Kimetsu no Yaiba – 17 [You Must Master a Single Thing]

by Lenlo, posted in Kimetsu no Yaiba

Welcome to Zenitsu week on Kimetsu no Yaiba! This week we get a flashback, Zenitsu goes super saiyan and we meet 3 more of the demon family. Lets jump in!

Now, I could talk about a lot of things here in production. I could mention the hit or miss CGI spiders, and how the quality varies by scene. I could talk about the comedic faces and what not. But no one cares about that. Infact, people only care about one thing in particular this week, and thats Zenitsu. Because the simple fact is that even if he hadn’t gotten a decent backstory this week, I wouldn’t care. I want Yaiba to keep him around, hell show more of him, just so Nozomu Abe can do more of what he did today. With an entire episode building up to a single cut, the man and by extension Yaiba knocked it out the park. I just… I can’t explain how beautiful this scene is. Sound, animation, pacing. Screw Tanjiro’s water effects, make this the Zenitsu show just for more lightning!

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Dr.STONE – 4 [Fire the Smoke Signal]

by Lenlo, posted in Dr.STONE

Welcome all, to the climax of Dr.STONE’s opening prologue. A lot happens this week! We see a young Senku, Tsukasa catches up and perhaps the greatest change, Yuzuriha gets a haircut. Lets dive in!

Right off the bat, for as much as I enjoyed it narratively, visually Dr.STONE was pretty weak. The biggest example of this is Tsukasa’s run through the forest. With the ground and trees looking like they came from a completely different series. Tsukasa himself standing out against the background textures. It doesn’t help Dr.STONE that Kimetsu no Yaiba is airing in the same season either. Ufotable’s CGI landscapes are both better done, and better directed. Going for dynamic camera movements and effects such as fog to cover any iffy textures. Using a first person view to get around actually placing 2D characters into a 3d scene. Yes, its production tricks, but they are clever and result in a far better looking scene than we got here. Luckily, that was Dr.STONE’s worst offense this week. The rest resulting in a fun, if melodramatic, cliffhanger.

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Kanata no Astra – 04 [Star of Hope]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Kanata no Astra

Even with all the worries from manga-readers regarding whether or not Kanata no Astra can wrap things up in 12 episodes, for me from an anime-only perspective the pacing so far is just about right. This week our group arrives at the second planet in their journey, and I enjoy the fact that this planet is vastly different from the first, and increasingly more sinister as well. Each place they visit the ecosystem varies significantly, and that provides a good opportunity for new experience (hello riding strange animals) and how well these kids adapt to the new environment. Of course, Kanata no Astra also knows its medium so it’s never shy on playing up the character tropes, which personally I can live without. I was crying inside when Quitterie’s first reaction when Zack butts into the bathroom was “I understand how you feel. But now is not the time for this” (seriously, who says that in that situation in real life?) and Kanata’s logic of taking off his helmet to find the medicine shiny mushroom still bugs me. But other aspects of this episode are strong enough to compensate for these missteps.

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Serial Experiments Lain 13 – [Ego] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Serial Experiments Lain, Throwback Thursday

Welcome one and all to the finale of Serial Experiments Lain, perhaps the oddest of the series done for Throwback Thursday yet. This week Lain moves on, Arisu grows up and everyone just… goes back to normal. Lot’s going on, none of which I am qualified for, but let’s jump in.

Now before we get into the meat of the series, I want to talk about “enjoyment”. You see, I am not entirely sure that I “enjoyed” Lain. Don’t get me wrong, it was incredibly interesting, and very evocative. Lain made me feel a lot of emotions throughout its run. Think about a lot of topics anime normally doesn’t. Yet, were they positive emotions? Was it… enjoyable? I don’t think it was, though I don’t think that’s necessary either. You don’t need to enjoy something for it to have value. For an extreme example, I never enjoyed textbooks, yet the information was valuable. I don’t enjoy many of my favorite moments in Berserk, because of their tragic nature. Yet they have value and cause me to feel emotions I normally don’t. For someone as unexpressive as myself, that’s an accomplishment. Enough about me though, onto the finale itself.

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Cop Craft – 02/03 [Dragnet Mirage/ Midnight Train]

by SuperMario, posted in Cop Craft, Currently Watching:

For those of you who haven’t quite caught up yet, Cop Craft claimed our own “Season Sleeper” prize for its first episode. While at first glance, Cop Craft is a kind of mix between the buddy cop formula of Double Decker and the “multiple races live in the same city” world building of Blood Blockade Battlefront, for me it’s another case of Grimoire of Zero which air few years ago: both have an incredible leads’ chemistry and a mildly-interesting settings. For Cop Craft, the show is not shy on touching dark themes of corruption and racism so you can’t say that it doesn’t have any ambition. The problem with Cop Craft so far is the production values. Mind you, it didn’t even look polished in the premiere, but it still saddens me to see how the production falling apart just 3 episodes in.

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Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note – 02-03

by HelghastKillzone, posted in Currently Watching:, Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note

This is the kind of show that got me into Nasuverse in first place where it methodically goes through its mystery before punctuated by an epic showdown. The entire show gives off such a Kara no Kyoukai vibe with Lord El-Melloi II doing the detective work while his apprentices do all the stabbing and disposal of rogue magus. The mechanics of the magic system in Fate franchise are often so convoluted that info dumps are necessary to understand exactly how all the pieces come together. Lord El-Melloi II avoids such mundane narrative devices like explaining while walking around in a circle by organically incorporating the different aspects of magic into its weekly cases. First up is the astrology driven magus that ends up being consumed by a faulty ritual and sets the pace for how mysteries are to be solved. In the world of magic, once the motive has been discovered then everything else should fall into place as opposed to the standard CSI approach of picking through the howdunit. The second case is alot less interesting with the rat man ruining Waver’s favorite place for tea but that because a whole slew of characters were introduced.

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DanMachi S2 – 02 [Apollo]

by Amunchet, posted in Currently Watching:, DanMachi

Welcome to DanMachi Episode 2 a.k.a. “Extreme Apollo Obstacle Course.” One of the things that I enjoy most about DanMachi is that they put it all out there, unashamed. Some shows spend 30+ episodes and have only the subtlest hints of relationship advancement or expression of how the participants feel – DanMachi is interested in no such thing. Confession during a run-and-gun fight? You got it! Getting friendzoned causes you to march right up the enemy and demand a duel. Okay!

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Kanata no Astra – 03 [Meteor]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Kanata no Astra

This week in Kanata no Astra happens almost entirely inside the spaceship, and with that we come to learn more about some characters, the “conspiracy theory” and how once again they need to work together to save their asses. Put frankly, I found the way the discussion turns into a suspect game just based on Funicia’s mistranslation a bit of a stretch, but it does provide a nice mix of tension for the cast. It’s normal for someone like Quitterie to lose her composure for a moment there, after all, it’s never easy to hear that “the culprit is amongst us”. All the guessing game heads towards Yun-hua and Ulgar at the moment, but for me they are simply red-herrings. The thing that makes them suspicious is that we don’t know their motivation/ perspective in the first place so that we (and our cast) can’t entirely trust them. In this case it’s normally the person who appears the most normal is the one behind it, but I don’t want to point any finger at this early stage because it can ruin the mystery fun.

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Carole & Tuesday – 12-14

by SuperMario, posted in Carole & Tuesday, Currently Watching:

We finally get to the end of the Mars Brightest contest and the beginning of the new arc (with shining new OP and ED to boost), but narratively it’s not much of a big gap between these three episodes. While we can see how it wraps up from miles away, episode 12 wraps up the best way it can with the conclusion of the final showdown between Carole & Tuesday versus Angela. Turns out, there isn’t really a “showdown” to begin with, as our titular characters are disqualified for the final. Here, the show brings a fair share of pluses and minuses in its package. On one hand, I approve its focus on Carole & Tuesday relationship rather than the Mars Brightest contest. It’s nice to see them reflect on how important they are for each other and how they wanted to team up in the first place. With that, despite the fact that they didn’t win the contest, they still gain something more valuable: their partnership. On the other hand, the plot is simply too thin that it stretches out too much that you can see a lot of holes and inconsistencies. Take Tuesday’s Mom Valerie for example. We see her “abducting” her daughter because she’s in the middle of the campaign, but later on after Tuesday escapes we hear next to nothing about her in regards to Tuesday. So… she just gives up on Tuesday? Is she too busy to even consider Tuesday a threat for her campaign? Likewise, we have a random old passerby who appears just in time to give Carole & Tuesday a lift to the contest, then seemingly vanish without a trace. That’s what I called a clumsy plot device.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba – 16 [Letting Someone Else Go First]

by Lenlo, posted in Kimetsu no Yaiba

Welcome one and all to one of the more tragic episodes of Kimetsu no Yaiba. This week a Demon falls, Inosuke becomes a dating sim and Tanjiro makes googly eyes at someones mom. Let’s dive in!

Right off the bat, this week makes up for last in terms of production. Not even talking about the animation, which I enjoyed, this week Yaiba had some fantastic scenes. There were some legitimately beautiful shots, mostly near the end, but that doesn’t negate their effect. Narratively they don’t make the most sense, I have some niggling questions behind them. That Yaiba went for style over substance in some instances here. Now, considering that Yaiba is a fun Shounen romp, this isn’t a death sentence by any means. Rule of Cool has existed for decades, and it’s a rule I love. Kabaneri for instance existed on that rule. It is however the sort of thing that holds a series back. Keeping it as “good” instead of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood “Great” and “genre defining”. Still, hard to complain about getting something “good”.

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