Author: Lenlo

Fall 2023 First Episode Awards

by Lenlo, posted in Uncategorized

We’ve made it everyone! All the premiers (barring Dog Signal but who cares) have aired! And that means it’s time to finally announce the seasonal lineup, though I figure that’s obvious by now, as well as my awards! This was a pretty easy set to be honest. Frieren dominates in every production category, it’s just that good looking of a show. Meanwhile there were a lot of good options for the “Worst” categories, so many that any of them could be valid. So I ended up picking the ones that annoyed me the most!  As for the other awards, like exceeding expectations and best continuation? These were limited by what I had experience with. Obviously as someone who hasn’t even finished the first season of Kanono no Kanojo I’m not going to watch this one, so stuff like that lost out immediately. Meanwhile there are some series that I had high expectations for and they met them. In the end the winner for both of these came down to being the only new season I’m watching and something I expected to be terrible for the first few episodes. Decent picks if you ask me. Now onto the lineup and the awards!

Fall 2023 Lineup

  • Jujutsu Kaisen S2 (Continued)
  • Dr. STONE New World Part 2
  • Migi & Dali
  • The Big O (Throwback Thursday)

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Migi & Dali – 4

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Migi & Dali

Welcome all, to another episode of Migi & Dali! This week is a weird one. I mean, they’ve all been weird, but this one especially so. Why? Well lets skip this preamble jump right into it, you should figure it out fast.

Starting off, this episode puts our leads, Migi & Dali, in a new environment: School. On it’s own this doesn’t change much. Their goal is still to discover the room they stayed in with their mother, to track down their killer. Where before they tried to make friends in scouts, now they have to do the same in school. What makes it interesting are the new challenges a structured placed like school brings. Now they are organized into classes, with little reason or ability to socialize with those outside of it. On top of that, these classes are organized by “intelligence”, and by that I mean performance on tests, something that their time as orphans has ill prepared them for. Combine that with all the new experiences school brings, from homework to romance, and there’s a lot of these twins to deal with.

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Fall 2023 Impressions: The Apothecary Diaries

by Lenlo, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Uncategorized

The Apothecary Diaries

Short Synopsis: Maomao lived a peaceful life with her apothecary father. Until one day, she’s sold as a lowly servant to the emperor’s palace. But she wasn’t meant for a compliant life among royalty. So when imperial heirs fall ill, she decides to step in and find a cure! This catches the eye of Jinshi, a handsome palace official who promotes her. Now, she’s making a name for herself solving medical mysteries!

Alright I’ve waited long enough for Dog Signal, we’re just skipping it and bringing this season to a close. So! Apothecary Diaries! How was it? Initial impressions are… fine? I’ll admit to not being as wow’ed by it as I expected to be. It looks nice, but not amazing. The characters are cute, but I haven’t fallen in love with them after 3 episodes, and the balance of chibi to regular designs is… not great for me, they often feel out of place. And the setting? Well it’s just the Chinese Imperial Palace. Apothecary Diaries is promising a lot of things to come, the Emperor has appeared looking for Maomao and Jinshi is slowly involving her in his various plots and schemes. It’s very much billing itself as a slow burn. And with 24 episodes promised, it’s going to get plenty of time to fulfill that promise. For now though? It’s another one on my watch list, but I think there are a number of shows this season that were better, and more compelling, by the 3 episode mark than Apothecary Diaries.
Potential: 60%

Dr. STONE New World P2 – 2 [The Medusa’s True Face]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Dr.STONE

Welcome all, to another episode of Dr. STONE! This one is a bit late, had a lot on my plate this weekend, but it’s ok now. This week sees the science kingdoms continued progress and the mystery of the islands shadowed ruler revealed. We have a lot to talk about, so lets dive into it!

Starting off, lets talk visuals. Dr. STONE has particularly cared about this. Oh the designs are nice, the linework, backgrounds and general style of the show is appealing, no one can deny that. However it’s never been what you would call “animated”. The characters have never moved much and the action we got was, generally, just bad. Dr. STONE has largely avoided this pitfall by just not having action. A smart move. Eventually however, someone is going to fight. Which is why it was such a surprise this week when it actually looked… decent? I still wouldn’t call it good, not in the same season as Jujutsu Kaisen, Frieren or Undead Unluck. But Kohaku’s spat with Moz was actually watchable. That’s nice! I don’t think anyone expected that, it feels like Dr. STONE is starting to figure that out. Hopefully it can maintain that going forward.

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Fall 2023 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 3

by Lenlo, posted in Weekly Summary

Fun new note: I have decided to order these recaps from most to least favorite. So anything near the bottom? It’s at risk of getting cut. Just some more fun times I guess.

Frieren – 6 [The Hero of the Village]

Frieren was good this week. It continues to have a fantastic mix of poignant reflection and fun fantasy action. From Frieren reminiscing about the fun and ridiculous parts of their journey, making the elemental dance and stuff, to a rad dragon fight, I had a lot of fun. There were a few things I wasn’t big on, I’m never huge on dick jokes and I don’t think a romance between Fern and Stark will add much to the story. I’m willing to see where it goes, I just don’t want it to take away from Frieren specifically.  Speaking of Stark, I like his motivations for all of this. He isn’t going because he cares for adventure or to stop some great demon or some other tragic thing. He just wants to be able to come back and tell Eisen some stories, like how Eisen told him some during their time together. Even if it’s through another character, I love hearing that Eisen cherished his time adventuring with them, that those 10 years left a memorable mark for him, enough of one to impart it onto someone else. So yeah, good episode, Frieren still going strong.

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Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 13 [Red Scale]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Jujutsu Kaisen

Welcome all, to another week of Jujutsu Kaisen! This episode is basically one big fight, no big narrative moments, no huge revelations (yet), just the meaty crunch of fists on faces. And you know what? It’s pretty good! Lets go ahead and jump on into why.

Starting off, let’s talk production. I’ve been critical of Jujutsu Kaisen for the past few episodes. Talking about melt, issues behind the scenes, all that jazz. And a lot of that is still present in this episode as well. Some closeups still look meh, the contrasting red and blue looks fantastic in wide shots but doesn’t translate well to many of the closeups, that sort of stuff. Basically there were a lot of good ideas, but some of the execution was off. Overall though… God this episode is stylistically beautiful. It’s rough at times, yes, but there was clearly a vision behind it all. The shading, the fluid animation, the dynamic action, the board, the freaking POV shots. If you break it down frame-by-frame you can nitpick the hell out of it. In motion though, this might be one of my favorite episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen, visually, in a while.

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The Big O – 7/8 [The Call from The Past/Missing Cat] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, The Big O, Throwback Thursday

Welcome back everyone, to week 4 of The Big O! Last week was a bit of a miss for me, neither episode was particularly great, though one still stood above the other. This week was much better however with two great episodes, one of which might be my favorite episode so far. We have a lot to talk about, so lets just jump right into it!

Getting started, first up is episode 7, “The Call from The Past”. This was a fun one. Nothing particularly deep, metaphorically at least, just Roger and Angel hanging out and getting to know each other a bit more. We learn about what her job really is, hunting down valuable memories for money, and we get hints towards something more there she isn’t yet ready to share. Those scars on her backs, suspiciously placed like someone had ripped the wings off of an angel. A little on the nose maybe, but it’s effective in catching my eye, in telling me “Just wait, there’s something there”. That’s good, Big O is promising us something more down the line, telling us to keep an eye on her and really pay attention to how she acts. This way, when it’s all inevitably revealed, it won’t feel like it came out of nowhere.

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Migi & Dali – 3 [Let’s Make Friends]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Migi & Dali

Welcome all, to week 3 of Migi & Dali! This week our lovable twins go outside, make some friends, case some houses and beat a child senseless. Did that sound like it escalated? Good, because that’s what the episode did. Without further ado, lets dive in!

Overall I thought this was a good episode, I’m continuing to enjoy Migi & Dali quite a bit. Something about its odd balance of comedy and unnerving horror, how it infuses every scene with this sense that something is wrong, just does it for me. Take this episode for instance. Ostensibly it’s about the twins trying, failing and then lucking into, making some friends. There’s some classic anime bullying, it’s par for the course. But when looked at through the larger lens of the series, something you’re forced to do as every episode starts and ends talking about the murder of their mother, it becomes much more… eerie. These kids don’t actually want friends, they want to sneak into houses to see if any match their memories. They aren’t naïve, they know about the bullying, they just don’t care because it’s a means to an end. It’s… creepy. I love it!

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Dr. STONE New World P2 – 1 [The Kingdom of Science’s Counter Attack!]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Dr.STONE

Welcome all, to the 2nd new show of Fall Season, Dr. STONE! This is the continuation of the same season I covered earlier in the year, finishing up the Treasure Island arc. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while, and we have a lot to talk about, so lets jump right in!

Starting off, can I just make it clear how happy I am that Dr. STONE is back? I had missed its special brand of Problem -> Solution -> Problem -> Solution. Something about how Dr. STONE specifically does it is just so good, like one big Humanity Fuck Yeah story. If I had to guess, I’d wager a lot of why it works is down to how the series solves its problems. The science behind it, while not perfect we can all admit this is anime-ified, works conceptually. Stuff like making air pockets under water to properly pour liquids, or crafting oxygen tanks out of existing pieces of metal and pumping them up themselves. Realistically, we know they couldn’t do this. But the way Dr. STONE portrays it, the effort they put in, the way it’s explained… It just sort of works. And like any good hard-magic system, that’s rewarding.

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Fall 2023 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 2

by Lenlo, posted in Weekly Summary

Hello everyone! Like I said in the last preview, I’m bringing back the weekly summary. These aren’t going to be anywhere near as in depth or long as my normal posts, just me rambling a bit about what else I’m watching this season. I’d wager each will be about a paragraph long. Still, my hope is that these will give everyone a place to talk about the rest of the shows this season. Some of these might have this opening blurb if I have anything to say, like if I have to take a break or something for travel, but most probably won’t. Anyways, announcement out of the way, lets go!

Frieren – 5 [Phantoms of the Dead]

This was a pretty cool episode, and alleviated a fair number of my fears after the big premier. Remember when I said I was concerned about the journey? That as much as I loved the show, I wasn’t 100% on it? Well that was because I was afraid it would become more of an “adventure” and that Frieren would lose sight of what made me love it, the way it examined the passage of time and what it means. Luckily though, that wasn’t the case! Already, one episode in on this journey, and we have a conversation about legacy, grief and how we remember our loved ones. Stuff like Fren saying she would be fine, only to have a harder time facing Heiter’s “ghost” than she thought was nice. Same for Freiren’s almost offended reaction to Himmel’s, as well as even his “ghost” telling her to shoot him. The monster’s own power backfired on it! On top of that we also meet Stark, Eisen’s protégé, like they are almost rebuilding the party they had all those years ago with the next generation. It’s cool, and I’m looking forward it.

To touch on Stark real quick, I’m not huge on him yet. Zenitsu from Kimetsu no Yaiba has made me really wary of “Coward” fighters. And I get that isn’t his thing, he’s not a coward he’s just untested, and even when faced with a dragon he still stood up to it. Plus his relation to Eisen, who has his own past about running away and regretting it, makes it pretty clear he will grow as they journey. He’s also not at all weak, having carved that channel in the mountain, so he won’t hold them back. So it’s not that I hate him, I don’t. I just don’t love him as much as I do Frieren yet, which I think is fair.

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