Author: Lenlo

Haibane Renmei – 12 [Bell Nuts/Passing of the Year Festival/Reconciliation] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Haibane Renmei, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to the penultimate episode of Haibane Renmei! Apologies for the wait on this one, I’ve been quite sick these past few days and didn’t get to write this early like I usually do. With my excuses out of the way lets dive into this weeks episode!

Starting off I think this was the first episode where I had a noticeable issue with Haibane Renmei’s visuals. Not across the board of course. The backgrounds are still nice and the colors, while largely washed out, still work to sell that almost ethereal nature of the Wall, halos and town. In fact I’m really only talking about one part in particular: Rakka’s face when she is talking to Midori. The way this shot is cut just… bothers me. Those 3 rapid frames as she reacts to Midori, the way it cuts between them is just… jarring. It took me completely out of the scene and the moment. I actually went back twice to see if I just blinked or something else went wrong. But no. Its just a really jarring scene. Is this a big deal? Not really but I had to complain about something before I gush.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 2 [Deep Sleep]

by Lenlo, posted in Kimetsu no Yaiba

Hello and welcome to the Kimetsu no Yaiba movie Episode 2 of Kimetsu no Yaiba! That’s right, this week begins the movie retread. For those of you who have already seen it you won’t be getting anything new. And for those that haven’t? Lets dive in and talk about that.

Right off the bat you can tell that this is movie quality stuff. Not because of any of the big scenes mind you. Yaiba was always, and still is, pretty good about those. It’s more the consistency of it all. The small scenes that normally, in a TV anime at least, wouldn’t get animated. Stuff like Inosuke’s various snort effects, the various facial expressions or movement of background characters, etc. Of course the big things have their moments to though. I have issues with Ufotable’s CGI coming up in later episodes but god is this train pretty. The lighting, the tracking, the smoke, this is a good looking train! And Ufotable knows it, as you will quickly find out by the amount of full-model shots in the upcoming episodes. Whatever you think of the story, and I have qualms about it, you can’t deny that Yaiba is pretty.

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Eighty Six S2 – 3 [Glad to Be Here]

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

Hello everyone and welcome back to Eighty Six! I’ve been a bit positive lately, what with my coverage of Haibane Renmei and gushing over some recent productions. So it’s time to go back to being a bit of a curmudgeon and take shots at someone’s labor of love! Lets dive in.

Now I framed it humorously in the intro but I am legitimately disappointed in Eighty Six this week. From both a production and narrative perspective this episode feels like a step down. And you know what’s so surprising about it? This episode was both Directed and Storyboarded by Satsuki Takahashi, who did episodes 5 and 10 back in the first season. Those were good episodes with incredibly striking imagery! From Shin’s shot in the mirror in episode 5 to the scenic shots of episode 10, I praised them a lot! So it’s really disappointing to see him return this week and not get more of the same beauty. I can only assume the reason is the subject material he had to work with. Those two episodes were much stronger narratively and seemingly more focused in their goal. Meanwhile this episode felt… predictable. More so than Eighty Six usually is.

(Though I will say the CGI looked much better)

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Haibane Renmei – 11 [Parting/Darkness in the Heart/Irreplaceable Thing] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Haibane Renmei, Throwback Thursday

Hello everyone and welcome to a very late post about Haibane Renmei! I don’t really have an excuse. To be frank I thought this episode was rather dull. Why? Well lets jump in and find out!

So like I said, I found this episode rather dull. It was primarily setup on Rakka’s end, giving her a time limit as well as setting the stakes for what is to come. It also did some work setting the tone but overall I think Haibane Renmei has kept the tone pretty consistent throughout its run so it was a little unnecessary. Overall this episode didn’t really tell us anything new or reframe anything we had already been told. That’s fine I suppose, more of the same with Haibane Renmei is still a decent character piece. And it’s not like every episode has to be some grand reveal, that’s just an unreasonable expectation. But what I can say is that this episode is never going to be my, or anyone’s, favorite out of the season. I just doesn’t have anything to set it apart and give it that “favorite” spark.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 1 [Flame Hashira Kyojuro Rengoku]

by Lenlo, posted in Kimetsu no Yaiba

Hello everyone and welcome back to Kimetsu no Yaiba! Time for that classic Ufotable shounen spice. Before we get into anything though I have to make one thing clear: Yaiba is going to be lower priority for awhile since it’s just re-airing the movie split into episodes. I’m still going to cover it! But Eighty Six and Throwback Thursday will take precedence. The real Yaiba, for me, doesn’t start until December. That out of the way, its jump into it!

Of course the first thing we have to talk about are the visuals. This is what Yaiba is known for. And rightly so if you ask me. Ufotable’s effects driven presentation might not be my favorite, I think Heike is the best looking show of the season, but its still good. Kinda like a Marvel movie’s CGI-fest versus real props and miniatures, etc. One thing I do have to call it out for though is the composite. Sometimes its just so… painfully obvious that the character was added into the environment after the fact. Their visual styles, the CGI, the post-processing, they don’t fit together. Most of the time it’s fine enough. But in some of the darker scenes where light and shadow were really important it was very noticeable. Not a big problem, Yaiba is still pretty. But it’s there. And we will see more of it.

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86 – Eighty Six S2 – 2 [Its Too Late]

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

Welcome back everyone to another season of Eighty Six! If you’re reading this post you already know what you’re getting into so lets skip the preamble and jump right into it!

Right off the bat I want to, again, praise Director Toshimasa Ishii for Eighty Six’s visuals. The animation and compositing aren’t the best, Heike takes the cake in raw production values probably. But Eighty Six is making a fair go at the title for “Best Shot”. I just really love how it frames and cuts between scenes, imbuing meaning in even the smallest gestures. One of my favorites for the episode for example had to be around 7 minutes in. After being introduced to the now calm and peaceful daily lives of the 86’ers, something novel for them, we then get a short sequence of back shots. Fading between each of them as these days drag on into monotony, the music steady and unchanging but purposefully dull, without bite. It conveys what they are feeling really well! Now if only Eighty Six didn’t feel the need to verbalize it to.

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Haibane Renmei – 10 [Kuramori/Haibane of Abandoned Factory/Rakka’s Job] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Haibane Renmei, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all to a (late) episode of Haibane Renmei! This week is a bit slower compared to the last few but no less lighter. We got a lot of information dropped on us this week. So how about we jump right into it?

Compared to the last few episodes this week felt like setup rather than payoff. Like Haibane Renmei is gearing up for it’s final act. This isn’t a bad thing! Where the previous episodes gave us a lot of character growth and revelatory moments, Rakka in the well for example, this week is a lot more information focused. Answering a lot of questions I’ve had since the beginning of the series while asking a few more. But these new question’s aren’t really about the world at large, they aren’t meant to introduce new aspects or parts of the setting. Instead it feels like their purpose is to connect the dots. Pointing us towards the gaps in our knowledge, like the Renmei, the Haibane and the Sin-Bound, and promising to fill them in. So while there wasn’t a lot of forward progress this week I can clearly see the path being laid.

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Sonny Boy Anime Review – 38/100

by Lenlo, posted in Anime Reviews, Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction, Reviews by Lenlo, Sonny Boy

Let’s start this by just ripping the band aid off: Sonny Boy is a disappointment. Both created and directed by the acclaimed Shingo Natsume of Space Dandy fame and animated by Studio Madhouse, Sonny Boy was well equipped to become the darling of the Summer Season. And early on its run, it appeared to be just that! Intriguing plots and characters were introduced, the world began to expand, it was engaging! But then it kept expanding. Questions kept being asked and no answers were given. Time and space became figments of our imagination and Sonny Boy itself seemed to forget that it was supposed to be telling a story. The whole thing quickly transformed from “Abstract exploration of growing up” to “Meandering arthouse with no idea what it wants to say”. At least, that’s my take on it. The purpose of this review is to explain how I got there.

So lets jump in.

Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for Sonny Boy. It also contains major spoilers in some sections however these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents.
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Haibane Renmei – 9 [Water Well/Rebirth/Riddle] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Haibane Renmei, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to another week of Haibane Renmei! This is a rather uplifting episode compared to the last few, a sort of breathe of fresh air. Rakka has an eye opening conversation while Reki takes her place at the bottom of the metaphorical well. What do either of those things mean? Read on and find out!

Before we get into all the narrative mumbo jumbo though I want start with some praise for the music. I haven’t talked about it much until now because I wanted a larger sample size. But at this point I can comfortably say that Kou Ootani has made something special. There’s a specific style to Haibane Renmei’s sound, one that’s almost reverent, riding that line of feeling almost religious. Yet Kou Ootani manages to create music that is both happy and sad, quiet and adventurous, hopeful and resigned, all the while keeping the same Haibane Renmei style. My only complaint with it is that occasionally the sound mixing appears to be off. For instance in this episode there were a few scenes where the music, though good, overpowered the dialogue. I’m unsure how much of this is just BD remastering vs original audio problems but they exist regardless.

Now lets head into the break so we can talk spoilers!

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Sonny Boy – 10/11 [Summer and the Demon/11]

by Lenlo, posted in Finished Series: Adventure/Fantasy/Science Fiction, Sonny Boy

Welcome back everyone to another week of me missing my deadline and merging two Sonny Boy posts together! I have no excuse this week I’m afraid. Sonny Boy has simply fallen apart and I had no desire to write. However I refuse to go two weeks without doing anything so here we are. Now how about we jump into it!

This week I came to a conclusion about Sonny Boy: It’s not good. It’s not that the show has fallen off though. That would imply that it had built something up from which it could fall off of. I watched Sonny Boy with the hope that it would all come together! That all of the disparate plot threads such as Rajhidani going out to sea, Hoshi leading the other students away or Asakaze and co effectively joining the military, would all connect back into a singular statement about how we raise the next generation and the choices that lay before them. Instead what we got was Natsume rambling philosophical for 11 episodes. He clearly has something he wants to say, a lot of somethings. Yet he has no idea how he wants to say them and no one was around to tell him no.

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