Category: Weekly Summary

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” →

Bucchigiri – 3 [Love at First fight! The One and Only Quail in the World]

Bucchigiri continues to be stupid fun mixed with an evolving and escalating gang-war plotline in the background that is slowly taking over the show, in the best way possible. I get it, not everyone will enjoy some of the jokes, and even I find some of them distasteful. I could do without the recurring “I need to use the restroom” thing, that isn’t funny. But everything else, Ara’s relationship with Matakara and Senya, the slowly budding gang war as a third one starts to cause problems, the puns like “Debauchery” becoming “De Punchery”, and the over the top gang action is just… It’s fun ok? There’s no other way to put it, Bucchigiri is expressive and looks great every week, the characters are funny, Senya is adorable, there’s just enough action in the fights to scratch that “Shounen” itch, and it feels like nothing I’ve watched in a long time. It also helps that the OP and ED are probably the best of the season. Everything about it screams passion project, which isn’t something I can say for the other original airing this season, Metallic Rouge. I don’t know how MAPPA of all studios is pulling this off, but I’ll take it.

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

Everything is in a loose order this week, so consider this to be my current standings for the season, barring Aidan’s Sengoku Youko!

Bucchigiri – 2 [Wanna Take You On! The Chu Chu Chinese Pepper Steak Train!]

It’s absolutely ridiculous how good Bucchigiri is. Not only is it one of the most expressively animated shows of the season, right up there with Torture Princess, it’s also fun in all the right ways. Sure, I could do without a lot of the butt/gut/tramp stamp/gay jokes, though for that last one if it actually commits to being a gay romance like its hinting I’ll be impressed and accept it. But overall I’m having a great time with it. From Ara’s obsession with Mahoro and trying his best to impress her, first by challenging her brother, then by challenging her brothers rival, all without realizing she’s not into him at all but both of the gang leaders are, is great! And Matakara’s growing despair as his attempts to reach out and reconnect with Ara fail, thinking he isn’t strong enough when in reality Ara is simply no longer the person he thought he was, is genuinely emotional. And to top it all off? The fights just look good. Like… really good. Not in a cartoony, overexaggerated way, I mean watching Matakara and Jabashiri fight it out in the school was some great choreo and full body movement. It feels like Bucchigiri has it all, and I’m absolutely here for it. Plus both the OP and the ED are absolute bangers.

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

Hello everyone! So incase you didn’t notice, this is a pretty big post! Lots of small stuff I’m watching this season that I expect to probably drop but aren’t worth doing full regular weekly blog posts about. Instead I just shoved them in here! So… Look forward to that.

The Apothecary Diaries – 13 [Serving in the Outer Court]

Mao Mao is back! My favorite thing about this episode is that Apothecary Diaries decided to change up the location. I was a bit miffed when she decided to return to the Rear Palace so easily, it felt like a convenient reset after everything that had happened. So to see her wind up in the Outer Court instead, working as Jinshi’s assistant and studying to be a court lady? That was a nice change of pace, and sets the series up well for even more of my favorite dynamic: Jinshi and Mao Mao. Now they have even more opportunities to interact! And that’s just great. Watching Jinshi get so protective of her while she’s dolled up and arriving was awesome, loved that. As for the rest of the show, it also looks like Apothecary Diaries is setting up some sort of political power play with a member of the military, one who will try to use Mao Mao to his advantage? I’m curious where this will go, especially with how wary Jinshi appeared to be of the Military section. So yeah, good episode.

Continue reading “Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 1” →

Shangri-La Frontier – 13 [Only Resentments About the End of Life Remain]

We got a lore dump episode! Getting some hints as to the creation of the origins of the Seven Colossi, like calling Lycagon “Sooty” implying it was not only someone’s pet but that Setsuna was aware of it’s existence thousands of years ago, as well as some prep for the Wethermon fight. Speaking of Setsuna, we meet Setsuna of Bygone Days, an NPC required for summoning Wethermon and apparently a ghost from a previous civilization. There’s a lot of little hints here about more Shangri-La lore, but what I liked the most was Pencil opening up a bit and getting involved in the game. I really liked how the PKing madwoman has a soft spot for something like this, is still able to get emotionally invested in a game and take it seriously. It’s nice that Shangri-La isn’t forgetting that while this is a game, it’s a piece of media first and foremost, something people can get invested in and can mean special things to the right person. I liked that. I also really liked Sunraku and Katsu’s argument. Hell the relationship between all three of them is just great. They really feel like a group of gamers taking the piss out of each other but still able to be serious and emotionally available for each other when it matters. I guess the best way to say it is that Shangri-La went all in on the emotions this week, and it really worked for me. Plus we got to see Sunraku’s family, which was cool. I swear to god I thought they were all dead or something.

Continue reading “Fall 2023 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 13” →

Heads up, with some shows coming to an end I’m going to slip some tentative final scores underneath their section. These are very loose, not exact at all, and really more of a general “How I feel” sort of thing. Don’t take them to seriously, most of them, and this post, is off the cuff.

The Apothecary Diaries – 11 [Reducing Two to One]

I KNEW IT! I CALLED IT LAST WEEK! I knew Jinshi was Ah-Duo’s kid. Sure, Apothecary Diaries doesn’t say it outright, but the implication is clear and it’s doing everything short of telling us what happened. That Ah-Duo knew her child would always be playing second-fiddle to the Empress’s kid and so had them swapped. That’s how Jinshi grew up in such an important position despite his young age, why they look so similar. And you know what else? I think Jinshi knows, because he was clearly crying at his mother having to leave the palace, why else would they be having a late-night drink. FURTHERMORE, and this is where I get really conspiratory, I think Ah-Duo killed the Empress’s child, the one now being raised as her own, on purpose. She did it to ensure Jinshi’s place even if they were found out, which they were and that’s why Mao Mao’s father was expelled for not noticing. She didn’t cry for the loss of her son, but because she murdered an innocent child to secure her own child’s future. Do I think Fengming was in on that last bit? No, not really. She probably legitimately thinks she killed Ah-Duo’s son, and has regretted it ever since, that’s why she was so willing to take the deal Mao Mao offered where she kept quiet about the honey in exchange for Fengming coming forward on her own.

Suffice to say, this was all great. I absolutely loved all of this. I’m not normally that interested in politics in anime. But Apothecary Diaries managed to make it really interesting and it presented it just subtly enough that the viewer got the core of what was going on, the important stuff required for the story to continue, while hiding even more just underneath the surface for those paying attention. I really like that, it makes all of these characters so much more compelling. Same with getting the see Jinshi’s vulnerable side, like him and Mao Mao in the shadow of the wall, or just how tired Ah-Duo’s face was in those flashbacks. Some really good characterization from Apothecary Diaries this week. Finally it even sets us up for future plots, such as the implication at the end that Mao Mao’s kidnapping wasn’t quite as “random” as we may have thought. Was it perhaps done on purpose to get her into the rear palace? I suppose we will have to wait and see. Whatever the case though, the conclusion to this political plot has made me a lot more comfortable trusting Apothecary Diaries moving forward.

Continue reading “Fall 2023 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 12” →

Undead Unluck – 11 [Rio de Janeiro]

First up we once again have Undead Unluck. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, the series has been running on high ever since Spoil, maybe even Gina depending on how you look at it. And while this week is a bit of a slower one compared to previous, the rest of the season has slowed down a long with it. As for what actually happened, it’s a lot of setup for the next arc with a nice sprinkling of romantic progression. A lot of small moments with Andy and Fuko, from time on the beach to picking out nice outfits. It was really nice watching Andy help Fuko feel more confident in herself, pushing her to spread her wings a bit but not forcing her to far out of her comfort zone. Yeah some of the ecchi jokes still haven’t fully gone away, but they’re tinged with something a lot more… wholesome now I feel. That plus their conversation about what it means to be a negator, the options available to those like them and the desire to fight against the shit hand they’ve been dealt, made for an emotionally gripping episode. They’re finding their own reasons for what they do, which is going to be important if they want to fight God.  Beyond that we also met some of our villains for this new arc, Unrepair as well as three others.  We don’t know to much about them yet, but that’s fine, they will be more important. Later for now what’s important is that at least one seems like a dangerous match up even for Andy, meaning we have something to look forward to!

Continue reading “Fall 2023 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 11” →

Undead Unluck – 10 [Result]

Starting off, I really enjoyed this weeks Undead Unluck. It wasn’t a big action setpiece, though there was some, nor was it a huge character defining moment. Really all it does is show us exactly what is at stake in this story, what precisely the Union has been working to prevent that has forced them to operate the way they do. It’s just the way that Undead Unluck does it is so god damn good. Sure going through each quest, flying around the round table to focus in on who participated in each, that might have been a bit much and killed the pacing for the first half of the episode. I won’t dispute that, it definitely felt slow. But it was establishing something very important for the episodes climax: Just how important, and world affecting, these quests are, including both their rewards and their penalties. The elimination of all languages on Earth, excluding Negators? The addition of Galaxies to the universe, and all that comes along with that from myths too days of the week and aliens? Not to mention Ragnarok should they fail 2 more times. I don’t know about you, but for me this was where Undead Unluck really hooked me. Where the scope of the series got absolutely ridiculous, beyond just super powered people fighting for no reason. It also helps that David Productions are knocking it out of the park presentation wise. Seriously, I don’t know what Undead Unluck did to earn this kind of adaptation, but I’m glad it did.

Continue reading “Fall 2023 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 10” →

SpyXFamily S2 – 8 [The Symphony Upon the Ship]

This was good. In fact I’d go so far as to say this was my favorite episode of SpyXFamily this season, maybe of the entire show. It had everything. A badass fight scene where Yor got to strut her stuff against a variety of enemies with their own unique gimmicks, all well choreographed and timed to music with a flashy fireworks backdrop, as well as an emotional and personal internal decision finally letting Yor take ownership of her job. We’ve known why Loid works as a spy for a long time, he wants to prevent a war, sacrificing his chance at a normal life to protect everyone else’s. But Yor has always felt a bit aimless, doing this job to look after a brother that’s already an adult getting by on his own. She herself mentions maybe quitting a few times, making it not feel very important. This episode fixes that. She finally has the chance to look at what she’s doing, steel herself as to the possible consequences, and commit for reasons all her own. And you know what? She’s right. Loid would completely understand, hell he’d probably encourage it and respect her for making the choice. Because it’s basically the same choice he made when becoming a spy. I’ve bitched for a long, long time about Yor feeling like a 3rd wheel in the show, about how she needed an arc of her own. And a couple of you haven’t been too happy about that, feel I’ve been unfair. Well to me, this episode is vindication. This is how good SpyXFamily can be when it has 3 main characters, not 2 and a tag-a-long wife. It was fantastic, and I’m really really looking forward to tomorrows (Or today depending on when this goes up) climax to the arc. Good shit.

Continue reading “Fall 2023 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 9” →