Wooper: Late November tends to be the time when I start thinking in terms of Anime of the Year, rather than the Season. But even though I’ve pledged that our 2024 AOTY post won’t take as long to release as the previous one, we’re still making time to talk about some fall anime here – “we” being myself and Amun this time, as our resident DanMachi fan was owed a space to proclaim his love for his favorite currently airing fantasy series. That can be found after the jump, along with some short thoughts on some other seasonal shows and even One Piece Fan Letter, which released a while ago but I just got around to seeing last weekend. Happy reading, and we hope your upcoming holiday season is a fruitful one!
Ranma ½ (2024) – 5-8
Wooper: Now that Ranmake ½ has progressed past the point I reached in the original series, I realize that it’s entered a “sports plus martial arts component” holding pattern. Episodes 6 and 7 were both dedicated to a martial arts rhythm gymnastics contest between Akane and new ojousama character Kodachi, while the most recent one was the first of another likely two-parter, this time about martial arts ice skating. The way this concept allows the show to wink at the audience while maintaining its martial arts focus is neat, but I can’t say I’m any more wrapped up in the show after observing its new trick than I was before having seen it. A lot of the interplay between Ranma and Akane in the downtime surrounding these competitions involves accusations of non-cuteness, minor jealousy flare-ups, and almost-kisses, with episode 8 containing all three in quick succession. All of those things are to be expected, of course, since the show is based on an 80s manga, but none of them are up my alley. Still, I’m impressed by the economical nature of the show’s animation, keeping things simple yet solid at all times, then going all in on just a handful of cuts. There was a scene in episode 7’s gymnastics battle where Ranma defied gravity by swimming through a high-arcing midair blast from a hose, and the water animation was just to die for. I’ll keep watching through the end of 2024 just for the possibility of more shots like that one.
One Piece Fan Letter
Wooper: My engagement with the One Piece franchise over the years has been unorthodox, using a mixture of the original anime, the fan-edited One Pace, the manga, and even story arc summary videos to fill in the gaps for two arcs I got sick of following (Skypiea and Thriller Bark). At times I’ve viewed the series as entirely deserving of its “World’s Biggest Shounen” mantle; at others I’ve wondered why I bother keeping up with it. That ambivalence didn’t stop me from checking out the recent Fan Letter special episode, though, and I’m glad I watched it, as its perspective on the world of One Piece is radically different from the one conveyed by the main storyline. Centering not on superpowered pirates at the center of world-shaping events, but on ordinary people who draw inspiration from their rebellious spirit, Fan Letter delivers the sort of humanist message that’s been sorely missing from the later-stage material of its parent series.
Three unnamed characters serve as Fan Letter’s protagonists: a teenage girl who idolizes Nami, and a pair of brothers who participated in the Summit War of Marineford. The redheaded Nami fan’s determination to meet her hero (and then to save her, after witnessing the Navy’s attack on the Straw Hat Pirates’ ship) is undoubtedly the heart of the story, but it was the elder Marine brother’s flashback to the Summit War that really stopped me in my tracks. By depicting that conflict from the perspective of an ordinary human, rather than one of the dozens of demigods whose points of view we originally saw during that arc, Fan Letter prioritized an individual effort to save a single life over outsized heroism or villainy. That narrative decision, along with the elder brother’s sympathetic mission to help the Nami fan catch a glimpse of her idol, were some of my favorite choices here. The lively animation and abundance of One Piece cameo appearances were great, of course, but the ordinary efforts made to help one’s fellow man were the real soul of this thing.
DanMachi Season 5 – 1-8
Amun: This DanMachi season will be the best season of the series. That’s a bold statement, considering I’m a huge fan of Season 3 and S4’s second half. However, this season takes many of the best elements from S4 and goes to the next level – namely, being alone vs. the world. Only instead of fighting the horrors of the dungeon, Bell stands by himself in a world that remembers his life very differently from him. While this season isn’t going to take place in the Dungeon (except for Bell living up to the series name and ACTUALLY picking up girls in the dungeon ^_^), turning all of Orario into the stage is brilliant. There’s intrigue, there’s fanservice (looking at you Freya), there are all of my favorite characters having big roles (Ais, Hestia, Ryu, Syr especially, and even Eina for a brief second). The setting is fantastic, the fights have been pretty cleanly animated, the political maneuverings are wonderful, and – most importantly – there isn’t any chance for stupid CGI monsters to come in and ruin the spectacle. It feels like all of DanMachi has been building up to this season, and I am just so happy to be alive and watching it as it airs.
NegaPosi Angler – 5-7
Wooper: Despite NegaPosi being one of my favorite series of the fall season, I’m an episode behind its current pace. (Then again, it’s only because of these check-in posts that I’m keeping up with these shows at all, rather than saving three months’ worth of anime for a late December binge.) That means I have to qualify my next statement, since I’m not caught up, but in my view, the show hasn’t reached the highs of episode 4 even once this November. That week’s focal character was Hana, and since then we’ve had spotlight episodes for Kozue, Ice, and Fujishiro, none of whom are as prominent or personable as their floofy-haired coworker.
The Kozue plot in particular was somewhat weak, as it hinged on Hiro’s sudden nervousness around her rather than anything inherent to her character. Still, her attachment (and potential attraction) to Hana was fun to observe, and her status as another non-fishing-otaku made our merry band of EveryMart employees a bit more well-rounded. Ice’s episode saw the show bounce back with a more memorable introduction, balancing her glamorous primary occupation and her love of fishing via a down-to-earth personality and love of meeting new people, which aided Hiro in coming out of his shell a bit. That trend continued with the Fujishiro installment, which featured the fishing wiz’s voice more than it did his face; it turns out he’s the narrator of an in-universe fishing-themed TV show, so we shifted into mini documentary mode and had him narrate Hiro’s experiences as a novice angler from time to time. This somewhat fourth wall-breaking technique was mostly a fun one, and the episode ended with another charming, talk-heavy group dinner. Dialogue continues to be one of NegaPosi’s major strengths, so I hope that aspect stays afloat throughout the final month of the year (plus the one November episode I’ve not yet seen).
Hyakushou Kizoku – 19-22
Wooper: My favorite episodes of Hyakushou Kizoku are frequently the ones that put the spotlight on Arakawa’s parents, so I was a major fan of the first two stories in this group of four. Episode 19 was a sort of sequel to the one from the first season about her accident-prone dad; this time he crashed his delivery truck into a ditch, but we got a happy ending out of it, since he survived the resulting surgeries and even got to humorously reveal his relocated belly button. The following episode swapped to the other side of the parental tree, telling of Arakawa’s hardworking mother, and her mother’s relationship to her own mom. Despite having just a four minute run time, the show created space for a quietly moving shot of smoke rising from a crematory in the wake of the grandmother’s passing, with fun anecdotes positioned both before and after death to keep things light. Also included in this batch of episodes was a nice look at how neighboring farms support one other by exchanging leftover crops and pitching in to support each other in times of need – if only those of us living in major cities operated the same way!
I haven’t considered the animation style of the Ranma remake “economical”, not even once.
If that’s what goes by that term these days, then I’m looking forward to a lot more economical shows 🙂