For the second episode in a row, Fire Force has quietly impressed me. Obviously the episode of the week would have to go to Yaiba (see Lenlo’s excellent post on it!), but Fire Force turned in an admirable performance. With the mess of Episode 3 still looming, I was quite happy to see an episode without much to complain about (and a lot to praise).
With this episode, Kimetsu no Yaiba has cemented this as the best arc of its run. For those that don’t want to read 1,000 words: It was great. I loved it. I’m going to gush about animation for the next 10 minutes. Let’s freakin go.
Right off the bat, be prepared for 3 paragraph or so of this, Yaiba looked phenomenal. Eat your heart out Fire Force, because you no longer have the best animated fire of the season. Now for the sake of coherency, let’s break this up into 3 sections. Pre-dance, mid dance and money shot. Pre-dance, Rui’s threads were fantastic. I loved the impact of these tiny little flashes of light, really selling the power. The best shot pre-dance for me is no doubt Rui just obliterating his “sister” and the effects behind it. This isn’t to say the rest were bad, it just had the most “weight” to it. Also managing to sell Rui’s mental issues with the scenes before and after it. His emotional distress and such. Enough about all this though, you want to talk about that. Head below the break, and we will do just that.
This week’s Fire Force review is going to start a bit differently: I’ll tell you what I didn’t like. Ready? I thought the rain drops looked a little weird. That was it. Everything else was amazing. Let’s get to it.
Continue reading “Fire Force – 4 [The Hero and the Princess]”
Welcome all to another week of Kimetsu no Yaiba! If last week was Zenitsu’s, this is Inosuke’s! As he comes to learn the value of friendship, Tanjiro meets the big bad and the Senpai’s show up to save the day. Let’s dive in!
Starting off, I wanna talk water, because damn did Yaiba’s water look good. I’m not even talking the water sword effects, as those are highly stylized. No no, the actual riverbed that was entirely CGI looked really good. From the splashes to how they layered the 2D characters and environment in with it. A lot of effort and physics simulations clearly went into getting it right just for this scene and it paid off. Really, this arc in general has looked really good. From Zenitsu to Shinobu, the butterfly woman’s entrance, to this water and the demons. Ufotable chose a really good arc to end on and pull out all the stops at, because it’s building up for a better finale than I was expecting for a long running Shounen that’s still in print. Enough vague clues though, onto details!
This week’s episode of Fire Force has obvious implications beyond anime – the KyoAni fire. I’ll be addressing this episode as it was without wading into any of the horrific tragedy or any censoring/changes that may have occurred.
Episode 3 starts off with long winded exposition and world discussion. Surprisingly, we meet the bad guys, the state of Earth, and the major players behind the scenes in the span of 15 seconds. Not my favorite way to introduce setting – I would rather be shown than told. From there we are thrust into the newbie online diner games, which I actually liked. Instead of typical shonen overblown tournaments for the local nose picking competition, these rookie games were something that felt like an inter departmental team building exercise – a nice realistic touch. For an added layer of excitement, give parlay a try and see where the thrill takes you.
Continue reading “Fire Force – 3 [The Rookie Fire Soldier Games]”
Welcome to Zenitsu week on Kimetsu no Yaiba! This week we get a flashback, Zenitsu goes super saiyan and we meet 3 more of the demon family. Lets jump in!
Now, I could talk about a lot of things here in production. I could mention the hit or miss CGI spiders, and how the quality varies by scene. I could talk about the comedic faces and what not. But no one cares about that. Infact, people only care about one thing in particular this week, and thats Zenitsu. Because the simple fact is that even if he hadn’t gotten a decent backstory this week, I wouldn’t care. I want Yaiba to keep him around, hell show more of him, just so Nozomu Abe can do more of what he did today. With an entire episode building up to a single cut, the man and by extension Yaiba knocked it out the park. I just… I can’t explain how beautiful this scene is. Sound, animation, pacing. Screw Tanjiro’s water effects, make this the Zenitsu show just for more lightning!
Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba – 17 [You Must Master a Single Thing]”
Welcome one and all to one of the more tragic episodes of Kimetsu no Yaiba. This week a Demon falls, Inosuke becomes a dating sim and Tanjiro makes googly eyes at someones mom. Let’s dive in!
Right off the bat, this week makes up for last in terms of production. Not even talking about the animation, which I enjoyed, this week Yaiba had some fantastic scenes. There were some legitimately beautiful shots, mostly near the end, but that doesn’t negate their effect. Narratively they don’t make the most sense, I have some niggling questions behind them. That Yaiba went for style over substance in some instances here. Now, considering that Yaiba is a fun Shounen romp, this isn’t a death sentence by any means. Rule of Cool has existed for decades, and it’s a rule I love. Kabaneri for instance existed on that rule. It is however the sort of thing that holds a series back. Keeping it as “good” instead of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood “Great” and “genre defining”. Still, hard to complain about getting something “good”.
Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba – 16 [Letting Someone Else Go First]”
Another week, the start of another arc in Kimetsu no Yaiba. This week our trio start to grow, we meet some new villains and some old characters make a return. Hope your not afraid of spiders, cause we have whole host to get through. Lets go!
As far as production goes, I think this was one of Yaiba’s weakest weeks. Part of that is just that there wasn’t really any combat. There was some basic sword swinging, but no true fights. So there wasn’t anything for Yaiba to really go all in on. This isn’t to say it was bad, I still enjoy Yaiba’s artstyle. The thick black lines is right up my alley, helps make things pop and make it clear between objects. Yaiba also had some interesting CGI segments. From the first person walking through the mountain to Inosuke’s Beast Breathing. These were both interesting, thought obviously CGI, but Yaiba did a good job here I feel. CGI works well for detailed environments, its just character models that anime still seems to be lagging on. Still, enough about boring production. Lets get onto the actual story.
Welcome to Fire Force! I’m your infernal host for the season (and hopefully many more), Amun.
Fire Force kicks off as the highly anticipated sophomore work of Atsushi Ohkubo (known for Soul Eater). The most pressing concern I’ve heard so far is the show couldn’t possibly maintain the level of quality from the first episodes for all 4 cours that are slated. Episode 2 helps extinguish some of those fears, although I can see areas where good direction decisions reduce the amount of animation required. The director is a veteren of the Monogatari series, and some of the decisive cuts remind me of that – in a good way. The scenes pack more punch and probably take substantially less effort to make – a double win in my book.
Continue reading “Fire Force – 2 [The Heart of a Fire Soldier]”
Welcome to another week of Kimetsu no Yaiba. This week we take a break as our trio get to know each other, have some dinner and meet best sister Nezuko. Let’s get into it!
Right off the bat, I am rather split on this episode. Both in terms of production/animation and the actual narrative of it. There are things I really like and things I don’t for both. For instance, Yaiba did a really good job with the hand-to-hand combat animation! That was a pretty sick combat, and it was a nice change of pace from the swords and demons. Something nice and mundane. However, Yaiba also really overused the “comedy” style for my this episode. With the blank faces and really simplistic art style. It’s not the comedy itself, that was hit or miss and I will get into that later. It’s just the style. It works better on some characters than others, clearly. With the simple dots for eyes and round heads. For the most part though, I want to call Yaiba a success this week.
Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba – 14 [The House with the Wisteria Family Crest]”