Flying witch – 02

by LightningBolt, posted in Currently Watching:, Flying Witch

You know, I always have problem with the 3-act structure, where usually they imply that the story need to have a meaning and the main characters have to grow. While those incidents that change your life indeed happened, each people have 4 or 5 of them at most, and the remaining time between those incidents we function like those in slice-of-life series, where everything don’t seem to change and we stay the same as well. So for me, slice of life is a genre that I certainly appreciate. The main problem with slice of life series in not because nothing happens, but rather because they tend to repeat things that we already know or the cast is not endearing/ interesting enough for us to care. I’m happy to say that this is not the case for Flying witch. The show already demonstrated strong execution in both fronts. I enjoyed a touch magical realism and characters feel like real people, without all those annoying exaggerating gestures.

The episode splits into 2 parts, and we got introduced to a harbinger, the spirit (I guess) who brings summer to town there. The harbinger has quite an amusing character’s design. Chinatsu’s reaction towards the harbinger steals the show for me. The comic timing is great, and she also acts like someone her age, and not in moe-mode (This season does offer many strong 12-years-old-and-under female characters, with this show along with Kumamiko and 12-san). The flowers just bring a smile to my face all the time. The second half is also wonderful, with her dream is my favorite part. I love how she keep rambling that witch’s dreams are like a prophet, and right after that just plainly say “It’s all myth”. Bakke cooking scene is very endearing as well.

The thing I love from the show so far is there are still too much to explore from their world. Just by 2 episodes they already provide something new each time, yet never distract the atmosphere. The score used in the episode also fits nicely to enhance that atmosphere as well. You know a show is good when 20 minutes run almost effortlessly and I enjoyed every moments of the episode. The show certainly gives you a charming feeling, with beautiful winter-turns-summer background and if you don’t mind slow pacing and almost no conflict situations, you will enjoy Flying witch.

~SuperMario~

Mayoiga – 03

by LightningBolt, posted in Currently Watching:, Mayoiga

Out of the 3 shows that I’m covering this season, I actually worry about Mayoiga the most. Sure, so far Bungou Stray Dogs isn’t good, but at least I enjoyed its visual and know what to expect on it, same goes with Flying Witch and Flying Witch will be the more consistent show of this season here. But 3 episodes in, I’m still not sure how Mayoiga will play out, it can range from the more ambitious show to the more silly show, or perhaps will be a combination of both.

To the surprise of no one, Masaki returns this episode after allegedly “vanished” from last week, and she was protected by our main protagonist Mitsumune (to no surprise as well). I enjoyed the back and forth confrontation between the group. Each of them have a distinctive voice so it’s always fun to see them playing off each other, even most of these are way over the top. But at the same time, I hated their reactions. Many of them overreact over a small, nonsensical comment. The overreaction has sadly become anime-staple now so we just have to deal with it. It’s nice to see a bit of background info on some characters, since we won’t care about them unless we know them. Those moment, unfortunately, is so few and far between, because- uh… the series have to spend time for other stuffs I guess.

And that other stuff in this episode happens to be when everyone decides to group together and making food together. These scenes sadly drag the whole episode down, and out of it we won’t learn anything (even who was in the group), the only thing we learn is the variables of rock, paper, scissors – which are nice on its own but feel out of place with the rest of the series.

About the mystery, now we get a bit of new clues: the vegetables have been well-growth indicates that someone still take care of them, we have a prison cell in this village so I reckon the same occurrence has happened before. We also have a bear-claw shape, and a body at the end. Things now just begin to get crazy, but based on the shaky execution from the first 3 episodes, there is doubt if Mayoiga going to hit a home run.

~SuperMario~

Some Quick First Impressions: Sansha Sanyou, Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge and Kuromukuro

by AidanAK47, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Sansha Sanyou

Short Synopsis:  A awkward former rich girl makes friends for the first time.

For the love of god someone turn down the brightness! Either my computers screen settings malfunctioned for a moment or this anime is so bright it could burn a hole through my retina’s. That literally glaring issue aside this is a decent show for those who are fans of the cute girls genre thing. I mainly details how a rich girl whose family become poor managed to make friends with two odd girls after a strange encounter during lunch. So the first episode was mainly of her attempting to keep a haughty attitude while being extra self conscious to try and not scare off her newfound friends. Even I with a heart of stone and a dark mind found her efforts to be friendly rather endearing. So in the grounds of giving you that feeling of needing to protect something it gets a passing grade. The comedy on the other hand doesn’t do anything for me. I would look more to flying witch if you were looking for something to make you feel fluffy inside but if you need another show to fill the gap then this should suffice.

Potential: 40%

 

Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge

Short Synopsis: There’s a guy called Tanaka and he’s really lazy.

There are two comedy animes this season which are centered around a single joke. The first is Sakamoto desu ga and the second is this. Sakamoto’s joke is that Sakamoto is perfection incarnate. Tanaka-kuns joke is that Tanaka is very lazy. However Sakamoto is quite entertaining when Tanaka is just dull and boring. Why is that? Well the first aspect is that if you are building a series around a joke that you should make sure the joke is funny. In this case the joke is in the title and that joke is really more of a statement than a joke. Tanaka is very lazy, so what of it? Sakamoto made it’s joke work because of it’s ridiclous nature and the fact that the series is not corely about Sakamoto, but rather who Sakamoto effects though his actions. Tanaka is about Tanaka and there is nothing to him other than being lazy. Tanaka needs to be carryed everywhere…because he’s lazy. Tanaka is concerned with his position when he’s falling asleep…because he’s lazy. Tanaka wants to build up muscle so his legs and arms don’t fall asleep…because he’s lazy. This entire episode was refriming Tanaka was indeed lazy and that’s not a joke. KyoAni’s Chuunibyou show had a character just like this called Kumin and even she had more to her than Tanaka. This is a half hour of a comedian standing on stage talking about the weather. You sit waiting for the joke that never comes.

Potential: 0%

 

Kuromukuro

Short Synopsis:   Giant Robot aliens invade. So it’s up to a naked guy and some bland teenage girl to save the day.

You know, I am tired of animes that start the series with a random battle between two unknown factions. I mean truly what is the point of that? Without context on who is fighting, why they are fighting or whats at stake this fights tension can be replicated by me watching Rock em, Sock em robots. Of course I don’t want an exposition dump layered on top as other anime usually do but truly I don’t see the need of jumping to this moment in time to watch two robots duke it out. Perhaps this was to ensure the mecha fans that this series does indeed have mecha before launching into a tremendously boring school life segment were a girl attempts to return a phone her mother left behind at a parent teacher conference. I will say that this isn’t a bad show but a rather uninspired one. As one of the first anime to be exclusively simulcast on Netfllix, you could have made a better choice. Honestly, Crunchyroll, Funimation and the rest of you anime companies, hows about hiring someone who knows anime to decide what gets licenced or not. Maybe then you could have nabbed the obvious goldmine that is One Punch Man before Viz got it.(Heard you were dubbing OPM last month so you better do a great job on that) Back on topic, Kuromukuro has trouble so far balancing out it’s mecha and slice of life segments. The mecha CGI is also fairly underwhelming and the plot so far is straightforward of the genre. I am getting reminded of Rinne no Lagrange which held many of the same problems. Though in this case our main female character is lacking any real defining points besides mother issues and I fear that the male protagonist’s character arc will mainly be a fish out of water story. As I said in my preview, what will make this worthwhile or not is the ratio of mecha and school life. If the school life is going to be at the forefront here this this should make for an excellent sleeping pill from sheer boredom.

Potential: 30%

Bungou Stray Dogs – 02

by LightningBolt, posted in Bungou Stray Dogs, Currently Watching:

Boy, this episode does highlight many of the show’s shortcomings. In a way, that is a good thing, because we now know what elements that DON’T work for the series.

First and the most jarring issue is the comedy. All the gags, from Atsushi considers himself to be useless, Dazai suicide’s obsession, Kunikida’s being constantly teased by Dazai, already feel dragging and wear out its welcome. Consider this is just second episode this is not a good sign. The dialogue in general is not great either, it either does not advance the story or flesh out the character, and mostly stays too long on its jokes. While a little comedy would definitely be welcomed, making the comedy the central focus is a wrong step for this series.

The second weakness of the show is the characters themselves and their relationship. The central relationship between Dazai and Atsushi, for example; have been done countless times before and this one so far doesn’t offer anything new on the table. This week we get introduced again a whole bunch of new characters. They are, like last week’s new characters at the end of the episode (which completely disappeared this week), feel like just a decoration of the show. Although they are based on real Japanese authors, for now all of them are just one-note, over the top and I get the feeling they’re just there for kicking, screaming and supporting the main characters. It seems like next week we going to get a whole bunch of new character as well, so I’m a little worry there.

Lastly, the plot in this episode is a step down from last week. It’s always a given that Atsushi will be a member of Armed Detective Agency, so giving an entire episode just to reach that again is a wasted and really slow the story down. The plot itself is ridiculous. So the Agency gave Atsushi a trial without him knowing it and he passed it because he used his body to shield the bomb. REALLY? How on earth is that a plausible action? I’m actually thinking of a line from Joker’s Game “Getting killed or commit suicide is the worst possible decision a spy can make”. It actually can apply very fittingly here.

But not everything from this episode is negative though. I still pretty much enjoy the direction of the show. The use of color-palate, for example, give me a strong atmosphere that I rarely find in other anime series. I also enjoy the production design of Bongou Stray Dogs, from last week’s Under the bridge at the beginning to the warehouse at the end, or the place where Atsushi wake up in the morning or the Agency office, each of the place have such rich personality and give them a very distinctive feel. Bungou Stray Dogs shines when they focus more on the characters, like when Atsushi talks to Dazai about him being left out, there were a sense of sadness in his speech; the show also shines when they deliver the supernatural twist to the story (which appeared none in this second episode). I still have hope for the show. Next week it seems like the story will get dark though, and I pretty much prefer the series to be dark than its current light-heart, so here hoping the for the show to pick itself up from this misstep episode.

~SuperMario~

Joker Game – 02

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Joker Game

Joker Game is still proving to be an interesting thriller though this episode started off a bit rough. There was over four minutes of flashing back to the previous episode and even the opening of this episode. In a way it was used to show just how Sakuma came to his conclusion which revealed the man to be an American spy but it felt a bit excessive. That said I love how this all played out and just how the American managed to fool the Japanese military on the first search of his house. It truly is a mark of genius to place the microfilm behind the imperial portrait as based on the mentality of Japanese soldiers of the time, they would never dare desecrate the portrait and leave it untouched in a search. At the moment Sakuma was about to cut his own stomach open, he remembered the lessons of the spy agency and managed to figure out the trick. It’s a great moment to see the smug look of the American disappear into pure panic as one of the members of the D agency revealed his hiding place. And with that all’s well that ends well correct?

Wrong. For there was more to this raid than our soldier was privy to. The second raid on the Americains home was all a ploy to disguise his superior’s failure to find anything in the first raid. He intended to make Sakuma a scapegoat in order to keep his reputation clean. He never intended him to find anything. Through some elaborate investigation Sakuma manages to find out this as well as details about the boss of the D agency and his intentions of taking advantage of this matter. He does so well that the boss even offers to train him as a member of the D agency. What we have is a series of schemes in tandem. The American spy was trying to steal intel, a superior officer was trying to cover up his mistake and the boss of the D agency trailing the superior in order to find an exploit to blackmail him into investing more into the D agency. In the beginning Sakuma berated the D agency for making use of underhanded methods and here he now understands that the military is not above such measures. HIs final resolution is interesting in that he has not embraced the D Agency’s philosophy but rather he wishes he can die with honor rather than be used as a tool for someone else’s agenda. To me those things are the same but to a nationalist member of the society of the time it may not be the case.

At the moment while I do love Joker Game, I find it’s being a little too straightforward in it’s storytelling. I feel we could have a greater layer of nuance in its production as this small doesn’t leave much room for moral complexity. Everything is laid out and explained so even a child could understand the plot. In some regards that’s a good thing as simplicity doesn’t mean it’s bad but considering it’s a fairly mature story I would think it would be good to leave things up to interpretation. I for one would have liked to speculate more on just why the Boss walks with a cane despite his legs being perfectly fine. I would have likened it to a psychological tactic in order to make people underestimate him but instead it is spelled out to be a distraction from the bosses real disability. His left prosthetic hand. On that note I am surprised he can get a prosthetic hand of such quality which can fool people into thinking it’s real. I am not certain on the plan of disguising a disability with another disability other than preventing him from being identified by word of mouth. Despite my gripes there is an air of style around this piece; it has an atmosphere that clarifies the word cool. There is a certain suaveness in how the characters carry themselves and the smug knowing smiles that exemplify a kind of hidden badassery. Even if this doesn’t appear to be a particularly deep story, at least it’s going to be an entertaining one.

~AidanAK47~

Fire Emblem Fates Video Game Review – 77/100

by K-Off, posted in Game Reviews

Now that Revelations has been out for a month and I’ve had a chance to thoroughly replay all three games and virtually explore all of their gameplay elements, I figured now would be the best time to review the latest editions to the Fire Emblem franchise.

As a pretext, I’ve decided to review all three games at the same time in this spoiler free review, because they’re essentially the same games in terms of their core gameplay aspects. I’ll be breaking them down first with respect to their gameplay, then I’ll split my discussion about their stories into a spoiler-free review.

Continue reading “Fire Emblem Fates Video Game Review – 77/100” →

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 02

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World

As Bill Murray can attest, reliving the same day isn’t the best situation to be in. You may gain all the time in the world to master whatever you wish, no consequences for any of your actions and the ability to do over any situation not matter how dire. But you have to live through the same tedious situations over and over again, reintroduce yourself to people day after day knowing they will only forget you and eventually the time will come when you will break from the loneliness of the situation. But things are much harder for Subaru who not only has to repeat the day but also repeat his death over and over again. I am willing to give Subaru a break for not figuring out the time loop earlier considering that death is pretty traumatic and it’s easier to assume that it was a dream than face the reality that you just died. However with three turn backs even he figures out that he’s in a time loop. Subaru has been killed three times, twice in the loot house by Elsa and now once in the alley when he was accidentally stabbed by a group of muggers. When I think about this story, I am glad that white Fox was the ones to animate this. This isn’t the first time after all that they have dealt with a story of this nature

This episode was not very eventful as it was essentially Subaru attempting to retrace his previous attempt at a much faster pace. To sell his phone to the thief Felt in order to obtain the stolen medal and return it to our elfen tsundere before Elsa comes by and kills everyone. What I like about this so far is that our protagonist doesn’t shake off his deaths so easily. He jokes about it and generally puts up a good front but it really did affect him deeply. He runs into Elsa while looking for Felt and looks to be hit with some heavy post traumatic stress disorder. He is truly, utterly terrified of that woman which makes her pretty intimidating despite her looking to be just a minor villain. It’s the small changes in Subaru which catch my attention the most as I find him to be the most interesting of the cast. Subaru claims to be a Hikikomori but on all accounts he doesn’t seem like one. It could be a case like with KonoSuba where the protagonist gets a huge confidence boost due to being in a anime situation but I don’t quite think that’s the case. Subaru doesn’t look like a Hikikomori, nor does he fight like one. His fight with Felt when she was attacking him was most surprising when he displayed some pretty impressive dodging skills. To me, Subaru feels like a former delinquent who picked up anime as a hobby. That would explain his fighting ability.

As for the rest of the cast, I find them lacking. The problem is that a large amount of them are standard stereotypes with not much to them. I don’t hate them as they have enough to be likable but they do lack unique depth. They need more to them to differentiate themselves from the number of similar styled characters. The father daughter relationship she has with the loot shop owner is a step in the right direction but she still requires more. But at least the characters do work for what this story is trying to do. In particular it was good that thanks to Subaru being so forward and knowing too much, it caused Felt to be more on guard and suspicious of him.  As well as Elsa gaining an interest in Subaru after he froze up in fear in front of her. Whether the changes Subaru made end up getting him out of this mess is still in question but it looks like he made some good moves this turn. I have a feeling that Knight introduced this episode will play a big role in how this resolves.

~AidanAK47~

Mayoiga – 02

by LightningBolt, posted in Currently Watching:, Mayoiga

 

Hello there; I am Mario and this is my first ever post here in this blog. I hope you guys gonna enjoy my posts. As my name might indicates, I’m a male so Aidan; don’t refer me as “them” anymore; will ya?

For this season I will be covering Mayoiga; Flying Witch and Bungou Stray Dogs; but for those of you who still confuse of which writers write a post; Aidan and me decided to put our signatures/trademarks/whatever… at the end of each post. Mine will be ~SuperMario~ (haha)

Back to Mayoiga though, now in the second episode; we have much better idea what they will go for and the premise shows a compelling hook. We have a lost village where previous occupants seem to be vanished; and two people from the tour have been disappeared. People begin to spirited away really feel like a natural progress of the story; but providing that Masaki was one of a few characters that we spent time the most so far; I have doubt that this is the last time we heard of her.

The episode also take time to explore the communication of a group with so many different personalities and different goals to begin with; especially when it comes to trusting each other and making a decision altogether. Their confrontation with the bus driver highlights those issues; where those people have very conflicting attitudes toward the way to treat the bus driver.  I expect in the next episodes the clash between those characters would get more intense and would become the main focus of this series.

With that said, I still can’t figure out the role of the bus driver in the story. Every moments connected to him feel forced. He is the only one who hadn’t properly introduced (we even don’t know his name); yet  he getting way too much screen time. He always seems like an exclusion of the group; yet the series keeps including him. He better has a more significant role in next episodes; but at least he did see something that made him change his mind; so it’s interesting to see how things play out. I just hope that he won’t reappear just so that he would be the first one to be killed off. Time will tell on that.

~SuperMario~

 

 

Announcement Time!

by AidanAK47, posted in About, Special Articles

Well hello there my precarious readers, this is AidanAK47 here to bring you news most unexpected. And before you ask, no. It’s not that I finally gave up and decided to ditch you all like the rest. Through what is an unexpected turn of events I have made this blogging thing a bit too much of a habit to give up so I ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. So while I wait for Dark Souls 3 to download and suck the remainder of my free time into a endless void; I wish to share some news.

We have a new writer on board! Please welcome Mario_Thang or whatever they decide to call themselves during their time here.

Due to circumstances they will be posting using Lightningblot’s account who you might remember as that guy who wrote two posts on your lie in April and disappeared into the abyss. I happened to get a hold of his password thanks to shenanigans involving lightningblot’s poor choice of password and a rather insolent but laughably stupid troll.(Still brings a smile to my face when I recall just how I managed to wrestle back control of his account from that silly troll)

So that’s all well and good but what does that mean for you. Well it means that this site will be more active and we will be covering more anime each season. It’s means that this will truly become a multi-writer Blog as Psgels intended and there will be someone to contrast my so far one man show on this site. Put simply thanks to jolly cooperation there will be more content on this site for no extra cost. All I ask is that you be gentle with our newcomer and offer constructive criticism  in order to help them improve and get more sunk into the role. Don’t be mean. Of course our newcomer has no obligation to this site and is free to leave whenever they so wish. Though I have made it clear just what kind of hobby this is and they seem keen despite the downsides so I think this one won’t disappear as fast as our previous writers.

Well that’s all I have to say. Psgels, if there’s any small slim chance you might see this then hows about you hand over admin rights so I can finally fix the headers and get rid of that annoying spam. Not to mention make some improvements like a search button and for the shoutbox an edit button. Well then, I am off to slaughter hellspawn with my trusty zweihander.

 

Praise the sun,

~AidanAK47~

Some Quick First Impressions: Sakamoto desu ga, Haifuri and Flying Witch

by AidanAK47, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Sakamoto desu ga

Short Synopsis: Some boys attempt to bully a Student called Sakamoto, who is the perfect superhuman.

In essence, perfection is boring. Saitama from One Punch Man truly showed how unfulfilling it is to achieve perfection. However what if someone’s perfection is to such a ridiculous degree that they can do literally anything? Enter Sakamoto, the man who can sit on air, fly mary poppins style in tornados to save a bird and have a fight with a bee using a compass while working on math problems. Sakamoto is a man who can out Jojo the Jojo and has earned the nickname Swagamoto by the end of the first episode. I do think that this anime has lost some of the impact of the manga though the main reasons for that could be due to the music or that I am seeing these jokes for a second time. Still this can be an immensely entertaining show if it’s the kind of slapstick humor you like. This episode was more or less skits that involved guys trying to bully Sakamoto out of jealousy and getting frustrated as he turned each of their pranks into a way to make him look good. Each skit was separated with this odd interlude with three guys playing with a volleyball with the same repeating animation. It was rather odd addition to the series but somewhat amusing. On that last skit, you may think those kids were being silly overreacting to that bee in the classroom but people that was a Japanese hornet bee. Those things are about the size of your thumb, kill 40 people a year and are absolutely goddamn terrifying. Which makes Sakamoto’s battle with it all the more impressive. Godspeed, you magnificent bastard.

Potential: 80%

 

Haifuri

Short Synopsis: Cute girls playing battleship.

Well we have had cute girls being soldiers, cute girls in tanks, cute girls being battleships and now we have cute girls on battleships. Now all we need is cute girls in the luftwaffe and we got all the parts for a full military Moe army. I spent the majority of this episode dutifully bored out of my skull as I see two children bring out a trope as old as pokemon and declare themselves to become blue mermaids. Those being this world’s equivalent to the navy. For you see this world takes place when the earth has been flooded by rising seas and this has somehow inexplicably lead to it suddenly becoming every little girl’s dream to sail the seas on a battleship. Meanwhile I assume all the men decided to become doctors and farmers and whatnot offscreen because the Navy is suddenly female only. The moment you question the premise is the moment it falls apart so let’s just as the cheap excuse to ride the tailwinds of Kantai collection and move on. Now I would be writing this off pretty fast and intended to up until the second half where the plot has come into play. And yes, there is a plot. I was surprised too. For you see it seems the instructor of their class didn’t put an idiot as captian because she believed in her but rather so she could lead them out to a secluded area of sea and push them into attacking her boat so she can declare them traitors. So now we have a bunch of cute girls on a battleship called the Hasekaze who need to fight off their own navy and hopefully clear their name. I admit that upon watching this I wasn’t expecting a less gritty rendition of Battleship Potemkin featuring cute girls being cute. I am curious on just how they plan to approach this as I doubt we will be getting death and murder in the counterattack. A nice little underdog story about these girls trumping over a full navy with dwindling supplies and ingenuity would make for an interesting tale. However based on what I seen in the first half I doubt they can make it work.(I concede that the rice cooker joke was pretty funny) It’s got more substance than other cute girl shows airing this season so I suppose this would be the best option if you are looking to see it.

Potential: 40%

 

Flying Witch

Short Synopsis:  A young witch moves to a quiet town to live with her cousins.

This is the kind of show where you make a cup of tea, sit down and just watch as all your worries melt away. Flying witch really benefits from being animated because now it just feels fluffy and warm. It’s very much like the Aria series which was a slice of life coming of age story that was so relaxing that it could put you to sleep if you try to marathon it. Not joke on that, it’s a great show but the atmosphere can have you drifting off if you try watching too many episodes in a row. This has that exact same feel. It’s harmless, light and puts a silly grin on your face. There’s no big plot developments and it’s more or less in tune with the less eventful episodes of Natsume Yuujinchou or Kiki’s delivery service. There are some nice moments of comedy with the mains lack of direction and the characters are so far pretty likeable. Sometimes you just need a show like this which can fill you with that soft serenity that’s slowly whittled away by the daily humdrum. Or you know…you can play a videogame where you blow zombies heads off with a shotgun. Whatever floats your boat.

Potential: 70%