Author: Lenlo

The Fire Hunter – 4 [Flickering Flame]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, The Fire Hunter

Welcome everyone, to another episode of Fire Hunter! This week was… It was a disappointment, to put it lightly. I’m really starting to lose faith. Why? Well lets talk about that.

Now I really hate to keep beating this horse every week, but Fire Hunter keeps finding new ways to disappoint. Yes, the animation was still trash. And yes, the direction was largely uninspired. But this week saw the melt also extend to the detail. Flat smoke with no linework or details, just a shape filled brown. The composite falling apart as Kanata and Touko look like they don’t even belong in the environment. Characters in the foreground, not the background mind you, with just no detail whatsoever. Legitimately incomplete drawings and fucking pop-in. Pop-in, from an animation. Now I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes with Fire Hunter, but clearly something is going down in their pipeline. Because Yasunori Miyazawa, from shows like Ping Pong and even better cuts from this very show, is far better than this. Easily some of his most disappointing work for me.

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Michiko & Hatchin – 21/22 [Last Waltz Blooming Out of Season/Run as You Are] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Michiko e Hatchin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to the grand finale of Michiko & Hatchin! It’s been 11 weeks and we have finally come to the end of this season of Throwback Thursday. Was it good in the end? Or did it fall apart right at the finish line? Lets jump in and find out!

Right off the bat, my overall impressions of this finale is… disappointment. The main thrust of the series was clearly that of found family, with the quest of finding Hiroshi a sort of Red Herring on that road. That your family isn’t necessarily blood nor who you grew up with, but who was there for you and who cared for you now. But the presentation of Michiko & Hatchin ends up detracting from that. The timeskip, Hiroshi’s final actions, the whole thing with Hatchin and her son. It felt like there was a good ending here that simply didn’t get the support it needed to properly shine. Like the series leading up to this point let it down That isn’t to say there aren’t good portions to this ending, there are. But by and large I was left feeling disappointed and hollow.

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Kaina and the Great Snow Sea – 4 [Conflict at the Snow Sea]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kaina and the Great Snow Sea

Welcome everyone, to another episode of Kaina and the Great Snow Sea! This week we finally reach civilization, as Kaina escapes the Valghians and gets pulled deeper and deeper into this conflict. What happens to Ririha? Who is the hot knight lady? Read on, and find out!

Starting off, I want to praise Kaina’s production. By and large it’s still the same flawed CGI work its always been. But this week I saw some actual… ambition, from Polygon Picture. The swordfight between Orinoga and Amelothee, the leaders of their respective expeditions, had a lot of cool shots. Some jank ones to, sure. The snow moved like blobs. And the ambitious ones were still rough around the edges. But stuff like the tracking camera and closeup swordplay lent their fight an energy that has otherwise been absent from Kaina. And then of course stuff like the backgrounds, such as the undersea roots or Atland at night, continue to be beautiful. Its like Kaina is slowly ramping itself up as it gets more and more used to its models and world, like this CGI approach and reuse is only making production easier as it goes.

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Vinland Saga S2 – 3/4 [Snake/Awakening]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Vinland Saga

Welcome everyone, to another week of Vinland Saga! Apologies for missing last week, a lot of things conspired to prevent me from finishing the post. On the plus side though, you get a double header this week! Surely that’s worth it, right? Considering how closely tied these two episodes are, I think it just might be. Now without further ado, onto the episodes!

Starting off, lets talk about the production. I’ve seen some grumblings online about the toning down of more comedic, light moments. Stuff like their facial expressions, etc. Personally though? I don’t see it. It’s not that Vinland Saga is removing/toning them down, but rather that the story hasn’t reached a point where they are appropriate. As evidenced by these two episodes, Thorfinn still isn’t in a place where he can be light and happy. Maybe if it continues like this they will have a point. For now though, it’s simply not applicable. At the same time, I think the way Vinland Saga is depicting Thorfinn’s nightmares and struggles to be really striking. The strong colors and rough line work. It’s beautifully composed and animated, and were some of my favorite scenes in episode 4. Suffice to say, while Vinland Saga isn’t particularly animated yet, its also not poorly animated.

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The Fire Hunter – 3 [Fractions of the World]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, The Fire Hunter

Welcome everyone, to another episode of Fire Hunter! This is a rough week for Fire Hunter, for a lot of reasons. It’s kind of sad really. I started with such high hopes for this and its falling, while I started with such low hopes for Kaina and the Great Snow Sea and it’s surpassing them. Just goes to show you can never know what will be good in a season. Now without further ado, lets jump into it!

As usual, first we have to start with the production. And as usual with Fire Hunter, it’s not good. Oh Fire Hunter looks fine in stills, sure. The colorful eyecatches are beautiful when they appear, no one can dispute that. But anytime it moves well… I’d almost prefer it not. Take the climax of this episode for instance, with the dragon-like Flame Fiend. The idea is there, I can feel the terror and majesty they were going for, and the eyecatch at the end does a lot to help with that. But the dragon itself is… rough, jittery even, with harsh jagged lines and few frames. It doesn’t feel like it belongs in the same show as everything surrounding it. That’s a damn shame, because Fire Hunter’s unique style should lend itself well to that sort of thing and yet it’s falling short.

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Kaina and the Great Snow Sea – 3 [Traveling Down the Orbital Tree]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kaina and the Great Snow Sea

Welcome back, to another week of Kaina and the Great Snow Sea! This week we reach the bottom of the tree, Ririha and Kaina get to know each other, and the villains introduce red-haired general lady. Lots to enjoy this week, so lets dive in!

Right off the bat, I want to say that I’m actually starting to get used to Kaina’s visuals. It still doesn’t look good, sure. But without the wrinkled skin old people to show us just how texture-less it is, it’s nowhere near as noticeable. It also helps that the Canopy Tree is a fantastic backdrop, and that Polygon Pictures actually did a decent job of compositing them onto it. They stood out, sure. But they still interacted with it, and were framed against it, pretty decently. Take the ledge scene for instance. They fit pretty well onto that small outcrop, and it felt like they interacted with it well. Most likely it, and the tree surrounding it, are CGI models themselves with a painted texture. But however they accomplished it, it didn’t look bad. At this point, it’s really just the hair that stands out. Most of the time.

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Michiko & Hatchin – 19/20 [Nettlesome Light-blocking Butterfly/Rendezvous of Extermination] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Michiko e Hatchin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to the penultimate week of Michiko & Hatchin! Last week was solid, as for the first time in ages it felt like the show finally cared about its premise. This week? Somehow even better. It’s like they saved an entire cours worth of content and decided to shove it into the last few episodes. Good for these posts, probably not as a regular viewing experience. Anyways, without further ado lets dive into the episodes!

First up I want to talk about the production, because aside from it’s backgrounds Michiko & Hatchin hasn’t had a particularly strong one. Oh there’s some decent shots in the first few episodes, and one or two spring up after that. But rarely has the show “wowed” me at all. At least until this week. More specifically, at least until episode 19. More more specifically, that final ending train sequence. Everything about that was just fantastic. The backgrounds, the facial expressions, the character movement. Rough in places, sure. But still one of the most memorable scenes of the entire show. Takafumi Hori did an incredible job here and managed to make the beginning of the end more climactic then most of the arcs leading up to it. Hopefully they can pull this off again for the last two episodes, but I’m hungry for me.

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The Fire Hunter – 2 [The Three Brides]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, The Fire Hunter

Welcome everyone to the last show of the season, The Fire Hunter! This is definitely the one I have the least handle on, let me tell you what. It has the most potential, with the ability to soar higher then Kaina possibly could. But so far it isn’t anywhere as consistent as Kaina or Vinland Saga. What does that mean? Well lets dive in and talk about that.

First up, and my main point regarding consistency, Fire Hunter’s production. It’s rough. Picture in picture style direction has never been something I’ve enjoyed, and Fire Hunter uses it a lot. Freeze frames with oddly placed and panned windows of reaction faces. And while Fire Hunter isn’t a particularly movement heavy show, the movement we do get isn’t that great. You could argue that stuff like the Flame Fiend are supposed to be jarring and off-putting, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But it doesn’t make for a great visual experience. Furthermore, even the stuff that is good is used weirdly. Take the incredibly beautiful eye-catches Fire Hunter has for example. These brightly colored and detailed stills are stunning, and can make for some high-impact dramatic moments, like the finale! But they feel incredibly out of place during say… cleaning a toilet. As I said: Inconsistency is Fire Hunter’s greatest weakness.

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Kaina and the Great Snow Sea – 2 [Princess of the Snow Sea]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kaina and the Great Snow Sea

Welcome everyone, to my 2nd show of the season, Kaina and the Great Snow Sea! For the sake my sanity, and word count, I’m just going to call it Kaina from now on. I hope you’ll forgive me this transgression. Now without further ado, onto the episode!

Starting off, lets take a deeper look at Kaina’s animation and production. As we mentioned in our initial impressions, Kaina… Kinda (heh) looks like shit. The character models look plasticky and stiff, in what has sort of become Polygon Pictures staple. That’s no surprise. But where I do want to give the CGI credit is in the monsters and their design. This CGI may look like shit on soft, squishy people, but on hard carapace-d giant bugs like the Tree Fly? It doesn’t look half bad. Not great, but it certainly sticks out far less on something we know isn’t supposed to be recognizably human. Pair that with Kaina’s greatest production strength, it’s absolutely stellar background art, and you have what I think is an ultimately passable art style. At the very least it’s enough that I picked it up to blog about it for a season.

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Michiko & Hatchin – 17/18 [Buckets of Blood! Opera that Stirs the Heart/The Fool’s Ballistic Samba] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Michiko e Hatchin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to another week of Michiko & Hatchin! There’s been a lot of negativity in the past few episodes, lots of complaints about the lack of meaningful narrative. And I stand by those! But as if it heard my thoughts, this week is marked shift towards exactly what I was talking about. Is it perfect? No. Can more be done? I hope so. But its a step in the right direction. So lets talk about it.

Starting off we have episode 17, “Buckets of Blood! Opera that Stirs the Heart”. This episode was a pleasant surprise. It’s the first one in a long, long time to actually make me feel like these two are family. Not just in the big moments, like Hatchin trying to save Michiko, but the small ones to. Stuff like having their photo taken together and roughhousing, or the small hug at the end rather then Michiko hitting Hatchin for disobeying her. For once, I feel like Michiko and Hatchin are finally, FINALLY, starting to care for each other in a meaningful way. Not just in that they need each other to survive, but because of a true emotional connection. I’d rather this have started a long time ago, but I’m not going to begrudge Michiko & Hatchin for doing something food just because it’s late.

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