Rottcodd

Current:

Shiboyugi - even more symbolic than past episodes, to the degree that it's not even entirely clear what happened, though some assumptions can relatively safely be made. And the mystery deepens around the agents - I assume they're a key to the background and the hidden motive and meanings of the games, and likely to Yuki's story.

MF Ghost - the formula is wearing a bit thin.

Roll Over and Die - I was especially impressed by this episode. This is shaping up to be interesting and satisfying.

Champignon Witch - I just caught up with this one last week. I'm still not sure about it - it's promising, but sort of vague. And I hate Claude with the fire of a thousand suns, which makes it sort of difficult to enjoy. Still though... it could turn out pretty good, and I like the basic premise and the art style.

Trigun Stargaze - better than last week's episode, but still unsatisfying.

Scum of the Brave - finally stated the obvious connection between Yashiro and Jougamine, and finally got some movement in their relationship, and not a moment too soon. This is a sort of turning point for this anime. It was starting to feel like it had lost its way, but it might've found it again.

You and I Are Polar Opposites - another excellent episode. This series is pure pleasure.

Journal with Witch - the end was a weird combination of awful and hopeful. It was so hard to see Asa like that, but it's progress, and it pulled her out of that pointless and self-destructive rage. And I realized that there's a sort of meta-moral in this series. Makio doesn't have the foggiest idea what she's doing - she's entirely out of her element as a sort of surrogate parent - but she's doing an overall fine job of it, and her secret is simple - she's honest and respectful.

In the introduction to the novel Jailbird, Kurt Vonnegut wrote that a student had written him a letter and told him that he'd figured out the underlying message to Vonnegut's novels - "Love may fail but courtesy will prevail."

In Vonnegut's own words:

This seems true to me — and complete. So I am now in the abashed condition, five days after my fifty-sixth birthday, of realizing that I needn't have bothered to write several books. A seven-word telegram would have done the job.

Seriously

I have to wonder if the author of Ikoku Nikki read that and took it to heart, or independently discovered the same truth.

Anyway - along the way last week, I rewatched Tsuki ga Kirei(As the Moon, So Beautiful), as I'm prone to do with series that unexpectedly impress me that much, just to re-experience it and see if it holds up. And it did - it really is very good. The only fault I can find with it is that the animation is generally only mediocre (though I do quite like the character designs).

Then I finally found it in myself to watch Season V of Danmachi, which was broadly what I've come to expect.

longish Danmachi rant plus spoilerish season details

A season of Danmachi is such an exhausting experience. It follows the same pattern every time. First, it introduces the "villains" (quotation marks because some number of them are going to end up shifting allegiances to Bell and the Hestia familia at or slightly before the end), who are entirely vile and loathsome and utterly without redeeming qualities. And they all are, entirely, every time. They're never brave or honorable or motivated by lofty ideals or anything like that - they're exclusively arrogant and cruel and utterly foul, and fill me with rage every time. And Bell, at that point, is a frustratingly meek, whiney and entirely incompetent child. So the villains have free reign to create an ugly situation, which they do. Then Bell finally tries to stand up, and gets his ass handed to him, and away we go. From there on out, it's just a whirlwind of hopelessness and failure, as the villains prove to be unstoppable, and while Bell is finally at least putting up a fight, he's just getting pummeled, over and over. Then along about the second to the last episode of the season, through some miraculous combination of the power of friendship and a last-minute power-up, the tables finally turn and then Bell curbstomps whoever he needs to curbstomp in the middle of the last episode, so there's some time left at the end for a happy and satisfied coda. And sure enough...

That said, there were, as always, some good moments. If nothing else, there are few things I enjoy more in the series than seeing Hestia turn badass, which she did very satisfyingly in this one. And Haruhime's really coming into her own, as is Lili. And Welf got a good moment. And Ryu confessed, which I didn't expect at all. And broadly, it was sort of nice to finally get a season built around Freya, since they've been dropping hints about her since the beginning.

The thing that most stood out to me though is that Freya has got to be the shittiest love goddess ever in the history of gods and goddesses.

And now I'm off to check out Love Through a Prism...

I was already intrigued by this one after Endmaker's post, since I appreciate vanilla shoujo romance, but impressive backgrounds too? That bumps it up to next on my list.

I'd tend to guess too that it's something conceptual. At this point, I expect that I won't figure it out and will be surprised when (if) it's revealed, but then it will fall neatly into place and make perfect sense.

I keep thinking this series can't possibly be as good as I've come to believe it to be - that I'm somehow building it up in my mind in the time between episodes. But then another new episode will drop and prove again that it really is that good.

I can't even really pick out anything specific to comment on, since it was all so good - Asa's lonely rage, Makio's crunch time distraction immediately replaced by genuine concern, Emiri's help and Sensei's unexpected but sensible relief to find out she was only skipping, Shingo's perfect support, Makio's unwavering honesty, and of course Asa's breakthrough.

Everybody cares and everybody pays attention and even though none of them really know what they're doing, they sort it out anyway, and it touches me like almost nothing I've ever seen before.

Making progress. They've both moved up to the point at which they actually have some hopes and even some expectations. They're sort of feeble, like flickering candle flames, but for them, that's a pretty impressive accomplishment.

Razlo the Tri-Punisher of Death? Seriously?

It was actually fairly decent until then. Vash's defiance of Knives was impressive (much better than his capitulation last episode) and Elendira appears to be starting to figure out that Knives is just a power-mad psychopath who actually couldn't care less about his "brethren." We're moving toward the showdown, and it'll be interesting to see how the alliances shape up.

For me, this has now graduated from "better than I thought it might be" to "actually pretty good in its own right."

It's still an unusual combination of genres - sort of intrigue/yuri/CGDCT/action/SOL - so it's likely not for everyone, and it's not groundbreaking by any stretch, but it's consistently entertaining and the overarching plot is coming together nicely.

Dein's backstory was a bit of a surprise, but it goes some way toward explaining how he operated with relative impunity. And Ottilie was a good, and amusing, addition to the cast, and hopefully to Flum's party. Plus I'm sort of weak to twin drills, and especially in red.

And most importantly as far as I'm concerned - I'm already looking forward to the next episode.

Meh - hot blood, masculine pride and a childish complete failure to understand romance. The formula wears a bit thin when they're not in the cars.

We're 2/3 of the way through the season and they haven't even started the next race, which means that we'll only get to see the beginning of it, and will have to wait until about 2028 to see the finish.

The formula wears a bit thin, or at least drags on too long which sort of works out to the same thing, even when they are in the cars ...

Lots of symbolism and not so much meat in this one.

Still trying to sort out the role of the agents - Yuki's clearly set her up before this game, but when Yuki confronted her, she sort of dodged the accusation with that "all I can say is that we support you girls from the bottom of our hearts" line, then the camera focused clearly on her for the first time and we got to see how strongly she resembles Yuki. That can't be a coincidence.

I'm starting to suspect that I'll have to read the LN if I want real answers.

Yeah - that's why I said "apparently last."

That said, I'm mostly hoping it's over because I'm prone to vicarious embarrassment and after hanging on for so long, I just have no more hope that it's going to redeem itself. It appears that it really is sincerely as stupid as it kept distractingly appearing, and I feel bad for whoever's responsible for it. They just need to slink away quietly and pretend it never happened.

That was an even better chapter than I expected.

And now I'm looking forward to a year from now, when Shun is studying for his exams.

Poputepipikku

It's on my "I have no doubt it's good so I'm in no hurry to watch it" list. I should probably get on that...

One of my favorite genres is one I call "surreal goofball comedy." It's gag humor in which not even the limits of reality are respected. Nichijou is the most well known example, but Pani Poni Dash is probably my favorite. Other examples include Excel Saga, Asobi Asobase, Galaxy Angel, Ueno-san wa Bukiyou, Kill Me Baby, and most recently, CITY The Animation.

That's actually a better list than I expected, but Evangelion number 1? Though it is certainly number 1 on the "Anime that people stick on lists" list, so I guess I'm not all that surprised. And right off the bat, Bokurano should pretty obviously be there, along with Casshern Sins. And it's sort of weird that Serial Experiments Lain isn't, especially with its notable ranking on the aforementioned "Anime that people stick on lists" list.

Still though, it's better than I cynically expected, and I'm especially pleased to see Now and Then, Here and There, which tends to get overlooked.

Started off the week gently bouncing off of Hyouka. I liked it and will certainly watch it in the future, but it just didn't quite hook me this time.

Then I switched to one I happened on a few weeks ago - As the Moon, So Beautiful (Tsukigakirei), and it was wonderful. It's quite possibly the most satisfying romance anime I've ever seen. It's a sweet, unpretentious third year middle school romance with two terrific characters, realistic awkwardness, just enough drama to spike the emotions but not enough to bog it down, and genuine, believable progress. I loved everything about it.

Next up was the latest episode of MF Ghost, and Shuichi Shigeno's weirdly awkward and oh-so-Japanese conception of masculinity and approach to women and the concept of romance was on full display, just as it was too often in Initial D. I couldn't help but laugh cynically when Shun punches Kanata, then stands over him and demands to know why Kanata didn't tell him that Ren was the Angel he had a schoolboy crush on, and actually says, "Do I really seem that stubborn and unreasonable?" Seriously dude - you're asking the guy you just punched.

Next up was the latest episode of Roll Over and Die, which I'm still enjoying. It was mostly amusing filler - a bit of CGDCT and a bit of yuri and a bit of background intrigue, and it ended on an interesting cliffhanger. I don't expect any amazing surprises from this, but it's solid entertainment.

Then came the latest episode of Frieren, which was fine, but had virtually nothing to do with the overarching plot.

Along about then, I wanted to watch a full series, and didn't want to gamble, so I went with one of the many sure things on my TBW - The Apothecary Diaries. I guess I don't need to say that it was excellent. I watched both cours of the first season - watched the first 12 episodes over a couple of days, then over another couple of days rewatched them, then watched the second 12 in a single sitting. It definitely deserves its accolades.

In the midst of all of that, there was the latest episode of Trigun Stargaze, which... sort of sucked really. Stampede IMO managed to work out to be good overall in spite of its flaws, but it's looking like Stargaze isn't going to be able to pull that off - too many flaws are piling up and there's not enough good to make up for it. And I can't believe that we've reverted all the way back to Knives in his gigantic hood again doing a painfully accurate recreation of a cliched villain from a cheesy gothic horror flick.

Then the latest (and apparently last) episode of Gnosia, which I dropped last season but recently caught back up with. And I shouldn't have bothered.

The latest episode of Scum of the Brave was okay but not great. Yashiro and Jougamine still have the same chemistry they had in the beginning, but the thing that was good about it in the beginning was that it was promising, and five episodes later, the promise remains unfulfilled and they're just tediously repeating themselves.

Then You and I Are Polar Opposites, which was predictably terrific.

And Journal With Witch, which continues to be exceptional

So what I thought from the brief glimpse was Sawatari's new Alpine was actually an (oddly small) Aston-Martin V8 Vantage. Driven by an arrogant bitch who's already made it her mission to make Ren miserable.

I wonder why Shuichi Shigeno always seems to make romance as difficult and painful as possible.

Ah well. At least we're getting closer to another race. Though I suspect that we'll have to wait for next season to see the finish.

I'm increasingly disappointed by this. I wasn't even particularly eager to watch this episode, and wasn't very impressed by it when I did.

It might still redeem itself, but I think it's becoming less likely all the time. Ending this episode on yet another round of Knives in his enormous hood pounding out a sinister tune on a suspiciously organ-looking piano surrounded by gargoyle-ish statues like a terribly cliched gothic horror villain knocked it down into a hole it might not be able to dig its way out of.

This series puts a silly grin on my face every time.

I think the thing that impresses me the most about this series is that it goes in entirely unexpected directions that make perfect sense after the fact.

This is hardly the first time that an anime has dealt with grief or sibling rivalry or social anxiety or romantic longing or any of the other things this one does. It's not even the first time that one has done a notably good job of revealing insights into such things. But still, somehow this is head and shoulders above... everything I can think of. It somehow reaches extra deeply into things and drags out insights and comments and interactions that expose depths and complexities that I've never seen in an anime before. And they all then just slot neatly into place, as if they were obvious all along.