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2023: My First Quarter in Anime
All the “quarter” I have left to review here amounts to thirty days. After sampling a bit of anime from each of the sixty years just past (and managing to post something about that every day), I supposed I’d have to push harder than I usually do through a mere handful of other series should I still want to wrap them up and move along at a regular demarcation point. I managed that in turn, but it might have pushed back and displaced memories of my much less extensive exposure to the titles in a single and altogether personal sweep through anime. Having wound up supposing I’d managed to enjoy that stunt of sorts (which neither left me “regretful the saner anime of the 1970s hadn’t endured” nor “jaded at last by the now-worn transition decade after 2000 or so,” as I’d wondered and worried at certain anticipatory moments once committed), that later realisation had a certain weight to it.
I did, though, manage to follow up on two of the titles I’d started for the first time, having just four episodes left of each of them. Those black-and-white series from the 1960s I’ve most wished I have more than just a few sample fansubs of (although there’s always the clear option of learning to understand Japanese and importing legitimate releases) seem to be the ones I knew led to something specific. A series where “three aliens arrive on Earth to observe and judge it, and disguise themselves as a mallard with a Moe Howard hairdo, a girl bunny rabbit, and an intermittently bipedal horse” hadn’t seemed quite as intriguing at first. When the first episode of Wonder Three happened to have the alien animals provide unobtrusive help to the secret agent big brother of the first boy they’d met, though, I did become more interested. It did seem to top “Anya’s spy cartoon” from Spy x Family. The penultimate episode I had subtitled had actually gone on to something a little closer to just “observing and judging,” but the secret agent was back in the last one I watched. So far as more observing and judging of my own might go, I do happen to also have a fair number of instalments of this anime’s 1960s localization into dubbed English, “The Amazing 3.” As with other efforts from back then it is possible to find, though, I have to admit to winding up thinking “well, I’m not that compelled to see more of that old animation.”
The Oh My Goddess! OVAs weren’t just “adaptations of a handful of manga chapters introducing more characters,” and looked nice enough even on DVD. As I kept watching their more original events, though, I couldn’t keep myself from grappling with the nagging sense of how the whole story might amount to “a young woman has to abandon her career over a specific interpretation of a tossed-off wish, but is just fine doting on ‘a nice guy.’” Part of my first exposure to this story was through an “anime MSTing,” but the other anime MSTings it also pointed me to just might have left me quick to resort to accusations of “wish fulfilment.” All through that, I had certain expectations of how the last extended-length instalment would play out, shaped in part by the opening credits. WHen I did get to it, though, I was surprised at a certain reconfiguration of the story. Perhaps it only amounted to a different yet just as familiar sort of “wish fulfilment,” but it actually left me a little more forgiving towards the experience. I did get to considering how there’s been a TV series adaptation about a decade after the OVAs, for all that it would have been from that “now-worn” era I’ve just alluded to. I also considered how I keep leaving off on the amiably rambling manga, but not to the point of fresh conviction to take one more chance on it.
After I’d settled on a few streaming titles to catch up to, the more sudden urge to watch something a little older off disc came to me as well. I have so many options there that a specific reason for any singular choice seems both necessary and a product of whim. A just-released economy Blu-Ray set of the continuation of Demon Slayer left sitting where I kept catching sight of it might have amounted to my latest reason. There are just a few other anime series under the control of Aniplex of America I’d prefer the chance to get Blu-Rays of closer in price to Blu-Rays from other labels (even if I haven’t gone so far as to acquire a “multi-region Blu-Ray player” and import certain British releases as some people do...) On the other hand, if this remains a singular experiment, it’s at least continued past even the “Funimation” brand name being unceremoniously discontinued in favour of Sony’s more recently acquired “Crunchyroll” being put on discs as well.
To get the shrink wrap off all of my discs of the series, I started by revisiting the Demon Slayer movie Mugen Train, which I’d already seen streaming. After setting box office records, the movie adapting manga chapters had been broken into “TV episodes,” but with a “bonus episode” leading into its story by offering another glimpse at a character who hadn’t made it to the end credits. Buying the set of those episodes was, I suppose, stepping away from absolute penny-pinching; I wasn’t interested in watching them instead of the movie to see if “extra scenes” had been added. I also have to admit to starting with a certain and familiar amount of lingering petty resentment, but it didn’t take that long until I’d got caught up in the action again, even if with some continued awareness of just what the production values added and a certain sense of the movie breaking into definite “acts.” With the movie finished again, it was straight on to the next regular block of TV episodes, the “Entertainment District arc.” Beginning with a double-length episode working Tanjiro and his fellow young demon slayers through their organization’s recovery program again (and some measure of “wasn’t the movie’s end a big deal?”), it went on to them getting entangled with another master swordsman and infiltrating a district of urbane, and sometimes carefully vague, pleasures alongside him. They start off there disguised as young women, but this part of the story didn’t last as long as I’d expected before it was on to ever-escalating action. There were plenty of clutch performances with new skills being deployed and refined on the fly, if with “you only thought I was bested!” applied to both sides. Things got exciting enough I broke my regular viewing schedule once and watched two late episodes in a row. It could be the “good guys and bad guys (who get some measure of final pathos)” simplicity of Demon Slayer appeals to me in a certain way. Even with another plot arc from the not overly-lengthy manga set to air, though, I’m more or less resolved right now to go for “triple or nothing” and wait for the possibility of more economy Blu-Rays before continuing.
The thought of cutting off Delicious Party Pretty Cure partway through, perhaps to go straight on to the next series in the magical girl franchise with its certain number of “this is a bit different” promises, did come to mind. In the end, though, I pushed through the food-themed adventures I’d begun before, and the series could handle that accelerated pace. The production values didn’t slip very much after picking up in the nick of time for me three months ago, even if the subtitles could still read stiltedly and I just might have taken a good bit of interest in the show’s formula for action being avoided in an episode or two. The conclusion itself was pretty satisfying, and I am looking ahead to that next Pretty Cure series now streaming. I also took some first notice of a recent announcement a rather earlier instalment in the franchise is going to get a special continuation with its main character grown into early adulthood. If this does amount to something different from “kids’ stuff” and “stuff for those accused of arrested adolescent immaturity” alike, it might be interesting.
Sitting out streaming through January and February for the sake of concentrating on each past year of anime in turn, I still managed to notice complaints the season was thin on impressive and respectable titles. This provoked an altogether personal sense of “and this is the ‘sixty-first year’ under way,” which did concern me a bit. Then, series started missing air dates and overall grinding to a halt. While shows Aniplex was involved with were the first to fall, reminding me of specific problems there over the past few years, other titles were caught too. The sense of “overseas in-betweening and other subcontracting” amounting to mainland China in the face of fresh health problems there had a certain unfortunate resonance when remembering how I’d only just managed to rally from staying three months behind everyone else just to make sure another season didn’t collapse. I suppose I’m now grappling with the thought of just falling into that again and waiting for all-clears, however entangled that might be with “stuff given away” and what fragments of more rewarding commentary from others I do still find.
I took one chance in March, though, on catching up to the continuation of the Vinland Saga anime. The blood and thunder of its first episodes fades back (but doesn’t vanish altogether) as a new character, a young man in Dane-dominated England named Einar, is captured into slavery even as his female relations are cut down. Sold to a farm on Denmark, he finds himself alongside another young slave sunk into utter resignation named Thorfinn. As Thorfinn tries to find a way out from having lost out on the chance to take personal revenge amid perpetual violence and the sense even some (but not all) of those born into that world find no satisfaction in it, I did find interest in discovering certain bits of the original manga had faded from my memory. There was a slight wrinkle every so often when episodes on Netflix didn’t seem to have English subtitles to access, but the show does happen to be streaming on Crunchyroll as well. Supposing it’ll continue for another three months, I’m aware of machinations beyond the farm beginning to catch up its people.
So far as something much lighter went, I decided to watch the brief episodes of a Love Live spinoff called Nijiyon, which I understand was adapted from a “four-panel gag manga.” It didn’t even take all of the first episode to realise it was computer-animated, but I managed to deal with that. I then spent a little time contemplating how the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club character designs had been simplified from the mobile game to animation, then simplified again to this spinoff, and I was inclined to suppose it “bonus content” rather than “a potential introduction.” However, a few episodes involving actual singing rather than just having a few characters bounce off each other again for more gags helped keep up my attention.
I did, though, manage to follow up on two of the titles I’d started for the first time, having just four episodes left of each of them. Those black-and-white series from the 1960s I’ve most wished I have more than just a few sample fansubs of (although there’s always the clear option of learning to understand Japanese and importing legitimate releases) seem to be the ones I knew led to something specific. A series where “three aliens arrive on Earth to observe and judge it, and disguise themselves as a mallard with a Moe Howard hairdo, a girl bunny rabbit, and an intermittently bipedal horse” hadn’t seemed quite as intriguing at first. When the first episode of Wonder Three happened to have the alien animals provide unobtrusive help to the secret agent big brother of the first boy they’d met, though, I did become more interested. It did seem to top “Anya’s spy cartoon” from Spy x Family. The penultimate episode I had subtitled had actually gone on to something a little closer to just “observing and judging,” but the secret agent was back in the last one I watched. So far as more observing and judging of my own might go, I do happen to also have a fair number of instalments of this anime’s 1960s localization into dubbed English, “The Amazing 3.” As with other efforts from back then it is possible to find, though, I have to admit to winding up thinking “well, I’m not that compelled to see more of that old animation.”
The Oh My Goddess! OVAs weren’t just “adaptations of a handful of manga chapters introducing more characters,” and looked nice enough even on DVD. As I kept watching their more original events, though, I couldn’t keep myself from grappling with the nagging sense of how the whole story might amount to “a young woman has to abandon her career over a specific interpretation of a tossed-off wish, but is just fine doting on ‘a nice guy.’” Part of my first exposure to this story was through an “anime MSTing,” but the other anime MSTings it also pointed me to just might have left me quick to resort to accusations of “wish fulfilment.” All through that, I had certain expectations of how the last extended-length instalment would play out, shaped in part by the opening credits. WHen I did get to it, though, I was surprised at a certain reconfiguration of the story. Perhaps it only amounted to a different yet just as familiar sort of “wish fulfilment,” but it actually left me a little more forgiving towards the experience. I did get to considering how there’s been a TV series adaptation about a decade after the OVAs, for all that it would have been from that “now-worn” era I’ve just alluded to. I also considered how I keep leaving off on the amiably rambling manga, but not to the point of fresh conviction to take one more chance on it.
After I’d settled on a few streaming titles to catch up to, the more sudden urge to watch something a little older off disc came to me as well. I have so many options there that a specific reason for any singular choice seems both necessary and a product of whim. A just-released economy Blu-Ray set of the continuation of Demon Slayer left sitting where I kept catching sight of it might have amounted to my latest reason. There are just a few other anime series under the control of Aniplex of America I’d prefer the chance to get Blu-Rays of closer in price to Blu-Rays from other labels (even if I haven’t gone so far as to acquire a “multi-region Blu-Ray player” and import certain British releases as some people do...) On the other hand, if this remains a singular experiment, it’s at least continued past even the “Funimation” brand name being unceremoniously discontinued in favour of Sony’s more recently acquired “Crunchyroll” being put on discs as well.
To get the shrink wrap off all of my discs of the series, I started by revisiting the Demon Slayer movie Mugen Train, which I’d already seen streaming. After setting box office records, the movie adapting manga chapters had been broken into “TV episodes,” but with a “bonus episode” leading into its story by offering another glimpse at a character who hadn’t made it to the end credits. Buying the set of those episodes was, I suppose, stepping away from absolute penny-pinching; I wasn’t interested in watching them instead of the movie to see if “extra scenes” had been added. I also have to admit to starting with a certain and familiar amount of lingering petty resentment, but it didn’t take that long until I’d got caught up in the action again, even if with some continued awareness of just what the production values added and a certain sense of the movie breaking into definite “acts.” With the movie finished again, it was straight on to the next regular block of TV episodes, the “Entertainment District arc.” Beginning with a double-length episode working Tanjiro and his fellow young demon slayers through their organization’s recovery program again (and some measure of “wasn’t the movie’s end a big deal?”), it went on to them getting entangled with another master swordsman and infiltrating a district of urbane, and sometimes carefully vague, pleasures alongside him. They start off there disguised as young women, but this part of the story didn’t last as long as I’d expected before it was on to ever-escalating action. There were plenty of clutch performances with new skills being deployed and refined on the fly, if with “you only thought I was bested!” applied to both sides. Things got exciting enough I broke my regular viewing schedule once and watched two late episodes in a row. It could be the “good guys and bad guys (who get some measure of final pathos)” simplicity of Demon Slayer appeals to me in a certain way. Even with another plot arc from the not overly-lengthy manga set to air, though, I’m more or less resolved right now to go for “triple or nothing” and wait for the possibility of more economy Blu-Rays before continuing.
The thought of cutting off Delicious Party Pretty Cure partway through, perhaps to go straight on to the next series in the magical girl franchise with its certain number of “this is a bit different” promises, did come to mind. In the end, though, I pushed through the food-themed adventures I’d begun before, and the series could handle that accelerated pace. The production values didn’t slip very much after picking up in the nick of time for me three months ago, even if the subtitles could still read stiltedly and I just might have taken a good bit of interest in the show’s formula for action being avoided in an episode or two. The conclusion itself was pretty satisfying, and I am looking ahead to that next Pretty Cure series now streaming. I also took some first notice of a recent announcement a rather earlier instalment in the franchise is going to get a special continuation with its main character grown into early adulthood. If this does amount to something different from “kids’ stuff” and “stuff for those accused of arrested adolescent immaturity” alike, it might be interesting.
Sitting out streaming through January and February for the sake of concentrating on each past year of anime in turn, I still managed to notice complaints the season was thin on impressive and respectable titles. This provoked an altogether personal sense of “and this is the ‘sixty-first year’ under way,” which did concern me a bit. Then, series started missing air dates and overall grinding to a halt. While shows Aniplex was involved with were the first to fall, reminding me of specific problems there over the past few years, other titles were caught too. The sense of “overseas in-betweening and other subcontracting” amounting to mainland China in the face of fresh health problems there had a certain unfortunate resonance when remembering how I’d only just managed to rally from staying three months behind everyone else just to make sure another season didn’t collapse. I suppose I’m now grappling with the thought of just falling into that again and waiting for all-clears, however entangled that might be with “stuff given away” and what fragments of more rewarding commentary from others I do still find.
I took one chance in March, though, on catching up to the continuation of the Vinland Saga anime. The blood and thunder of its first episodes fades back (but doesn’t vanish altogether) as a new character, a young man in Dane-dominated England named Einar, is captured into slavery even as his female relations are cut down. Sold to a farm on Denmark, he finds himself alongside another young slave sunk into utter resignation named Thorfinn. As Thorfinn tries to find a way out from having lost out on the chance to take personal revenge amid perpetual violence and the sense even some (but not all) of those born into that world find no satisfaction in it, I did find interest in discovering certain bits of the original manga had faded from my memory. There was a slight wrinkle every so often when episodes on Netflix didn’t seem to have English subtitles to access, but the show does happen to be streaming on Crunchyroll as well. Supposing it’ll continue for another three months, I’m aware of machinations beyond the farm beginning to catch up its people.
So far as something much lighter went, I decided to watch the brief episodes of a Love Live spinoff called Nijiyon, which I understand was adapted from a “four-panel gag manga.” It didn’t even take all of the first episode to realise it was computer-animated, but I managed to deal with that. I then spent a little time contemplating how the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club character designs had been simplified from the mobile game to animation, then simplified again to this spinoff, and I was inclined to suppose it “bonus content” rather than “a potential introduction.” However, a few episodes involving actual singing rather than just having a few characters bounce off each other again for more gags helped keep up my attention.