Idol group, the rest of the squad seems to have their shit in order for the moment, and that just won’t do with 8 episodes left you know?

Astro Note – 5

Astro Note got me this week, in a good way, I was not expecting that twist at all. I spent the entire thing thinking Ren was into his classmate, that it was all revolving around unrequited love sich as Miyasaka to Mira, Aoi to Miyasaka, Ren to the girl, etc etc, and that this setup would lead to one of them resolving their feelings and causing a domino effect with the rest of them. Instead, not only was Ren more interested in crossdressing than girls, but Miyasaka discovers that Mira is an alien, the dog can talk, and overhears a message from her mother. What the hell?! This feels like some end game stuff, but we’re only halfway through the season. I wonder where Astro Note is going to go with it revealing this to Miyasaka so early. Obviously he’s going to side with her, he’s a chill guy like that, and he will probably work to help her find the key while she slowly comes to love earth, and him, more than she does her home. But the question is, what’s going to happen between all of that? Only time will tell. Oh and as for Ren, I was really happy that his father didn’t end up as a bigot. Dude’s just concerned for his son being bullied in public, but when given an alternative that protects him while still letting him to be who he wants, he accepted it immediately. Still kind of a shit dad, but not like… an irredeemable one, you know?

Wind Breaker – 5 [A Gentleman]

Wind Breaker came very close to disappointing me this week. The first half, all about our leads walking into enemy territory, some classic banter, and the first fight of Sugishita vs some random Shishitoren, all sucked. The production was mediocre, the coloring was off, and the fight itself was incredibly boring, over in a single disappointing punch. To say I was looking forward to the episode ending would be an understatement. Lucky for Wind Breaker then that the second half was much better. This was Suo’s fight, the eyepatch guy, and not only did it last longer than a single punch, there was some actual narrative behind it to! His whole thing about teaching the Shishitoren some humility, playing with and humiliating him before the entire gang, making it clear how their fellow members felt when they were kicked out, trying to teach them empathy and humility, was all good. The animation and boarding especially stood out, bringing back that choreography I praised in the first few episodes of the show. While I can’t say I care about this arc, Choji is still a mediocre villain we know next to nothing about and I don’t care about at all, Suo’s fight at least gave me some hope that we’re going to get some cool action from Sakura and Umemiya’s fights. Fingers crossed.

Viral Hit – 4 [Humiliation]

Viral Hit remains in that awkward spot of looking and sounding like shit, of utterly hating all of its characters, but still somehow being… interesting? Not fun, there’s nothing to cheer for here, Hobin is a coward with no self-esteem who runs away from even the most basic social interactions and Snapper has always been kind of a piece of shit. But something about watching these two grow, of Snapper realizing just how bad he treated Hobin and coming to have his back, of Hobin figuring out that he was half-assing this whole thing and expecting it to work out without putting any real effort in, is good. Him being willing to sacrifice his pride to protect Bomi, of dedicating himself to getting stronger and learning to fight so he could come back and defend his friend, was good. Whenever Viral Hit focuses on the fighting and on why Hobin fights, I enjoy it a fair bit. It’s only mediocre when it does… basically anything else, or tries to draw/animate anything at all. I don’t know if it will keep it up, I could drop this any day now to be honest, but I really want to see if it can keep it up, you know?

The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio – 4 [Yuhi and Yasumi Can’t Keep It Hidden]

Voice Actor Radio was… weird this week. And not in a good way. Again. As was obvious, the director was in fact Yuhi’s father, and VA Radio resolved the whole “Sleeping to get her role” thing by having him come on a live stream and announce it so that everyone would know there was nothing untoward going on. That’s all fine, expected even. What isn’t fine though is all the stuff in between, the how we got there. This random kid, Shimizu, who we haven’t seen before now, shows up and announces to the world that he was the one who stalked Yuhi and wrote the article, and now he’s going to confront her in school, call her a whore, and live stream the whole thing. Everything about this is just… over the top? There was no setup for this, who even is this guy. Meanwhile the other stalker in their class, Kimure, is apparently the ok kind of fan/stalker since he defends them? I get what VA Radio wanted to critique here, the entitlement of fans and how they make up these fantasies and then get upset when their celebrities turn out to be flawed real people. But the way it went about it was kind of ridiculous and over the top, especially for episode 4, leading to the reveal of both of our leads true identities a tad early. Hopefully VA Radio has a plan for after this, because I am… not incredibly happy about where it’s currently at.