Forget jumping the shark – SK8 the Infinity just jumped the cliff.
Continue reading “SK8 the Infinity – 10-11 [Dap Without Words/King vs Nobody]”
SK8 the Infinity – 10-11 [Dap Without Words/King vs Nobody]
Author: SuperWooper
Horimiya – 10-11 [Until the Snow Melts/It May Seem Like Hate]
Sometimes it feels good to be anime-only. Everywhere you look, people are complaining about the cut content in Horimiya’s adaptation, and I’m just sitting here in blissful ignorance. The anime has never saddled itself with a particular schedule that must be followed at all costs – it tells short stories about whomever it wants, whenever it wants. That’s been evident in plenty of past episodes, but it was also clear in these two most recent ones. Miyamura’s reconciliation with a former bully, which was the show’s main focus two weeks ago? It only surfaces in episode 10 long enough to support a gag about his potential bisexuality. Remember Sawada, Miyamura’s neighbor from week six? She wasn’t given another appearance until this latest airing, and even that was frivolous in comparison to the tragedy of her brother’s passing (which was revealed over a month ago). Apart from the trajectory of its two protagonists, Horimiya has never been a particularly disciplined series on a narrative level – that patchwork feel is part of its charm. It did manage to fix its gaze on a small set of characters last week, though, in the resolution (?) of the Ishikawa love triangle.
Continue reading “Horimiya – 10-11 [Until the Snow Melts/It May Seem Like Hate]”
Winter 2021 Summary – Week 11
Wooper: Having just published a beefy Spring Preview, some of us had no words left to dedicate to anime this week. Lenlo and I still had a bit of gas in the tank, though, so we teamed up to create a short and sweet recap post. If you’re still keeping up with winter’s mid-tier shows despite the distraction of a brand new season, this one is for you.
Heaven’s Design Team – 8-10
Lenlo: I know I’ve missed a few weeks of this but I promise it wasn’t due to a lack of interest in the show. If anything, Design Team continues to impress me with just how many ideas it has. Not all of those ideas are good mind you. For instance I wasn’t a fan of the “Honey I shrunk the kids” cross-episode skit. But for every failed reverse-aging storyline we have a tyranny of the mole rats or Whose Penguin Is It Anyway. And even then regardless of the skits’ quality the lessons they teach are always interesting. Whether it be explaining concepts of generational diversity and societal health through aging or the heat-sink purposes of penguin bone structure, Design Team delivers. And for what I considered to be a C-Tier show that I would probably lose interest in after 3 episodes, that’s pretty damn impressive.
Spring 2021 Anime Season Preview
Armitage: Allow me the opportunity to be the resident hype-monger this time around and say that, in terms of the quality on offer, Spring 2021 is looking to be the biggest season of anime in almost a decade. Which I know sounds like a clickbait-y exaggeration and a notion that gets thrown around every other season just so fans can feel better about the sheer number of shows we end up watching each year and justify it by saying that “s’all good man!”.
But I have personally never subscribed to that notion. I have always held my head up high and never fallen so low as to put an anime season on the pedestal occupied only by the mythical spring seasons of 2007 and 2011. But you know, what?! This time, I’m doing it. And you couldn’t stop me even if you tried! Because this is my intro paragraph! Hmph!!! [composes herself] Sorry about that. Fell into a tangent there. But yeah, the rest of the writers here on Star-Crossed and I are hella hyped for the upcoming season of anime. And if you’re not, then maybe reading about some of the shows we are looking forward to would help change your mind. Come get a taste of the good stuff!
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Middling Expectations
Zombieland Saga: Revenge
Studio: MAPPA
Director: Munehisa Sakai
Series composition: Shigeru Miyakoshi
Source: Original
Mario: Zombieland Saga’s first few episodes got off to a quick start by satirizing both the idol and zombie genres, but then it lost its footing just as quickly by becoming the very thing it poked fun at (and then there’s Koutarou). I certainly don’t think it has enough meat on its bones for a second outing, and while some plots remain open you could just as easily leave them as they are. From the look of the trailer, this second season promises to offer more of the same: shenanigans from the group with some interactions between the idol girls and some character-focused episodes. I’m actually waiting for more backstory for Tae (the one idol who still hasn’t awakened yet). If you’re a fan of the first season then there’s nothing that should stop you here, but others might want to approach it with caution.
Winter 2021 Summary – Weeks 9-10
Wooper: Spring fever has gripped us prematurely here at Star Crossed. We all blanked on this column last week, and I nearly forgot to post it today – our anticipation for the upcoming spring season is starting to overshadow our attentiveness to this winter’s offerings. We managed to throw a little something together for today’s column, so consider it an appetizer for the final thoughts we’ll offer in a week or two.
Reincarnated As A Spider – 11
Amun: This outing of Reincarnated As A Spider is mostly a flashback…about another spooky spider: the Nightmare of the Labyrinth. Biggest takeaway is that our spider hero-chan (pun intended) isn’t the first spider to use magic and be super strong – this is apparently not that uncommon in the new world. This episode felt a lot like busy work, as it sets up the season for the finale. Still, it handled it adequately, so I have no complaints – I also don’t have any heaping praises either.
Back Arrow – 9-10
Wooper: This show moves so fast that it’s constantly catching up with itself, or else abandoning all hope of doing so. At the start of these episodes, only a handful of people in all of Lutoh are aware of Princess Fine’s split personality; by the end, the entire kingdom has seen her evil alter ego. She phases in and out of it as though someone were flipping a switch, which makes about as much sense as the origin of her duel personas: the transfused blood of a morbidly obese puppetmaster named Rudolph, who selected her to be Lutoh’s ruler. There’s so much explanation required to coordinate these sorts of developments, and since the series is full of them, that means its scripts are bursting with expository dialogue. Back Arrow is so absurd that its attempts at rationalization are usually pretty funny, but I actually prefer when the show breaks its own rules with no explanation at all. Arrow’s Briheight growing wings and turning into a sword at various points throughout episode 10 are prime examples. It doesn’t make sense on a mechanical level, but neither does anything else, so we’ve got no choice but to accept it and move on (or else drop the show, which I suspect most people have done already).
SK8 the Infinity – 09 [We Were Special Back Then]
When I heard that SK8 would be getting a mid-cour recap episode, I figured I’d just delay my viewing of “We Were Special Back Then” and blog it during the show’s off week. Waiting may have been the wrong decision, though, as my interest in the series has dulled significantly since the last time I tuned in. This episode didn’t do much to change that, even with its array of crazy moves: wall kicks, handstand planks, steel beam surfing, and skateboards used as blunt instruments. To be fair, that last one did leave me grinning in disbelief, but there was a predictable air to the entire ‘Joe vs Snow’ race that sorely disappointed me. Whenever Joe pulled ahead via some feat of physical strength, Langa caught up as a matter of course, meaning that only the final minute of the race maintained any sort of tension. At one point Langa was trailing by a huge margin, having lost interest in the competition, when who should appear on the sidelines but his best friend Reki, screaming his name – and thus the gap was closed yet again. I’d be glad to see a nail in that trope’s coffin, but SK8 won’t be the show to put it there.
Continue reading “SK8 the Infinity – 09 [We Were Special Back Then]”
Horimiya – 8-9 [The Truth Deception Reveals/It’s Hard, but Not Impossible]
It makes sense that Horimiya would follow a heavy episode (like the one we got two weeks ago) with a lighter affair, so I was prepared for “The Truth Deception Reveals” to be a fluffy side character piece. What I wasn’t prepared for was how much I’d enjoy it – we’re talking ‘make the squeaky-voiced twintailed girl likeable’ levels of enjoyability here. The girl in question is Remi, and though she’s had a mostly benign impact on the show thus far, anime girls who sound like they’ve inhaled helium tend not to be my favorites. The flashbacks to her first few conversations with Sengoku, however, were pretty charming. Her interest in him stemmed from both his equal treatment of others and his obsession with reading, two things that an average teen girl might be attracted to. Not every teenager would provide such a gracious window for their crush to confess their feelings, though. “What would you do if the world were ending tomorrow?” practically begs a romantic answer when asked in an intimate setting, so good on Remi for snagging her man with such a foolproof trap.
Continue reading “Horimiya – 8-9 [The Truth Deception Reveals/It’s Hard, but Not Impossible]”
Winter 2021 Summary – Week 8
Wooper: With The Promised Neverland and Kemono Jihen having been ejected from the weekly roundup posts, this column was looking a little thin – good thing Mario is working through his backlog to beef up our selection of shows. Some of these entries may not be about seasonal anime, but hey, winter is old hat – the beginning of March means the Spring 2021 Preview is only weeks away. Hope you’re not thinking of unbuckling your seatbelt, because this ride never stops.
Go-toubun no Hanayome S2 – 06-08
Mario: It’s time for the final arc as the “pretense” tutoring is over and the romance comes in full force as the sisters are on the offense now. I am glad that these episodes focus on Miku (she deserves it) while never forgetting the other girls. Both Nino, Yotsuba, Ichika and Itsuki have their moments in these episodes – and it makes sense that Futaro faces his biggest challenges yet: not tutoring them but telling these girls apart and responding to their love. Nino makes the first leap forward here (true to her character) and that will push the others to do the same. It’s interesting to note that only Itsuki hasn’t fallen for Futaro yet, and that actually makes the whole “race” more refreshing. While I enjoy these characters immensely, the show doesn’t handle the time skips very well this season, given I never have a good sense of how long time has passed between events – and what happened to Futaro’s family in episode 7-8? They all but disappeared on the trip.
Heaven’s Design Team – 08
Lenlo: This might be the best episode of HDT yet. Not only were the animals and how they got to them interesting, but the theme was so clever I still can’t believe they did it. To give us a DBZ battle, rap and a stage production all under the guise of “mating presentations” was absolutely brilliant. I had fun the whole way through and it really revitalized my interest in the show. With this episode HDT has ensured that I will finish it, just on the off chance I get another one of these. Cause god damn was that better than it had any right to be.
SK8 the Infinity – 08 [The Fated Tournament!]
There’s nothing like a tournament arc to restore an ensemble feel to your sports anime. This episode tried to capture the viewpoints of as many skaters as it could in just twenty minutes, and did a pretty good job of it in my view. The dial on Reki’s angst returned to human levels, allowing SK8 to get out of his head and show us how Langa has been impacted by their separation. Joe and Cherry’s races created a ‘main cast’ feeling that they’d previously lacked, giving them strong roles outside of providing sagely advice and appearing in flashbacks. We got a bit of context for Adam’s present-day insanity, and a closely-related figure who I recently criticized as a “non-character” turned out to be far more important than I’d anticipated. Even Shadow, who’s been relentlessly clowned on since the series’ early days, was taken somewhat seriously! He still got a handful of his own firecrackers kickflipped into his face, but he took those miniature explosions like a champ – that’s a win where I’m from.
Continue reading “SK8 the Infinity – 08 [The Fated Tournament!]”
Horimiya – 07 [You’re Here, I’m Here]
One of the cool things about anime OPs is that they sometimes change as a show progresses. New characters may be added to foreshadow their appearance in the story, and scenes may be swapped in or out to indicate a change in tone. I tend to watch OPs all the way through each week to spot these changes – a habit that paid dividends in this episode, which traded shadowy, isolated shots of Horimiya’s cast for summery group scenes. Images of chalkboards and record players were brightened to match this sunnier outlook, and the penultimate shot of Miyamura walking away from his reflection was edited to depict his acceptance of himself. The overall message is clear: the characters have found friends who love and support them, which has made their world a bit brighter. I like a lot of these changes, but I’m saddened by the loss of this cut, which was my favorite from the original OP. If any manga readers know the context for Miyamura’s mistreatment of those sunflowers, let me know!