86: Eighty Six – 5 [I’m With You]

by Lenlo, posted in 86 - Eighty Six

This is it ladies and gentleman, this where Eighty Six redeems itself. Forget all of the Starbucks Philosophers and Liberal Arts jokes, Eighty Six is taking its shot. And I couldn’t be happier. So lets dive right in shall we?

Immediately before we get into all the politics, the narrative and all that jazz I want to talk production. Eighty Six is not the most well animated show of the season. That’s simply a fact. The CGI robots are fine and are used minimally however this is primarily a talking heads show. But what talking heads they are. Some of the shot composition, lighting and scene transitions were absolutely kino this week. Whether it be Undertaker and Lena’s moonlit conversation, the broken mirror, Lena’s reflection in the window or the bleeding fountain pen. Eighty Six was absolutely packed with clever shots. Connecting themes and events with physical objects that brought out the most in every single scene. Credit to Director Toshimasa Ishii and his team for this one. As for the actual politics and narrative of the scenes themselves? Well that was pretty good to.

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Fumetsu no Anata e – 04 [A Large Vessel]

by SuperWooper, posted in Fumetsu no Anata e, Series which were Dropped

I don’t know the process by which episode counts are decided for TV anime, but Fumetsu’s 20 seems like a strange number given the industry’s general adherence to multiples of 12 and 13. Some may perceive the glass to be half full – seven extra episodes, oh boy! – but after watching “A Large Vessel,” I can only view it as half empty. Fushi’s attempted escape from prison and resulting torture were stuffed into a twelve second montage, undercutting the horror of his experience and muddling his subsequent search for an exit. Parona’s encounter with a would-be rapist was neutered by its placement late in the episode (though her previous wall-scaling scene was suitably tense). Characters are being robbed of the ability to process their experiences, and in a series like this one, which is about the experience of life across cultures and species, that’s a serious issue. “Just add more episodes” is a hated catch-all phrase of mine, but fuck it, I’ll join the chorus in this case: Fumetsu deserved 26.

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Spice and Wolf S2 – 2 [Wolf and the Calm Before the Storm]

by Lenlo, posted in Spice and Wolf, Throwback Thursday

Another week, another episode of Spice and Wolf. This episode we see Lawrence hunt for answers, Holo for some quality time and Fermi for a relationship. Will any of them succeed? Lets jump in and find out!

To start off let’s talk about my only issue with the episode: Flashbacks. There were a lot of them. Credit where it’s due, these flashbacks did serve a purpose. They not only reminded us of certain events but the events they referenced prepped us emotionally for the episode. They put us in a specific frame of mind to view the episode through. From the flashbacks to the sewers arc in Season 1 to their first meeting, etc, these all prime us to see how their relationship is currently being strained. Lawrence going out alone to hunt for answers, Holo’s concerns about traveling with a mortal, it all connects. But we also already know all of this. Maybe this is only a complaint because we literally just finished watching Season 1. However I couldn’t get over how annoying the flashbacks cutting into the story sometimes was.

Luckily, that’s the only negative I got.

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Spring 2021 Summary – Week 5

by SuperWooper, posted in Weekly Summary

Mars Red – 04/05

Lenlo: God Mars Red is just so… aggressively mediocre. About once per episode it will have a good, focused moment of vampiric humanity. Of immortals interacting and living in a mortal society. And then the rest of the episode is just mediocre political subplots, vampires we don’t know or care about subplots and downright terrible action sequences. There’s only ever one scene of any value in these episodes. You could watch that one scene on youtube, skip the rest and lose absolutely nothing. And that’s a damn shame.

Back Arrow – 17

Wooper: Last week our heroes declared the Granedger to be its own sovereign nation, but that claim feels silly now that the show is handing out massive warships like Oprah. “You get a dreadnought, you get a dreadnought, everybody gets a dreadnought!” Not only are they being given to antagonists left and right, those antagonists are being defeated just moments after receiving them, making this whole arc feel even hastier than usual (a real feat for a series like Back Arrow). We’re just making all of this up as we go along, it seems, but at least that improvised feel leaves room for plenty of fights – the Rekkan Emperor kicked so much ass this week that he must have broken both ankles. Am I crazy, or did he manifest as both an arrow and the bow that fired it during his battle with Tae’s dreadnought? I had to rewind that scene a couple times to double check what I’d just watched, and I still don’t really understand it. Looked pretty cool, though! All the cult/prophecy nonsense about Arrow destroying the world is just background noise, as far as I’m concerned – give me more fights and less story, please.

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86: Eighty Six – 4 [Real Name]

by Lenlo, posted in 86 - Eighty Six

Welcome back to another episode of Eighty Six! This week we see the fallout of the Liberal Arts student realizing that posting on social media doesn’t actually solve anything. Will she give up? Or try something new? Lets find out!

So starting off, lets talk about the fallout from last week. Because one thing that Eighty Six did that I really liked this week was to double down. I expected it to try and validate Lena, to try and reassure her “Oh don’t worry, you’re a good person”. You know, the regular anime bullshit. That doesn’t happen. Instead every single character just calls her an idiot. Her friend, for thinking she can actually make meaningful change. Her superior and uncle, for being naive and idiotic just like her father. Even the 86ers get in on it again at the end saying that even if she learns their names that this changes nothing. This is probably a small thing to be happy about, I know. But after the 2nd episode my expectations for Eighty Six were really really low. So I will take any pleasant surprise I can get.

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Megalo Box: Nomad – 5 [La tierra prometida respondió que el mesías no se quedará]

by Lenlo, posted in Megalo Box

Another week another good episode of Nomad. It’s wild how a show ostensibly about boxing can be so good with so little actual boxing. But that’s just the nature of good character dramas huh? So without further ado lets jump into this weeks episode of Megalo Box: Nomad!

Starting off lets talk about the wonderous world of greyscale, because Nomad used a lot of it. Now I’m not inherently against greyscale. It can often be used to great effect in movies both new and old, 2019’s The Lighthouse for example. With proper or harsh lighting and no color to distract you it can add a lot of gravitas to a scene. In anime this is much more difficult though because you don’t inherently get any extra detail. You have to manually add it in and Nomad doesn’t. If that was my only problem however this wouldn’t be worth mentioning. Because in addition to this, the greyscale also robs Nomad of one of its greatest strengths: The coloring of its backgrounds. These backgrounds are often fantastic! But with over half the episode in greyscale we don’t get to see that this week. And I think that’s a damn shame.

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SSSS.Dynazenon – 05 [What’s Lover-Like Mean?]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Action, SSSS.Dynazenon

Though SSSS.Dynazenon has lifted a number of elements from Gridman thus far, it wasn’t content to recreate that show’s fifth episode this week. Where its parent series put a spin on the stalwart ‘beach episode’ with a river rafting field trip, Dynazenon sent its characters to Tokyo Beach Land, a water park with an underground hot spring. With the power of both pool and onsen tropes at its disposal, you’d think this episode would be a massive hit, but it was my least favorite of the month. Let’s see if I can put into words why that was, exactly.

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Spice and Wolf S2 – OVA + 1 [Wolf and a Sudden Rift] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Spice and Wolf, Throwback Thursday

I hope everyone enjoyed Spice and Wolf because it’s back for round 2. That’s right, this season of Throwback Thursday is staying on the foxy waifu train, its Spice and Wolf Season 2. And as a bit of a bonus I even through in the OVA. So without further ado lets jump right into it!

And right off the bat I want to say that this season of Spice and Wolf looks leagues better. Everyone is just so much more… emotive. Characters are moving, physically interacting and in general being more than the cardboard cutouts they were in Season 1. From Holo stroking her tail, bouncing off Lawrence and her face after getting drunk to Fermi, Lawrence and Mark gesturing and walking. The fact that it managed this without dropping the background quality or heavily modifying the designs is just the cherry on top. I have no idea why Spice and Wolf shifted to Studio Brain’s Base, response for this season’s To Your Eternity, or how they managed to keep the same staff. But between the OVA and this first episode I’m glad they did. The production was one of my few issues with the first season and this addresses that in every way.

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