In contrast to a Thursday featuring a pair of newer directors, Friday was all about veterans coming back to their native style. With results that, frankly, could have been way better.
There’s a scene in Naoki Urasawa’s Happy! where the main character Umino, who’s gotten herself matched up against a player who should be by all rights an easy win, gets mixed up in a match-fixing gig. Due to her honest nature, she still tries to win the game, but finds herself stymied against an opponent playing much harder than she normally would, at a level that one informed observer remarks she’ll “never reach again” as a result of considerable pressure heaped on her from outside sources.
You know who else is under crushing pressure all the time? Mediocre manga authors.
I mentioned in our Spring Preview Betting Session that I was worried about both of these shows, as they had first-time directors handling big-budget tv productions, something that is usually a recipe for trouble. Yes, Shishiou Igarashi notwithstanding. Still, I went into both with an open mind, as I enjoy nothing more than a pleasant surprise.
I didn’t explain it that well in my first post, so let me say it here. Most modern anime, having lots of competition in whatever season they air, face a real need to prove themselves from day 1. This column is a breakdown of what I saw in various intro episodes that I think will prove indicative of the show’s quality in upcoming weeks, and hence what I plan to be watching. I generally don’t go over plot in much detail, as that’s something anyone can just go to any of a dozen encyclopedia sites for.
There’s no way getting around this, so I’m just going to lay it out straight; I’m a huge devotee of old Studio Gonzo. So even if the brand is basically meaningless now, I always get excited when I hear they have a project.
One more bit of full-disclosure regarding me before I get to the show itself, since it is to hair as Mysterious Girlfriend X is to drool – I enjoyed Mysterious Girlfriend X. The superior direction and creativity behind that show was enough to offset its fundamental weirdness. I guess that also qualifies as a warning for the faint of heart, as DBnCE is also quite weird.
The beginning of Spring 2013 is almost upon us, but first we got early looks at 2 shows that look to figure prominently in the discussion for most popular show of the season (albiet in different ways).
I’m really convinced at this point that Ayumu Watanabe can fascinate with literally anything. In the latest bit of proof, this week he made a guy surfing the internet gut-wrenchingly engaging. What’s more, he did it without even needing to resort to the *ahem* stylized approach.
In an ending that was typical of everything the show has done prior till now, we got excessive combat, Shakespeare quotations, and plenty of toying with expectations. It’s been a heck of a ride for a show I almost quit on 4 months ago.
If the anime blogoshpere were a field of corn, and each post that summarized the spring 2013 season were a corn husk, then you could stand in the middle of it and toss a match in any direction, and end up with something on the order of 10 gallons of popcorn. And some third degree burns. Um.
So, what I mean to say is this; seasonal anime preview posts are really a saturated field. But we like anime, and we want to cover it, too. Thus, we labored hard to find a hipster angle, and we found it; instead of putting up a dime a dozen post, we’re putting a dozen dimes on the post. In simpler terms, we’re taking mad bets on the upcoming Spring 2013 lineup, Vegas-style!
As is the standard form for spinoffs with no direct ability to influence the main plot of a series, The Unlimited’s ending didn’t exactly break new ground. But it sent things off well enough to do job #1: entertain the viewers.
Animetics 