Author: Lenlo

Steins;Gate 0 – 13/14

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Steins;Gate 0

Hello again everyone! For those few that actually read these, apologies for missing a week. You’ll soon see why I couldn’t muster up a full post for it in just a moment. Steins;Gate 0 has been rocky for me lately, but this week atleast has started it onto an upswing. Lets jump in and see why!

So general basic stuff first. Steins;Gate 0 once again makes it clear its not an action series. Don’t get me wrong, the apartment scene with Suzuha was better than Mr.Braun’s, but it’s hardly the high point of the episode for me. Part of that might be because of the characters involved, which we will get to. Other than that, this week mostly focused on getting us up to speed for the 2nd Cour. It was almost like a first episode again in a lot of ways, reintroducing characters and laying down starting plot threads. Im glad, because the last 2 episodes of almost nothing relevant have been painful to say the least. And I know the exact cause of that pain, for me at least.

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Banana Fish – 2 [In Another Country]

by Lenlo, posted in Banana Fish, Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

This? Banana Fish? This right here? This is what 91 Days could have been. An intriguing crime drama, with interesting characters all around and the willingness to go all-in on its story. Lets jump in!

Banana Fish did a much better job of holding my attention compared to last week. With all the characters established, it was just on GO the whole episode. So many things happening, one after another. I loved it. Banana Fish is dedicated to its location and this crime/gang drama story. Everything just feels… different, set in a modern day New York City compared to a Japanese High-school/Tokyo. What I find most interesting though is how the story has been updated. The original manga was written back in the 80’s, and was based after the Vietnam War. I’m curious what sort of changes, if any, MAPPA will have to make to account for the time switch. Whatever they do though, I am excited, because just 2 episodes in and they are not pulling any punches. From Marvin and Ash, to Skip. There’s just so many great scenes.

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Megalo Box – 70/100

by Lenlo, posted in Anime Reviews, Megalo Box, Reviews by Lenlo

Ah boxing, the quintessential manly man sport of beating each other unconscious. In anime, the sport was first forged in the fires of Ashita no Joe, and some would say later perfected by Hajime no Ippo. Both fantastic series in their own right. Both filled to the brim with epic clashes of wills, phenomenal characters and some of the best fight scenes in anime. Some would probably count Megalo Box among them, near the top of sports anime. I am not one of them. For you see, Megalo Box is not a boxing manly mans sports anime. Megalo Box is a character drama. With boxing.

Lets jump in!

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Megalo Box – 13 [Born to Die]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Action, Megalo Box

Its finally here, the finale of Megalo Box. And what a finale it was. Lets just get right into it.

Cutting right to the chase, I think Megalo Box was golden until the last 6 minutes. Everything was going great, I had no complaints, and then… Megalo Box anti-climaxed itself. The final 6 minutes simply didn’t fit with the rest of the series. It’s not a bad ending per-se, the status quo has changed and arcs have all been wrapped up. It’s simply an ill-fitting ending. I can understand why they went this way to. They didn’t want to copy Ashita no Joe, they wanted to set themselves apart from it. And I can appreciate that. However I think they went to far away in their quest to be different. Ashita no Joe’s ending is memorable even to those who only see a 5 minute clip and nothing else. Its so beloved for a reason. This? This feels less like an ending and more like groundwork for a second season.

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Steins;Gate 0 – 12 [Mother Goose of Mutual Recursion -Recursive Mother Goose-]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Steins;Gate 0

Hello everyone and welcome to the midpoint of the season! This week we have the weirdest game of anime telephone I have ever seen. Lets jump in!

So first off, the big thing, Steins;Gate 0 this week is a B-plot. A side-story almost irrelevant to the main story. Its cute, its fluffy, it gets a little dark at the end and it all wraps up in a single episode. Thats not necessarily a bad thing. Its pretty clear that Steins;Gate 0 is going for a time-skip, we already skipped 2 weeks. Instead of jumping straight there it looks like they are taking the chance to tell some side stories. Considering how “finale” episode 11 was, the timing works out. Its just… it wasn’t the best episode. The problem with B-plots like this is they don’t really push the story forward. We get context and moments of certain relationships which we really needed, we will talk about some of those later. But what really happened this week? A glorified game of telephone, that’s what.

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Megalo Box – 12 [Leap Over the Edge of Death]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Action, Megalo Box

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the hypest episode of the season, as Megalo Box lays everything on the table for next week’s finale. Lets just jump right into it.

Megalo Box has a lot going on this week. We saw the return of multiple characters and got updates on their lives. We were shown backstories for our leads, and best of all Yuri made his choice. But we will get to him.  First up, the ending rap. I am not normally a fan of rap, and what Megalo Box and Devilman Crybaby of last season made me realize is, that’s because I hate the subject matter. The “gangsta” lifestyle makes for terrible music to me. But lyrics about people, their struggles, who they are? Reminds me of Eminem’s “Mockingbird” and “When I’m Gone”, the only rapper I could ever stand. That plus the uniqueness of hearing Japanese rap, so very distinct from English, just really sells it. If nothing else this season, Megalo Box has succeeded in getting me to buy its soundtrack on the 27th.

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Steins;Gate 0 – 11 [Pandora of Forgotten Existence -Sealed Reliquary-]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Steins;Gate 0

Welcome to Steins;Gate 0, this week with the most “final” middle of a series episode ever. We have drama, we have guns, we even have probable time skips! Lets jump in.

This was an overall solid episode. It tried to wrap up, or tie together, a lot of plot threads and resolve character arcs before jumping into its second half. None of the drama really felt forced, though I do think Maho’s bathroom scene shouldn’t have been played for comedy. In general it was just a solid wrap before things start to get crazy. I say start to because episode 12 is when the original Steins;Gate really kicked into gear, so I expect White Fox to be going for a similar pace here. Now, on to specifics!

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Megalo Box – 11 [A Deadmarch]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Action, Megalo Box

Incredible Megalo Box… Simply incredible. This week was perfect in every way but one, and at this point that one is easily overlooked. Let’s skip this preamble and jump right in!

Megalo Box had a lot going on this week as we see the culmination of a lot of characters big arcs. Starting off, lets go with Joes. The symbolism of his shoddy gear, which we only saw him wear back as Junk Dog, falling off through the fight was amazing. We saw that each time his gear fell off he took the lead in the fight, hitting Burroughs hard. It was a rather obvious, but still great, metaphor for Joe refusing to be/fighting back against “Junk Dog”. We saw that Joe didn’t want to throw this fight, but was content to stay “Junk Dog”. Atleast until Nanbu and Yuri/Sachio stepped in that is. What’s interesting to me is Yuri is Joe’s dividing line. Yuri is what separates Joe from Junk Dog, ever since their first fight which woke him up. I love everything about it.

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Steins;Gate 0 – 10 [Pandora of Provable Existence -Forbidden Cubicle-]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Steins;Gate 0

Welcome one and all to another week of Steins;Gate 0! This week we have fluffy, lovable dates, awkward fan service and terrible revelations. Lets jump in!

So overall this week felt mostly like a filler episode. I understand that some of the contents were necessary for relationship building and such. That it was a sort of “Calm before the storm” as things begin in earnest. That doesn’t change the fact that, outside of Okabe’s “date” with Maho, nothing much really mattered this episode. The contents ranged from lovable cute character moments to terribly awkward fan service, which I will get into in a moment. My hope is that this is the slowest Steins;Gate 0 gets. That after this, with Okabe outing himself to Maho and her revelations with the laptop, the central conflict will come back into play. We will have to wait and see. Now though, lets get into specifics.

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Megalo Box – 10 [The Die Is Cast]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Action, Megalo Box

Hello and welcome to another week of Megalo Box, with perhaps the best pre-finale hype episode ever. This week we have amazing music, fantastic language skills and lots of converging plot threads. Lets jump in!

First, numero uno, Megalo Box has the best soundtrack of this season. It’s simply fantastic. Pepe Iglesias’ theme was on for maybe 30 seconds and I already fell in love with it. It just oozes style and reminds me of Cowboy Bebop with the rhythm and what I believe is a trumpet. It also fits his character perfectly, with it providing a majority of Pepe’s characterisation this episode. It’s a shame he was taken out so quickly but we will get to that in just a moment. We also had Yuri’s theme this episode which was barely a piece of music, frankly. Hopefully Megalo Box has more in store for Yuri because so far its music has been on point. I mean, c’mon, just listen to this and this. Are they not the hypest tracks you’ve ever heard?

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