Author: Lenlo

Steins;Gate 0 – 15 [Recognition of the Asymptotic Line -Recognize Asymptote-]

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

Another week, another lackluster episode of Steins;Gate 0. This time the plot moves almost unnoticeably forward, Daru gets a date and Suzuha gets some melodrama. Lets jump in!

So basic stuff first, Steins;Gate 0 is really slowly become a Slice-of-Life. At this point in the previous series, we had stakes, bad guys and literal lives hanging in the balance. Right now in Steins;Gate 0, we have Daru’s love life. Don’t get me wrong, I like that we get to see these kinds of things. I like that it isn’t all Okabe all the time. But right now the ratio of actual plot to side-story stuff is way out of whack. We got one, maybe 2, very tiny advances/hints to the main plot this episode. Everything else was just sort of melodramatic filler, especially Suzuha’s flash forward/back. It simply feels like we are still sitting in limbo though, waiting for something to happen. It doesn’t help that currently the only “active” plot thread is “She Who Will Not Be Named” (Starts with a K).

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Banana Fish – 3 [Across the River and Into the Trees]

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

Heads up Yuri on Ice, your place as the top homosexual romance anime is being challenged. This week Banana Fish charms us with a new character, disgusts us with a glimpse of prison life and teases us with a growing relationship. Lots to love, so let’s jump in!

So general stuff first, Banana Fish is moving pleasantly fast. The pace is juuuust right. Everything feels like its happening at a reasonable time, no characters are just sitting around waiting. Even Ash, in prison, is actively making things happen. There’s not a dead moment. It makes Banana Fish a treat to watch. Like My Hero Academia, it makes a 25 minute episode feel like it past in 10, though for different reasons. Banana Fish also does a good job with the music, which I only just noticed this week. The music from so many scenes just worked, it wasn’t intrusive, and when there was no dialogue it was catchy. I don’t know what it is lately, but anime in general seem to be stepping up their music game. But, general stuff done, let’s get to what you really want to talk about this week. The meat, pun intended.

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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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