Author: Lenlo

Paranoia Agent – 13 [The Final Episode] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Paranoia Agent, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all to the finale of Paranoia Agent! People grow up, Shounen Bat is defeated and absolutely nothing makes any sense. Lets dive in!

Starting off, visually, it worked very well as a finale. Lots of awesome shots, action and moments throughout, all blending into just a joy to watch. Really, it just flowed well. From how the Chief’s slow realizations were portrayed to the actual final set piece action, I thought was gorgeous. One interesting thing about it all though are the reused shots. The actual art and scene contents are changed of course. But the shots/locations/angels are the same as the opening episode. Showing us how much everything has changed, and how it all goes back to being the same after everything is over. There are parts where I think it was very dim, and hard to see lighting wise. But because of the availability of the series, I don’t know how much of that is my source and the actual series. But enough on that, lets talk story.

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One Punch Man S2 – 2 [Human Monsters]

by Lenlo, posted in One Punch Man S2

Breathe deep… Siiiiiiiiigh… Guess we are doing this. Strap in folks, because this is going to be a rough season of OPM.

Let me start off, with a friendly warning. If your here for my usual attempts at constructive criticism and attempted multifaceted analysis, I apologize. There will be very little of that for these OPM posts. I just… JC Staff have murdered one of my loves, and I cannot forgive that. Not even ONE’s writing will save this season, because they can’t even present that right. These posts are going to be me bitching, moaning, and in general ripping OPM apart for how it fails on every single level. Not even compared to the first season 3 years ago, but as a standalone animated product. I give you this warning now, so that you don’t waste your time if that’s not what you come here for. If so, just skip this show. It’s terrible and not for you. But if you wanna see an angry Lenlo, continue beyond the break.

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Dororo – 14 [The Story of Sabame]

by Lenlo, posted in Dororo

Another week, another episode of Dororo. This time we learn the mystery of Dororo’s back, meet a new demon and get a lot of parallels to their current overall situation. Lets jump in!

Starting off, Dororo once again is a bit disappointing on the production front. There were a number of dull or sliding stills, such as the large baby ghost… thing. Where it basically slid across the screen most of the time it was on. That isn’t to say there weren’t some nice shots. Opening on the monochrome flashback with the red fire was nice. As was the short fight near the end and the transformation sequence. But all in all, Dororo hasn’t wowed me since coming back for the 2nd season. Considering how this first cour started and ended, this is more than a little disappointing. Even when it wasn’t particularly active on screen, it was at least visually interesting. However this is neither most of the time. At least the story itself remains interesting though.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba – 2 [Trainer Sakonji Urokodaki]

by Lenlo, posted in Kimetsu no Yaiba

Welcome one and all to the 2019 Spring Season! My name is Lenlo, and I am Shounen Trash. This, is Kimetsu no Yaiba, now with cute demon sisters, mysterious old men the the high possibility of developing a drool fetish. Sounds weird? Good, lets jump in!

First off, production. Its Ufotable, obviously Yaiba looks fantastic. It has the Ufotable style of heavy digital effects of course, it’s all very flashy. Yaiba isn’t as unique as Mob Psycho was. But you can’t deny the actual technical skill put into Yaiba. You just need to look at the CGI cut throughout the episode for proof of that. The last time CGI was done this well was Houseki no Kuni, and there it was the entire show. For instance, Yaiba gave us multiple shots of running through a CGI forest or mountain, with lots of 2D layered in there. It all looks great, in a much more traditional sense than Mob Psycho does. Naturally this means more static shots or less expressive faces/bodies. But the filters and effects at least make those very pretty stills. Think Violet Evergarden vs Mob Psycho, shoved into a traditional Shounen.

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Paranoia Agent – 12 [Radar Man] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Paranoia Agent, Throwback Thursday

Hello all, and welcome to the Galaxy Brain episode of Paranoia Agent. Apologies for the lateness, but I really needed to wrap my head around this. Threads are brought  together, more questions are raised, and I am somehow entertained, confused and enlightened all at once. Lets jump in!

Now I have so much I need to talk about this week, let’s just skip animation and production. It looked fantastic, lots of awesome movement, onto the episode itself. And what an episode it was. I feel like I understand so much more now, all the narrative threads are coming together. Yet at the same time, I am confused and have absolutely no idea what is happening. That these two states can coincide, that I can understand nothing and still be wholly satisfied, is amazing. I am unsure how much of this was intentional by Kon though. Large portions were clearly foreshadowed early on, such as Maniwa or Maromi. However with the 2 or so episodes of filler, you also have to wonder, how much of this just… fell into place? Thats question for next week’s finale though, for now, onto specifics!

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Dororo – 13 [The Story of the Blank-Faced Buddha]

by Lenlo, posted in Dororo

Hello everyone and welcome to the Spring season! While we are still preparing our First Impressions and picking what interests us, carryovers from last season are picking back up. That of course includes Dororo, which left off on a huge first cour finale. Lets jump in!

Before we get into the meat of this episode, I want to once more talk production. This was, honestly, rather weak. With lots of sliding stills and generally dull fights. With your main combatant being a giant statue, its natural that the fight would be slow. However multiple times in the combat it felt like nothing was happening, when they were fighting for their lives. I think this is a mix of the premise simply not being great for a fight, and MAPPA’s 2nd Cour curse. You see, MAPPA has a curse with their shows where production tends to fall off in the 2nd Cour. I don’t know if that’s just their inability to plan, or if its something else. What has helped Dororo a lot I suspect is that Tezuka Production’s have been working on it as well, lightening MAPPA’s load. Yet even still, this slipped through.

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Mob Psycho 100 S2 Anime Review – 87/100

by Lenlo, posted in Anime Reviews, Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama, Mob Psycho 100 II, Reviews by Lenlo

Upon finishing this series, the only question on my mind was how many animators did Bones sacrifice on ONE’s altar to achieve this. Following their prior season, Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 continues Bones adaptation of webcomic and manga author ONE’s 4th work, Mob Psycho 100. ONE has also authored the critically acclaimed One Punch Man series, redrawn for Shonen Jump by Yusuke Murata, and was later also adapted to anime by Studio Madhouse. Both were fantastic, and both pushed the envelope in terms of animation for TV anime. Following these up was no easy task. And yet, somehow, some way, Studio Bones did just that. They created an anime that you can find, almost in its entirety, on Sakugabooru. A blog dedicated to beautiful animation. But is there any substance, any depth, to what that animation portrays? Let’s find out.

Welcome to Mob Psycho 100 S2, lets jump in!

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Paranoia Agent – 11 [No Entry] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Paranoia Agent, Throwback Thursday

And so Paranoia Agent gets back on its weird tracks! This week week see what’s happened with Maniwa and the chief, Shounen Bat gets one upped and Kon get’s a little weird again. Lets jump in!

I have to say, this was a unique episode. All of Paranoia Agent’s episodes are unique in some way, but that’s not going to stop me from pointing it out each week. This time, Kon give’s us a closer look into Shounen Bat himself, which is a very welcome surprise. I made a point last week of explaining my worries with the series. That it was moving away from the characters and towards Shounen Bat, when he had no character of his own. That there wasn’t a clear plot to actually end in the first place. Kon apparently realized this, knowing from the start if the setup is anything to go by. This week give’s me that characterization, that sort of plot hook, that I so desperately wanted last week. So credit where credit is do, Kon has assuaged one of my biggest worries. But what about the actual content?

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Mob Psycho 100 S2 – 13 [Boss Fight ~The Final Light~]

by Lenlo, posted in Mob Psycho 100 II

Hello one and all, to the finale of Mob Psycho 100 Season 2! This week Suzuki explodes, Mob grows up and Serizawa gets a haircut. I hope your ready for a contrary opinion, now lets jump in!

I want to preface my mixed reception with this, Mob Psycho’s animation is insane. It looks fantastic in every way, knocking everything else out of the park. BONES clearly cared a lot about this series, because the animators really got to flex their own styles and do what they wanted. From the interesting camera angles and tracking shots as they flew through the sky, to the unique animation that often popped up. Simply put, I don’t believe Mob Psycho’s animation is something that be contested. From digital effects to uncommon mediums, it really made the most of what it means to be “animated”. I caught myself mid “whoa” multiple times this episode. It’s interesting to, because this is more tame (for Mob Psycho at least) than Episode 5’s insanity, yet still fantastic. Showing that BONES doesn’t need a dreamscape to go all out. Sadly, it wasn’t all perfection this week.

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Paranoia Agent – 10 [Mellow Maromi] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Paranoia Agent, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to the most enjoyable episode of Paranoia Agent in a while. This week we get a peek into the anime industry, Shounen Bat appears once more and our death count skyrockets. Lets jump in!

Starting off, I not only have to but want to talk about the animation. Paranoia Agent got very inventive this week, wowing me multiple times. It really embraced the focus on the animation industry to have some fun with its eldritch premise. There are two instances of this I specifically want to mention. The first comes right at the start, by cutting to the various stages of the animation process. Complete, to Genga, to Storyboard it was an interesting look and really set the focus for the episode early. The second, and much more impressive, was about mid-way through, as Saruta is basically reverse animated. Losing his color, his line-work getting rougher and rougher. It was simultaneously beautiful and horrifying, fitting Paranoia Agent’s unique brand of horror. This is exactly what I have wanted these past few episodes, so its good to see the series return to form.

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