Summer 2013 Slaparound: Uchoten Kazoku Week 3

Drew: This episode had a fairly simple premise; the main character goes around trying to get his hands on a sky boat, once owned by his teacher but now in the hands of Benten. I want to say that up-front, because this was probably the least-comprehensible episode of anime I watched this month. They introduced a bunch of things from nowhere, like the seaside clocktower that Benten apparently owns. The worst part was the one conversation between Tengu that dropped a bunch of terminology with minimal context, one that I would have been totally lost for if I hadn’t encountered the term Kurama Tengu before. It’s still a visual feast, but the visuals are often a lot less tightly targeted than, say, a Tatami Galaxy. I’m starting to worry (admittedly just a little) that this might be a TV anime with movie problems rather than a TV anime with movie benefits.

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First Reactions: Arata Kangatari Episode 10

Halfway through this episode, I got the feeling that this was going to be the last semblance of a lull episode in the show before it ran down climax alley. And it did a good job, at both being a lull episode and fooling me into thinking not much else was going to happen in the b-plots. Boy, was eye ever wrong there.

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Anime Movie Slaparound: Wolf Children

Welcome to the latest installment of the column where we, the Animetics crew, trade lowbrow thoughts on stuff we just finished! In this installment, we discuss the 2013 Tokyo Anime Fair Best Animation Winner, Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children, and the many ways it disappointed us.

WC-1

For one, it focused far too heavily on this element rather than a more solid core story

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