Roving Thoughts archives

My (Twitter) reactions to the first episodes of the Spring 2020 anime season

As before I'm collecting here all of my tweeted reactions to the first episodes I've seen (in the order that I saw them).

• Listeners episode #1: That was interesting, atmospheric, nicely directed, and had a good climax with some interesting action. The story felt pretty standard and I'm not sure where the show will go next; this was all setup and background. →

• Kakushigoto episode #1: This is beautiful, well made, and reasonably sharply written, but as usual its comedy doesn't work for me (and I'm not sure I'm a fan of the fundamental joke at its heart). It's nice and good, but not for me. ♯

• My Next Life as a Villainess #1: That was fun and funny, and Catarina makes a solid lead. It's nicely put together, too (beyond being my kind of thing). I'm very much looking forward to what happens next and what sort of absurd situations Catarina gets herself into. →

• Princess Connect! Re:Dive episode #1: This was reasonably fun and periodically funny. It's a bit hard to engage with these people as people, instead of cutouts, but potato-kun is definitely improved by mostly not speaking or doing anything. →

• Gleipnir episode #1: That was awkward, uncomfortable, and rather adolescent (male) sexual gaze, all of which was entirely intended. It was also pretty good; intriguing and well put together (although not flawless), with a fine control of atmosphere and quiet hanging tension. →

Actually posting this entry has been delayed because I kept thinking I would watch a few more first episodes, but so far that's not happening. I will probably see some of Brand New Animal sometime but not right away, and I've decided that Sing "Yesterday" for Me is probably not my kind of thing in general and especially with the world and local mood as it is right now.

PS: As has become my habit, I've threaded my reactions to subsequent episodes for each series that I'm (still) watching on these first episode tweets.

The flaw in In/Spectre's conversations

Over on Twitter, I said:

I've realized that In/Spectre's fatal flaw is that these characters are explaining things to each other, rather than arguing back and forth, yelling past each other, or trying to pull fast ones. There's no conflict or drama in their conversations.

In/Spectre is by the same writer as Blast of Tempest, a show which I quite enjoyed (see my Winter 2013 retrospective). Both shows are full of talking and clever dialog (it's one of the writer's signature traits), but I'm not enjoying In/Spectre half as much as I did Tempest; in fact I'm increasingly finding In/Spectre kind of boring.

What I realized is that the two shows have different types of conversations. In Tempest, there was a conflict at the heart of most conversations; people were arguing with each other, trying to persuade each other or do deals, or at least trying to hoodwink and fool each other or hide information. In/Spectre is great when it's doing that sort of thing, when people are arguing or bickering or sniping at each other, but its most recent run of episodes has mostly involved people explaining things to each other or coming up with plans. There's no conflict, just talk.

(The few conversations that were not like this still have the spark to them, both in dialog and how they're staged.)

Brief impressions of the Winter 2020 anime season so far

As before, it's time for my relatively early views of how this season has shaken out so far, following up on my first episode reactions. This entry has been delayed partly because I'm lazy but largely for the traditional reason, which is that I haven't wanted to admit something about one of the shows airing this season.

Great:

• Magia Record: This has completely blindsided me with how good it is and how much I've been enjoying it. The entire show is very well presented, with excellent staging, scenes, direction, and so on, the characters and their interactions are appealing, and the overall story interesting, with a solid balance of mystery and slow revelations.

  (The show's staging is very deliberately unnatural, but that fits its mood and setup, and it's doing very good things with that staging.)

Good:

• BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense: This is my kind of thing so I'm biased, but even then I think it's solidly entertaining and above all simply fun. The show has an infectious joy of people playing this game and having fun at it, and it communicates that well along with the inherent comedy of Maple and her friends quietly breaking the game by doing things that the developers didn't expect.

• In/Spectre: I like this style of show (it's from the same author as Blast of Tempest) but sometimes it has a little more talking with a little less compelling things than I'm entirely happy with. People making clever plans is all well and good, but sometimes I want a bit more. However, the show routinely does excellent character interactions, with the core cast interacting with each other in nice and often funny ways. Seeing Kotoko being taken down a peg is never not amusing, and everyone has believable chemistry with each other.

Tacitly suspended:

• Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken (#3): This is an excellently made show about animation, with some appealing characters and all of that. But it hasn't really clicked with me and watching it often makes me feel that I'm sort of being lectured at (with a lot of love, but still). Some of the little things the show does with the characters don't appeal, either.

  Many people really love this and I'll probably watch episode four (which is apparently very good). But episode five is apparently all about giant robots and the various issues around the genre, which sounds exactly like what I'm not interested in at several levels.

That Eizouken hasn't clicked with me makes me feel both sad and guilty, because this is theoretically just the sort of thing that I should really enjoy and watch as an anime fan. It's even made by one of the best directors working in anime, someone whose previous shows I've generally quite enjoyed or at least appreciated. But my gut is just not interested and these days I listen to it.

(My gut actively looks forward to Magia Record, enjoys BOFURI a lot, and is okay with In/Spectre.)