Author: Lenlo

Serial Experiments Lain – 4 [Religion] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Serial Experiments Lain, Throwback Thursday

Hello all and welcome to another week of Throwback Thursday, posted on a Friday, for Serial Experiments Lain! This week Lain answers a lot of questions, introduces a lot more and dives into the surreal. So lets jump in!

Starting off, like I said Lain answers a lot of questions this week. Addressing the drugs, Wired, Lain’s prevalence in the world and how they all fit together. All without explicitly tying them together with direct callouts. Meanwhile it also introduced many more questions in regards to the Knights, and the line between the Wired and reality. Yet with all of this ground covered, it all felt like natural consequences of the story. Saving spoilers for after the break, I was very impressed with how so little managed to connect so much. Giving so much relevance to an episode title or the smallest grin from a character. I said last week I have to be in the right mind to watch Lain. This episode reinforces that belief for me. Enough dancing around the spoilers though, let’s talk about suicide, woo!

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One Punch Man S2 – 7 [Class S Heroes]

by Lenlo, posted in One Punch Man S2

Congratulations OPM, you found a new way to disappoint me. This time, OPM actually straight up cut content from the manga to try and fit it all conveniently into a single episode. All the while, gloriously screwing it up. Lets jump in, I promise this will be fast.

Starting off I would like to say, thank you Kenichiro Aoki for making this watchable. This man is responsible for every reasonable looking cut in the season. From Tank Top Master vs Garou to part of this week’s Seiryu vs Saitama. I don’t know how much work they have given him, nor is it the best I have ever seen. But by god is it the best animated parts of OPM S2. Everything else is just littered with issues. From ridiculous, almost sped up seeming pacing to weightless combat and flash fades, god the flash fades. I don’t know how much more I can say about OPM S2’s production before I start repeating myself. Assuming I am not already repeating myself, which I suspect I am. Suffice to say, if I do repeat myself I apologize. These posts have mostly become venting about the death of a series for me.

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Dororo – 19 [The Story of the Amanojaku]

by Lenlo, posted in Dororo

Hello all and welcome to a week of essentially filler for Dororo! We repeat plot points, Hyakki gets engaged and Dororo gets some funny faces. Let’s dive in!

Starting off, I normally do production here, but with the contents of this episode that seems ridiculous. Instead, I wanna ask why this episode exists, because this week is effectively filler. And not even good filler. Just filler that retreads what was already covered last week. I understand it was all a metaphor, that Hyakki’s reforged swords were all an allegory for Hyakki himself. Him and Dororo were realizing their true feelings, because they can only speak lies. Blah blah, whatever. My question is, did we need any of this? Did Dororo not establish the familial relationship between our two leads last episode? Was that not the whole head-rubbing thing and such? It just all feels pointless to me, like Dororo is treading water, when there is an actual plot sitting right in front of it. It’s disappointing.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba – 7 [Muzan Kibutsuji]

by Lenlo, posted in Kimetsu no Yaiba

Hello all, and welcome to a big week for Kimetsu no Yaiba. This is the week where I move it up from a “Competent” Shounen to a “Good/Great” Shounen. You see, Yaiba finishes up another arc, Nezuko kicks some butt and Tanjiro meets the big bad 8 episodes in. So let’s jump into it!

Starting off, production. Yaiba was as consistent as it always is on this front, beautiful with the occasional odd CGI walk. However it also had one of my favorite cuts this week. That being the flashback to the mountain, with Tanjiro running through the forest. I thought the camera movements/tracking and CGI was fantastic. Yeah, it wasn’t perfect but boy did I love that scene. On top of that, once again I want to bring up Yuki Kaijura. She really nailed the unease and tension of the 2nd half of the episode. Really elevating the emotions of a scene. There are some small gripes, for instance I think Yaiba wasted some potential in the underwater scene. And it was also overly dingy and dark. But it does its job, and with how good everything else is around it, that’s good enough. The story however, does far more than that.

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Serial Experiments Lain – 3 [Psyche] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Serial Experiments Lain, Throwback Thursday

Starting off, let me apologize for the lateness of this weeks Lain post. I tend to try and digest an episode before writing, and Lain makes that… difficult. As this week we get into the human psyche, the line between reality and the Wired blurs and Lain becomes multiple people. Lets hop right in!

Starting off, this week was weird. Like, really weird, but also very interesting. I loved the use of consistent imagery, connecting different events of the show. For instance the red dots in the car window, mimicking the red dot of the gun last episode. Building upon Lain’s trauma with it. The empty house which Lain comes home to, apparently each night, and how Lain mills about like this isn’t anything new. Really nailing home how alone and disconnected from everyone she is. Idling away her hours on the computer. I actually stopped Lain for a second and looked around my apartment, realizing I had been doing the exact same thing. Its a really weird feeling to get from a show made in ’98. Even the name of the chip Lain gets this week is filled with connotations. So much so I probably missed most of them. It’s ridiculously layered.

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One Punch Man S2 – 6 [The Uprising of the Monsters]

by Lenlo, posted in One Punch Man S2

Sigh Welcome once again to the sinking ship that is OPM S2. This week we see a fantastic character done dirty, botched pacing, and more boob shots than you can swing a stick at. Lets dive in.

As always, production, and oof. OOF. JC Staff screwed the pooch this week. I won’t even talk animation, because that’s obvious. Instead lets talk about how JC Staff screwed up direction and shot composition, when Murata had already laid it out for them. Throughout this episode, we have 2 conflicts going on. Genos vs the Monsters, and the Tournament. OPM cuts between the two, progressing both at once. However, what happens in the manga is the tournament comes first in ever sequence. Showing a martial arts technique and its effects, then cutting straight to Genos performing an S-Class Super Hero version of the same thing. High Voltage Fist, Machine Gun Blow, Rocket Stomp, all these mimic techniques of the martial artists. Yet JC Staff couldn’t even do that right. Showing them out of order, with no impact or connection between them. This is a staggering level of incompetence.

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Dororo – 18 [The Story of the Cape of No Mercy]

by Lenlo, posted in Dororo

Welcome one and all to Dororo’s redemption, the episode that takes us back to first cour quality. We have demons, sword fights, and poignant character moments. Maybe, just maybe, I won’t be disappointed in 2 months. Lets jump in!

First up, thank you MAPPA, for getting production right this week. Every aspect was, at the least, decent. There are still small nitpicks that could be made, but they are just that. Nitpicks. The actual big picture is that this episode felt like one from the first cour. Sure, the demon shark fight was rather fast, but that wasn’t the focus of the episode. That was Hyakki vs Tahomaru and co, and I enjoyed this. It was animated much better than previous episodes, really moving the “camera” around and giving us full body shots. Yes some detail goes away at points, but in its place we get a much more movement. To top it all off, the music was great and there were lots of picturesque shots that adored. It’s entirely possible my standards have fallen, but I am just glad Dororo is actually animated this week.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba – 6 [Swordsman Accompanying a Demon]

by Lenlo, posted in Kimetsu no Yaiba

Welcome everyone to another episode of Yaiba! We are 1/4th of the way through now and Yaiba is 3 arcs in, with no plans of slowing. We arrive at the town, a hunt ensues and combat begins with our first super powered Demon. Lets jump in!

As always, production first. I could go on and on about how pretty Yaiba is. How much I love the water effects and uneven line work, etc etc. I have done that every week though, so this time let’s talk sound design, cause whoo. It’s good. Not only is it a Yuki Kaijura OST, always a plus, but Yaiba is just nailing the folly work. Seriously, whoever did the sound of the gnashing teeth deserves a raise. That was a suitably creepy and hair-raising, a unique sound I have no heard before in anime. As a whole it all comes together for a simply fantastic sounding episode. My only real complaint with it is the CGI crowds/walking. Yaiba is finally starting to show some cracks in the CGI, with the wide shots. Luckily all of the closeups are still 2D. That aside though, onto the story. Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba – 6 [Swordsman Accompanying a Demon]” →

Serial Experiments Lain – 2 [Girls] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Serial Experiments Lain, Throwback Thursday

Welcome to week 2 of Serial Experiments Lain, or as I like to call it, Screw With Lenlo. This week 4 friends walk into a club with drugs and a gun. Sounds like a good time, so let’s jump in!

Starting off, I really need to remember when Lain was made. I got half-way through this episode critiquing its “animation saving” cuts, before I realized Lain was made in 98. Granted this isn’t a get out of jail free card, Cowboy Bebop was also made in 98. But it did renew my appreciation for cell-animation. It’s a very different aesthetic from digital, much… not rougher but maybe rustic? Regardless, as limited as it is I watched this coming off of One Punch Man Season 2 and whew. Lain is drastically more engaging. There is much less motion on screen, and yet the framing and direction make it visually interesting. Whether it be framing a man’s face through a doorway or some almost hallucinogenic sequence, Lain drew me in. Considering I still understood almost nothing of this story and was still engaged, I would call that a job well done.

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One Punch Man S2 – 5 [Martial Arts Tournament]

by Lenlo, posted in One Punch Man S2

God damnit OPM. I thought we were past this, I thought we could get along. It was my hope, after these last two episodes, that you could make it. I was wrong. This week OPM disappoints me, and I once again get to go on a rant. Jump in if you dare.

Right off the bat, and I am gonna do this for a few hundred words, let’s talk production. My god, did OPM trip and fall down a ditch this week. There’s so much to talk about here, I have to split it into sections. Starting off, animation. Not only was it limited, reusing it in the same god damn fight, but what little good OPM had was covered up. Flashing screens, cut to black with flashes of light and shaky cam ruin whatever punch any of the fights could have had. Combine that with terrible direction, ruining the flow of blows, and it just becomes a mess. One redditor described it aptly as “The fight wanted itself to end”. Then there’s Metal Knight, flying around like a static image through the sky. This sequence could have been amazing and instead we got… a PowerPoint presentation.

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