Spy X Family Season 3 – 03
I must confess to being torn over this mini-arc of Spy X Family. But that’s in the context of considering it far above the norm for the series, and giving credit for its execution. If we’re grading on a curve this is an “A” for SxF, because almost without fail this series is better when it’s about something than when it isn’t. And whatever you might think about these past two episodes they certainly were about something.
So what’s the problem, then? I guess there are three things that bother me. First, if Endou is capable of writing material like this and not embarrassing himself, that makes it that much more galling that he wastes so much time on spectacularly trivial dandelion fluff. Next, he’s kind of trying to have his cake and eat it too in that sense. Chapter after chapter of silliness that often doesn’t really make sense and almost never takes the story anywhere. Then this? I feel like if you want me to take stuff like ***’s backstory seriously, you have to put in at least a little effort the rest of the time. Which he pretty much only does with the Damian chapters, which are the right level of “serious” to work as a contrast to the sillier stuff.
Finally, the material itself – while good – is pretty heavy-handed. You don’t need to oversell a tale of a child having his life torn apart by war – the pathos pretty much sells itself. I think the messaging he’s going for here is good, but it’s definitely not what you would call subtle. Pretty interesting nonetheless, to give it its due. Franky turning up here was something I didn’t expect, and I liked the depiction of Loid’s descent from a vengeance-driven hothead to a worn-down husk who just didn’t care one way or the other. Endless death and being lied to will do that to a person.
*** being recruited into the intelligence service (nice to see Tsuda Kenjirou getting some work for a change) more or less makes sense, though it’s not entirely clear to me what he did that got their attention in the first place. To be honest I think the story of how he got from that point to being someone who actually did care about peace and diplomacy would be the more interesting story, but I have no idea if we’re ever going to see it told.
Ranma ½ ( 2025) – 03
They may be a black company (though maybe you don’t hear quite as much about that these days, so either they improved their working conditions or their information containment) but you have to give MAPPA their due. With Ranma ½ they’re pretty much nailing it. They’re getting pretty much everything out of the manga that you could get out of it. This was a terrific episode in terms of style – I loved those page flip animation bits and the scene transitions generally. It’s no secret that Uda Koonosuke is a good director but the production has an aura of class about it.
Ranma is a clever one. He can’t turn back into a boy, so he dresses as a boy (not that convincingly but Mousse isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer and can’t see a lick without his glasses), then performs a “magic trick” and transforms into a girl. The problem is he fights as if he’s in his male body, and the proportions and musculature are very different. What’s striking about this sequence is that the whole school now seems to be aware of his curse, which I certainly don’t remember being an on-screen development (or even off with an explanation). Maybe it was the same in the 1989 and I just forgot?
I’m kinda with Ranma-chan on this – Mousse’s “hidden weapons” schtick is pretty lame in martial arts terms. It is glorified magic tricks, as he says. Ranma gets a temporary boost when Tofu-sensei activates his “Edokko Jiisan” pressure point and cancels out his full body cat tongue point, but the old hag quickly turns him back (after he wins the fight) and Tofu informs him the same trick won’t work twice. There is a “Phoenix Pill” that will restore him, Shampoo tells him (she likes her Ranma with factory options), but getting it from Cologne is going to prove to be a major problem.
The rest of it is your basic screwball comedy material, but that’s what Ranma ½ does best. The piranhas, the haunted house, it’s all good fun. Mousse and Cologne aren’t two of my favorite characters if I’m honest (though better than one who’s coming up) so I’m kind of ready for this arc to be over and better ones to get more screen time.
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