Wooper: It’s just me, myself and I for the last of the season’s recap posts. I’ve gone through a bunch of shows over the past few months, and dropped a fair few of them – here are the series that still had my attention at spring’s end. (Also, I won’t be running this column over the summer, so it’ll be up to a different author to pick up the torch if they’re interested!)

Yoru no Kuni – 1-2

Now here’s an interesting project. Yoru no Kuni is directed by ryo-timo (animator of the iconic running scene from The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) and features music from Aimer (whose songs have served as EDs for After the Rain and Vinland Saga). These are both artists whose work I enjoy, so I’d follow this ongoing web series regardless of its merits, but thankfully it’s quite good. In both episodes, a noble half-avian creature named Yoru serves as a guide for a troubled child, entering their dreams and gently prompting them to resolve their emotional issues. There’s a painterly look to Yoru’s “Night World,” as he calls it, where shooting stars, glittering hillsides and luminous butterflies have their own unique textures. Despite that brightness, watching Yoru no Kuni is a soothing experience, with visuals that don’t grab your eyes so much as they caress them. The second episode is noteworthy for maintaining a dreamlike feeling despite the questions of its older and more cynical subject, who nevertheless has a profound epiphany within her dream. Both episodes can be found at [these] [links] if you’re interested – I highly recommend them if you’re into animation with a storybook vibe.

Continue reading “Spring 2021 Summary – Weeks 12-13” →

Wooper: We’re bringing back the pre-column author’s notes this week! Not for anything too exciting – just a heads up that there won’t be a recap post on June 21st, since that’s Summer 2021 Preview day. We’ll do a final Spring Summary on the 28th, though, before jumping straight into first impressions mode. Seasonal anime never stops running, and neither do we!

Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song – 12

Helghast: What kind of super AI records in a 4:3 format and has an antique VHS overlay when recounting Vivy’s one hundred year journey? With that kind of tech, maybe it came to the conclusion that humanity has become stagnant and that AI should replace them to continue to evolve much like how children end up replacing their parents in the long term just with killer robots and apocalyptic imagery. Speaking of killer robots, that entire mission could not have gone more poorly for Vivy and her crew trying to take down the Archive. Everyone is dead and humanity got its ass kicked by hundreds of thousands satellites falling from the sky. I’m glad that Toak brought some rifles to the party and there were some awesome sequences, including a fight with the archive that bordered on abstract art.

Unlike Teppei’s other works of Re:Zero, there are no more retries. The autosave overwrote the timeline where Osamu is still alive and placed Vivy at the door of the final boss. At least Vivy finally has an answer to her question of what her heart is. I suspect it has something to do with her own desires and dreams of protecting those close to her and conveying those strong passions through her singing. With next week’s episode title being “Fluorite Eye’s Song,” I certainly hope that it will be a banger to close off a spectacular original show.

Continue reading “Spring 2021 Summary – Week 11” →

Bishounen Tanteidan – 5-6

Wooper: There was a reason I opted not to follow Bishounen Tanteidan on a weekly basis, and this hour of the series showcased it beautifully; for me, listening to this author’s dialogue is like overdosing on Ambien. All of his characters talk circuitously, and they don’t manage to generate intrigue in the process, either. Take episode 5, for instance – in its final minutes, all Doujima needs to do to expose Lai as a cheater is watch him carefully, since she knows he’s taking cues from an invisible man. Instead, we have to suffer through her internal monologue about concentrating all her thoughts on a single point, which leads her to realize that she has to look “at her own self” because she’s been accepted by her new friends, who she really wants to help by exposing Lai as a cheater. See how we looped around to where we started? This show is full of shit like that, and even when it’s not skipping Composition 101 to do donuts in the parking lot, it’s engaging in gab sessions about art that have nothing to do with the smaller stories it wants to tell (see episode 6). When even a windbag like me can’t appreciate your meandering script, you know something has gone sideways. Dropped.

Continue reading “Spring 2021 Summary – Week 10” →

Fruits Basket S3 – 8

Amun: This final season is intense. For all the almosts the previous season(s) of Fruits Basket had, it’s all coming together here. We have (attempted?) murder, sex, confessions, backstories…tired of the emotional tease and need some feels payoffs? Here ya go! I’m mixed on the reveal of the Kyo-Honda-mama connection – on the one hand, it’s like a modified childhood friend route – a bit overdone. On the other, the reactions and character’s actions are spot on – this is a show about trauma after all. It’s clear the feels train is barrelling into the station – taking a broader view of how we got here, there have been some overall surprises. Early on in the show, I didn’t really expect Kyo to be the main character, honestly I thought it would be a more Yuki-centered story. The big genderbender was a shock too – and really complicated matters intensely. I thought Shigure would be a sleazeball with a heart of gold – but actually he’s just a sleazeball. If I’m rooting for anyone to get shanked, it’s him. I guess I would have liked to see Akito wield their power over the Zodiac a bit more – they come off as really childish and we didn’t see the sway over the other animal spirits quite enough. That’s pretty much my only gripe though, since this has been a banger of a season. Get your ships in order, hold on to your childhood hats, as we try to land this hot mess and get everyone out alive!

Godzilla SP – 4-5

Wooper: I’m hardly acquainted with any of the characters in Godzilla SP, but I’m hanging in there. The show has ways of making its ultra-nerdy dialogue palatable, whether it be putting scary monsters on screen, cutting to interviews with laymen about the proliferation of kaiju, or enlisting Pero 2’s help to explain difficult concepts to Mei. The two of them were involved in my favorite scene from either of these episodes: a one minute and forty second flurry of text messages between Mei and Yun, with Pero showing up in various LINE stickers on Mei’s end. Showing a text conversation on screen is a fantastic way to lose your audience’s attention (doubly so if it’s about molecular arrangements), but the intrigue of two scientists collaborating without knowing a thing about each other kept me interested. On the other hand, I care about very few people on the periphery of the story, especially the researchers who escaped the massive Radon tank in episode 5’s big set piece. Even if that’s the tank from which Godzilla will eventually emerge, there are at least two degrees of separation between all of those characters and our heroes, maybe more. Every second spent watching them, or anyone not directly involved with Yun or Mei, feels like lost time.

Continue reading “Spring 2021 Summary – Week 9” →