#take all the time you need to stun us Ufotable

[demonslayedher]

So! Yuukaku-hen started on a serious note following the Mugen Ressha fallout, especially a scene that shows more of Akaza's position in relation to Muzan, and the season ends with this framing device that makes us concerned for Akaza, as we remember how the first season ended! But also, the first season was a collection of short arcs and concluded Tanjiro's "Unwavering Resolve" arc with Functional Recovery training. A chance to relax and enjoy the interactions between Corp members, learn more about them before sending Tanjiro back on his way.

So! So-o-o-o, I keep wondering, where are they going to fit Pillar Training? 'Cause like, if the last season starts with Pillar Training, that is gonna be lo-o-o-o-n-g, and I have wondered if they were going to release a second movie and try to repeat the success of Mugen Ressha (which would be.......... wow), that perhaps the Sunrise Countdown could be released theatrically. But I also say this just because I want this fight getting cinematic treatment because that would be e-p-i-c. The Swordsmith Village Arc is going to have one of the silliest of starts, will the start of the (eventual?) Infinity Fortress arc have a beginning just as wholesome with Pillar Training, to make us fall more in love with characters right before they are made to suffer (and suffer and suffer and suffer)? This is kinda of the route I expect, because then it still concludes with an ominous note about Muzan in how he reacts to Nezuko. Orrrrrrrrrr, might the Swordsmith Arc run a bit longer and take on a happy fluffy recovery period with Pillar Training like the first season did with Functional Recovery Training?

In which case... it might end with a bang.

[derpcakes]

Olox’s spoiler-free Heaven’s Feel Highlight Reel

NOTE: I am in an area of Australia that is currently covid free and has eased restrictions! Take your safety and the safety of others into account when attending your weeb hobbies!

Now, in no particular order, and keeping spoilers to a minimum through lack of context (and the assumption that most of my followers have some familiarity with the story already):

First, let me say this was my most peaceful and pleasant cinema experience with this trilogy yet, as there were at most six of us in the theatre. Blessed silence in contrast to the hollering nerds at last year’s premiere

Naturally the fight scenes popped off. ufotable’s action scenes always have this glorious sense of weight and impact to them, so even the most ridiculous acrobatics feel like they’re grounded and logical and like the hits really land. Saber Alter vs Medusa was my favourite, and really gave Medusa her time to shine

On that, I enjoy that no matter how many aerial flips she does Medusa’s skirt never seems to fly up - girl what material do you use? What designer are you wearing? What is your style secret and can we get it to some other action anime in the biz?

Saw Iri for like two seconds and nearly started weeping in the cinema

The cinematic parallel of Ilya looking out the window waiting for the father who never came home versus Ilya looking out the window and her brother flying through it backwards

Kirei yeeting Shirou through a window (see above)

The EMIYA theme sounds SO GOOD on big cinema speakers (it may have even been a new mix? Not sure, but it and the scene it was in absolutely ruled)

Kirei straight up just says “oh I buried Rin in the soil on her family estate so she’ll heal faster” and Shirou kind of looks at him for a moment before going “well, hope she’s better soon!” which is perhaps unintentionally hilarious because... I know Rin has the ability to marinate in native soil like Dracula when she needs to heal because of something I read somewhere ages ago about the Tohsakas having vampire lineage, but does the casual viewer know that? More importantly, does Shirou know that? Or is he just ready to accept any BS that comes his way these days without questioning it because he’s like [John Mulaney voice] “magecraft is already so god damned weird, this might as well happen”?

Sakura and Kirei having a gr8 snarky conversation while she’s holding his heart in her hand that’s like “You’re supposed to be in the grail” “And you’re supposed to be dead, you six-piece chicken McNobody”

Five seconds of flashback footage of Claudia Hortensia!! 

More than five seconds of flashback footage of the Three Founders! Featuring Justeaze von Einzbern getting ritually squashed by a giant magic cube!? (pomf)

Zouken staying alive in bug form for just long enough to hear Justeaze call him a little shit, one last time

These bastards really make you think Shirou is proper dead for like a whole three minutes, before we get to see a visit to AOZAKI TOUKO’S BUILD-A-BOYFRIEND WORKSHOP

Shirou declaring “I want to live! Yes, I want to live!” READER I WEPT. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS? GROWTH

When Sakura is freed from her contract (and thus her Evil Turtleneck Dress) she ends up naked, but one of her little familiars comes along and turns itself into a wrap so she’s covered up??? Bless! What is that thing?? It’s a towel now I suppose!

Sakura is good. The most valid girl in the universe. I, too, would leap across a pool of lava to save her from the world and from herself. I kind of wish it had let her be angry for longer, and placed more emphasis on that, but I suppose they only had so much runtime to work with, and this movie was in effect one long conga line of climaxes. Still, it really does feel like whoever made this trilogy understood and loved her as a character, and she really does get a chance to be the compelling character we all know she is. I hope that this has inspired a new wave of Sakura love. As I believe the kids say, we have no choice but to stan

Overall very fun, visually stunning, and a good cap-off to the trilogy. I can’t speak super authoritatively on it as an adaptation because I never got that far in the VN (oops) but it does a good job drawing you in if you’re already familiar with the Emiya Saga and gives you plenty to enjoy!

[huh-gerin]

Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel II. Lost Butterfly Thoughts (Spoiler Free)

Last night I was lucky enough to watch Fate/Stay Night [Heaven’s Feel] II. Lost Butterfly in theaters. I’d like to start out by saying how glad I was to make the decision to watch this movie in theaters as it felt like a whole new viewing experience, a way of watching this anime to its fullest potential. Ufotable is back of course with its beautiful animation mixed in with such amazing storytelling. The movie had left me craving more but yet satisfied with what I was given as you could tell the story continues, but had a logical ending to the film. It is known that the Heaven’s Feel route of the original Fate/Stay Night visual novel is the darkest of them all and this adaptation of it definitely lives up to those expectations and I’d like to think it even exceeds them. It was amazing really seeing such a dark story be told in what I think is its fullest potential. I find the words from the voice actor of the main character Shirou, Noriaki Sugayama, in a little video that had been shown before the film to be a perfect description of what kind of movie this is. He described this story to be a very dark one but yet still retained beauty in it at the same time which I agree with fully. 

I feel the two main aspects of this movie that added the beauty to this dark story definitely has to be the art and music of the film. The contrast between dark and gory animation to beautiful art and scenery just works together perfectly for a film such as this one. Throughout the film I got this sense of unease but at the same time I was so invested in the beautiful art and story which I feel just added to the viewing experience as well. The addition of Aimer’s music fit so well into the movie as her music compliments the movie so well through implementation of instrumental versions into scenes of the film in addition to other tracks used in other anime adaptations of the Fate routes. Moving onto the story, I’ll be sure to avoid spoilers as I think you all should see this movie. I really enjoyed the story and the way it was told from beginning to end. I really appreciate Ufotable not holding back in telling this story to its fullest as it is a very dark story and you can tell they want to get that story across as uncensored as possible. Although this movie is the second chapter of three, you definitely get the sense of this being a full movie with a beginning, middle, and end as well as setup for the following film which I really loved because it leaves you satisfied but at the same time you can’t wait to see where the story will then go. 

When compared to the last movie, which was more so on the tamed side with its dark moments, this movie is so much more dark and disturbing and make the dark moments from the first film seem like nothing. The film enhances and improves on the last film which is great to see as the pacing improves and animation improves which is amazing as these movies released one year apart. This movie is a more narrative and character driven story rather than an action packed one. Yes, there is action within the film but it doesn’t take up the whole film, but rather is used sparingly as it was not really needed for such a rich story. As for the action sequences that were in the film, they were just mind-blowing as to how well choreographed, animated, and tense they were. In regards to the characters, each and every character was well-developed and utilized throughout the movie, making it so that every character we meet will play a pivotal role within this story. 

However, with these developed characters, the film mainly focuses in on Sakura’s character rather than someone like Shirou, who some would consider be the main character for Fate/Stay Night. One aspect of this I was really impressed by is the fact that Shirou in a way, depending on how you look at it, represents us, the viewers and how an average person thrown into such a situation could act. Shirou, for me was very relatable within the film because it’s not all about becoming a hero of justice, rather, it’s him making decisions on how he feels about Sakura. Moving on to the more technical aspects of the film. The work that went into this film was really just phenomenal because you can see just how much work was put into this film to make it as amazing as it was. 

The art and animation was just stunning and made to perfection. Even when it comes to things such as cgi, it was implemented really well with the 2d animation for the scenes cgi was used in. It wasn’t distracting in any way as it can be sometimes, but rather it was something you simply noticed that made the scene seem different and then moved on. The art for the film was just beautiful throughout the whole film. There were certain points where it seemed close to photorealistic which is stunning to think about for an anime as it makes you realize just how much work and effort was put into the film. 

When it comes to the action sequences and how they were animated, they were really well done and polished. Seeing the improvement on the fight scenes from Fate Zero, Unlimited Blade Works, Heaven’s Feel I, to now is just astonishing because to begin with they were really well made and Ufotable just keeps raising the bar higher and higher.   Additionally, the soundtrack for this film is simply amazing. It fits so well with the tone of this film and just really adds to the viewing experience, which to be honest isn’t surprising as Ufotable has constantly done such an amazing job when it came to the soundtracks for the Fate series. To think that this film was released a year after the first one came out and they improved on these things is just mind-blowing to think about because even if they didn’t improve on these things, the film would have been just as good and to do something like this just shows Ufotable is going that extra mile. I am really looking forward to seeing the conclusion to the Heaven’s Feel route next year when Fate/Stay Night [Heaven’s Feel] III. Spring Song comes out in theaters. I am definitely gonna have to hold myself off until then by rewatching the first and second movie just so the story stays fresh in my mind.

[kiritokun]

2017 Anime in Review

So, it is that time of the year again, the end is neigh, and it has snuck up on me yet again. With the end of the fall season for me only 3 days away, I thought I should get to writing and compiling this list, which, compared to other years feels dauntingly short. With a total of only 33 anime/movies I saw this year, I feel like either I’ve gotten pickier, shows have gotten worse, or there were too many sequels that I didn’t wanna rush through previous seasons to watch the new season. Regardless, keeping up with tradition, here I am for my fifth annual anime review. As always, the top 12 are in alphabetical order and then the rest are discussed in alphabetical order as well since, as you may have noticed, I was lazy this year and didn’t do any quarterly reviews. So, you’ll get my full rambling here this year! Let’s get this party started!

Ao no Exorcist: Kyoto Fujouou-hen

The long awaited sequel to Ao no Exorcist, the Kyoto arc is where the action finally ramps it into high gear. The stakes get higher and the action gets real fucking rad. I’m so glad the Ao no Exorcist got its second season finally, it’s, in my opinion, somewhat underrated as an anime and doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Here’s hoping that the second season garnered enough attention for another season, because with stunning visuals, great story, and music to boot, it be a shame not to continue seeing more of this series.

Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka Gaiden: Sword Oratoria

And here we have it, the spin of to DanMachi that focuses on the Loki Familia. At first I was skeptical that they decided to do this instead of another season of DanMachi, but to quell my concerns I read into the manga and fell in love. The motivations you see for Aiz in the story help make sense of why she puts up with Bell, why she is the strongest and overall just a lot of fleshing out of her character. But luckily it doesn’t just center around Aiz, but the whole of the front line of the Loki familia, letting us see how a strong dungeon clearing familia does business, and boy does they show us the business in the season finale.

Eromanga-sensei

What is this train wreck? Another imouto series? Yes, I’m sorry. I can’t stop myself, I’m a sucker for comedy. Eromanga-sensei is great, because unlike its predecessors (OreImo) it doesn’t try to make the viewers stomach that blood relations hell. With an adorable cast, great punchlines, and reasonable visuals, it’s well worth a watch if you need a laugh.

Gamers!

What is this, another train wreck? Yep, sorry not sorry. At least it’s a unique train wreck, with our 5 main characters in a horrible love pentagon from hell. Amano likes Tendou and vice versa, Aguri likes Uehara and vice versa, and Chiaki likes Amano. Seems simple enough, just a love triangle you say, NOPE. Because its all a clusterfuck of people thinking the person they like likes someone else. EVEN THOUGH AGURI AND UEHARA ARE DATING. God help me why did I like this again. Wait the great lolz. That’s why, grade A lolz.

Imouto sae Ireba Ii.

Yes, it says Imouto in the title. But I swear, its not OreImo again. My boy Itsuki here is a light novel author… with an obsession for little sisters. See that’s new. This anime is a slice of life that revolves around the light novel publishing business and we see most of it through the perspective of Itsuki, but Nayu and Haruto have been in the spotlight, showing us their process to writing their novels or anime adaptations. But the cake for me has to go to Itsuki’s college friend Miyako, who is best girl of the year for me. Lord have mercy that girl is adorable. Also this bastard of an anime has the best ending song of the year for me, freaking great song.

Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni.

The premise here was interesting, our protagonist meets an early end in his world, but God having pity on him allows him to reincarnate in a new world, taking one thing with him. He chooses to keep his smartphone and there by gains a interesting advantage in a world of magic, where he is able to access all the old information from his home world (Assumingly an anime Earth), but also gains amazing power in this world. Because God felt the phone was a bit of a cheap gimme, he enhances all hit attributes including his affinity for magic, allowing him to be incredibly fucking broken and OP in this world in combat. So don’t go in to this for a fair fight, but for comedy, bullshit fights, and a interesting take on how a medieval magic world would benefit from someone from our time period came and started just dropping knowledge. (ICE CREAAAM)

Koi to Uso

A society that has a system that will match you to your perfect soulmate, seems ideal doesn’t it? But what if you find yourself fallen in love for years and come your 16th birthday you are matched with someone whom you have no feelings for. That’s the premise of Koi to Uso, and man it’s a doozy. I wish this had gotten more episodes because I feel like the premise was great, even if the protagonist was a bit spineless. Unfortunately I doubt it did well enough to get another season, so I’ll have to read the manga for some closure, but it got my interest. It also had a fantastic opening song, catchy as all hell.

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2

If you read my reviews in the past, you should NOT be surprised that KonoSuba2 made it into this list. The laughs were still there, the bullshit success story of Kazuma never ends. God what else can I say about one of the best action comedies I’ve seen? Go watch it? Season 1 first though, it does actually continue story wise so you need to see it in order. ERIS IS TRUE LIFE, AQUA LIES!

Rewrite 2nd Season

Man, I can already feel how controversial this pick is. A lot, and I mean a lot, of people did not like Rewrite, nor Rewrite season 2. I am one of the few that thought it was alright. I have also not played the visual novel its based on so I’m more forgiving to its faults than most. But I have researched into the series post watching the anime, and can see very well why people were so… triggered. Overall the second season I feel was stronger than the first, elaborating on back story a lot more and giving viewers more to understand what the actual fuck is going on. And you gotta admit the season started off with a bang with that huge battle in episode 16. After which the series I feel took a darker and more realistic turn, which I thought was a step in the right direction.

Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records

Yes, another magic world school series. What was unique about this one? The main character is older for one, isn’t trying to fall in love for another, and lastly, isn’t purposefully gimped of his power. He tends a lazier route but is able to be bring forth his abilities to full blast when necessary. I will say the uniforms are kinda bullshit, like how are they practical lol.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 

Why oh why did we not get just a bit more of this series? I’m glad they announced a movie to hopefully finish the story since its so close to the end of the light novels. But this ends up being more of the same, with Aki trying to pursue his game creation dream further with more trials and tribulations along the way. But none of that matters, what matters is we got more Megumi in our lives and man oh man is she still as great as ever. Best heroine, no boring heroine here!

Tsurezure Children

Considering how much I love the manga series, it is no surprise that I loved the anime. They stayed true to the manga and made it a snippet of short stories for all the characters. I only wished it had been 24 episodes so we could have developed everyone more and introduced more people as well. But, its okay, we introduced the best characters anyway with BROTOYAMA being introduced and of course, everyone’s favorite LOVE MASTER! He gets even better, just you wait.

Honorable Mentions

ChäoS;Child

This was just a big disappointment to me, I had hoped it would fall back on Chaos;Head a bit and explain some more, give us an epilogue if you will of what happen to those people, but we just got a new story full force. While the story of Chaos;Child isn’t bad, it wasn’t what I wanted, though man, the movie was something else. Sadly it wasn’t what I was looking for.

Clockwork Planet

Iffy animation, story all over the place, main dude kinda nuts and annoying. I couldn’t actually find something I liked about Clockwork planet. It’s a shame because I thought I’d love it based on the poster art, but, it wasn’t meant to be apparently.

Code:Realize: Sousei no Himegimi

I have a very love hate relationship with Code:Realize. I don't actually enjoy it that much, but its interesting enough that I was not able to bring myself to drop the series. Week after week I watched with half attention because I wanted to see a resolution to the series, but it wasn't very good to watch it. I don’t know what drew me to it, but it brought me back for more every week so I guess it had to be somewhat good if I can't find something I hated either.

Fate/Apocrypha

Man, Fate Apocrypha is an example of why ufotable should be the only people that are allowed to handle the Fate series. While the story is pretty interesting war wise, the character development felt slopy, the fights were poorly animated (til episode 22-23 those were pretty rad), and overall just felt bad. It’s a shame ufotable doesn’t have exclusive rights to fate adaptations, but oh well, it was okay. Hopefully Shaft does better with Fate Extra, but I doubt it.

Gin no Guardian

Normally if a series gets a second season announced and I watched the first season, I watch the new season. Like I watched Samurai Girls, then tried to watch Samurai Bride and realized it was god awful. Well with Gin no Guardian, I watched the first season and will not be giving its second season a watch because it was very boring, slow paced, and scattered about. I don’t see how it got a second season, but I guess some people might have liked it, or maybe since its shorter episodes it was worth finishing up another season? I don’t understand really.

Hajimete no Gal

The boobs in this series were fucking absurd. Who was the character designer for this and the manga? They need to go look at some real women to understand how boobs function. Holy shit was that a problem in this series. Unless the designers only watched porn with very fake breasts, they should have realized something was awry with their boob design. Holy fuck have I been waiting to complain about that for a while. Besides the boobs, pretty good anime, I laughed pretty hard actually, when the boobs were functioning like human boobs.

Hand Shakers

Now, the art style alone was a bit of a departure for me, but it also caught me attention so I gave it a shot. Hand Shakers story was rocky at best, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t actually bad. The concept of not being able to let go of her hand got real old fast, like come on that’s a horrible life flaw to force on someone, even anime wise. But oh well, I didn’t hate the anime, I found it enjoyable at least.

Juuni Taisen

Some people really loved Juuni Taisen, I was not one of those people. Don't get me wrong, it was actually pretty interesting; I enjoy that battle royal genre a lot. But I just couldn’t get behind the predictable episode structure and most unlikable characters. I was glad when I started to like people, but then they’d die off and make me feel like I wasted my joy. So, that was rough going, even if it was predictable in the end it was a fun watch.

Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - The Animated Series

Oh my god, Kino is a wonderful anime, but I couldn't make myself drop one of the other 12 down. So no don't think I didn't love this anime, I did, I adored it. The visuals were beautiful, the music was great, and each individual story was amazing. Episode 11 was incredible in my opinion, and a satisfying watch to realize how Kino came to be.

Konohana Kitan

I might be a bit slow, but I did NOT realize that the hotel was a kind of limbo til very late in the series. Did I miss some key dialogue? Maybe, someone let me know. But holy hell has this been an amusing watch. Its been beautifully animated, and on top of that the stories are all heartwarming.

Kuzu no Honkai

This fucking anime, holy shit this anime. I had some issues here. First of all, our two protagonists, like fuck, why didn't you end up together? Like, are you that childish that you can’t accept that you’ve made mistakes but are essentially good for each other? Also; Ecchan; can really go fuck off, her attitude drove me up a wall the entire series. What a horrible personality. God, I think I only made it through this because I was hoping for a happier ending and man did I not get that.

Little Witch Academia (TV)

Very unpopular opinion incoming. This should have stayed a movie. There, I said it. I didn't think it needed to be adapted into a full length anime. It felt like every episode dragged on and on and only felt like it reached a proper pacing structure towards the end when everything started to go down. Had the series been condensed to 12 episodes I get a feeling I may have been fonder of it.

Masamune-kun no Revenge

Masamune really needs his revenge; he went from tubby to abs in a few years. He needs to get vengeance for starving and working out to be healthy. Wait that sounds wrong, shouldn't he be thanking her for making him realize that he needed to get healthy and that she was kind of a bitch? That would be the logical outcome, but no, we get led into a lengthy hell. The manga has started to move towards the conclusion, which I think might satisfy me more than the anime did, but we'll see what happens.

New Game!!

More of the same and that's okay with me! Watching the game development process is fascinating! And the characters are all adorable and relatable! And so well drawn and animated. I really do love this series so much, even though it broke my heart with the last episodes. Oh well, I trust the writers!

Princess Principal

I really liked the series. But, I felt like I was watching the episodes out of order a lot of the time. That really threw the pacing through a loop in my opinion. I thought it was a lot more mature than I initially gave it credit for though, so that was good overall. I'm glad I watched it.

Re:Creators

This on the other hand, I regret bothering with. But I was so many episodes in by the time I regretted it that I couldn't just stop anymore. Man, this was not a good anime.

Shingeki no Kyojin Season 2

If you'e watched season 1, you know what season 2 is all about. Death, glory, fighting, WOO! While we do make some plot progress in season 2, we haven’t gotten to the real meat of the plot just yet, so hopefully another season and we'll get to the nice dark conspiracies!

Sword Art Online Movie: Ordinal Scale

I loved the Ordinal Scale movie. I was able to go see it in theaters and it was fantastic. While original content, it fit so well with the world that Sword Art Online has built. And the magnificent tease at the end. We will see Alicization soon enough boys!

Trinity Seven Movie: Eternity Library to Alchemic Girl

A shame I didn't get to see this in theaters, but man it was good. While not canon to the manga's story it held its own with a very interesting take on the series. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

UQ Holder!: Mahou Sensei Negima! 2

Oh god what a fucking train wreck. Why can't they make a good Negima anime? Is it really that hard to get it right? It was so fucking bad. Why can't you stick to the source material? Why must you skip so much? God fucking damn it.

Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e (TV)

At least we end on a high note. This was one hell of a trip. The concept was cool and the animation was decent. They had some issues with slow pacing to start, but once the politics and drama began it just kept rolling. I wish it had had more episodes to give us more plot because with how it ended, you really are left wondering what the intentions of the main character are and where the story is leading. Oh well, hopefully it gets another season or if not I'll have to read the light novel.

And with that we come to a close, yet another year of anime. While I watched significantly less this year, it was still a lot I think. I hope this helps you if you are on the edge about some of these, if not, well, sorry I like to ramble. I';m always open to discussion, so if you have opinions that clash, let us have a duel of words. Til next time!

Edit: Apparently my formatting freaked out a bit and I had to fix it, hopefully I got everything, if not let em know!

[recentanimenews]

Let's Celebrate the Birthday of A-1 Pictures!

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Why It Works! Today is an auspicious day in anime fandom, as it just so happens to be the birthday of a major studio — the colossal A-1 Pictures — responsible for many of the biggest shows of the past decade. A-1 Pictures have a number of distinguished credits to their name, but they’re actually a pretty unusual group among anime studios — in ways that could be considered either a blessing or a handicap — depending on your perspective. So what exactly makes A-1 Pictures stand out?

Undoubtedly the most unique thing about A-1 Pictures is that they are essentially more of a production platform than a dedicated group of directors and animators with a clear, specific vision. “A-1 Pictures” is the name for the production wing of Aniplex, one of anime’s major producers — which is itself just the anime-focused branch of Sony Entertainment, an even larger producer.

What this means in practical terms is that A-1 are capable of drawing in massive resources and attracting excellent talent to their productions, but are not bound by any singular vision or aesthetic signature. It’s not too hard to tell if a given show is produced by Kyoto Animation, Shaft, or Ufotable, as their consistent aesthetic and regular stable of directors create a sense of visual congruity across all of their productions. But for A-1 Pictures, each new production is largely a blank slate, with plenty of room for individual directors to make their mark.

While this lack of a clear studio identity could be considered a bad thing, it has also allowed for plenty of distinctive directors and animators to put their own signatures on A-1 Pictures’ various productions. In the context of a studio like A-1, it is bold, ambitious producers who are crucial, people willing to take risks on unique visions and distinct, one-of-a-kind creators. In light of that, today I’d like to take a ramble down memory lane, and explore some of the boldest and most unique shows of A-1 Production’s history. I won’t be highlighting the shows everyone knows about — productions like Sword Art Online and Fairy Tail haven’t exactly flown under the radar, after all. Instead, today I’ll be highlighting the times A-1 Productions gave a blank check to an ambitious and creative team, thereby creating something truly unique.

As an adaptation of a manga from the 1980s that never really broke through overseas, Birdy the Mighty: Decode likely flew under the radar for most Western fans. However, this production was actually a critical development in terms of anime’s evolution in the digital era. The director, Kazuki Akane, is one of anime’s most underappreciated masters, having directed The Vision of Escaflowne back in the ‘90s, and since then only handling a series once every decade or so. Meanwhile, the animation director Ryo Timo stood at the vanguard of anime’s new “webgen animation” crowd, the first generation of animators to fully embrace digital tools in order to create novel animation.

Between both Akane and Ryo Timo’s contacts, Birdy the Mighty was able to pull off stunning feats of animation and led the vanguard for webgen animators being incorporated into many future productions. And incidentally, animators weren’t the only people inspired by Birdy the Mighty — some of the battle sequences in Man of Steel were directly inspired by the production, as well.

A-1’s substantial resources and unique level of integration into the anime production pipeline also meant they were able to establish unique relationships with broadcasters, like the short-lived Anime no Chikara partnership with TV Tokyo. Though it only lasted for three anime-original productions, Anime no Chikara resulted in both Sound of the Sky, a phenomenal fusion of dystopian fiction and slice of life, as well as Occult Academy, the directorial debut of Tomohiko Ito (who’d go on to direct both Sword Art Online and ERASED, also for A-1 Pictures). Circumventing the usual need for saleable source material, both of these productions connected talented teams with new and different material, demonstrating A-1’s unique ability to bring unusual productions to life.

  A-1 Pictures’ lack of a specific stable of directors or “studio ethos” also means they’re at times able to draw on the legacy of entirely different studios. So it went for The Idolm@ster, their 2011 adaptation of an idol game franchise that ended up becoming something of an unintentional orphanage for lost Gainax animators. After Gainax began losing key animators in the late '00s, The Idolm@ster ended up inheriting the talents of many of the studio’s greatest artists, making it almost feel like a “lost” Gainax production. In fact, even the Gainax-derivative Studio Trigger pitched in, earning their first episode production credit for handling one of the series’ later episodes.

At other times, A-1 Pictures are able to embrace a distinctive creator’s vision entirely and produce something that was only possible through the fusion of a unique mind and a production studio with total faith in them. Director Kenji Nakamura (Mononoke, Gatchaman Crowds) makes productions like no one else in anime, and A-1 Pictures allowed him to bring a quirky drama about making friends while fishing to life in the form of his beautiful Tsuritama. Masashi Ishihama, one of A-1’s regular collaborators, was able to direct the absurdly ambitious post-apocalyptic epic From the New World, blessing us with one of the greatest anime of the last decade. The hilarious yet deeply heartfelt World Conquest Zvezda Plot offered a chance for renowned visual novelist Meteor Hoshizora to make his mark on anime — while the gorgeous Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash serves as a stunning statement of purpose by director Ryosuke Nakamura, who seemed to pour every inch of himself into Grimgar’s beautiful, harrowing tale.

Though they’ve produced many blockbuster productions over the years, A-1 Pictures has also at times been a shelter for anime’s more out-there and personal productions, quirky concepts, or passion projects that likely never would have existed without them. A-1 Pictures has allowed room for art that makes no apologies or concessions and which helps expand the boundaries of what anime can be. I’m thankful for all of these fantastic shows and hope A-1 Pictures continues to keep a light on for anime’s bold and brave productions.

Let me know all your own favorite A-1 Pictures productions in the comments!

  Nick Creamer has been writing about cartoons for too many years now and is always ready to cry about Madoka. You can find more of his work at his blog Wrong Every Time, or follow him on Twitter.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[swordboiis]

Katsugeki episode 13 reaction

Goodbye Katsugeki, you will not be missed.

My first complaint of the episode, Kane pointing out Horikawa isn’t even sure about his decision! I mean seriously that annoys me. If he has strong enough feelings to stray from the Saniwa and even consider betraying them and saving Hijikara, he should have his mind made up on that. Sure, his hesitation shows he isn’t completely lost to reason, but if he has the sense to hesitate he really shouldn’t be trying to go through with it or getting close to the Shinsengumi. Maybe I’m being too hard on this point but it genuinely bothered me.

OK AND THEN IT SUDDENLY CHANGES TO HORI JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE KANE IS WITH HIJIKATA IN THE END?? THAT’S COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TO TRYING TO CHANGE HIJIKATA’S FATE. WAS KATSUGEKI JUST MISLEADING US TO THIS POINT? DID THEY JUST WANT TO SCARE US WITH A BETRAYAL STORYLINE? DID THEY KNOW IT WOULD BE TOO DIFFICULT TO WRITE A SOLUTION THAT DIDN’T INVOLVE KILLING HORIKAWA IF HE TRIED TO SAVE HIJIKATA???

I literally had to type that in all caps because it bothered me so much. Now the exchange with Hijikata hmm. I love the shots of Kane; his pain is beautiful to witness. I just love a strong scene like that. The actual conversation, while I’m happy to see Kane understand Hijikata so well, the fact that Hijikata has that hesitation bothered me. Sure, it’s normal to be scared to die but it was different for samurai, wasn’t it? It doesn’t feel right to me, it feels made up. Hijikata was a warrior, he lived for the Shinsengumi. Every time he fought for them, he embraced the possibility of dying. This wasn’t the first time he risked his life, in fact it’s the last time. It’s the last time he could even call himself a member of the Shinsengumi, the battle didn’t just call for the end of lives, but the end of the Shinsengumi. He died with his ideals. A man known to have strong resolve and devoting fearing for his life doesn’t feel natural to me.

The beginning of that battle scene had me laughing so damn much I couldn’t breathe.

Maybe they just figured it would look cool and all but why did Kane not instantly take the lead? Why can the others keep up with a horse? Why does it look like Oodenta and Yamanbagiri are faster? It’s too dumb I can’t deal. Mutsu seems to have an unlimited supply of bullets and what was the Saniwa thinking only having six swords to fight thousands? They aren’t great at strategizing, are they? They broke the rules about only being able to summon two swords at once long ago surely, they had plenty of time to send more swords as back up. I love that just after I typed that Jiji appeared. Get out katsugeki one old man shouldn’t be able to make this much of a difference. I get he’s OP as hell but no. They’re still outnumbered to the point it doesn’t matter how strong they are.

And then the rest of the irrelevant cast woohoo. I’m sorry but isn’t that a night battle? Why are they sending in tachi and yari anyway? Game mechanic jokes aside, they are still ridiculously outnumbered. I get it looked like a struggle for the Saniwa to send even that many but I’m just not buying it in the logical sense.

Come one Katsugeki another yari scene to show their improved strength? The emotional side of it being Tonbokiri overcoming the enemy that almost ended him once before isn’t even very strong since we weren’t shown any screen time of Tonbokiri troubled by it.

Even if Katsugeki won’t give us Kunibros the little scene of Honebami and Yagen working together made me happy at least.

My boy Hizamaru so gorgeous. The real mvp of Katsugeki. Ok but honestly the flip he did looked really bad and my love why did you need to do a flip in order to strike an enemy? Please stop trying to show off your Anija isn’t even looking.

THAT MOMENT. JIJI AND TSURU. Not screaming because I ship them or anything although it was a scene that made me feel a little pumped. They pull that out of nowhere, making literally no reference even once earlier in the show that Jiji and Tsuru are familiar with each other. Katsugeki really likes telling us characters are connected rather than giving them screen time huh?

Are they all in sakura fubuki or something? I really felt the continual falling of cherry blossoms was unnecessary.

So yeah, I really don’t buy the sword boys defeating them all on their own like that. Why did the retrograde army not have the sense to summon their army in multiple spots so they couldn’t be intercepted? The retrograde army had the bigger number and should have been able to overwhelm the sword boys or at least had some troops fight them and some leave to carry out their objective. It’s frustrating to have such a dumb enemy, and yeah they’re back to being the main villain of the series since Horikawa is forgiven and totally wimped out on. Horikawa’s run animation looked really derpy in the scene where they were running towards Hijikata. Maybe it was just the angle but it didn’t look right, it looked like he could call over at any moment since he running so unsteadily. I couldn’t care at all about HIjikata crying. The fact they even ran like that shows a weakness in Kane’s resolve to me. A weakness that really makes no sense after all of this.

In the end, what makes me angrier than Horikawa being forgiven without the Saniwa even speaking to him is NO KUNIBROS MOMENT. Someone shove kakaka in there to make his brothers socialise I’m going to cry.

Ok but for real as for final thought. I’m still really disappointed by Katsugeki in the end. There were some good scenes of note and I genuinely enjoyed some episodes. But it was so inconsistent the whole way through, one episode would make me excited and then the next would frustrate me to no end. The spent more time recapping and talking about what happened rather than moving forward. There is no rewatchability for me, it was okay for a one watch experience. I might like the sight of Hizamaru animated and Tonbokiri’s gorgeous muscles, but aside from the stunning way Mutsu was handled and progressed throughout the show… For me there’s nothing to like. That’s not even touching on the characters which again, I plan on typing up a whole post to talk about their inconsistency.

The movie announcement at the end… Well whatever you say Ufotable. I don’t even feel excited about it, I can’t. A movie is less time than a 13 episode series, I would expect it to be just as much of a mess as the series.

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles About Fate/Extra & Extella (Allen’s Rambling XXXV)

Usually, when I do an “Allen Rambles About [Video Game]” post I wait until I’ve gone through roughly 20-30 hours of it since I mostly play JRPGs and it takes quite a bit of time before I can safely say I’ve seen everything about the game and have an informed opinion it, but... I’ll be making an exception for the Fate series.

Originally, I was going to talk more about Extra and Extella in a Video Game Update, a monthly post about the video games I’ve played and plan on playing, but since these were the only two games I was playing this month, I think a Rambling going in depth about them is more appropriate. 

And so here we are, the Fate/Extra series. I’ve spent about 15 hours on both games, so I think it’s fair to make a Rambling about them now. And I have to say, I’ve got some conflicting opinions about both these games.

Now, I’m a casual fan of the Fate series, and I plan on going deeper into that in December, but I’ve watched the original Stay Night by studio Deen, the UBW movie by Deen, Fate/Zero, The Ufotable adaptation of UBW, and all four season of Prisma Illya. The only thing I haven’t done Fate-wise is invest into Grand Order, and that’s mostly due to my hatred/weariness of gacha/mobile games. When it comes to Extra and Extella, I was treading new Fate territory. It heard it was basically an AU of the Fate series with more technology and technobabble in it, and Extella looked flashy as hell, and published by Xseed and Marvelous, the folks that made Senran Kagura, and I love Senran Kagura, so I figured “why not?”

And... well, let’s talk a little about that, starting with...

Fate/Extra

With Fate/Extra, I’d say that this game has a good story, but bad gameplay. I originally picked up this game solely so I could have context to Extella. I originally thought Extella wouldn’t be trying to have much continuity in it since Extra was a  story-heavy, visual novel/RPG game on the PSP of all things, that handle literally no one has anymore, and Extella was a Musou-clone where you could take out legions of enemies and typically had very simple stories because you were too busy mash the attack button and throwing lasers and fire magic to care about said story.

But I was wrong.

Oh, how I was wrong.

Not that Extella directly talked about stuff in Extra, but there were a lot of winks and nods to it that had me lost. The Moon Cell Grail War, how Nero was so affectionate toward the player character to the point of being a typical waifu, and the technobabble, dear lord the technobabble of how the Regalia and Moon Cell operated was just sleep-inducing. 

Most Musou-style games outside of Dynasty and Samurai Warriors are usually pretty simple, and even Samurai and Dynasty Warriors is pretty easy on the story stuff. But Fate/Extella was pulling no punches with it’s technobabble and visual novel-style cutscenes (more on that later). I felt I needed to play Extra just to have a decent grasp of what was going on in that story. Thankfully, the game was only ten bucks on PSN, and works as a download on my Vita, so I bought and was playing it side-by-side with Extella.

And after about 15 or so hours, I can honestly say I’m more invested in Extra’s story than Extella’s by a mile. I’m invested in Hakuno’s struggle in the Grail War, how she’s slowly coming to terms with killing people for her own survival. I mean, goddamn, after winning the first match, when you saw the 128 active/living participants drop to 64 in an instant... damn, it was chilling. The world-building is nice too, I’d say even simpler than Extella. The Moon Cell is basically a virtual world where the Grail War takes place, and all the bits and particle effects tell that. These people aren’t mages, but gamers and hackers with magic circuits and whatnot. Really, this is leagues easier to grasp than Extella. And while Nero was more insufferable if anything in Extella given her forcefulness on you, in Extra I get the chance to see our relationship grow to that point. While I despise the fact that she looks like Best Girl Artoria and has a god-awful voice to show her inferiority to said Best Girl, I love her personality, her haughty and explosive natural is really endearing... I just wish she had a different design. I think this story and characters alone is enough to play through and even recommend you guys buy this if you have a Vita and the memory space for it.

However... when we talk about the actual game, I have some issues.

Let’s start with the gameplay. I’ll be frank, this game plays a little too slowly for my liking. The load times are fine, the frame rate is fine, but I hate the rock-paper-scissors, turn-based style of attacking, and I especially hate how you need to grind on enemies to read patterns and pray you’re right until then. I thank God I resisted choosing Best Girl Emiya!Archer went with the more Physical-focus, high attack power of Nero because the grind in this game... goddamn. Dying in the arena isn’t fun when I’ve grinded for an hour to gain three levels only to die and restart from outside the dungeon because I faced a new enemy type with a pattern I didn’t know about. Seriously, quick save would be nice to have, but this is the main reason I’m playing this game with a guide for both story progression and enemy patterns.

Speaking of story progression, gathering information matrices and how hit-or-miss that process can be is worrisome. Again, these enemies rely on know pattern recognition, and collect Servant matrices is top priority so I don’t get wasted in boss battles. I’m using a guide solely for that reason, but... to give credit where credit is due, the game is giving me hints about where and how to learn more about enemy Servants... so far anyway, I’m only on week three, we’ll see how it goes when things pick up. 

Again, I’d say that Extra is the better story, but the has lacking gameplay. I recommend buying if you like visual novel-style games, but Lord alive, please find a guide for this game, both for enemies and story. 

Fate/Extella

With Extella, I feel like this is the opposite case. I love the gameplay of Extella. It’s a little repetitive, and I swear Servant enemies have little to no hit stun, but it’s not bad. The story... well, I went over that for two paragraphs in the Extra section, but there’s a bit more I want to talk about. 

I... really don’t like the visual novel style of storytelling in this game. It’s fine for Extra since the gameplay isn’t engaging enough to play the game solely for that, but Extella has great gameplay and a lot of fast-paced action. The long story cutscenes and My Room events just bog down the pacing and have me waiting longer and longer to get to the next stage and bash more enemies. Honestly, the story could just be summarized as Nero and Tamamo fighting over territory in the Moon Cell and possession of the Regalia with Altera playing both sides and being the final boss... oh, and something about an meteor and Colossal Titan with Archimedes rubbing his hands together and evilly chortling. I dunno, I’ve still gotta’ play through Altera’s story mode and the true ending, so maybe I’ll get some context to why all of this is so complicated, but I don’t think I’ll like the answer given how much time is spent trying to get me to care about anything but using Emiya!Archer in Nero’s campaign.

Also, Archimedes being the Chessmaster in the background does nothing but annoy me. Liz making a sudden Heel Turn makes sense, especially in Tamamo’s story where she’s constantly abused by the group. But Archimedes? Honestly, he could be cut out entirely, Altera could had been the final boss and a third faction holding the Body of Hakuno hostage, and nothing would be lost story-wise. This stuff about the Umbral Star, Velber, and all that... just... makes me skip all the story cutscenes because I don’t care. I care about Nero and Tamamo and how they want the best for Hakuno. I care about some of the side characters since I like a lot of their designs. I care about Altera and her deal in this situation and why she’s holding Hakuno’s Body hostage. But outside of that... I could care less about this technobabble about the Regalia, the Moon Cell, the Umbral Star, it’s just... pointless to me.

But again, it’s the gameplay that attracts me to this. The chance to take out thousands of soldiers with Emiya!Archer and Medusa, beating the stuffing out of that prick Gilgamesh, using all the cool and flashy Noble Phantasmas? Did you guys see how badass UBW looks in this game?

Seriously, Emiya!Archer is the best.

My only real critique gameplay-wise is that some more characters in Extra should had appeared. I think Francis Drake would had been a great addition to Tamamo’s faction as a mercenary unit, and honestly, Medusa has no range in her moveset, so having a gunslinger would be nice. Having Robin Hood replace Emiya!Archer, while tragic to my inner Emiya!Archer fanboy, would make more sense since the game is assuming you used Nero in Extra, and Robin Hood and Nero had some pretty fun banter in Extra, seeing more of that would be fun.

But again, I’m on the opposite end of Extella in terms of my opinion. A fun game with fun gameplay, but a story that’s more suffering to go through if anything. If it was a little simpler and pulled back on all the technobabble about the Moon Cell then I’d be more engaged, but even Extra has less exposition than this game, and that’s a goddamn visual novel.

So yeah, those are my opinions on the Fate/Extra series so far. I’m looking forward to seeing Extella Link come out, and I’m praying its story is simpler to grasp. I’m actually going to be taking a break from Extra for the rest of October and most of November to play Dangan Ronpa V3 (more on that later), but I’m glad I got into this series, and I hope to complete it by the end of the year.

[drink-n-watch]

  Genre: Existential horror, supernatural, artsy

Length:

Studio: ufotable

  Sometimes it’s hard to wrap your head around just being you. What does that even mean, anyway? What exactly are you supposed to do with existing? Nothing really, that’s the rub. It’s the same old questions philosophers and emo teens have been asking since the dawn of time and we’re no closer to an answer. Or rather, the answer is different for each person and seeking it out can be a painful and violent venture. Yet this is exactly what each player in this tragedy must do, in their own way, their paths crossing and diverging again as they each must find their own truth within themselves. The only thing we can be sure about is that there will be blood.  

I’ve already watched 4 of these movies. I’ve shared my thoughts along the way. There were highs and lows but one thing I can definitely say is that for better or worse, the Garden of Sinners franchise has a very distinctive voice. And in this 5th chapter, it was screaming!

it’s a figure of speech, no one screams in this movie

I watched this movie last night and it’s still dancing around my head. Vividly! Throughout the movies, I’ve been praising production and tracking the use of non-textual (verbal) storytelling. It’s what first attracted me to the franchise, and I was sad to see this aspect pared down as the movies progressed. I can tell you, it’s back in full force and then some!

The overall quality of the art, acting and animation is fairly similar to what we saw in the last two movies, but the directing has taken quite the ambitious turn! There are tons of flair in framing and angles. Action is shot with wavering focus, almost simulating motion sickness. Of course, all of it is carefully intertwined with the story and really an integral part of the narrative. I can’t praise that framing enough, which becomes almost a central feature of the second arc (Mikiya’s) but I’ll talk about it more when I get to the story. Like I said, the way the plot is presented is as important as what’s happening in it.

And that’s just one aspect. The use of symbolic colour is liberally applied both in direct touches and in overall ambient tint throughout the movie. Perspective is constantly tweaked (forced, fisheye, panoramic) which gives eerie qualities to scenes or creates uneasy claustrophobia, which then affects how you take in the dialogue and events to ensure both a literal and emotional read of the story.

there’s no way you can really appreciate it without watching the movie

  Finally editing tricks are incorporated throughout. Frequent jump cuts, repeated scenes sometimes identical sometimes shown from different angles or points of view and odd cold cuts before what would be considered the natural endpoint of a scene both focus your attention on specific elements without the need of exposition and creates interesting reveals. We even get tiny slivers of flashbacks that clearly fit into the narrative of previous movies to give you new reveals and flesh out the general lore and world-building of the franchise.

In case I’ve not made it abundantly clear, the technical presentation of the move was a spellbinding act of artistry. So far, the best example in the series and really one of the best I’ve seen in anime in general.

I was saying something nice…and it’s “Irina”

But with a two-hour movie, you need more than just craftsmanship to hold your attention. The Garden of Sinners established its core thesis right from the start. These movies deal with existential angst in a brutal and deliberate way. They attack it from every angle. The meaning and responsibility of life. The vague notion of personal identity. The dissonance of existing in a reality entirely defined by our personal understanding and experiences while colliding with everyone else’s realities.

These are heady themes and to be honest, the franchise can be hit or miss in its attempts at expression, but it is always deliberate and single-minded which I appreciate. Whether you agree or not with the messaging or even the purpose of exploring such grandstanding philosophical questions at all, you can’t deny that the Garden of Sinners has something to say. That’s worth something in my book.

This specific movie is presented in three general arcs. In the first, we follow a young man named Enjo who meets Shiki by accident, and the mysteries he brings with him. Enjo is trying to escape a tragic past with nowhere to go but as the story progresses and dead people seem to be coming back to life, it gets difficult to pinpoint what’s real and what isn’t.

does Enjo remind you of someone?

  Together, Shiki and Enjo are trying to figure out exactly what happened in this condominium complex when Enjo thought he had lost his family. It’s a very sad story with some downright unpleasant events but it’s framed as a mystery and occasional almost like a procedural. I’ve come to realize that I can enjoy very sad events in a different way when they come with a puzzle. My mind fixates on collecting clues and solving the mystery instead of being sad for the people within it. I think this is why we can watch crime shows without crying or calling them horror.

 The second arc gives us intertwining blocks of events from Mikiya’s point of view (I learned that this was Kokuto’s name and I love it). We realize that characters we thought were absent were actually also actively taking part in the story and the two arcs eventually collide.

This is where that framing I was talking about earlier becomes so important. Shiki is part of this arc, but we never see her. She’s always just off camera. We hear her or see the effect she has on objects but that’s all. A disembodied presence, like a ghost moving through a story that’s not really hers.

who threw that book?

  The final arc brings everything together for the conclusion. I have to admit, simply seeing Shiki again had a powerful visceral impact on me that I did not expect. I like her as a character but I’m more emotionally attached to Mikiya and my beloved Touko (let’s face it, we all know she’s my type). Moreover, Shiki was front and center in the first arc. As such, I hadn’t realized how much I had missed her until she was there. This is smart direction and editing on the next level.

We find out more about Touko’s past here which I enjoyed if only for seeing Touko as a super-hot teenager and Mikiya is a very good leading man for this type of story. The only flaw I can find is with the antagonist(s). Unfortunately, it’s a big one.

The Garden of Sinners Chapter 5, Paradox Paradigm (maybe I’ll talk about this title someday), introduces Souren Araya as a powerful main antagonist and Cornelius Alba as a secondary villain. They take up quite a bit of room in the story and Araya is pivotal to the plot. You could say he is pretty much the entire driving force behind this movie. And they are both painfully dull.

arrrgh, stop monologuing…it hurts…

Honestly, they feel like they belong to a different narrative. Basic, uninteresting and not even that scary. They are unworthy of the rest of the cast. Where Enjo brought a vulnerability which created interesting conflict and interplay with both Shiki and Mikiya, Araya and Alba are just there. They advance the plot in the least engaging way possible. And their little magical diatribes are muddled and bog everything down rather than add to the story.

I thought Fujino in Chapter 3 was fairly unrealized, but she is brilliant compared to these two. It has led me to believe that the Garden of Sinners is really much better when Shiki is her own worst enemy as they have not been able to create a villain that can stand on equal footing with her.

The second arc also basically explains the events of the first (with a rather unsatisfying the wizard did it sort of solution) which effectively puts an end to the mystery. This means those unpleasant events suddenly hit you with the full brunt of just how sad the story is. That’s not a flaw in any way. It just makes it a more emotionally taxing experience and I had to turn the TV off and take a little break after.

I’m Getting Some Ice Cream!!!

The ending is fine, it’s constrained by the failing of the second arc so I wouldn’t call it amazing, but it definitely has its moments and brings some nice emotional closure. The last scene before the credits (there’s a cute after credits scenes), has soft snow starting to fall, which ties it in with the meteorological theming of the franchise.

This was a long review. You should see my notes; they are all over the place. So, what’s the takeaway. Up until the confrontation with Araya and Alba, I thought the movie was brilliant. I was gearing up to rate it close to perfect and add it to my favourites. These two guys knocked the rating down a full point. The plot is only truly captivating in the first arc but the technical artistry shines throughout and the other characters make the second and third arc worth it, even if it does start to drag a bit at the hour and a half mark.

Despite its failings, this is still a very good movie and I do recommend you watch it. I’m just a little bitter at how close it got to be an amazing movie!

almost there…

Favourite character:  Touko – is this not clear yet?

What this anime taught me: mechanical pencils are called “rocket pencils” in Japan. That information makes me inexplicably happy.

Technically, alcohol is a solution

Suggested drink: A Time Warp

Every time someone refuses to stay dead – take a sip

Every time we see Tomoe’s mom – take a sip

Every time we see a key – take a sip

Every time we see a clock – take a sip

every time we see a key AND a clock – gasp

Every time anyone stabs anything – take a sip

Every time we see a doorknob/handle  – get some water

Every time you spot a repeated scene – take a deep breath

Every time there’s a picture or painting – take a sip

Every time we see a puppet – take a sip

everything’s better with more Touko

Being such a visually stunning movie, I couldn’t resist taking an unreasonable amount of screencaps which you can see here. Be warned, although I have chosen fairly innocent ones for the post, some on my Pinterest board are both graphic and potentially spoilery.

The Garden of Sinners Chapter 5 – Paradox Paradigm or The Saddest Groundhog Day Genre: Existential horror, supernatural, artsy Length: Studio: ufotable Sometimes it’s hard to wrap your head around just being you.

[demonslayedher]

Any Kny character you've grown to love/appreciate more??

Thanks for waiting, Anon, I have been trying to really, really hard to narrow this down, but the answer remains: the vast majority of the cast. The only character I loved right away was Tanjiro and that love kept me watching, as with almost every new character I was like, "ugh, I hate this guy. Here I was, having fun being emotionally invested in a high quality anime, and this might ruin it for me." But then the instant I see a different side of their character, I'm like, "...Oh." To go into some examples...

Zenitsu: I could not stand him right away, I hate womanizers, and his conniptions would go on so long that they held up the story. But Gotouge/Ufotable strung me along perfectly, the first glimpse of Thunder Breath made me immediately pay attention and think, "oh, that was cool. I want to see more of that." Seeing him protect the box pretty firmly put him in the "I need to protect this child" box in my heart. And then the spider demon happens, and I'm sending desperate reaction messages to a friend like "NOOOOOO!!!! BABBBBBBBBBYYYYYYYY!!!!" And then he annoyed me all over again at the start of Functional Recovery, ahaha. It's hard to remember how annoyed I was because I'm such a Zen Stan now, and he was a very firm favorite of mine by the time I finished binging the anime up to the last couple episodes, which I waited for as they came out. Inosuke: He was one of the reasons I was curious about the series, I saw some promotional art and was super curious about Nezuko's muzzle (I was one of the people who thought it was some ancient scroll or something, haha) and the kid with the boar mask. The art I saw showed his face, and I assumed he'd be some kid with a cracking voice performed by a female seiyuu. As much as I love Matsuoka's performance now, initially, since I knew what his face looked like, I found it grossly off-putting the moment I heard it. Then every chaotic thing Inosuke did dug a deeper hole; I very quickly decided I hated him, especially when he started beating up on the kid I was starting to like. As his chaos subsided he just became a character I tolerated, and then this happened:

Images you can hear, am I right? This immediately flipped the "BABY" switch in my heart. It was also a lot of fun to understand the Inosuke memes I was seeing everywhere. So by the end of the anime, I loved, loved, loved, loved the Tanjiro/Zenitsu/Inosuke interactions and desperately wanted more (still didn't like how Zenitsu bothered Nezuko, though). I was so impatient for more, but the manga art looked disappointingly off-putting. I figured the anime was successful enough that there'd eventually be more of it, and I wanted to be patient, but then I poked around, read some spoilers, got back into Tumblr to look at fanart and memes, saw a spoiler image of Tanjiro affected by Muzan's poison and the binge-read began. (That's kind of a lie, but I'll get to that.) Let's back up a few episodes. There I was, having a great time, the guy who I forgot about from Episode 1 was back and haha, I guess everyone hates him, and the chick who I figured was going to be a medic who saves Zenitsu in the nick of time turned out to be savage, awesome. I was sending reactions to my friends who were ahead of me, and then we left off seeing the Pillars staring down Best Boy. And I...

Well. Uh. Here, I've dug up an old convo for you, my comments are in blue.

Immediately followed by a passionate vocal rant, which I have transcribed here:

“I feel like what happened was that the mangaka was sitting around with his assistants and was like, ‘welp, gotta make this whole cast of characters, they gotta be so-o-o-o many more levels of extreme than all the other characters I’ve had so far, which isn’t hard, because all of the background characters are cannon fodder and I’ve just gotta leave them all with black hair and no personality traits. So! Gotta go to the opposite of the spectrum with the BIG! POWERFUL! People so no-o-o-body can be normal.’ And so he and his assistants sat down, and they all wrote down just random words or traits, and them put ‘em all in a hat. And then for each character, they pulled out a few of them and said, ‘OK. We’re gonna put these things together, now we have a character.’ And he was probably also like, ‘Iiiiiiiiiiiii’ll flesh them out later. For now, they just need t’… be there, and make an impact. How do we make an impact? By making sure it’s super, super clear what their character traits are. Here, we’ll have this guy repeat the word //HADE//…. ////HA DEEE//// over and over and over… to show that he’s a /showy/ person. Because he /cares/ about that. And he //should// care because that is his character and that’s why he’s powerful.’ OH MY GOSH, it’s so dumb.”

......orz I feel like Genya looking back at how he acted at the end of the Final Selection. I'm sorry, Gotouge, I had not even encountered your love for these characters yet in your little alligator form. Nor had I encountered the yet unseen-sides of these traumatized dragons and tigers. ...*coughs* Um. So. I was pretty harsh.

So this was my mindset, I went into the manga not caring about most of these characters and just wanting more Kamaboko squad interactions and wanting to hurry up and catch up to the battle with Muzan. And it's worth stating that I didn't mean to read it at first. I encountered a few spoilers, and just wanted to look for the context surrounding those parts, and then hunt for the (non-existent) build-up to those parts, and so... uh.........

I read a lot of the manga out of order, and yeah, that did affect how much I cared about what was going on. I didn't actually properly process a lot of it until later re-reads. But to try to state some things simply about each Pillar:

Giyuu: He was just 'ok' to me for a long time, I could see the appeal for why people I knew were fangirling over him but he didn't do it for me. His soft spot for Tanjiro was indeed endearing, though, and I firmly liked him by the time chapter 200 came out and I was properly heartbroken on his behalf.

Shinobu: She was intriguing, and then I liked her as soon as I saw her savage side, she was one of the characters I went hunting for spoilers for.

Rengoku: That stare really put me off at first, but I fell for him over the process of Tanjiro falling for him. When I first finished the train arc I sat back and said, "wow! That's going to make for a good movie!" and then in psyching myself out for the movie several months in advance, I fell hook, line, and sinker and was totally excited for him each time I saw the trailers. And then the movie was *stunning* and I love him even more. Uzui: He was the Pillar I hated most upon first meeting them. I blame the repeated use of his catchphrase. But then when he let his hair down to sell the kiddos the change in design helped warm me up more to him, like, "oh, there was a human in there." It took a long time for him to become more interesting to me, and an uncharacteristically subtle journey to becoming a character I liked. I am currently getting more and more psyched out for him and eager to see how much more I'm going to like him with the shiny Ufotable treatment. Mitsuri: At first I didn't remember her name, I had code-named her as "Boobs." But I kinda had a feeling she was going to grow on me quickly, and I was right, she's one of my easy favorites now. Muichiro: Who? Oh yeah, that kid who always kinda fell to the wayside in my attention. I'd see a lot of Muichiro-themed blogs and hear a lot of little girls looking at merch and showing a clear favoritism of him, and I'd like always react like Muichiro and just be like, "...", and then when I read his major battles I was more emotionally invested in things going on concurrently with other characters, and I was still like, "...", and then two days ago I revisited a Muichiro scene and was suddenly like, "......OH!!! MUICHIRO!!!!!" Himejima: I never really hated Himejima, even if I found his first impression kind of wimpy (haha... oh, I was so wrong). I had a pretty easy acceptance of him too, so I would generally count him among characters I like, but if you were to ask me why, I'd draw a blank. It's kind of a weirdly mature, subdued appreciation for him rather than passionate fangirling. But weirdly when I was daydreaming the other day I found myself thinking, "if I had to marry someone in the KnY cast, it would be Himejima." So like, not a fiery romance, but I see him as my dependable, sturdy rock to grow old with??? What is up with you, sub-conscious?? Iguro: My interest in him rises and falls. Being a Mitsuri fan helped warm me up to his character in the first place, which was the emotional tie I needed since his backstory didn't grip me much (I found it a frustrating distraction while I was desperately reading weekly updates). Reading more subtle details about his character in the fanbooks has brought me around and made me more curious about him, like I'd really like to be a fly on the wall for the conversation he had with Uzui one day about their pasts.

Sanemi: Hahaha, wow. He was so unlikable in the beginning, wasn't he? His character design (yeah, the eyes) was really off-putting too. But then I got to know him and there was no going back, I got totally played. He's a character I'm pretty fond of now and one of the characters I've enjoyed delving into most in fanfic. To keep this answer from getting too long, for the vaaaaaast majority of the cast, I was initially like, "meh" or "OK" or "ew" but now am like, "EEEEEEEEE, I LOVE THIS TOTALLY RANDOM UNIMPORTANT SIDE CHARACTERRRRRRR" so you know... times change. And the more time I spend obsessed with Kimetsu no Yaiba, the more I like them all, so even the characters I'm lukewarm on will probably have their eventual days when they take over my heart and smash it.

[drink-n-watch]

I’ve talked to a few people about this show since last week’s premiere. My takeaway is that reviews were generally good with a cautiously optimistic outlook for the rest of the season. Was that also your experience Crow?

    That’s about where it struck me! A few negative reviews, sure, but most tended to be positive. Oh, I’m bold this week — just in case no one noticed!

oh, we noticed!

The biggest complaint I’ve heard is that the story is generic. And you know what, yes it is…This second episode fit right in with the plot you’d expect. But hey, I like classic tales. There’s a reason they get told over and over again!

Episode 2 starts off much funnier and lighter in tone than episode 1 did. I think it may have been the unexpected clash of tom=nes but I found that little opening exchange with Tanjirou trying to buy a basket off a random villager much more amusing than I should have.

Turns out the basket was so that he could carry his sister around during the day and they could keep on the move. We had some adorable scenes with the photophobic (with very good reason) Neuko burying herself in a cave then shrinking to fit in the basket. It was almost jarringly cute.

yup…those are little feet

Did you see her expression when she popped her head out of the hole in the case? A hole she’d dug by herself? She looked so pathetic! I know she’s a demon, but she’s a really sympathetic demon! -see it??? I made a gif of it!!!

Visually the show remains stunning with beautifully saturated and contrasting colors which pop even more with the judicial use of slightly thicker than average outlines. I found the music a touch much this week but not enough to be off putting. Those Zombie powers though sure turn out to be convenient….

Do you think it was a zombie power that helped her fit into the basket? Or just a little sister thing? I couldn’t tell… well he said it was like when she grew…

nothin’ suspicious here….

About a third into the episode we fell right back into horror when Tanjirou and Nezuko stumble upon a feeding demon. Once again the gore is extravagant but the camera doesn’t linger on the carnage, favouring instead a highly animated, bloody and fast paced fight scene. So far, I think action might be what Demon Slayer does best. That fight captivated me. Before I even realized it we were at the mid episode eye catch.

I quite enjoyed the opening as Nezuko stares at the bodies and her demon instincts well up. The early fight is intercut with angled shots of her, drool falling like tear drops. It’s quirky but also sad. A testament to the humanity ebbing out of her and her own realisation of it.

She didn’t feast, either, did she? So far, her humanity is winning!

And did you see her kick the other demon’s head clean off! That was my first “Holy crap!” moment. The second was when the head she’d kick off sprouted arms and kept trying to att Tanjiro. These demons are great as villains — clear motivation (they’re hungry) and powerful physiques!

It really was a great fight scene!

have you lost weight?

The story remains quite standard but the writing has improved, I think. The fight was in fact an exciting way to introduce Sakonji Urokodaki, a character that’s bound to become quite important. He also brings the entire notion of the “Demon Killing Corp”. Some type of vigilante(?) organization that protects the people from demons and counts Ginji as a member.

Did you see the other adorable little Nezuko moment? Tanjiro had watched in horror as the sunlight burned away the demon’s head (with two proto-arms — that’s still freaky!). When he turned around, Nezuko and Sakonji were gone. Tanjiro feared the worst, but he found her in the now-abandoned shrine, in the back corner, sitting in the basket with the sheet over her head. I just watched her kick a demon’s head off, and now I’m think she looks so tiny and scared! That’s some pretty good animation!

There are sweet or funny moments scattered throughout. And the expo is sofen, everything is shared with us through fairly natural sounding conversation rather than the exposition dump used to establish the setting last episode. Sure there were a few scenes of Sakonji lecturing Tanjirou and the audience but for the most part, information was doled out in small servings through their interactions and everyone made perfect sense.

I’m not gonna tell you what that is

I agree — it closed smoothly. I didn’t feel lectured to even once, and I’m pretty sensitive to that kind of thing!

Turns out that Ginji seeing some potential in Tanjirou asked Sakonji to make him his student and teach him to become a demon hunter. Sakonji for his part wants to make sure the boy has what it takes before investing too much in him. While Tanjirou is just trying to find a way to keep his sister safe while he searches for a way to turn her back, and the organization is his best bet so far.

You know, I always sneer at the trope of lethal and near impossible entrance tests. I mean what was the point of putting Tanjirou through that. He had to race down a deadly mountain full of traps. I mean, I guess it proves his endurance and dedication to the cause but if the boy wasn’t impossibly sturdy he would probably be dead and where would that leave them? It’s not like you can train to gain more stamina and agility, no need to wipe out all the scrawny kids before they even have a chance.

this is not a reasonable way to look after a test

Training might help stamina, but agility’s hard to improve above better coordination (if I remember my high school athletics, which isn’t certain!). Still, if Tanjiro’s going to be Sakonji’s student, and if Sakonji also has fantastic sensory skills, then it makes sense to have an entrance exam of sorts. The traps weren’t enough to kill him (well, okay, most weren’t enough — some of those logs looked pretty lethal), and now both of them know he can do it. Heck, the test might have been as much for Tanjiro’s confidence as it was for Sakonji’s evaluation.

It did make for an absolutely beautiful scene though. Ufotable does mouvement well. The episode closes on Sakonji quietly accepting the siblings and making Tanjirou his student. Yup, formulaic action adventure stuff but…

But how often is a demon a part of the package? This brings all sorts of opportunity for themes on discrimination on one hand and extreme responsibility on the other!

how many have stoic warrior mentor figures??? oh wait… all of them…

In my opinion, the success of this narrative will depend entirely on the characters. And they’re not bad. So far, they haven’t had much of a chance to show their stuff as there was a lot of worldbuilding to do and this opening arc is leaning on the technical savvy of the studio. But from the OP we know there’s a menagerie of eccentric looking characters to come.

The tone has also lightened up quite a bit, with a few genuinely funny moments and a much more action that drama driven episode. Sakinji still brought up the uncomfortable fact that letting Nazuko live is putting everyone at risk and may not be viable in the long run but the conversation moved on pretty quickly from the subject. And looking at the ED this time it seems there are more lighthearted sweet moments to come. What do you think?

Remember in the opening when Tanjiro was yelling at the farmer to accept payment for a broken basket, some bamboo, and some straw? He was yelling so loudly and so intently that for a minute, I thought I was watching Black Clover! He it was not only funny, it offered an insight into Tanjiro’s character. So that was cool!

money is a constant source of pain

I also think the humor added to how enjoyable this episode was. Even the moment where Tanjiro urged Nezuko to get smaller so she could fit into the basket was diverting in an amusing way. Carrying around a demon is not only dangerous, it’s rife with little bizarre moments like, “Hey, can she shrink like she grew before?”

I don’t know if you stayed for the after credits tag but it was the cutest. These are the touches that tell me the show isn’t taking itself too seriously which is a very good thing.

Nezuko couldn’t talk through her gag, which was funny! Well, funny for me, but not so much for her.

neither did Crow!

Some random thoughts on this week’s episode. Nezuko still has her bamboo gag. Hilarious. But doesn’t she in fact need to eat at some point?

I wondered about that, too. Do demons have to eat humans? Or could they eat cattle? Or some other animal? Maybe vegetables? A vegan demon would certainly be a conversation starter!

Also I really want a pair of earrings like Tanjirus. Does anyone know where I can get some? I’ll be your friend!

But would you want to use them in battle? I kept expecting them to get torn off! Ow!

Worth it!

 I will as soon as you tell me who our jeweler is

I keep saying this show is pretty, I should really show you:

  Review Of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 02 – Crow Will Protect Me I’ve talked to a few people about this show since last week's premiere. My takeaway is that reviews were generally good with a cautiously optimistic outlook for the rest of the season.