SEASONAL PRATTLE
New decade, new year, same old seasonal anime check-ins. After a generous holiday vacation, Seasonal Prattle is back – dumping its weekly short takes on airing aiming that’s geared more towards overall structural value on an episodic basis than anything else. So without further ado let’s get into Winter 2020, and if you couldn’t already tell from the cover photo above, Magia Record leads the pack.
It’s hard not to say that this was Winter’s overall brightest anime debut so far, one that smoothly captured the gravity and totality of the franchise’s spirit through smart construction choices and a good balance of visual and textual storytelling. Iroha is positioned better than a single watch would suggest; Episode one finds a variety of ways both subtle and direct to begin the sculpting process of her character – not hesitating to flex its creativity along the way even during typical literary devices such as flashbacks. This combined with a narrative start that offers a fair amount of intrigue makes our opening entry a pleasure – clear from the stance of entertainment and commendable in the broader extent of art. Really looking forward to what’s next.
Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! (1)
Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! has more than enough going for it in base craft and style to sell its opening material with little friction – leaning on an exterior that’s energetic in design and just quirky enough to stick when it counts. The core cast gels well here: Asakusa and friends are decisively more compelling as a full group than individually, and episode one does a good job to consistently keep them all on screen. Narratively, it’s going to be interesting to see how much mileage can be squeezed out of Eizouken’s premise and just how informative it will be concerning anime creation moving forward – but it’s satisfying for now. Good start.
ID:Invaded (1 + 2)
ID:Invaded is another case of an accumulation of details forming something greater than the sum of its parts: There’s a good amount of pop in its directorial decisions and enough sound pieces of writing across the two episodes currently available that in unison, create a decent case to be optimistic about future weeks to come. Sakaido looks reasonably competent so far as a lead, and it’s easy to find the show’s underlying concept refreshing. The mystery genre has always been one that requires a notable amount of dexterity to get right, and ID: Invaded seems to be up to the challenge.
Koisuru Asteroid (1)
Koisuru Asteroid enters with a reasonable chunk of content, not exactly giving viewers anything noteworthy in its writing but at least not drowning in that department either. Some appreciable craft polish from Doga Kobo make what’s thoroughly yet another moe club show a bit more valuable, however, that’s essentially where the positives end. Everything from its telling down to the cast’s characterization is deeply by the books – steadily on course for a middling ride as mild emotional conflict and hardships needing to be overcome all backed by the fluff of moe scripting are likely on the menu. It’s going to be key moving forward for Koisuru Asteroid to offer wrinkles in its run to separate itself from the very crowded room of its peers. Fine all in all.
Darwin’s Game (1)
Lastly, even with a double-length premiere, Darwin’s Game doesn’t seem to offer anything different than works you expect in its niche – often falling prey to predictable patches of writing that are overtly edgy in design. For that, much of episode one flows as an all too eager attempt to grab viewer attention, never truly aiming to flesh out its death game premise or the characters involved, but just hoping the incidental details and natural curiosity it invokes will carry it home (a result that’s a mixed bag at best). Darwin’s Game needs to lean more heavily on storytelling fundamentals and give viewers a concrete reason to care about any of its elements – especially its leads. Otherwise, it’s going to be hard to consider this as anything beyond “okay in very limited spots”.
