winter 2021
Completed:
Skate Leading Stars
For an anime original show without much of a big name behind it, I confess, my expectations for this show were not high. But - you don't need to have a great time to have a good time, and that's what Skate Leading Stars is.
Brought to you by a guy who's sort of exclusively done really mediocre projects (Maria the Virgin Witch, Back Arrow, the storyboard for episode 7 of Space Dandy), this show is just about our MC Maeshima Kensei who quits skating and then goes back into a real niche (nonexistent) sport called Skate Leading, which is like, group figure skating, just to defeat this one genius skater called Shinozaki Reo. On the way, Shinozaki's half brother Hayato Sasugai joins in and builds up this whole group at Ionodai High just to defeat his brother - so there's kinda like, a goal and a motive for this show - which is good because that's all we ever get to see.
Actually the more I think about this show the worse it gets, but we're slowly gonna make our way there. The great thing about this show is that it really knows what the goal is - the goal is, we want our protagonist and his team to beat his rival. that's it. and they're going to do it at this competition. just one victory. that's it. So this whole show is constructed solely around pursing this one goal.
Here's everything else that sucks yeah - the pacing is generally shit. like plot points will be raised and dropped because theres just not enough time to fit anything in except for the more important drive of getting our protag to improve enough to beat the rival. the characters (especially with such a huge cast) have like, zero development either. this whole thing with shinozaki and maeshima is just shallow, and despite this whole half brother tension between hayato, that's never resolved either. nothing ever happens and we find out nothing about the characters besides the superficial element of, maeshima is hard to get along with but a great skater, hayato just kinda knows everything but not really, and... everyone else is kinda color coded for you in tropes, the guy with pink long hair is the mom of the team, the guy with glasses is a bit stuck up, the one with the bleached blond punk hair is a.. punk but rich. i have to say though, i think it's the first time we've had redhead with the brash personality as a main, which is nice, but like, ultimately, not worth the payoff that we ultimately get in this half assed show. do i remember anyones names besides the main 3? no. and that's fine.
to be honest though, all things considered, the ending is generally okay. they skate, you don't actually get the results but everyone seems generally happy. you never actually find out what happens in the end, but theres some sort of emotional resolution between our main trio. everyone gets a vague sense of a happy ending. the end.
there are a lot of points that are just so stupid, like why the FUCK did this one guy in their team just up and leave. like its mentioned but never explored. also, for a skating anime, why is there literally no fucking skating animated and all their dramatic skating moments are kinda just glossed over. why do they include all these pointless antagonists who never amount to anything. what the fuck was that shit about maeshima's family trauma. what the fuck happened with hayato and reo. what the fuck.
but will they ever be resolved? no. but in a way, I'm not mad about it. this show never set itself up to be a particularly amazing show, it never demanded intellect or attention from its viewers, it simply showed up and said, heres a story about guys skating i guess, and fucked off, and sometimes thats enough. just turn your brain off. i promise it'll all be better in the morning.
Sk8 the Infinity
holy shit the director really turned it out. in direct contrast to Skate Leading Stars, this project was directed by a big name director, Hiroko Utsumi, who is probably much better known for directing Free! and Banana Fish, both anime originals with a really solid reputation because of the quality of the show. Free! despite its misgivings, did eventually come up with a more developed and interesting plotline, and while I haven't watched Banana Fish, most people have nothing but good comments about it. Both, if you've noticed, are also very queer-bait-y shows.
Based on the first episode alone, you can already see the difference in quality between Skate Leading Stars and SK8. While Skate Leading is just a lot of telling (they did this. then they did this.), Sk8 just holds itself to another fucking level and it shows.
Anyway everything about this is perfect and I want another season - I love all the characters and their relationships and the plot even tho it was short and a bit simplified in places did such a great job with what they had been given.
Watch this.
Jujutsu Kaisen
Well look - this is just a really good fucking show isn't it. Despite my initial delay on watching this, I finally managed to hop on the train and it took me places.
I don't really have that much to say besides, this is such a great adaptation of the original material. It really takes everything from the manga and makes it better - and MAPPA really does this justice (I pretend that God of High School does not exist now and I refuse to say it's their fault). They take moments to flesh stuff out, add moments that really make sense to the greater story, and fuck me the action sequences are incredible and so well done.
The original manga is already a great piece of work, and this really does it justice.
If you haven't seen Jujutsu Kaisen I really recommend it, it comes in loud and unabashed as the new era of great shounen hits, and with a really fun premise, an interesting world and really fascinating characters, I love how it really uses shounen tropes with a little bit of a twist, proving a good shounen never goes out of style. (at least not in my fashion week).
Kai Byoui Ramune
Okay this is up there with Kemono Jihen as the surprisingly darker stories that ended up really impressing me this season. It's not quite as fucked up as Kemono Jihen, but this is honestly such an overlooked show (since this season was fucking stacked), but yeah, this was a really fun show.
This is based around the story of a mysterious illness doctor Ramune and his assistant Kuro - basically we're introduced to sort of episodic occurrences of people coming down with mysterious, urban legend type illnesses, like a girl crying condiments, a mother with gyoza ears, and a boy with chilli fingers. The general gist of the show is exploring how these illnesses are brought on by real life issues, like holding back your feelings, closing your ears to the truth, and hiding your true identity from people, and the doctor and his assistant go around trying to solve these issues while trying to better the lives of the people these illnesses affect. More or less the show really dives deep into some pretty dark shit, like the murder of a child and the consequences, cheating, overworking yourself and basically the root of all of it is just - resolve your interpersonal issues, no matter how hard it is to do so. More or less I really enjoyed this aspect of the stories, despite the seemingly happy and whimsical nature of the show, it really says some insightful and really great things about life - especially when the going gets tough.
The latter part of the show ends up being more focused around our MCs, Ramune and Kuro. Kuro gets a little soft moment where one of his classmates gets involved and he grows a little as a person, before we get his really intense flashback of the person he used to be and how he came to meet Ramune - inducted into a cult out of increasing desperation to make sense of the strange things affecting him, and blaming himself for a lot of it. I think this backstory was such a great addition to the story, as much as we didn't need to see it, we did, and the depth it really added to Kuro and Ramune's relationship was really wonderful because it really showed the types of people they were.
In terms of the seasonal arc, it also really consolidates itself. There's a minor moment where they go into a mansion and Ramune meets his old master Momoji, who tries to warn Ramune against sacrificing himself for people all the time which throws Ramune off his game - anyway it all kinda ends up with them all having an introspective moment which is really cute and then theyre like ok but think about all the people you've helped. even if you sacrificed yourself, you really made a difference.
Honestly speaking, I just think this is a really fuckin solid show. Like it really nails everything, really interesting premise, great pacing, solid and cohesive plot, fleshed out characters - for me, this is a solid 7/10 based on those alone. My only complaint is that the animation style is kinda janky, I personally don't like the style and it's really not very pretty, it's more or less identical to the manga's style.
Speaking of, unfortunately, the manga was not popular. Although the manga is actually finished, due to the lack of widespread success for both the manga and seemingly the anime, I don't think we'll get any more content from this show. And there is no English translation past the Popcorn Head story for the manga, so until I learn Japanese.....
Either way, this was really good and I really suggest more people check this show out - it was one that I really liked looking forward to every week!
Kemono Jihen
God I was honestly, so impressed with this show. After getting about halfway with this. I ended up caving and reading the manga cause I genuinely found the plot really interesting. Much like Ramune, this was also surprisingly dark at times, but I really liked it - especially in regards to Kabane's personality, and Shiki's character development and resolve throughout his arc.
The premise of the show is pretty interesting, about kemono/beasts, so like, spider women, yuki onna, tanuki, kitsune, all kinds of demihuman creatures. Our MC Kabane is part ghoul, so he's basically physically indestructible. After our introduction episode, Inugami brings Kabane back to Tokyo where we meet Akira, a yuki-onoko and Shiki, who is half Arachne, and things happen.
Much like Ramune, the first half of the show is more episodic, surrounding specific Kemono incidents and Inugami sending the group out to deal with the certain issues as an introduction to the world, and the second half of the show focuses in on the bigger issue in regards to the Kemono world, the history behind Inari and the mystery behind Kabane and his parents.
Overall, this is actually an incredible show. The anime does a great job of translating the manga's aesthetic style, but also has great pacing, great voice acting, and really delivers on almost all fronts. I would definitely recommend this for sure - it's a great show, really intriguing and interesting and I really enjoyed it.
2.43 Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley Bu
There are a lot of things I could say about this show, and like, I don't even know where to fucking start. I will say tho, it starts with a big old fucking sigh. I'll start with that, this show got a pretty decent amount of hype, if nothing else to sort of soothe the gaping hole of Haikyuu - and the main character kinda looks like Tsukishima! What could go wrong? It's just high school volleyball. Famous last words.
To be honest, this show was so bad, I genuinely considered dropping it half way and ended up just ignoring it most of the time due to the fucked up pacing of the story. Sometimes - and I will derail my own thoughts for a moment - but we often talk a lot about 'pacing'. It feels like such an inconsequential little point, but it's something that adds so much more to the immersion and feeling of the show. For example, one of the best examples of this is the video essay about the music in Cats the movie from Sideways. This is really best demonstrated in the Mister Mistoffolees section which I've linked, but you should also just watch the whole thing anyway because it's a fun watch - although the most crucial part of this is not so much the energy of the song, but rather, carrying the momentum of the story. Another example of horrific pacing is obviously, The Promised Neverland Season 2, in which around 150 chapters of the manga were shoved into 12 episodes (for context, the first season only covered 30 ish). In order to bring everyone back up to speed, the last big arc of the story was essentially condensed into powerpoint form.
Why all this information that we didn't need? Well because 2.43 does everything wrong. While Skate Leading Stars is equally a culprit in this shitshow, it wasn't hyped and never had the same quality of actual source material - because 2.43 is actually based off a light novel, whereas Skate Leading Stars is just one man making shit up as we go. Yet - they really fuck this up, even with the story already written for them. Skate Leading Stars does the equivalent of like, starting a song and skipping it, but by the time we've gotten through it, you've listened to the first 30 seconds of the entire album. However 2.43 is definitely a Cats the Movie issue - they just keep starting and stopping with the same song.
So this is what happens - the show starts off with our main characters, Kuroba and Hajima. There's a sort of little soft moment between the two where Hajima has to leave and Kuroba doesn't want him to - they're kids btw. Then it time skips, which is a pretty classic start, when Hajima comes back again and Kuroba is super excited to see him again. Wow! And then they meet again, except Hajima is super cold to him. Typical. Sure. Ep 1.
Then it fucking goes downhill. They spend a good amount of time building up this situation where Hajima and Kuroba join the volleyball club and build it up from scratch, however, Hajima has this trauma of being too intense about volleyball, and ends up almost causing one of his classmates to commit suicide. Okay sure, teenage drama and coming of age tropes. I get it. But Kuroba and Hajima are together now, so they support each other! Yay! Except there's this moment where Kuroba's cousin decides to bully Kuroba about getting excited about volleyball and there's something about punks. Then they play a match and then it all falls to shit. And then Kuroba dogs the boys since he fucked up at that first match besides hes like, oh yeah wahtever hajima will cover me yeah, and they all lose, and they stop being friends and have this big falling out. So even though you're being built up to think, oh yeah this is it, they're gonna reconcile, this is the big bulk of the story isnt it? they decide to carbonize and shit on that idea. I also find it weird that like, Hajima being such a big volleyball geek, like despite the fact that this is about like, them growing and its drama and youth and whatever, they decide not to dwell on the emotional repercussions of that?
Then, with literally no explanation, they flash forward to another scene where Kuroba and Hajima are in school uniforms talking about volleyball recruiting. For about 10 minutes I thought - what the fuck have I missed did I watch the wrong episode? No, I did not. They just were not very clear about the fact that both MCs ended up quitting volleyball until they entered high school, and then there's a NEW team and they both go to the same school and they now have different team mates - the ones who were originally on the fucking OP who don't show up until like midway through. btw don't expect to know anything about them either, because the anime decides to shit on them by giving them absolutely no character development. the most that happens is we get Okuma who's voiced by Subaru Kimura, who is a .. rubgy? guy who wants to play volleyball. he's a convert.
Also btw, despite them both being the MCs, you still never find out anything about who they are. they're really just empty hollow shells. Hajima never gets beyond a cold, empty volleyball machine who always looks a bit sad when his shitty old volleyball club is mentioned, and the worst culprit here is our proper MC Kuroba Yuni, who never gets beyond being a bit of a fucking wet leaf, who gets pushed around by his relatives, and then can't really do anything besides be a bit ok at volleyball because he's tall. But like, in regards to who he is? Dunno. He just kinda reacts to stuff like some vapid little twit, he has a little fit because he feels inferior to Hajima, but then they become friends again and like thats it, its as if nothing ever happened. Also there's a moment where Kuroba almost gets kicked out of the club because he gets beat up by his female cousin, but then he gets seen with his punk cousin who tried to bully him in the first half, but then he runs away and then literally that never gets resolved. His male cousin who got beat up by punks, you never hear from him again. It's like.. what? why? why would you bring this life or death situation up and just drop it?? why????????
anyway, at the middle of this fucking show, the anime pulls the funniest fucking move, in which they introduce the big bad school - Fukoho. Their ace is Subaru Mimura (voiced by the wonderful Kaito Ishikawa, also known as KAGEYAMA TOBIO), and they've got the brains/manager of the operation, Ochi. Anyway, Subaru is called the Demon Bazooka, he's hot, tall, really good at volleyball, a great ace, great captain, except he has a knee problem (yeah it does sound vaguely like an Oikawa situation). Then the anime decides to just focus on them - in fact, this show really should just be called 2.43 Fukoho Koukou, because at no point do we really know or care about Seiin besides them just wanting to go to nationals... just because. The anime basically makes love to Subaru, they talk about him being the pride and joy of this prestigious volleyball group, and they start by giving this wonderful backstory to their manager Ochi, who was really moved by Subaru's play style when he first watched him, and wanted to join the team to get closer to Subaru. then they bump into each other, after Ochi hurts himself and can't play anymore, and Subaru promises Ochi to bring him to the orange court of nationals. The entire rest of the arc is basically Subaru shouldering all these expectations but wanting to do the best he can to pursue his dreams and to bring his beloved Ochi pride, and Ochi works hard to make sure everything is set up for Subaru to shine.
Do you see how clearly I wrote about that? Because that's how clear and well articulated it is in the show. The entire last 2 episodes has this gorgeous moving scene that happens between Ochi and Subaru - Ochi sacrificing his arms so that Subaru wouldn't fall and hurt his chances and cause any issues to his knee so he would be able to play. Listen, this boy full on was like, i'll break my arm to save this man i love. Even when Ochi's gone, Subaru keeps calling for Ochi out of habit, because yknow. They're in love.
Short note on the queerbaiting of this series also - it's not really that aggressive, certainly not as much as I expected. There's hints of it between Kuroba and Hajima which aren't really that interesting because they've got the personality of unsalted chips, there's a touch of it between Aoki and Oda, the captain and vice captain of the team who promise to keep pursuing volleyball together, but like, nothing screams in love like the devotion between Ochi and Subaru.
All in all - this fucking show can't decide what it wants to be, a sport anime, or like a character focused anime - however, unlike the really good shows, it doesn't know how to do either well, so it suffers from an overall lack of quality and focus. Unlike Run with the Wind, it does absolutely nothing in terms of developing its characters within the play of the game - like Kuroba doesn't have a breakthrough, doesn't change himself because of the game. There's no insightful exploration of their personal lives and how theyre affected. Unlike Hoshiai no Sora (moment of peace for the budget cut and what could have been), which focuses so much more on the inner lives of our MCs, how they play off each other, and what they're bringing from their lives into the club and each of their personalities, this literally again, tells us nothing about who these people are in any meaningful depth. Unlike Haikyuu - this show just fails on everything that Haikyuu succeeds at. Each characters are given motivations to want to play the sport - this show doesn't do that. Haikyuu gives us the perspective of each team with flashbacks - but we only get ONE team really, who ends up outshining the MCs anyway. It's really not great when I feel more emotionally attached to the oPPOSING TEAM, and while of course you can say, but we also love Oikawa and how flawed he is and how he works so hard (and yeah, everyone loves Oikawa), but at no point would you think, don't give a shit about Hinata or Kageyama though. And they are built around each other, and inspire each other with their play and their love for the sport. Whereas.... well. this is...
More or less, I was just intensely disappointed with this show. I could go on and on (believe me.) about all the mistakes this show went, even with source material, but. I think that it was just a real shame that this was so bafflingly made. From the director who brought you Jojo part 5, and the series composer of BNHA, this feels like something had gone seriously wrong, or everyone working on this suffered a collective loss of brain functions. Either way, do yourself a favor and like, just don't watch this. it's not even fun. it's not even like vaguely funny. it's just like trudging through some really shite tier fanfic.
Sorry.
Yuru Camp△ Season 2
Comfy. Like, this show is just perfect. so relaxing. Just continuing on from last season, it gives us everything we've missed and more.
I don't need to say more.
Ore Daku Haireru Kakushi Dungeon
Tatoeba Last Dungeon Mae no Mura no Shounen ga Joban no Machi de Kurasu Youna Monogatari
Tenchi Sozo Dezain-bu
Kaifuku Jutsushi no Yarinaoshi
If you do watch this, make sure it's the uncensored version yeah.
Hataraku Saibou
If you watched the first season, it's just more of the same shit. Greatly educational. so good for the kids.
Hataraku Saibou Black
If you watched the original, this is the edgy version. Makes you wanna take care of your body a bit more. Still educational. Very good.
Bungou Stray Dogs Wan
Ongoing:
Mushoku Tensei: Isekai
I have to say - this is an odd show for me.
Although there are many different origins for an isekai story, this is often lauded as the founding father of most Isekai tropes - although it is a hotly contested in terms of timelines, but if Youtube comments are to be believed, it is highly influential. but it is true - our beloved truck-kun is all Mushouku Tensei.
I find this show so intriguing and so deeply interesting - the way it tries to deal with morality, the way it really isn't light hearted at all (as often so many other isekais are). I think that unlike some other more indulgent, fun isekais, this show is a really heavy watch, and you can really tell that whoever created this and adapted this is creating this gorgeous love letter for the show.
I personally don't have a strong love for this show but I imagine it's just because I'm not too fond of darker gritty fantasy - but it's definitely a really well made show, with really amazing animation, voice acting, music and the works. I imagine if you're fond of more of a deep dive into a darker, more intense isekai story, this might be the one for you.
Dropped
Jaku Chara Tomozaki Kun
You know.... I think this story is a really strange and warped idea of what life should be like and I don't really condone it. AFAIK there has been some development and changes but I really felt super uncomfortable watching it. like, i guess, morally.
the general gist of the show is like, there's a bottom tier character called Fumiya Tomozaki. He's like, amazing at Super Smash Bros (called ATTACK FAMILIES/Tackfam) but is like, an obvious outcast because he has no social skills besides being really great at Smash.
He then meets up with this one player who's rapidly improved, who turns out to be his cute female classmate, and then she shits on him in public for being a loser and says, life is just a game, just play by the rules until you get to the top, and gives him all these 'rules' to make him seem more normal, like talking to girls, then getting a girlfriend and blah blah blah.
I feel like this kinda sits at crossroads between like, someone's fantasy and also like, the worst life advice I've ever heard. And also because this is MY opinion and MY blog, I will feel free to bang on about this.
Like, lets firstly acknowledge that this is made in a very specific cultural milieu, it's targeted at Japan's issue of hikkikomoris, of NEETs, of more and more herbivore men who feel pressure to perform in Japanese society to fulfil these expectations. From my perspective, this almost feels like some sort of government propaganda, like, it doesn't matter if you're shit!! go out there and try your best to be a normal person and work really hard at it!! contribute to your society and stop being a deadweight!!
Which okay, fine. acceptable. I accept this idea that we can all change our lives around no matter what point you are, and that pushing yourself to do better is a great idea.
but what the fuck is this like, completely normal conception of what he's supposed to do, as if this is going to somehow make him less depressed or more happy or fulfilled? like, life is what you make of it??? if he becomes 'popular', it doesn't mean his other problems go away, it just means you now have more problems of a different kind.
as someone whos seen people push themselves into boxes made by other people, only for them to repress their original identities so hard that they come out the other side as more fucked up and more twisted than they would have had if they had just been allowed to ride out that crazy high school phase, i genuinely feel like the message of this show is just, kinda fucked.
not to assert any like, high and mighty moral ideas about development of students through schools, but like, there's a fine line always between your private and personal self, and between needing to be yourself and also to adjust yourself enough to get by in life, and that really doesn't come from a female classmate your age who just looks down on you because you're not successful in the ways society expects you to be.
but like. whatever. live your life.
Yakusoku no Neverland 2
hahahahahha.... as someone who ended up reading the entire manga, like what a fucking mess. then they said, oh yeah, the fucking mangaka is gonna come in here and improve that story for everyone. yall enjoy. and then fucked it over so bad.
listen - this show was always most impressive in its first arc. even manga wise. the rest of the show just goes downhill. and then everything got cut out.
while i havent watched it, I have zero intention to ever do so, because i've had enough time in my life wasted on this fucking story. if you want more of my thoughts, refer to this post here, which outlines most of my problems with the ORIGINAL story, and you can go online and see everyone else flame the second season of this train wreck.
Tensei Slime
I mean, I finshed the entire LN when the first two episodes aired and have never watched the anime since. I guess it's going well though since it's got a second season.
Dr Stone: Stone Wars
I've caught up on the manga but any way I can get Senku and Gen being... Senku and Gen, I will take. I just like seeing clips and edits of them.
5-Tobun no Hanayome
Beastars
I've finished the manga, but I'll be interested to see the animation later for Melon, who in my opinion is the most interesting character in the story. If you want to see more of my thoughts on Beastars with the plotline and that, read it here.
Horimiya
I really struggled to watch this, mostly because firstly, I love Miyamura and I'd like to date him. But also there's just something about the way their romance works here that I'm not crazy about? I've read better getting together stories and this one really falls flat to me, but I guess it must be a big deal considering the general lack of them in more mainstream media. Not my speed personally, but I know a lot of people seem to love this.
Log Horizon : Entaku Houkai
God I fucking forget how goddamn slow and long winded this show was. honestly it's not like I dislike this show in any capacity, but I just feel like this show takes itself really seriously - and with all the issues of the tax avoidance on the author's end, I'm more interested in the source material and the payoff of all the storylines rather than the ride of sitting around waiting for it to slowly be explained to me.
I just find this a bit dull and I think I won't be continuing with the anime anymore despite initially loving this show in S1.
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