Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 5

by Lenlo, posted in Weekly Summary

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.

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Black Lagoon – 9/10 [Maid to Kill/The Unstoppable Chambermaid] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Black Lagoon, Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another week of Black Lagoon! We’re almost done with the first season, only two episodes left. That means shit’s starting to go down, and I am here for all of it. So without further ado, lets dive into the episodes and my new wife favorite maid, Roberta.

Starting off, one big surprise was that I found myself gravitating back towards the English dub this week. If you remember, last week I said it was good but that I preferred the JP dub + English subs. And I thought that was the case when I started this pair of episodes! But about halfway through episode 9 I switched to English “Just to check” and never switched back. Something about Black Lagoon’s English dub keeps pulling me towards it, makes me want to watch the show that way. Maybe it’s because it’s good enough that I can focus on the action, rather than reading subtitles, without feeling like I’m losing out. Or the crews VA work and chemistry is just so good I can’t help it. Who knows, I’ll figure it out as I go. Whatever the case, I think I’m going to watch with the English dub moving forward.

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Guest Post: Unearthed Garbage with Firechick – Prima Doll (50/100)

by Lenlo, posted in Anime Reviews

I normally don’t try to review an anime before it ends, as I prefer to watch it all the way through before sorting out my thoughts on it. But dear lord, Prima Doll as a show annoyed me so much that I honestly just couldn’t hold my feelings on it back any longer. Prima Doll is a new multimedia franchise created by the company Visual Arts/Key, who many will know as the people who created beloved visual novels such as Air, Kanon, Clannad, and Little Busters. They’re still making games to this day, and I remember watching the anime adaptations for Air, Kanon, and Clannad when they came out, and loving them, though if I were to watch them now, it’s likely my feelings on them will change. But lately Key has wanted to expand their horizons, and I can understand wanting to try something new…though multimedia franchises usually don’t fare well in this oversaturated market. Yet even by those standards, Prima Doll just absolutely screams shameless corporate artifice that’s only there to sell products, and literally nothing else.

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Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 4

by Lenlo, posted in Weekly Summary

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.

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Black Lagoon – 7/8 [Calm Down, Two Men/Rasta Blasta] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Black Lagoon, Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another week of Throwback Thursday! This was a great week for Black Lagoon, I enjoyed both episodes quite a bit and I like where the show is going. This is also the English week, where we watch with English Dub just to see how it is. Hint hint, it ain’t bad! So without further ado, lets dive into the episodes.

Starting off, lets talk English dub. It’s good! There’s a bit of awkwardness there with the mouth movements, but that’s just an inherent problem with dubs and not Black Lagoon’s fault at all. As far as our leads, Revy and Rock, are concerned I quite liked them. I enjoyed the confidence Rock spoke with, as well as the anger and aggression in Revy. There were also a number of side characters, like the pimp who offered Revy a “job”, who I think absolutely nailed their roles. Ultimately I prefer the JP voices, there’s a difference in audio quality between the two I believe, and since I don’t speak Japanese there’s less to nitpick. If you prefer dub though, Black Lagoon is definitely very high on the list of “Good English dubs” in my opinion. I would not mind watching the rest of the series in English.

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Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 3

by Lenlo, posted in Weekly Summary

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.

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Black Lagoon – 5/6 [Eagle Hunting and Hunting Eagles/Moonlit Hunting Grounds] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Black Lagoon, Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to week 3 of Black Lagoon! This weeks is the conclusion of the Nazi painting story, filled with blood, anthems, and Revy being a bit upset over it all. Without further ado, lets dive in!

First up is episode 5, “Eagle Hunting and Hunting Eagles”. This picks up where we left off last time, Revy and Rock are in the U-Boat and Nazis are starting to come aboard. For the most part, it’s a lot of fighting over the painting, losing it to the Nazis, chasing after them, regular action stuff. And that’s all great! On top of that, this is the first episode that’s really impressed me with its animation. There’s still some aliasing issues in spots, either from being an early digital production or being upscaled to Blu-ray, but for the most part it’s good. I especially liked the water as Dutch and Benny were dodging some rockets. While the action takes up most of the episode, the real meat however comes in the quiet moments. More specifically, between Rock and Revy.

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Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 2

by Lenlo, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Hello everyone! Apologies for the delay on this, I’ve been playing a lot of Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising. I made it to A4! Woo! Anyways, this is a special week as Aidan is making a return to help cover Sengoku Youko! So if that’s a show your interested in, read to the end and see what he thinks. I’ll admit, I’ve heard a lot of good things about the second episode, so I might pick it back up again if that continues. Anyways, read on!

Dungeon Meshi- 3 [Living Armor]

This was easily the best Dungeon Meshi episode yet, and exactly what I was looking for from the series. The food stuff is still there, it’s relevant and we still get a bunch of unique monster dishes at the end. But the focus is much more on the characters, Laios specifically, their past, and conquering the unique challenges the dungeon presents. Starting the episode with his sword breaking only to wind up in a hall that had challenged him previously in his career, then ending with them not only conquering it but discovering something new about it and gaining a new sword, was great. And the design of the Living Armor? How it’s actually a bunch of mollusks inside mimicking human movement like muscles, and you have to deal with it like a shellfish? That’s an absolutely brilliant idea, inspired even, and so much more “magical” and interesting than just “The armor is enchanted”. This is the first time Dungeon Meshi has impressed me with it’s world building and monster design, it really was great. And of course to top it off, I believe this was the Kai Ikarashi episode we’ve been expecting for a while, the same guy who did Cyberpunk: Edgerunners episode 6. And surprise surprise, it looked stellar. Dungeon Meshi looks decent to good on a normal day, but this episode knocked it out of the park. All around a fantastic week for the show, I’m bought in now.

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Black Lagoon – 3/4 [Ring-Ding Ship Chase/Die Rückkehr des Adlers] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Black Lagoon, Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to the 2nd week of Black Lagoon! This week we start to explore the wider world, expanding the setting and learning what kind of lives our leads live. There’s a fair bit to talk about this week so lets just dive right into it!

First up we have episode 3, “Ring-Ding Ship Chase”. Honestly this was a really chill episode for the most part, just exploring the group dynamic and introducing us to the city of Roanapur. And you know what? I really liked it. I said last week that Black Lagoon would have to search within its characters for story arcs, that it hadn’t set up anything larger with the intro, and that seems to be what it’s doing here. Black Lagoon is taking the time to show them interacting, getting to know each other, how Rock adapts to this new life. Sure, format wise it’s a random problem without much going on. But it serves as a quick and easy way to introduce us, and Rock, to Roanapur and its politics. It even manages to involve Balalaika, reinforcing her role in the story. That was cool!

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Guest Post: Unearthed Treasure with Firechick – Natsume’s Book of Friends Seasons 1-4 (95/100)

by Lenlo, posted in Anime Reviews

(This review will cover seasons 1-4, and as of this writing, I still haven’t seen seasons 5 and 6, along with the movie and some of the OVAs. I really need to change that)

Man, Natsume’s Book of Friends, or its Japanese title, Natsume Yuujinchou, is such an important series to me, you can’t imagine. I remember seeing a promo image of it on the AnimeSuki forums and thinking it looked nice, along with thinking Nyanko-sensei looked cute. But I’m not gonna lie, the second I finished the first episode of this series, way back in 2008, I was hooked, and continued to devour more of it as the series churned out more new seasons…until the fourth season ended in 2012. Four years passed until a new season came out, and another one after that…but I couldn’t bring myself to watch them, because it was during that time that I was in my massive anime burnout phase. It didn’t help that since it had been years since season 4 ended, I wasn’t sure if I could keep up with any new developments the new series had, and I had no motivation to just go back and rewatch the series in Japanese. It also didn’t help that in 2011, NIS America announced that they would release the seasons that were available later down the line, but with no English dub. I couldn’t afford to buy the DVDs NIS put out back then, as they were too expensive for me and I didn’t have a job. As of this writing, I still keep up with the manga and even own the volumes that are out in the US right now, with intent to keep buying them until the series reaches its conclusion, whenever that’ll be, and since I have a job, I can actually buy the manga volumes as they come out! So as much as I absolutely love Natsume’s Book of Friends to death, I couldn’t bring myself to get back to it for some reason.

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