Category: Currently Watching:

Vinland Saga S2 – 2 [Ketil’s Farm]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Vinland Saga

Welcome everyone, to the first post of not only the Winter season but 2023 as a whole! Well… first series post, the first impressions don’t count. Anyways, the first series of the year is Vinland Saga! A favorite of mine, I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, so lets jump right into it!

Starting off, lets take a more in depth look at the production. Unsurprisingly, Vinland Saga isn’t particularly animated. And that’s fine! It’s not a show that needs to be. Vinland Saga, at least in this arc, isn’t particularly kinetic or action oriented. It’s a slow moving, picturesque kind of series. A lack of fast-moving action animation is only a problem when a series tries to be such and fails. And Vinland Saga isn’t. That isn’t to say it doesn’t have it’s problems of course. There are a few wide shots that seem rather… flat, and lifeless. Stuff like the held wide shot of Thorfinn and Einar with no mouth, eyes or nose. Held for so long, with so little detail, it feels… off. Still, even with that and the lack of heavy action, Vinland Saga looks pretty good so far. Hopefully it doesn’t fall off as the story picks up.

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Michiko & Hatchin – 15/16 [Graffiti in Vain/Etude of Crimson Inconstancy] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Michiko e Hatchin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another week of Michiko & Hatchin! This week sees us grow slightly closer to our finale, finally letting us meet Hiroshi in the present. Is it any good? Let’s dive in and talk about it.

First up is episode 15, “Graffiti in Vain”. This episode is a cute little love story between Hatchin and a local boy. It’s all about the idea of losing yourself, figuring out the new you, and how they really aren’t all that separate. As a stand alone episode, I thought it was cute. Hatchin gets to interact with more people her age, gets a small wholesome tryst, and comes away from it with an understanding that who you were need not be who you are now. And aside from some pacing issues regarding Lenine, and the knowledge that we will never see him again, it was a decent time. A perfect laid back episode after the assassins from last week. But that raises a very important question I think: Where the fuck are the assassins?

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Michiko & Hatchin – 13/14 [Goldfish of the Marsh/The Daredevil Explosive Runner] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Michiko e Hatchin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to a late post about Michiko & Hatchin! Apologies for that, First Impressions is pretty busy at the start of a season. Still, the show must go on, so lets dive into the episodes!

Starting off, we have episode 13, “Goldfish of the Marsh”. This episode was all about Atsuko, giving us both a look into her past as well as her future. All in all? I thought it rather interesting. Watching Atsuko get back on her feet after being demoted and sent off to some tiny shack of a police station was really nice. It felt like she was being sent back to her roots, allowing us to watch her claw her way back up, just like she did as a child. But it’s held back by the fact that we really don’t know all that much about her. We get a lot of that this week, yeah, and that’s a good step forward. However giving us her history and defining character moment in the same episode makes me think neither were able to live up to their full potential. A shame.

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Michiko & Hatchin – 11/12 [Starting Line Downpour/Purgatory 108°C Telepathy] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Michiko e Hatchin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to the halfway point of Michiko & Hatchin! This is… it’s an interesting week, not entirely good reasons. I have some concerns about what happens and where the series is going. Still, that means there’s plenty for us to talk about so lets just jump right into it!

Getting right into it, first up is episode 11, “Starting Line Downpour”. At it’s core, this is a good episode. Michiko & Hatchin has the right idea here. It’s all about Michiko and Hatchin coming back together. Taking their solo episodes, meeting back up, reconciling some differences and realizing that they need each other. This is way sooner than I was expecting Michiko & Hatchin to do this, sure. I thought we would have a few more episodes of them solo. And the opening segment of the episode is just as confusing as it always is. But overall the show has the right idea. These two are the emotional core of the show after all. There’s just one major issue. It doesn’t feel like they actually resolved anything. Well ok I lied, 2 major issues, they also rushed the shit out it. What do I mean? Let me explain.

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Chainsaw Man – 12 [Katana vs Chainsaw]

by AidanAK47, posted in Chainsaw Man, Currently Watching:

Thus it ends and while I have no complaints about the episode I must admit that I did have some dread for it ending knowing that it could be the end for a while. As of this moment there does not appear to be any news confirming a second season(If anything comes to light I will edit this sentence to highlight it) and my heart sinks. As stated before I believe that a continuation is not a matter of if but rather when. What form could it take though? I have heard people say that the next arc could make for a good movie and it is true that it could fit the format. Episodes have been going at a steady pace of three and a half chapters per episode. The next arc is 14 chapters long which would fit nicely into an hour and a half runtime. The next arc also happens to be a big fan favorite which some could call the best arc and I wouldn’t easily dismiss that statement. After all it does feature a character I hold a lot of fondness for who also happened to be teased at the end of this episode. Still I am not into the idea of mid season movies as it makes following a show from start to finish awkward. You can have a situation where you need knowledge to watch the movie before jumping to season 2 or an awkward thing where they end up chopping up the movie into episodes or in DB supers case, reanimating them but worse. A movie could solve the issue of Chainsaw Mans part 1 not quite fitting into a two cour show with it taking about 16/17 episodes to complete it. If Mappa intend to chase Demon Slayer success then a movie would be likely though that would be bad considering how long it takes for movies to become publicly available.(Do you have any idea how long I waited for those Fate/Heaven’s Feel movies?)
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Spy X Family – 13 [First Contact]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Spy X Family

Welcome everyone, to the grand finale of SpyXFamily! This week was a massive surprise for me. The jokes were minimal, the pacing slow, the subject matter serious. This episode is perhaps the most serious across its 26 episode run. And for me, that’s a good thing. Now lets jump into it!

So in case it wasn’t obvious, this was a serious episode and I loved it. I’ve long wanted SpyXFamily to treat it’s premise with the severity it deserves. Even just a one-off side episode would have been enough! Just anything to remind us, and to make use take seriously the fact, that the backdrop of this cutesy family friendly Slice of Life is the freaking Cold War. And what I got wasn’t just some random side episode with wacky tennis spectacle. Instead it was 20 minutes of Loid finally meeting the central villainous figure of the series: Donovan Desmond. And you know what? I loved it. This was easily my favorite episode of the season, which is funny considering how little actually happens in it. It’s just a meeting, a first contact if you will. Nothing more. But I loved it anyways. Lets talk about why.

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Michiko & Hatchin – 9/10 [The Chocolate Girl in Love/The Carnival of Hyenas] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Michiko e Hatchin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome to another week of Michiko & Hatchin! It’s been a busy week, between catching up on posts and starting up a Mob Psycho review. A bunch of stuff needs to go out by new years and I’m not sure I can get it all done. So if a few things start to slip a bit, like maybe this post being late cough, don’t hold it against me yeah? Now without further ado, onto the episodes!

Overall this was an interesting week, as we get 2 solo episodes. This is the first time since episode 1 where Michiko and Hatchin haven’t been together, and the first time in the entire series they haven’t shared an episode. I’m honestly rather surprised by that. I thought that they would be reunited by the end of episode 10, at the latest. Instead this appears to be our new status quo, with both of them going their separate ways and heading further and further apart. Makes me wonder when they will reunite, if they ever will. Are they going to look for Hiroshi on their own, finding him at the very end with their own methods and reuniting as a family with all of them full self actualized? Won’t lie, that would be pretty cool if they came to miss and appreciate each other that way. Only time will tell.

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Mob Psycho 100 III – 12 [Confession ~The Future~]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Mob Psycho 100 III

This is it everyone, welcome to the grand finale of Mob Psycho 100. Not just of this arc, or this season, but of the entire show. There will be no season 4. No special. No movie. This is it. Lets dive into it.

Overall I thought this was a great finale. It’s all about Reigen and Mob, it was their episode, going so far as to even cut out Mob’s confession to Tsubomi so that it could focus on just them. A good decision I think! Their relationship is sort of the bedrock for the entire series. Mob came to Reigen to get help understanding himself and his powers, and ever since then its been a slow progression of coming to accept himself. For it to culminate in them both having a heart to heart talk, no more subtext just getting it all out in the open, was good. I think that ??? Mob got a bit shafted in his presentation, not going to lie. The sense of dread surrounding him was diminished compared to his earlier appearances like in Season 1. But Reigen’s run (Give me 100% Reigen cowards) made up for that.

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Spy X Family – 12 [The Role of a Mother and Wife]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Spy X Family

Welcome everyone, to a super late SpyxFamily episode! Apologies for that. I didn’t get back from a wedding until Monday, and then had to get the Seasonal Preview and Hikaru no Go review out. Not to mention the end of year Anime of the Year post we have coming up. Suffice to say, this is a busy time of year in every sense. Now without further ado, onto the episode!

Starting off, the first half of this episode was all about Loid and Yor, and it was great. My big issue with SpyXFamily has always been how few and far between its moments of character progression are. How the same jokes become stale and it becomes afraid to change the status quo. And in a way, even with this segment, it still isn’t changing the status quo. The very end of the segment has Yor saying she forgot what happened because she was drunk, though it did sort of walk that back by saying they had the conversation again. But it doesn’t change that, on some small level, progress did happen in these two’s relationship. Loid opened up and let Yor in, telling her about his own childhood. Not some WISE story, his actual parents and his experience growing up in a war. It’s slow, glacially slow, but still progress.

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Chainsaw Man – 11 [Mission Start]

by AidanAK47, posted in Chainsaw Man, Currently Watching:

One more episode. Just one more episode and it’s finished for who knows how long. It’s funny to have something you have been looking forward to for a full year come to fruition. Course this isn’t the end of the story but it could be the end for now till we get that second season. Looking at things I feel the question of a second season isn’t a matter of if but rather when. For me I hope it’s soon if not just to get the rest of the story but also I feel that if Mappa continue to take on high profile projects then they could burn out their staff before season two comes, thus causing a decline in the quality we have not been seeing throughout this show. On that I must commend the staff for managing to keep this insane level of quality for an entire season. Most shows put their money shots in the first few episodes before the grind causes a animation downgrade halfway but Chainsaw Man remains the best animated show going.(Note that I have not watched Bleach or Mob Psycho and both those likely retain a high level of animation. Though due to bias I still put Chainsaw Man as king) Of course I don’t like that this is a contract which is likely taking away from many animators livelihoods. But well if we must have this as a necessary evil then I prefer this being animated over “I was a loser till I got isekaied into big boob land and now I get to flaunt my ego with powers that I in no way earned” show. It’s part of the reason I hope that the rumors of Mappa taking on One Punch Man season 3 prove false because after this these animators deserve a break and I don’t want them back till the rest up and be ready for Chainsaw Man season 2. I would like to believe that Mappa would be smart enough to not work their staff to death…I really really would like to believe that.
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