SEASONAL PRATTLE

 

This was a fantastic addition to a series that’s consistently been one of Fall’s best products. Beastars offerings are sharp this week, mixing dense design and carefully tailored scripting into something unashamedly emotional and beautifully expressive when it counts. Louis’ backstory alone is worth the price of admission, finding good payoffs from a craft sense with its stylistic choices and tight sequencing all while containing a nice serving of texture for his character. Narratively, Beastars remains firm in its ability to illuminate Legosi’s internal journey and effortlessly push the bigger picture forward – continuing to be effective through pure fundamentals in selling episode nine’s heavier dramatic strokes. It’s an absolute joy to have a quality show like this week in and week out!

Shinchou Yuusha: Kono Yuusha ga Ore Tueee Kuse ni Shinchou Sugiru (9)

Shinchou Yuusha carries on with the first of its last handful of episodes, whipping up a few sequences that are above its norm in terms of execution in the process. Mainly this acknowledgment stems from nine’s decent build and release of tension when Thanatus was in pursuit – not only giving Seiya and company more trouble than one would think, but also finding some sturdy comedic punches along the way lead by a few unexpected cameos. Be that as it may, much of this performance still falls prey to what’s consistently hinder this work – its underlying predictability and stale formula. Shinchou Yuusha just can’t keep on rolling out the same hair jokes, the same smell jokes, the very expected setups for Ristare to get abused/rejected, the obvious conquering of whatever goddess Seiya wants to train with between quests, etc, and not expect diminishing returns. The outcomes this episode is looking for are far too apparent for its own good and it hurts.

Assassins Pride (9)

Lastly, I want to tell you that Assassins Pride stepped up its game, no longer bringing a level of textual intellect that feels like a very raw rough draft, but rather, having the dexterity to keenly close out our latest arc. Unfortunately though, that’s just not reality, and anyone who’s seen even ten minutes of episode nine doesn’t need much elaboration from me as to why that is. This recent showing is just badly built, plain and simple: Full of questionable narrative choices basically from the time Melida crashes the wedding on forward and coming up distinctly flat when our content tries its hand at action. I know weekly expectations are already thoroughly situated as “low” for this show, but after this, it may need to be reevaluated for giving too much credit.