Winter 2013 – Week 7 Anime Review

This week: questions about who the real big bad in Psycho-Pass could be, some thoughts on why I continue to watch Little Busters!, social cliques in character pairings in Senran Kagura, and some earth-shattering omissions in Maoyuu Maou Yuusha.

12 Days of Anime (2012) – Day 7 – Bye-bye in Rinne no Lagrange

Spring 2012 – Week 6 Anime Review

This week: a change of perspective in Mouretsu Pirates, a question about the transformation process in Zetman, an imperfection of Medaka in Medaka Box, and some concern over anatomy in Kore wa Zombie desu ka? OF THE DEAD.

Last Exile: Ginyoku no Fam – 13

Continuing along with my senseless nomenclature for this anime, this week’s episode is hereby dubbed ‘Lost Exile’ which appropriately describes how Millia, Fam, and Giselle were marooned in the barren tundra of Glacies.  The whole episode revolves around our trio of heroes interacting with Rocket Fighter pilot and native to Glacies, Dian, and repairing their wrecked vanship before departing to the home base, the Silvus.  But before going from point A to point B, the episode exposed a vast schism in cultures, customs, and philosophies between Glacies and the rest of nations neighboring the Grand Lake.  Thought the episode did minimal to advance the plot, its exposition on world building was exceptional and it enriched the setting in a way I admire: thought character action rather than narration or guesstimation.

12 Days of Anime – Day 11 – March 10th to April 21st

When you’re watching an anime you love, you experience a range of emotions depending on the delay between episodes.  A standard week between episodes is manageable but sometimes it feels too long.  When an anime takes a week off, it’s normal to replace the length of the episode with sufficient raging and ranting but then you go back into ‘standard week’ mode again and return to normal quickly.  Waiting a month between episodes lies somewhere in the fuzzy area between punishment and torture, but it just feels that much more satisfying when you finally get the episode.  So what of the 43 days that separated the exceptional, spellbinding tenth episode of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the indescribably anticipated two episode finale that would air together?  That topic will be the focus of Day 11 in my 12 Days of Anime series.

Dantalian no Shoka – 6

Well, that was unexpected.

Dantalian no Shoka continues to evade any form of established story in favor of darting between various storylines with minimal overlap.  And with the entire episode lacking our normal heroes, or any character from any previous episode, it seemed like another random episode with no connection to any previous content.  But that might be wrong in the long run.  The sixth episode of Dantalin no Shoka did provide a chance to introduce two other sets of keykeepers and libraries allowing us the chance to discover who will be playing the roles of good, neutral, and evil in perhaps the eventual story of this anime.

Softenni – 6

This may be difficult to believe but there were actual tennis matches in the sixth episode of Softenni.  Mind-boggling, I know, but it actually happened.  And that’s why it has been the best episode to date.  With more tennis matches set for future episodes, the series will certainly improve, at least for me.