Tsuki ga Kirei – 09 [The Wind Rises]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Tsuki ga Kirei

A little bit of note that Tsuki ga Kirei was delayed a fair bit this week. Apparently, the Japan broadcast was still on schedule but Crunchyroll experienced a bit of extra time subbing it, which my guess is that the production cut a bit too close this time prior to airing, which also mean we might have a rushed, unpolished production just like last week. My worrying thought didn’t come out true, thankfully, because Tsuki ga Kirei again excels this week, producing one of their most solid episode. There are plenty of moments to love this week, ranged from their well-earned LINE messages (gosh, made me realized that we hardly see any real conversations through messaging device in other anime, even in films), their uncertainty about which school to choose, to Akane’s last competitive track to Takumi and Chinatsu’s mutual moments. Tsuki ga Kirei is simply at its top form this week.

The time for graduation is getting near and our kids have to pick their future high schools. Both Kotarou and Akane have little idea where they end up with, Kotarou largely due to whether or not he’d pursue his writing. The publisher few episodes back suggested him to try writing light novels, but he’s unfamiliar and even uncomfortable with light novel format, thus he asks his senpai about the medium and tries to read some. His parents both care about his future choice, but each of them have different idea on how to push him on the “right” track. His mother increasingly concerns about him getting in good school with good grade (typically Asian mom). His father, in his very timid fatherly way, suggests him to do whatever he likes to do (I love the way he even doesn’t look straight to his eyes when he discusses with Kotarou – Again, a very Asian style of communicating between Dad and son – you know, we don’t really fond of expressing our thoughts to each other). I could sense his wise advice coming from a guy who regret not following what he loved when he was his son’s age, and now he doesn’t want his son to follow his footstep.

Akane’s issue is more apparent, though. Her father might relocate again with his new position, it’s the biggest, most obvious obstacle they could’ve have in their age: won’t be able to meet each other due to long distance. Akane doesn’t like moving away from Kotarou and the environment she has grown accustomed with. But first, she has other things she needs to focus on: her last track competition. After last week when the two of them spend almost all the time together, this week they spend most of their time doing their own things (which is good) and keep in touch through LINE. Those LINE exchanges are adorable and I really appreciate the show for not only showing their reactions when receiving and texting, but the detail of their conversations as well. She has a big day coming up, but she doesn’t wish Kotarou to come because she would get embarrassed and distracted from it, as a result Kotarou still comes… in secret. It’s a charming action since the reason he comes isn’t about getting her attention, but because he just wanted to see her running. While she succeeds in her last race, beating her personal record and coming first in a race, we can’t help but feel sadness. The way she looks at the track one last time (she might not do running again in her high school), and her last bento with sincere clubmates who were together for 3 years- are powerful and intimate. Once again Tsuki ga Kirei shows us that the show isn’t strictly about romance, but about the coming of age tales from those kids.

Takumi and Chinatsu have some time to shine in this episode too. Takumi (now I just realized that he was the same age with Akane and Chinatsu, despite his more mature look) realizes that Akane might move to other city, so he works up the courage to ask the track girls to the coming festival. Chinatsu, once again despite her carefree appearance, is way more observant than the rest of the cast, noticing that Kotarou sneaked up to the competition to watch Akane, and Takumi’s deeper thoughts. They, in a very “Scum Wish” way, share the same sadness feeling of seeing the one they like be happy with other people; in other words, they share empathy. Takumi might try to express his feeling to Akane, since he “hasn’t even taken a shot yet”. Chinatsu also remark that they can’t change how they feel – but girl, remember that the feeling can indeed change as time goes by. As she grows older that melancholy feeling might become something that she’d be fond of when looking back.

ID-0 – 09 [Seeking the Truth]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Id-0

ID-0 pulled off another excellent episode. With this episode, we’re clear to one of the most central question of ID-0: who exactly is Ido, but the reveal opens up many more fascinating questions, which is totally welcomed. The show still maintains its firm grasp on its main cast’s development, as this episode has a fair share of great moments from many characters, especially Karla and Rick. Even more impressively, those characters’ development tied up very well with the reveal of Ido’s true identity, together they form an overarching theme on existence and comradeship. This show is on its way to become my favorite thing this season now.

Let’s start with Karla, as she receives quite a key development this episode. Last week it is disclosed that the Federation has a hold of her real body, and the first flashback reveals the reason she lost her body and became an Evertrancer. I totally understand the struggle (and a bit of feeling of shame) she has between choosing to take her body back and betraying the trust from her own friends. She has her hesitation, but when the decision is clear, there is no holding her back. She makes the pathway to MT Industries facility clear, almost too clear, for Ido to fall right into the trap. It’s a solid dilemma for Karla. I have no doubt she will come back with the group after this betrayal, but I guess the price she has to pay is given up her own body.

Which come to my next point. The pep talks between Rick and Amanza further inform us about the true nature of Rick’s form, and it’s a knock out. His current “form” turn out to be a copied version of his original consciousness, meaning he has no real body, he has no real soul (something akin to “the second copy of the second will”). Then what makes him now? He’s Rick, yet he is no longer Rick. The answer is relatively simple, he become his own person. Suddenly, the carefree womanizer Rick has given a much deeper characterization. ID-0’s main theme starts to emerge: existence. Are chasing after their long lost memories like Ido, or getting their physical body like Karla, still relevant anymore? Will it change anything? Their current I-Machine versions are who they are now, with the consciousness that run totally independent from their former host.

One of the big bomb has dropped, and to the surprise of no one, Ido is revealed to be Dr. Kane Arisugawa. Now, another concept is brought up: while the Evertrancers are the representative of the consciousness without the physical body, what the real Kane Arisugawa currently doing is creating clones from his body. This reveal of course leads to many more points, what exactly happened with Ido? Who is Alice (I’m still guessing she’s his daughter) and how they going to explore the concept of “too many physical bodies (clones) vs. no physical body” showdown. The next episode is going to be bombastic, I assure you.

Sakura Quest – 10 [The Dragon’s Sore Spot]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Sakura Quest

New week, new arc. Let’s see all the ingredients we have for this arc: Ririko (finally!), matchmaking tour (really? haha), Manoyama’s dance and the dragon’s furious. Quite a crazy combination if you ask me but I’m totally fine with the food they cooked up from these ingredients. Unlike Shiori, I mean, totally opposite issues from Shiori, Ririko spends most of her childhood thinking she stand out in a bad way. She’s just different, which admittedly excites no one but me. We never actually heard her parents mentioned and judging that she’s living with her grandma now my guess is that they left town when she was young. Now all that doesn’t mean she’s a great character, at least not yet. Her archetype has been done to death before and her detachment voice isn’t what I called the best representation of a quiet, shy girl. In this episode, she has a bit of a crisis when watching the other girls doing the traditional Manoyama dance, something she could’ve involved. It’s perfectly fine that she doesn’t wish to dance, but watching her best friends doing that make her feel even more isolated, like something is wrong with her because she doesn’t enjoy dancing like the rest (it isn’t). As it happens, when the other girls aren’t around, Ririko feels cut off, lurking into background, doesn’t engage in any conversation; might as well questioning her whole involvement with the project.

Now, the crazy project Sakura Quest come up with is a matchmaking tour. Despite there are only 3 girls travelling to Manoyama for in a quest of love (and they’re all close friends to boost), the lonely single guys in the town all getting heat up for this opportunity. Many cheesy lines and flirting are ensured but Sakura Quest gets away with it because they know full well how ridiculously those flirting are. Our girls, in preparation for showing tourist girls the town, come up with far too many over the top plans; but I have to say the initial plan is well thought-out. A sake brewery and fireflies, a night at old-style house and BBQ and watching Manoyama dance – I would totally go with that initiery. New characters, most notably the three matchmaking girls and the policeman are provided just about enough chemistry. Manoyama’s local dance, likewise, adds a lot of charms to the settings and the sequence where the girls dance around is easily the highlight of this episode

But I’m a bit worried for next week’s episode based from the last few minutes of this episode, when the plot suddenly goes for goofy faux-horror about the awaken of DRAGON. Actually it kinds of makes sense when they merging this legendary town story with Ririko’s own fascination for occult, but including this subplot also means that they can overwhelm Ririko’s own development, which I do not recommend.  My experience with Sakura Quest’s mini arcs have always been “1 good episode plus 1 bad episode” package so I really hope the next episode gonna break that pattern.

Little Witch Academia – 21/22[Wagandea/Chariot and Croix]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Little Witch Academia

Might I add that the animation of these two episodes was quite spectacular. The second episode in particular had a level of fluid motion when Akko fought against Croix that it makes me wish technology could move to a point that such movement could be achieved in anime without putting animators on deathwatch. One thing I found in these episodes is that Lotte and Sucy look to be close to fading into the background much like the enchanted Parade crew as they don’t play much of role in Akko’s quest to gather the words. Indeed Akko, Ursula and Croix seem to be in the main spotlight with perhaps Diana playing a small part. Really I believe that Little Witch Academia isn’t making full use of the cast of characters it has built up and there are episodes which could have greatly benefited from other characters taking a more active role.

It is not often that I am blindsided by a twist in a story. That may sound like bragging but in all my years of watching media I have come to get a general idea of how things play out. Of course I cannot predict with 100% accuracy what can come to pass in a show but I have gotten to a point of not being very surprised by it. Even if I don’t pick up on foreshadowing, with my regular trips to check out opinions on reddit often point out things that I miss. So having the real reason behind Chariots magic shows be something of a much sinister nature really was something I never considered. In truth I was hoping that Chariots reveal to Akko would be more…for lack of a better word…epic but this reveal does make the whole story make a lot more sense. Suddenly Urusala’s reluctance to reveal herself, her care for Akko and her drive to awaken the words are given a deeper context within the narrative. One thing that really is effected by this is Chariots show in the very first episode where the intervention of the Croix like creature may have been Croix herself attempting to prevent Chariot from stealing the magic of the audience. I honestly never saw this coming and the only thing I managed to guess was that Chariot really was responsible for the mark on the moon.

We at least know the full details of Croix’s plan now, that being to rile people up into a frenzy in order to gather their emotions to open her own grand triskelion. Essentially in part repeating the mistake that Chariot made in drawing magic out of people. Though in this case to a more negative degree. It’s clear that Croix doesn’t quite know what she’s messing with and i say any magic that glows blood red and is taken from negative emotions is not going to be some world saving solution. She’s clearly fueled by envy over not being chosen as well as her own pride so I am certain her little experiment is going to backfire on her, hard. But there are small signs that despite how antagonist she is being to Chariot that she still does care about her. When she managed to knock Ursula off her broom she actually panicked and tried to save her from falling. Her anger seems directed at Claimh Solas and Woodward rather that Chariot. So I think she might not even up this series final boss after all. Andrew also gets a moment or two here with him encouraging Akko for once and perhaps he might be the one to knock her out of her current funk. Or Diana might be a better option in that regard.

Seikaisuru Kado – 07/08[Sansa/Tainel]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Seikaisuru Kado

This week on Kado, ZaShunina looks to be throwing in another gift before mankind has time to process his last one. This time a device which when observed, allows one to comprehend the anisotropic. This would also tie into Wam as the thing which prevented the explosion of energy devices is people’s inability to understand the anisotropic. I don’t quite like ZaShunina’s approach this time as he really does seem to be going over the heads of the government and using the media to push what is a pretty devastating change on the world. With Wam he at least acknowledged the government and presented his case to them. Here he didn’t even bother to have a talk with the prime minister about it. Though I am concerned over this series only show a small picture of the effect of ZaShunina’s changes as here we get some actually discussion on tv about the consequences of Wam only to have a character shut the TV off and discuss other matters.

Then there’s the conversation with Saraka where she takes a day to show Shindo her way of life in a bid to justify her reasoning for wanting ZaShunina to return to where he came. Basic summary boils down to undermining the achievements humans have made so far by advancing with the help of ZaShunina. Saraka wants humans to move at there own pace and advance without ZaShunina’s help. And I am sorry Saraka, but this reasoning is asinine. Civilization has always advanced through trade and what is ZaShunina but a trader? His gifts are akin to introducing new technologies of native tribes. Pushing him away out of fear of change is really just prideful nonsense as she is making the assumption that humanity can advance on its own. Case in point, the Sakoku period of Japan was a period where for 200 years Japan isolated themselves from the rest of the world. Guess what happened? The world advanced without them and they became hopelessly outclassed by the advancements of other countries. Saraka uses the modern landscape as an example of humanity’s progress but girl that progress is the result of Japan playing catch up with the rest of the world. I agree with the president that ZaShunina is pushing advancement far too fast but it’s just foolhardy to push him away out of some misplaced sentimentality over humanity’s achievements. Girl, humanity came close to killing ourselves off on more than one occasion. The achievements you speak off where built on the blood and struggles of decades of screwing around with no idea and even then our current society is far from a perfect system. ZaShunina offers to bypass thousands of years of meandering and reach the next level of humanity. You want to push that aside so you can keep playing in the mud till you make something meaningful? Good luck.

But this is worrisome as the tone of ZaShunina looks to be gearing towards a villainous angle. I hope that this is merely an uncanny valley effect of ZaShunina becoming more human and therefore his reactions become more suspicious. One of the biggest mistakes this anime could make would be to turn the alien evil and prove Saraka’s philosophy right. The message of the series would take on a rather misguided message and this becomes yet another alien invasion story with a us vs them conclusion. My hope is that it dodges that particular landmine and ZaShunina is someone who may have an agenda but not a evil one. Even having his changes be a matter of good intentions gone horribly awry would do well to characterise ZaShunina’s general nativity over the nature of mankind.

Shingeki no Kyojin(Attack on Titan) – 34 – 35[Opening/Children]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Shingeki no Kyojin(Attack on Titan)

Forgive me for the extremely late posts but I was on holiday in Portugal so didn’t really have the energy or tools to write up posts. If it’s any consolation the holiday was pretty terrible. I am out a grand and all I got in return was a mild tan, a half deaf ear, a cold and severe amounts of boredom. Gah, the pains of showing your family you give a damn. Anyway I watched these episodes back to back with hope that with a double dose of Attack on titan this would medicate my previous issue with the current plot being overly drawn out. Sadly this isn’t the case as I really am struggling to see the reason why these episodes are so ridiculously drawn out. In my adult years I have grown sensitive to when a show is wasting my time and in this case I feel these two episodes could be crunched into one and the pacing would be all the better for it. Part of the reason for this slow pace could be an artifact from it’s source, where events are repeated by the characters to refresh the audience on just what is going on. Now in a monthly series such as Attack on titan this is perfectly logical.

After all it’s hard to expect a reader to remember the events that could have happened a couple of months past. For an example the first episode here starts with Ymir reiterating that they were taken to a forest to wait for nightfall. Thing is that Hange pointed out this very thing in the last episode and having Ymir explain it here only illustrates to the audience why Eren can’t go titan and escape. Even then there is no point in going to such laborious detail. But a real big offender is the scouts checking out Connies village and once again repeating that titans ravaged it, but there’s no bodies and they didn’t take the horses…yes, yes, we went over this already. There’s no point in giving the audience a reminder on something that happened only a few episodes ago. This is sort of the reason as to why you can’t simply adapt word from word from a source and expect it to work as well. One has to take into account that anime has new benefits and lacks the limitations of manga while bringing it’s own limitations.

Animation has truly degraded these past episodes and I am not surprised. They had a pretty good run of demanding animation sequences so it’s no wonder if the team is burned out. But the second episode here has a few seconds of footage with animation so utterly terrible I had to repeat it just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. This is one point when in Reiner and Bertholdt were escaping on 3D dimensional gear and I swear to god the animation was just a still image moving diagonally. A literal animation tween of the most basic form and I am honestly surprised to see no mention of it in discussion threads. Other than that the number of still frames has gone up so either the team is saving themselves for something or are on their last legs. So in other events Riener is claimed to have disassociated cognition where in he has played the solder so long that he has trouble discerning which of his personas is real. I am sorry but, I really don’t buy this. Throughout the series Reiner has been a relatively solid character and showed no real sign of mental instability. They throw in a flashback to try and recon this in but it really does feel like a on the moment decision to justify his offhand confession to Eren. Also his condition is not explained by his comrade but instead perfectly deduced by Ymir at that very moment. It just bothers me that these characters are ridiculously perceptive when it comes to interpersonal relations but still frustratingly oblivious to obvious concepts like Titan’s being transformed humans.

I must reiterate that nothing in these episodes I would consider bad. In fact I found Ymir’s flashback to be the best part of these episodes though that may be anime original content or part of a later development moved to this point. But I do think that if I didn’t have to blog it that I wouldn’t be still watching it. It’s not a matter of disliking it but I just have a complete lack of interest. This could be attributed to the fact that I have read on in the manga and therefore know the revelations that this show is still trying to keep out of reach. But there are animes airing during a season in which I just can’t bring up the motivation to start watching it. Boku no Hero season 2 would be a prime example of this. I had the full intent of watching it and yet it’s over halfway through the season and I can’t be bothered to start episode one. I confess that I haven’t even finished the second season of Gate despite not finding it a bad show. I just…stop. No real feelings behind it besides apathy and my hesitation to continue watching which is greater as the episodes build up each week. In truth I never had much interest in covering this to begin with and still stand by my opinion in the preview that this is where Attack on Titan started to lose me. History repeats itself I suppose.

Uchoten Kazoku 2 – 09 [The Various Nidaime]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Uchoten Kazoku

This episode sets up nicely the main conflict for what seem to be the final arc of Eccentric Family: the coming Nise-emon to choose the prime minister of this Kyoto tanuki clans, but bigger and more serious affair is the rival between Benten and Nidaime, now that Yasaburou single-handled creates the situation where the two of them have to face off each other. Their rival has been built up since the beginning of this season, and with both Nidaime and Benten are amongst the most kick-ass characters in this universe, there’s a lot to look forward to. I’ve mentioned many times about their chemistry in previous write-ups – Benten has some sort of identity crisis, follow both human and tengu’s rituals (Friday Fellows and the successor of great Tengu line); Nidaime, whom his whole life has been avoided following his father’s Tengu path – and this episode is all about Yasaburou set them up to their confrontation. As such, this episode loses the richness of previous episodes, but I won’t complain if it builds up to a satisfying conclusion to our cast.

Now, Yajirou is officially leaving Kyoto, and the brothers come to see him off. I completely understand the reason Tousen didn’t come to see him. Saying goodbye is hard, but seeing someone off is ten times harder as god knows how long you will see them again. The remaining of the episode though, focuses mainly on the next Nise-emon election, but for once I see no contest in that election at all. Mainly because we spent nearly 2 seasons following Yaichirou, and for now his competitor, Kureichirou’s only defining traits are his calm demeanour and his positive attitude towards the Shimogamo. Even in previous season when Yaichirou had to go against Soun, he had a real shot of becoming a Nise-emon, so I don’t think Kureichirou poses any real threat there (he doesn’t seem to care for the position at all). But one problem arises, Akadama-sensei refuses to be the observer, instead asking Benten for the position. That doesn’t bode well for the tanuki, of course, since Benten ate their greatest Nise-emon of all time in a delicious hot pot stew before.

That’s where our Yasaburou comes in, after failing to change Akadama-sensei’s mind, on a whim he decides to ask Nidaime as an observer instead, knowing full well the outcome. Knowing Nidaime hates to own tanuki any favour, Yasaburou frames his request as a form of payback all the favours, thus he’s able to convince Nidaime. Benten certainly doesn’t like that idea, so she’s basically bullying the poor tanukis on their meeting. Remember Nidaime:2 – Benten:0 for now, how will it goes from there? Ah we also have Benten‘s brother lurking somewhere in the forest, so how he, the Thursday Club, the Friday Club come together again in this epic final arc? Looks like it’s going to be exactly like what Yasaburou sings out of his boredom:

“I’m always causing trouble,

A whole lotta trouble,

I’m always gonna disturb the peace,

Always gonna disturb the peace.”

Re:Creators – 09 [The Blooming Maiden Digs a Hole]

by HelghastKillzone, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Creators

I starting to sense a pattern of Re:Creators where most of the runtime is dedicated to conversations which is then broken up by a segment of action towards the final few minutes. This week is no exception with Magane taking the spotlight away from Mamaika as she exits away from the stage.

It wouldn’t be a fitting end for Mamika if she simply got vaporized by her own magical splash flare so we get a final farewell scene. It’s a shame to see her die as she had the most compelling and greatest development for any creation in the entire series and I’m betting that Alice is next in line to receive some attention in that department. The thing that bothered me was Mamika’s final words to Alice as she had more than enough time and energy to convey her ultimate wish instead of repeating Alice’s name over and over again. However, she might come back into the story given that her body disappeared into the blue ether and they haven’t explored the mechanics behind bringing creations back from the dead. Someone else that probably didn’t share Mamika’s fate is Altair as the conversation heavily implied that she was able to survive the tactical nuke that was the magical splash flare although her condition is unknown at this point.

I love Magane as a character since she shares a uncanny semblance to Nui Harime (Kill la Kill) in trolling and completely subverting every faction for her own amusement. The way she twists and shades Mamika’s words into weaponizing Alice against our main heroes proves that words are just as deadly as superpower magical spells. Sadly, her second main scene in the episode Re:Creators’ weakness is that it revels in its own fiction a little too hard and rears its ugly head in Magane’s speech to Sota as it drags on for far too long in deconstructing his dirty little secret. The attempt to paint Meteroa as a traitor in league with Altair falls flat as it’s too far fetched and lacks any meaningful payoff when that ruse is immediately broken by Yuuya’s entrance. At least, Sota finally stops being a little bitch and comes clean at the cost of Magane getting a defence buff and dragging creations into another fight. A fight that has Alice’s unyielding rage directed at Meteora and Yuuya.

May Summary

by psgels, posted in Monthly Summaries

The month of may was… tough. I was incredibly busy and had very little time to keep up with 12 different series, and in the end I just couldn’t. But ah well, this happens. Back in the days this blog was my top priority after my studies: I’d finish my classes and homework and aside from that, all I did was watch anime and write. At this point my life is totally different, and I cannot do that anymore, so months like these happen. Next month’s going to be even worse because of a 2,5 week holiday to Denmark.

But yeah, the thing with this season was that there are a lot of series with potential. With months like these, it’s not just a matter of dropping the bad and uninteresting ones, but they force you to honestly look: which series are the really special ones? Which ones do more than just tell a story? Which are the series that go the extra miles. Below is the list of the shows that survived.

First some notes on the shows that I ended up dropping: Uchoten Kazoku was definitely well written but it just couldn’t grab me. Sakura Quest almost immediately lost my interest after last writing about it, Alice to Zouroku has a nice message for family values, but in the end it remains a story about a magical girl that has been done in essence many times before, Re-Creators lacks something that puts it above the others to me, and Sagrada Reset suffers from the “first episode is the best”-syndrome. I loved episode one, because it had this really melancholic undertone, but that completely disappeared after the first arc and now it’s just this “Hyouka with gore”. Dropping Warau Salesman hurt like the entire series, but in the end: it does remain a one-trick pony.

#4: Natsume Yuujinchou Roku (04-08)

Okay, I told myself I’d be strict on this series: if it’s going to go on for 6 season I’d better be consistently amazing to be worth it. This month was not. It was pretty much average Natsume: good stories with good morals that fleshed out the characters some more. At this point, I think it’s a good moment to officially label the length as one of the flaws of Natsume Yuujinchou, because it sure as hell isn’t going to stop after this season.

Here’s the thing: being concise is a key part of storytelling. You cannot just let your story go on for ever and ever. A good story has a beginning, middle and end. The beginning is there to sweep you away. The middle is there to develop, keep you on your feet, be a roller coaster ride of some sort. And then the ending is there to take everything to a next level. Natsume Yuujinchou is just a middle part that keeps going on and on and on. There’s no closure. That’s a very big problem with adaptations: they’re often way too faithful because of their length, so that there is no way to create a good ending. The reason why I’m still going back to anime is the ones that were made with an ending in mind. You cannot start your series and make stuff up as you go along, that is not good storytelling, and yet a lot of light novels and mangas are set up like that: they are written by small teams, who hope to go on for as long as possible. Anime have much tighter budgets, so especially the small ones know exactly how much time they have on their hands. A competent writer can use that to exactly plan the course of the series.

This is going to be fun for Jigoku Shoujo next season. Oh, I am going to sound SO hypocritical!

#3: Shingeki no Bahamut – Virgin Soul (05-08)

I did not continue with Zero Kara Hajimaru no Shou. Despite its great themes on racism, it got me thinking: it’s not like it’s breaching new ground or something. It’s just portraying racism pretty well this time, but should we really praise a series for doing something so trivial? Should we praise a seires for being not bad? No, what I’m interested in is the shows that go the extra mile and Zero just didn’t cut it.

Shingeki no Bahamut is more: this uses animation to tell its story, and it’s just as important as the written dialogue. It’s the type of series that can only work as an anime because in manga-form you’d miss out on so many details, movements, gestures, and not to mention the wonderful soundtrack here. But what this show is best at is portraying emotions: it beams across the screen. And that’s why I watch anime: I want to see what animation can elicit from viewers. Not a narrated picture-book, no something only movement can do. The direction, script, and production-values are all geared towards that. I mean logic is good and all, but sometimes you just need a character motivation of “I just felt like it”.

No, screw average or merely good. All series should strive to achieve something special. I don’t care what it is, as long as it stands out and it’s amazing (being especially bad is obviously not the right path). And when I look at my favourites over the years, they are all series that understood that, and did something in their own way. Something that cannot exactly be put to words, and at the very least can never be written down as a guide or something. It’s this feeling you get. And that makes it different for everybody of course, but I can see this show being filled with good intentions, and it’s drawing me in unlike most other shows this season that feel much less ambitious. And this is not just about the budget. Sure, it helps, but there is one particular show this season that demonstrates that you do not need a big budget for that. But first:

#2: Shingeki no Kyojin (31-34)

Okay so this turned out to be completely different from what I expected, but that’s good! This has turned out to be a really excellent sequel. It was so easy for the creators to pull a sell-out here: lots of titan-bashing, lots of Mikasa, much of the same really. And they didn’t: they used the first season as a diving board to go into a new direction. There is so much more mystery and horror here.

Also, the characters: like what did the three main characters do this season anyway? Aside from some flashbacks, all of them basically rode some horses, fought once, failed miserably and apart from that they did nothing and instead the spotlights were on all of the side-characters. This takes balls for such a mainstream series that has so much money depending on it! I love it! Especially since all these characters are much more interesting than our main trio (because let’s face it: they bear a lot of resemblances to Ash, Misty and Brock from Pokemon). This is the type of storyline that really tries to sweep its viewers off their feet the right way: not by having the flashiest budget, but because it messes with your expectations, your mind, while still being very well written.

This show has this annoying trick where right as a character is about to get to a plot twist, they get distracted, something happens, or they outright refuse to tell something that’s obvious to them. It’s like there’s this whole storyline going on that we have no idea about but they keep teasing us with it. That’s good mystery! Great mystery should be messy. It’s driving me crazy to get to know what’s really going on here. Yes, this is better than Yuri on Ice. In terms of really mainstream series it’s been a long time since a show had so many balls here.

#1: Seikaisuru Kado (05-07)

Okay, so why did Seikaisuru Kado win this season? I don’t think I’ve ever placed a series on top with this much intrusive CG: like half the character animations are in 3D, something I previously thought to be impossible to properly bring to life. Well let’s just say that the creators pulled a few tricks, plus what they did bring to the table is more than enough to make this just not matter.

A big theme in anime is evolving humanity: lots of villains’ plans are attempting not to destroy humanity, but to advance it. They can be done both well or terribly, but the fact remains that this is something typical of Japanese animation. You see this much less in the mediums of other countries. Seikaisuru Kado is entirely about this, but it plays with it brilliantly. Instead of having the villain attempt this, we’re at this moment still not sure whether Yahakui Zashunina is a villain or not: what his intentions are, and why he’s doing everything. Instead he has offered a number of advantages to humanity that are much more specific than what you’d otherwise see: this series really is trying to evolve humanity, but it’s also looking at the geopolitical implications of this, also something unheard of!

Out of all series this season, this really feels like it’s taking risks. It’s doing something that goes against the trends, proving that you can tell great stories on a small budget, it’s taking risks and it’s also attempting to evolve the medium itself by asking questions about common tropes. It’s in this way quite like a deconstruction, and a really good one. Because hell, before the season started I expected Shingeki no Kyojin to deliver the best plot twists, but hell no: this show blows everything out of the water. Every single episodes drops some kind of truth bomb that you don’t see coming and give an entirely new swing to the whole storyline.

Take episode 07 for example: when they went to the festival, and put that female character in a kimono, I found myself thinking “oh god, another one for the fanservice”. And then at the end of the episode she delivered a plot twists that pushed the story in a completely different direction from where it was going.

Yeah this is a really big contender for the Anime of 2017.

Tsuki ga Kirei – 08 [Vita Sexualis]

by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Tsuki ga Kirei

Boy, the production has a nosedive in quality this week. It doesn’t hurt the show much though: the confident pacing and rock-solid chemistry between Akane and Kotarou are still there, but this episode shows how the time-rush and low-budget have finally caught up with the quality of Tsuki ga Kirei: many off-model characters, jerky animation where the characters move like in Flash, most notably (and painfully) in the sequence that featured Kotarou, his sensei and the old man in the hayashi music practice. I might be in the minority here but I would have much preferred even if the show takes more weeks off for polishing the final product. I don’t mind waiting, but I do mind the rushed, poor quality that could have benefited much better if they have more time and resources.

In term of this week’s content though, we have another winner episode in our hands. The young birds, after last week’s declaration of love, now have to deal with the pressure that the whole school know and talk about their relationship. The couple keeps it low-key of course, never talk to each other in class, but sharing bento together in the library and walk home together. When being confronted by her group of friends the things she likes about Kotarou, she can’t describe it clearly, she just does. Later down in the end of the episode, she can be able to express it much better. On Kotarou’s side, Roman and Daichi rightfully suggest him to wait for Akane in the form of “club activity”, something that our Kotarou never thought of. Friends’ supports are important as this stage of their relationship and I’m glad that their friends are fairly positive about them dating: to be able to share their feeling about the relationship, listen to others’ experience, and receive some neat advices from your friends.

But this episode is all about the two of them sharing some quality times together: both as a part of the other’s life, and as a date when there are just the two of them. It’s the way they express their love for each other in their own ways making this love so relatable. It’s cute to see Akane comes with Kotarou for his hayashi practice (thank God he didn’t mess up), oh and how Kotarou blushed just by saying her name out loud in the library, and her wearing some perfume before meeting him. When she realizes that she had missed his birthday, she determines to find him a birthday present. The present turns out to be another identical plushie that she has, but the way Akane manages to find her courage to give him a present making all the efforts worthwhile. And he band-aided her injured foot (you should’ve realized it sooner, Kotarou) is one of my favorite moment in this lovely episode.

The two of them have a wind-chimes festival together, where Akane wearing an adorable dress, shopping together, eating together, sharing a (real) kiss, and writing their romance wishes in a wind chimes. Hmm, it might look cute (and it is) that the two of them writing the exact same thing in wind chimes (a great touch of visual telling there), but when you two going together and write their wishes down together, what they want to say is rather obvious. But there’s no denying that their relationship is in a more intimate stage than ever before.

The shorts this week are in overall solid this week. I don’t pretty much like sensei and Roman’s segments, but the rest is hilarious and charming. My favorite two are Sakura segment (man, she’s becoming one of my favorite now) – detailing quite on point the insecure-ness of the a teenage girl: wanted attractions from the boys, yet still sensible enough to know that her fantasy is way off-mark. So cute – and Kotarou’s parents one – how the two of them seem to serious about NOT to read his writings, but of course they DO read them (parents, right?) and have very opposing opinions about his writings (and the way men and women differ in their way of thinking too), haha. We’re talking about the male’s gaze, and that segment speaks some truths on that too. I mean, even in real life, most male directors and writers don’t really understand the way woman thinking either. David Lynch, Akira Kurosawa, two of the greatest directors of all time, treat their women’s characters quite insensitively. Dazai – Kotarou’s idol, on the other hand, was quite adept of writing female’s psyche (his work Schoolgirl is a great example), so there’s hope that our Kotarou can learn from his inspiration.