Twelve Kingdoms – 34/35/36 – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Throwback Thursday, Twelve Kingdoms

This is the home stretch for Twelve Kingdoms people! The final 12 episodes, the final cour, and we begin with open rebellion. All of our leads have found each other, swords have been drawn and bullets fired. So without further ado, lets dive into this weeks three episodes!

So starting off… whew that shit got dark. I knew it could, we saw in the first cour where Twelve Kingdom’s was willing to go. But it’s been awhile since then, things have been… not necessarily positive, but not dark. It wasn’t until Shoukou’s introduction a few episodes back that this started to change. But now? Armed revolution, children (more children) murdered in the street, shot? I’m not complaining of course, Twelve Kingdom’s has ramped this up very naturally, narratively and visually. Early on, most of our scenes took place in the day. But as the story has progressed, as we have gone to war and people have died? They took place further and further in the day. Shifting the whole color palette of the show to lead into this. I hadn’t even thought about how dark it was getting right up until the gunshot, that’s how well it worked.

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Fall 2020 Summary – Week 11

by SuperWooper, posted in Weekly Summary

Wooper: Just two more weeks until 2020 can finally be put to rest. Here at Star Crossed, the Winter Preview is a key step in bidding farewell to each calendar year, so we’re hard at work on that project as you read this. But that busyness couldn’t stop us from offering our thoughts on these penultimate seasonal episodes – we had to lay the foundation for our final verdicts, after all, which ought to arrive next week-ish. See you then!

Golden Kamuy S3 – 11

Lenlo: Jesus, Golden Kamuy, that was easily the tensest episode of the season and possibly of the year. I really don’t know how to describe this without spoilers, so let’s just say everything came to a head this week. Sugimoto and Asirpa finally meet again, which means so does Ogata and Sugimoto, and Tanigaki and Kiroranke, and basically every character combination you can think of. Combine that with a treasure hunt that only one person knows the answer to and a whole bunch of guns and you have something going on. All in all, I loved this episode and I don’t know how to talk about it without spoiling everyone.

Maou-jou de Oyasumi – 11

Wooper: After cameos in episodes 8 and 9, Cubey finally revealed herself as a succubus who admires Princess Syalis for her popularity, not her evil counterpart from a parallel universe. I suppose it’s better that the show kept it simple, since it allowed the quest formula to be maintained after a few leaps in logic. Syalis’ ruthless training of her new body double ironically ended in her own death, which wasn’t tough to predict, but it’s the way she died that really sold the segment: drifting off to sleep while plummeting toward a fiery lake, satisfied with a job well done. Of course, the castle’s cleric revived her in time for the next chapter, where the other characters got a peek into her dreams. This was the spot where her relationship to the Hero was revealed to all parties involved, giving him a bit more to do than usual. As a matter of fact, the Demon Lord confronted the Hero face to face in this episode, though it was just a small gag about the man’s willingness to trust an obvious enemy. I haven’t mentioned the Hero in these miniature blurbs much, which is due to a lack of column space and his distance from the main characters, but also because I don’t find him especially funny. I’ll be interested to see whether his character “works” in next week’s finale.

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Jujutsu Kaisen – 11 [Narrow-minded]

by Lenlo, posted in Jujutsu Kaisen

Y’all know the drill by now, it’s time for another week of Jujutsu Kaisen! This week see’s the conclusion of Mahito’s fight, Yoshino making a new friend and Itadori getting caught up in it all. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Production wise, I think this week looked good. Park’s camera angles were still there in the Mahito fight but they were more contained this week. Easier to follow, if that makes sense. Last week he kept switching sides or doing 360 degree spins around characters/scenes. It made the space and the characters positions within said space difficult and annoying to follow. This week though he manages to rein it in a bit, not breaking the 180 degree rule, etc. All the while keeping the wilder and expressive character animation. All in all, I think this episode was a success production wise and I’m looking forward to seeing more from Park in the future! Obligatory production talk out of the way, lets get into what y’all really care about, narrative!

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Twelve Kingdoms – 31/32/33 – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Throwback Thursday, Twelve Kingdoms

I must admit, I was almost late getting this Twelve Kingdom’s post out. Something about this new game, I’m sure you’ve never heard of it, Cyberpunk was just robbing my time. That aside, this is once again a big week for Twelve Kingdoms. From rampant corruption to public executions, things are getting bad. So without further ado lets jump right into it!

Starting off, this is a complex week and I am unsure of where to start. As I said above, things are getting bad though in Kingdom of Kei, so lets being there. This was the first week were we really got to see Kei’s political situation, on a local level. Sure we learned from Enho about land distribution, and we have seen the palace court. But those aren’t the officials who handle the day to day. They aren’t the boots on the ground, so to speak. And what Twelve Kingdom’s showed us wasn’t pretty. It’s here that the previous displays of what Hou was like before it fell come back to haunt us. Rampant corruption, murder in the streets, public executions. Things we, the viewer, thought were a thing of the past. Yet now we see them in Nakajima’s own back yard. And it’s all thanks to Shoukei.

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Fall 2020 Summary – Week 10

by SuperWooper, posted in Weekly Summary

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.

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Danmachi 3 – 9/10 [Stigma/Invisible]

by Amunchet, posted in Currently Watching:, DanMachi 3

2020 hasn’t been great for many reasons, but at least it’s a good year to be a Danmachi fan.  These two episodes were outstanding.  While episode 8 may be the best of the series, 9 and 10 were on point.  Go watch them if you haven’t.  There’s not much for me to add, except to sit basking in the glow of a good DanMachi season.

I had a bunch of things to say, but that seemed boring – so here’s the Bell’s harem report from these two episodes.

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Akudama Drive – 09 [The Shining]

by SuperWooper, posted in Akudama Drive, Currently Watching:

For all the sex and murder featured in this episode, it left me a little cold. Last week’s focus on Swindler didn’t just make her more sympathetic, it painted a way forward for both her character and the story: the rescue of Brother from Kansai’s clutches. “The Shining” didn’t seem to care much about that, opting to split its focus between a sudden civilian uprising and an homage to its namesake film. With just four (and now three) episodes left in its run, narrative momentum is of the utmost importance, but Taguchi and his team went in a different direction with this one. To be fair, that decision resulted in a lot of stylish images – assuming your X-ray vision penetrated the black fog censoring all the bloodiest bits.

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Jujutsu Kaisen – 10 [Idle Transfiguration]

by Lenlo, posted in Jujutsu Kaisen

It was inevitable folks. Jujutsu Kaisen has been consistently pretty good up until now, so it was bound to misstep eventually. And while its not terrible, there was still some good here, this episode was that episode. Curious? Well lets jump right into it then.

Starting off, the camera work in Kento and Mahito’s fight was… it was something. It seems as if director Seong-Hu Park is finally making himself known just like he did with last seasons God of High School. The camera has gained a mind of its own and begun to float and fly around the scene in ways that are… not necessarily the best. Don’t get me wrong, the animation in these scenes were fine to good. I’m not criticizing the animators work. More that the camera undercut a lot of it and made it either difficult or undesirable to follow. The constant heavy movement made it so much of the fight didn’t really stick, or lost weight in the movements. This wasn’t every shot of course, and Mahito still came out better for it and I will talk about him later. But overall it felt like to much.

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Twelve Kingdoms – 28/29/30 – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Throwback Thursday, Twelve Kingdoms

Whoooo 30 episodes of Twelve Kingdoms! I have to say, when I first started this series I was expecting it to be a bit of a slog. 45 episodes is a respectable length after all. However to my pleasant surprise, it’s been a pretty engaging time. This week is no different there, as we Suzu and Shoukei continue their travels and Nakajima unravels a conspiracy in her kingdom. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off, so much shit happened this week, it’s insane. I am continually impressed with just how much content, how much progression, Twelve Kingdoms manages to fit into its episodes. I finished 29 and was surprised to learn there was still another to go, it covered so much ground. So because of that, lets start with the easy to follow tale of Suzu, Asano and the young Seishuu. I wasn’t expecting a third member to get added to this trip, but by the end of his stay he had added a lot. Suddenly what was one person’s journey of self-discovery became some kind of parable. The three reminding me of the three monkeys with one deaf, one blind and one mute. Suzu refuses to hear any criticism, Asano is unable to speak the language and Seishuu is legitimately blind. It’s small, but made me really happy to notice.

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Fall 2020 Summary – Week 9

by SuperWooper, posted in Weekly Summary

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.

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