Category Archives: Anime

First Reactions: Space Brothers Episode 71

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It doesn’t help that Space Brothers has been in sort of a lull phase recently, but the bad aftertaste from Mr. Hibbit shorts still overshadow the rest of the content in a big way. I’m pretty sure I know why they’ve come into existence, and I’m very sure it’s got little-to-nothing to do with anything other than time constraints. While it’s entirely possible to manage time elegantly (as the first 60 or so episodes of this very show did), that just isn’t what recent episodes have been doing, and the actual meaningful content is suffering for it.

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First Reactions: Dangan Ronpa Episode 9

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Togami’s been an unremarkable character for most of the series. I say that because this episode he really stood out, pulling a Barry Marshall and drinking what was ostensibly poison to prove his point. Even before I knew what that point was, I was hooked on his presentation there. There’s levels of differences in the body language between a sip and a chug, and this was the latter.

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First Reactions: Free! Episode 8

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So the show did end up relying on the rematch, but it did it in a bit of a roundabout way that allowed for more emotional investment in the interim. Since Gou did the signups without telling any of the guys, we got a lot of footage of them trying their best in individual events. They may all have eventually lost, but they did so in the seven-game Conference Semifinals series kind of way, where one lucky bounce (or something as trivial as Rei’s goggles staying put) would have been enough to turn all of that into a win. In other words, losses providing the perfect narrative building blocks of a relay challenge the next day.

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First Reactions: WataMote Episode 8

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WataMote is fun to watch when it’s primarily about Tomoko self-destructing on her own. It gets less fun when she gets others wrapped up in her pathetic bluffs, especially when they believe in her. The style of humor this week wasn’t that different from normal, and the episode in general was way stronger than 6, but the subject matter straddled the barrier between funny sad and sad sad.

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Though the vacuum scene was still appreciably fun

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First Reactions: Free! Episode 7

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In general, this was a pretty solid buildup episode, highlighting Haru and Rin’s quietly intensifying rivalry, the comradeship of the four main characters, and a bit of Rin’s external motivation. Oh yeah, and it wasn’t actually a buildup episode. They literally powered through the race, something I was sure would take at least another episode getting to, with ruthless efficiency and great effect.

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First Reactions: WataMote Episode 7

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The montage segment at the beginning was a great way of demonstrating just how hard Tomoko was wasting her summer vacation. Each individual action she took was a different kind of low-brainpower activity, and her internal feelings about the day afterwards provided rock solid confirmation that that moment six minutes in where she looked like a Cleveland fan circa January 17, 1988 was coming. My favorite part of that segment was her commenting on the video, a little piece of satire directed at people no doubt commenting on the episode the same way. Mashing w is definitely a thing that happens, and he facial expression was a great example of someone showing exaggerating their sarcastic response to ridiculous internet crap.

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It’s debatable whether or not its subjects got the joke

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First Reactions: Dangan Ronpa Episode 7

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Without a doubt, the most impressive thing about this show is the sheer number of ways they’ve managed to work in a Monokuma enjoying himself in the background. This time might have been my favorite, because you can just barely tell he’s now using the Oowada butter on his pancakes.

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Hot-blooded, so it melts in your mouth

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First Reactions: Free! Episode 6

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Showing is superior to telling, but not all showings are created equal. One of the ways to tell a high-class pro director from a replacement-tier one is the way they make a situation clear with the first snap of the camera. Case in point: those first 3 seconds of that shot after Haru saved Makoto. The way one set of feet was dragging and the other was limp immediately spelled out what was going down. Mix in effective not-use of music (just rain and heavy breathing), and you get an immediate impression of the state Makoto was in. It was a bit of imagery that felt like something adapted from an award-winning manga, except Free is a novel adaption that had to make its own storyboards.

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One look and it’s pretty obvious someone’s not alright

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