Vinland Saga S2 – 20 [Pain]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Vinland Saga

Welcome all, to another great episode of Vinland Saga! It’s another emotional one, so strap in because there is a lot of tragedy to talk about. Let’s dive into it!

Overall the best way to describe this episode is… Tragic. Incredibly tragic, in just every way. Vinland Saga hits you, every week, with the horrors of war the effects it has on people, especially the innocents. Over and over and over again it hammers away at its primary theme of how war is terrible and the glorification of it only perpetuates it. It’s honestly incredible to me that people still seem to miss the point and think Vinland Saga is some kind of… battle hungry Shounen or something. I know plenty of people who have dropped the season because it was “boring” and they wanted the battles of Season 1, or because they just didn’t get what was going on. Which is ridiculous to me, because I think Vinland Saga is so clear with its messaging that there’s barely anything to write about each week!

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S3 – 7 [Awful Villain]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kimetsu no Yaiba

Welcome all, to another week of Kimetsu no Yaiba! This week sees yet another twist to the combat, as well as a bit more backstory for Tokito. A good bit worth talking about this week, so lets dive in!

So, starting off with my overall impressions of the episode… It was kind of mid. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the episode, nothing that stood out. At least not in a positive way that is. Rather, I’m kind of getting tired of the constant “twists” in the conflict. Part of this is probably due to the Upper Five fight really not doing anything yet, leaving the Upper Four to stand on it’s own. But even that doesn’t seem right, as by this point the Upper Six fight with Daki and Gyutaro was still going strong. Part of this was the presentation, last season was just overall more visually engaging. But I also think it has to do with the villains themselves not being near as interesting. As squandered as Daki and Gyutaro were, they still had something going for them. These two? Not so much.

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Dr. STONE S3 7 – [Ray of Despair, Ray of Hope]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Dr.STONE

Welcome all, to another episode of Dr. STONE! This week we reach the island, meet the locals, and get absolutely rolled by an unknown force. What? Oh, the last one? Don’t worry we will get to that. Now lets dive right into it!

Starting off, this week we finally reach the island! Dr. STONE walks us through a whole introduction for it, from the basic geography to local tensions. Of course part of this is introducing us to some locals and their politics. Setting up the main conflict of the arc. However more then that, what Dr. STONE does is completely shatter our expectations of what’s going on here. It makes it clear that, whatever you thought, this place isn’t just going to be a simple walk in the park with some stone-age yokels. And personally? After the slower first half of the season? I find this to be a welcome change of pace. Mostly because of the mystery of petrification.

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Wolf’s Rain – 29/30 [High Tide, High Time/Wolf’s Rain] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday, Wolf's Rain

Welcome all, to the grand finale of Wolf’s Rain! This is a contentious ending from what I’ve heard, and I can see why. We have a lot to talk about this week so lets just dive right in!

Before we get to deep into it though I want to talk about whether or not this ending works for me. And overall? I think it was… effective. There are bits and pieces I’m not 100% sure I either understand or entirely like, but the more I think about the finale the more I feel like it works. Everyone got some kind of closure to their arc, no one was ignored, it answered a lot of questions regarding the setting and why all of this was happening. I’m satisfied. The only places I’m not totally sure on is the core idea of “repeats”. I’m typically not a big fan of these kinds of endings, for reasons I will talk about later. But Wolf’s Rain managed to frame it in a way that I think works well. Is that vague? Yes. Follow me after the break if you want spoilers.

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Vinland Saga S2 – 19 [War at Ketil’s Farm]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Vinland Saga

Welcome all, to another week of Vinland Saga! This week marks the beginning of the war, as Canute lands on the farm and battle is joined. Who will come out on top? Who will survive? Let’s jump in and find out!

So, the war. Thing aren’t looking good for Ketil. They are horribly outmatched, in both skill and equipment, and everyone worth their salt knows it. Snake, Thorgil, Thorfinn, Canute. Everyone who has actually seen battle knows that these farmers don’t stand a chance. Everyone that is, except for the farmers themselves. All idiots driven into a frenzy. Having their heritage and pride played off of, being convinced that their superior numbers will be able to overcome Canute’s battle-hardened elite. It’s sad really. These people are being led to their deaths for the glory of another. They have nothing to gain in all of this, they could probably sit back, let Canute take over and continue living their lives under new management. But as is often the case, the greed and ambition of greater men drive them to their slaughter.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S3 – 6 [Aren’t You Going to Become a Hashira?]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kimetsu no Yaiba

Welcome all, to what I believe to be the half-way point for this season of Kimetsu no Yaiba! You know what to expect at this point, so lets cut the chatter and just dive right into it.

The main thing I want to talk about this week is flashbacks. On their own, flashbacks are fine. Not everything can happen in the now, especially not if it’s part of a characters backstory. So they aren’t intrinsically problematic. The issue though is how Yaiba uses, which is usually mid-fight. Again, this isn’t an automatic deal breaker. Stuff like the Hinokami Kagura flashback back in season 1 was fine. But if that was the high end for Yaiba’s flashbacks, then this week was the low end. Coming between all of the action, a sort of “Life flashing before your eyes” thing, it felt really out of place. Like a complete tone shift. I’m not even talking about the details yet, just it’s placement in the episode felt… rough. Yaiba really needs a new way to exposit, or to better set these this up before hand, because this wasn’t good.

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Vinland Saga S2 – 18 [The First Method]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Vinland Saga

Welcome all, to a (late) episode of Vinland Saga! This one was actually rather hard to write, for a variety of reasons. The episode was great but the contents… Well if you’ve seen it you know, and if you don’t then buck up because it’s about to get brutal. Without further ado, lets dive into the episode.

Like I said, this was a particularly brutal episode of Vinland Saga. Not because of some great big battle, or because a lot of people died. Rather it’s because of just how little Vinland Saga held back on something we’ve seen multiple times before in watered down ways: The beating of a slave. It’s happened a lot up until now, particularly with Gardar. And we’ve been largely disconnected from it, with it happening in the past, or just seeing the after-effects of it. But this episode… We not only watch it happen, it happens to a character we have become close to and come to care for, and in a particularly brutal way. There’s no remorse here, no trussing it up to look nice. It’s just a man beating a woman with a stick because of his own insecurities. And it hurts. And it should hurt. Because it’s not ok.

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Dr. STONE S3 6 – [Treasure Box]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Dr.STONE

Welcome all, to another week of Dr. STONE. This is a a pretty straightforward week, so let’s make it quick and jump right in, shall we?

The big topic of this episode is Soyuz. Not the ship, the person. Don’t remember them? Well don’t worry, they are new, just introduced this week. Now is that so bad? No, it’s perfectly fine for Dr. STONE to introduce new characters, it did it with Ryusui and I’ve come to like him. The only weird thing about it with Soyuz is how he is introduced as having always been here, living in the village with everyone after being found on the beach while young. It’s a bit strange for none of our main cast to have asked why he doesn’t have a name before now, you know? That aside, he got a fair bit of focus for his introductory episode and I think he works. Only time will tell if he becomes likable or not.

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Wolf’s Rain – 27/28 [Where the Soul Goes/Gunshot of Remorse] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday, Wolf's Rain

Welcome all, to the penultimate week of Wolf’s Rain! This week we get into the OVA, the true ending of the series. Does it live up to the hype? Is it good? Or should it have maybe stayed incomplete? Well I won’t keep you waiting, I’ll just come out and say it’s pretty damn good. So without further ado lets dive into the episodes!

First up though, some praise for the production. Wolf’s Rain was generally pretty solid on this front. But after the opening few episodes it rarely “wow’ed” me. Well this OVA is making up for that in spades, because it was stunning. From beautiful effects work such as explosions and snow to incredibly detailed facial expressions such as Hubb and Quent, or the fur and muscles of the wolves as they ran. This is easily the best Wolf’s Rain has ever looked, and it’s sending quite the statement as far as finales go. Hopefully it can keep this up for the last 2 episodes. And of course the music has also been great, but I don’t want to look up specific tracks at the moment, so I’m just going to leave that with “Music sound good :D”. You’ll get more in the final review, I promise. For now, episodes!

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S3 – 5 [Bright Red Sword]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kimetsu no Yaiba

Welcome all, to another episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba! This week is same as last week, as well as the week before: Combat! Lots… of combat. Some of it is good! Other bits not so much. What do I mean? Well lets dive into the episode and find out!

So the cool action. It exists! Unsurprisingly, Yaiba has a couple of pretty fun action sequences. There’s a combo move, Kanroji shows up and kills some demons, it’s a good time. Yet for some reason… I can’t help but feel like there’s less hype, less “Wow” factor, then Season 2. And I think it boils down to the location. The entertainment district was bright and colorful. It lent a sense of spectacle and hype to an already bright and colorful action sequence. Season 3 however takes place in a forest. A dark, ominous forest, with a sense of foreboding and danger. Yeah the atmosphere is more tense then Season 2, that’s true. But Yaiba isn’t a series that uses tense very well I feel. It’s a battle shounen, we aren’t going to be afraid. And it’s this difference in location that I think makes the action feel… not as fun?

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