Category: Currently Watching:

Kemono no Souja Erin – 29/30/31/32 – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kemono no Souja Erin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another week of Kemono no Souja Erin! We are safely in the 2nd half now, and speeding towards the end. Only… 4 more weeks left really. Time flies. You know what that means though, soon you’re going to be voting for a new series, so make sure to keep that in mind over the next few weeks! Selling future seasons aside, lets dive into the episodes!

Starting off we have episode 29, “Beast’s Fang”. This one centers around another moment of doubt for Erin, a confrontation with the fact that even with the best of intentions Beast-Lords are still large, wild animals with the power to kill you. On an individual, single episode basis, I found it pretty good. Erin was forced to, once again, recognize how dangerous what she is doing is and the risks associated with that. But that “once again” bit is my primary issue with the episode. Simply put, it feels like we’ve been here before. Like this isn’t the first time Erin has had this exact realization. While nice and affirming of her decision, I can’t help but feel like we’ve beaten this horse a bit to much at this point. Like it wasn’t particularly necessary, you know? Luckily this seems like the last time Erin will have to do it.

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Zom 100 Bucket List of the Dead – 3 [Best Friend of the Dead]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead

Welcome all, to episode 3 of Zom 100! This week introduces a new cast member and devotes its entire run time to his relationship with our lead, Akira. All things considered it was pretty good! So without further ado, lets dive in.

Early on I was actually a little concerned about this episode. I was afraid that Zom 100 was starting to take itself a tad to seriously, that it was leaning to much into the serious zombie stuff. Like it would transition into a legitimate horror, or that it would let Akira’s friend die and use it as a “Shock” wakeup moment for him to take the whole thing more seriously. To my pleasant surprise though, neither of these things happened. Instead it turned out the “Serious” stuff was just a background plot of an actual zombie movie, used as a joke more then anything else. And as for the friend? He survived, reborn, and is now joining Akira! It’s funny how much a change of hair color does, because I actually didn’t recognize him from the OP/ED, so this was nice.

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Undead Murder Farce – 3 [Immortality and Demons]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Undead Murder Farce

Welcome all, to episode 3 of Undead Murder Farce! Apologies for the delay on this. Much like with Jujutsu Kaisen I was out at a concert until 4am and just wasn’t able to get this out on table. On a side note though, you all should go and check out Ok Goodnight and Challenger Deep. My music tastes aside though, lets dive into the episode!

Starting off, the most off-putting part of the episode was the start. Undead Murder Farce just completely ignores the cliffhanger we ended last episode on and skips us forward to a pleasant lunch with the family. And while the lunch was nice, once again Undead Murder Farce has some great direction and shot composition, it made for a very jarring introduction to the episode. I actually stopped and wondered where the hell we were, what about the scene we were just in prior, the half-finished conversation. It’s very similar to how jarring the ending of the last episode was as well, and leaves me wondering if this is going to be the norm for the series. I sincerely hope not, I think they are rough at best, and it’s not like they can’t give us good endings like they did this week. Only time will tell there I suppose.

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Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 3 [Hidden Inventory 3]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Jujutsu Kaisen

Welcome all, to episode 3 of Season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen! Apologies for the delay on this, I had a concert last night and was out until 4am. On a side note, all of you should go check out Ok Goodnight and Challenger Deep, great bands. Enough of that though, on with the episode!

Getting into the episode proper, I need to reiterate that this is, hands down, the best Jujutsu Kaisen has ever been. Ever. Without question. Everything about this season so far is hands and feet above what came before. From the character interactions and individual stories in this little stand alone arc to its implications on the larger story. The only thing I think Jujutsu Kaisen season 1 may have a leg up on is animation. Not because this season is bad, in fact as far as direction goes I would say this season is still the clear victor. But This episode showed us a bit of what can happen when you get to ambitious. Some of Gojo’s fight looked kinda sloppy, such as Gojo’s Blue attack. The CGI, compositing, and general style of animation just weren’t quite there for me. At least the character acting was top notch though.

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Kemono no Souja Erin – 25/26/27/28 – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kemono no Souja Erin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another week of Kemono no Souja Erin. This is a bit of a down week for the show, without much going for it. There are bits and pieces of good things of course, but overall I was a bit disappointed in this week. Why is that? Well let’s dive in and find out.

Getting right to it, first up is episode 25, “The Two Go Out Shopping”. This is… To be brutally honest this is a filler episode. Almost nothing of consequence happens, nothing is progressed, it’s just the Egg Thieves showing us how they have grown and changed since we first met them. Don’t get me wrong, that’s nice and I’m glad to see them get some development. I just can’t say it was particularly interesting, or welcome. Maybe were they anything more then gag characters it would mean something. They simply aren’t very important, nor engaging, for me. They could disappear at any point in the series and I honestly don’t think I would notice or care. Maybe that’s a bit harsh, it’s not like they are actively bringing down the series or anything. They just happen to be the least interesting part of Erin in every way.

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Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead – 2 [Bucket List of the Dead]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead

Welcome all, to the last of the new shows I will be covering this season: Zom 100! I couldn’t let it go by without talking about it, so here I am, once again taking to many shows in a season. So without further ado, let’s jump into it!

Starting off, as far as how it compares to it’s premier, I think this episode of Zom 100 is a bit of a step down. And that’s fine! Zom 100’s premier was fantastic, with some very strong visual story telling and some very striking imagery. It’s the kind of premier meant to hook you early. And it’s not like this episode looked bad either. There was some nice animation, nice shots, good story telling. It just didn’t “wow” me the same way, you know? Part of that is no doubt due to just how energetic Zom 100’s premier was, going from a dull office day job to literally blowing out the black wide-screen bars in joy at the zombie apocalypse. That kind of shit was always going to be hard to match. But I think it also had to do a bit with the episodes subject.

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Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 2 [Hidden Inventory 2]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Jujutsu Kaisen

Welcome back everyone, to another season of Jujutsu Kaisen! This shouldn’t come as a surprise, we all knew it was coming and you all know I like to try and cover sequels when I can. What is a surprise though is just how positive I am on it, as I ended Season 1 with some concerns. Why am I so positive on it? Well let’s jump right in and talk about that!

Starting with the production, it should come as no surprise that Jujutsu Kaisen looks pretty good, on basically every level. The animation is fun, whether it be character expressions or battle sequences, the direction feels nice with good use of visual metaphors, such as basically any scene with Fushiguro in it. We haven’t gotten anything particularly incredible yet, nothing that breaks the bank or makes you go “Wow”, but overall I think it’s solid. Definitely above your average “Shot-reverse-shot” anime production. If I’m being honest though, I’m not really all that concerned about this? Jujutsu Kaisen is MAPPA’s Golden Goose, they aren’t going to leave it out to dry. We will get some fantastically animated action scenes. We will also, probably, get some questionable composites and schedule crunch just like we did with Season 1. Will that stop me from enjoying the right though? Not really. And here’s why.

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Undead Murder Farce – 2 [Vampire]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Undead Murder Farce

Welcome all, to the first new show of the summer season: Undead Murder Farce! This is a fun one, the moment I saw it I knew I wanted to write about. It was just such a surprise that I had to do it. So without further ado, lets dive in!

First up, overall Undead Murder Farce looked pretty good this week. There were a lot of strong choices, from interesting shots and small facial/character ticks to some nice shading. After the premier this isn’t very surprising. However there was one thing that stood out to me, and not positively: The pixelated greenscreen effects. I don’t know if this was meant to look cheap, if that was the effect they were going for, but they really just looked like a complete and total failure of compositing. Like they were done by an intern on short notice or something. It’s really rather ugly in my opinion, and ruins a couple of otherwise decent shots. A shame in what is otherwise a pretty decent looking episode I feel.

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Kemono no Souja Erin – 21/22/23/24 – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kemono no Souja Erin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to the halfway point for Kemono no Souja Erin! We have a lot to talk about, this was an eventful week. So let’s just jump right into it!

First up before we get to the good stuff I want to talk about something Erin does a lot that I’m honestly not a big fan of: Flashbacks. Erin has a lot of them. So many in fact that I often feel like it doesn’t trust us, the viewer, to remember anything. I’m talking about how half an episode will be filled reminding us about Erin’s time with Jone, or about what she saw with the wild Beast-Lords. On some level I understand this, the show aired in a timeslot for children. On top of that the way we are watching it, 4 episodes a week, is much faster than when it originally aired. Even with those however, I often see the same flashback either in back to back episodes or twice in the same episode. And that’s just… Insulting? Unnecessary? Wasting time? It doesn’t feel good that’s for sure.

Ultimately this isn’t a huge issue, Erin is still good and the flashbacks are always relevant to what is happening on screen. I just wish it would show a bit more restraint with them, that it would trust the viewer to remember what has happened a bit more. With that done, on to the episodes!

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Kemono no Souja Erin – 17/18/19/20- Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kemono no Souja Erin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to week 5 of Erin! Apologies for the lateness of this, it’s been a really rough week for me and I just didn’t have the drive to get this prepped ahead of time. Hopefully next week will be better. Regardless, what do you say we put that bullshit behind us and just jump right into it huh?

First up we have episode 17, “The Targeted Queen”. This episode doesn’t really involve, or concern, Jone and Erin that much. Instead it primarily serves to educate us on the current state of the countries politics after the 4 year time skip. Teaching us about the Saigamaru, people who believe the Duke should be King and rule both parts of the country, other dissident elements within the country. How much of the nation is trending towards inaction, not taking them seriously as a threat. All the while Shunan is trying to change the country and Ngan is falling right into their trap. It’s all pretty interesting stuff. Erin is setting up its late-game narrative well, and I like how early/consistently it’s been doing it. My big question at the moment though is how it’s going to fit Erin into everything.

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