Beyond all of the things I’m currently following (and mostly posting here), I discovered, courtesy of a thread here, an awesome goofy, surreal, science-fictiony bit of amazing worldbuilding called Maison and the Man-eating Apartment. And once I caught up with that, I delved back into the author’s (Tanaka Kuu) past and found an earlier series called Tate no Kuni (The Vertical World), which I’m currently binging.

On a whim, I watched the first episode of The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity last week, and it just sucked me in. I ended up binging the ten current episodes over two evenings and loved everything about it.

So then it was episode 11 of that and episode 11 of Milky Subway, both of which were excellent in their own ways.

Aside from that, I’ve been rewatching Scrapped Princess, and being reminded of what a great series it is.

That’s undoubtedly true.

But by the same measure, there’s also actually more great anime being put out now that there was in the past - again, just measured by sheer volume rather than percentage.

And while I wouldn’t disagree with that, it goes even further contrary to the rose-tinted view of the past, and thus even further from my point.

I didn’t mean to say or imply anything specific about the standards of one or another era of anime. My only point is that people need to be aware of the fact that they can’t make summary judgments regarding relative quality by pointing to all of the recognized great anime of the past, because that’s necessarily what’s remembered. The basis for any such judgment is necessarily skewed by the fact that over time, the great ones are remembered and the awful ones are forgotten.

That’s all.

Just to note…

There was just as much garbage anime in any given year in the past as there is now - it’s just that current garbage anime is current and past garbage anime has been long since forgotten.

Ditto manga, music, movies books, television, whatever. The past generally looks better because it’s only the best of it that’s remembered.

I’m still not sure what to make of this one. It tries to be cute and uplifting and sometimes succeeds, but there seems to be an underlying negativity to it.

It doesn’t feel to me like Ujioka is just awkward and insecure and taking chances will bring him rewards and bring him out of his shell. It feels like the world really does dump on him, and sometimes he manages to avoid the worst of it and things don’t turn out quite as bad as they were looking like they were going to. It like the payoff isn’t watching a character go from something that looks sort of negative to something positive, but from something that looks godawful to something that’s hopefully not entirely negative.

Or maybe it’s just me…

The way this manga has transformed is just amazing. It started off as just a sort of goofy, sort of ecchi comedy about a gyaru running a restaurant and an awkward guy who eats there, and somewhere along the way it turned into a subtle and insightful comedy/drama character study.

It’s as if the mangaka has tapped into veins of talent they didn’t even know they had.

Subaru’s been the biggest revelation in the last couple of episodes - she’s so completely on their side, and that means so much.

And dad was awesome - what kind of cake to make didn’t start with flavor or anything - it started with what Rintaro wanted to communicate and how he wanted Waguri to feel. Now that’s a craftsman.

Such a great series…

Yay!

I’ve been waiting for this moment for 4 years, and it was worth it.

Nobody does raw emotion like Hiro.

I started rewatching this the other night, just on a whim, then thought about what I was getting myself into, and turned it off.

It’s a tremendous movie, but it’s so emotionally draining.

It’s something most everyone should experience at least once though, and hopefully this remaster will expose a lot more people to it.

Oh - this is very good.

It’s obviously sort of reminiscent of Made in Abyss, but more it reminds me of something by Abe Youichi. It has that sort of goofy but earnest surrealism like Sheeply Horned Witch Romi or Chimoguri Ringo to Kingyobachi Otoko, and with a bit of the ongoing sense of eerie foreboding of Leiji Matsumoto - Space Battleship Yamato or Captain Harlock or something like that.

Very good…

Kimiya’s going to build the perfect cake.

That was awesome.

I was sure they were building up to some sort of reveal about Makina’s family, but I didn’t expect that one. And I expected the buttons were going to play a part, but again, I didn’t expect that.

Akane’s reaction was hilarious.

I think the next episode title is a misdirection. It was sort of implied in episode 1 too, but that wasn’t how Chiharu was acting.

It’d damned well better be…

Huh.

No - actually I’ve avoided it. I read the first few chapters when they were released and thought they were meh, and then when people started to rave about it, it triggered my contrariness, and I wrote it off as likely overhyped mediocrity - pabulum for the masses.

I might have to tamp down my reflexive disdain for it snd check it out…

That tracks.

As I hinted at, I was especially impressed by Kana. She’s become a terrific character, and obviously because the mangaka has lavished attention on her.and has really satisfyingly mapped out her personality - the combination of strengths and weaknesses and fears and hopes that make her the person she is. Ditto Akane - she hasn’t gotten quite the attention, so not quite the development, but is still very pleasantly well-developed. And Miyako has been a pleasant surprise - she almost seemed like a throwaway character at first, but instead she stuck around and has really blossomed. And so on - even characters like Melt and Frill get satisfying development.

And meanwhile, the whole murder mystery plot, harrowing though it seems it should be, keeps fading into the background, and only moving in fits and starts.

I definitely enjoyed it, and the quality is undeniable, but it just has an odd imbalance to it.

Binged two longer series last week.

First, I finally watched one of the series I’d been saving because I already knew it was good - Oshi no Ko. And yes, it really is as good as its reputation says. It’s an odd series though, because it’s very well done and engaging all along the way - particularly the characters - but if you pull all the way back from the details and just look at the basic premise, I don’t think it holds up all that well. It’s all just a bit too contrived. Still very good though, and really, I’d probably watch it just for Kana.

Then, looking for something completely different, I finally watched Toradora, which was… weird. It started off well enough. It moved slowly, but the characters were all interesting and I could see them growing, albeit slowly. But then starting immediately after Taiga’s fight with the President, it went badly sideways. They obviously changed it up dramatically then - it even got a new OP and ED. But more to the point, it went from slowly and steadily developing the characters to just heaving some seemingly random bit of dissociated plot in the general direction of the audience, then not even bothering to resolve anything before rushing on to the next random bit of dissociated plot. So it just became incoherent and ultimately unsatisfying - instead of a steady progression of character growth, it was just a jumble of sudden and inexplicable changes. Shame too - I was impressed up until then.

Wow… that ended up being even more dissatisfying than I expected it to be.

Still though - there was a time a few chapters back when it was sort of looking like they were going to resolve it in Miyahara’s favor, which would’ve broken Yukihira’s heart, which in turn would’ve enraged me, so I guess it could’ve been worse.

If only it’d been given the time to properly sort through everyone’s feelings…

I suspect that the goal now is to make it least likely to trigger rage. It didn’t get the time to sort through everyone’s feelings, so at this point, if Arima picks one of them, the other is going to be hurt, and her shippers are going to rage.

So unsatisfyingly open is the least bad choice…

Akudama Drive

Heike Monogatari

86

Now and Then, Here and There

Ahh… that was probably my favorite episode yet. Eveeything came together so well.

And I’m still laughing at the opening gag.