Wooper: In case you’ve been living under a boulder, you ought to know that Attack on Titan returned to the airwaves three days ago, and Armitage has thoughts about the new episode. So do Lenlo and Amun, I assume, but you’ll find them talking about different series after the jump, plus a few contributions from yours truly. It’s our biggest recap post in quite some time – hopefully we can keep this momentum going as the blog’s busiest season looms ever larger!
Attack on Titan S4 – 01
Armitage: I can safely say that I have not waited for an anime with this much anticipation. Ever. I wasn’t nervous this much-awaited return would be underwhelming, I was downright afraid. In entertainment media, Attack on Titan is one of the few shows that’s bigger than the medium they inhabit. One that most people who are even remotely interested in ‘Japanese cartoons’ have at least heard about. So, you can imagine how skeptical its fans were with the studio change announcements and a new director and staff at the helm. MAPPA had pulled the shortest of sticks by volunteering to follow the massively successful Studio Wit in producing the final season of Attack on Titan. So how did they do in their first at bat? Well, to my and almost every other viewer’s pleasant surprise, they knocked it well and truly out of the park.
This was easily the best season premiere this series has given us since its very first episode more than 7 years ago. Instead of wasting precious minutes with exposition and recaps, we are thrown headfirst into the action, a whole new cast of characters is introduced within seconds and the show expects us to be well-caught up on previous events to follow character motivations. While none of our original main cast shows up we do get to see Reiner and Zeke kicking some ass. And what glorious ass-kicking at that. We had actual good CG, fluid character movement carrying through the weight of every Titan’s attacks and set-pieces as bombastic as they have ever been, all accompanied by a thunderous background score. The barrage from the sky even reminded me of the Chimera Ant arc from Hunter x Hunter 2011. My only fear at this point is that in the process of hitting an opening Home Run, MAPPA may have broken their bat altogether. But as an anime-only who has somehow managed to avoid all spoilers about what’s to come, I am honestly more excited and way more optimistic than I ever was.
Taiso Samurai – 09
Wooper: After nine long episodes, Taiso Samurai’s emotional stakes have been clarified for its tired audience. Leo fled to Japan not just to cosplay as a ninja while waiting out his injury, but to escape the pressure he felt as a prodigy in the ballet world. That pressure was already clear from his fear of being discovered (plus the terse conversation he had with his coach in episode 7), but the flashbacks this week brought it to the forefront. I’d love to say they were visually arresting, or that they justified all the antics that Leo has previously ushered into the show, but they were disappointingly plain – a simple sequence cutting back and forth between Leo on stage and wide-eyed phantoms in the audience. The more interesting brain dive by far came at the end of the episode, with the reveal that Jotaro’s legendary failed dismount in 1997 occurred just moments after he learned that his wife was in critical condition. The intent here was to create a source of strength in Jotaro from which Leo can draw inspiration, but since one man’s story so thoroughly eclipsed the other, I can’t say they succeeded. In fact, I wish they had explored the Japanese Samurai’s decision much more thoroughly, but with just two episodes left, that’s asking a bit much.
Kamisama ni Natta Hi – 09
Amun: Ah, there it is. All the cards are out and we know what we’re dealing with – surprise, not a deity but a supercomputer! Surprised lolinun face! Okay, but seriously – I think it’s more believable that Odin was a deity than to have a microscopic quantum computer operating at normal temperatures that, oh by the way, includes a fatal disease compensator? I’m willing to stretch a little and go along for the story’s sake, but that’s a massive jump. Even if Hina just connected to said productionized quantum computer, that’s still a neural interface at a precision unheard of – yeah. The hacker animation was what we’ve come to expect, but was nicely done (albeit beyond fictional). Confession in the rain was meh – I know this was supposed to be the big episode, but it overplayed its hand and lost a lot of its punch. Still visually interesting, and a surprisingly decent backstory for super-hacker, but nothing that inspired. What comes next might be interesting, but I’m not holding my breath.
Golden Kamuy S3 – 10
Lenlo: Golden Kamuy is still on a roll. Lowkey, this is a potential competitor for Anime of the Season in my book. Everything about it continues to just be tight. The narrative is continuing at a steady pace, every week comes with new revelations and the comedy manages to fit in perfectly between it all. I can’t think of a single other series that manages to interweave dick jokes and homoeroticism with inter-party intrigue and compelling familial drama, all in a setting unique among anime. It helps that Golden Kamuy ends every week with the best god damn ED lead-ins I have ever seen. I swear, every single one of them feels like a finale or cliffhanger, but I never feel like I got cheated by them. All in all since I can’t say anything meaningful about this episode, can’t talk about Asirpa’s father or Sugimoto’s journey, without spoiling it the best I can say is this: the snowball has been steadily rolling since episode 1 and it’s just gotten bigger, faster and better this entire fall season and I love it.
Maou-jou de Oyasumi – 10
Wooper: Sleepy Princess was cute as hell this week. The plot was engineered to maximize the “aww” factor, from the demon’s dere response to Syalis’ praise, to Inu’s endearingly pathetic ghost costume, to the theme park fireworks depicting cartoon violence. They didn’t actually visit a theme park, but you’d be forgiven for thinking they did – the princess has her captors wrapped around her finger so tightly that they’d take her to one if she asked. Instead, they visited the human settlement closest to the demon castle so Syalis could cop a deluxe pillow she saw on the Human Shopping Network. This is the second time that channel has factored into an episode’s plot – I love those sorts of recurring details. Another good one was the wind shield that the princess used to cross a poison lake during her jailbreak this week. I can’t remember how long ago she acquired that item, but I’m sure its continued use was always in the cards. That’s in the past, though – what lies ahead is probably a confrontation between the Demon King and the human Hero. There were hints at the tension between the two races in this episode, but any upcoming conflict is sure to be resolved humorously. If the show’s conclusion can manage to tug my withered heartstrings on top of tickling my funny bone, it may end up being one of my favorites of the year.
Haikyu To the Top S2 – 10
Lenlo: Ah Haikyu, how you manage to disappoint me. Where last week was potentially Episode of the Season, this week is back to the outsourced meh. It’s a damn shame, because when the production is on a level to support the story, it’s fantastic. Haikyu has always had some fantastic themes in regards to talent, hard work, passion and growing up. But when the production is as weak as it is here, a lot of those themes don’t get the presentation they need to work. This wasn’t an issue in the manga because Furudate’s arc and paneling were consistently fantastic. Here however it’s uh… not. And it suffers for it.
Gal and Dino – 10
Wooper: After last week’s stylistic freakout, Gal to Kyouryuu went back to basics this week by tackling the same story in multiple formats. Dino befriended a lost cockatiel in both 2D and faux claymation here, before a cat took its place for the live action segment. All three were lots of fun, since Dino’s animal nature made it easy for him to relate to avian and feline creatures, and his more human side gave us a look into his caretaking capabilities. However charming it was as a concept, though, there wasn’t a lot of directorial merit to it. Rather, my favorite part of the episode was the much smaller story about Kaede’s calligraphy skills. Learning that such an image-conscious girl had won national competitions for her art gave her character a new dimension, but it would have been an empty detail without the follow-up: her sudden strictness and consideration of which kanji Dino should start with. This show is on fire when it comes to generating small moments of camaraderie between those two.
Heaven’s Official Blessing – 07
Lenlo: For my last bit, HoB was sort of… a nothing burger this week. Not much happened, we mostly sat in a cave and got a feel good story about some long dead soldier and someone got bit by a snake to make things urgent. Outside that there wasn’t much worth looking at, wasn’t much worth hearing, etc. About the only real “development” we got this week was more BL shenanigans and while I do enjoy their relationship and look forward to the day they have to confront it, everything around it was rather dull. All in all it feels like this arc is dragging and I hope something happens soon.
HypMic update: Wooper, have you caught up to the rap battles?
Fling Posse vs Matenrou was certainly better than the previous episode’s Buster Bros. vs MTC, though I still thought the album version of the rap battle was better. They just outright say without fanfare that Ramuda was the one behind breaking up the Dirty Dawg and was working for the Party of Words all along, even given this superweapon of a mic for the rap battle, which he chooses not to use due to his nihilistic dark side thinking its not fair to use. Also, Matenrou wins because lolDoppo. It’s always him behind that group’s popularity. Up next is MTC vs Matenrou.
As for Moriarty the Patriot, it’s actually gotten more interesting with Sherlock now in the fray, and I noticed a lot of references to the original A Study in Scarlet story and other Dickens stories including Little Dorrit and the Baker Street Irregulars. Also interesting is the possibility that the Conan Doyle story is actually Watson’s recollection of the events that happened in his diary but dramatized. This episode was quite good I felt with the case being solved, and there’s room left for one more two-parter, where Sherlock and William match wits, before the show takes a break until next Spring.
However, I can’t help but feel a bit uneasy with the material they’re skipping because they contribute to character development for other characters like William’s group, and that would get them into trouble with later arcs if they choose to adapt them, since the focus isn’t always on Sherlock and William. Fingers crossed I guess over how they’re adapting it, but I’m seeing manga readers crying foul over this decision.
I think Haikyuu is going to end its match next episode. I just know it from the episode name, “Monster’s Ball”. At least that’ll let people go home happy in the end, and we can get some setup for the dumpster battle next season that’s probably coming sooner than later because the production committee demands it. This whole season comes off as something done out of obligation rather than passion, because the production committee wanted to milk the property just before the manga ended this year, not helped by how COVID wrecked the production cycle and scheduling.
Although I wonder if the Moriarty adaptation is intentionally leaving those parts in the manga out because they don’t want to get their asses sued by EON and MGM? After all, those skipped arcs contain heavy references to MI6, Q, Moneypenny and other James Bond references. No use in trying to guess and assume though. Perhaps they’re saving all of that for the second cour next Spring, so that the first cour can focus on Sherlock and William matching wits as we’ll see next week and the week after that.
I don’t think the hacker/chip in the brain plot really had much focus or time to connect or develop, but the following episodes might bump things up.
I liked it from a melodramy perspective though in relation to Hina.
Not really enough time in the show with Hacker guy though for me to invest in him.
Going to catch up on golden kamuy before I get to S3. I knew the series was good but I did not know it was this good.