Welcome to the NHK – 21/22 [Welcome To Reset!/Welcome to The God!] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday, Welcome to the NHK

Welcome, one and all, to the penultimate week of Welcome to the NHK! From Sato to Misaki, Yamazaki to Hitomi, NHK is lining up all the dominoes for a grand finale. But is this setup any good? Or does it start to flub it’s lead at the finish line? Let’s dive in and find out.

First up we have episode 21, “Welcome to the Reset!”. This is, at it’s core, Yamazaki’s finale. And you know what? I’m kind of surprised it actually happened. I wasn’t sure that NHK would actually follow through with it, at least not this quickly. NHK jumped right into Winter Comiket when I thought for sure it would be the climax of the episode, not the opening. This leaves the episode feeling almost more like an epilogue for the character rather than a grand finale. The way Yamazaki packs up his room, gives Sato a bunch of his stuff, voices his frustration and puts to words the emotions I mentioned last week regarding his game being his last mark in Tokyo. It’s all very poignant. But… is it an actually good experience for the viewer?

Details after the break.

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RWBY Ice Queendom – 5 [Awaken in a Dream]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, RWBY: Ice Queendom

Welcome back everyone, to another week of RWBY: Ice Queendom! The story doesn’t progress much this week, but we do get a good look into how Weiss views a lot more of the characters. It feels like Queendom is really trying to set something up, but only time will tell if its any good. For now, lets jump in and talk about this weeks episode!

Starting off, I have something I need to get off my chest: Queendom’s editing is starting to get on my nerves. Not the rather boring shot composition or shot-reverse-shot dialogue, that’s disappointing but workable. No, I’m talking about the gallery style formatting where they place multiple shots within the same shot with only a thin black line separating them. Queendom occasionally did this in an intelligent way, like the time it used the edge of the fountain to separate the shots rather than a random black line. But most of the time it felt like I was watching a manga panel or something. It feels like an excuse to be lazy rather than storyboard out some interesting camera shots and block scenes properly. Maybe that’s just me being nitpicky, but it really has started to become noticeable.

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Yofukashi no Uta – 4 [Isn’t This a Tight Squeeze?]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Yofukashi no Uta

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Yofukashi no Uta! Just like with Isekai Ojisan, I would like to apologize for this being a bit late. Otakon is taking up a lot of my time this weekend so I’m getting these done when I can. As far as the episode goes, there’s a good amount to talk about so lets jump right into it!

Off the bat, the big thing I’m happy about with Yofukashi this week is Akira. Namely that she’s still around. I had a small fear that after her introduction, Akira would become relegated to the background. A reoccurring but ultimately unimportant character that only shows up for a chance of scenery. Instead, what Yofukashi gave me was hope. It spent this entire episode focused not on our MC, Kou, or our love interest, Nazuna, but on Akira and her relationship with the two. On her own issues, history and arc. And I couldn’t be happier! Because if you ask me? It seems like a really good arc. Lets talk details below break.

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Isekai Ojisan – 4 [You Helped Me Through Tough Times]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Isekai Ojisan

Hello, and welcome to another week of Isekai Ojisan! Apologies for the delay on this, its Otakon weekend which makes for a busy time for me. This was another decent week for Ojisan, a lot of the comedy still worked, but its a definite step down compared to the last episode. Why? Well lets dive in and talk about it.

Starting off, I think this was a decent week for Ojisan. Not as funny as last week sadly, mostly do to it’s overuse of the elf gag, but still solid. The issue is just that we’ve seen her so much by this point that we have gotten a handle on their relationship. It doesn’t feel like there is much left to learn about them, so unless Ojisan starts to progress it in a meaningful way than it’s just going to feel like its repeating itself. Only each time with slightly higher stakes and sexual tension. Is watching him completely miss the point and accidentally lead her on still a little funny? Yeah, it still gets a chuckle. But not as much as it did the first time. Or the time after that. Basically the joke is becoming rote, and that’s not good for a comedy.

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Welcome to the NHK – 19/20 [Welcome To The Blue Bird!/Welcome to Winter Days!] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday, Welcome to the NHK

Hello everyone, and welcome to another week of Welcome to the NHK! We are nearing the end, and the arcs are starting to reflect that. Big character moments, final scenes and all around stellar episodes abound. So without further ado, lets dive into it!

First up we have episode 19, “Welcome To The Blue Bird!”. However rather than jump right in with the narrative, I want to talk about something even more striking: It’s visuals. This episode was storyboarded and directed by Erkin Kawabata. I can’t pretend to know much about the guy. I hadn’t even heard his name until I looked it up for this post. What I can say though is that this was perhaps the most visually unique episode of NHK’s run so far. It’s ugly and unrefined art style, combined with some stellar layouts, conveyed the episodes emotion incredibly well. However between those emotional highs, it also lead to very janky lows. Stuttering animation, awkward models, and just messy screens in general. Was it worth it? I think so. But I definitely wouldn’t want to watch an entire series done this way.

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DanMachi 4 – 01 [Prelude (Night Before Departure)]

by Amunchet, posted in Currently Watching:, DanMachi 4

DanMachi is back! And that heralds the awakening of Amun from his anime slumber. Too long have I suffered through mediocre isekai or romcoms. Too long have I waited for our white haired hero to get back to what he does best – defeating Minotaur and building harems. But we wait no longer! Bell and co. are off on a new adventure, and I’ve waited all year to talk about it. Let’s go!

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RWBY Ice Queendom – 4 [Ice Queendom]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, RWBY: Ice Queendom

Look everyone, RWBY: Ice Queendom is back! After 3 weeks of no content, a new episode has finally dropped. And while the production leaves something to be desired, I actually liked the world that Queendom is setting up. There’s potential for something interesting there. So without further ado, lets dive in and talk about it!

Starting off, the aforementioned visuals! This week wasn’t anything impressive sadly. No big character or battle sakuga, nothing for the animation people to really whet their teeth on. The end had something akin to that, but the compositing absolutely ruined those shots for me. To be honest, the only thing that stood out to me were the backgrounds. And even then not because they were particularly special or striking. They don’t have the color of Yofukashi no Uta nor the detail of Made in Abyss. But they are also more than your usual stock fantasy town. There was enough effort put in to inform and reinforce the world building done throughout. It wasn’t spectacularly detailed sure, but there was at least an attempt. And that’s something I can appreciate when an episode has so little else going on visually.

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Yofukashi no Uta – 3 [A Lot Came Out]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Yofukashi no Uta

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Yofukashi no Uta, AKA Call of the Night! That name is never not going to be a mouthful, I swear. Content wise this week was a tad middling for me despite an otherwise good idea. Why? Well lets dive in and talk about that.

First off, a visual nitpick. You know by now that I think Yofukashi looks pretty good. Not from animation, it’s pretty basic there, but because of it’s backgrounds and color palette. I absolutely love the neon. But I noticed something… off this week. The foliage? The greenery? Everything that isn’t a building? None of that is really getting touched by the same neon lighting as the buildings. As such it results in a bunch of seemingly dark splotches in an otherwise bright frame. This isn’t a huge deal I suppose, it took me 3 episodes to notice so it’s obviously not a glaring issue. But now that I’ve seen it I’m afraid I won’t be able to unsee it. Hopefully it’s not to much of a problem.

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Welcome to the NHK – 17/18 [Welcome to Happiness!/Welcome to No Future!] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Throwback Thursday, Welcome to the NHK

Welcome back everyone, to yet another good week of Welcome to the NHK. It feels like NHK has hit its stride recently. It was always somewhere between good and great, but the last like… 6 episodes have all been fantastic. And that’s including this week as well! So without further ado, join me as we talk about yet another great pair of episodes.

Right off the bat I want to praise NHK for it’s presentation this week. These two episodes are all about deception and manipulation, of one character deceiving the rest. Usually, this is pretty difficult! Because not only does a show have to trick its characters, it also has to convince the audience that the deception was good enough to trick the characters. Basically, NHK has to make me believe someone would actually fall for what’s being depicted. If it can’t do that, then everything falls apart because the audience hasn’t bought in. Yet its not surprising at all that NHK nailed this. The VA work, dialogue, presentation. Having someone giving audience cues to make them buy in, peer pressure, preying on anxieties specific to each character. It makes complete sense someone would fall for this. It’s not just a plot contrivance, and that’s why the scam works so damn well.

Am I being vague here? Yes, purposefully so. Continue after the break if you want specifics, cause this was another banger of a week.

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