“QUOTE OF THE WEEK”
– A thread from someone who just wants to cut to the chase and not have to wade through Quintessential Quintuplets’ mediocre harem beats. I honestly can’t blame them.
SEASONAL PRATTLE
Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai (4)
Subtler choices like its comprehension of character chemistry, timely sound cues and persistent use of clean body language have been enjoyable staples of Kaguya-sama for awhile. So it’s nice to see this latest showing put a clear emphasis on those aspects while offerings one of the series’ strongest stretch of skits to date. The cat ears, word game, and French school meeting segments all had their fair share of louder strengths – but episode four’s overarching ability to consistently nails its articulation of the cast’s uncertainty and small victories is the real highlight. Wonderful job with the little intangible workings that makes episodes like this a complete pleasure.
Mob Psycho 100 s2 (4)
It’s pretty satisfying to be served yet another well designed episode of Mob Psycho 100, but it’s even more satisfying when that design is backed by engaging writing. So while I can point to more commendable sequences in here like Dimple’s fistfight – the way Itsuki Tsuchigami was able to make that pop and turn it into a spectacle by itself – the general approach to this week deserves some love. Almost every narrative turn and stroke down to the reserved use of comedy is in service of laying the ground floor for Mogami, who was introduced beautifully. All shreds of tension and malice were absolutely accounted for and it shows.
The Rising of the Shield Hero (4)
Strong emotional sell from Shield Hero this time around and arguably the best portrayal of Naofumi’s headspace yet. With a reasonable craft springboard, the desperation of Naofumi’s situation was sharply conveyed and his ever boiling level of frustration, easy to understand, as his bout with Spear Hero inevitably got interfered with. The fallout of this event offered a nice window into Naofumi’s dire perspective, in which Shield Hero’s script did a sturdy job capitalizing on – and ultimately made way for Kevin Penkin to further cements himself as the true MVP of this series. Our late half track is gorgeous and squeezes every emotive drop that it can to a rather fitting scene.
The Promised Neverland (4)
The Promised Neverland came together nicely this week, delivering an episode that didn’t quite match the dramatic propulsion of the show’s earlier material, but still had its fair share of hooks to get a viewer invested. The way this series works its close knit conversations is becoming a very swift strength: Episode 4 has plenty of behind the door encounters – from Krone’s isolated antics to Emma’s late night run in with Gilda – that have effective dialogue choices and craft emphasis to keep them palpable. It’s great to see this show is so confident in its scene-to-scene design that it can safely land a dialogue heavy episode to suspenseful effect without taking too much structural risk.
Kakegurui xx (4)
Kakegurui actually managed to mitigate its usual downside of robbing its own climaxes with a thick degree of predictability by leaning on an episode that was flat out fun to follow. With Mary at the helm and elevated by some nice directorial quirks and splashes of expressional work; Doing the easy math each round to see how a loss could be avoided while watching a confident Mary adapt to the game was a good time. For as much as I beat Kakegurui over the head for its obvious outcomes, figuring out the trick to each gamble and just generally getting to that point can be very satisfying. I’m happy this episode reminded me of that.
Dororo (4)
This was pretty limited in comparison to the steady dose of quality entries that Dororo has been dishing out, but still a decent showing all in all. Seeing Hyakkimaru gain back a vital sense for communication like his hearing is rewarding, and this show’s general grasp of storytelling doesn’t make our events feel too sluggish in the process. However, I am hoping next week can do a better job of carrying the torch.
Doukyonin wa Hiza (4)
Happy to see Doukyonin wa Hiza continue to be fair as a soothing piece – offering a bit of lighthearted drama with Haru’s collar and dismantling that with its usual genuine love for pets. I’m not exactly sure how much mileage we can get on Haru being a charming good cat, but I’m certainly not opposed to finding out. I’m here for adorable, low-stress cat time and I’ll stick around as long as we continue to get that.
Domestic na Kanojo (4)
A month in and Domestic na Kanojo is still largely the same cheesy, soap opera tier drama laced with frustrating character logic – especially around every narrative stroke that concerns Hina. Her decision making is just far too silly, and this show’s script, way too manufactured for me to buy into the drama surrounding her affair with any reasonable amount of weight. Thus the meat of episode four feels like an extremely flat portrayal of something I would expect to see on daytime TV – with Diomedea unfortunately not being sharp enough to lean on other resources to make the time spent more compelling.
W’z (5)
And finally we make our way to our last entry this week with W’z. Beyond some serviceable writing for Hana & Senri’s backstory, W’z was essentially right at home with its standard degree of quality. This series still struggles to make even its bolder narrative strokes compelling; Both fights today are very underwhelming, drenched in the heap of flat dialogue and shoddy craft decisions that are quickly become every week fixtures. It’s hard to imagine GoHands salvaging this property with a second-half turnaround, but if they have some tricks up their sleeves to make that happen, hopefully, they start pulling them out next week.
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