Wolf’s Rain – 23/24 [Heartbeat of the Black City/Scent of a Trap] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to what may be the best week of Wolf’s Rain… well ever. We have a lot to talk about this week, and basically all of it is fantastic. So without further ado, lets dive into it!

Right away I need to talk about this, I absolutely love the Lost City. There’s just so much character, so much atmosphere, to what it really should be the blandest location yet. Something about how the blank-faced people go around and interact with the seemingly flat and repeating environment. Their blandly colored outfits making our leads stand out all the more. The repeated “There is no war in Ba Sing Se” style refusal that there’s any problem or that there’s something weird going on with the town. It comes together to really sell Jagara’s omnipresent, omnipotent nature within this city. The closer you get to her keep, the higher the tier you went up, the “better” it becomes. All in all just a really nice presentation for what I initially thought would be a really dull location.

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Vinland Saga S2 – 15/16 [Storm/Great Purpose]

Welcome all, to another (very late) week of Vinland Saga! Due to my busy schedule this week is a double header, meaning we have a lot to talk about. Shit’s going down on the farm and it’s up to Thorfinn and Einar to navigate it. So without further ado, lets dive in!

So getting into the episodes, last week marked a slow escalation of the conflict. Bit by bit something seems to keep going wrong. From Gardar showing up to Arnheid’s story to him escaping, bit by bit conflict is beginning to creep into their “idyllic” farm life. In a way it’s indicative of the lie that they’ve been living in. This idea that they had finally found a place (mostly) free of conflict. I quite like it to be honest. I think it does a great job of slowly building up the tension as Canute and his forces get closer and closer. We know that they are coming. It’s just a question of when will they get here, at what point in all of this will they interrupt and bring even more conflict to the farm.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S3 – 3 [A Sword from Over 300 Years Ago]

Welcome all to another week of Kimetsu no Yaiba! This episode see’s things kick off as demons finally arrive! Are we in for another 10 episode long fight scene? Probably! Will it be any good? Let’s dive in and find out!

Before we get to deep into the action I need to get something off of my chest: Yaiba’s comedy sucks. This isn’t unexpected, it’s a battle shounen not a dedicated comedy manga. And even if it was, base level Japanese slapstick comedy really isn’t my thing. But my god did this stuff suck. Not just the structure of it, though repeating the same joke over and over again with funny chibi visuals certainly wasn’t going to help it, but the very jokes themselves sucked. What, having Haganezuka show up and repeat “Give it to me” and then being upset that was misunderstood is supposed to be funny? Or his weakness being tickling because he’s big and strong? None of this is funny! Thank god that we jumped into the action this week because if we hadn’t this would have been the worst episode so far.

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Dr. STONE S3 – 3 [First Contact]

Welcome all, to a tremendously late episode of Dr. STONE! Apologies for that, the usual excuses hold, I’m just incredibly busy. Without further ado though, lets dive in!

Starting off, the sound design in this weeks episode was nothing short of fantastic. In particular the bit with the radio static and the Morse Code at the end, with the music fading out and the ominous sound taking over, absolutely sold the scene. As good as it is though, this really shouldn’t be surprising. While Dr. STONE has never been the best looking show, it’s always sounded pretty good. From Tatsuya Katou and Hiroaki Tsutumi’s OST to Jin Aketagawa’s sound design, Dr. STONE has always had a very strong audial identity. I’m really glad to see that continue to hold true as the series moves into this more mystery focused direction. It’ll certainly benefit from it if the series can keep it up.

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Wolf’s Rain – 21/22 [Battle’s Red Glare/Pieces of a Shooting Star] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another week of Wolf’s Rain! We’re in the final stretch, with only 4 more weeks to go, so it’s time for Wolf’s Rain to start wrapping things up. Is that what it does? Well lets dive in and find out.

Starting off, I want to praise Wolf’s Rain’s production this week. Music, animation, backgrounds, there was a lot to love in these two episodes. Between the soldiers combat sequence and the giant walrus, the action especially stood out to me. While the Darcia keep standoff had some nice stuff in the Kiba vs Darcia fight, this is the first time I’ve been legitimately impressed by Wolf’s Rain’s animation for a while. That isn’t meant as a knock against the series of course, you can’t keep that up forever and it hasn’t looked bad in any way. Just that this weeks production got me excited for whatever finale Wolf’s Rain is cooking up, hope that it will look gorgeous.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S3 – 2 [Yoriichi Type Zero]

Welcome back everyone, not only to a new season but to another season of Kimetsu no Yaiba! I was a bit harsh on the previous season, rightfully so I feel. While generally well produced, it felt like the season missed the mark emotionally. So the question going into this season is: Can it avoid the same? Lets dive in and find out!

After that spectacle of a pilot, Yaiba has decided to drastically slow things down. And you know what? That’s probably a good thing. As was said in the discord, the previous arc suffered from severe blueballing. It constantly set us up for some kind of emotional payoff, only to continue the fight again and again and again. This season seems to be trying to avoid that, setting up not only multiple fights with multiple Hashira but also investing us in the characters early. For instance this week we meet Kotetsu, a young Swordsmith child desperate to protect his families legacy. We learn about his home, what he holds dear, all that jazz. Nothing has really happened with it yet, mostly just pushing Tanjiro to train more. But that’s fine! If Yaiba wants to take it’s time with this stuff, I’m happy to let it. Just give me that payoff later.

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Dr. STONE S3 – 2 [Desire Is Noble]

We’re back everyone! Welcome to the first (new show) post of the Spring season! I give to you Dr. STONE, what is in my mind the best series Weekly Shonen Jump has had in years. We have a lot to catch up on so lets dive right into it.

Right off the bat, Dr. STONE kicks off the season by asking what it is the drives science. Senku’s answer, as per the episodes title, is greed. Desire. The idea being that this greed, this desire to know more, do more, have more, is what drives us to discover and create new things. That it’s noble! Of course this is meant to endear us to Ryusui. To take what is arguably his worst character trait, his blinding greed for all things, and portray it as something positive. Personally? I’ve never thought it worked. Ryusui always came off as someone who only stuck with everyone else because Senku was the clear path to global domination. I mean, the dude is the smartest person alive and reinventing society every day. It doesn’t matter how greedy Ryusui is if he doesn’t have some way to accomplish it. Maybe this adaptation will help though.

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Wolf’s Rain – 15-20 [Recap x4/A Dream of an Oasis/Consciously] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to another (probably late) week of Wolf’s Rain! This week sees us through the aftermath of the castle explosion, a little vision quest to remind us of our goal, and a whoooooole lot of recap. Let’s dive into it!

First up, lets start with the recaps. I promise I won’t spend long here. These were, by and large, disappointing. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise, no one really likes recaps. But what bothers me is how easily these could have been much more interesting. Wolf’s Rain could have given us new perspectives on past events, recontextualized scenes by putting us in the heads of characters we normally don’t get into. We saw a bit of this in episode 18, where it let us watch from Hubb and Quent’s perspectives. We even got a few small new scenes to spice it up, such as getting confirmation Quent is the one who shot Kiba! Do this a bit with Tsume, Hige and Toboe’s episodes and maybe they could have been less of a waste of our time. As is though, I can’t recommend anyone ever bother with these.

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Vinland Saga S2 – 14 [Freedom]

Welcome everyone, to another episode of Vinland Saga! This episode is all about Arnheid, Gardar, and how they ended up here. Not much Thorfinn or Einar, but it’s still important for them to. So lets dive right into it!

The main thrust of this episode is Arnheid’s backstory and how Vinland Saga uses it to condemn violence. Not just “aggressive” violence, ala raiders and vikings, Vinland Saga has already made it very clear how it feels about those. Rather it’s condemning “defensive” violence, this idea of “proactive defense”, of going out and fighting unnecessary fighting fights. Of course this sounds a bit odd to us. Should we not defend ourselves against others? We also see in Sverkel’s story that simply waiting out the storm, the violence, isn’t necessarily the best option either. So what’s the proper response? What are you supposed to do when someone comes at you with the intent to kill, to steal? This is a question Vinland Saga is going to have to tackle, and one it probably will soon when Canute’s army shows up.

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Wolf’s Rain – 13/14 [Men’s Lament/The Fallen Keep] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to the mid-way climax for Wolf’s Rain! This week sees all of our characters in one place first time since the show began. A lot happens, we have so much to talk about, so lets dive right into it!

Starting off, I want to take a moment to appreciate Wolf’s Rain’s music again. Episode 13, which we will get to in a moment, saw one of my favorite tracks so far, “Coração Selvagem” I believe, appear. This thing is a certifiable bob. The discordant rhythms, plucking guitar strings, beautiful vocals. Fantastic. And it works even better when played over the scene in question, as Hubb and Quinn are driving through the countryside. Great stuff and I’m quickly falling in love with this OST. On top of that, it also feels like Wolf’s Rain’s production is starting to kick back into gear. Everything just looked… better this week. Not just the action scenes, though we got those as well in episode 14, but the day to day stuff to. Hubb and Quinn in the car, Hubb’s backstory, etc. Maybe that’s just the mid-season climax effect, but it was nice!

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