“QUOTE OF THE WEEK”

– A thread created the other day suggesting and connecting the dots to Kaguya-sama’s scores being botted and inorganically altered. Apparently, the same thing happened to Bunny Girl Senpai last Fall too. Hmmmmmm.

 

SEASONAL PRATTLE

The Promised Neverland (10)

Every emotion, every interaction, every narrative turn, just comes across so clean and bold that it’s hard to deny that this week isn’t punching with the best of them.  It’s a pleasure seeing Katsunori continue to raise the ceiling of key beats through tight sound design  – It’s been touched on Seasonal Prattle before but the backing tracks are equally as applaudable as the use of incidental noise and silence yet again. A timely creek from an old swinging lantern that makes Isabella’s reaction stab that much harder, the quiet frustration brewing from Emma as Norman departs, Ray’s depressive humming before his last day, etc, there’s a lot to appreciate on the audio’s end alone. So couple that with another dose of The Promised Neverland’s talent for linking engaging composition with easily digestible, emotional stricken storytelling and you have a very delicious dish. Fingers crossed that it continues to be this good.

Kaguya-sama wa Kokuraseta (10)

Often, anime residing in the comedy genre space that skate on a linear gimmick tend to lose steam around this time of the season. With only a few episodes left, and thus, character shticks and comedic formulas thoroughly established – these works simply lack the wiggle to make it to the finish line with any real uptick in quality, ending up coasting through the ribbon in the same fashion they’ve been operating in all along. Luckily Kaguya-sama doesn’t seem to be hindered by this common occurrence, especially after this episode that’s  arguably its most balanced performance yet.  Strong use of the core cast with Ishigami notably playing an integral role with our narrative’s progression, plenty of praiseworthy cuts that serve to guide the underlining jokes attached to them to greater heights, and just a concentrated dose of adorable that doesn’t skip a beat from last week’s cute second half all headline this highly enjoyable episode. Kaguya-sama is still in excellent shape as it looks to close Winter out.

Kakegurui xx (10)

Pushing its streak of quality showings forward, Kakegurui manages another thoughtfully constructed episode – a tense display leveraging Sayaka’s overtly logical headspace to a rewarding finish, all choreographed with smooth aesthetic effort and grace.  Smart use of close-ups and plenty of small, poignant moments with various design appeal makes learning the Tower of the Doors’ secret not just engaging, but watching Sayaka physically go through the motions of winning and losing its own treat.  The way her arc was positioned made it fairly clear her internal logic would be her own downfall, and thus, there was always a decent possibility that Kakegurui could fall back chest first through a familiar sword of predictability. Thankfully, the writing here is much sharper than that. It’s great to see this episode finish with a twist that satisfies Sayaka’s character, cleverly avoids the previously mentioned pitfall, and reinforces just how dominant Kirari is all in one swing. Good job.

Dororo (10) 

One step forward one step back. Dororo had a fine showing this week at a quick glance, doing a ton of justice for Tahoumaru as we get a more insightful dive into his character that takes center stage. Unfourantley,  this episode’s ability to texture and compartmentalize his relationships and perspectives is basically all it has going for it , not even mustering up half the dramatic weight or poise of something like episode nine/three or the propulsive nature of a six/four. Dororo is steady in its writing to such an extent that it’s never actively “backfiring”, however. with little embellishment in ways of tone or visual portrayal like we received here, episodes can come off as pretty limited in the bigger picture despite being textually reasonable.

Mob Psycho 100 s2 (10)

There’s little question that this latest edition of Mob Psycho was packed with plenty of visual craft goodness – most notably dictating weight, flexibility, and velocity in slick fashion during Shibata oriented parts. Be that as it may, that’s virtually where this episode’s merits end.  Ten is in a bit of a weird bind with itself where its base writing and characterization is notably outweighed in quality by its snappy production.  There are times where an attempt to land a gag abruptly interfere with the gravity of its reality (like Reigen repeatedly “getting luck”), resulting in the scene feeling underwhelming in both its potential respects as comedic and bombastic. Beyond that, we’re still dealing with a slew of characters, including a handful of key ones, that are so skimpily established that their involvement is hard to earnestly care for. Reasonable episode all in all, but it’s becoming more obvious that certain aspects of this arc could use more texture.

 

The Rising of the Shield Hero (10)

 This week’s Shield Hero isn’t even worth unpacking  the inadequate muck that it passes off as an episode, as it’s essentially a retread of various shortcomings that have been highlighted recently. With that said, the tumble downhill for this show continues to little surprise.

 

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