Category: Other:

Wind Breaker – 7 [Fight to Win]

It’s absolutely ridiculous how close Wind Breaker is to figuring itself out and being great. It already has the shounen stuff down, seriously, Wind Breaker’s fight choreography is fantastic, having some of what are easily the best fights in the season. The way Togame and Sakura’s bodies move, the different fighting styles like Togame’s grapples and stomps to Sakura’s pinwheel kicks and strikes, it’s impossible not to get pulled into the fight. The camera can be a bit ambitious at times, making some transitions look awkward, but Wind Breaker tries so hard to make sure we always see their full bodies as they fight that it generally comes together anyways. The only thing Wind Breaker really needs to work on is the narrative, the core themes of building and maintaining a community and what those communities mean to the individuals within it. Part of why this episode is good is because we get a lot of that with Togame. We see how he gets pulled into the Shishitoren before it got corrupted, how Choji made it feel like home and helped him feel comfortable interacting with others. We get to watch as Choji is consumed by his desire for strength, for freedom, resulting him in kicking out anyone who he doesn’t see as strong, creating this culture of fear. This forces Togame to take on this role of the “villain” within the Shishitoren, performing all of the “skinning” himself, becoming the man every other member fears because, even if they fear him, so long as they love Choji the Shishitoren, the community he came to love so much, will endure. It’s all right there, Wind Breaker has the pieces! Now just imagine if this was episode 10 instead of 7, if we knew more of about Bofurin was like to contrast it against, if we got more time with Togame as an antagonist to understand where this is coming from prior to the fight. It would have been utterly fantastic, a beautiful way to end a season and begin Sakura’s journey in earnest. Instead it’s just one good episode in an otherwise eh team-battle arc. A damn shame if you ask me, but I’ll take what I can get.

Continue reading “Spring 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 6” →

Jellyfish Can’t Swim at Night – 5 [Viewer Comments]

Ah Jellyfish, the only other show this season that has a shot at consistently beating out Dungeon Meshi. I absolutely adored this episode, top to bottom. From Yoru’s struggles with artistic motivation and feelings of inadequacy to Kano’s attempts to lift her up. Once again, Jellyfish managed to hit me right in the kokoro. Her reactions to comments? The fear of reading them, the knowledge that someone saw and might not have liked your work? I get that exact same thing, yet all I’m doing is writing a few thousand words about anime on the internet. She’s drawing official art for their group and then having bigger, more successful, more talented artists draw fanart of it and then having people say they should be drawing for Jelee instead of her. That must be soul crushing. Watching her work through that, doom scrolling until she commits herself to art fully so she can feel good about what she draws, adding her name back to the mural she previously erased, taking classes seriously and such again, all good shit. I wish this had maybe been a multi-episode plot, but considering the end I’ll accept what we got. Speaking of the end, Jellyfish is entering dangerous territory here. If this is legit, if Kano and Yoru are going to be a real couple with real romance, it could be fantastic. But if we’re just getting yuri-baited because they know that’s what anime fans watch, then it’s going to suck. We can’t know until the next episode, which I’ll be watching right after I finish writing this since it’s Saturday, but I’m hopeful that Jellyfish will pull it off.

Oh and P.S. RIP Mei, her Bad Luck fortune came true the same day she drew it when she lost the love race with Kano. F in chat for our girl.

Continue reading “Spring 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 5” →

Dungeon Meshi – 18 [Shapeshifter]

To absolutely no ones surprise, Dungeon Meshi continues to be great. This week it brought us the classic Doppelganger encounter, but with the usual Dungeon Meshi twist. Not content with just one Doppelganger, we had nine, three for each of our cast members. And as if that wasn’t enough, each Doppelganger’s appearance was based on the mental image another party member had of that person, which Dungeon Meshi so helpfully drew in slightly different styles and details so a perceptive viewer could pick out the real one on their own. So for Laios? Each of Marcille, Chilchuck and Senshi view him as some brand of moron or weirdo, leading them to easily pick out his fakes. Meanwhile for the others we have poor attention to detail resulting in inaccurate clothing and tools, as well as a complete misunderstanding of magic resulting in a silly spell book. There’s a lot of good stuff in here, all of it leading to a fun finale where Laios figures out who the real ones are by their awareness of the dungeon around them, as well as how they talk. Of course Chilchuck wouldn’t sit on a box that might be a mimic, he hates them, and of course Senshi would never disrupt an ecosystem so carelessly by stealing and egg, and of course Marcille would be so stubborn as to not eat a humanoid egg even if it might save Falin. All of that culminating in Laios barking like a dog to face down a monster, only for Marcille to blow it up since she was completely dun with the situation, made for a fun episode. I’m not sure about this Ninja girl or why she’s following them, was she ordered to kill Marcille or something? I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Dungeon Meshi hasn’t lead me astray yet, somehow staying fresh and fun for two whole cores, I’m not going to start doubting it now. Oh and one more thing, Laios barking was hilarious and exactly the kind of comedy I’ve come to expect from this utterly ridiculous show.

Continue reading “Spring 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 4” →

Lots of drops this week as we enter Week 3 for the Spring Season! Mostly just me cleaning house with a few of the lesser series of the season, nothing to extreme.

Dungeon Meshi – 17 [Harpy/Chimera]

Dungeon Meshi took a break for a few weeks there, letting other shows strut their stuff, but this week it returns with a vengeance for that first place spot. Seriously, what a great episode. From Shuro confronting Laios over the consequences of his actions, berating and criticizing him for the use of Black Magic and how blasé he is about everything, to Falin showing up and wrecking house. And holy crap, did she show up. Dungeon Meshi has always been very emotive, from facial expressions to how the characters move, it’s always been good at conveying emotion. But this week was… It was on another level. I can’t get over how incredible Falin’s new design is, from the feather coat and draconic torso to her new eyes and how her expressions can turn on a dime. One minute she’s almost cute, smiling and blushing as she crushes Maizuru’s skull beneath her foot, the next crying out for her brother as her true self takes control for but a moment. And the way the music tied it all together, just fantastic stuff. Not to mention the actual narrative of the episode, how Dungeon Meshi called Laios out for his hypocrisy regarding monsters after he had already gotten on Senshi for the same shit, or Shuro sticking to his word and reporting them to the authorities but still giving them an opportunity to escape should they succeed. All around one of the best episodes I’ve seen in a long time. If I had any complaint it would be that no one actually died, there was no cost to the conflict, which feels like a missed opportunity. I get it, resurrection is normal here, I don’t begrudge Dungeon Meshi bringing back all the important ones. But I would have liked if one or two had stayed dead, just to hammer home the situation and what Laios/Marcille have done here. Even with that though, a stellar episode, I swear I’ve watched it like 3 times. I’m hyped for where Dungeon Meshi is going.

Continue reading “Spring 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 3” →

Jellyfish Can’t Swim at Night – 2 [Mei the Fangirl]

Jellyfish was fantastic this week. I’ll admit, early on I was a tad put off. Mei was such a fangirl, so obsessive and weird, that I really didn’t like her. And I feared that Jellyfish would somehow end up supporting her antics, justifying them or having Kano give in to her demands to get her working with them. Luckily, Jellyfish did nothing of the sort. It still made Mei sympathetic, but instead of excusing her obsession it instead sought to explain how she got there in the first place. How she was desperate for a friend, for acceptance, for some kind of human connection, and she found that in Kano, known as Nonoka at the time, by going to one of her fan events. It was the first time someone was genuine to her, accepted her hair color and mannerisms, even seemed to like her. Watchin Mei’s room slowly fill up with Nonoka merch, over taking the trophies and book, it was really sad but really effective. Jellfyfish didn’t excuse her behavior, only made us understand it. And by the end? She had walked it back a bit, coming to view Kano as her own person and not as her obsession. Meanwhile Kano came to realize that she can’t just deny her past, that while she may not want to continue it anymore, her work as Nonoko is still part of who she is and touched a number of people. I really liked that, it worked for me, and by the end I found myself enjoying the episode a lot.

Continue reading “Spring 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 2” →