Weekly Seasonal Watches: 1/21/19

Well, I am in the second week of job searching. At this moment, I am doing my best to establish some sort of routine for myself and some projects so I don’t get bored and frustrated. It’s not like I’m expecting success to walk right through the door in an instant, but I need to do things to keep my mind active. Luckily, one blogging has been one of those things that have brought consistency and something to do in my life. I’ve also been working on something else that will find out about tomorrow. But onto anime though.

Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho Episode 5

I find it how amazingly fast paced this episode was and yet how understandable how everything was. Let me throw out some bullets points to let you know everything that happened, ok?

-Establish that Sho was in depression.
-Saint Seiya cameo with the two meeting up with each other.
-Sho getting motivated by Seiya’s endless enthusiasm.
-Establish a new character.
-Start the next arc, which is a tournament between the Seiyas.
-Have battles within that arc.
-Athena Got kidnapped.

You see what I mean? Yet all of that was completely understandable. The problems are that the visuals of the show suffered from still frames again and also giving some of these elements some time to breathe. I wonder why they are rushing through everything so quickly. Oh well, not many complaints here.

Mob Psycho 100 S2 Episode 2

It’s hard to look at any show after watching Mob Psycho’s experimental style with it’s various experimental styles of animation. I say that knowing that this was one of it’s less interesting episodes and was visible restrained until the animation was called for in the second half. The episode itself was pretty standard Mob Psycho fair. Reigen hasn’t had any business lately, so he and Mob go to a different city to handle some super natural problems, and then get paid for it. The difference being that they got caught up with another psychic who is going through hard times and we got to learn a lot about him, the super natural elements are based on local fairy tales, and there was so on. I had a lot of fun with this episode because the Reigen and Mob factor is also a good dynamic and seeing it in action is just good work.

Dororo Episode 2

Speaking of iconic duos, Dororo has Hyakkimaru and the little kid the show is named after start their merry adventures. If Mob Psycho is subverting the classic mentor and kid go to a town episode this week, Dororo played it to a t with some twists of it’s own. Since Hyakkimaru doesn’t see in the normal way, he instantly knew that the town was controlled by a demon. The framing device of using the kid to reveal all of this information to us form his point is pretty classic, but incredibly well down here. If I had a single complaint for this show, I don’t think it needs a narrator. The information the show gives us through Dororo and visual story telling is enough to get everything across to us, the narrator is just redundant.

Run With The Wind Episode 13

Talk about a backstory episode. Kakeru’s past and the reason why Sasaki (RWTW’s Shinji) hates Kakeru so much. The simple reason being that Kakeru was his high school track team’s prized pig while everyone else on the team was treated like dirt. I mean seriously, talk about a toxic environment. In the end, Kakeru had enough and broke the track teacher’s nose immediately causing a downward spiral for the rest of the team. A little bit of the old timey filter they had during the flashback until the pivotable punch really helped to put us in Kakeru’s head space. The rest of the episode was Kakeru dealing with his past and his new team mates putting trust in him still. It’s a dark and depressing episode for the most part, but has a more then heart warming ending.

Promised Neverland Episode 2

After Emma and Donovan discovered the secret behind the orphanage they are apart of in last week’s episode which is the orphanage is used as a feeding pin for demons, they both are completely put off by the idea. Emma is the most obvious one, because she lives with her heart on her sleeve. So the rest of the episode is both of them starting to plan how to escape with them both telling Ray about the situation. So begins some talks about the value of human life AND mother being completely suspicious and adding some extra security to the area with another maid character on the field now. A lot of good tension this week with excellent visuals and music usage to convey the amount of isolation that Emma and the other orphan kids are stuck in. I suppose all the drama continues next week and I can’t wait to see how this one works out. The only thing I can say is sacrifices will have to be made, so poor Emma.

Boogie Pop and Others Episode 4

Well, Boogie Pop has developed some interesting mystery aspects to this arc. What happens when a doctor who can tell how people aren’t fully at their potential meets up with an alien force or presence that can tell when people are about to die? Well, the results are the interesting mysteries behind this show. Combine that with some bookended moments with Boogie Pop on top of the school in which Boogie Pop tries to stop people from committing suicide, and you have the tone for this arc. I hope this is when Boogie Pop figures out how to properly pace an arc and establish it’s characters better, because so far so good.

The Price of Smiles Episode 3

This episode was alright, I suppose. And yes, I say this as a person who is heavily jaded through years of watching mech shows. It was the classic tale of innocent lives being in the balance when they live right next door to what the villains are going to blow up. I say villains, but it’s clear that this show is going the morally ambiguous route, which is great. Something all mech shows need to do. We learn about this highly trained military unit full of people, like Stella and her commander, that still care about civilian lives. The kids they learned to know hated in this unit in the end, because all of them are war orphans. If I have one complaint, it’s the characters feel a little stale right now to me. I guess they have to start somewhere though.

JoJo Part 5 Episode 15

I feel like I say this every week, but JoJo is filled with such complete nonsense and I LOVE it. This week is filled with complete nonsense and drama at the same time. You remember the whole tension with one guy fighting against two villains in a zone that dehydrates you if you aren’t cooling yourself off while he was carrying a tray of two ice cubes? Yeah, that guy got shot in the head three times. He’s still living, but because of “remember I did this” JoJo magic. The two villains got some moments to develop too and then Bruno, our protagonist group’s boss, seems to be in the state of sacrificing himself to save his group of friends. I mean, he and the villain with the dehydrating stand just lept off a train. What a guy. I think this is the first time in a while that a fight lasted over two episodes and it’s kind of exhausting. So many thoughts and concepts to keep in your mind for too long. At least it’s good and we don’t know what to expect next.

Kaguya-Sama: Love is War Episode 2

At this moment, I am thinking about dropping this show or just not talking about it on here anymore. It’s a little hard to talk about a show whose premise is two galaxy brained people trying to out wit each other through various schemes just to get the other to confess. Each episode has three different “battles” and while they are unique, nothing seems to change at the moment. Also, the narrator is still the worse and even talked over some character dialogue sometimes, the visual style is pretty, and other things. I’m sorry, I just don’t have that much to talk about when it comes to this one.

Tsurune Episode 13 (Finale)

I wish this show spent more time going through the rest of the tournament or was longer then general, but the beginning of Tsurune Episode 13 is a short montage of our boys making it to the finals. I’m so happy with how everyone performed and understood each other. Not only through those matches, but also during the Kyudo Finals because everyone performed their best and WON. Everyone has grown so much since their angsty starting points.

Also, Seiya and Shu had some good lines of dialogue with how Seiya is walking side by side with Narumiya now instead of behind and Shu seemed to accept that. I guess my thoughts of him being a passive aggressive dick were wrong. Maybe he was just too straight forward for my liking at first, but he does seem to have a big heart. Especially since he took his loss against Narumiya and his team with grace. I’m just so happy and yet so sad there isn’t more. The best part of this beautiful episode was the fact that the twins of annoyance were put in check that was almost as big of a pay off then our team winning and their teacher watching the final shot. I’m just so happy and sad right.