Roving Thoughts archives

My (Twitter) reactions to the first episodes of the Fall 2016 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).

• Izetta episode 1: Now that's how you start an (action) episode and make me like the characters. And want to see more, of course. ♯

• BBK/BRNK episode 13: It's back, it's fun, and I liked seeing the core cast again. We'll have to see where this storyline goes, of course. →

• Brave Witches episode 1: I guess that was okay, although it's nowhere near the standard set by Izetta. I suppose I'll watch the next ep too. →

• Flip Flappers ep 1: This was nice but it wasn't stunning, & Papika is a character archetype that often irritates. Still, solidly promising. →

• Drifters episode 1: I think I'm supposed to be interested in these people and what's happening to them, but I'm not in the least. →

• March comes in like a Lion episode 1: That was a solid & understated drama, with a lot more implied than said. I definitely like it so far. ♯

• Sound! Euphonium S2 episode 1: There was a bunch of setup here, but it was compelling all on its own. And then the festival, wow. →

(A → instead of a ♯ means that the tweet has further discussion.)

I haven't yet watched Girlish Number, which is getting praise, or Fune wo Amu. I may watch either and update this with my first episode reaction. I so far feel that Yuri!!! on Ice is out due to its setting, even if it's apparently very well done and well made.

(I know, March comes in like a Lion also has an ordinary life setting. It gets a special exemption because I loved Honey & Clover and I'm willing to see if the author's magic works a second time.)

Looking back at the Summer 2016 anime season

Once again it's time for my usual look back at what I watched this past season, to follow up on my early impressions and my midway views. This one has turned out a lot shorter than it is in many seasons, because, well, let's run down the shows:

Great:

• Thunderbolt Fantasy: Puppets and all, this remained very strong all the way through. We had twists and turns and revelations and surprises, even things that pleasantly surprised me. This was over the top wuxia, but I like that, and I happen to feel it was pretty darn good over the top wuxia.

  Thunderbolt Fantasy did not necessarily aim high, but (like Flying Witch) it's a show that absolutely delivered perfectly on what it aimed for. It had very sharp genre writing and it hit every beat you could want, including quite clever revelations and explanations in the last two episodes. It is one of my favorite shows of the year and I'm happy that we're apparently getting a sequel (even though I don't expect it to be quite as dramatic).

I finished it:

• Qualidea Code: The animation quality clearly dropped off at the end (and when I can notice, you know it really went) and things got a bit silly, but on the whole QC delivered what I expected and wanted from the whole experience. It even threw in a few surprises and unexplained things.

I sort of continued watching it:

• Twin Star Exorcists: I watched this all the way or almost all of the way to the end of the season and enjoyed it, but I've now dropped it. The show has apparently entered a filler arc that I'm not too enthused about (and added a kid character, although it's doing okay at handling her), but the real failing in my eyes is that it skipped forward two years and nothing particularly changed in terms of character relationships. If the show hadn't explicitly said 'we skipped forward two years', I wouldn't have noticed. Given how fast things were moving in character relationships before then, I find that this totally blew away my suspension of disbelief.

  More fundamentally, while the character interplay between the protagonists was cute and okay, it just feels played out. I'm not really going to see anything new and something just felt played out about the whole thing. I don't need to see these characters repeat their same nice patterns over and over again; I've already seen it enough times.

  (I'm writing so much here because there's part of me that wants to keep on watching TSE because it's a perfectly decent show. But my gut has told me that I'm not particularly interested in watching episodes, so. On Twitter.)

I wound up dropping Fate Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya 3rei!!. I'm neither surprised nor particularly sad; I honestly expected it from the start. I probably won't give any future PI series a chance, because I keep getting burned out on it.

On the one hand, this was not a very good or very active season overall. On the other hand, Thunderbolt Fantasy was amazing and I feel fully satisfied about having watched it. On the whole I'll take this season over one where there's a bunch of okay shows but nothing that stands out in the way TF does.

(And in things that I keep omitting, Active Raid S2 aired this season but in contrast to my earlier guess I didn't watch it and in fact ignored it so thoroughly that I kept forgetting to mention it in these entries.)

My summer rain gear (for biking)

In much of the year, rain gear for biking is simple and obvious. You just cover yourself with reasonably breathable waterproof gear (jacket, pants, shoe covers, and helmet cover) and you're done. In the heat of summer this approach or downsized variants of it doesn't work; with conventional gear (even just a jacket with all its vents open), your choices are getting wet from the rain or getting wet from your own sweat as you cook inside your jacket. One popular summer option is to just shrug and get wet from the rain. Unfortunately this isn't really suitable for commute riding, at least for me, because all too often it involves getting totally, utterly soaked and having whatever I'm wearing be clammy and soggy.

My current approach is the following gear:

• Sandals instead of shoes, so that I don't have to worry about them getting soaked. Both sandals and my feet dry out very easily, which isn't true of normal shoes; if normal shoes get soaked, they may still be sodden the next day.

  (Before I switched to sandals, I had this happen to me. Biking the next day in still-sodden shoes was not a great experience.)

• A helmet cover, in part to keep water from dripping directly onto my glasses (and eyes). I'd like to avoid putting a helmet cover over my helmet because it means I have to do without my helmet lights, but so far I haven't found any other way to keep enough rain out of my eyes (my summer helmet's visor doesn't do it on its own).

  (I've may try wearing a cycling cap under my helmet in the hope that the cap's visor will do the job.)

• A storm poncho (aka rain cape); my current one is an inexpensive one from Sierra Designs that I picked up in a local bike shop at one point. The storm poncho is the most important piece of gear, because it's what keeps most of me dry without drowning me in sweat. However, there's a trick here.

A storm poncho by itself will leave you at least as sweaty as a regular waterproof jacket, because it's no better ventilated (in fact it's likely to be worse). So the trick is to gather up the front of the poncho and hold it up on the handlebars. This keeps the front plastic away from your body and functions as a big air scoop to keep cooling you. Of course I can't go very fast like this, but so what; I'm commuting in the rain (sometimes very strong rain), so I'm fine with being slow.

My experience is that this trick only really works on my commuter bike, which has riser bars. My other bike has drop handlebars and my one attempt to use the storm poncho there was best described as 'extremely awkward'; it was not really a success. My current approach is to not go on weekend group rides in the summer if rain is too likely, and otherwise to just live with maybe getting soaked if we get unlucky.

A storm poncho worn on the bike won't shield my lower legs (or feet), but that's okay; it's summer and I'm wearing shorts. My bare legs can get as wet as they want and they'll dry right off. Similarly I only care about keeping the rain off my upper arms (where my shirt is), not my bare forearms, which the storm poncho leaves mostly or entirely exposed.

(People who wear sleeveless tops here don't even have to care about their upper arms.)

(This elaborates on a tweet I made after a recent rainstorm ride.)