Wooper: March is nearly in the rearview mirror, so it’s time for one last recap post before we flood the blog with our first impressions of the spring season. Allow me to go over a few housekeeping items before we commence with winter’s last rites:

–  Spring 2021 is massive, so we won’t be giving our thoughts on all ~45 premieres, just the 30 or so we’re most interested in. Apologies in advance to fans of SAO clones and ikemen showcases.
–  Armitage will be joining us for those first impressions (and hopefully covering a full series starting in mid-April, but don’t quote me on that second part).
–  For Wonder Egg Priority fans, we’ll finish covering the show one way or another. If Mario doesn’t continue with his writeups, I’ll do a mega-post on episodes 8-12 in the coming weeks.

That’s about it! Let’s get this winter wrap-up on the road.

So I’m a Spider, So What? – 12

Amun: Spider-Hero (yes, I’m going to call her that from now on; no I don’t care that it’s a bad pun) concludes her epic battle with Mr. Earth Dragon Arba. By the way, thank you to the kind reader who pointed out that she killed a bunch of people last episode with some rather flimsy justifications of self defense. I think it’s a little unsettling that she’s more upset about Arba than killing a bunch of humans, but whatever. The animation this episode was….meh. I think CG limitations are painfully obvious during these large fight scenes. I don’t think you can avoid them, but they’re not a selling point by any means. Looks like the next season will take place outside the Labyrinth, which will be nice – I’m expecting more credit’s girl and probably that Spider-chan saves the world or something. I’m still having a good time, and if you’re watching it – I hope you are too!

Continue reading “Winter 2021 Summary – Week 12” →

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.

Continue reading “Winter 2021 Summary – Week 11” →

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).

Continue reading “Winter 2021 Summary – Weeks 9-10” →

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.

Continue reading “Winter 2021 Summary – Week 8” →