The biggest potential pitfall for WataMote as a show is that it is essentially one joke retold countless numbers of times. However, the series’ greatest strength is that it’s made by people who understand exactly what that means for a comedy.
Space Brothers is back again to make a joy-crowded summer even better. It’s packing a new opener and the return of a old acquaintance, so you know it’s gonna be good.
Just like that pancake
I’m covering Dangan Ronpa for 3 reasons. First, the Lerche power trio is involved. Second, C3-bu is a show we decided to do together as a slaparound on weekends. Third, it’s a mystery and I have no clue how it goes, so it should be fun to react to in real time.
Based on what I’ve seen of reactions to Free on the internet, it seems like a large quantity of people are ruling it out with one glance at the promo material rather than 20 minutes of episode time. It’s becoming increasingly obvious how much of a shame that is, because this show is complete in ways it didn’t even have to be to be an enjoyable ride.
After sampling a bunch of try-hard comedies, it’s time to get to the real meat of Thursday’s crop. Or at least the stuff that was top-3 on himawari douga when I kicked up the streams.
Last week’s episode was an utterly amazing display of great body language and visualism on display, coupled with some great human drama. This week’s wasn’t a big step down, as we got a lot of characterization for Serika and Sharon in addition to the titular brothers.
The reason this episode post took so long is that there was so much brilliance in this episode I legitimately had to watch the episode a good 4 more times, take my reaction notes from different runs, organize them, and edit in some shot-for-shot analysis for the past two days. There was too much stuff both important and sublimely executed that I couldn’t not talk about all of it. Short version: It takes some effort to parlay one character’s death flags into development for another who’s never met her before. This is one episode I’ll be coming back to along with Dear Hibito and Brian as go-tos for why Space Brothers is the best anime of the decade to date, easily the best episode of anime to air since I started this blog, and probably one of my all-time favorites. Like its main character, this show has no ceiling.
So Hibito got right back to Earth, greeted the crowd, then collapsed onto a hospital bed due to gravity fatigue. Not much to say about the scenes where Hibito was readjusting to Earth’s gravity. It’s a real part of what astronauts go through, so of course Space Brothers handles it realistically. The writer was fun enough to approach it from a few different angles, the best of which was of course ultra-heavy Apo.
That bit does make one feel sorry for those with German Sheperds
Despite the fact that this episode featured a rocket launch of sorts, it was very much a lull episode. Events were treated with little fanfare and passed by quickly. No surprise here. This show is far too polished to waste time building up obvious fakeouts.
I kind of understand why Space Brothers has a huge overlap with fandoms of various battle series. One, it’s an objectively good show with very understandable messages. Two, it’s been on crunchyroll for a year, so it’s had plenty of time to catch the eye of the people who come there for Naruto (i.e. the majority of users). Three, similar to a good battle series like Hunter x Hunter, it can set an arc based on a very rigid set of rules and ideas, but grow very complicated very quickly, while being a thrillfest the whole way. The sealed-capsule arc was a great example of that approach in action, as was the more recent lunar-crash arc. The comeback competition is really just the latest example, this time featuring Engineering, but knowing that it’s somewhat formulaic doesn’t make it any less exciting to watch.
Bonus points for viewers who happen to have built a robot before
Animetics 