Pacing!
Impressions:
I legitimately do not remember almost anything about the first season aside from getting to the end of it. Enough that I went back to check out my old posts, and… man, I see both that I was fed up with it and why I probably don’t remember anything about it. And this episode was more of exactly what I was complaining about. Despite having an episode ‘0’ recap last week for the second season, this was another episode of entirely recap. And the season 1 finale was also recap, which makes this the third recap episode in a row. Every character popped up to both recap the previous arc and to re-explain who they are and what they do. This made how samey all of them are and how every single one is rarr rarr innate talent and noble birth good, rarr rarr hard work and muggles bad as exasperating as ever.
I definitely don’t recall the animation frame rate being this much of a total disaster though. Maybe it always was, but there were action sequences where the animators were able to put it so it came off as stylized instead of random 5 seconds where everyone’s cloaks were suddenly billowing at 60 FPS instead of 20, or the walking animation abruptly had fifty times as many frames. The opening in particular was almost entirely in this jank-ass too fluid style that just makes me think of Go-Hands, minus the eye-searing technicolor glare. It was an episode without any point or purpose, and while I still can’t remember jack about the first season, I’m inclined to trust my past self in addition to this episode being as empty and terrible as it was.
Next Episode:
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