Softcream Summer.

I was mostly ambivalent about Hibike! Euphonium (clumsily localized as Sound! Euphonium) when it first came out, despite being Internet-adjacent to school-band veterans and fans of Kyoto Animation. I basically thought it looked great, but was otherwise mostly merely fine. It's why I've mentioned it so little on this blog. However, in hindsight and with its movies behind me (albeit also sort of a long time ago now), my opinion of the series has improved in retrospect. Meaning, I think I like it more now? Or at least I like what I remember of the series more now.

Tall newbie is tall.

However, I don't know if I would actually like it more if I re-watched it. Seeing as how I'm watching relatively few shows during the current season, I could probably just binge watch it all and find out for sure. Other people did. There's a good excuse for it now: A new OVA is already out, and there's even more Euphonium on the way soon.

Does this qualify as an Asuka cameo?.

Actually, I did re-watch Hibike! Euphonium Movie 3: Chikai no Finale (Sound! Euphonium: Our Promise: A Brand New Day), and now I'm going to spoil the Bejesus out of something that has been bugging me since I first watched it years ago. (This is your last warning: I'm gonna do it even though Kumiko probably doesn't even believe in Bejesus.) Asuka shows up. She almost certainly used the arrival of Kaori and Haruka as a distraction so she could flank Kumiko and fluff her defenseless poofy hair from behind.

Слава Україні!

And then she disappears in seconds despite (or because of) Kumiko's very obvious desire to reconnect with her. It's how Asuka do. But I gotta ask, "What was on that postcard Asuka gave to her before leaving?" I don't think the movie explains this at all, but I presume the books do. My guess is I'm way overthinking it, and probably it's simply a postcard that Asuka had received and happened to have with her. But by giving it to Kumiko, she indirectly passes along her current address, thereby offering Kumiko a way to reach her in the future. It didn't seem like they had exchanged contact information previously. Anyway, this is a rhetorical question. I'm happy to wait for future Euphonium installments to elaborate on the exchange in due time (or never explain it), even if it means waiting years more.

Walk it off.

Keijo!!!!!!!! is not just a better sports anime than Shakunetsu no Takkyu Musume (Scorching Ping Pong Girls), it's a better show overall. This is probably contrary to conventional expectations from prior to the start of the autumn 2016 season, but I think most viewers now accept that Keijo!!!!!!!! turned out to be much better than anyone reasonably hoped before the season began.

Also, the faces are top-rate.

The first time I watched the first season Bubuki Buranki, I didn't think it was very good. It wasn't until after Epizo's introduction that the show really clicked for me, although I enjoyed the fight between Kinoa and her ex-boyfriend during which his attacks consisted entirely of literal flashbacks to their Meet Cute and early relationship. Upon re-watching the first season, though, I loved the show and its absurd excuses to feature giant robots punching things at the whim of angry teenagers making faces. Perhaps I was just late in appreciating the motivations and relationships among the various factions.

What, did Asuka move in?

Season two of Bubuki Buranki picked up where the first season left off, and is generally about as good, albeit without some of the same highs. I did enjoy Kaoruko's addition to the show, even though I was often afraid I wouldn't. Notably, she works for me as a character because most of her scenes are absurd rather than emotional. I was afraid BBK/BRNK: Hoshi no Kyojin would belabor too much on how much it hurt her to be abandoned and not enough on how much it hurt to have her tits burned off. (Don't worry, they grew back.)

"Ode to Joy."

I do have a complaint about the second season, though: Not enough Reoko. The first season didn't have enough Reoko either, but at least she had a lot of scenes taunting opponents while ripping them apart or carrying on bombastically with her face covered in blood. Season-one Reoko is an adult's fantasy; she embodied a way of life where giving a fuck is subordinate to getting shit done. Season-two Reoko, on the other hand, is an adolescent's fantasy; she personified a goal and embodied the object of other people's ideology. I guess that's fair, given the intended audience of anime in general, no matter how much I'd like a third season of Bubuki Buranki to adopt adult characters as its leads, even if they happen to be worthless adults with uncertain futures.

You can tell this is a flashback because Rinne has barely any weight on that thing.

I'm following five mahou shoujo anime this season. Arguably, I'm following six if you include Brave Witches, but I'm not counting that one here. Surprisingly, ViVid Strike! is comfortably on top of these five, with Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku (Magical Girl Raising Project) second, and Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! (Maho Girls Precure!) bringing up the rear. At least that's how the ranking looks if you count separately the two shorts: Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara. Second Season and Nazotokine.

Damn it, Private Death Flag, where is your rifle?

The so-called "uncanny valley" occupies the spot between the clearly artificial and the standards accepted as (or indistinguishable from) genuine articles. This concept is generally applied to automata and realistic human robots which generate a sense of uneasy revulsion on the part of the viewer because they're "just not quite there." However, I am applying this concept to explain why I can't quite accept military-themed anime such as this season's Shūmatsu no Izetta and last season's Nejimaki Seirei Senki: Tenkyou no Alderamin.

Asuka drops her facade for a moment.

For the most part, I think viewers of Hibike! Euphonium consider Asuka to be a bit of a comic relief character. This is an understandable position given that she's constantly fucking with people and generally has one of the more energetic personalities on the show. Nevertheless, there have been numerous hints dropped both in the first season and in the current one suggesting that Asuka has some sort of shit going on that the viewer doesn't quite know about yet.

A more typical Asuka.

Not being familiar with the source material, I don't have any idea if there's anything to these hints, or whether we'll see them addressed this season in the remaining episodes of the show, but it seems likely. Perhaps Kyoto Animation has been showing off Chekhov's euphonium all this time with no plans to toot that horn, but I like my chances. You know what's not gonna get resolved? Reina and Taki. Never gonna happen, Reina.

Wait. They're basically standing in a giant toilet.

Nyanbo! is sort of anime, and sort of Yotsuba&!, but sort of neither. Specifically, it's CGI boxes who are cats integrated into real-world settings, sometimes with real cats, and sometimes with real boxes. Either way, it's an amusing short with some neat visual gags. It also has Horie Yui and Kugimiya Rie voicing boxes who are cats. Or are they cats who are boxes? I'm not really sure. Romi Park is in this too, so it's basically Fullmetal Alchemist except with boxes who are cats. And because Sanpei Yuko and Takeuchi Junko are also in it, it's also sort of Yes! Pretty Cure 5 as well.

Technically, Nyanbo! is also an idol anime.

In either case, it's totally worth your time if you care at all about photography, cats, or boxes. Because of the characters' scale, nearly every shot involves high-resolution close-ups of neat-looking things and places. It's not quite macro photography, but the show looks great. It's definitely worth watching the 1080 version over the lower-resolution choices. The cats who are boxes who are cats also yammer back and forth and have amusing little adventures. Do you need any more from a five-minute short?

And she never smiled again.

I think we were all expecting Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku to be this season's magikal girl bloodbath. Indeed, its opening scene features a girl surrounded by bloodied corpses. However, with Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku taking its sweet time getting to the fireworks factory, ViVid Strike! has effectively beaten it to the, uh, punch.

At least she isn't hanging off the edge of a coffin.

ViVid Stike! is a bit of a departure from most mahou shoujo fare due to how it has evolved into a mixed martial arts tournament show from its Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha roots, and Nanoha itself was already a bit of a departure from more traditional mahou shoujo standards. So really, events from episodes four and five should probably not surprise anyone, but even I was only half kidding when I ventured, "Who knew a show about mahou shoujo MMA could be so violent?"

Rinne didn't even bother putting on shoes before skipping town.

If you're a fan of revenge fantasies and little girls beating the Bejesus out of people who probably don't even believe in Bejesus, then ViVid Strike! is the show for you. I'm going to make a dubious leap and compare ViVid Strike! to Shakespeare by reminding y'all that revenge tragedies are an accepted staple of classic theater, so there ought to be a place in this world for mahou shoujo revenge anime. I.e., those cunts had it coming.

Hey, it's the underboob nun. (Underboob sold separately.)

These events might just be a one-off thing before ViVid Strike! settles into training montage doldrums and some sort of tournament which never completes, same as its Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha ViVid prequel, but episode five did springboard off episode four to give us the franchise's first (I'm pretty sure) attempted rape, so we might not be quite done with exploring how shitty some of these girls' lives can get.

Not Shirou also had it coming.

Bear in mind, though, that despite the brutality depicted so far, we're still quite a ways below the mark set by the original Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha anime. Yes, a lot of what I'm referring to happened off-screen (although still within earshot), but I'm going to go ahead and say that—as shitty as Rinne's life has been—Fate Testarossa shitty childhood is still way worse than anything Rinne has gone through. Well, based on what we know so far, anyway.