2025: My Third Quarter in Anime
Oct. 1st, 2025 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAware I’d slid back into “let someone else take the chance on being horribly disappointed by new anime series” and conscious even that just might be a step towards “making a great show of disdain for all ‘recent’ anime,” I resolved to watch a few streaming series “with everyone else.” As soon as I’d started them, I was feeling kind of bad about “only watching the safest bets from among the most popular titles and very much depending on established names.” It took me a little while to think about the varied older titles I was also watching, a while longer to remember some unfortunate examples of “sequels much fault was found with for not matching the brilliance of the original production,” and some more time again to consider the examples I’ve piled up over a certain number of years of when I just didn’t seem as offended by certain series “everyone else” kept, or keep, singling out for condemnation, to say nothing of some perhaps more unfortunate instances when I wasn’t as impressed with some shows as insistences would have it. After all of that, in the end I suppose I was in general contented with all the anime I watched in the past three months, and conscious those months brought me up to another big anniversary of when I joined the anime club at university.
The paranormal action of DAN DA DAN had left off on a cliffhanger. I didn’t have too much trouble getting back up to speed; instead, I suppose I was reminded of the troubled comments I’d seen back when the very first episode of the anime had premiered. While I hadn’t been bothered myself then, now the fix the female lead Momo was in seemed just a bit closer to the real-life nastiness that was once covered with the euphemism “a fate worse than death.” Once she’d got out of that via her own psychic powers, though, my feelings did improve; I suppose I was also inclined to think the young male characters of the series were that much more likely to lose most of their clothes. The series kept pelting along from there through several grandiose encounters with plenty of impressive animation (and the perhaps-occasional more character-focused moment). It then left off on a more amusing cliffhanger than before, and a promise of more episodes showed up as well.
Thoughts of turning back to my accumulating volumes of the My Dress-Up Darling manga (that just perhaps sprang from an impression the manga the anime had already adapted hadn’t been all that “overwhelmingly better-looking,” for whatever meaning “better” might pack) were headed off by an announcement showing up at just the right moment. Regardless of the additional wait, I seemed able to dive back into its cosplay misadventures. While still quite conscious of how I’m not as interested in “real life cosplay” as a lot of other fans appear to be, I suppose I was focusing on its presence in the series because of a personal assumption that to see the show too much as “when will the two leads realise/admit to their full affection for each other?” would only result in frustration. As it turned out, though, a bit of misunderstanding did lead to an entertaining tease, if also then to the sort of “I’ve made up my mind!” resolution I was ready to suppose would fizzle out again. With that acknowledged the characters did stay fun; I sort of appreciated Marin and Wakana’s regular classmates getting more attention paid to them for a plot arc (and turning out to be just fine with the main characters being “fans.”) As other cosplay enthusiasts were introduced there was a theme of “becoming someone else is a way of really being yourself” and a certain reassurance that “you don’t have to cut this off at a certain age.”
I’d read Keiichi Arawai’s CITY manga after reading Nichijou, but I suppose both of them might not have interested me quite as much as Nichijou’s anime adaptation. Beyond the charms of the adaptation, I’d also wondered if Nichijou’s robot girl Nono had been the heart of the whole story there and the absence of anyone comparable from the later manga had been an additional problem. When I saw CITY was going get an anime adaptation as well, and Kyoto Animation would be working on it just as they’d worked on Nichijou, my interest did perk up.
The animation in CITY went to some lengths to look distinctive, with backgrounds as flatly coloured as the characters themselves and enough “extra linework” to the characters (and their shadows) to give a sense of “extra effort,” as limited as that comment seems. The hefty doses of absurd comedy might be a little easier to call appealing. Along the way, though, I did happen to wonder if, indeed, there was a bit of “heart” too in the subplot of two high school girls, one of who is going to be leaving the city soon. I glanced at the first volume of the manga and had the impression the anime had at the very least been selective with what it adapted. So far as “what animation adds,” the concluding episode of the anime had included a musical.
Deciding to check in on a series from a previous season I’d seen some more or less encouraging comments about, I began watching Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. It began with a young woman looking for a post-graduation job and lucking into becoming one of the “magical girls” who work for multiple companies cleaning up blobby monsters with lots of eyes. A part of me was ready to think back and identify other “twentysomethings at work” anime series providing a certain leaven among the familiar complaints that “every anime series involves and exalts teenagers”; another part of me could think back to one or two series promising “a grown-up take on ‘magical girls’” and suppose Magilumiere felt far more pleasant than them. At the same time, though, yet another part of me was supposing a certain number of people might well be complaining things were “too pleasant” in contrast to their take on what they blame for what might well be the human condition itself. While there were glimpses of a large and unpleasant magical girl firm headed by a not altogether pleasant man, the “startup” the main character goes to work for has just five members including her and works well, and there were glimpses of other, apparently pleasant firms too. It was intriguing that the main character’s magical girl costume had a trim, clean, and uncomplicated look to it (even as the somewhat older man heading her company wears a frilly magical girl dress in the office) and her “attack names” had a sort of matter-of-fact, even technical feel to them. However, the spells (and her costume) being produced by a young man typing on a computer back in the office did leave me aware of how far many have soured on “tech firms” in particular or most of all, if also thinking about those who complain about the “demystification” of fantastic stories through the removal of vague, hand-waving claims that “you just have to believe and it comes from somewhere inside you!” I knew the anime was an adaptation of a manga, but there appears to be a promise of more episodes ahead.
Even if it was one of those now-rare series that fall for whatever reason through the cracks of official licensing for streaming yet do get “fansubbed,” a third series in the Shinkalion giant robot franchise managed to get my attention. I did wait until I’d accumulated all of those fansubs to start watching Shinkalion Change the World, aware at that point that it was again a bit shorter than the series that had preceded it. However, I’d also picked up on the unobtrusive suggestion that it wasn’t “set in the same universe” as the original series and its sequel, and noticed how it offered a take on things just a little bit different than before. Where before the pilots of the Shinkansen bullet trains that transform into giant robots had been grade school boys, the pilots here are junior high students in school uniforms. They seem to start with a bit more in the way of “built-in issues to work through,” although I could imagine this being interpreted as “they mope an awful lot.” I’d reacted to the original anime with the amused thought that “it’s good to get someone interested in ‘giant robots’ early; that’s what happened with me!” Now, I suppose I was thinking a bit of certain complaints revolving around apparent claims from people not altogether familiar with mecha anime that “this series is focused on the characters, not the machines...” There don’t seem to have been any new designs of Shinkansen trains introduced since the original series; once again, the designs of the robots they turn into were tweaked. Imagining just what sort of merchandising is available (rather than bothering to see if I could actually look it up), I was amused by the suggestion that if you just buy the train, you do get a robot, but if you want a fully equipped robot you have to buy an additional “support vehicle” to disassemble and attach to that robot. Beyond that, I did wonder about the characters logging into a virtual reality “metaverse,” even if this might allow for the lone girl among the pilots, once more stuck piloting the violet-trimmed Shinkansen stationed up north on the island of Hokkaido, to interact with the other characters a bit more. The enemy monster robots of the week continue to be tossed into a generic battlespace before the action begins, even if there are occasional insistences that a bit of property damage might happen just as they’re captured and characters are sometimes hurt by that damage. Noticing all of those differences and similarities might have been part of what interested me about the first episodes of the series. I am wondering going forward whether I’ll think “they’d just set up an interesting situation when it was resolved” or “well, that sort of situation couldn’t have been stretched out forever...”
Aware the “seasons” Attack on Titan is divided into have varying numbers of episodes in them, I picked up my viewing pace in these three months. I was also aware that this time I had got to the part, or at least the first part, of the story where I’d supposed while reading the manga people had had problems with. The main characters depose their established government with a sort of “we’ve risked our lives; we know best” motivation, battling other humans and finding someone among their own ranks who’s inherited the right to rule amid an increasing sense of “hereditary talents.” However, I’d at least forgotten there were in fact other people with about the same heredity, and I’d also pretty much forgotten the grandiose conclusion to this part of the plot. After that the characters managed to get to their ultimate destination for much of the series, and “back where it all began” there was another massive action setpiece, portions of which were now familiar but bits of which still surprised. For an episode or two it teetered on the edge of feeling over the top compared to the rest of the series, and then it seemed to stabilize. With that the mysterious backstory filled in, the world of the series expanded and updated beyond the sort of “post-medieval” feeling it had had within its walls (if not quite to “the present day”), and things got to another point I’d supposed people had had even more problems with, with certain real-world moments in history invoked but in such a way as to imply “these persecuted people might in fact be an actual threat to others.” So far as a quibble more my own goes, I was conscious of the animation no longer including extra-thick outlines around the characters, which had made it bit more distinctive starting off. Still, in having finished the manga myself I’m aware I’m ready to keep taking in its adaptation. Before heading on I did take on a few more OVAs only available in “fansubbed” form; they started off as “a glimpse back to when things were simpler and more characters were still alive,” but the very last of them did include something I’d only watched in these three months, if before turning back to earlier moments.
Having managed to schedule Minky Momo to finish spring with “the episode” packing the moment fans half-joke about these days, I had a few ideas of how things would pick up again from there. The magical girl series from the years before Sailor Moon redefined what that genre label meant did something else altogether. Momo’s original, magical parents began finding mysterious gens in their fantastic kingdom somewhere up above the sky. When the gems were placed in the crown Momo’s good deeds reawakening dreams and imagination on Earth hadn’t quite finished setting with precious stones (it had been promised completing that would let the kingdom return to Earth), they were converted into laserdiscs that played back the adventures of a new Momo, wearing a slightly different outfit and new magical necklace and still transforming into grown-up roles. (The reanimation of her transformation sequence did take out that particular glimpse of the grown-up Momo that had given me idle thoughts of “there to grab the attention of bored older brothers stuck keeping an eye on their younger sisters” before I started really understanding the audience for this particular series had stretched to more suspicious characters...) She even still got around sometimes in the Gourmet Poppo, which I’d supposed too large a toy to have met sales targets. The first two episodes I watched in July had me wondering if the series would go forward as fractured fairy tales, some Japanese and some western, and then things moved back towards the “real” world as it had been before. All of this might have seemed more of a pleasant bonus than a profound expansion upon the series, but in the end everything did manage to link up to the original Momo in a satisfying way. I had known there’d been another Minky Momo series, but it wasn’t until the close of these three months that I really understood it had been made several years later using new character designs. In letting that second series wait “for now,” I might have to admit to being influenced by a somewhat different sort of “single random comment” than I’ve complained about before. The My Lovesick Life as a ’90s Otaku manga managed to have a minor character distinguish between the two series and appear to prefer the first.
When I received the Blu-Ray set of the second half of the Urusei Yatsura remake as released over here by Sentai Filmworks, I mulled that over for a little while and then decided that as I’d managed to enjoy that recent series even after having seen much of the 1980s original, I might as well first finish watching that original via the recent Discotek Media releases. Having not begun that show via those releases (which may say too much through too few words), I needed a little more time to figure out not just where to pick up again (well into the third of four Blu-Ray sets) but also what episodes to revisit for the sake of “doing something with the earlier sets too.” I tracked down a suggestion of “ten episodes to start with” I’d remembered seeing and then, with the feeling the suggestion did tilt towards “this is a serious and respectable series, anchored by artistic merit and the development of genuine feeling between Ataru and Lum,” tossed in the first half of the very first episode, the one and a half episodes I’d once mentioned had stuck in my mind (and even the other half of the early episode), and the first movie Only You for the sake of opening it as well, having seen it before via official streaming.
I then jumped ahead to where I’d left off before the remake had showed up, having thought at the time the third movie Remember My Love would “pick things up again in a big way” even with a certain impression all four movies that followed Beautiful Dreamer are sort of shrugged off by the accepted opinion. The third movie did start off with some impressive animation at a crowded theme park, and even if things slowed down afterwards I found some further interest in the way some of that slowing down involved “drifting back to ‘normal life.’” When I started into the television episodes I knew had followed it I did notice one of the movie’s “original characters” appearing in the background every so often. More than that, I was remembering my old half-complaint that the series had come to feel stretched out. With that feeling less acute and my enjoyment increased starting off, I wondered if, in fact, it been less a matter of “needing to keep from running out of manga to adapt” and more “diverting effort to the movie.” That, though, did have me wondering about the three movies still to get to, and when that might happen working through the rest of the series.
Along the way I had decided to at least see if the discs I hadn’t watched would play. I would put them in my Blu-Ray player early on weekend mornings and let them run until the early afternoon with the volume muted. Happening to pass by my TV every so often, though, had me thinking those glimpses felt more familiar than when I’d had those one and a half episodes rattling around in my head and supposing it would be nice to drop back in on more of the series if only I could find the time. Letting the discs play, anyway, had made me a little more aware of just how fast someone might be able to get through even “long series” if they could sit through multiple episodes in succession. I suppose my own long-lasting concern has been that sort of high flame could burn out sooner. In any case I did happen on a moment familiar from an “Anime Hell” streaming show; the single episode I once saw at university (yet outside of the anime club shows) still hasn’t turned up yet.
At the end of these three months I marked a span of time somewhere between grandiose and “good grief, you’ve stuck with this stuff that long?” by returning to Patlabor 2: The Movie for just the second time in just a little less than thirty years. (It had been shown in October at the second anime club show I attended, but I was thinking ahead to getting around to other titles almost as antique in my own experience.) The day after that return I watched something probably less profund in three Nijiyon short episodes that had started streaming quite a while after the previous ones. They didn’t provoke anguished thoughts that by stepping away from profundity I’d burned out at last; there did seem a decent amount of character moments packed into their brief running times.
The paranormal action of DAN DA DAN had left off on a cliffhanger. I didn’t have too much trouble getting back up to speed; instead, I suppose I was reminded of the troubled comments I’d seen back when the very first episode of the anime had premiered. While I hadn’t been bothered myself then, now the fix the female lead Momo was in seemed just a bit closer to the real-life nastiness that was once covered with the euphemism “a fate worse than death.” Once she’d got out of that via her own psychic powers, though, my feelings did improve; I suppose I was also inclined to think the young male characters of the series were that much more likely to lose most of their clothes. The series kept pelting along from there through several grandiose encounters with plenty of impressive animation (and the perhaps-occasional more character-focused moment). It then left off on a more amusing cliffhanger than before, and a promise of more episodes showed up as well.
Thoughts of turning back to my accumulating volumes of the My Dress-Up Darling manga (that just perhaps sprang from an impression the manga the anime had already adapted hadn’t been all that “overwhelmingly better-looking,” for whatever meaning “better” might pack) were headed off by an announcement showing up at just the right moment. Regardless of the additional wait, I seemed able to dive back into its cosplay misadventures. While still quite conscious of how I’m not as interested in “real life cosplay” as a lot of other fans appear to be, I suppose I was focusing on its presence in the series because of a personal assumption that to see the show too much as “when will the two leads realise/admit to their full affection for each other?” would only result in frustration. As it turned out, though, a bit of misunderstanding did lead to an entertaining tease, if also then to the sort of “I’ve made up my mind!” resolution I was ready to suppose would fizzle out again. With that acknowledged the characters did stay fun; I sort of appreciated Marin and Wakana’s regular classmates getting more attention paid to them for a plot arc (and turning out to be just fine with the main characters being “fans.”) As other cosplay enthusiasts were introduced there was a theme of “becoming someone else is a way of really being yourself” and a certain reassurance that “you don’t have to cut this off at a certain age.”
I’d read Keiichi Arawai’s CITY manga after reading Nichijou, but I suppose both of them might not have interested me quite as much as Nichijou’s anime adaptation. Beyond the charms of the adaptation, I’d also wondered if Nichijou’s robot girl Nono had been the heart of the whole story there and the absence of anyone comparable from the later manga had been an additional problem. When I saw CITY was going get an anime adaptation as well, and Kyoto Animation would be working on it just as they’d worked on Nichijou, my interest did perk up.
The animation in CITY went to some lengths to look distinctive, with backgrounds as flatly coloured as the characters themselves and enough “extra linework” to the characters (and their shadows) to give a sense of “extra effort,” as limited as that comment seems. The hefty doses of absurd comedy might be a little easier to call appealing. Along the way, though, I did happen to wonder if, indeed, there was a bit of “heart” too in the subplot of two high school girls, one of who is going to be leaving the city soon. I glanced at the first volume of the manga and had the impression the anime had at the very least been selective with what it adapted. So far as “what animation adds,” the concluding episode of the anime had included a musical.
Deciding to check in on a series from a previous season I’d seen some more or less encouraging comments about, I began watching Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. It began with a young woman looking for a post-graduation job and lucking into becoming one of the “magical girls” who work for multiple companies cleaning up blobby monsters with lots of eyes. A part of me was ready to think back and identify other “twentysomethings at work” anime series providing a certain leaven among the familiar complaints that “every anime series involves and exalts teenagers”; another part of me could think back to one or two series promising “a grown-up take on ‘magical girls’” and suppose Magilumiere felt far more pleasant than them. At the same time, though, yet another part of me was supposing a certain number of people might well be complaining things were “too pleasant” in contrast to their take on what they blame for what might well be the human condition itself. While there were glimpses of a large and unpleasant magical girl firm headed by a not altogether pleasant man, the “startup” the main character goes to work for has just five members including her and works well, and there were glimpses of other, apparently pleasant firms too. It was intriguing that the main character’s magical girl costume had a trim, clean, and uncomplicated look to it (even as the somewhat older man heading her company wears a frilly magical girl dress in the office) and her “attack names” had a sort of matter-of-fact, even technical feel to them. However, the spells (and her costume) being produced by a young man typing on a computer back in the office did leave me aware of how far many have soured on “tech firms” in particular or most of all, if also thinking about those who complain about the “demystification” of fantastic stories through the removal of vague, hand-waving claims that “you just have to believe and it comes from somewhere inside you!” I knew the anime was an adaptation of a manga, but there appears to be a promise of more episodes ahead.
Even if it was one of those now-rare series that fall for whatever reason through the cracks of official licensing for streaming yet do get “fansubbed,” a third series in the Shinkalion giant robot franchise managed to get my attention. I did wait until I’d accumulated all of those fansubs to start watching Shinkalion Change the World, aware at that point that it was again a bit shorter than the series that had preceded it. However, I’d also picked up on the unobtrusive suggestion that it wasn’t “set in the same universe” as the original series and its sequel, and noticed how it offered a take on things just a little bit different than before. Where before the pilots of the Shinkansen bullet trains that transform into giant robots had been grade school boys, the pilots here are junior high students in school uniforms. They seem to start with a bit more in the way of “built-in issues to work through,” although I could imagine this being interpreted as “they mope an awful lot.” I’d reacted to the original anime with the amused thought that “it’s good to get someone interested in ‘giant robots’ early; that’s what happened with me!” Now, I suppose I was thinking a bit of certain complaints revolving around apparent claims from people not altogether familiar with mecha anime that “this series is focused on the characters, not the machines...” There don’t seem to have been any new designs of Shinkansen trains introduced since the original series; once again, the designs of the robots they turn into were tweaked. Imagining just what sort of merchandising is available (rather than bothering to see if I could actually look it up), I was amused by the suggestion that if you just buy the train, you do get a robot, but if you want a fully equipped robot you have to buy an additional “support vehicle” to disassemble and attach to that robot. Beyond that, I did wonder about the characters logging into a virtual reality “metaverse,” even if this might allow for the lone girl among the pilots, once more stuck piloting the violet-trimmed Shinkansen stationed up north on the island of Hokkaido, to interact with the other characters a bit more. The enemy monster robots of the week continue to be tossed into a generic battlespace before the action begins, even if there are occasional insistences that a bit of property damage might happen just as they’re captured and characters are sometimes hurt by that damage. Noticing all of those differences and similarities might have been part of what interested me about the first episodes of the series. I am wondering going forward whether I’ll think “they’d just set up an interesting situation when it was resolved” or “well, that sort of situation couldn’t have been stretched out forever...”
Aware the “seasons” Attack on Titan is divided into have varying numbers of episodes in them, I picked up my viewing pace in these three months. I was also aware that this time I had got to the part, or at least the first part, of the story where I’d supposed while reading the manga people had had problems with. The main characters depose their established government with a sort of “we’ve risked our lives; we know best” motivation, battling other humans and finding someone among their own ranks who’s inherited the right to rule amid an increasing sense of “hereditary talents.” However, I’d at least forgotten there were in fact other people with about the same heredity, and I’d also pretty much forgotten the grandiose conclusion to this part of the plot. After that the characters managed to get to their ultimate destination for much of the series, and “back where it all began” there was another massive action setpiece, portions of which were now familiar but bits of which still surprised. For an episode or two it teetered on the edge of feeling over the top compared to the rest of the series, and then it seemed to stabilize. With that the mysterious backstory filled in, the world of the series expanded and updated beyond the sort of “post-medieval” feeling it had had within its walls (if not quite to “the present day”), and things got to another point I’d supposed people had had even more problems with, with certain real-world moments in history invoked but in such a way as to imply “these persecuted people might in fact be an actual threat to others.” So far as a quibble more my own goes, I was conscious of the animation no longer including extra-thick outlines around the characters, which had made it bit more distinctive starting off. Still, in having finished the manga myself I’m aware I’m ready to keep taking in its adaptation. Before heading on I did take on a few more OVAs only available in “fansubbed” form; they started off as “a glimpse back to when things were simpler and more characters were still alive,” but the very last of them did include something I’d only watched in these three months, if before turning back to earlier moments.
Having managed to schedule Minky Momo to finish spring with “the episode” packing the moment fans half-joke about these days, I had a few ideas of how things would pick up again from there. The magical girl series from the years before Sailor Moon redefined what that genre label meant did something else altogether. Momo’s original, magical parents began finding mysterious gens in their fantastic kingdom somewhere up above the sky. When the gems were placed in the crown Momo’s good deeds reawakening dreams and imagination on Earth hadn’t quite finished setting with precious stones (it had been promised completing that would let the kingdom return to Earth), they were converted into laserdiscs that played back the adventures of a new Momo, wearing a slightly different outfit and new magical necklace and still transforming into grown-up roles. (The reanimation of her transformation sequence did take out that particular glimpse of the grown-up Momo that had given me idle thoughts of “there to grab the attention of bored older brothers stuck keeping an eye on their younger sisters” before I started really understanding the audience for this particular series had stretched to more suspicious characters...) She even still got around sometimes in the Gourmet Poppo, which I’d supposed too large a toy to have met sales targets. The first two episodes I watched in July had me wondering if the series would go forward as fractured fairy tales, some Japanese and some western, and then things moved back towards the “real” world as it had been before. All of this might have seemed more of a pleasant bonus than a profound expansion upon the series, but in the end everything did manage to link up to the original Momo in a satisfying way. I had known there’d been another Minky Momo series, but it wasn’t until the close of these three months that I really understood it had been made several years later using new character designs. In letting that second series wait “for now,” I might have to admit to being influenced by a somewhat different sort of “single random comment” than I’ve complained about before. The My Lovesick Life as a ’90s Otaku manga managed to have a minor character distinguish between the two series and appear to prefer the first.
When I received the Blu-Ray set of the second half of the Urusei Yatsura remake as released over here by Sentai Filmworks, I mulled that over for a little while and then decided that as I’d managed to enjoy that recent series even after having seen much of the 1980s original, I might as well first finish watching that original via the recent Discotek Media releases. Having not begun that show via those releases (which may say too much through too few words), I needed a little more time to figure out not just where to pick up again (well into the third of four Blu-Ray sets) but also what episodes to revisit for the sake of “doing something with the earlier sets too.” I tracked down a suggestion of “ten episodes to start with” I’d remembered seeing and then, with the feeling the suggestion did tilt towards “this is a serious and respectable series, anchored by artistic merit and the development of genuine feeling between Ataru and Lum,” tossed in the first half of the very first episode, the one and a half episodes I’d once mentioned had stuck in my mind (and even the other half of the early episode), and the first movie Only You for the sake of opening it as well, having seen it before via official streaming.
I then jumped ahead to where I’d left off before the remake had showed up, having thought at the time the third movie Remember My Love would “pick things up again in a big way” even with a certain impression all four movies that followed Beautiful Dreamer are sort of shrugged off by the accepted opinion. The third movie did start off with some impressive animation at a crowded theme park, and even if things slowed down afterwards I found some further interest in the way some of that slowing down involved “drifting back to ‘normal life.’” When I started into the television episodes I knew had followed it I did notice one of the movie’s “original characters” appearing in the background every so often. More than that, I was remembering my old half-complaint that the series had come to feel stretched out. With that feeling less acute and my enjoyment increased starting off, I wondered if, in fact, it been less a matter of “needing to keep from running out of manga to adapt” and more “diverting effort to the movie.” That, though, did have me wondering about the three movies still to get to, and when that might happen working through the rest of the series.
Along the way I had decided to at least see if the discs I hadn’t watched would play. I would put them in my Blu-Ray player early on weekend mornings and let them run until the early afternoon with the volume muted. Happening to pass by my TV every so often, though, had me thinking those glimpses felt more familiar than when I’d had those one and a half episodes rattling around in my head and supposing it would be nice to drop back in on more of the series if only I could find the time. Letting the discs play, anyway, had made me a little more aware of just how fast someone might be able to get through even “long series” if they could sit through multiple episodes in succession. I suppose my own long-lasting concern has been that sort of high flame could burn out sooner. In any case I did happen on a moment familiar from an “Anime Hell” streaming show; the single episode I once saw at university (yet outside of the anime club shows) still hasn’t turned up yet.
At the end of these three months I marked a span of time somewhere between grandiose and “good grief, you’ve stuck with this stuff that long?” by returning to Patlabor 2: The Movie for just the second time in just a little less than thirty years. (It had been shown in October at the second anime club show I attended, but I was thinking ahead to getting around to other titles almost as antique in my own experience.) The day after that return I watched something probably less profund in three Nijiyon short episodes that had started streaming quite a while after the previous ones. They didn’t provoke anguished thoughts that by stepping away from profundity I’d burned out at last; there did seem a decent amount of character moments packed into their brief running times.