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Blog Archives:
Short-sleeved sweatshirts are pretty great otherwise, though.
The first episode of Healin' Good ♡ Precure covers a lot of familiar ground for anyone who has seen a fair share of Pretty Cure; this is the franchise's 15th generation since 2004. Cure Grace herself is off to a good start. Her very first attack consisted of an overly complicated kick, and I'm generally in favor of Cures who understand the value of extraneous style points. I joked in my previous post about Cure Grace being "joined by Cure Fartlek and Cure Pain Is Just Weakness Leaving the Body." Well, we do briefly meet the other girls who will become the next Cures, and Chiyu does appear to be an avid runner, so maybe we will get a Cure Fartlek this season. Never mind that she's dressed in attire only non-runners would expect actual runners to wear, at least in that weather. Sorry, if you're not wearing the least amount of clothing you can get away with without getting stared at by spinsters and police officers, I'm going to assume you're a casual jogger or a someone getting a slow start on her New Year's resolution—doubly so if you're wearing some sort of matching ensemble instead of ratty old clothes that look like shit.
This was 100-percent your fault.
The first episode of Healin' Good ♡ Precure also briefly introduces Hinata. Based on the OP, it seems she's going to be the yellow Cure. She's done a fair amount of mugging already, so she's out in front so far as this Precure generation's Best Girl. There are a lot of stereotypes about how each "color" of Cure is supposed to behave, but I'm hoping this will evolve so that yellow represents less defensive bullshit and more...Cure Twinkle-type behavior. It is too early to tell, though, since I'm literally making tenuous predictions from a few seconds of screen time and cuts from the OP. Speaking of which, the OP is as good as you've heard from the Twitter, and the ED continues to advance the all-singing, all-dancing 3DCG agenda. It's come a long way from the Fresh Pretty Cure ED.
Posted in BEST GIRL, Healin' Good ♡ Precure | Tags: 3D, First Episode, Gainax Kick, Mahou Shoujo, OP ED, Running, Season Introduction, Winter 2019 | Permanent Link
This break in the battle has lasted so long that Alice changed into her pajamas.
It's not particularly sensible to demand accurate war-type stuff in an anime, especially something like Sword Art Online, but they did put War in the title, and they have been building up to this particular conflict for some time. What we've gotten instead is tens of thousands of random schmucks directly facing each other in a narrow canyon making no effort to do anything other than having head-to-head fights. Some people might claim that the battles at least look pretty cool, but that's a concession I'm not willing to make this season, what with Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia raising the bar to ridiculous new levels every week now.
<Divine> Maybe that's just what happens when two sides who don't know what war is given it a try
That's basically it. Now, I'm not unreasonable enough to demand "actually realistic" war in my SAO ~ War Is All Hell ~ anime, but I would have given it a pass without commenting on it had it at least aspired to, say, Strike Witches: War on Underpants levels of realism.
This show is called Alicization, not Asunization, toots.
Now that I've got this bitching out of the way, I guess I can get around to the main point of this post: Spoiling the most recent episode of Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld. So, Asuna finally logs into the AI world and is immediately beset upon by an extremely yellow blur. Everyone eventually calms the fuck down, though. They even listen to the batshit crazy things Asuna tells them. Frankly, I'm impressed they don't even seem irked that she's referring to her own world as the "real world." Yeah, these AIs are living in a computer, but it probably feels pretty real to them. I would be at least a little insulted. On the plus side, at least she isn't being racist about it.
Have you tried rebooting the Kirito in the "real world"?
I'm generally pro-Asuna, even though she hasn't fared particularly well as an actual character in Sword Art Online as a franchise. It was also not encouraging to see all the latest members of Kirito's ever-expanding harem butt in for additional deban and to boast about how great their times with him have been. Hopefully, they're getting all of this out of the way now, and maybe the show can go back to leaving him in a wagon somewhere while Alice is off doing very yellow very important things. I'm okay with Asuna coming along too, providing she doesn't spend all her time talking about Kirito.
Posted in Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld | Tags: Air Power, Autumn 2019, AYAKO DOCTRINE, Big Fat Braids, Built for War, Characters in Need of Better Shows, Childhood Friend, Hair, Harem Comedy, Kayano Ai, Light Novels, Love Triangle, OP ED, Spoilers, Superlovely Character Designs, tsundere, Unrequited Love, war, War Is All Hell, Wheelchairs | Permanent Link
It's probably so nasty under there.
Chou Kadou Girl ⅙: Amazing Stranger is about a sentient 1/6th scale anime figurine who lives with a fan of her franchise. Although there are other shows about tiny wives and the people who love them (for example, Nona arguably has more in common with her Frame Arms Girl counterparts), I'm still going to point to Hand Maid May as the best example of this sort of thing. I think it's because I enjoy the two human leads in Hand Maid May (Kazuya and Kasumi), whereas I'm mostly ambivalent about Haruto from Amazing Stranger. His kid sister seems okay, but she's not in the show much. Both Hand Maid May and Amazing Stranger do feature copious amounts of fan service and lots of meta humor, so I guess they also have that in common. I've written about Hand Maid May a fair amount on this site already, so just read those old entries if you're still curious why I seem to like it so much.
The explanation for why Nona sleeps in the refrigerator was not at all convincing.
With regard to Chou Kadou Girl ⅙: Amazing Stranger, it's sort of uneven, but I find some of the gags amusing. I also like the robotic autotuned voice in the OP. More importantly, I appreciate that Nona is not entirely dense, so the show isn't structured around increasingly strained misunderstandings and complex scams. That is a nice change of pace. It also makes her a bit more human. I guess that's technically a sort of racist thing to say about a tiny plastic space...whatever she is, but it is an important part of getting me to care about the events within the show. That was something notable about Hand Maid May—I cared about where the characters were going to end up. Amazing Stranger isn't quite there yet, but hopefully its remaining episodes will provide at least a little more emotional resonance.
Posted in Chou Kadou Girl ⅙: Amazing Stranger, Hand Maid May | Tags: Androids, Anime Figures, Built for Sin, Built for War, Compare and Contrast, Fan Service, Harem Comedy, Legs that go up to her neck, Mecha Musume, OP ED, Season Introduction, Spring 2019 | Permanent Link
This queen's bed looks smaller than queen-sized.
Egao no Daika (The Price of Smiles) caught my attention because it is an original anime featuring mecha. But then the initial responses to the first episode suggested it was more about a silly country's 12-year-old monarch trying her best with the assistance of her loyal childhood friend, Potato-kun. Based on those reports alone, I wrote the show off. But then I heard about what happens in episode two and decided to give it a try out of curiosity. Yeah, I am totally on board. Yes, the show still stars a naïve awkward-age girl, but it's actually about a war that Smilestan's Deep State kept hidden from her. Moreover, it's clear from the OP and the ED that Egao no Daika also stars a soldier fighting for the opposing side. Indeed, Ittōheisō Shining has had a more prominent role in the show through its first four episodes than Queen Princess Yuuki.
I like Hayami Saori in this role, but I'd rather have Dark Mamiko.
Thankfully, Egao no Daika is also not one of those shows where Potato-kun spends half the series wiping out enemy mecha on easy mode before suddenly realizing people die when they are killed. I can at least guarantee this is not going to happen in The Price of Smiles. Rather, soldiers in this show display no hesitation killing their opponents even when they can see the whites of their eyes. There is still some question as to how Yuuki is going to react to the war now that she's getting a crash course in reality. It's more likely than not that she'll continue to oppose it, but other possibilities remain on the table since this is an original anime. Personally, I'm hoping for at least two cours of gripping war melodrama, but we're probably only going to get the 12 episodes scheduled thus far, alas.
Posted in Egao no Daika | Tags: Bad Things Happen to Good People, Childhood Friend, Giant Robots, Girls With Guns, Initial impressions, OP ED, Season Introduction, Spoilers, war, War Is All Hell, Winter 2019 | Permanent Link
Neither of these two have binocular vision.
I saw an announcement about the next GeGeGe no Kitarou ED planned for January. I guess this means the show will be continuing through at least the Winter 2019 anime season, giving it a yearlong run. More, if it continues after that uninterrupted. I'm mostly content to continue watching it as long as there are new episodes. It's been a reliably good family show through the 35 episodes I've seen, and I can appreciate it for its decades-spanning impact.
Hey, she's wearing a different outfit.
For a show with so much history, it's unexpectedly eager to challenge certain subjects I'm not accustomed to encountering in anime. Notably, there was an episode concerning World War II that spoke directly to an apparent failure in the current education system to adequately cover Japan's roles in the war. Then there's the current major arc involving foreign yokai (some of whom were outright refugees) and the different receptions they face, from sympathy to outright hostility as both xenophobia as well as some understandably unwelcome foreign yokai behavior created flashpoints not unlike contemporary real-world events and concerns. Or perhaps it's because GeGeGe no Kitarou has so much history and is such an established part of the anime landscape that it has greater latitude to address these topics.
Posted in GeGeGe no Kitarou | Tags: Autumn 2018, Legs that go up to her neck, Miyuki Sawashiro, OP ED, Superlovely Character Designs, tsundere, war, War Is All Hell, Winter 2019 | Permanent Link
Yes, you're actually still a main character.
Hanebado! is one of my favorite shows from the Summer 2018 anime season for pretty much the same reason why most of the Twitter seems to hate it. It is, like, wall-to-wall cunts. Oh my God, Ayano has turned into such a bitch. She's mean to basically everyone around her now for essentially no reason. Or at least for no reason she can pin on them. This show is wonderful.
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Posted in Hanebado! | Tags: Manga, OP ED, Spoilers, Summer 2018 | Permanent Link
A ghost with legs? Inconceivable.
The main reason why I started watching Shichisei no Subaru (Seven Senses of the Re'Union) and Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san (Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs) was because both shows featured ghost girlfriends and thus gave me an excuse to pad the Ghost Girlfriends tag on my blog. Besides, Tasogare Otome x Amnesia and Nanana's Buried Treasure were both good, even if Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? was, uh, not.
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Posted in Shichisei no Subaru, WORSE THAN COSPRAYERS, Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san | Tags: Dropped Shows, Fan Service, Ghost Girlfriends, Girls With Guns, Harem Comedy, Light Novels, OP ED, Summer 2018 | Permanent Link
This was a blatant effort to encourage anime tourism.
I starting watching Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight thinking it was going to be an idol anime that would contrast nicely when watched back-to-back with Ongaku Shoujo. Yeah, that turned out to be wrong. It's not an "idol anime" at all, or at least it's less so an idol anime than it is a "wack ass giraffe fight club" anime, as I've seen it characterized on the IRC. To tell you the truth, I'm not entirely sure what to call it.
Très bien!
Not that there's any compelling need to slot Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight into some sort of category. All the really matters to me is that the audition portion of the first episode blew my mind. The fact that we got three straight episodes of "auditions" is rather astounding, although I don't imagine this is something we can reasonably expect an animation studio to keep up week after week. I'm calling them auditions, but you should bear in mind that these segments in Revue Starlight are auditions the way tank battles in GIRLS und PANZER are school sports.
I'm looking forward to these two becoming bitter rivals.
Naturally, since Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight is about nine girls vying for the top spot, I've already picked sides and chosen favorites. There is also some expectation that various pairs will be forced to turn on each other as the competition heats up (it is right there in the OP, okay), but at least we're not likely to see loved ones dematerialize into green sparkles. I mean, they do still need people to put on the show.
Junna here setting totally unrealistic bed head expectations.
After four episodes, Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight holds the top position in my Summer 2018 anime rankings, ahead of even Hanebado! even though Hanebado! has a lot more bitches being bitches. Naturally, I like the Revue Starlight supporting characters more than the leads, but that's pretty much how these sort of things go for me. In fact, I don't see anyone displacing the current top four, incidentally.
Posted in Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight | Tags: Anime Tourism, Ballet, Childhood Friend, Hair, Idols, Initial impressions, Legs that go up to her neck, Music, OP ED, Season Introduction, Spoilers, Summer 2018, Turbo Lesbians, Unrequited Love | Permanent Link
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