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

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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Now and Then, Here and There – 1 [A Girl Admiring The Sunset] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome one and all to another season of Throwback Thursday! We’ve been on a run of good shows recently, what with Haibane Renmei and The Vision of Escaflowne, so I’m hopeful Now and Then can keep that going. We have a lot to talk about so lets skip the rest of the preamble and jump right into it.

Starting with production, Now and Then looks alright. Color and design wise its pretty basic. Lots of flat colors with little in the way of complex lighting or color blending. Coming from The Vision of Escaflowne, a series released 3 years prior, that’s a bit of a step down. The same thing can be said for the character designs which, by and large, are lacking in complex details and linework. However for all that may sound like a criticism this does give Now and Then one very important benefit: It’s a lot easier to animate. And we can see that in just how much animation it actually has. Like seriously, the amount of small details in these shots, the expressiveness of each characters body and face, is great! I love how every motion is a full-body event. Hopefully it can keep this subtle movement going for its entire run.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 Anime Review 68/100

Sequels are beautiful, dangerous things. More often than not you already know what to expect. Is it a series you enjoyed? Then it’s a guaranteed good time. And if it’s something you didn’t? Then you can skip it without having to worry about what could have been. Indeed, it’s rare that a sequel goes off and does it’s own thing, that it wildly changes from whatever formula made it successful before. Why would you when it can bring you the sort of success Kimetsu no Yaiba is experiencing right now? That’s right, Directed by Haruo Sotozaki and animated by studio Ufotable, Kimetsu no Yaiba: Yuukaku-hen takes everything you loved about the first season and doubles down on it. Love the fights? The entire season is one big one. Love the visuals? I dare say this season has some of the best yet. And the narrative? We will get to that.

Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for Kimetsu no Yaiba Seasons 1 and 2. It also contains major spoilers in some sections however these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents. Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 Anime Review 68/100”

Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 18 [No Matter How Many Lives]

Hello everyone and welcome to the final post about the second season of Kimetsu no Yaiba! This is going to be a shorter one since I’m prepping the final review but there’s still plenty to talk about. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off lets talk about my overall thoughts for the arc. As a whole I think Yaiba has everything it needs. All the basic beats, all the important core pieces of the narrative. An MC struggling against stronger and stronger foes, a few groupies with distinct personality traits, the mentor and a villain with a tragic backstory. Everything you need for a basic Shounen story is present in this season. So why then for the past few episodes now have I really only praised Yaiba’s production, which is indeed rather good. I’ll be answering this question more in depth in my final review but I can answer the spirit of the question now: The way Yaiba tells its story is very simple and straight forward, the most basic of Shounen tropes. And to prove my point I want to talk about the core of this weeks episode, the Demon’s backstory.

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The Vision of Escaflowne Anime Review 79/100 – Throwback Thursday

If you’re a fan of Mecha odds are you’ve heard of Shouji Kawamori. The man has done mechanical design for movies like Patlabor and Ghost in the Shell to a few Gundam Wing OVAs and even Eureka Seven. He’s been in the industry, working on robots, for over 40 years now. And in that time he’s come up with a few original series of his own! But of those only a few can truly be said to have been written by him. One is Aquarion. Another is Arjuna. And the last, and very first he ever did full composition for himself, is what we are here to talk about today. Directed by Kazuki Akane of Noein fame and animated by the studio defined by Mecha, Sunrise, I bring to you: The Vision of Escaflowne. Lets dive in.

Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for The Vision of Escaflowne. It also contains major spoilers in some sections however these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents. Continue reading “The Vision of Escaflowne Anime Review 79/100 – Throwback Thursday”

Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 17 [Never Give Up]

Welcome everyone to the penultimate episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba S2! I’ve heard some rumblings comparing this to the fabled Episode 19 of Season 1, and you know what? They aren’t to far off. So without further ado lets dive in!

For now lets start positive with the production. Because as anyone with eyes can see, this week was rather pretty. You could probably argue that Yaiba went a bit to heavy on the effects in places. It’s certainly not a style everyone will enjoy, especially not those who value subtle, realistic movement. But even those folks would have to agree that what Yaiba did this week was technically impressive. Nozomu Abe, Masayuki Kunihiro, and others really nailed the sense of 3D space. I especially liked the heavier linework you’ll see in Abe’s scene I linked below the break. If you’ve read me for any length of time, that shouldn’t surprise you. I love heavy line work. And Yaiba is one of the few series I can consistently get it in. My only real complaint production wise is the photoreal fire simulations don’t quite fit the rest of the scenes.

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The Vision of Escaflowne – 25/26 [Zone of Absolute Fortune/Eternal Love] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to the final episodes of The Vision of Escaflowne! This week is all about war, love, fate and all manner of other cheesy buzzwords. And a quick note, there is a poll at the end of the post for my next series. So without further ado lets dive in!

Starting off, for the last time, the visuals. For all the issues I might have with this ending, this is not one of them. These two episodes had some of the best cuts/animation of Escaflowne’s entire run. In particular I want to point at the final Guymelef between Van and you know who, keeping spoilers for after the break. This is the kind of giant robot fights I want to see. Giant monsters of metal that actually feel like they weight what they should. Sparks flying at every little scrape. The momentum of their blows carrying through their entire body. Yeah there were other good scenes, Dilandau continues to have fantastic faces. But this is what I wanted from Escaflowne’s finale more than any big battle scene. And it makes me happy that I got it.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 16 [Defeating an Upper Rank Demon]

Alright everyone its another episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba so you know the drill. It’s time to talk pretty lights, simple fights and everyone’s favorite sleepy boy. So without further ado lets dive in!

Starting off some small praise to Yaiba. Visuals continue to look good. To follow up on my point last week about poor camera usage, I want to say the wide shots were some of my favorites this week. Seeing everything in motion together, the belts, the blades, the characters, is always the best for me. That said, there was one Uzui clip in particular that caught my eye. You’ll find it below the break but suffice to say I loved its entire aesthetic. The different colored lights, the sound of fireworks going off, the wide full body shot as he swings his blades. It’s all so in character for Uzui, so his style, yet it falls perfectly within what Ufotable like to do. I’m really glad they found a way to depict his Sound Breathing since they can’t give that proper elemental effects like Tanjiro and Zenitsu.

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The Vision of Escaflowne – 23/24 [Storm Premonition/Fateful Decision] – Throwback Thursday

Hello everyone and welcome to the penultimate post on The Vision of Escaflowne! This is a big week. Escaflowne throws my words back in my face, Hitomi pulls off the unexpected and we finally enter the endgame. So without further ado lets dive into the episodes!

Starting off I need to wipe some egg of my face. Last week I had a lot to say about how Escaflowne handled Folken. That there were a lot of missed opportunities, that he should have had some one-on-one time with Hitomi, etc. I say that we need some time for the ramifications of Folken’s betrayal to run through the cast. That a decision like this warrants more than a quick one-off scene. And what happens? Just that! It’s nice in a way that Escaflowne recognized the same problems I did. That it knew it these things needed to happen and just did them in a different way. It actually gives me a good deal of hope for the finale. Because even if they weren’t done perfectly, they were done. And that means someone is paying attention to their story. Now onto the episodes!

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