Tag: Fall 2022

Spy X Family – 9 [Nightfall]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Spy X Family

Hello, and welcome to this weeks episode of SpyxFamily! This is an interesting week, as it introduces a whole new character to act as Yuri’s counterpart, just for Loid. Is she any good? Do the jokes land? Did something happen? Lets dive in and find out!

So starting off, overall I think this was a decent week for SpyxFamily. For the first time in a while we got an entire episode dedicated to a singular storyline, and I think it paid off. Sure, there was that extra bit after the ED, but that’s more like a cute excerpt to me, its fine. As for the storyline in question? The introduction of Fiona Frost! As far as introductions go, we’ve had a lot worse. Considering her character archetype, Yuri immediately comes to mind, as they share so much in common. She’s not perfect, and we will talk about why, but I think she has far more potential than Yuri did. Partly because this one isn’t incestuous, but also because she has more going on than just this love obsession. Or at least it feels like it.

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Mob Psycho 100 III – 8 [Transmission 2 ~Encountering the Unknown~]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Mob Psycho 100 III

Welcome everyone, to this weeks (late) episode of Mob Psycho 100! I’m not going to apologize for this one, it aired on Thanksgiving and I just got home, you should have expected this. I will say however that I was looking forward to this the entire trip, and I’m glad to be back to watch it. So without further ado, lets dive into the episode!

Starting off, we have to talk about the animation. This episode was storyboarded and directed by the absolute phenom that is Hakuyu Go, so right away you know it’s going to be beautiful. But instead of his usual explosive action set pieces, here we get to see his hand at character acting. And like kVin of Sakugablog fame says, it’s absolutely beautiful. The disorienting direction while lost in the forest, their unified individuality after finding the trail, the outrageous full-body character work present all throughout. And none of that even comes close to the trip and a half that is the ending sequence with Inukawa. While it wasn’t the kind of expressive explosion I was expecting from Hakuyu Go, it was certainly still one of the best and most visually memorable episodes of the season.

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Spy X Family – 8 [Decipher the Perplexing Code]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Spy X Family

Welcome everyone, to another week of Spy X Family! This is another pretty slow week all things considered, another pair of jokes without much going on. While rather cute in execution, I continue to want something a bit more from the series. I’m ready to have my heartstrings pulled again, you know? Anyways, without further ado lets jump into the episode, shall we?

So like I said, this week was another pair of gag episodes, with the first half being all about Anya exploring Loid’s job. This was cute! There were some fun gags in here, a cute Sherlock Holmes outfit, some spy shenanigans. As far as comedy goes, I think SpyXFamily nailed a lot of the jokes here. Perhaps my favorite was Yor’s imagination of taking Anya out and showing off her own job. Not working at the capital building, but being an assassin. The little ninja run, Anya’s smaller version of the outfit, the brightly colored blood. It was a great sequence, with some good action animation for Yor. Beyond that though? There wasn’t really anything of substance. Nothing narratively noteworthy or important. Just a bunch of amusing jokes for a wholesome episodic experience. Like I said last week, for some that’s going to be great. But I need something more.

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Mob Psycho 100 III – 7 [Transmission 1 ~Winter Break~]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Mob Psycho 100 III

Welcome everyone, to what I hope is the latest Mob Psycho 100 post you will ever see. Sincere apologies for this. There was simply no motivation to write this week, for various family related reasons. Still, the show must go on. So lets see if I can get this out before the next episode!

Overall, this was a pretty simple episode. Much like SpyXFamily, Mob Psycho is giving us some much needed time to rest and destress after the big emotional rollercoaster that was the Divine Tree arc. However where SpyXFamily largely uses that time for Anya gags, which are still fun don’t get me wrong, Mob Psycho uses it to explore it’s cast of side-characters. In this case, the Telepathy Club. This is an interesting choice, as these guys really haven’t been relevant since the first season. They’ve been in the background, Tome appearing here and there. But they haven’t really been what one would call “characters”. So Mob Psycho picking them up and deciding that now was the time to change that is really interesting. The question becomes though: Is it time well spent?

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Spy X Family – 7 [Operation Revenge on Desmond]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Spy X Family

Welcome everyone, to a (very) late episode of SpyXFamily! Apologies for that, I had to finish the His and Her Circumstances review, checking it over until I was happy. Still, that’s done and ready to go up Thursday so it’s time for some good old family fun! So without further ado, lets dive into the episode.

Overall this was a pretty slow week for SpyXFamily, with neither episode really furthering anything plot wise. Instead they were just 2 cute, longform gag sequences. This is fine enough, it was certainly cute. But there was nothing really… noteworthy. Nothing particularly heartwarming nor narratively important enough to get invested in. I’m sure for most this is fine, I want to be painfully clear that this was still a fun episode. But I’ve heard some gripes from friends and colleagues about how they found it to be rather dull, and I can’t bring myself to disagree. Still, every now and then this kind of break from the serious stuff is good. You can’t keep your audience tense all of the time. So long as this doesn’t become the new status quo, I’m sure it’ll be alright.

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Mob Psycho 100 III – 6 [Divine Tree 3 ~Dimple Is~]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Mob Psycho 100 III

Welcome everyone, to what is so far the best episode of the Fall 2022 anime season. You know how I was talking about hype, and how to much of it can hurt a season? Well this week is what happens when that promise of hype gets fulfilled. Mob Psycho absolutely nailed it this week, on every front. Now lets dive in and talk about how.

First up, the production. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. This looked gorgeous. Not just because of Dimple flying around shooting laser beams and beating the crap out of broccoli men, but also the facial expressions, body language and evocative storyboards. I’m talking stuff like the giant set of eyes looming behind Dimple as Mob leaves, or Dimple’s desperate cry as the battle rages on and on. There is an art to conveying emotion in a fight. Any Shounen, any anime at all really, can animate a fight well if they put their mind to it. It’s selling the audience on the conflict, on why the characters are fighting that makes it truly impactful. And that’s something I think Mob Psycho did incredibly well here. Dimple went from the arcs antagonist to it’s hero in the span of 8 minutes, and I loved every single one.

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Mob Psycho 100 III – 5 [Divine Tree 2 ~Peace~]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Mob Psycho 100 III

Welcome everyone, to a very late episode of Mob Psycho 100! Apologies for the wait on this one, busy week of work and grad school has slowed me down and I prioritized Throwback Thursday going out on… well Thursday. Excuses aside though, let’s dive into this weeks episode!

As usual, lets start with the production. This is going to be a bit of a controversial statement, but I think Mob Psycho was rather subdued this week. It was good, obviously. I’m not saying it was bad, Mob Psycho’s baseline consistency is great and puts most shows highs to shame. It just hasn’t given us anything incredible yet. Nothing that has pushed or exceeded my expectations for the show. Maybe this is a consequence of hype though. How to much can lead to unattainable expectations, sort of like how the Chainsaw Man fandom is at war with itself right now over it’s own visual production (Which I’ve enjoyed so far, to be clear). For Mob Psycho, after 2 seasons of pushing that envelope I, and others, have come to expect that once again. Will we get it? Probably, eventually. But we haven’t yet, despite being beautiful otherwise.

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Spy X Family – 4/5 [Yor’s Kitchen/Carry Out the Griffin Plan]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Spy X Family

Hello everyone, and welcome back to SpyXFamily! Apologies for missing last week, had a bit of a family emergency. Don’t worry though, everything is going much better! Enough with real life problems though, let’s just dive right into our weekly anime.

Right off the bat, this is a bit of an odd (double) week for SpyXFamily. Both episodes have a singular, larger plot to them, like a normal episode should. But neither of these plots are enough to fill an entire episode on their own. So what do you do? Drag it out, or fill the space with something else? In this case, SpyXFamily has chosen the latter. Rather than drag out two perfectly paced stories, it instead added a miniature “filler” story to the end of each episode. As a sort of epilogue to these episodes, mini-sodes meant to show us small parts of these characters daily lives, this is fine. But for me, as someone who isn’t big on Slice of Life, they certainly weren’t my favorite of the things SpyXFamily has done. What I’m saying is, they were cute but lets not do them to often, you know?

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Mob Psycho 100 III – 4 [Divine Tree 1 ~The Founder Appears~]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Mob Psycho 100 III

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Mob Psycho 100! Apologies for missing SpyXFamily last week, had a bit of a family emergency. But that’s all resolved and I’m back in the saddle now, so lets dive into this weeks best episode!

Starting off, Mob Psycho looked fantastic this week. It still hasn’t dropped the animation bomb we are all looking for, and for some that might be disappointing. But barring that, this episode was filled to the brim with great character animation incredible storyboards. Just look at Tome’s segment in the opening shots of the episode, how her whole body moves with her gestures, and how the other club members express their confusion with her. Or how the atmosphere of the episode slowly grew more and more oppressive and uncomfortable as it progressed, with the color green slowly invading each scene. Omnipresent, always watching, waiting as it took over the show and the characters within. It was tense, almost horror-esque, with it’s uncomfortable closeups, silent wide shots and stark lighting. Once again we learn that even without sakuga, Mob Psycho is one of the best visual experiences airing right now.

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Mob Psycho 100 III – 3 [Getting Carried Away ~100%~]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Mob Psycho 100 III

Hello everyone and welcome back to Mob Psycho 100, the best show of the season! It’s a rather tame episode this week, but even tame a Mob Psycho episode is still one of the most solid things to air. Don’t believe me? Well lets jump in and see if I can’t convince you by the end of this post.

First up, what do I mean by “tame”? Simply that there weren’t any “big” moments. No grand sakuga showcase, no fight, nothing that we can point to and say “That looked incredible”. Instead what we got was simple, solid consistency. Everything from small scenes of character acting to expressive body language and engaging visual metaphors. The kind of things that fall by the wayside in a lot of series, because who is going to notice, right? But Mob Psycho is known both for its incredible highs and it’s consistently solid “lows”. So now that we’ve seen that solid “low”, when can we expect the high? And remember, I say low but that’s still wildly above average for TV anime. Back to the high, from what I’ve read we know that Hakuyu Go, from Season 2 Episode 5 fame, is working primarily on episode 8. So expect that to be huge.

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