Author: Lenlo

Now and Then, Here and There -7 [Night of Flight]- Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Now And Then, Here And There, Throwback Thursday

Welcome back everyone to another week of Now and Then, Here and There! There’s a lot of posts coming, what with the new season, so glad you were able to find this one. We have a fair bit to talk about this week so lets jump into it!

Starting off, and god do I hate to bring it up again but its just so obvious, the visuals. Now and Then is wildly inconsistent here. When properly framed, lit and contextualized, Now and Then looks gorgeous. Just look at Nabuca confronting Boo, Shu breaking the glass or Nabuca finding Shu at the end. All of these are beautiful shots! The background and foreground contrast nicely, I love the colors they use, it’s great! And yet in the exact same episode, right before some of these shots even, we get pitch blackness. I’m talking about Shu climbing out of the pit, or running through Hellywood, etc. This isn’t just darkness, it’s… advanced darkness. I literally cannot see a thing and that’s just not acceptable. I don’t know what happened with Now and Then, if it’s just my copy or what, but it could look something special if it fixed this.

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Spring 2022 Season Preview

by Lenlo, posted in Seasonal Previews

Lenlo: And so ends the first season of 2022! Will it be remembered as the strongest season in a while, bringing us the ending of Attack on Titan, Ousama Ranking, Sono Bisque Doll and more? Or did all of those fall flat for you like they did for me? Only time will tell. But the ending of one season brings us the beginning of another! And with it a whole new slew of series. Some are exciting, like the long awaited Spy x Family adaptation or the third season of Kaguya-sama. Others… Well lets just say we have a lot of “Middling Expectations” and leave it for you to find out. So without further ado, lets take a look at the Spring 2022 season!

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What will you be watching this spring?
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Middling Expectations

Ao Ashi

Studio: Production I.G
Director: Akira Satou
Series composition: Masahiro Yokotani
Source: Manga

The Premise: An unruly striker from a rural town catches the eye of a visiting soccer coach, who gives him an opportunity to try out for a J-League youth team.

Wooper: Ao Ashi isn’t the most hotly anticipated soccer anime of 2022, but it’ll be the first to hit the airwaves, giving it a temporary leg up on its chief competitor Blue Lock. The other advantage it possesses, and this one is far more significant, is that it’s being animated by Production I.G, whose track record with sports series is nearly untouchable. Haikyuu, Run with the Wind, Kuroko’s Basketball, Welcome to the Ballroom – all of these adaptations have been well-received by audiences, and I see no reason why Ao Ashi should be any different. The series director’s ears are still a bit damp, but one of the chief ADs handled half a dozen episodes of Haikyuu’s first season, and head writer Yokotani has prior experience on several sports shows. It’s the story that will likely determine whether Ao Ashi can leave a mark on this season, and I’m somewhat intrigued by its setting: a youth league with ties to Japan’s pro soccer scene, rather than yet another extracurricular middle or high school team. Will it eventually settle into traditional athletic rivalries and speeches about teamwork? Probably, but I’ll give it at least three chances to impress me before then.

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Now and Then, Here and There – 6 [Disappearance in a Sandstorm] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Now And Then, Here And There, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to the halfway point of Now and Then, Here and There! We have a big week ahead of us, lots to talk about, and basically all of it is good. So without further ado lets dive in to what is my favorite episode yet!

This week was simultaneously nothing like what I expected it to be, yet everything I wanted. I figured we would get a rather standard invasion; some bad people would shoot some guns, and that most of it would be about Shu’s struggles. Instead we got what is, like I said above, without a doubt my favorite episode of Now and Then yet. For one, just look at some of the stunning visuals from it! Sara’s hair shining in the silver moonlight. The way it created edge highlights all across her face, drifting in the wind. Or how footsteps in the sand disappeared as they walked away. Showing that not only is there truly no way home, but also nothing to return to. Even the grainy, black and white, 1 frame per second way they shot the village sequence was great, though we will talk about why later.

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86: Eighty Six S2 Anime Review 42/100

by Lenlo, posted in 86 - Eighty Six, Anime Reviews, Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction, Reviews by Lenlo

Sequels are always difficult to write reviews about. Usually, barring any major production or authorial changes, you can tell if you will like it just by your reaction to the first season. With minor shifts up or down for whatever the current content is about. My recent Kimetsu no Yaiba: Yuukaku-hen review is evidence enough of that. But sometimes… sometimes you have the unfortunate case where a sequel falls short. Where for whatever reason, be it changes in production, writing staff or simply going on longer than it should, the series falls off. Animated at A-1 Pictures, directed by Toshimasa Ishii and originally created by Asato Asato, 86: Eighty Six Season 2 is, sadly, one such case. Why is that the case? What could have happened between season 1, something I enjoyed, and this to fall off as hard as it did? Well, lets jump in and talk about that.

Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for Eighty Six Season 2. It also contains major spoilers in some sections however these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents. Continue reading “86: Eighty Six S2 Anime Review 42/100” →

Eighty Six S2 – 12 [Handler One]

by Lenlo, posted in 86 - Eighty Six, Currently Watching:

Welcome everyone to the big finale of Eighty Six! It took a long time to get here, damn near 3 months just for these last two episodes, but it’s finally happened. Does it wrap things up well? Do Lena and Shin finally meet? Is it worth the huge wait? Let’s jump in and find out!

So as far as endings go… I think Eighty Six actually did a good job. I know, I know, “Lenlo, you’ve ragged on Eighty Six for almost 6 months now, what do you mean its good?!”. Trust me, I was surprised to. But for all that I hate how we got here, hate the 9 episodes of mediocre journey, Eighty Six did the best it could to wrap up what it had. It called back to, and connected with, all the story beats that lead up to here. The 86ers finding something beyond war, finding acceptance in a new community, the whole thing with Eugene. A lot of this is augmented by some pretty stellar direction, and yeah if you think about it to hard its still meh. But emotionally? I think Eighty Six delivered on it’s ending. And you know how important endings are to me.

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Now and Then, Here and There – 5 [Murder] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Now And Then, Here And There, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to another week of Now and Then, Here and There! This week Hamdo see’s some action, Shu figure’s out we aren’t in Kansas anymore and Nabuca and co get sent on a vacation. Does any of that make sense? If not, read on, because we have a fair amount to talk about this week.

Starting off, my initial impression of the episode is… “Meh”. This feels like the most straight forward episode we have had yet, and is the first one I don’t feel enamored with. Not because it does anything wrong, Now and Then still has a reasonable standard of quality to it. Rather it’s because this is the first episode where we, the viewer, don’t learn anything new. Instead, Now and Then chooses to let the characters catch up with us. Because of this the episode largely feels transitionary. Like we are moving from the introductory phase of the story into something else. And in the long term, this is fine! I’ve long maintained that not every individual episode has to be a banger if it enables a banger story. It just means we have to wait and see what Now and Then does with this new direction.

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Eighty Six S2 – 11 [Shin]

by Lenlo, posted in 86 - Eighty Six, Currently Watching:

Eighty Six has returned everyone! After 3 months everyone’s favorite genocide simulation has come back to finish what it started! I’d say I hope all of you went and rewatched some old episodes for a bit of a refresher, but doing that myself just reminded me how disappointing this season really was. Still, it’s time to bury the hatchet and see if Eighty Six can end on a high note. So lets jump into it!

First up, lets talk about just how good this episode looked. Like seriously, say what you want about the narrative, the Eighty Six team used those 3 months well. This episode looked gorgeous. From the editing to the coloring and animation, it’s like they saved all of their efforts since production started for this. Take Shin’s opening flashback for instance! I absolutely loved the use of foreground silhouettes layered over scenes in the background. The flat black morphing and flowing around the screen, exploding into nothing at the sound of the gunshot, the exaggerated mouth movements and use of negative space. And then we have stuff like the black bars constricting the scene tighter and tighter, Shin reaching out towards it. The story of how we got here may be mediocre but the visuals behind it certainly are not. And this is only the beginning of my visual praise!

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Now and Then, Here and There – 4 [Discord] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Now And Then, Here And There, Throwback Thursday

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Now and Then, Here and There! This is normally where I say something snappy like, “You won’t believe how dark this week got”. Or maybe “This is the darkest week yet!”. But I’m pretty sure you all know this show better than I do, and that we can also get so much darker. So instead this week I’ll just say… Oh god. Now lets jump into it.

Once again I feel the need to point out just how bad the lightning in Now and Then is. I don’t do this to rag on the show, I’m… Ok enjoying might be the wrong word but lets go with it for now, I’m enjoying my time with it. But some shots are just so incredibly hard to see through, or just look like ass. Take the opening shot of the episode in Abelia’s room for instance. What is this diffused filter? Is it supposed to tell me its early morning or something? Everything just looks foggy. Meanwhile the nighttime hallways, like the lynching, are once again impossible to see in. Outside of the, admittedly gorgeous, wide background shots there simply isn’t any complexity or care put into how it shows on screen. And I think that’s a damn shame. Enough about lighting for the nth time though, onto story!

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Now and Then, Here and There – 3 [A Feast in the Dark] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Now And Then, Here And There, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to what is a very late episode of Now and Then, Here and There! The only excuse I have is Elden Ring which, in my defense, I have put 66 hours into since it came out. Such a great time. That said these posts wait for no man and have to get written eventually. So without further ado lets dive into the episode!

Starting off with a quick non-spoilery mention of the production: This week was largely fine. It seems this is going to be our standard level of animation for awhile. Episode 1 was probably an outlier to get us hooked in. That’s probably OK since Now and Then doesn’t seem like a particularly action heavy show, much more character, scene and atmosphere driven. However I do have one major bugbear that I’ve noticed across all 3 episodes: The backgrounds are way to dark. I get it, they want some stark contrast in lighting, and that does often look good. But more often than not it’s made scenes very difficult to actually see. Characters become hard to make out from the dark backgrounds, the slight differences in shade make it annoying to figure out what exactly we are looking at. They need to increase the contrast in their darks just a bit.

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Now and Then, Here and There – 2 [A Boy and a Mad King] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Now And Then, Here And There, Throwback Thursday

Welcome back everyone, to another (late) episode of Now and Then, Here and There! Hey, remember when everyone kept telling me in the comments to get ready, it’s going to get dark? Well that’s what happened this week, with no punches pulled. We have a lot to talk about with that so lets dive right into it!

Production-wise this episode was, sadly, not as strong as the first. And I don’t just mean in the animation department, though that was less consistent as well. I mean in the direction and shot-composition. Now to be clear, there are still a lot of great shots in Now and Then. Stuff like Hamdo’s interrogation with the cat or Shu’s fight with Nabuca, those were good! But I also feel like Now and Then’s limited style is starting to work against it a bit. It’s going for these very picturesque shots, with beautiful framing and backgrounds, only to linger on these really limited character designs for like… 20 seconds. It’s necessary for the pacing sure, really driving up the tension. But it’s also not very visually interesting, like with the final shot of Shu in the cell. All in all I would call it passable but slightly disappointing after last week.

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