DanMachi is continuing its winning ways from last season. Even though this episode is still very much in the “setup” stage, we’re starting to see the key themes of the season emerge. Let’s dive in!
Continue reading “DanMachi 4 – 02 [The Great Falls]”
DanMachi is back! And that heralds the awakening of Amun from his anime slumber. Too long have I suffered through mediocre isekai or romcoms. Too long have I waited for our white haired hero to get back to what he does best – defeating Minotaur and building harems. But we wait no longer! Bell and co. are off on a new adventure, and I’ve waited all year to talk about it. Let’s go!
Continue reading “DanMachi 4 – 01 [Prelude (Night Before Departure)]”
For once my choice to split these posts into three episode summaries works to my benefit as we got a three part closer to our season of LOGH. It’s a wonder if I can find enough to talk about for a full post as in general this is mainly action and strategy which oddly enough are usually LOGHs weakest episodes in the original series. I have likely mentioned it once, twice, if not many times but the original LOGH is not something you watched for the space battles. While there are certainly aspects of the original series which beat out the remake like episodes which gave better perspective to certain conflicts and design choices, if it’s one area the remake beats the original it’s in visual presentation. The original had its moments of great animation, for the most part battles meant watching boxes fire lasers at each other. The remake gives these battles a much needed visual punch even if the end result is still along the lines of boxes firing lasers at each other.
Continue reading “Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These – 34-36”
There are few anime that I’d describe as profoundly “uncomfortable”. I’m not talking about rampant pedophilia or the questionable relationship with the word “consent” in some series. I just ignore those. What I mean are works that, through their themes and stories, really make you understand what it means to live through these events. I’m talking about works like Serial Experiments Lain and its exploration of our relationship with technology. Or Perfect Blue and how it can feel to lose your own identity. And while this series doesn’t quite reach the same heights as those other two, it certainly makes a respectable try. Created and directed by Akitarou Daichi, animated at studio AIC and with music by Taku Iwasaki, I give to you the subject of today’s review, the turn of the millennium dystopian tragedy: Now and Then, Here and There. Without further ado, let’s dive in!
Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for Now and Then, Here and There. It also contains major spoilers in some sections, but these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents. Additionally, this series contains depictions of rape and sexual abuse, which I will mention in this review. You have been warned. Continue reading “Now and Then, Here and There Anime Review 71/100 – Throwback Thursday”
Well we are down to the second last post of this season…or at least I would say that but it’s been confirmed that we are getting another season of this so my job is once again far from over. Don’t take that to mean I dislike that this is continuing as four seasons is a massive rarity for most series and to see a show with the quality of Logh get it is well deserved. Moving on to the episodes It’s a bit odd to start with a staff officer giving a painting to a sickly man and a rather cryptic musing over how the officer was surprised at the lack of a pet in his room. I would say that this is a remark akin to “Grass is greener on the other side” as the sickly man claiming the officer as his ideal. So the remark about disabled individuals having pets who could do things that they could not is in reference to how the sickly man views the officer but fails to see that just like pets, there are restrictions to the freedoms given. As for Maries conversation with Reinhard, I feel she is giving Braunschweig far too much credit if she thinks he simply lost due to three things. He displayed incompetence in almost every area that it’s hard to even imagine how be could best Reinhard, in truth the only thing he succeeded at was pushing his subordinate to kill Kircheis which was mainly delagation. Though her assertion that an enemy was needed in order to grow a nation is a fascinating one. When you think about it this is similar to the idea of how competition helps to improve a product or service. If nothing threatens your position then you have no drive to improve and something which is a point of comparison. People have a tendency to place a group in an “other” category either by difference of opinion or status and part of what may drive a person is the desire to “Not be them” An enemy may be a good term for such a person or group and it’s an amusing concept to have something whose purpose is to prove you are above it. Nobody wants to lose or be beaten by something they have deemed counter to their core beliefs so it would be a curious thought that the strive for innovation and improvement be derived from a negative source.
Continue reading “Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These – 31-33”
This is it everyone, we have made it to the end of Now and Then, Here and There. It’s been a wild ride, a tragic one to. Without further ado though I present to you, the final episode on this season of Throwback Thursday. And remember to vote on the next one in the poll at the end of this post! wink wink.
So yeah… the finale. I have to say that I was surprised. Now and Then ended on a much more hopeful note than I was expecting. I figured that it would go for the “Scare you straight” kind of ending. One where literally everyone dies and there is no happy ending. The kind that makes it painfully clear what happens if we make it this far down the path. Instead though what we got was much more bittersweet and hopeful. People still died, and we will talk about all of that, but it was mostly the old guard. The ones who were either complicit in the system or to deep in to be pulled back out again. Leaving all those looking for peace alive to build a future, for the most part. A sort of “It worked out in the end”, even with all the tragedy.
In some ways it was a bit more sudden than I was expecting, but for the most part it works. Now lets talk details!
Welcome everyone, to the penultimate episode of Now and Then, Here and There! This week sees… well, it sees a lot. Bullets fly, people die and Hamdo re-enters the picture. Is it any good? Lets jump in and find out.
Overall I think this was an interesting week. It doesn’t add anything as a follow up to last weeks topic regarding abortion, children, pro-life etc, but I think that’s for the best. I stand by what I said last week, how I didn’t agree with its politics or what it was trying to say, so moving on was probably the best option. The worst thing to come out of that was how, thematically, it feels a little disjointed. But once you get into the episode and start experiencing what is happening I think the shift is negligible. Basically what I’m saying is: Now and Then had a small bump last week but we are now back on track and stuff is happening. So lets talk about this weeks tragedies.
Continue reading “Now and Then, Here and There – 12 [This Bloody Earth]- Throwback Thursday”
Welcome everyone, to what is inevitably going to be a late post about Now and Then, Here and There! How do I know it will be late? Because I’m off traveling for work all day Thursday and I haven’t started writing this until Wednesday. So if I somehow manage to get it up on time make sure to tell me I did a good job. No please, Pavlov really works. Enough with the intro though, lets dive into the episode!
This week is a strong one. To lay it out in plain terms, this week was all about children and whether or not it is just to bring them in to a dying world. Now and Then poses this question to us through two different sets of characters: Lala and Sis, as well as Sara and Shu. With the answer to both of those being an unequivocal “yes”. On the surface, I think this is a pretty interesting question for the series. Especially when you look at how Now and Then has treated children, the future, prior to this in the show. As you dig deeper into it and look at the situations surrounding how Now and Then answers this question… It’s starts to get a little bit concerning. Even, dare I say it, a tad political. That’s right everyone, strap in, it’s time to talk abortion politics in anime.
This is gonna suck.
Continue reading “Now and Then, Here and There – 11 [Eve of Destruction]- Throwback Thursday”
I am uncertain as to who is so committed to LOTGH that they continue to remake it even four years after the debut of the first season but I am certainly grateful for their efforts and the efforts of the animation team. Jumping into it again reminds me just how different it is to any other anime with its pseudo documentary approach to storytelling. Watching it is like watching history and I find it funny how often it goes to the effort of naming every minor character on screen, as though these were people of note in their own right. But I think the show realizes that there is no possible way for anyone to remember the names of all these characters(Especially for Japanese people to remember all these foregn names, not even counting for the fact that this used to be a novel which would make that straight impossible) as it does the equivalent of a sizzle reel naming every member of Reinhard’s court. I find though LOTGH deals with fairly broad subject matter, it never truly leaves the viewer behind and often puts information clearly enough in bite size chunks for them to get the current situation. It’s the difference between convoluted and complex in like how Kingdom Hearts storyline is simpler than you would think but the problem lies in how utterly convoluted it’s presentation is. Where with LOTGH we have the story getting across the cost of the coup by talking about the free planets needing to gain new soldiers with the loss of so many experienced ones and tying it into Juilian getting inducted into the military. Through Juilian we see the training and first battle jitters, as well as the classroom setting to exposite about the importance of the Iserlohn corridor. On the surface you have a basic A plot of Juilian entering the military and within that is many small bits contributing to worldbuilding at large. LOTGH in general makes frequent use of a microplot to give a greater sense of the bigger picture. Unlike Game of thrones for example it doesn’t jump between three different ongoing plots but instead focuses each episode on one specific topic and rarely if ever deviates(Though to be fair that’s based on this season as my memory of previous seasons is misty due to it being literal years ago.) Look at the last of the episodes here on Fezzan where every scene is about Fezzan and characters within Fezzan. We never switch to Yang or Reinhard to see how their current stories are going, but stay laser focused on just the events of Fezzan. So we are never overloaded with information as the anime sticks to showing you the details you need to know for the current episode.
Continue reading “Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These – 25-30”
Welcome back everybody, to another (late) week of Now and Then, Here and There! This week Hamdo starts to go on the offensive, Lala Ru gets found out and Sara finally returns to the screen. We have a lot to talk about so lets jump right in!
Off the bat, there were some cool set pieces this week. I was not prepared for Hellywood to take off into the air, not for the underground cave of water in the desert. Now and Then truly does have some great locations and scenery! On top of that, Hellywood also had some good animation behind its flight. A lot of work went into the detailing and selling us on the weight of the structure, plus the debris falling off of it. The weakest part was just the interior shots being largely stills with some shaking, but I don’t begrudge them those. Now and Then has never been a “sakuga” shown in my opinion, so it’s managed my expectations well there. All I ask is that it keep up this picturesque style of visuals for the last remaining episodes to come.
Continue reading “Now and Then, Here and There – 10 [Prelude to Chaos]- Throwback Thursday”