Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 12 [Dull Knife]

Welcome all, to another episode of Jujutsu Kaisen! This is a rough week I’m afraid. The melt is setting in, and as compelling as Nanami is as a character he can’t carry the episode on his back when he’s only around at the end. Curious what I mean? Well lets dive in and talk about it!

Like I said in the intro, this week was rough for Jujutsu Kaisen visually. Don’t get me wrong, it still had some good moments. Shunsuke Okubo, making his directorial debut, did the best they could with a failing production. From cool angles to a heavy focus on character faces, expression and heavy shading, he made some scenes pop. Just look at basically every scene Nanami was in for examples of that. On top of that, a lot of the VA work was top tier. But outside of those the way the actual characters moved was rough. They were choppy, static, felt like there was a lot of trouble keeping them on model and actually looking like the characters. In most shows, were this their consistent level of animation, it wouldn’t be a huge knock against them. But with Jujutsu Kaisen, which started very very strongly, this continual decline, along with news from behind the scenes, paints a grim picture of the future.

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The Big O – 5/6 [Bring Back My Ghost/A Legacy of Amadeus] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to week 3 of The Big O! This week gives us another pair of Monster-Of-The-Week stories. One follows a ghosts quest for revenge, the other an androids memory of its father. Are they any good? Lets dive in and find out!

First up we have episode 5, “Bring Back My Ghost”. To cut right to it, I felt like this episode was the first real miss of Big O’s run. The core of the story is split between an old woman wanting to see her family for her birthday and a son, murdered by corrupt cops, out for revenge. On the one hand we have a mothers tale about bad people still loving their family, having wants, desires and feelings despite being ostensibly horrible people. Yet because we spent so little time with her, instead focusing on the son, it ended up feeling underbaked and ultimately toothless. Meanwhile on the other hand we have the sons story, which did little more than remind us how corrupt Paradigm City is, not telling us much more than that. And together? Well they don’t really fit together at all. That’s the problem.

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Migi & Dali – 2

Welcome all, to the first show of the new season: Migi & Dali! I loved this one so much I just had to cover it. It’s so weird and out there that it felt like the dark horse of the season. And so far, 2 episodes in, I’m feeling vindicated by that! So without further ado, lets jump in.

Starting off, Migi & Dali continues to have really solid direction. The use of music, the shot composition, scenes like the twins slithering around like snakes only to cut it all off, music and everything, for a gag as the door bursts open. It somehow manages to be comedic without losing that underlying creepiness that made me interested in it. All of the jokes are just presented in such an unnerving manner that, until the punchline hits, you can’t tell if they are even mean to be jokes or not. Setups are done such that they could easily be misunderstandings through the eyes of naïve children or nefarious secrets if played straight, making you unable to properly dismiss them. It’s like the show is outright telling you something is up so clearly that it almost wants you to call its bluff. Everything about it is just so clever like that!

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Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 11 [Seance]

Welcome all, to another late episode of Jujutsu Kaisen! Apologies for that, seasonal premiers are taking a lot of my writing time. I haven’t even started the Undead Murder Farce review yet! God damnit… Getting back to Jujutsu Kaisen, this week kicks off a few fights, lets a senpai show off and sees the return of one of our greatest villains. Is it any good? Lets dive in and find out!

First up, lets talk production. While Jujutsu Kaisen is still generally solid, this week some cracks have started to appear. From ridiculous close ups designed to obscure the action to some choppy movement, this was one rougher than most episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen. Combine that with MAPPA forcing animators to sign confidentiality agreements and looking for animators on twitter and the signs that production is falling apart are there. While we’re still getting some banger shots for now, seriously I don’t want to underplay how good things like Toji or Itadori’s spiderman shots were, I would not be surprised if Jujutsu Kaisen started to melt in the upcoming weeks. Hopefully that doesn’t happen, I think MAPPA has generally done a good job elevating Gege’s original work. But we can’t just ignore what’s going on in the industry I’m afraid.

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The Big O – 3/4 [Electric City/Underground Terror] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to week 2 of The Big O! This week we get to travel outside the city, as well as beneath it, and meet both a new villain and femme fatale. There’s plenty to talk about this week so lets dive right in!

First up we have episode 3, “Electric City”. Much to my surprise, not 3 episodes in, we’re already taking a peek outside of Paradigm City, getting a look at the outside world. And what do we find? In some ways, regression. The people of Electric City have started to believe in myths and legends, refusing to power the dam out of fear of angering a god. Yet that doesn’t really work when you learn not only that this god is real, but in fact manmade. The consequences of science gone to far perhaps, back before everyone lost their memories. Knowing that, this is more like oppression than regression. These people, trapped under the thumb of a parasite that’s siphoning off what little power they have, holding their city back from its true glory. It makes you wonder a bit if Paradigm City is in a similar way.

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Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 10 [Pandemonium]

Welcome all, to a late episode of Jujutsu Kaisen! Sorry about that, new season is starting and I have a lot of things to write, this sort of just fell through the cracks. Going to see if I can squeeze it in here before the wave that comes on Saturday. So without further ado, lets dive into the episode!

So production wise this was a decent episode. Some nice shots, good animation, nice composition, etc etc. In particular I really liked the body horror and existential dread that comes up anytime Mahito uses his power. The facial expressions of some characters and transfigured humans were great, as usual. The only issue I can see is less on the visual side and more behind the scenes. More and more this past week I’ve been reading about terrible conditions at MAPPA, of how absolutely horrid this production is. While I won’t get into any moral grandstanding about treating your employees like people, that should be a given, I will wonder about how this will end up affecting the final product we get down the line. Will Jujutsu Kaisen hold together until the end? Or is a collapse somewhere on the horizon? I dunno, but it’s something to think about moving forward.

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The Big O – 1/2 [Roger The Negotiator/Dorothy Dorothy] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to the next season of Throwback Thursday! After being on the list for years it’s finally happened, Bruce Wayne and his giant robot finally got picked. That’s right, it’s the Batman The Animated Series knockoff, The Big O! Now without further ado lets dive in! Also in case it wasn’t obvious, that was a joke. Even if some of the staff worked on both.

Starting off lets talk visuals. By now many of you should know that I absolutely adore cel animation. There’s just something more… real about it, something that pops, where you can tell that each frame is hand-made. Combine that with a film noir atmosphere and an art deco aesthetic and The Big O has a winning formula. Seriously, I cannot understate how much I love its use of heavy blacks and contrast. There’s nothing complex about the designs, no ludicrously detailed fabrics or faces. Just simple colors, heavy contrast, and strong direction. And to top it all off? The effects work. My god the effects work. From explosions to debris and dust clouds, they all move so cleanly. While we don’t know how it will hold up as we go, I know it switches to digipaint in season 2, I can’t help but love The Big O’s style.

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Undead Murder Farce – 13 [The Culprit’s Name]

Welcome all, to the grand finale! This is it, the final episode Undead Murder Farce! There’s a lot that needs wrapping up this week. Will the series manage it? Or will it continue to stumble right at the finish line? Lets dive in and find out!

Starting off, did Undead Murder Farce manage to fix its lackluster visual production by the end? Well to be honest, not really. We still got shitty green screen compositing, poorly lit night scenes generally dull movement. Those have been stables since the show first aired and they are still here now. One thing we did get though was a pretty damn good cave sequence. It only lasted for a minute, sure. But it feels like that scene was every ounce of creative energy the show had condensed into a single minute. It was legitimately pretty great. The use of line work and different colors for different characters, the use of negative space, bright reds for wounds and such. Add on to that some… creative, if a tad nonsensical, scenes like Carmilla’s and at least as far as finales go, Undead Murder Farce didn’t do half bad I don’t think.

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Undead Murder Farce – 12 [Where the River’s Flow Changes]

Welcome all, to a rather late episode of Undead Murder Farce! Sorry for that, I’ve been writing some reports and getting back into Path of Exile. Not the best excuse, but hey it’s fun. Enough about me though, lets talk about our current seasonal murder mystery!

Starting off, Undead Murder Farce continues with it’s questionable production this week. I know I harp on it every time, but I’m going to continue to do so until it stops being a problem. It’s just to dark, to hard to see anything, and they still haven’t figured it out. On top of that, what decent animation we did get in the fights was still kind of rough. The way Tsuguru used his environment was nice, but I can’t say it looked good. And that’s not even mentioning the power-point levels of editing that were the last few moments of the episode. Seriously, what was that zoom and pan shit? Is this a professional project or is it babies first production? It’s damn shame. Undead Murder Farce never looked great, but it’s fallen even from those mild heights recently.

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Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 9 [Shibuya Incident – Gate, Open]

Welcome all, to another week of Jujutsu Kaisen! This week is the climax of Gojo’s fight. We all know how this ends, so the real question is: How hype was it? Lets dive in and find out!

Starting off, lets give some praise for Jujutsu Kaisen’s animation team this week because that was great. Gojo got to go hard and show off exactly why he’s the fan favorite. Whether it be running around at the speed of sound killing some monsters or schooling some spirits in hand-to-hand, it was a great time. It’s a damn shame about the dimming though. I get it, it’s required by law, Porygon’s existence continues to affect anime to this day. Doesn’t change the fact that it made a couple of scenes look worse than they otherwise would have though. Still, at least fans have something to look forward to when the blu-rays come out. And it’s not like it ruined every scene either. To bring it back around to positivity, Jujutsu Kaisen’s focus on facial expressions this week was great. From Jogo to Geto to Gojo, I loved them all.

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