Busy crazy week, but getting the post out on schedule… What with the holiday and some other stuff on the plate, can’t afford to let anything be late. Anyhow, some darn good eps this week – hit the jump and see my thoughts!
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.
A Certain Magical Index III
Index is… frankly a mess. It’s never been the strongest show, but season 3 is way off in terms of writing and acting. (Though the visuals remains as gorgeous as ever.)
That being said, I am going to continue watching to make sure I have context for Railgun III and A Certain Scientific Accelerator, but I will no longer be reviewing it on a weekly basis.
Anima Yell! Ep 9
I liked the first part, where there Cheer Association becomes a formal club now that it has enough members, well enough. The second part, focusing on Uki’s relationship with her younger brother was… just awkward at best. They did manage to skew back to the central theme (“Cheer is fun and cool!”) in the end, but it was a poor fit. Bog standard segments can be done well, this time they weren’t.
Bloom Into You / Yagate Kimi ni Naru Ep 9
I think this ep can best be described as “Yuu comes closer to the line – and then crosses it”. I really don’t know what else to say about the ep other than it was fantastic.
Bunny Girl Senpai Ep
Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai / Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl-senpai no Yume wo Minai
Not reviewed this week – normally, we’d watch on Wednesday night but we went out to Mirai. We’ll watch it tonight, so feel free to comment as I’ll skip the comments until we have.
And yes, “we” is correct here… I finally got my lovely lady wife to watch and thus it has been promoted from “me” to “we”.
Iroduku Sekai no Ashita kara / IRODUKU : The World in Colors Ep 9
Shou finally spends some time one-on-one with Hitomi, and as they’ve telegraphed for a couple of episodes now he confesses. I had mixed feeling watching Hitomi’s reactions, she has some real self-worth issues that were almost painful to watch. These issues are probably bound up in whatever is ultimately keeping her from seeing colors.
We’ve also got a huge breach forming in the friend group… Poor Asagi learned of the confession and that sent her into a tailspin. Hitomi wants to make it right, but Asagi holds her responsible (even though she isn’t). For his part, Shou was angry and depressed about Hitomi’s rejection… Can he face her at club activities?
Run with the Wind / Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru
Not reviewed this week – normally, we’d watch on Wednesday night but we went out to Mirai. We’ll watch it tonight, so feel free to comment as I’ll skip the comments until we have.
Sword Art Online: Alicization Ep 9
SAO:A is (once again) ambling about when it should be moving at a brisker pace… Nobles are _ssholes, we get it already! People’s power and abilities (in the Underworld) depend on their confidence, self-image, and imagination – we get that too.
Tsurune / Tsurune: Kazemai Koukou Kyuudou-bu Ep 7
Finally the day of the tournament arrives… And I loved how understated the whole episode was. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t tense, it was. But they really did go with “show don’t tell” which clearly telegraphed the team’s feelings without harping on them. Tsurune is awfully generic/tropish in spots, but it’s getting very good at conveying emotion without overselling it.
Let’s see…. What else? We finally meet Minato’s old friend/rival and his current club, which seems to be mostly made up of _ssholes. Sho himself is pretty chill though, if a bit disdainful of newbie clubs.
Either way, the stage is set for the team’s first competition and if things stay true to form – they’ll fail abysmally.
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Well, there you have it this week… A bit shorter than usual because of holiday stuff going on out in the real world.
How did your week go? What are your thoughts? Drop a comment and let’s chat!
Apprentice Mages Lounge. 
I’m with you on Index and I really do think when we get to the end of the Autumn season I’ll just let it go quietly off my watch list. Of course, that entirely depends on what they do in the next couple of episodes and whether or not we get anything resembling a coherent story out of them.
As for Bloom Into You, it has been beautiful and Tsurune hit all the right notes this week. There’s a lot to enjoy this season.
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Despite a shaky start and taking it’s sweet time to get going… Tsurune has been absolutely crushing it the last couple of episodes.
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I’m really looking forward to the next episode because I want to see how Minato handles the tournament.
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Little to say this week. I’m a week behind on Tsurune, but I’m also not quite willing to drop it. We’ll see.
Someone said that the fab lizardman in Slime shares a voice actor with Kazuma from Konosuba. I haven’t checked, but the image is surprisingly fitting.
Merc Storia is starting to edge out Iroduku from this season’s top 5. The latest arc was an awesome musical set among birdpeople who value song as a social stratification tool, and somehow manage to give a good feeling of what it’s like to be trapped by fame, to be ignored, to be enthusiatic about song, and to be too easy going and oblivious in four characters – in only two episodes.
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I’m curious to hear your reactions to this week’s ep of Tsurune, I think they nailed it solidly.
re:Merc Storia Interesting… I haven’t been hearing much about that series at all.
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I’ve now watched the latest Tsurune episode, and I have to agree: it’s the best episode to date. I especially loved that they let silence rule while the masters were shooting (Shu’s grandma?/master?, and the opening ceremony shot). I’m still not that fond of how the show treats the girls; the boys in Euphonium were underemphasised, too, but they weren’t stylistically singled out. The girls stand around as if they were trying to give a rendition of dugtrio, and then when they shoot apparently the running commentary of the boys is more important, and we get long-shots of this-also-happened. Not a perfect show, but more episodes like this one, please.
@Merc Storia: I sometimes think I’m the only one left watching it. I tried to google it to see what people say, and I can only find anticipatory threads from fans of the game, and the initial reaction seems to be one of disappointment. It’s rather strange, too. After episode 1, I was interested in the dynamic between Merc and Yuu, but that went nowhere, and instead we get standalone episodicals, where they play less and less of a role, until some episodes could have been improved by reducing their involvement even more. It seems a niche-interest show, that alienates its niche. But I love the show as it is.
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Here’s the Diva concert; I wish the video had started a little earlier; the context makes this so much more powerful, but you should be able to see the excellent storyboarding.
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I’m with you on Tsurune. It felt like a very chill episode ecen though it eas really tensed. The visuals did the talking and I quite liked that. Sho seems like an alright character who seems to care. He did ask about that injury and was happy to see Minato playing again. It just feels like Sho isn’t interested in those he has nothing to do with. The twins are the characters that really annoy me!
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I much prefer the twins in Run with the Wind myself, they’re doofuses rather than PITA’s….
That being said, I’m interested in seeing more of Sho. There’s a lot going on with him I think.
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So true! Though to be fair, Run with the Wind has an awesome cast.
Yeah Sho seems like an interesting character so hopefully we get to see a lot more of him and learn more avout him as well.
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