Author: Lenlo

Black Lagoon – 21/22 [Two Father’s Little Soldier Girls/The Dark Tower] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Black Lagoon, Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to what may be the best pair of Black Lagoon episodes… Ever, really. I love so much about these episodes, and they are so intertwined with each other that I’m going to forgo the usual format and tackle them together, as a single unit, because that’s what I think they are. So strap in, cause we have a lot to talk about this week! And remember, if you have a suggestion for our next season of Throwback Thursday, post it below! I’ll add it to the ballot after next weeks post.

Starting off, what a way to bookend a pair of episodes. Seriously, beautiful stuff. I’ve long said Balalaika is my favorite Black Lagoon character, and this bookend parallel with Yukio only cemented that. The flashback to her childhood, dreaming of becoming an Olympian to restore her families honor in the eyes of the Soviet Union? Winding up shipped off to war, scarred, watching her men die and killing others in return. Disgraced as the home they fought for falls apart, soldiers without a country, abandoned and forgotten. Burying her second in command then taking up the mantle once more, giving her men purpose where they had none, diving face first into this life for the sake of another. Even the episode title, “Two Father’s Little Soldier Girls”, is beautiful in context. And the best part of it all? The rest of the episode(s) live up to what this opening promised.

Continue reading “Black Lagoon – 21/22 [Two Father’s Little Soldier Girls/The Dark Tower] – Throwback Thursday” →

Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 10

by Lenlo, posted in Weekly Summary

Thanks for the well wishes after last weeks post everyone. Can’t say things are great, in fact I’d say they are falling apart, but this is a nice bit of consistency in the storm.

Dungeon Meshi – 11 [Red Dragon I]

If you’ve seen the episode then it should come as no surprise that Dungeon Meshi is #1 this week. It took everything I love about the show, the detailed world building and ecology, the animation and expressiveness of the characters, even the uncommon bouts of serious drama, and dialed them up to 11. The detail? We got to watch the party skin and butcher a dragon piece of piece, walking us through its digestive cycle and how it breathes fire. The animation and expressiveness? This is the best Dungeon Meshi has looked since Episode 3, everything just moves beautifully. From their expressions even to how it was shot. Just look at any of Senshi or Laios’s scenes across the entire episode and you’ll know what I mean, an absolute powerhouse of dynamic movement and camera work. And the drama? God the second half it… It got me. The building desperation to find even a shred of Falin’s corpse, the flashback to when they were children, and especially the reveal with the skull. Something about it just… It worked, and was simultaneously incredibly dark and yet hopeful, because now they can maybe pay to resurrect her. So as far as climaxes go? This is going to be hard to top, because that was an absolutely stunning episode. Continue reading “Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 10” →

Black Lagoon – 19/20 [Fujiyama Gangsta Paradise/The Succession] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Black Lagoon, Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another 2 episodes of Black Lagoon! This week kicks of the final arc of the series, taking us to a land we haven’t visited since episode 1: Japan! This is pretty interesting, a lot goes down, so lets dive right into it.

First up is episode 19, “Fujiyama Gangsta Paradise”. This episode starts us off in Japan right away and I have to admit, it was a little confusing. We went from escaping into the ocean with Jane to Rock landing in Japan with Revy almost immediately. Were it not for some of the connective moments, like Benny and Jane E-dating or Rock first waking up in Roanapur with Sawyer outside his window, I’d have felt like I had skipped an episode. As is, it just feels like a really awkward transition. Still, it’s not like I dislike Japan. It should be a really interesting setting for the series. One where Rock can show just how much he’s changed in the year he’s been away, as well as giving Revy a more… lets say “civilized” city to interact with. There’s a lot of potential here! Black Lagoon just needs to use it.

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Guest Post: Unearthed Treasure with Firechick – The Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons (80/100)

by Lenlo, posted in Anime Reviews

Alright, let’s get the elephant out of the room, the only reason anyone even heard of The Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons is because of the fact that for some reason, when the first episode went up on Crunchyroll, it was saddled with the most absolutely abysmal English subtitles. No, I’m not kidding. The subtitles were not only extremely literal, with zero syntaxes, punctuations, and sentence structure, there are times when sentences are repeated for no reason, and they even went as far as to straight up translate some characters’ names. It was especially bad because other streaming sites in other regions had their own English subtitles for it, but they were nowhere near as bad as the ones Crunchyroll got. Luckily, the ensuing backlash convinced Crunchyroll to reach out to the original licensor to give it a newer, better translation, and the subtitles have since been updated. It is a shame this is how people had to get introduced to the series, because The Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons is honestly a very sweet, heartwarming, low-key drama that deserves more appreciation than it gets.

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Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 9

by Lenlo, posted in Weekly Summary

Hey all, wanted to let you know real quick here at the top that posts this next week may be late or skipped entirely. Had a death in the family on Friday and it’s been a busy weekend. I need to fly home for a funeral and such. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, just wanted to give you all a heads up. Now on with the post!

Frieren – 26 [The Height of Magic]

Funnily enough, the most enjoyable part of Frieren this week had absolutely nothing to do with Frieren. Don’t get me wrong, the fight with the clone was cool enough, but it felt very… Flashy for flashiness sake, if that makes sense? What I mean is, compare it to the demon fight back in the mid-season climax. While both are very well animated, the demon fight felt smooth and purposeful, Fern was showing off, you could still make out and understand what was happening. Meanwhile this battle, aside from the very end with Frieren’s mention of “I haven’t had to use that in 80 years”, felt like it relied way more on effects work and bright lights and so just wasn’t as interesting. Still fun and flashy, but not the highlight of the episode for me. So what does that honor belong? Ubel. Something about her flashback, the conflict with Sense’s clone, this addendum to the “Magic is about imagination and visualization” rule showing us just how powerful a sociopath can be. Cause when you think about it, it makes sense. Cloth? Hair? People? Those can be cut, duh. Magic barriers? Well that’s magic, can’t cut that. But a dude in a cape? Sure why not. It definitely runs on some “Rule of cool” logic, Frieren is without a doubt a soft magic system on the Sanderson scale. But it’s presented in a cool manner, and Ubel is this great mix of “Don’t cut me” scary and “Step on me” hot. Still, even with that critique I want to make this very clear: Frieren was fun and definitely the highlight of the week. Just because it wasn’t as good as one of its best episodes doesn’t mean it was bad. Overall, I’d call this 2nd test a success.

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Black Lagoon – 17/18 [The Roanapur Freakshow Circus/Mr. Benny’s Good Fortune] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Black Lagoon, Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday

Welcome back, to another week of Black Lagoon! I have another pair of episodes for you, these two wrapping up the Jane arc with just as much fun as it started. There’s a decent amount to talk about, and I want to actually get this up on time for once, so lets dive right into it!

Starting off we have episode 17, “The Roanapur Freakshow Circus”. This picks up right where we left off, with bounty hunters storming the hotel and Eda explaining her brilliant plan. Turns out? I was right! She did plan all of this. In fact, she’s run this so many times that she not only has a specific room picked out, she has signs setup directing Jane right to her alley. Hell, she has a track record of doing this. And you know what makes it all even funnier? The moment Eda and Revy get involved, all of the other bounty hunters immediately back off and demand more pay. Not because they are afraid of them, we see later they gladly fight. More that fighting them simply isn’t worth the paltry 1k they were being paid before. The hilarity! And that’s exactly how I would describe both of these episodes: Hilarious.

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Spring 2024 Season Preview

by Lenlo, posted in Seasonal Previews

Lenlo: Welcome all, to the early days of the Spring season! Boy time sure does fly. And I still haven’t caught up on a lot of my projects. Jesus christ adulting is hard… Let this be proof I haven’t forgotten about them though! Anyways, we have a lot of shows to talk about, most of them looking terrible… So I’m going to skip them and only talk about things that caught my eye! That of course means some things won’t be on this list, from sequels I either haven’t seen the previous season for, like Yuru Camp S3 and Reincarnated as a Slime S3, to ones I actively don’t care about and think are bad, like Mushoku Tensei S2 Part 2 and The Irregular at Magic Highschool S3. There’s also some premiers that don’t get mentioned simply because they don’t look interesting, like The Fable. If something you’re curious about isn’t discussed, post about it in the comments! Tell me why you’re looking forward to it! I’ll keep it in mind when the season starts and I’m watching all the pilots. Until then though? You’ll have to settle for my taste and the shows I think have promise. Now without further ado, lets dive into them!

What will you be watching this spring?
VoteResults

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Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 8

by Lenlo, posted in Weekly Summary

Undead Unluck – 21 [Memento Mori]

It’s simultaneously fantastic and depressing just how good Undead Unluck is when it’s not poorly paced. Seriously, this episode was brilliant. Spending 20 minutes with a young Andy who doesn’t know about his powers? Watching him go from this dour person unable to find joy in life to one strong enough to face tomorrow? That one Fuko line about how learning about Andy meant learning about the numerous farewells, something obvious in hindsight since he’s functionally immortal? I loved all of it. Honestly, between this, Frieren, and the Wolverine comics I’m reading right now, the “Immortal finds purpose through the transient lives of others” trope might be one of my favorites. It’s ripe with potential, and each of them is hitting it in a different way. I also loved that we saw the beginnings of what has been holding Andy back power-wise. How he views death as “The brain stops functioning”, which inherently limits his “Undeath” to negating just that. But if he broadens his mind a bit, views death like Fuko does, as “When you’re forgotten”… What will that do to his negation ability? What will that do to his personality? Only time will tell. And then Undead Unluck just has to cap it off with a beautiful confession scene, tying a nice little bow on one of the best episodes we’ve gotten in weeks.

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Black Lagoon – 15/16 [Swan Song at Dawn/Greenback Jane] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Black Lagoon, Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another slightly late week of Black Lagoon! Turns out implementing Deep Q-Learning and then trying to teach it to play Snake is harder than I thought and I lost track of time. Grad school aside, we have a lot to talk about this week. Black Lagoon seems to have heard my issues and done a lot to address them. So lets dive into this weeks episodes!

First up is episode 15, “Swan Song at Dawn”. This episode concludes the Vampire Children arc, and you know what? It was better than I was expecting, a surprisingly effective ending. Not only did Black Lagoon manage to tie things up well, writing the twins out of the story and resolving Balalaika’s vendetta, it even managed to involve Rock and Revy in an arc that, really, they had no business being involved in. On top of that, it also dialed back the sadism I felt was holding the twins back while dialing up the victim angle just the right amount, at just the right times, too sell their scenes. Overall? I feel a lot better about this arc. Now onto the spoilers!

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Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 7

by Lenlo, posted in Weekly Summary

Hey all! Real quick, I am aware that I am ludicrously late on both the 2023 Anime of the Year awards and the preview for the next season and some reviews. Don’t worry, I’m workin on them. I have just been… So ludicrously busy outside of the blog and it’s taking everything I have just to maintain what we have now. Hopefully things will calm down soon, but know that I haven’t forgotten about them, or you. Thanks! Now lets check out this week.

Dungeon Meshi- 8 [Raspberries/Grilled Meat]

Another absolutely great episode of Dungeon Meshi this week. Split down the middle between Marcille’s first meeting and budding friendship with Falin and a fight with an Undine, it had a perfect mix of emotional development and action for me. The flashback was great because, so far, Falin hasn’t really been a character. She’s someone we hear about through other peoples stories. And while this is no different, this one is more of a regular day-to-day for her. We get to see how she’s different from the other students, how she focuses more on life experiences and what she learns in the natural world than books. It’s that difference that makes her more specialized, but far more skilled at what she’s passionate about than Marcille’s broader skillset. It’s also just a really cute scene of the beginning of their friendship, and the detail that goes into the environment and ecosystem of this cave is simply brilliant. As for the second half, this looked fantastic. Incredibly expressive, Marcille getting her own 1v1 fight was cool too, from a visual standpoint I loved everything about it. Dungeon Meshi even managed to fit in food in an episode where they didn’t kill anything, cooking meat to help Marcille recover some blood. Just good shit all around, I continue to enjoy Dungeon Meshi a lot.

Continue reading “Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 7” →