Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 17 [Never Give Up]

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

Welcome everyone to the penultimate episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba S2! I’ve heard some rumblings comparing this to the fabled Episode 19 of Season 1, and you know what? They aren’t to far off. So without further ado lets dive in!

For now lets start positive with the production. Because as anyone with eyes can see, this week was rather pretty. You could probably argue that Yaiba went a bit to heavy on the effects in places. It’s certainly not a style everyone will enjoy, especially not those who value subtle, realistic movement. But even those folks would have to agree that what Yaiba did this week was technically impressive. Nozomu Abe, Masayuki Kunihiro, and others really nailed the sense of 3D space. I especially liked the heavier linework you’ll see in Abe’s scene I linked below the break. If you’ve read me for any length of time, that shouldn’t surprise you. I love heavy line work. And Yaiba is one of the few series I can consistently get it in. My only real complaint production wise is the photoreal fire simulations don’t quite fit the rest of the scenes.

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The Vision of Escaflowne – 25/26 [Zone of Absolute Fortune/Eternal Love] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in The Vision of Escaflowne, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to the final episodes of The Vision of Escaflowne! This week is all about war, love, fate and all manner of other cheesy buzzwords. And a quick note, there is a poll at the end of the post for my next series. So without further ado lets dive in!

Starting off, for the last time, the visuals. For all the issues I might have with this ending, this is not one of them. These two episodes had some of the best cuts/animation of Escaflowne’s entire run. In particular I want to point at the final Guymelef between Van and you know who, keeping spoilers for after the break. This is the kind of giant robot fights I want to see. Giant monsters of metal that actually feel like they weight what they should. Sparks flying at every little scrape. The momentum of their blows carrying through their entire body. Yeah there were other good scenes, Dilandau continues to have fantastic faces. But this is what I wanted from Escaflowne’s finale more than any big battle scene. And it makes me happy that I got it.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 16 [Defeating an Upper Rank Demon]

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

Alright everyone its another episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba so you know the drill. It’s time to talk pretty lights, simple fights and everyone’s favorite sleepy boy. So without further ado lets dive in!

Starting off some small praise to Yaiba. Visuals continue to look good. To follow up on my point last week about poor camera usage, I want to say the wide shots were some of my favorites this week. Seeing everything in motion together, the belts, the blades, the characters, is always the best for me. That said, there was one Uzui clip in particular that caught my eye. You’ll find it below the break but suffice to say I loved its entire aesthetic. The different colored lights, the sound of fireworks going off, the wide full body shot as he swings his blades. It’s all so in character for Uzui, so his style, yet it falls perfectly within what Ufotable like to do. I’m really glad they found a way to depict his Sound Breathing since they can’t give that proper elemental effects like Tanjiro and Zenitsu.

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The Vision of Escaflowne – 23/24 [Storm Premonition/Fateful Decision] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in The Vision of Escaflowne, Throwback Thursday

Hello everyone and welcome to the penultimate post on The Vision of Escaflowne! This is a big week. Escaflowne throws my words back in my face, Hitomi pulls off the unexpected and we finally enter the endgame. So without further ado lets dive into the episodes!

Starting off I need to wipe some egg of my face. Last week I had a lot to say about how Escaflowne handled Folken. That there were a lot of missed opportunities, that he should have had some one-on-one time with Hitomi, etc. I say that we need some time for the ramifications of Folken’s betrayal to run through the cast. That a decision like this warrants more than a quick one-off scene. And what happens? Just that! It’s nice in a way that Escaflowne recognized the same problems I did. That it knew it these things needed to happen and just did them in a different way. It actually gives me a good deal of hope for the finale. Because even if they weren’t done perfectly, they were done. And that means someone is paying attention to their story. Now onto the episodes!

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 15 [Gathering]

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

Welcome everyone to another week of Kimetsu no Yaiba! While last week was the quintessential Yaiba episode, this week is a bit more subdued. Not in the fight or anything like that, more in what you can expect from it. Interested? Then lets jump in! Once you find a site to watch the new episode come back and tune in. You can easily find a free site online, but does anyone know where to watch jackass forever movie?

Immediately I need to get something off my chest: I have issues with Yaiba, and by extension Ufotable’s, animation style. Oh its all technically very good, we can all see that. The lighting, the movements, the coloring, that’s all obviously good. But this week also shows a big issue of mine: The speed. So much of this weeks fight just moved to fast. We cut from camera to camera at lightning speed, the blurs and closeup shots, the overreliance on the 3D camera. I get it, we CAN move like this. But SHOULD we? The episode cut between so many different close ups so quickly it make it difficult to follow what was going on. I almost always found the wide shots, where we could see and follow the characters movements, to be more appealing. Does this mean Yaiba looked bad? No. But it was difficult to follow.

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The Vision of Escaflowne – 21/22 [Reaction of Fortune/The Black Winged Angel] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in The Vision of Escaflowne, Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to another (late) post about The Vision of Escaflowne! Where last week was a great example of Escaflowne’smoment to moment storytelling, this week is one of the issues with that approach to narrative. What do I mean? Lets dive in and find out!

To start off, what do I mean by the weaknesses of this moment to moment approach? To put it simply: Escaflowne seems to be focusing on the episode to episode experience, on memorable highs, rather than fitting them into a coherent story. Take the transition between episode 20 into 21 for instance. Hitomi gives herself up to Zaibach for a cliffhanger ending only for that to be resolved almost immediately so that Escaflowne can jump to its next plot thread. It never follows these things through. Instead feeling like its written to jump from cliffhanger to cliffhanger. I want to be clear, Escaflowne is still a grand, fun show. I enjoy watching it. It’s just that because of this I don’t think its going to leave a lasting impression on me beyond “That was fun”.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 14 [Transformation]

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

Welcome to another episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba everyone! This week Nezuko discovers the power of family, Uzui shows us why he is the God of Festivals and we meet the true villain of the arc. Sound fun? Good. Then without further ado lets dive in!

Starting off I need to, as usual, praise Yaiba for looking good this week. Not just in the animation this time, though the blood blades, lighting and 3D camera work all looked good. Rather I want to praise it for something a lot of anime seem to ignore: Shot composition. There were some really good ones this week! I’m talking stuff like Daki sitting passively behind Uzui, always in the background after his entrance. Or the framing of her brother as he appears out of her back and takes up the whole frame. Uzui and the way he is suspended in the air while dodging blades and tossing out bombs. Yaiba usually looks good in movement, that’s what its known for. But I’m glad to see these slower, wider, epic shots like what we saw with the spider family last season make a return. They are the truly memorable ones.

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2021 Anime Awards and Top 10 List

by SuperWooper, posted in Yearly Summaries

Mario: Here we are, having made it through the new normal in 2021, and things don’t look much better than they did this time last year. But at least we had anime to distract us, and I’m happy to report it was a pretty solid year on that front. There were a handful of original shows (Sonny Boy, Wonder Egg Priority, Odd Taxi) that caused a stir, some of which divided the audience but nevertheless delivered their fresh perspectives to the medium. Adaptations of world famous franchises had their highs (Fruits Basket, Attack on Titan) and their very lows (Promised Neverland, To Your Eternity). Even not-so-famous manga got a bit of shine, one of which is likely to appear on next year’s version of this post, as well (Ousama Ranking, Heaven’s Design Team). Once again, the staff at Star Crossed Anime share with you our favorites – and least favorites – that the past year in anime had to offer. Read on to see whether you agree with our picks!

 

Worst of the Worst

Worst Show: 2.43 Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu

Wooper: Given that 2021 played host to such turds as Tesla Note and Shinka no Mi, it’s not entirely accurate to call Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu the worst show of the year. But it was the worst show that at least two of us watched from start to finish, and the rapid descent from the relative promise of its premiere to the ambivalent fart of its finale was enough to earn it this honor. Incredibly, Volley-bu managed to throw a monkey wrench into nearly every one of its character arcs. Got a player who freezes up during official matches? Give him some extra motivation by ignoring him during practice – problem solved! Two teammates had a fight so massive that one of them decides to take a train out of town? Just have the other guy accompany him on his impulsive journey – friendship restored! Your star athlete was such a demanding team captain in middle school that one of his teammates attempted suicide? Just kidding – the “suicide attempt” was an elaborate plot to get back at him for being such a hardass! And that was just the first half of the show. After that it was lukewarm injury-related drama and inconsistently paced games week after week, leading to an ending that satisfied virtually no one. Which set of six episodes was worse, the first or the last? That impossible question will be Volley-bu’s only legacy.

Runner-up: VLAD LOVE, a mess of an anime with no clear direction, no overarching plot and cringe-worthy humor.

Biggest Disappointment:
To Your Eternity

Lenlo: There was a lot of hype around To Your Eternity when it first started airing, and rightfully so. Brain’s Base is a good studio with a decent pedigree and Yoshitoki Ooima’s first work, A Silent Voice, took the world by storm. Everything was in place for at least a decent show. And it started good! The early episodes promised us an exploration of what it means to be human. Showing us, through Fushi’s inexperienced third party perception, what our lives and societies are really like. Slowly learning and forming his own thoughts along the way. But as the episodes went on and the story progressed To Your Eternity shifted away from that. We left the very human conflicts and focused more on the supernatural. It introduced shape shifting monsters that only our special MC could fight, a grand conflict between cosmic forces that God himself put Fushi here to help solve. It abandoned everything that made it interesting and became a sub-par version of what we see in every single mediocre battle shounen ever. And it is for that, for raising our hopes and expectations for something different and then dashing them against the rocks, that To Your Eternity earns our award for Biggest Disappointment.

Runner-up: SONNY BOY, for promising an exciting, never-seen-before take on our human condition, youth, society, individuality – but instead producing a production more pretentious than potent.

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Winter 2022 Impressions: Vanitas no Carte S2, Futsal Boys, Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan to

by SuperWooper, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Vanitas no Carte S2

Short Synopsis: A bunch of vampires, vampire hunters, a vampire doctor, and some spooky clowns go to fight an ancient monster, only to get time warped and fight each other.

Armitage: It’s kind of strange to see vampire anime making such a return to the mainstream all of a sudden. I have been known to bemoan the lack of representation for bloodsucking white people in this medium but lately I have been feeling spoiled for choice. Sure, most of them are still your standard fare and barely better than mediocre. Your Vlad Love and your Kyuuketsuki (Mars Red is good tho, fight me) and it’s easy to see Vanitas no Karte belonging to the same crop. But it really does do enough to stand well and above the rest of its clan. Its light-hearted colorful exterior is an affront for a philosophical, dark core and it isn’t afraid to tear its own chest apart to give us a glimpse of its beating heart. It’s good stuff, to put it shortly. And while this season 2 premiere doesn’t necessarily kick things off in blistering fashion, it has earned enough goodwill from me in its previous season to be fully onboard with what comes next. I see this following in the footsteps of Golden Kamuy and building up on a first cour that laid the groundwork to turn into something truly special as it goes along.

Potential: 80%

Amun: Well that was pretty weird. No secret that Vanitas’ first half didn’t have the strongest ending – but the second half has certainly started off strangely. Our merry band of frenemies (and legitimate enemies) goes out to find this “Beast”, only to get time warped. Alright then. I’m getting tremendous Re:Zero S2 vibes from the timeskip, the snow, and the mysterious new goth girl. Which isn’t really a bad thing, but a bit unexpected from our buddy French vampire show. The fights and animation still look great, so I’m along for the ride – but I’m concerned that the story is starting to wander.

Potential: 75%

Futsal Boys!!!!!

Short Synopsis: Two high school boys put some mean ol’ bullies in their place with mad futsal skills.

Mario: I admit that I had reasonably high hopes for this original sports show, and as a result I was let down by the first episode. But while the premiere isn’t a standout by any means, It’s still a functional one. In the span of 20 minutes it establishes the basics of futsal, introduces the team and the personalities of our main characters. The only issue with that is that by doing so it forcefully creates a mock-match and pushes the drama in all directions. The production is subpar for a sports show, unfortunately, hence we get a fair share of still screens even in this first episode. I’m still intrigued to see how the team will shape up so I will be checking in for the next few episodes, but as with any sports show my concern is whether or not they could end this conclusively in a cour.

Potential: 30%

Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan to

Short Synopsis: Two guys are whisked away from their mundane lives to live in a fantasy world, but one of them loses an important package in the process.

Wooper: Congratulations to the makers of this show for waiting until the 20 minute mark to display a midair menu detailing the main characters’ stats. I know it’s hard not to replicate every trope of reincarnation anime immediately upon summoning your protagonists to their new world, so the fact that Fantasy Bishoujo was able to delay such a well-loved staple for so long is proof of its rookie director’s patience. I hope to cultivate the same sort of patience within myself as I wait for this isekai romcom, which has already hooked me after a single episode, to air each week. It will take a determined heart and a diligent mind not to read ahead in the manga and find out whether these thirty-something men, one of whom was cursed with the body of a teenage girl, will confess their feelings for each other. But damn it, if a first time director can master her impulses and put the focus on her characters before feeding us those oh-so-sweet video game menu screens, I can surely restrain myself for seven days at a time. Those week-long waits will make each new episode that much better, I just know it!

Potential: 0%