Hey all! Real quick, I am aware that I am ludicrously late on both the 2023 Anime of the Year awards and the preview for the next season and some reviews. Don’t worry, I’m workin on them. I have just been… So ludicrously busy outside of the blog and it’s taking everything I have just to maintain what we have now. Hopefully things will calm down soon, but know that I haven’t forgotten about them, or you. Thanks! Now lets check out this week.
Dungeon Meshi- 8 [Raspberries/Grilled Meat]
Another absolutely great episode of Dungeon Meshi this week. Split down the middle between Marcille’s first meeting and budding friendship with Falin and a fight with an Undine, it had a perfect mix of emotional development and action for me. The flashback was great because, so far, Falin hasn’t really been a character. She’s someone we hear about through other peoples stories. And while this is no different, this one is more of a regular day-to-day for her. We get to see how she’s different from the other students, how she focuses more on life experiences and what she learns in the natural world than books. It’s that difference that makes her more specialized, but far more skilled at what she’s passionate about than Marcille’s broader skillset. It’s also just a really cute scene of the beginning of their friendship, and the detail that goes into the environment and ecosystem of this cave is simply brilliant. As for the second half, this looked fantastic. Incredibly expressive, Marcille getting her own 1v1 fight was cool too, from a visual standpoint I loved everything about it. Dungeon Meshi even managed to fit in food in an episode where they didn’t kill anything, cooking meat to help Marcille recover some blood. Just good shit all around, I continue to enjoy Dungeon Meshi a lot.
Bucchigiri – 6 [Much Much Friendship! “Nira-Reba”-lution 21!]
A great mid-season climax for Bucchigiri. We got a flashback to the beginning of Kenichiro and Marito’s rivalry, Mahoro stepping up and telling Shindo like it is, and Arajin finally showing everyone what he can do. Of course most of it is a lie, he’s strong because of Senya, and when Senya inevitably disappears Arajin will be left living a lie. But that’s stuff for future arcs, right here, right now, the leaders of all three gangs are defeated and he stands alone at the top! He has the girl, he has the respect of his friends, what could go wrong?! The answer is a lot of things, and I can’t wait. So yeah, all in all a great mid-season climax. Very well animated, looked great, can’t wait to see where the second half goes.
A Sign of Affection – 7 [Let me introduce you to my girlfriend]
Another wholesome, cute week of Yubisaki. I love how their relationship continues to move and advance at a brisk pace, none of this “Will they, won’t they” bullshit. I especially loved how open Itsuomi is about his feelings, how communicative he is. Yeah sometimes he comes off as pushy, but the more time we spend with him the more it just seems like he doesn’t let nerves stop him from speaking his mind. Like with the texts, he asks what if anything he does bothers Yuki, asks what the boundaries are so he can stick to them. Yeah, some things like the kiss may seem off to people, but for me? When you take it in context? The fact that he asked permission first, even if it was misunderstood, makes it both romantic and sweet that he didn’t just spring it on her. He even wants to introduce her to his friends, properly, and once again asks Yuki if that’s something she would be open too. I understand if some people may see all of this and think he’s too pushy, but for me? It all feels rather romantic and supportive. Definitely the least creepy Itsuomi has been all season.
Frieren – 24 [Perfect Replicas]
Frieren’s second test continues to be better than the first. Most of that is due to Frieren running around without a care in the world, exploring an otherwise “deadly” dungeon and finding all manner of secrets. Her finding that door, and the subsequent mural, was great. It felt like the first time Fern has legitimately enjoyed herself in a while. But it’s also because a lot of the side characters are given more room to interact in non-violent ways. I’m talking about Ubel and Land, and how she’s never sure if she’s talking to the real one or not and he came back to save her from herself, all the while she dived into the fight on purpose expecting him to do it because she knows he doesn’t want someone’s death to be his fault. Or the one squad of randoms stuck against Sense, the First Class mage’s, replica and seeing just how great the gap is. This test is simply much more interesting to me, and I’m enjoying it a fair bit because the other test takers success doesn’t hinge on Frieren’s failure. Next week should be even better since Fern is so confident she can take down her mentor.
Undead Unluck – 20 [Anno Un]
It’s absolutely incredible how good Undead Unluck is when its not trapped in recap hell. The parts of this episode that weren’t recaps or flashbacks, or shitty CGI bone spiders, were great. Anno Un’s introduction especially just worked. Showing up, sitting down, eating their poutine, telling them he knows everything but only for the “Bad End”, if they want the “Good End” they need to show him a story he hasn’t seen before. All good shit. I especially like how crazy the guy is, cutting off his own arm to draw up a copy of Andy’s arm to show them how it’s done. His speech about them being too caught up in the rules, how they have placed these limitations on themselves because of how they perceive and assume things work, how “Negators” are bound only by their imagination, was a joy. Overall it felt nice, like Undead Unluck was back in form. Hopefully it can keep this new pacing up until the end, because if it drops back to the “half-episode recap” bullshit we’ve had for a while now, I’ll be very annoyed.
The Apothecary Diaries – 19 [Chance or Something More]
At its core, I enjoyed this episode of Apothecary Diaries a fair bit. All of the previously mediocre mysteries that I didn’t care about came together for a larger, more nefarious plot. Yeah, it’s kind of ridiculous and convoluted, but the series implies that these weren’t the only plots going on, only the ones Mao Mao saw. And only enough of them had to work out to cause problems down the line. Basically they threw out a bunch of hooks and only needed some of them to work. Still convoluted, but I’ll take it. Anyways, this all leads to an assassination attempt on Jinshi with dropping a heavy beam on him, Mao Mao finds out and sprints to prevent it, gets beaten up by a guard because no one wants to let a serving girl interrupt an important ceremony, Lakan shows up and convinces them to let her in, and wouldn’t you know it? She saved Jinshi. For the most part this works. My only issue is that it felt very… Over the top? Like it didn’t fit the rest of the series? The whole “Slowly walking down the steps while Jinshi carries Mao Mao in his harm, stone faced, as she bleeds out” was… Dude, just fucking run, she’s dying in your arms. What is this. So yeah, aside from the melodrama it was good. Hopefully this spells the end of Lakan’s involvement as well, because I continue to just… not like him.
Ishura – 8 [The New Demon King War]
Ishura continues to improve as more and more of our characters start running into each other. The real meat of this show is watching these, individually overpowered characters, clash in unique and interesting ways. And that’s exactly what we got as Kia, the World Word, clashes with Higuare, the Mandrake. As short as it was, this fight was cool. The specificity required by Kia’s magic against the overwhelming offensive options of Higuare made for an interesting encounter. I especially wasn’t expecting Higuare to be the first death, but when you think about it, Kia is probably the only humanoid enemy who could defeat him due to his poison. Plus the way he died, his gas AoE clipping Kuze and triggering his protective angel, was such a creative way to kill him off since Kia would never do it herself. An all around great encounter. This week also saw the return of Alus, flying around killing some Wyverns as they attack Mage City, as well as the Magpie having an interesting conversation with Yuno where he challenges what her vengeance means to her. So yeah, fun episode, I’m really looking forward to seeing how more of these characters fight each other, how their power sets interact and evolve in combat. Ishura is finally living up to that battle royal I’ve been wanting for over a month.
Shangri-La Frontier – 19 [The World Progresses, the Heroes Are Revealed]
Solid week from Shangri-La Frontier, a nice emotional follow up to the epic fight against Wezaemon. Obviously it wasn’t as great as the previous episodes, it’s really hard to follow that kind of climax up. But it was still fine and tied up a number of loose ends. Arthur “died” to reset her PK status, Psyger0 showed up to say “Hi”, the system announced their victory to the rest of the game making Sunraku even more of a target and getting their name out there, it even let Arthur have an emotional moment as Setsuna fades away. All around a solid epilogue to the Wezaemon arc, I’m looking forward to what comes next.
The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic – 8 [Battalion Commander Rose]
As far as flashback episodes go, Wrong Way did a pretty good job. The whole thing is about Rose’s life before the Healing Corp, her time in the military and the squad she led. At first it seems slow, why do we care about these people and all that. We already know the basics, all of them are going to die against the demons, Rose will lose an eye, and that will traumatize her such that she hyper-focuses on never losing someone again. What makes it work though is that about halfway through, you figure out that Aul is literally just Usato. Her mannerisms and personality, the self-confidence issues, the desire to one-up Rose and refusal to lose, it’s all there. And with that, suddenly everything how she’s treated Usato up until now clicks into place. Why she’s so determined to make sure he survives, why she takes such a personal hand in training him, why she seems to enjoy his pushback. It’s solid! And it makes me look forward to the season finale where Usato will, inevitably, be put into a situation where he should die, and he won’t, and Rose will, hopefully, crack and show a bit of emotion. Should be sweet.
Unwanted Undead Adventurer – 8 [A New Weapon and Power]
Unwanted Undead Adventurer actually felt like an adventure this week. This was a classic session of D&D. Random villager comes asking for help, go out to a village, think you have to fight a giant sea-monster that’s terrorizing them, turns out its a bunch of assholes kidnapping girls to sell in a foreign land, beat them up, bada bing bada boom, head home feeling accomplished with absolutely nothing in the status quo having changed. Ok that last bit is a tad harsh, Unwanted Undead was mostly showing off just how far Rentt has come, how powerful he’s gotten. And I dare say being able to take on an entire ship of bandits, including two mages, is good progress. We also got to see what combining the various magic systems do, as well as why people don’t do it more often, and it was solid. All in all it feels like Unwanted Undead is checking boxes and preparing for something bigger. So long as we get that, should be a good time down the road.
Solo Leveling – 7 [Let’s See How Far I Can Go]
This was mostly a setup episode for Solo Leveling, which after the climax of the dungeon raid is totally fine. It’s mostly concerned with the fallout, people getting suspicious of Jinwoo, Jin-Ho trying to recruit Jinwoo for 19 more raids so he can be a Guild Master, all that jazz. The two big things are the C-Ranks younger brother being an S-Rank hunter in America and coming to get revenge in a few months, giving Jinwoo a timer to become strong enough to deal with him, and accessing a new dungeon with a key from the system. This is a pretty flashy fight against the door boss, the climax against Cerberus was cool, but compared to the spider, snake or Hunters I don’t think it quite matches up. Overall, fine episode, just feels like Solo Leveling is starting to hit that sustainability problem with its production.
Sengoku Youko – 6/7 [Fukō/Kagan & Shakuyaku]
Aidan: Now we have hit the first turning point of this story and undoubtedly Mizukami’s strongest tool for storytelling. That being emotional gut punches as while we have a silly drinking party in this batch of episodes we also have some dark turns. There is certainly an irony in having Tama unsuccessfully negotiate up to this point and have her first victory be such a bittersweet one. To have a katawari attempt to fulfill a village’s wishes for nothing to change only to find that time makes fools of all is rather poignant. In a strange way it’s even connected to Jinka’s motivation to become a katawari as his hate of humans seems to be more of an excuse and his true motivation is to extend his lifespan so Tama wouldn’t be alone when he dies. Then we have the truth that even Katawari are not exempt from death with Shakugan. Certainly is a gutsy move for Mizukami to create a likable cinnamon bun who just as she shows potential gets cruelly cut down by the worst villain of the series(both in his westaboo attitude being annoying and he’s so hateable that even his own allies cannot stand him) It is a shame that Shakugan was reduced to a character development tool but it’s somewhat medicated on just how well her exit was done. I may have my problems with the action in this series but this emotional moment hit the exact beats it needed to. This was a moment I felt White Fox needed to nail to truly cement this adaptation’s quality and they did it with flying colours. The seeds for Shinsukes development are certainly being laid in first steps to master the sword as well as his own admittance that he provides no real power to the team currently. Jinka as well breaking down at the birth of twins carrying the name of Shakugan, putting a crack in his human hating exterior. All and all high points around with the only caveat once again being the action. it’s funny to contrast JJK and SY as JJK Puts all its effort into its fights while its story falters and SY is the exact opposite. If given the choice I do prefer substance over flash but I don’t think its impossible for SY to improve its fights. Obviously not to JJK standard but at least higher than its current quality. But even if it continues at its current level I can see it being considered a hidden gem.
The Witch and the Beast – 7 – No episode this week
The post Winter 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 7 appeared first on Star Crossed Anime.
