Author: SuperWooper

Chihayafuru S3 – 07 [The Storm Blasts]

by SuperWooper, posted in Chihayafuru, Finished Series: Sports

I’ve positively loved the last five episodes of Chihayafuru’s third season, so I don’t derive any pleasure from saying that I kind of hated this one. “The Storm Blasts,” in my eyes, makes an unwise narrative choice to achieve a convenient result, and creates a minefield of non-credibility for the show going forward. Though it’s this episode I’ll be criticizing here, Madhouse’s adaptation is perfectly faithful to Suetsugu-sensei’s manga, so her plotting is the thing that actually troubles me. The mechanical aspects of the anime are great, as usual, but the issue of Chihaya attending her class trip has implications beyond delaying her run at the Queen title by a year. Hit the jump if you’re interested in a breakdown of why that is.

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Hoshiai no Sora – 06

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Sports, Hoshiai no Sora

I’ll say this for Hoshiai no Sora – the tennis scenes look good. Characters are shown positioning themselves, swinging, and following through with remarkable consistency. The shortcuts that once plagued Baby Steps and Prince of Tennis rarely appear during this series, and that’s worth celebrating. There were even a few serves in this episode that approached Hanebado levels of frame density, so it’s clear that the show’s animators are reaching for the stars. That said, many of the characters are given the same form on their forehand shots, and the matches are composed with ample time for them to set up in front of the ball. Without mixing in more backhand winners, smashes, and diving returns, games will start to feel too familiar once we enter the eventual tournament arc. The alternative would be to be to rely on gimmicks, and judging by this episode’s third match, that’s not Sora’s strong suit.

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Chihayafuru S3 – 06 [Tatsuta River Ablaze]

by SuperWooper, posted in Chihayafuru, Finished Series: Sports

Every time I try to take notes on this series, I get sucked into its rhythm and hit the end of the episode before I know it. The show arranges bursts of competition, moments of inner monologue, and diverse crowd reactions for maximum effect. In wondering how it manages to cast that spell so consistently, I checked director Morio Asaka’s ANN page, and he’s got a ton of storyboard credits to his name. Almost all of his non-directorial work, in fact, has been in that capacity, and the team he’s got working on Chihayafuru right now has done storyboards for Utena, Monster, and HxH 2011, among other classics. That last one makes sense, as it’s also a Madhouse production, but even if the studios hadn’t matched, I could have identified the link between both shows. Chihayafuru often surrounds its characters with the sort of auras that Hunter x Hunter did, to the point that I got Meruem vibes from some of Inokuma’s scenes last week. Maybe that’s why I get so wrapped up in this series – the episode planners know exactly when to push the “camera” in, and how to make the characters pop when they do.

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Fall 2019 Summary – Week 6

by SuperWooper, posted in Weekly Summary

Wooper: I have good news and bad news, everyone. The bad news is that there won’t be a Weekly Summary next Monday. The good news is that our quarterly State of the Season post will be taking its place for one week only, packed with takes of all temperatures on the fall’s anime offerings. We hope you’ll be entertained by our divergent opinions and questionable tastes. In this week’s post: Mario drops a commenter favorite, amun continues to insist on the greatness of NGL, and Wooper assumes Immortal duty.

Hi Score Girl II 1-3

Mario: Hi Score Girl is back and it picks up right away. It’s a neat trick to start the season from Oono’s perspective, for example, since she’s a stoic character who doesn’t mutter a single word (how funny that she also participate in vulgar shiritori with her sister and Haru’s mom), and because the rest of these three episodes focus more on Haru – Hidaka dynamic. Out of the three mains, Hidaka remains the most sympathetic character, mostly because she is true with her emotions and the sad situation she’s in (the cursed third wheel). Her emotional progress towards Haru is believable, and her push towards Haru through physical means just signifies how desperate she is now. At the same time, there’s plenty of arcade games and its cultures throughout these episodes. There’s an original-content bit that I feel is well done as it strengthens the charms of this coming-of-age show. Haru’s taking part of Shibuya crowd is a bit to rush, though, given we see very little of how he spends time with them. All in all, Hi Score Girl is back in full force.

 

Kabukichou Sherlock 5

Wooper: I was waiting for this episode. Ever since we learned that Kabukichou features five detectives apart from Sherlock, I’ve been wondering when we’d get a case where he’s not at the center of things. Turns out it happened relatively early in the show’s run, as Sherlock didn’t make an appearance until the 11 minute mark here. Lucy is the primary investigator instead, and even though the title character solves the case of the swindled sumo wrestler before she does, she’s the one to confront the criminal, who also happens to be her former idol. That’s an important detail, because it makes the episode more personal for her. There’s a flashback to her early childhood (which is marked by tragedy and abandonment), and we also get the story of the future thief who saved her sister upon their arrival in East Shinjuku. It’s the first real showcase for any non-Sherlock character, and given how early it arrived in the series’ two cour run, it’s unlikely to be the last.

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Hoshiai no Sora – 04/05

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Sports, Hoshiai no Sora

Let’s have a round of applause for Maki the Genius, everyone. In a tennis club full of clashing personalities, only he was incisive enough to see that hotheads and shy boys shouldn’t be paired together. Imagine everyone’s surprise when he put compatible players on the same doubles teams and they immediately started to work in synchronicity. He even took it easy on them to boost their confidence, a gesture that the script bends over backwards to illustrate. And just in case you missed his masterful makeover of the tennis team, Toma directly thanks him for bringing about all this change in such a short amount of time. How does Maki respond? “Naw, everyone is just trying their best.” Sasuga Maki-sama. Is there anything this kid can’t do? Apart from stopping his new best friend from signing his own death warrant, I mean.

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Chihayafuru S3 – 04/05

by SuperWooper, posted in Chihayafuru, Finished Series: Sports

Raise your hand if you thought it would be Chihaya vs. Taichi in the finals of this tournament. Okay, manga readers, you can put your hands down.

The odds were against them; a former queen, a sadistic Class A beast, and a Meijin hopeful stood between our heroes and the finals of the Yoshino tournament. Sure, Hiroshi scooped to Chihaya in the semis so that she could get some sleep, but defeating Inokuma wasn’t easy for her. And Taichi’s path to the championship match was nothing short of harrowing, so he’s probably going to be wiped out during next week’s episode. Nevertheless, they made it, and their upcoming showdown will likely have a seismic impact on their relationship. Even if you set aside their rivalry and Taichi’s infatuation, one of them is about to win a tournament with dozens of Class A players in attendance. In the immortal words of Eri Ninamori, “That’s pretty good, right?”

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Fall 2019 Summary – Week 5

by SuperWooper, posted in Weekly Summary

Wooper: The gang’s all here this week. Mario has returned from Isekai Hell with a couple impressions of shows he’s still watching, and our resident shounen expert Amun has an update on an overlooked sequel from this season, plus some thoughts on NGL. Lenlo and I are up to our usual tricks, as well. We’ll be publishing our second ever State of the Season column in a couple weeks’ time, so this post should provide some big hints as to what we’ll be highlighting in mid-November. Until then, thanks for reading!

Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo 4-5

Mario: I’m still on the fence with this one. Episode 4 was its weakest week so far, mostly because it plays exactly like what we expect. While the show so far still offers some minor tweaks to its genre here and there (as bold as pointing out stuff like: I’m like a protagonist of a romcom), the very fact that it’s there to poke fun makes the characters inconsistent for me. The library girl suffers from this the most as for the last two episodes she doesn’t drive the story at all, instead she’s just there, and our Main-kun switches between being an asshole and still acting genuinely nice to his friends. More additions to the cast are welcomed but when they’re there for the sole purpose of interacting with Main-kun, they better be unpredictable.

 

Radiant S2 5

Amun: Surprise sequel: we’re checking back in on our boy Seth and his search for Radiant. Despite the new city, Radiant still keeps things in check and the plot tidy so far. This latest episode also had one of the best confrontation scenes I’ve seen in a while – if you watched the first season and are on the fence about this one: Seth getting schooled by Mellie is definitely worth these 5 episodes so far. We have really only one new character introduced, and that’s more than fair given the number of ones we’ve left behind. So far, aside from past emotional trauma and abandonment issues, Seth’s interactions with the Magical Knights have kept the show from getting too heavy. We’re getting towards revealing some mysteries, so Radiant has me still hooked.

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Chihayafuru S3 – 02/03

by SuperWooper, posted in Chihayafuru, Finished Series: Sports

Chihayafuru’s cast of characters is its biggest asset, and these two episodes leave no room for debate on the matter. Plenty of sports series can build impressive rosters over multiple seasons, but how many of them can bounce between simultaneous matches in the same room with this degree of naturality? How many anime series (of any genre) can incorporate significant dialogue from upwards of 15 characters in the span of 45 minutes, each of whom make you smile when they burst onto the screen? How many shows with tumultuous shipping wars at the heart of their fandoms can make all three participants in a love triangle so interesting? “Not many” is the answer to all three questions. I was satisfied with last week’s premiere, but these two were on another level, thanks to the fantastic appearances by non-Mizusawa, non-Fujisaki competitors. And we’ve got another double episode coming next week, too! What have I done to deserve this anime bounty?

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Fall 2019 Summary – Week 4

by SuperWooper, posted in Weekly Summary

Wooper: The weekly recap is back, packed with impressions of worthwhile shows that we weren’t able to blog due to a severe case of sequelitis. I say “we,” but it’s just Lenlo and I running things this time around. Mario recently burned himself out by watching Literally Everything, and I stepped in to blab about No Guns Life in amun’s stead this week. They might be back next time, or they might not! Until then, we hope you enjoy these scattered thoughts of some of the season’s better offerings.

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun 4

Wooper: This episode delivered on the feeling of fun that I want from Iruma-kun. Clara (the green-haired genki girl) received a double feature last week, which was okay, but the show halted its exploration of demon society to give her that spotlight. This time, Iruma is assigned to a class full of misfits boasting nearly a dozen named characters, each of whom have a quirk that gives the classroom scenes an absurd sense of possibility. The biggest addition, both literally and figuratively, is Sabnock, a hulking man whose only aspiration is to become the Demon King. Thus the show kills two birds with one stone: we get a fun macho personality added to the cast, and we hear from him about the process of climbing hell’s military ladder. Clara’s character was also put to wonderful comedic use in the background, whether she was measuring Sabnock’s height with a yardstick, getting eaten by carnivorous plants, or checking out a flight course with magically conjured binoculars. Telling a single story per episode is definitely my preferred format for this series, rather than splitting it into two halves like last week – everything feels fresher and funnier without the need to juggle two distinct plots.

 

Mugen no Juunin: Immortal 4

Lenlo: Blade did another weird thing this week. As it took some of Makie’s backstory, which was in the 200 pages of cut content, and put it are the front of this weeks. Choosing to use that instead to build up our Antagonist’s relationship with his grandfather, which itself got sped through. Sure, the pacing of the episode itself was fine enough, but the overall story is just burning through content. Rearranging it to fit each individual episode, without much regard for what it does to the overall story. Surprising no one, adapting 30 Manga Volumes into a 2 cour season is not a good idea. That said, I still enjoyed bits of it. I like Kagehisa and his world view, though I wish Blade was giving us more time and exposure to it instead of this chunks torn from the manga. It’s also nice to see our lead getting called out for effectively abandoning her style. And even though she is getting some training from Manji, it still isn’t enough. My major complaint though, production aside, will continue to be the overarching pacing.

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Hoshiai no Sora – 03

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Sports, Hoshiai no Sora

After a relatively tame second episode, Hoshiai no Sora went dark again in its third week. Child abuse is a recurring theme at this point, and I’m already wondering how the series could possibly conclude its scant one cour run when its teenage characters are this emotionally damaged. As if watching Maki’s father assault his son wasn’t hard enough, this time we were subjected to a story where a mother poured boiling water on her infant child’s back. This was brutal stuff – so brutal, in fact, that the episode’s sunny resolution felt wrong to me. Of course, it’s possible to depict parental cruelty without soaking your entire series in despair. Not every anime with strained familial relationships needs to take the Evangelion route. Sora went so far in the other direction, though, that it threw me for a loop.

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