Wooper: Dragon Quest? More like Dropped Quick. We’ve got an oddball series in its place for this recap post, plus some thoughts on a handful of seasonal anime. Has Haikyuu season 4.5 finally turned the corner onto Sakuga Street? Will China’s latest sleeper series maintain its momentum? Should I have put a third question after the first two? You’ll have to read on to find out!
Gal and Dino 8-9
Wooper: If you’re one of the 12 people who were watching Gal and Dino before COVID kicked it half a year into the future, here’s your alert that the show is back – and better than ever, honestly. It’s found a sweet spot between Pop Team Epic’s absurdism, Galko-chan’s friendliness, and Tonkatsu DJ Agetaro’s chill vibes. Episode 8 put emphasis on the show’s warmth, as the gang celebrated Dino’s birthday with trick candles and gifts of cup ramen (to his unceasing delight), before transitioning into a bonkers live action scene that parodied Detective Conan, Mission Impossible, and Haruhi. Episode 9 moved in the opposite direction, going from PTE levels of mixed media (including simulated chalk animation and a marker-illustrated dream sequence) to a lovely confirmation of Dino’s happiness at Kaede’s apartment. Most people didn’t care about this show when it dropped back in April and won’t care about it now, but it’s got more heart than they’ll ever know. I love little things like Kaede carefully stepping over Dino’s tail (after injuring him several weeks ago), or Nanami working up the courage to ask a new friend over for dinner. Gal and Dino is both strange and sweet – a winning combination in a year that’s otherwise been uniformly bitter.
Haikyu To the Top Part 2 – 09
Lenlo: Look, there’s only one word I can use to describe this episode, and you all already know what it is: HYYYYYYYYYYYYYYPE. I’ve been really critical of Haikyu this season up until now, rightfully so I say. The tension has been lacking and the production has been inconsistent to say the least. So you cannot imagine how relieved and thankful I am that they managed to nail this episode. Inarizaki’s motto has always stayed with me more than the other schools. Just like Atsumu, I didn’t really get it at first, but it was this scene in the manga that always made it work. “We don’t need the memories”, forever pushing forward, the depiction of the team, the discussion about hunger and how it feels to watch someone enjoy a good meal. It’s one of the best in the series for me. And the receive, oh god the receive. This is what the ballboy arc was building towards, this singular moment, and it was beautiful. The voice over, the momentum of the ball and Hinata’s flip, I love it. It’s competing for my favorite episode of the season off of those two scenes alone. So yeah, it was a bloody good episode of Haikyu. But you already knew that.
Armitage: Yup. Easily S4’s best episode yet. The shot of Hinata’s trembling hands after completing that receive is up there with the very best climactic moments Haikyuu has given us. Please let the rest of the season be this well-animated, anime gods.
Golden Kamuy S3 – 09
Lenlo: I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting this from Golden Kamuy this week. It started up, we got a pretty standard flashback/expository story, and it was all fine. I was game for it, nothing too interesting. Some nice laughs, some nice intrigue, it was good. And then the final 2 minutes happened and suddenly I was hit with the biggest twist of the season. Suddenly one of our biggest characters of the series, though maybe not the season, is totally recontextualized. I have no idea if Golden Kamuy is going to be able to play this well going forward. I don’t even know if it’s going to be relevant after this. But it sure as hell made for a WOOOOOOAH ending, and the credits transition only made it better. So yeah. Good week for good shows.
Maou-jou de Oyasumi 8-9
Wooper: Having spaced out my viewings of these two episodes, I’m now caught up with Sleepy Princess – but one of them wasn’t up to the show’s usual standards. In fact, I’d label number 8 its only weak showing thus far, owing to its divergence from the usual quest-driven formula. Giving the princess the role of storyteller (as opposed to making her the subject of a funny story) was just one of episode 8’s weird decisions; focusing on the demons’ mishaps instead of Syalis’ interference was another. Thankfully, this week’s ep restored the status quo while keeping an eye on the Demon King’s efforts to bring their hostage under control. “Hostage Training Week” saw the mission format applied to both the princess and her captors, with their respective passing and failing grades making the most of their contrasting expectations about captivity. Episode 9’s final segment was particularly good, as Syalis learned to act afraid of her wardens, and they discovered that this “normal” state of affairs caused them even more stress than usual. A demon princess named Cubey made back-to-back cameos as well, so I’m guessing she’ll have some role to play in the finale.
Heaven’s Official Blessing – 06
Lenlo: This is an odd episode. We seem to be diving into our second major arc, another mystery of a time and location long past. Narratively, it’s about as interesting as the last one so far. Meaning it’s enough to keep me watching and isn’t bad. The real interesting part for me continues to be Lian and Lang’s relationship, I love how they play off of one another. Blessing also did a good job of nodding towards his nature as a Ghost King, such as the tests or him breaking the Ghost Revealing sword. That one was a nice gag. Where it suffers though is in production, as this was easily the weakest one yet. The opening segment was nice, a quick battle with some nice choreography. But after that we get a lot of poorly made or repeating cuts. One in particular was during the desert scenes, as they were walking Lian would constantly reset back to an open mouth pose as if he was talking. I can only assume they used the wrong frame or something in their walk cycle because it looked really bad. Hopefully that’s a one off though, because I do still like Blessing a fair bit.
For the HypMic update: freakin’ finally we got to the rap battles. Now we can get some character development at last for why the Dirty Dawg broke up over the next few episodes, even if the details still remain scarce and they really could’ve made these details far more spread out this series in order to attract newcomers, rather than these existing fans they’re courting to buy BDs for.
On the other hand, the rap battle between BB and MTC left a lot to be desired. I kept thinking back to 8 Mile for some reason lol but seriously, none of the wordplay or “disses” made even had any sense of insight or defense, and instead boiled down to “You’re a hypocrite”, “No, I’m not.”, “Yes, you are” ad nauseum as a form of insult hot potato. But how exactly are we supposed to know if they’re acting hypocritical without knowing any more details about why they became hostile to each other to begin with outside of these vague flashbacks? I shouldn’t be looking up supplementary info online to find out why. Fling Posse vs Matenrou next episode better be an improvement.
P.S. the rap battle in the original EP (WAR WAR WAR) was much better than this.
As for Moriarty, well we have a Sherlock focused episode this time, being a loose adaptation of the first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, where he rents a flat at 221 Baker St, meets Watson and Hudson, has a run in with the Scotland Yard police and Inspector Lestrade, and discovers a murder victim with a word written in blood. This one’s a two-parter, and is titled A Study in “S” which probably stands for Sherlock, as the word written in blood is changed from “Rache” in the original story to “Sherlock” along with a few other alterations (Mrs. Hudson becomes Ms. Hudson here). Should be interesting to see how things unfold in the second part next episode, although I do suspect that the murderer was changed to William as part of a twisted test for Sherlock.
Haikyuu spoilers for the next episode: Could it maintain its quality like last time? Sadly, no. But the drop isn’t as drastic as previously this season, and it still managed to set things up for a promising finale (as the next episode’s name is Monster’s Ball) that’ll make people go home happy. Hopefully.
Did I just wake up from a months-long nightmare to discover that Haikyuu has become great again???
No. Still a horrendous, weightless, shadowless slideshow. It’s a testament to how low expectations for this series have become that a few seconds of on-model, full-body animation pass for sakuga. Whole season looks like a fun with MS paint.
Back to bed now.