Kaina and the Great Snow Sea – 5 [Rescue Mission]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kaina and the Great Snow Sea

Welcome everyone, to another week of Kaina and the Great Snow Sea! Continuing its upward rise through the season, this was another good episode for Kaina, with a lot to like. So lets skip the preamble and dive right into it!

Having talked about the CGI and the backgrounds for a while now, this week I wanted to start with something different: The music. Composed primarily by Kouta Yamamoto and Misaki Umase, Kaina has one of the best OSTs of the season. Not just in the uniqueness and style of the music, but in how its integrated into the show itself. Tracks like “In The Snowsea” merge beautifully with the immense majesty of the undersea roots. Meanwhile “K_hide_G” I think it is fits the chase of the undersea fish so well. While I haven’t heard enough to truly make a decision on it yet, I can certainly say its something I notice every week. Its the combination of music and background that really bring Kaina’s setting to life I feel.

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Vinland Saga S2 – 5 [The Path of Blood]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Vinland Saga

Welcome all, to another episode of Vinland Saga! This week we take a break from Thorfinn, instead spending time with our other favorite damaged boy: Canute! And man is he kind of fucked up. So without further ado, lets dive into it!

Getting into the production, Vinland Saga continues to not be the most animated of shows. It has a few moments, such as Thorkell or the flashback, but that’s about it. There were also some CGI soldiers in some shots that didn’t look great, but they came and went very quickly. Luckily for Vinland Saga, this arc isn’t particularly action packed so it really doesn’t impact it much. Instead what stands out is the strong direction, such as framing Canute atop the pile of coins or in front of the burning countryside, along with solid background art and compositing/lighting to bring it all together. The end result ends up giving Vinland Saga a lot more gravitas and drama then some kind of flashy action sequence would, as the focus isn’t on war and battle but rather Canute’s avoidance of direct combat. What does that mean? Well lets talk about it.

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The Fire Hunter – 4 [Flickering Flame]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, The Fire Hunter

Welcome everyone, to another episode of Fire Hunter! This week was… It was a disappointment, to put it lightly. I’m really starting to lose faith. Why? Well lets talk about that.

Now I really hate to keep beating this horse every week, but Fire Hunter keeps finding new ways to disappoint. Yes, the animation was still trash. And yes, the direction was largely uninspired. But this week saw the melt also extend to the detail. Flat smoke with no linework or details, just a shape filled brown. The composite falling apart as Kanata and Touko look like they don’t even belong in the environment. Characters in the foreground, not the background mind you, with just no detail whatsoever. Legitimately incomplete drawings and fucking pop-in. Pop-in, from an animation. Now I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes with Fire Hunter, but clearly something is going down in their pipeline. Because Yasunori Miyazawa, from shows like Ping Pong and even better cuts from this very show, is far better than this. Easily some of his most disappointing work for me.

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Michiko & Hatchin – 21/22 [Last Waltz Blooming Out of Season/Run as You Are] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Michiko e Hatchin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to the grand finale of Michiko & Hatchin! It’s been 11 weeks and we have finally come to the end of this season of Throwback Thursday. Was it good in the end? Or did it fall apart right at the finish line? Lets jump in and find out!

Right off the bat, my overall impressions of this finale is… disappointment. The main thrust of the series was clearly that of found family, with the quest of finding Hiroshi a sort of Red Herring on that road. That your family isn’t necessarily blood nor who you grew up with, but who was there for you and who cared for you now. But the presentation of Michiko & Hatchin ends up detracting from that. The timeskip, Hiroshi’s final actions, the whole thing with Hatchin and her son. It felt like there was a good ending here that simply didn’t get the support it needed to properly shine. Like the series leading up to this point let it down That isn’t to say there aren’t good portions to this ending, there are. But by and large I was left feeling disappointed and hollow.

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Kaina and the Great Snow Sea – 4 [Conflict at the Snow Sea]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kaina and the Great Snow Sea

Welcome everyone, to another episode of Kaina and the Great Snow Sea! This week we finally reach civilization, as Kaina escapes the Valghians and gets pulled deeper and deeper into this conflict. What happens to Ririha? Who is the hot knight lady? Read on, and find out!

Starting off, I want to praise Kaina’s production. By and large it’s still the same flawed CGI work its always been. But this week I saw some actual… ambition, from Polygon Picture. The swordfight between Orinoga and Amelothee, the leaders of their respective expeditions, had a lot of cool shots. Some jank ones to, sure. The snow moved like blobs. And the ambitious ones were still rough around the edges. But stuff like the tracking camera and closeup swordplay lent their fight an energy that has otherwise been absent from Kaina. And then of course stuff like the backgrounds, such as the undersea roots or Atland at night, continue to be beautiful. Its like Kaina is slowly ramping itself up as it gets more and more used to its models and world, like this CGI approach and reuse is only making production easier as it goes.

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Vinland Saga S2 – 3/4 [Snake/Awakening]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Vinland Saga

Welcome everyone, to another week of Vinland Saga! Apologies for missing last week, a lot of things conspired to prevent me from finishing the post. On the plus side though, you get a double header this week! Surely that’s worth it, right? Considering how closely tied these two episodes are, I think it just might be. Now without further ado, onto the episodes!

Starting off, lets talk about the production. I’ve seen some grumblings online about the toning down of more comedic, light moments. Stuff like their facial expressions, etc. Personally though? I don’t see it. It’s not that Vinland Saga is removing/toning them down, but rather that the story hasn’t reached a point where they are appropriate. As evidenced by these two episodes, Thorfinn still isn’t in a place where he can be light and happy. Maybe if it continues like this they will have a point. For now though, it’s simply not applicable. At the same time, I think the way Vinland Saga is depicting Thorfinn’s nightmares and struggles to be really striking. The strong colors and rough line work. It’s beautifully composed and animated, and were some of my favorite scenes in episode 4. Suffice to say, while Vinland Saga isn’t particularly animated yet, its also not poorly animated.

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The Fire Hunter – 3 [Fractions of the World]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, The Fire Hunter

Welcome everyone, to another episode of Fire Hunter! This is a rough week for Fire Hunter, for a lot of reasons. It’s kind of sad really. I started with such high hopes for this and its falling, while I started with such low hopes for Kaina and the Great Snow Sea and it’s surpassing them. Just goes to show you can never know what will be good in a season. Now without further ado, lets jump into it!

As usual, first we have to start with the production. And as usual with Fire Hunter, it’s not good. Oh Fire Hunter looks fine in stills, sure. The colorful eyecatches are beautiful when they appear, no one can dispute that. But anytime it moves well… I’d almost prefer it not. Take the climax of this episode for instance, with the dragon-like Flame Fiend. The idea is there, I can feel the terror and majesty they were going for, and the eyecatch at the end does a lot to help with that. But the dragon itself is… rough, jittery even, with harsh jagged lines and few frames. It doesn’t feel like it belongs in the same show as everything surrounding it. That’s a damn shame, because Fire Hunter’s unique style should lend itself well to that sort of thing and yet it’s falling short.

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Amun’s Seasonal Snapshot

by Amunchet, posted in Currently Watching:

Hello, and welcome to Amun’s Seasonal Snapshot post!  Thanks to the kind folks who helped me decide on what to do.  Without further ado, here are the shows that I’m watching this season and whether or not you should join me – I’ll give them grades to help you decide.  There are some shows I’m about to drop, some that are decent, a few good ones, and one that’s simply head and shoulders above the rest (bet it’s not the one you expect).

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Kaina and the Great Snow Sea – 3 [Traveling Down the Orbital Tree]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kaina and the Great Snow Sea

Welcome back, to another week of Kaina and the Great Snow Sea! This week we reach the bottom of the tree, Ririha and Kaina get to know each other, and the villains introduce red-haired general lady. Lots to enjoy this week, so lets dive in!

Right off the bat, I want to say that I’m actually starting to get used to Kaina’s visuals. It still doesn’t look good, sure. But without the wrinkled skin old people to show us just how texture-less it is, it’s nowhere near as noticeable. It also helps that the Canopy Tree is a fantastic backdrop, and that Polygon Pictures actually did a decent job of compositing them onto it. They stood out, sure. But they still interacted with it, and were framed against it, pretty decently. Take the ledge scene for instance. They fit pretty well onto that small outcrop, and it felt like they interacted with it well. Most likely it, and the tree surrounding it, are CGI models themselves with a painted texture. But however they accomplished it, it didn’t look bad. At this point, it’s really just the hair that stands out. Most of the time.

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Michiko & Hatchin – 19/20 [Nettlesome Light-blocking Butterfly/Rendezvous of Extermination] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Michiko e Hatchin, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to the penultimate week of Michiko & Hatchin! Last week was solid, as for the first time in ages it felt like the show finally cared about its premise. This week? Somehow even better. It’s like they saved an entire cours worth of content and decided to shove it into the last few episodes. Good for these posts, probably not as a regular viewing experience. Anyways, without further ado lets dive into the episodes!

First up I want to talk about the production, because aside from it’s backgrounds Michiko & Hatchin hasn’t had a particularly strong one. Oh there’s some decent shots in the first few episodes, and one or two spring up after that. But rarely has the show “wowed” me at all. At least until this week. More specifically, at least until episode 19. More more specifically, that final ending train sequence. Everything about that was just fantastic. The backgrounds, the facial expressions, the character movement. Rough in places, sure. But still one of the most memorable scenes of the entire show. Takafumi Hori did an incredible job here and managed to make the beginning of the end more climactic then most of the arcs leading up to it. Hopefully they can pull this off again for the last two episodes, but I’m hungry for me.

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