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Thanks for the well wishes after last weeks post everyone. Can’t say things are great, in fact I’d say they are falling apart, but this is a nice bit of consistency in the storm.

Dungeon Meshi – 11 [Red Dragon I]

If you’ve seen the episode then it should come as no surprise that Dungeon Meshi is #1 this week. It took everything I love about the show, the detailed world building and ecology, the animation and expressiveness of the characters, even the uncommon bouts of serious drama, and dialed them up to 11. The detail? We got to watch the party skin and butcher a dragon piece of piece, walking us through its digestive cycle and how it breathes fire. The animation and expressiveness? This is the best Dungeon Meshi has looked since Episode 3, everything just moves beautifully. From their expressions even to how it was shot. Just look at any of Senshi or Laios’s scenes across the entire episode and you’ll know what I mean, an absolute powerhouse of dynamic movement and camera work. And the drama? God the second half it… It got me. The building desperation to find even a shred of Falin’s corpse, the flashback to when they were children, and especially the reveal with the skull. Something about it just… It worked, and was simultaneously incredibly dark and yet hopeful, because now they can maybe pay to resurrect her. So as far as climaxes go? This is going to be hard to top, because that was an absolutely stunning episode. Continue reading “Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 10” →

Hey all, wanted to let you know real quick here at the top that posts this next week may be late or skipped entirely. Had a death in the family on Friday and it’s been a busy weekend. I need to fly home for a funeral and such. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, just wanted to give you all a heads up. Now on with the post!

Frieren – 26 [The Height of Magic]

Funnily enough, the most enjoyable part of Frieren this week had absolutely nothing to do with Frieren. Don’t get me wrong, the fight with the clone was cool enough, but it felt very… Flashy for flashiness sake, if that makes sense? What I mean is, compare it to the demon fight back in the mid-season climax. While both are very well animated, the demon fight felt smooth and purposeful, Fern was showing off, you could still make out and understand what was happening. Meanwhile this battle, aside from the very end with Frieren’s mention of “I haven’t had to use that in 80 years”, felt like it relied way more on effects work and bright lights and so just wasn’t as interesting. Still fun and flashy, but not the highlight of the episode for me. So what does that honor belong? Ubel. Something about her flashback, the conflict with Sense’s clone, this addendum to the “Magic is about imagination and visualization” rule showing us just how powerful a sociopath can be. Cause when you think about it, it makes sense. Cloth? Hair? People? Those can be cut, duh. Magic barriers? Well that’s magic, can’t cut that. But a dude in a cape? Sure why not. It definitely runs on some “Rule of cool” logic, Frieren is without a doubt a soft magic system on the Sanderson scale. But it’s presented in a cool manner, and Ubel is this great mix of “Don’t cut me” scary and “Step on me” hot. Still, even with that critique I want to make this very clear: Frieren was fun and definitely the highlight of the week. Just because it wasn’t as good as one of its best episodes doesn’t mean it was bad. Overall, I’d call this 2nd test a success.

Continue reading “Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 9” →

Undead Unluck – 21 [Memento Mori]

It’s simultaneously fantastic and depressing just how good Undead Unluck is when it’s not poorly paced. Seriously, this episode was brilliant. Spending 20 minutes with a young Andy who doesn’t know about his powers? Watching him go from this dour person unable to find joy in life to one strong enough to face tomorrow? That one Fuko line about how learning about Andy meant learning about the numerous farewells, something obvious in hindsight since he’s functionally immortal? I loved all of it. Honestly, between this, Frieren, and the Wolverine comics I’m reading right now, the “Immortal finds purpose through the transient lives of others” trope might be one of my favorites. It’s ripe with potential, and each of them is hitting it in a different way. I also loved that we saw the beginnings of what has been holding Andy back power-wise. How he views death as “The brain stops functioning”, which inherently limits his “Undeath” to negating just that. But if he broadens his mind a bit, views death like Fuko does, as “When you’re forgotten”… What will that do to his negation ability? What will that do to his personality? Only time will tell. And then Undead Unluck just has to cap it off with a beautiful confession scene, tying a nice little bow on one of the best episodes we’ve gotten in weeks.

Continue reading “Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 8” →

Hey all! Real quick, I am aware that I am ludicrously late on both the 2023 Anime of the Year awards and the preview for the next season and some reviews. Don’t worry, I’m workin on them. I have just been… So ludicrously busy outside of the blog and it’s taking everything I have just to maintain what we have now. Hopefully things will calm down soon, but know that I haven’t forgotten about them, or you. Thanks! Now lets check out this week.

Dungeon Meshi- 8 [Raspberries/Grilled Meat]

Another absolutely great episode of Dungeon Meshi this week. Split down the middle between Marcille’s first meeting and budding friendship with Falin and a fight with an Undine, it had a perfect mix of emotional development and action for me. The flashback was great because, so far, Falin hasn’t really been a character. She’s someone we hear about through other peoples stories. And while this is no different, this one is more of a regular day-to-day for her. We get to see how she’s different from the other students, how she focuses more on life experiences and what she learns in the natural world than books. It’s that difference that makes her more specialized, but far more skilled at what she’s passionate about than Marcille’s broader skillset. It’s also just a really cute scene of the beginning of their friendship, and the detail that goes into the environment and ecosystem of this cave is simply brilliant. As for the second half, this looked fantastic. Incredibly expressive, Marcille getting her own 1v1 fight was cool too, from a visual standpoint I loved everything about it. Dungeon Meshi even managed to fit in food in an episode where they didn’t kill anything, cooking meat to help Marcille recover some blood. Just good shit all around, I continue to enjoy Dungeon Meshi a lot.

Continue reading “Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 7” →

This was a good week for the season. I don’t think there was a single bad episode, from any show, across the board. Some were better than others sure, but I enjoyed every last one of these, and that’s a treat. Really happy with this week.

Shangri-La Frontier – 18 [Putting Feelings Into a Moment, Part 4]

Daaaamn, Shangri-La got hands this week. And by that I mean, for the first time since the premier, Shangri-La actually looks pretty damn good. Director Toshiyuki Kubooka and his team over at C2C went all out this week and it shows. Sunraku’s movements were fluid, the effects on Pencil and Katsu were awesome, and Wethermon and his crumbling armor looked absolutely incredible. And as if that weren’t enough? The actual content underneath those visuals was great too! I loved watchin Sunraku face this “unbeatable” mechanic head on, using all of his resources as he slowly figured it out, eventually timing all of his buffs and shit to maximize his parry chance. Dude basically solo’ed the encounter since the other two were dealing with the mount, Kirin. Is it convenient how all of these systems come together for his specific build? Obviously, yes. But that doesn’t make it any less fun, and Shangri-La executed on it perfectly such that it all worked anyways. Plus Wethermon’s line at the end about their brilliance was pretty great to. An all around fantastic end to Shangri-La’s best arc yet. I love these gamer assholes.

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

Bucchigiri – 4 [Stop the War! Sometimes You Gotta Eat the Goya Chanpuru]

Bucchigiri is, once again, great. The over the top gang drama is just fun, I enjoy their ridiculousness and Arajin being just this regular guy trying to navigate the absurdity is fun. At the same time though, I really like how Bucchigiri is slowly working in these more serious plot points. Behind the gang drama we have Matakara trying to salvage his friendship and hold together the one thing his brother left for him before he was sent to Juvie. Behind Arajin’s obsession with Mahoro and Senya’s joy of fighting, we have Shindo’s gang causing trouble and a mysterious second Honki spirit influencing it all with a chosen champion, just like Senya. Bucchigiri started off as an extremely well produced joke and is slowly escalating into a, still extremely well produced, character drama. And I’m all for it! Once again, I’m looking forward to the next episode.

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