SEASONAL PRATTLE
Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song returns in impressive fashion, summoning the theatricality of its very early material and glazing it over with a level of empathy that’s reminiscent of the Sunrise arc’s bigger narrative strokes – capping a story with enough emotional snag and aesthetic aptitude to easily please. And while episode six’s first half is dedicated to unveiling the nooks and crannies of Grace and Saeki’s plight, the back half is practically a propulsive music video for this series’ flagship song that deserves plenty of praise – simultaneously vivid in display and fitting of the magnitude surrounding the personal drama this episode wants to particularly feature at scale. Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song isn’t even halfway over and it’s already a very strong show
86 (4)
“Legitimately intimate rather than just another piece of emotional storytelling that’s going through the motions”
This was an orderly entry from 86, elaborating on the aftermath and fallout from last week’s death with the poise and steadiness of a more careful show that had a longer shelf life. That made episode four both kind of slow as an individual episode and a bit of a surprise approach – after all, 86 is only billed for eleven episodes – but it was still patched together with grace nonetheless. Sawano’s fingerprints on the project once again shine brightly here, another song well-timed and congruent with the current mood, and the general telling offered a fine window to frame Lena’s late half exchange with Shin as legitimately intimate rather than just another piece of emotional storytelling that’s going through the motions. A cleanly presented cliffhanger that teases high narrative relevance makes for a nice going-away present to close out a pretty favorable episode.
Shadows House (4)
“Free-flowing and fun to follow but also effortless when it attempts to be intriguing”
Shadows House is doing a good job of speaking for itself at this point – not only keeping its key components free-flowing and fun to follow but also effortless when it attempts to be intriguing. For as much mileage this series gets out of its incidental detailing, quietly assembling building blocks that sculpt its world and mystery with seemingly every turn of the camera, it’s getting good mileage out of its cast: Episode four’s new combination of Emilico, Shaun and Rum paid good divides in their nightly explorations and held well as nice demonstrations to some of the power dynamics going on internally.
Fumetsu no Anata (3)
“Generally flush with positive structural choices”
Fumetsu no Anata remains fundamentally strong in its latest third showing, keeping the series in overall favorable standings for another week. Thematically, episode three isn’t all that sharp with most of the takeaways extending from Fushi/March’s relationship resolving at face value, and collectively, this was a relatively straightforward piece of narrative. Be that as it may, it’s still executed with a good amount of grace and its conclusion is generally flush with positive structural choices that make it easy to be satisfied with.
Super Cub (4)
“A fundamentally sound episode”
Super Cub had another fine episode this week, one that set up a nice stroll through the daily tidbits of Koguma’s new job while giving another dose of the series’ understated scenic sensibilities. The show is achieving a good balance so far, where the actual Cub is featured enough to be distinctly involved yet not dominate the production, and Koguma’s life is stitched together with just the right amount of small triumphs – like this time around with her rain suit – to feel good about her progress and gently push things along as well. On a whole, this is a fundamentally sound episode and a welcomed inclusion in Super Cub’s run.
Mashiro no Oto (5)
“Not much to appreciate or be excited about with this one”
Not a game-changing episode of Mashiro no Oto this week – largely just dedicated to establishing the Shamisen Appreciation Club and positioning the Matsugorou Cup as a clear interest. And for that, there’s really not much to appreciate or be excited about with this one. Kamiki and Setsu’s reunion and their resulting piece is a nice bright spot at the tail end of episode five – but the content outside of that, which accounts for the vast majority of this showing, is buckled down in the type of energy, narrative stokes, and rudimentary conflicts that anyone familiar with anime would expect from basically any freshly established high school club in the medium. Mashiro no Oto is still overall one of Spring’s better products, but after this, I hope to see a more pointed episode next week.
Koikimo (5)
“Another heavily worn out wad of scenario writing and being stubborn in departing from those familiar flows and offering”
Koikimo comes back with more of the same – spending most of its time plodding along through another heavily worn out wad of scenario writing and being stubborn in departing from those familiar flows and offerings. With that said, the trip Ichika finds herself on and its correlating drama unsurprisingly turns up thin, very basic in substance especially on Tamaru’s end, and episode five’s waning bits when Ryou gets more directly involved at the movies isn’t built much better. Koikimo has always had noticeable limits in its text and greater craft, and episodes like this are just a reminder of that.
Higehiro (4)
“Outright carries four’s most relevant strokes on her own”
This was a decent turnout for Higehiro, though it’s still managed in a way that’s pretty glued to more conventional, tepid drama than anything that’s really fresh or immersive. Episode four is granted with a change of energy through the addition of Asami, and while her character is fairly complementary to what the show wants to do, she’s largely outworked by Gotou who just outright carries four’s most relevant strokes on her own. It’s not exactly a praiseworthy exchange – in a lot of ways, Gotou and Yoshida’s late half conversation shapes up as it did before – but it has its wrinkles and opens the door to a few suspicious hallways for the show to go down. How Higehiro handles itself from here should be interesting.
Osananajimi ga Zettai ni Makenai Love Comedy (3)
“Promptly proving to be an effective tool if one is trying to lose IQ”
Somehow managing to sink even deeper into the dumpster, Osamake portrays a completely contrived confession alongside an absolutely awful production effort, succeeding in being more terribly constructed than last week – and promptly proving to be an effective tool if one is trying to lose IQ.
The animation in this third episode is unceasingly bad: Virtually any given character is drawn inconsistently from scene to scene, and when the episode demands any longer strings of motion, it at most aspires to be on par with My Sister, My Writer in terms of quality. Even worse, whatever faint crumbs of optimism for anything concerning this show’s writing that had been built up to this point are decimated – washed away in the wave of thorough mental gymnastics Shuichi had to do to not only write the laughably dumb confession ending we got, the supporting writing leading to it, but to convince himself that it was a good idea in the first place in what is apparently his best effort at logic.
It’s clear that Osamake isn’t a lot of things – competent, thoughtful, smart, etc – the list goes. However, it is impressive – at least in so far with the new depth of low it’s able to reach.
