Author: SuperWooper

The God of High School – 8-9 [close/friend, curse/cornered]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Action, The God of High School

This is the first time I’ve missed a week of GOH-posting, and that’s not by coincidence. The show isn’t bringing its A game to the fight scenes anymore, and since it maxes at a C in most other areas, it’s become a bit of a dull watch. These two episodes tread a lot of familiar ground, as well, making them doubly uninteresting. Mira getting beaten up again, Mori earning the title “tiger cub” as elite martial artists admire his potential, a sketchy art switch-up during a tournament match, Taejin’s relationship with his grandson – we’ve seen all of this before. If I’m being honest, I’d prefer for the plot to go supernova and give all the main characters charyeok so we could get this show on the road, already. Guess we’ll have to settle for just one of them awakening to their new power for now.

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Great Pretender – 11-12 [Snow of London]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Great Pretender

This is the year of Great Pretender. The first 14 episodes were recently made available worldwide on Netflix, and the back 9 will be released in Japan next month, at which point fansubbers can do their thing. The only downside to the whole thing airing in 2020 is that it can’t be AOTY twice in a row – but I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ve got to investigate its third case, Snow of London, to see whether the show is still on track to compete for that title. After two episodes, this arc is off to a strong start, so hit the jump for some unqualified praise for once.

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The God of High School – 07 [anima/force]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Action, The God of High School

It’s never a good sign when an anime has you thinking, “What’s the point?” in the middle of an episode. Realizing afterwards that it wasted your time is bad enough, but to prompt the question during an initial viewing? Unless you’re watching some sort of mystery series where generating questions is the goal, that’s probably a bad look. Consequently, The God of High School was looking bad at multiple points this week – except for the part where it looked incomparably cool.

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State of the Season – Summer 2020

by SuperWooper, posted in State of the Season

Armitage: With the entire world slowly returning to order after being kicked in the shin and knocked around in 19 ways, it’s only fitting that we check-in to see that everyone is getting back to their normal lives. Now, since this is an anime blog, our normal is basically watching a crap-ton of anime every season! And even though this summer we got far fewer shows than ever, the dark horses delivered, the sleepers packed a punch and the heavy hitter(s) really knocked the living hell out of a recently married high-school girl wielding a wooden sword. cough cough

But of course, since we’re all different people, we’re bound to have different tastes! Did we too like that one show you feel guilty about watching every week or are most of us not fans of your favorite anime this season?

Read on to find out!

What show are you enjoying that you’re not reviewing?

Wooper: Though I give Houkago Teibou Nisshi shoutouts in our weekly summary posts, it isn’t getting the full blogging treatment, so it gets my vote. If you like cute girls, fishing, relaxing ambiance, or reaction faces, this show may be for you. If you like at least three of those four, this show is definitely for you. It’s one of the better high school club shows I’ve seen recently, and though it won’t go down as many viewers’ favorite anime of the year, it’ll make your Tuesdays a bit happier each week.

Amun: I’d normally say Re:Zero, but since it’s a given that most anime fans are watching that this season – Misfit of Demon King School. It’s so bad. It’s so bad that I’m not even sure I have the name right. But if you enjoyed the sage of technological One True Tatsuya a few seasons back – this kind of (over) power fantasy is right up your alley.

Lenlo: Fujiko Mine, Deca-Dence and Great Pretender.

Armitage: Re:Zero is back and great as ever! So, obviously I have to watch it because you can never have too much death and suffering in life. I am also watching God of Highschool week in, week out. It’s amazing how relaxing this show is for me. I just have to turn off my brain and just like that, half an hour has passed. Take that, lockdowns.

Mario: Deca-Dence and Great Pretender. Since we’re going to talk in detail about the former at the end of this post, I want to give a special mention to Great Pretender. It’s a show that if you think too deeply about some plot twist or plot development then all the pieces can fall apart (like the explosion that kills no one in the first case, yeah!), but its main appeal lies in how entertaining it is. From the fun and smart stories to the bouncing off between the cast to the drop dead gorgeous visual designs, it knows and embodies the “cool” factor. It also gives our cast some outstanding character development; Cynthia’s fierce bids in that auction wouldn’t be that rewarding without knowing her backstory and how she became who she is now. In other words, Great Pretender is cool as fuck.

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The God of High School – 06 [fear/SIX]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Action, The God of High School

The God of High School? More like The God of High Speed. This installment introduced so many new stories and characters that I’d need five hands to count them all. The unmasking of the religious cult from several weeks back has begun, plus we were treated to reveals of “The Six,” a group of elite martial artists, one of whom became integral to the plot merely by implication. And hey, we’re already moving on to the next phase of the GOH tournament, so we got to meet a bunch of the high schoolers from other Korean cities who will be taking part. Oh, it’s also a team tournament now. And the pointy-nosed announcer from the previous phase? He was blind. I say “was” because he’s dead, as is the green-haired tournament organizer with the scythe-wielding spirit fighter. They were both killed by the same guy, a fire user from the cult I mentioned previously, and –

Is this sounding like too much material for one episode yet?

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The God of High School – 05 [ronde/hound]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Action, The God of High School

Now that the Bride of High School arc has ended, we’re back to business with the GOH finals between Mori and Daewi. Their fight is flashy, fun, and brings the three main characters back together after a phase of bitter enmity – but it’s only a success if you willfully ignore episode 4’s nonsensical detours of plot and character. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do! No talk of Mira’s nanomachine-enhanced recovery, or the baffling encouragement she gave to Daewi just days after he beat her to a pulp. No dwelling on the disappointingly brief fight between Mori and Jaehee, the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu user whose name we’d all forgotten before reading this sentence. No thinking about the fruit that Mori ate two weeks ago, which really should have taken effect by now, given how critical its framing was to that episode. It’s time to “get hype,” as the kids say, for some noncritical combat animation appreciation.

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Great Pretender – 09-10 [Singapore Sky]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Great Pretender

We’ve reached the conclusion to Singapore Sky, my least favorite of Great Pretender’s three cases thus far. I love origin stories, so Los Angeles Connection’s task of integrating Makoto into Laurent’s gang of crooks was right up my alley, and the upcoming Snow of London is a breezy revenge tale with some nice Cynthia focus. ‘Singapore,’ by contrast, is the darkest of the three arcs, with war-torn backstories and active death drives, yet it also uses more narrative cogs than its cousins. Watching these last two episodes, I felt that Luis’s involvement pushed the story beyond its carrying capacity – but that doesn’t mean there weren’t a lot of great moments in episodes 9 and 10. Let’s run them down (along with the not-so-great stuff) after the jump.

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The God of High School – 03 [wisdom/kingdom]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Action, The God of High School

After three episodes, The God of High School still has no intention of explaining why its martial arts tournament is of such earth-shattering consequence. Top Korean politicians are involved in its operation, the Pentagon is monitoring its progress, and now a religious cult is planning to hijack the tourney for its own gain. In all three of these opening scenes, the links between those organizations and the tournament itself have been purposefully vague, which has surely frustrated a portion of the series’ audience. Personally, though, I’m not sweating the details at this stage. The fights are still fun, the tone is still dumb, and the story is moving at a faster-than-average clip. That narrative speed may be pushing us toward the threshold of Big Reveals, or it might blow past the governments and cults without a reason for their appearance. Either way, GoH is the kind of show that doesn’t need to justify its detours – just its developments. And boy, were there a ton of the latter in this episode.

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Great Pretender – 07-08 [Singapore Sky]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Great Pretender

This was a tale of two episodes for me. Number 7 was an excellent stage-setter for both the upcoming con on the Ibrahim brothers and Abby’s deteriorating psychology; number 8 was a jumble of confused dialogue and crossed wires. On the one hand, it’s awesome that I didn’t find significant fault with this series until its eighth installment (and that fault is subjective to begin with). On the other, I’d have loved for the show to fly high for its entire run, especially since one of summer’s other top prospects, Japan Sinks, just pooped its pants in spectacular fashion. It’s not like Great Pretender’s flirtation with mediocrity puts it in the same league, but a spotless track record would have been neat. But what made episode 8 so spotty? For that matter, what made number 7 so good? Let’s get into it.

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