Category: Weekly Summary

Mario: Apologize for posting this Weekly Summary a day late, as I was away last long weekend. Seasonal anime has passed its first 3 weeks now, which means they more or less show their true colors as this point and we writers more or less settle down on shows we will be watching through the rest of the season. 22/7 and OshiBudo have their first appearances in this column, but it remains to be seen whether they can hold our interest. Without further ado, read further to see what we say about them this week:

Haikyuu: To The Top! – Ep 3

Lenlo: Content wise, I think this was a good week for Haikyuu. It was nice to see Hinata figuring out what it is he lacks. Figuring out the smart way to play the game vs his previously purely instinctual methods, then slowly merging the two. He has yet to actually play, yet he is learning just by observing, which is something Hinata hasn’t really done till now. Being more focused on DOING. That said, it still feels like it lacks something visually. That being the sort of crisp visual style of previous seasons. It just sort of feels… flat? Like the spikes lack impact, the color doesn’t pop in places it feels like it should, and sometimes the faces feel off, etc. It’s still good, but coming off of previous Haikyuu seasons it feels a tad underwhelming. Granted, I watched all of those 2 weeks before the season started. So it’s a bit fresher for me than most others.

Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu – 2-3

Wooper: OshiBudo is approaching its central premise with less irony that the first episode led me to expect. Comedy is still a part of the show’s M.O., but the relationship between Eripiyo and Maina is disappointingly straightforward in its use of misunderstandings and unrequited longing. The aftermath of the tanzaku plot, for example, relied just as much on Maina’s love for her number one fan as it did on Eripiyo’s intense approach to idol fandom. That love has been teased as romantic a few times now, and while I think that development could take the show in an interesting direction, it’s probably just bait. There was a more credible bit of yuri between two Cham Jam members in episode 2, so who knows where the show is willing to go? Hopefully it keeps creating humorous setups, no matter what tone it settles on. Eripiyo’s shampoo-related tanzaku flying into view as her “fan letters” were scattered to the wind comes to mind as the comedic bar the show ought to be shooting for. If it continues to skew in a less playful, more sincere direction, though, I don’t know that I’ll make it through the whole cour.
Continue reading “Winter 2020 Summary – Week 4” →

Mario: Welcome back to our Weekly Summary Column, I am the new host for this season, Mario. After a frantic first impression period, we are getting more stabilize now and starting to settle on our weekly offerings. I still need to catch up with leftovers from last season such as Blade of the Immortals and Babylon (yep, that Whore of Babylon) and maybe some other shows this season like 22/7, but that’ll be for the next post. Enjoy the roundup and tell me which shows you are following this season or even which shows you want us to cover here. We’ll take that into consideration.

ID:INVADED – 2-4

Wooper: ID:Invaded is my pet show of the season (not to be mistaken with my Pet show of the season). It’s not a critical darling like Eizouken or a surprise hit like Somali, but its high-concept procedural story and unconventional character designs have led me to favor it above most of this winter’s offerings. The plot: brilliant detective Sakaido solves his cases by entering the subconscious of serial killers, rendered as fractured, perilous mindscapes which he must navigate to uncover their identities. One of the things I appreciate most about Invaded is that, despite the magnitude of its premise, the characters aren’t swallowed by it. They have existing workplace relationships and personal histories, even if they’re not the focus of the show. Sakaido’s relationships with the more traditional cops and analysts on his team provide a nice foundation for his bloody backstory, which becomes clear in episode 3. After we learn what horrors he’s experienced, the show begins to demonstrate the influence and the existential detachment that comes from diving into people’s unconscious minds. The show is too verbose at times, and not every subconscious world is as interesting or well-designed as the last, but it has me intrigued enough to consider it a priority watch each week.

Somali to Mori no Kamisama – 2

Mario: I consider Somali episode 2 better than the first one (the premiere has a clumsy exposition part that nearly turns me off for good). The second episode has our Golem and Somali meeting other casts, so we both learn more about the world, and see how the chemistry between them all play out. The end of the episode also reveals more about Golem’s health and that adds to some urgency in regards to their journey. Golem and Somali also has a solid relationship where they grow fond of each other. But saying all that, I still can’t fully embrace the show and I do feel it loses its steam even after just 2 episodes. The fact that Somali is human could pose a potential threat given other beings are likely to consume her should they know – and I think the show will go there, but for now, we don’t sense any of that danger anywhere. And I know I just mentioned about the “urgency” but in truth, I don’t feel any sense of “hurry” at all. If I have to put my finger on why I’m still skeptical about the show, I’d say that its formula is too safe and predictable for now that it never full grasp me. Shake things up a bit would do the show better, I reckon.

Continue reading “Winter 2020 Summary – Week 3” →

Wooper: We’re back with another weekly roundup – the last of the year, and perhaps for the foreseeable future. I restarted this column because I found the fall season to be particularly diverse, with lots of worthy shows that weren’t receiving regular coverage. Not all of them remained in our good graces, of course, but this format gave us a fun and easy way to heap both praise and criticism on whatever series we felt like discussing each week. Will winter 2020 be similarly inspiring? We’ll need a few weeks before making that judgment.

First Impressions for the new season are slated to begin a week from now, and our yearly awards post will go live around January 20th. Those are our priorities at the moment – if these weekly summaries do return, it won’t be before that second date. They could reappear in spring, or summer, or not at all. We’ll see what the future holds! Until then, for the final time in 2019, here are some thoughts on what we’ve been watching this week.

No Guns Life 12

Amun: No Guns Life 1-10 were a solid string of excellent episodes. 11 and 12 just took a wildly different turn; I’m not saying they were bad by any means, just that they could have been episodes 3 and 4, and I think it would have made more sense in the overall flow (Apparently there are 24 episodes, but I’m judging this as the first half) That being said, 11 and 12 represented a stand-alone story that served to introduce some characters seen in the OP – I got some real GiTS vibes here. Also, this was quite a well-done car chase scene and some unexpected fanservice. Despite the rather odd midseason redirection, NGL has been superb this whole season. Engaging characters, crisp storylines (11 and 12 notwithstanding), and a beautiful Unreal engine rendered world give NGL a winning combination. To me, this is the future of below-blockbuster tier shows: put the effort into character designs and fight animations and let the computers handle the annoying backgrounds.

Hi Score Girl II – 09

Mario: After spending time with these kids from primary school up to their high school, it’s kinda sad to see it all end. The airport scene wraps up Oono and Haruo’s romance nicely, albeit a tad bit repetitively. We’ve seen this airport scene before, we have seen this situation where Oono gets further away from Haruo before, and we all have seen how Haruo, staying behind, improves himself to become worthy of Oono before. Yet it couldn’t have ended in any other way. The same goes for Hidaka’s role. She’s a supporting character at heart and here she knocks some sense into Haruo even at the cost of losing him forever. Yet she remains such a fantastic character. And that is the core strength of Hi Score Girl – even with all its love for arcade games, it’s all the characters that I find myself thinking about long after the credits roll.

Continue reading “Fall 2019 Summary – Week 13” →

Wooper: I’m all on my lonesome, it seems. We’ve got just two blurbs for this week’s post, both written by yours truly. The holidays are a busy time, after all, and – wait, does this mean my life is the emptiest of all the Star Crossed writers? On that uplifting note, here are a few thoughts on some anime I watched over the past week.

Mugen no Juunin: Immortal 12

This episode felt like a greatest hits compilation to me. How much time was supposed to have passed between the beginning, when Rin encountered Kagehisa, and the end, when they parted ways? It’s very difficult to tell, because each phase of the story was represented by a single scene. Their conversation in the cave near the beginning passed too quickly to quell her vengeful intentions, so the mere fact that they traveled together afterwards felt wrong. If the show had given their partnership another two or three scenes to establish itself, I’d have been okay with it.

Midway through the episode, Rin helped him fend off a band of assassins, and later pleaded with Manji to kill another group of Kagehisa’s pursuers. The overall direction that this takes her character is consistent with what we’ve seen in the past; despite Rin’s anger at the death of her family and her hatred of the man who orchestrated it, the vein of compassion running through her is similarly deep. The issue isn’t the road taken by this episode, then, but the speed at which it traveled. Kagehisa’s illness came on far too quickly, and the appearance of Manji, Magatsu and Makie during the lakeside battle was so sudden that it felt nearly surreal. Of all Immortal’s jam-packed installments thus far, this was the hardest for me to swallow.

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun 12

Looks like we’re on to the next phase of the story: choosing an after-school club. They’re called “Battlers” in the netherworld, and many of them have their eyes on Iruma after his recent dodgeball exploits. Since he’s courted by a handful of club presidents, and countless others are handing out flyers and doing recruitment drives, we get a good look at what sort of extracurricular activities there are to choose from in this version of hell. That’s a fine way to elaborate on your setting, but I feel as though the series missed an opportunity here. At this point, we know that choosing your club has a big impact on your ability to rank up, but we don’t get a sense of what Battler life looks like on a day-to-day basis. The latter is probably more important to Iruma than the former, given the value he places on friendship (as well as his cautious nature). I wish the episode had spent half of its time popping its head into various clubs, then settled on one to really explore during the second portion. It’s a minor quibble, but it did gnaw at me during and after the show this week.

Wooper: I have good news and bad news, everyone. The bad news is that there won’t be a Weekly Summary next Monday. The good news is that our quarterly State of the Season post will be taking its place for one week only, packed with takes of all temperatures on the fall’s anime offerings. We hope you’ll be entertained by our divergent opinions and questionable tastes. In this week’s post: Mario drops a commenter favorite, amun continues to insist on the greatness of NGL, and Wooper assumes Immortal duty.

Hi Score Girl II 1-3

Mario: Hi Score Girl is back and it picks up right away. It’s a neat trick to start the season from Oono’s perspective, for example, since she’s a stoic character who doesn’t mutter a single word (how funny that she also participate in vulgar shiritori with her sister and Haru’s mom), and because the rest of these three episodes focus more on Haru – Hidaka dynamic. Out of the three mains, Hidaka remains the most sympathetic character, mostly because she is true with her emotions and the sad situation she’s in (the cursed third wheel). Her emotional progress towards Haru is believable, and her push towards Haru through physical means just signifies how desperate she is now. At the same time, there’s plenty of arcade games and its cultures throughout these episodes. There’s an original-content bit that I feel is well done as it strengthens the charms of this coming-of-age show. Haru’s taking part of Shibuya crowd is a bit to rush, though, given we see very little of how he spends time with them. All in all, Hi Score Girl is back in full force.

 

Kabukichou Sherlock 5

Wooper: I was waiting for this episode. Ever since we learned that Kabukichou features five detectives apart from Sherlock, I’ve been wondering when we’d get a case where he’s not at the center of things. Turns out it happened relatively early in the show’s run, as Sherlock didn’t make an appearance until the 11 minute mark here. Lucy is the primary investigator instead, and even though the title character solves the case of the swindled sumo wrestler before she does, she’s the one to confront the criminal, who also happens to be her former idol. That’s an important detail, because it makes the episode more personal for her. There’s a flashback to her early childhood (which is marked by tragedy and abandonment), and we also get the story of the future thief who saved her sister upon their arrival in East Shinjuku. It’s the first real showcase for any non-Sherlock character, and given how early it arrived in the series’ two cour run, it’s unlikely to be the last.

Continue reading “Fall 2019 Summary – Week 6” →

Wooper: The gang’s all here this week. Mario has returned from Isekai Hell with a couple impressions of shows he’s still watching, and our resident shounen expert Amun has an update on an overlooked sequel from this season, plus some thoughts on NGL. Lenlo and I are up to our usual tricks, as well. We’ll be publishing our second ever State of the Season column in a couple weeks’ time, so this post should provide some big hints as to what we’ll be highlighting in mid-November. Until then, thanks for reading!

Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo 4-5

Mario: I’m still on the fence with this one. Episode 4 was its weakest week so far, mostly because it plays exactly like what we expect. While the show so far still offers some minor tweaks to its genre here and there (as bold as pointing out stuff like: I’m like a protagonist of a romcom), the very fact that it’s there to poke fun makes the characters inconsistent for me. The library girl suffers from this the most as for the last two episodes she doesn’t drive the story at all, instead she’s just there, and our Main-kun switches between being an asshole and still acting genuinely nice to his friends. More additions to the cast are welcomed but when they’re there for the sole purpose of interacting with Main-kun, they better be unpredictable.

 

Radiant S2 5

Amun: Surprise sequel: we’re checking back in on our boy Seth and his search for Radiant. Despite the new city, Radiant still keeps things in check and the plot tidy so far. This latest episode also had one of the best confrontation scenes I’ve seen in a while – if you watched the first season and are on the fence about this one: Seth getting schooled by Mellie is definitely worth these 5 episodes so far. We have really only one new character introduced, and that’s more than fair given the number of ones we’ve left behind. So far, aside from past emotional trauma and abandonment issues, Seth’s interactions with the Magical Knights have kept the show from getting too heavy. We’re getting towards revealing some mysteries, so Radiant has me still hooked.

Continue reading “Fall 2019 Summary – Week 5” →