anime

Snow White with the Red Hair – Episode 11: “Experiencing…”

Okay, Snow White, now you’re just making the other shows look bad.

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Do I really need to say anything about that one? You watched it. You saw. You know the art was gorgeous and the staging elegant and the music sublime and the characters so wonderful that my notes are like 75% caps lock, underlines, and little heart drawings. I literally wrote “I can’t even” in large block letters at one point. Trying to parse it out and describe it almost feels like I’m cheapening the experience.

But not writing about it means I can’t share this experience with you, and I want to do that. Oh, very much. So hit the jump for some screenshots, gushing, and analysis. But mostly the first two.

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GANGSTA. – Episode 10: “Land of Confusion”

I’d say it was the calm before the storm, but I sure don’t feel relaxed.

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We’re back to political world-building and character study this week, a decision that’s worked in the show’s favor in the past and mostly does now. I suspect GANGSTA‘s pendulum swings from thoughtful drama to bloody action is going to continue to be a bit of a sore point for me, as the wider world of Ergastulum fills with increasingly archetypal and over-the-top characters (hello, Eyepatch Girl) who feel absurdly out of place in a series that seemed interested in maintaining a kind of gritty pseudo-realism for its first seven episodes. But that’s where we are, so I’ll try to get used to it.

And even if I can’t, our central trio remains a wonderfully sympathetic and complex ball of uncertain desires and contradictions. Their personalities and relationships with each other ground GANGSTA in a kind of emotional reality even when people are jumping off rooftops and cleaving their opponents in two, so here’s hoping the series can maintain its focus on Alex, Nic, and Worick in the coming war and make me care about the outcome as much as they do.

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 138-139

When in doubt, write an Ami episode!

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Two-thirds of the way through Sailor Moon and I feel confident declaring that it is scientifically impossible to have a bad Ami episode. I’ve come to terms with the fact that she is not the main character, and I enjoy the other scouts an awful lot, but Ami episodes just have a certain… thoughtful kindness to them that I appreciate, I s’pose, a cozy confidence that our temporary main character is self-aware enough to recognize her problems and work to solve them. And coming off last week’s rough ride, we really needed the smooth, steady hand of an Ami-driven episode again.

Oh, also, it involves cars. In case my subtle metaphors didn’t give that away.

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My Love Story!! – Episode 23: “My Spring Break”

If you ever wanted to see me fly into a murderous rage about a fictional character, boy howdy, have I got a post for you!

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I usually put a few hours between watching a show and writing about it because I like to have time to think over what happened, but I’m doing this one immediately because this is a post that needs to be written while my blood is still hot and my eyes still seeing faint shades of red. That isn’t to say I thought it was a bad episode, by the way. I’m not mad at the writing, or at least I’m going to wait until next week’s conclusion to decide how I feel about the story itself. No, my fingers are hammering into these keys because of a new character. His name is Ichinose. And he. Is. The. Worst.

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Snow White with the Red Hair – Episode 10: “Inexperienced Heart”

I’m not sure what we did to deserve so many great shoujo series in a single year, but whatever it was, let’s keep doing it.

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This would have been a marvelous episode regardless of anything else that happened, but coming less than seven days off My Love Story‘s fantastic “The Letter to Me,” it really struck me how lucky we are to have two great shoujo series running simultaneously for arguably the second time in a single year (a relative rarity in the anime schedule these days).

Shoujo (and its more mature counterpart, josei) series have their share of harmful cliches and archetypes, to be sure. But at its best, the genre features an emotionally honest, character-driven storytelling style and a focus on the complexities and nuances of individuals and interpersonal relationships that’s unmatched just about anywhere else in anime. Shows like Snow White remind me why I fell in love with this genre over 10 years ago, and why I keep coming back despite the rough patches along the way. Here’s hoping 2015 is the beginning of a trend and not an anomaly, and we see plenty more series like this one in the years to come.

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 136-137

Well, those sure were a pair of episodes.

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I puttered around for a while to avoid writing this, partly because I’m still coming off the high of Wednesday’s exquisite My Love Story, but mostly because I… er… see, for the first time in a while, Sailor Moon was just plain Not Good. One episode was all right, but the other was… well, my comments are ranty, and I don’t enjoy writing like that. I suspect most people don’t enjoy reading it. But here we are with Usagi behaving like a brat and Grandpa catcalling and Rei dropping some truly awful dialogue and I… I just…

But! I solemnly swore to Newbie Recap my way through each and every episode, and so Newbie Recap I shall.

I’m keeping multiple tables nearby for ease of flipping, though.

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My Love Story!! – Episode 22: “The Letter to Me”

I’m gonna need a minute to gather my thoughts on this one…

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Sometimes a story finds a way to hit every possible button for you at essentially the same time, creating a conflicted ball of feelings that’s equal measures of warmth and ache. It strikes not just one emotional note, but all of the emotional notes, encapsulating the complicated nature of humanity—the sadness present in joy, the gains received out of loss, or vice versa, too—through its characters and their lives. It overwhelms. It leaves you struggling to find the proper words to explain all these competing reactions. You write overwrought opening paragraphs attempting to explain it and you freaking know it sounds overwrought, but don’t know how else to explain it so you type it up and throw it onto the Internet anyway, hoping it doesn’t sound as hokey as you know it does.

So. Um. Yeah. “The Letter to Me” was one of those stories.

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Snow White with the Red Hair – Episode 9: “Feelings That Connect”

These guys really put the “support” in “supporting cast.”

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We’re nine weeks into the season, and while pretty much everything else on my watch list has gone through rough waters at some point, Snow White with the Red Hair just keeps staying its graceful course. It continues to be a top-to-bottom beautiful production exhibiting tremendous tonal and narrative control, doing exactly what it wants with an ease that only adds to the show’s dreamlike, meditative, and oh-so-comforting atmosphere.

And yet it isn’t a puff piece, either. The series deals with some fairly somber and difficult issues of trust and trauma along the way, asks its characters to find balances between their professional and personal lives, and frequently depicts them struggling with self-doubt. That it does all this while still making me feel like I’m being wrapped up in a warm blanket is a testament to its ultimately hopeful message about the equal importance of agency and empathy, and how one can balance one’s own needs against those of others.

So, surprise! I liked this one a whole lot, too.

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GANGSTA. – Episode 9: “Siblings”

“Sibling rivalry” is about to take on a whole new meaning.

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The season’s building tensions and anti-Twilight violence come to a proper head, as leaders leave the shadows, lines are drawn in the sand, and our protagonists come face-to-face with their next big challenge. While last week’s battle was a covert one, taking place in the alleyways of Ergastulum and thus relegated to a few quick scenes within the show itself, this week brings everything out into the open, and front and center on our screens.

In other words, TWIFIIIIIGHT!

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 134-135

Home is where the art is.

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Given the rumored kerfuffle going on behind the scenes during this season (the studio pushing for one kind of show, Ikuhara for another), a part of me wonders if these two episodes didn’t have their basis in some real-life frustrations. It’s artists’ week here on SuperS, and it’s all about finding the courage to create and share those works with others—and to do what feels right to you, The Artist, regardless of what The Authority says you “can” or “can’t” do with your landscape paintings.

So suck on that, Toei Animation.

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