Winter 2021 Summary – Weeks 9-10

by SuperWooper, posted in Weekly Summary

Wooper: Spring fever has gripped us prematurely here at Star Crossed. We all blanked on this column last week, and I nearly forgot to post it today – our anticipation for the upcoming spring season is starting to overshadow our attentiveness to this winter’s offerings. We managed to throw a little something together for today’s column, so consider it an appetizer for the final thoughts we’ll offer in a week or two.

Reincarnated As A Spider – 11

Amun: This outing of Reincarnated As A Spider is mostly a flashback…about another spooky spider: the Nightmare of the Labyrinth. Biggest takeaway is that our spider hero-chan (pun intended) isn’t the first spider to use magic and be super strong – this is apparently not that uncommon in the new world. This episode felt a lot like busy work, as it sets up the season for the finale. Still, it handled it adequately, so I have no complaints – I also don’t have any heaping praises either.

Back Arrow – 9-10

Wooper: This show moves so fast that it’s constantly catching up with itself, or else abandoning all hope of doing so. At the start of these episodes, only a handful of people in all of Lutoh are aware of Princess Fine’s split personality; by the end, the entire kingdom has seen her evil alter ego. She phases in and out of it as though someone were flipping a switch, which makes about as much sense as the origin of her duel personas: the transfused blood of a morbidly obese puppetmaster named Rudolph, who selected her to be Lutoh’s ruler. There’s so much explanation required to coordinate these sorts of developments, and since the series is full of them, that means its scripts are bursting with expository dialogue. Back Arrow is so absurd that its attempts at rationalization are usually pretty funny, but I actually prefer when the show breaks its own rules with no explanation at all. Arrow’s Briheight growing wings and turning into a sword at various points throughout episode 10 are prime examples. It doesn’t make sense on a mechanical level, but neither does anything else, so we’ve got no choice but to accept it and move on (or else drop the show, which I suspect most people have done already).

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SK8 the Infinity – 09 [We Were Special Back Then]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Sports, SK8 the Infinity

When I heard that SK8 would be getting a mid-cour recap episode, I figured I’d just delay my viewing of “We Were Special Back Then” and blog it during the show’s off week. Waiting may have been the wrong decision, though, as my interest in the series has dulled significantly since the last time I tuned in. This episode didn’t do much to change that, even with its array of crazy moves: wall kicks, handstand planks, steel beam surfing, and skateboards used as blunt instruments. To be fair, that last one did leave me grinning in disbelief, but there was a predictable air to the entire ‘Joe vs Snow’ race that sorely disappointed me. Whenever Joe pulled ahead via some feat of physical strength, Langa caught up as a matter of course, meaning that only the final minute of the race maintained any sort of tension. At one point Langa was trailing by a huge margin, having lost interest in the competition, when who should appear on the sidelines but his best friend Reki, screaming his name – and thus the gap was closed yet again. I’d be glad to see a nail in that trope’s coffin, but SK8 won’t be the show to put it there.

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Jujutsu Kaisen – 22 [The Origin of Blind Obedience]

by Lenlo, posted in Jujutsu Kaisen

Welcome back to Jujutsu Kaisen! Last week was a contentious one going by the comments. And by contentious I mean people thought I was a tad harsh and may have missed the point of the episode. Well for those people I have good news, because I actually quite enjoyed this one! Surprising considering its 90% setup but it’s setup done well. So without further ado lets jump into Jujutsu Kaisen!

Like I said, this week is primarily setup for what is to come. It’s a lot of talking, wandering around and basically no fighting until the very last second. So the question becomes: Why do I think this is good setup compared to most anime? And the answer I have come up with is this: We still had interesting and meaningful character interaction, with history about Fushiguro specifically, that made it worth our time. Whether it be Fushiguro’s time in middle school or his more serious inner conflict about his sister, we learned more about who Fushiguro is. And these weren’t just random tidbits, info dumping his backstory for us. They were directly involved in the random B-plot of the episode and that made them feel… important. Even if they probably aren’t in the long run. It’s this sense of importance that makes this episode work for me.

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Dr. STONE S2 – 9 [To Destroy and to Save]

by Lenlo, posted in Dr.STONE

It’s done, the war is over, peace has come to Dr. STONE! Or at least that’s what it wants you to think. With 2 episodes left something is yet to come. What it is, we will have to wait and find out. But as far as this week goes lets dive right in shall we?

Now normally I would start this section lamenting Dr. STONE’s action production. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, Dr. STONE is not an action show and it shows. But you already know that by now so lets skip to the good stuff and talk Tsukasa! This was a good week for him as Dr. STONE acknowledged a lot of holes in Senku’s “Save everyone” argument. If you have limited fluid, who do you save? How do you feed them all in a stone world, etc. Tsukasa saw these problems and, with a decent amount of bias, took that terrible choice onto himself. He’s always ridden the line of a redeemable villain. This week cemented that for him. Most important of all though it took what was previously a “Fuck yeah action” finale and shifted it to a “Fuck yeah humanity” one. And you know I love those.

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Spice and Wolf S1 – 8 [Wolf and Virtuous Scales] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Spice and Wolf, Throwback Thursday

Hello all and welcome back to another episode of Spice and Wolf! Sorry about this one being a bit late, but I just finished moving into my new home and I love it. Fios is a godsend. Switching back to Spice and Wolf though this a good week for us. Holo and Lawrence continue to deliver fantastic exchanges, meanwhile the pair finally leaves Pazzio for new pastures. What do they find? Read on to find out!

Starting with a basic overview, it looks like we are back to travelling and I’m glad for it. I would have liked a bit more of a notice of that fact though. The episode opens already on the road and in a new town, taking me a bit to realize we weren’t still in Pazzio. I figured it out eventually through context clues and dialogue of course. But jumping from one brick walled city to another with no in-between or notice could get very confusing very fast. As the only things to really delineate these towns from each other are the overhead views and the characters in them. That’s basically the only issue I have the with episode though. Spice and Wolf seems to struggle a bit with how to open but once it gets going it becomes rather capitating. Not the worst problem to have I suppose.

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Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World 2 -23 [Love Me Down to My Blood and Guts]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World

My first thought on starting this episode was “That’s a violent sounding episode title” and it truly did live up to that. This episode features some of the most brutal fight scenes in the series to date and damn if it wasn’t exciting. I might as well say this now, this was the best episode of the second cour of season two. I wouldn’t put it as best in the series or even best in the season but damn it’s certainly one of the best and considering how the story has faltered lately, we really needed this. Odd as I previously made the case that action was not Re:Zeros strong suit yet today’s episode is almost pure action and still a magnificent display. My hype is back and we got two more episodes to go. I can only hope those last two episodes can be as good as this one was.
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2.43 Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu – 7/8/9

by Lenlo, posted in 2.43 Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu

I’m back baby, and with more bitching about Volley-Bu! As you can see from the title this post is a triple header. Why? Because I don’t have enough to write about 1 episode of this show, so its easier to do 3. Don’t worry, it’s still mostly going to be me complaining about it, so lets dive in!

Starting off, lets shove 3 episodes worth of production issues into a single 150 word paragraph. There’s a lot we could talk about here: The framing of shots is off, the CGI volleyballs look like crap, the character models move like they are in molasses, etc. There is the occasional moment of decent animation but by and large Volley-Bu looks like crap. But the single biggest production flaw to me right now has to be the sound design. I understand what Volley-Bu is going for here, it wants the hits to be impactful and the jumps to have momentum. Basically it wants the Hajime no Ippo treatment where everything sounds like a jet engine and it all just works. But Volley-Bu isn’t getting that. Instead its getting the Berserk 2016 treatment where it sounds like a blown out microphone and someone hitting pans together. And I hate it.

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Horimiya – 8-9 [The Truth Deception Reveals/It’s Hard, but Not Impossible]

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Romance, Horimiya

It makes sense that Horimiya would follow a heavy episode (like the one we got two weeks ago) with a lighter affair, so I was prepared for “The Truth Deception Reveals” to be a fluffy side character piece. What I wasn’t prepared for was how much I’d enjoy it – we’re talking ‘make the squeaky-voiced twintailed girl likeable’ levels of enjoyability here. The girl in question is Remi, and though she’s had a mostly benign impact on the show thus far, anime girls who sound like they’ve inhaled helium tend not to be my favorites. The flashbacks to her first few conversations with Sengoku, however, were pretty charming. Her interest in him stemmed from both his equal treatment of others and his obsession with reading, two things that an average teen girl might be attracted to. Not every teenager would provide such a gracious window for their crush to confess their feelings, though. “What would you do if the world were ending tomorrow?” practically begs a romantic answer when asked in an intimate setting, so good on Remi for snagging her man with such a foolproof trap.

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Jujutsu Kaisen – 21 [Jujutsu Koshien]

by Lenlo, posted in Jujutsu Kaisen

I can’t lie, this was a weird week for Jujutsu Kaisen. Between the baseball, the comedy and the serious plot I had no idea what it was trying to accomplish. I don’t think Jujutsu Kaisen knows either to be frank. So without further ado lets dive in to the wacky world of cursed baseball.

As I said, this is tonally a very weird episode. Large portions of Jujutsu Kaisen were very comedy focused this week, and to great success I would say. Toudou getting hit in the face with a baseball and then the follow up gag of it being completely on purpose was hilarious. It was hands down the best joke not only of the episode but of the series as a whole. But interspersed between those jokes, between the baseball stat cards and fun scenes, we got… serious character flashbacks about abandonment? And philosophical talks between headmasters about whether or not Itadori should get to live? What? It felt like Jujutsu Kaisen didn’t have enough baseball content to fill a full episode with. That makes sense, no doubt the baseball was a single chapter in the manga. With an anime’s pacing though it makes for an awkward episode.

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Dr. STONE S2 – 8 [Final Battle]

by Lenlo, posted in Dr.STONE

This is it ladies and gentleman, the culmination of Dr. STONE’s story, the big kahuna: The final battle. Ignore that we still have 3 episodes left, thats not important, because its time to RUUUUUUMBLE! Lets dive into it.

Right off the bat I have to say that this was a very rough episode. Both production and narrative wise Dr.STONE ran into a lot of problems. For production, the only part that felt “well made” was the opening sequence about the cave. Showing us how it got formed over time, how Senku ended up there and all that jazz was a great way to remind us of our roots. Of how far the series has come from the first episode. All without being a shot for shot recap that everyone would hate. After that though its like Dr. STONE forgot what the landscape was. Multiple times we were shown the open field in from of the cave. Only for the entire action sequence to forget this layout, add more men, more ground and some hills before reverting back to a flat plain. There was 0 locational consistency here.

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