Tag: Fall 2023

Migi & Dali Review – 86/100

by Lenlo, posted in Anime Reviews, Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense, Migi & Dali, Reviews by Lenlo

Animated horror can be a pretty hard genre to nail. You know what you’re watching, so you’re expecting to be scared, and it being animated removes it from the real world, narrowing your options. Comedy can be similarly difficult. Due to how subjective it be, its common to fall back on slapstick, what with animations malleable bodies and stylized violence. But what if I were to tell you there was an anime that does both? A situational comedy that gets laughs not from banana peels or pies to the face, but absurd surreal situations? That successfully transitions to a full blown horror, complete with a murder mystery? Well that show is what I’m here to talk about today. Animated studio GEEKTOYS, directed by Mankyuu and originally created by the late Nami Sano who passed earlier this year, I give to you my favorite anime of Fall 2023: Migi & Dali.

Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for Migi & Dali. It also contains major spoilers in some sections however these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents. Continue reading “Migi & Dali Review – 86/100” →

Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 23 [Shibuya Incident – Gate, Close]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Jujutsu Kaisen

Welcome all, to the finale of Jujutsu Kaisen season two! Not a whole lot to talk about this week, and I’m a bit preoccupied with all of the reviews, so lets just knock this out and get ready for the next season.

Getting right to it, this episode was… Fine? There’s nothing to egregious or incredible about it. You could tell the production was finally flagging as it relied heavily on chibi animation and still frames, with absolutely none of the character work of previous episodes. That’s not the worst thing, as even failing at the end here Jujutsu Kaisen still never fully fell apart. While I’ll never accept MAPPA’s treatment of animators and their poor scheduling, it’s clear those very same animators worked their asses off to ensure Jujutsu Kaisen finished. So when you talk about the highs, about how good this season was if you enjoyed it, don’t praise MAPPA. Because the studio did everything it could to fuck it up. Instead praise the animators, inbetweeners and myriad of support staff who made the terrible schedule work.

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Migi & Dali – 13 [Migi and Dali]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Migi & Dali

Welcome all, to the finale of Migi & Dali! We have a lot to talk about this week, as Migi & Dali may have just given us the best finale of the season. That’s not a joke or an exaggeration, I cannot understate how much I loved this episode. So without further ado, let’s dive into it!

As I said, I thought this episode was fantastic. In fact I would go so far as to call it the perfect ending. No matter how I look at it, I can’t think of something Migi & Dali could have done better. Maybe cut it out with the Mit-chan stuff? But even that was used for a humerous pen-pal joke with Mrs. Sonoyama, so I can let that pass. It covers basically everything I was looking for from an ending. Migi and Dali’s relationship with the Sonoyama’s, coming out to them and the community at large. Akiyama and Migi’s friendship, Maruta, Eiji. It’s all there! More than that, Migi & Dali handles it in a genuinely emotional way. I cried at multiple points in this episode. I never cry! I’m a soulless husk! But when Dali got that omelet I just… I couldn’t help it. I loved it.

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Dr. STONE New World P2 – 10/11 [Treasure Island/Beyond the New World]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Dr.STONE

Welcome all, to a double feature and the grand finale for this season of Dr. STONE. Neither episode really had a whole lot going on, this being an extended epilogue of sorts, so I decided to just merge them together. Don’t worry though, you’ll still get a final review! At some point. Over Christmas. God it’s busy. Anyways, on with the show!

First up we have episode 10, “Treasure Island”. This is mostly more time spent on the island, introducing the locals to the wonders of technology, etc etc. It’s a speed all the stuff season one create. From ramen and glasses to radio towers and lightbulbs, it’s one long extended “Humanity Fuck Yeah” moment. And that’s fine! That’s sort of what I watch Dr. STONE for. But in this case, none of it was particularly new. Because of that it felt very… subdued? Filtered? Diluted! That’s the word! It felt like a diluted experience of something we had already gotten and loved. Personally, as much I enjoy this stuff, the best moments were actually just Senku reminiscing on what this island means to him. After all, this is where his father died.

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Migi & Dali – 12 [Upside-Down Woman]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Migi & Dali

Welcome all, to the penultimate episode of Migi & Dali! This is a rough one for me, where I liked most of it but I just can’t get a few niggling little details out of my head. Nothing too major, but still important enough to be worth talking about. So with that, lets dive into the episode!

So like I said, this episode was mixed for me. The core of it, the primary plot and events, all worked really well. Most everything involving the twins, Eiji, their relationship was good. How they came together as brothers, or Dali deciding his revenge against Reiko and Eiji would be to force him to live imperfectly rather than die a perfect death, that all worked. Considering those are all of the most important events of the episode, it would probably be safe to call this week a success. But… There are a few things I just can’t get out of my head. Details, the way certain scenes were executed that, despite being in an otherwise solid episode, bring the whole thing down for me. So before I gush about the rest of the good stuff, lets talk about those.

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Migi & Dali – 11

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Migi & Dali

Welcome all, to another episode of Migi & Dali! This week we go full horror, completely abandoning any semblance of comedy to show just up screwed up this family is. And you know what? It’s pretty damn great. So without further ado, lets dive into it!

As I said, this episode dives head-first into horror, starting with Metry and Reiko’s backstory. It starts innocently enough, Metry worked for and idolized Reiko like a big sister, doing everything she could to make her proud. It was actually really sweet! However bit by bit everything started to go… wrong. Reiko is told she’s barren, unable to have children, so she convinces Metry to sleep with her husband in her place. To bear his children for her. Eventually the husband realizes what’s going and confesses he likes Metry more, to which it almost seems like Metry is doing it all on purpose to steal Reiko’s “perfect life”. Of course this is all from Reiko’s perspective, we can’t know how true all of this is, the woman is crazy. Classic unreliable narrator stuff. But we know one thing for certain: Metry did eventually get pregnant. But with triplets, not twins.

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Dr. STONE New World P2 – 9 [First Dream]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Dr.STONE

Welcome all, to another week of Dr. STONE! This one begins our epilogue, our journey into the next arc. Not a whole lot happens, mostly just check-ins and resets, but we do get one major plot reveal: Why-Man returns. What does this mean? Well lets jump in and find out!

Starting off, like I said this was a rather slow week. Lots of preparation for the next arc, walking us through reviving everyone and surviving on the island, you know, dotting i’s and crossing t’s. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t decent though. It was like we were speed running the first few episodes of Dr. STONE all over again. Identifying problems, unpetrifying people as they were needed, slowly expanding and rebuilding. It was a nice reminder of what everyone does and just how far we’ve come. Plus it gave us a chance to spend time with some of our new characters, the islanders now turned allies with Ibara out of the picture. The big one of course being Kirisame, who quickly sided with them after hearing what happened.

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Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 20 [Right and Wrong, Part 3]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Jujutsu Kaisen

You know, it’s episodes like this that really show just how much good direction can cover for a melting production. Because make no mistake, despite some well composed shots and good ideas, melt this episode of Jujutsu Kaisen did. From absolutely abysmal proportions to less and less detail on screen, seriously who needs faces, Jujutsu Kaisen is finally starting to feel the burn. Like usual, not all of the issues are their fault. Dimming and ghosting are just the price of doing business on TV in Japan, as much as it sucks I don’t blame MAPPA for that. Everything else though? From Todo T-Posing to victory too those absolutely terrible backgrounds inside the train? Those I do lay at MAPPA’s feet. And while there were some pretty cuts in places, for the most part the episode moved like I do when I first wake up in the morning: Poorly.

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Migi & Dali – 10 [Beavers vs Mother Ichijo]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Migi & Dali

Welcome all, to another episode of Migi & Dali! This week the twins return to town, gather a team, and begin their plan to take down the Ichijo family. Of course things don’t go smoothly, but when do they ever? So without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off, lets pick up with what’s happened in town while the twins were away. Turns out, Reiko wasn’t just sitting on her ass content with driving them out of town. No, she instead frames them for the murder of Micchan the maid, turning the entire town against them and ripping away what little support they had. Of course not everyone believes this, I doubt the Sonoyamas do for instance. But it’s enough to make life even more difficult for them. So the question then becomes, who else can they turn too? Because they obviously can’t do this alone, they’ve tried for weeks and failed. Well the answer wasn’t all that surprisingly, but did feel earned: Akiyama, the weird bird boy. The one true friend Migi made here, two outcasts against the world. Well four once you count Dali and Maruyama. And with the team assembled? Then it gets weird.

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Dr. STONE New World P2 – 8 [Last Man Standing]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Dr.STONE

Welcome all, to another week of Dr. STONE! And this one actually released before the next episode at that! I’m starting to catch up on stuff, a wonder what can happen once you don’t have any more papers to write for grad school. Enough about my struggles with numbers though, lets dive into Senku’s!

Picking up where the last episode left off, we have a battle of the bosses, Ibara vs Senku! This goes about as expected. Senku isn’t a physical combatant, and Ibara is clever enough that plans A, B and C fall through. Senku ends up having to think on his feet, coming up with a plan on the fly, and I really like this. Dr. STONE did a good job making this feel like a battle of intelligence despite the physical differences in the characters. From Ibara figuring out how science works through observation too having plans/practiced against the Medusa expecting to one day fight it. Both of them laying traps. using their knowledge of the land and everything that’s happened that day since the first confrontation that morning, it all worked really well. And the climax was even better.

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