anime

Panning the Stream: Summer 2014 Midseason Review

If I had to pick a single word to describe this season, it would have to be “eclectic.”

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While this past Spring was dominated by very good sports series, and this past Winter was dominated by, uh… kami, I guess? (it was a pretty weak season), this Summer seems to have taken a cookie out of every genre jar. Action flicks, thrillers, rom-coms, satires, school dramas, period pieces, mysteries, Gothic horrors… you want it, this season has got it. And while none of them have been quite as jaw-droppingly perfect as Spring’s Ping Pong or Mushishi, on the whole I’d say there are a lot of solid, B-range shows on the schedule. It’s made it very hard to trim titles off my watchlist, that’s for sure.

And now that we’re six (or five, in Nobunaga Concerto’s case) episodes into the season, I figured I’d pop back in with some quickie reviews to talk about what’s still working, what reeeally isn’t, and everything in between.

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 27-28

During a week badly in need of a little Moon Healing Escalation, Sailor Moon delivers two of its best–and warmest–episodes to date.

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Given that Sailor Moon is both a superhero and coming-of-age story (as so many superhero stories are), it seems fitting that the focus of the show (outside of being crazy-awesome-fun-times) is on identity, and who people “really” are. I think these ideas have always been floating around the edges of the story, but it’s become more prominent with this arc, and especially with these episodes.

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The Sensei Next Door: Seasonal Lingo Edition

I was discussing this with a friend the other day and realized not everyone is familiar with this terminology, so I figured I’d write up a little crash course in how to discuss anime shows, episode counts, and air dates.

As with U.S. shows, the entire run of an anime is called the series. However, unlike major U.S. networks, which split their shows into seasons generally running from September to May, anime programming is divided into four broadcast seasons which roughly match the four calendar seasons. As such, you’ll often hear people referring to them by these terms (such as the “Summer 2014” season).

The term “season” gets a little murky when referring to a specific series season. For example, Yowamushi Pedal ran from (approx.) September to May, meaning it ran through the Fall, Winter, and Spring seasons. However, because it was planned to run this long from the beginning, the studio and marketers (and by extension, the viewers) consider this the “first season” of the series.

YowaPeda went off the air during the Summer season but was popular enough to get renewed for more episodes beginning in the Fall, and this new batch of episodes will be considered the “second season.” In other words, a series season doesn’t necessarily match the broadcast seasons, which can lead to some confusing conversations.

To help deal with the ambiguity of the term “season,” the anime community uses the term cour to refer to a single Winter/Spring/etc. season of a specific series. It’s a fairly flexible term that refers, in general, to a three-month block of television consisting of about 10-13 episodes.

This helps people to define a show’s length, so that you can refer to Paranoia Agent as a “single cour” series while referring to Cowboy Bebop as a “two-cour” series. When U.S. companies release DVD/BD box sets, they generally divide the shows up into these cours, so that each “Part” contains about 13 episodes. For me, cour is a particularly useful term because you don’t have to remember the exact episode count of every show you watch; instead, you can just generalize it as being one-cour or two-cour and people know that means “around 13” or “around 26” episodes, respectively.

Additionally, if a show takes a season off (e.g., it airs in the Spring and the Fall), then we refer to that as a split-cour series. Sometimes the studio will advertise this second half as “Season 2,” but other times it’s just considered a continuation of the first season. Again, the term “season” can get kinda murky, which is why “cour” is such a helpful word to know.

(Linguistic nerds – and hey, I’m one of you – can also check out this nifty post for details and speculation on the unofficial etymology of “cour.”)

It’s worth noting that if a show has been running continuously for more than a year (e.g, Hunter x Hunter), people tend to stop keeping track of cours or seasons and just describe the different major storylines as arcs. Some shows fit this model really well (again, HxH), others less so (FMA: Brotherhood). 

So, to summarize:

  • Series – Entire run of a show

  • Season (broadcast) – The calendar season (Winter, Spring, Fall, and Summer) in which a show is scheduled to air

  • Season (series) – A set of episodes defined by the studio/marketers, often based on how long the show ran without taking a break

  • Cour – The length of a broadcast season (about three months, or 10-13 episodes)

  • Arc – A major overarching storyline, usually united by a common plot, location, or antagonist

And that’s pretty much it! Hopefully that cleared up any confusion you might have had when touring anime forums. If you feel like I missed something or if you have questions about a particular show, feel free to hit that Ask button or sound off in the comments. Happy viewing!

Rule of Three Review, Adaptation Digest: Nobunaga Concerto, Sailor Moon Crystal – Episodes 2-3

Never judge a book by its cover – or a series by its animation.

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I’ve been playing catch-up all week (IRL and online) thanks to last week’s LeakyCon whirlwind, so this is coming out rather later than intended. Thankfully this pair works well together, as both are adaptations of well-regarded manga and both suffer from a serious case of the Not Very Good Animation Blues. Can story overcome animation? Hit the jump to find out.

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Sailor Moon Newbie Reviews: Episodes 25-26

Hey, look at that–I love this show again.

As anyone who’s been following these posts knows, I spent much of the last cour becoming progressively more annoyed at Nephrite, High Lord of Blandsylvania, and what often felt like stagnating character arcs and relationships. I didn’t HATE it (and there were some episodes I quite enjoyed), but I wasn’t having nearly as much fun as I’d had during the first cour.

Of course, then last week’s two-part Feelsplosion happened, throwing my emotions into all kinds of turmoil, because dammit if I didn’t feel bad for Naru and even a little for Nephy, boring old bastard that he was. I got so tangled up in the short-lived romance that I was actually pretty sad by the end of Episode 26, and had forgotten one vital fact: Nephrite wasn’t our bad guy anymore. Zoisite was, which meant the show was all but guaranteed to get fun again.

And boy, did it ever. This week SM burst from its cocoon like a lame Metapod transforming into a badass Butterfree, complete with a neat premise, a fabulous villain, ridiculous monsters, a shiny Lovely Item, and a rockin’ addition to the Sailor Squad. It’s campy, hilarious, and awesome, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

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Rule of Three Review, Bubble Digest: Tokyo ESP, Magimoji Rurumo – Episodes 2-3

Pop goes the watchlist?

Both of these shows barely made the cut during Premiere Week, and they remained on my bubble after their second episode. This doesn’t usually bode well, and yet… well, I suppose there’s a reason we call it the “Three Episode Rule” and not the “Two Episode Rule,” after all. When all was said and done, one show jumped up my interest list while the other continued to hover in an uncertain gray area. Which is which, and how do we proceed from here? Your answers and more beneath the jump.

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