SEASONAL PRATTLE
Cleanly constructed and emotionally rich, Oregairu glides towards its end with only one more episode separating it from total closure. It’s no secret that this show has been exceptional practically all Summer long when it comes to the finer gears that make its genre space tick, but this eleventh outing is especially strong – offering credible dialogue, crisp illustrations, effective sound design, and an overall embraceable climax to long-standing character threads with heaps of grace. There’s plenty to appreciate right out of the box with eleven landing a number of sleek craft choices early on – looking very sharp when portraying a vulnerable Yui and associated atmosphere, and then confidently not dropping a beat once she’s isolated and grappling with her romantic struggle.
The goodness wouldn’t stop there. Eleven works its way through some healthy patches of banter and narrative positioning before culminating into the episode’s ultimate reward – Hachiman and Yukino finally letting their feelings be known in a way that’s very appropriate to the show’s meditative thoughts, values, and character logic. Oregairu is consistently peddling its personal journeys as not just routine plot beats, but true, deserved growth and it leverages that approach to beautiful results one more time here.
Deca-Dence (11)
“Craft choices on a whole that aren’t exactly the most elegant”
We’re nearly at the finish line now! This recent Deca-Dence was widely dedicated to clearing up narrative odds and ends while steadily building momentum for the series’ actual climax. And while it was fine enough when pen meets script to accomplish that, aesthetically, there’s a good chunk of compositions and craft choices on a whole that aren’t exactly the most elegant to put it very politely. Episode eleven just didn’t feel as visually snappy or as immersive as the series has mainly been during its bombastic bits, which of course, is nowhere near ideal given the magnitude of our Omega Gadoll fight and its corresponding stakes. I’m somewhat sad it wasn’t a little stronger here visually, especially since everything else was fairly solid during this week, but I’m hopeful it will make up for it with an emotionally satisfying and more polished conclusion as it comes to a close.
Kanojo Okarishimasu (11)
“Good amount of clean expressional work and attention to tone”
Kanojo Okarishimasu carries on, offering a chunk of content that neatly skates by almost entirely on Rie Takahashi noises. From a broad narrative view, I appreciated episode eleven’s intended goals, as well as the hurdles it had to climb to reach them. It’s difficult to satisfyingly string together dating scenes when one half of the couple is essentially mute. There needs to be a good amount of clean expressional work and attention to tone to capture Sumi’s behavior to the point that her moods come across as seamless and engaging to viewers. Thankfully, TMS Entertainment and Rie were up to the task – depicting everything from Sumi’s hesitation to her determination with really no friction at all as Kanojo Okarishimasu ultimately ends nicely on a dramatic push to bleed over into its finale.
The Misfit of Demon King Academy (12)
“Loosely tethered together plotting that viewers can’t get refunded”
One episode left to go and The Misfit of Demon King Academy takes a turn of tragedy, coughing up an episode that can easily be summarized as “RUSHED” to the point that the capital letters are justified. On that note, twelve is largely a carnival of undercooked, loosely tethered together plotting that viewers can’t get refunded – flailing around from Eleanor’s narrative conflict to a hilarious hasty war with less coordination than a late-stage Parkinson’s patient. Inevitably, the clowns behind this episode stop honking each other’s noses and attempt to offer a last-minute reveal with Lay, only to come up embarrassingly short as the reveal has been thoroughly hinted at for a good amount of time now. It’s rare to see a show stumble on its face like this, and even rarer when it’s so close to the finish line.
The God of High School (11)
“Blundering whirlwind of trite shonen cliches and completely silly scripting”
Lastly, even for this series’ typical level of quality, this was just outright terrible and embarrassing. This week, The God of the High School offered a blundering whirlwind of trite shonen cliches and completely silly scripting to the extent that its story is hardly even coherent; Absolutely hitting a clunker early by stepping on the toes of the Jin / lpyo fight with yet another pulled out of thin-air, contextless protagonist powerup, and then chasing that with a tall glass of Jugok randomly turning into a monster and freaking out for reasons unexplained, because you know, who needs storytelling? Calling this show “bad” at this point is a total understatement.
