#Harakuna Recieve

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And so, the season ends…  The fall picture from Yama no Susume is appropriate, as it’s both Fall (seasonally) and the Fall anime season is underway.  (I think I’ve featured Yama no Susume as the head screenshot more than any other this season…  but my love for the show is no secret.)

Anyhow, all the finale episodes are now in the can.  Hit the jump and let’s chat about how they went! The shows that I am watching are in bold, shows my wife and I are watching together are in bold italics, and strikethrough marks dropped shows.

Attack on Titan 3 / Shingeki no Kyojin Ep 10 (Ep 47)

An odd bit of…  Not quite filler (since it’s canon), but doesn’t advance the narrative much.  For a season with such a strong sense of direction it just seemed off to pause and go on a bit of a tangent.

At any rate, despite nominally being about Kenny (criminally underused and now dead) Levi was actually the centerpiece of this ep.  We know now a lot more about his background (and it isn’t pretty)…  And he now has a Build-A-Titan kit in his possession.  He’s about the last person I’d ever imagine would take advantage of such though.  I wonder where it ends up.

Aldael at Aldael’s Attic wrote a wonderful piece last week – Dear Diary, an well done account of the last couple of episodes from Mikasa’s POV.

Cells at Work / Hataraku Saibou Eps 12-13 (Finale)

Wow – this is the Big One, something not easily solved by White Blood Cell going postal…  Overall, handled well enough I guess.  I felt something was vaguely wrong, and CactusMatt nailed it – it felt like they were stretching limited material to cover two episodes.

Seeing Red go all Serious Business was mildly surprising, but I guess she’s seen it all by this point.  Despite being an airhead, she’s second to none when it comes to work ethic. Chio’s School Road / Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro Ep 12 (Finale) The perils of putting off writing – here we are a week later, and I can barely recall the episode (and not just because I’m a little fuzzy from insomnia and pain pills).  Looking up the episode on Crunchy, now I remember why I don’t remember…  A pair of forgettable and largely phoned in segments.  Chio’s has been uneven all season, and it closes out with a whimper.

Encouragement of Climb 3 / Yama no Susume 3 Ep 13 (Finale)

What can I say?  While not a perfect ending, it was the perfect end.  (If that makes any kind of sense.)  Last episode Aoi declared her eternal friendship, and this episode Hinata reciprocated.  (As if the issue was ever in doubt.)

I think that’s all I want to say, risking saying too little rather than saying too much.

Grand Blue Dreaming Ep 11 – 12 (Finale) The season closes out with the conclusion of the Okinawa arc and the gang up to their usual shenanigans.  I loved how they dealt with Azusa’s casual approach to sexuality in Ep 11 – simply presenting it as it is without preaching or playing it for laughs.  In a series where practically everything else is played for laughs, that’s surprising and welcome.

Ah, and before I forget – the pool scene was played out to perfection and I laughed my butt off.

Hanebado! Eps 12-13 (Finale)

This is the Big One – Ayano v. Nagisa for none of the marbles (since they’re both advancing).  But I get why both girls want to play the other, their respective feelings are abundantly clear.

The match was astoundingly well done in terms of animation, one of the few good things about the finale.  Cheers for not cheaping out and blowing out Nagisa’s knee.  I’m more conflicted about her win though, which came about because Ayano dropped her racquet.  Nagisa was beating her at the mental game, and pulling a draw in the brute stamina competition…  But it still just doesn’t feel right.  (And I hate admitting that since Nagisa is Best Girl.)

Harukana Receive Ep 12 (Finale)

That was one tense game, wasn’t it?  Though I never doubted the outcome, in the end the protagonists always win even if they’re newbies.

It was painful but realistic to watch Eclair struggle with their conflicting emotions.  Angry and sad at the end of their dream, happy that their club would be represented at the Nationals, pride in their kohai‘s success.  I have to hand it to them that in the end, they swallowed that bitter pill and put it behind them.  This was really because Akari, the outsider, strongly supported both pairs and reminded them that at the end of the day they were all friends.

Writing these reviews – I found the parallels between the final matches in Hanebado and Harukana Receive to be interesting.  The emphasis on stamina, the mental game, and of great interest – both victories were due as much to a mistake on the loser’s part as anything else.

My Hero Academia 3 /  Boku no Hero Academia 3 Ep 24 (Ep 62) – Ep 25 (Ep 63) (Finale)

These two episodes…  Felt kind of off.  Not quite like an epilogue or a cliffhanger, but still feeling like a loose end.  They had to run out the clock, and they had to work with what they had (from the manga), and left the season break at an odd place.  Much of the material covered here doesn’t matter in the context of this season.

Music Girls / Ongaku Shoujo Ep 12 (Finale)

This is me pissed – in the final minute of the show, just after reinforcing that Hanako can’t sing…  They put her on stage singing with the group.  Ah well, they’d long since tossed aside the basic premise of the show anyhow.

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And there we have it!  The Summer 2018 anime season is in the books!

Look forward to my season review later this week, and I should have my first Fall 2018 First Impressions up later today or sometime tomorrow.

What are your thoughts on the finales?  Drop me a comment and let’s chat!

Summer 2018 – Week 12/13 Finales And so, the season ends...  The fall picture from Yama no Susume is appropriate, as it's both Fall (seasonally) and the Fall anime season is underway. 

[stagmanparty]

Harakuna Recieve

So that´s it? Cause the raws I found stop at this point too.

Well, I really liked this series...cause of the sports, of course =P

But seriously it was good. 

Guess I have to check how the hanebado ending ends now next.

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Busy, busy week at shows set up for the final arcs and penultimate episodes!  Hinata and Aoi reconcile, Harakuna gets amped up, and Hanebado is…  well, once again Hanebado.

All that and more after the jump! The shows that I am watching are in bold, shows my wife and I are watching together are in bold italics, and strikethrough marks dropped shows.

Attack on Titan 3 / Shingeki no Kyojin Ep 9 (Ep 46)

Is it just me…  Or did that victory feel just a little unearned?  From desperate worries and plans to Titan guts splattered about the landscape all in the span of a single episode.  I understand that they’re picking up the pacing this season because the political stuff is boooooring!  But I think they could have spent a little more time here.  Yes, I’ve seen the argument that this displays how skilled they’ve become.  I counter that with the immense  strength and threat they built up the Reiss Titan to be.

Cells at Work / Hataraku Saibou Ep 3

Not the best episode ever…  Very preachy (that is, way too much Narrator) and they just couldn’t resist yet another “fighting the infection” plotline.  Still, plenty of Platelet fanservice so it wasn’t all bad.

Seriously, CGDCT/moe spinoff based on the Platelets – when?

Chio’s School Road / Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro Ep 11 Chio’s has settled into what can be best described as comfortable mediocrity.  Nothing really wrong with that per se…  It just hasn’t been as consistently funny as it was early on.  That being said, I laughed my _ss off during the first segment.  The series is at its absolute best when it gets inside the insanity that lives in Chio’s head.

Encouragement of Climb 3 / Yama no Susume 3 Ep 12

And the conflict between Aoi and Hinata is resolved – not with a bang, but with an old joke shared between close friends.  Aoi’s staunch insistence on standing by her friend rather than continuing the climb broke the logjam in Hinata’s feelings and they were finally able to talk it out.  Perfect.

I kept waiting for Aoi to make a reference to the incident on Mt Fuji, and I’m glad she didn’t.  This isn’t paybacks, it’s about what friends do for each other.

The girls sleeping on the long train ride home…  Priceless.  Who want to bet that right out of the frame, Aoi and Hinata are holding hands?  They don’t have to show us.  We know.

Grand Blue Dreaming Ep 10

I went back and checked the manga, and yep, they’re skipping stuff.  They kept all but a couple of Cakey’s best lines/bits – and the ones they skipped don’t matter except in the unlikely chance that Grand Blue Dreaming gets a third season.  Have I mentioned how much I love Cakey?  She’s the only sane one in the bunch and it’s funny watching her try to maintain her balance (and sanity) in and amongst the madness of PAB.

They also cut the funniest part of Iori bunking with Nanaka and Azusa, but then they trimmed all the groundwork laid in previous chapters.  (tl;dr version: Azusa has the hots for Nanaka, part of the reason he bunked with them was to “protect” Nanaka.)

From the preview, they are going to hit the pool scene – my absolute favorite bit from the Okinawa arc.

This is only the second time I’ve watched an anime where I was familiar with the source…  And it’s been a very different experience from watching Sweetness & Lightning in that respect.  Dreaming is a serial, and they had to trim to fit chapters into episodes and to fit the whole thing into a single cour while also reaching a natural stopping point.  Sweetness on the other hand was episodic and they could and did skip about to maintain the pace of the series without worrying quite so much about adaptation issues.

Hanebado! Ep 11

Once again Hanebado demonstrates its amazing skill at spending two-thirds of an episode either on complete irrelevancies or going back over well covered ground.  That match though…  When it gets to actually playing, it seriously, seriously delivers.

If the series matched the quality of it’s musical cues…  we’d be having a very different conversation.

Harukana Receive Ep 11

Some folks are saying this isn’t “actually” a sports anime…  And really, I dunno.  It certainly works as one for me – I mean the whole darn show is about girls participating in a sport isn’t it?  No, it’s not fifty eps long.  Nor does it go into obsessive detail about things.  But it strikes me that neither is central to any kind of useful definition of a genre.

Either way, this was a damn fine episode.  I spent a good part of it practically leaning forward in my seat anticipating what might come next.  They did a good job modulating the tension with flashbacks and turning the camera on the folks watching the match.  I enjoyed the heck out of it.

My Hero Academia 3 /  Boku no Hero Academia 3 Ep 15 (Ep 61)

Not sure I understand what all the fuss is about – Bakugou sure is a puzzle sometimes.  But, All Might was happy and pretty much every review I’ve read was pleased, so whatever.

Music Girls / Ongaku Shoujo Ep 11

Once again Uori is being a self-centered so-and-so, and once again all is forgiven and the other girls welcome her back with open arms.  Sigh.  This is a well-worn trope in anime that feature any kind of group of people and not one I enjoy when done so badly.

Which inspired this thought: https://twitter.com/DerekL1963/status/1041396281719971840

It’s never going to happen, but I can dream can’t I?

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Well, there you have it!  Another week in the books.

It’s been nice this week, the heat has finally broken which means I can cook again…  Had some lovely chicken curry rice last night, and am thinking of making up a big pot of veggie soup this weekend.  OTOH, Hisone to Masotan (Dragon Pilot) drops on Netflix tomorrow so I might want to pick something that doesn’t take quite so much attention.  (I’m currently thinking of marathoning it on Sat.)

Next week’s entry may be shorter than usual because we’re taking off early Wens afternoon to drive over to the Big City to catch My Hero Academia: Two Heroes.

Anyhow, how did your week go?  Drop a comment and let’s chat!

Summer 2018 – Week 11 Busy, busy week at shows set up for the final arcs and penultimate episodes!  Hinata and Aoi reconcile, Harakuna gets amped up, and…

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Summer 2018 - Quick Notes - Week 8/9

Summer 2018 – Quick Notes – Week 8/9

The last of the semi-hiatus posts, back next week with a full post!  Hit the jump and let’s see my thoughts over the last two weeks! (more…)

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Summer 2018 - Midseason Thoughts, Weeks 6-7

Summer 2018 – Midseason Thoughts, Weeks 6-7

Catching up on the last two weeks and giving the thumbs up (or down) on shows as we cruise through the mid point of the season!  Hit the jump, and let’s dive right in shall we? (more…)

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Summer 2018 - Week 4

Summer 2018 – Week 4

A quick look at a few of this week’s shows and my first tentative steps into a new style and finding my own voice. Hit the jump and let’s dive right in! (more…)

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Four more premiers, three keepers and one drop, plus the second episodes of two of my favorites this season.  All this and more after the jump!

The shows that I am watching are in bold, shows my wife and I are watching together are in bold italics, and strikethrough marks dropped shows.

Asobi Asobase Ep 1

I…  Think this was supposed to be funny.  I guess it was, in spots.  But it was also just too weird for words in spots, and I found none of the characters likeable or interesting.

Dropped without a backwards glance.

Cells at Work / Hataraku Saibou Ep 1

It’s Red Blood Cell AE-3803’s first day at work…  And not only does she get repeatedly lost, but she’s also being pursued by Pneumococcus – an evil bacteria intent on eating her.  If not for White Blood Cell U-1446’s dogged pursuit of Pneumococcus, she’d have been doomed.  That’s pretty much the plot in a nutshell.

Not at all unusual for a main character, AE-3803 is also something of a ditz.  This means she has to have a ton of stuff explained to her, and thus to us in the audience.  The scriptwriters don’t seem to have heard about “show, don’t tell”.  On the other hand, the show airs at 8AM (Japan time) on a Saturday, which leads me to think this is aimed at kids and the rules for that audience are different.

The animation is well done, and the character designs are interesting…  But I don’t know how long I’ll stick around.  Just doesn’t seem to be enough meat to hold my attention long.

Chio’s School Road / Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro EP 1 (No screenshots and a shorter entry because once again Crunchy’s web player is borked.)

I found myself chuckling all through this ep…  And actually, I find that better than occasional big laughs.  I loved the heck out of Chio’s internal monologues and her screwball views of the world.  Folks, this one is a keeper.

Encouragement of Climb 3 / Yama no Susume 3 Ep 2

This was…  an example of the type of episode Encouragement has never handled all that well.  Despite the nice character moments, the teaching elements of the ep got a bit preachy.

It was nice to see Kaede return the stage as the group’s steady older sister / mentor / senpai.  Despite the clumsy way the educational aspects are often handled, having her explain it to the other girls is (IMO) way better than the narrator in Laid Back Camp.  This scene also reminded us that though it’s been four long years for us, barely six months have passed for the girls since Aoi and Hinata reconnected on the first day of school.

Kinda sorta on topic, or at least strongly related given that Mt Fuji played a huge role in Encouragement of Climb‘s second season…  Last week I was watching a special on NHK about the springs and watercourses fed by snowmelt from Mt Fuji.  (It can be seen online at – Mt. Fuji Aqua Journey, actually pretty interesting.)  What caught my eye was this scene in the opening – if you look close, you can see the mountain climbing trails and routes going up the mountainside.  What I assume is the main trail is obvious just to the right of center, but you can see several more if you click on the image and view it full size.

Hanebado! Ep 2

(No screenshots because once again Crunchy’s web player is borked.)

This week focused on Nagisa, but everything was so packed I’m not sure I followed it.  I can see that nobody credits her skill because of her height.  I can see how that leads her to overcompensate by being a hard ass and self centered.  I can see how that leads to her using the most powerful strokes she can summon…  But the whole solving her problems in a single practice session with the coach kind of left a bad taste in my mouth.  That just seemed a bit cheap.

She also seems to have someone in her past, some kind of rival?  And they made it pretty clear that she will soon play a role in the story.  Too much, too fast.  We’ve barely even gotten the basics of our characters established.

Speaking of too fast…  Ayano has joined the Badminton club.  But they never explain how or why she did so despite her extreme reluctance to doing so in the first ep.  It just kinda happened.  Is she a main character or not?

After a strong first ep, Hanebado is stumbling badly.  Adaptation problems maybe?

An interesting post by kViN at the Sakuga Blog on the production and animation of Ep 2.

Harukana Receive

Ok…  No episode this week, but some further thoughts.  I may have been a bit harsh on it last week.  I’ve read a lot of other folks thoughts, both cheering and jeering, over the past week – and my attitude towards the show has improved.  Yeah, it’s still got a lot of generic bits and tropes, but it also has a great deal of possibility.  At this stage, the girls are largely one-note, but from simple basics great possibilities arise.

Infinite Zenith’s first episode impressions are interesting.

Music Girls / Ongaku Shoujo Ep 1

(No screenies because Crunchyroll’s web player is borked.)

Not the strongest premiere ever…  The episode revolves around Hanako, who has never actually lived in Japan (despite her name) and doesn’t seem to know anything of substance about idols or idol culture.  (In fact, she somehow has them confused with chibi kaiju.  That may be important later on.)  By accident, she gets swept up in, and becomes the sole contestant in, some kind of idol contest… (By this point in the ep, I’m bored and checking the time, not a good sign.)  And as the credits roll, we get the sole twist of interest:  While she’s genius level at picking up and performing choreography, she can’t sing for sh*t.  In fact, she has a horrible singing voice.

Other than that, Music Girls has something everyone knows I loathe: a huge, huge cast (11 other idols!) all thrown at us in the first ep.  The character designs are cute, but other than that they’re all almost instantly forgettable.  But credit where credit is due, to the extent it was animated the group’s performance was actually animated rather than CGI.

I think I’m going to stick with it an episode or two just to see if they do anything interesting with the twist.  Other than that, I hold faint hope based on the writing quality to date.

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Because of the lengthy premier period, I’ve decided to go ahead and start my week count…  It’s over a week until the last premiere, and waiting will leave me badly out of sync.

I’ve gotten some weird spam comments – but this one takes the cake!  I don’t even understand what they’re trying to accomplish.

Anyhow, what’s your thoughts on my thoughts?  On this week’s shows?  Drop a comment and let me know!

Summer 2018 – Week 1 / First Impressions (Part II) Four more premiers, three keepers and one drop, plus the second episodes of two of my favorites this season. 

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Summer 2018 - Week 10

Summer 2018 – Week 10

Tons of feels and big moments this week…  Harakuna squares off against Eclair.  Historia puts her foot down.  Hinata…  Oh, Hinata – why?

All this and more after the jump! (more…)