Fall 2016 Week 7 Recap

This week I put Fune wo Amu on hold. The show just isn’t really my kind of show, and put me off in a few too many key ways for me to keep watching it during the season. Like the rest I intend to get back to it, but who knows when. Other than that this week was fine. I want to put out non-recap content, but I’m really struggling to watch more anime than my weeklies right now, and the manga I’m reading are for a long term project that I’m nowhere near completing. Pokemon Moon is taking up my life which doesn’t help. Anyways, let’s look at this week’s shows.

Flip Flappers – Episode 7

I’m repeating myself at this point, but this was another fantastic episode a fantastic episode. This episode put a lot of focus on Cocona’s own perception of her relationship with Papika. We’ve seen them get closer over the show’s run, but Cocona clearly hasn’t worked out what she actually feels towards Papika. The various forms of Papika seem to represent the various ways she’s sees Papika; she loves her likes a sister, sees her as a best friend, sees her as a somewhat annoying but fun to be around classmate, and sees her in a much more sexual light as well. Cocona’s feelings towards Papika are complex and aren’t even worked out by the end of the episode, but it’s clear she takes some step forwards when she makes it clear that while she enjoys all the aspects of Papika, she really wants to be with Papika herself. This show continues to fascinate me, and as time goes on it’s only getting better.

3-gatsu no Lion – Episode 7

This was probably the happiest episode for Rei so far, and that’s a great thing. Rei has rarely experienced much emotion in this series, and the emotion he has felt has mostly been of the negative sort. Having him make a real friend this episode and feel the joy of that, alongside being introduced to the joy of sharing what you care about with others is amazing. It can be a shock to realize how happy something makes you when you’ve never experienced, but it’s almost always a good feeling. Rei’s life certainly isn’t fixed just because of this, but it’s nice to see good things happen to him.

Yuri on Ice – Episode 7

I don’t know if I can say anything about this episode that hasn’t already been said. I absolutely was not expecting the show to ever have Yuri and Victor actually kiss, but I’m very happy that they did. Something like this is basically unprecedented in a not-explicitly BL or yuri anime, and it’s nice to see anime slowly become more willing to have explicitly queer characters, even if it is slow. Beyond that the other aspects of their relationship were well-explored this episode. Yuri still relies on Victor, but this episode made it clear that he wants Victor to have faith in him, and Victor’s sort of obsessive need to make sure everything’s going right for Yuri is clearly an issue he needs to overcome. Yuri keeps being pushed to greater heights in his attempts to please Victor, and I’m very happy with how it’s working out.

JoJo Part 4 – Episode 34

I really like Rohan’s fight here. The use of the alley to get rid of Cheap Trick was inventive on the part of both Rohan and Araki, and somehow it caught me off guard in both the manga and the anime. What really stood out this episode was though, was that it ended the period of side arcs. From here on out everything is directly related to the fight with Kira, and the opening to that has been done quite well. Kira looks satisfyingly menacing from Hayato’s point of view, and it’s clear that he never had any chance of redemption. I’m excited to see the rest of this arc play out.

Girlish Number – Episode 7

This was quite a good episode. Chitose clearly is going to run into a wall very soon when she realizes she needs to do something about her terrible acting and inability to land a role, but for now she can remain an asshole. That means the other characters need to have arcs which pick up the slack, and the show manages that quite well. Family genre is easy to relate to, and this episode had families which were both too restricting and too easy-going, which makes it easier for anyone to feel like they relate. There’s a real sense that the criticism’s of the industry are getting to a more real place now, as Momoka’s distaste for the blatant nepotism and the actual hardships of being a voice actor feel much more realistic than Kuzu’s blatant terribleness. I don’t know what the series is going to do with Chitose yet, but I enjoy what they’re doing with the others so I’m fine with that.

Hibike Euphonium 2 – Episode 7

This episode was host to another great performance. Even though I take issue with a number of things this show does, KyoAni’s visuals never disappoint me, and this is especially true in the performances. It’s clear that a lot of time is spent making sure everything looks right, which I value a lot in a show like this. Looking at the drama, this episode was alright. I’m not quite sure what to think about the situation with Asuka’s mom yet, but it certainly provides a good direction for the show to take. Asuka has been a mysterious figure for a while, so it’s good that we’re finally going to see more of who she really is. This episode was better than the previous, so while the show isn’t a masterpiece, it’s still a great anime.

Vivid Strike – Episode 8

I wasn’t expecting Vivio to actually win this fight. I was sure this series would end up with Fuuka and Rinne facing each other at the finals, but I’m happy to see that won’t happen. It would be ridiculous, but it’s such a natural writing choice that I was assured it would happen. I’m pretty interested in Jill — initially she gave a Precia vibe and she seemed like this show’s main antagonist. This episode shows that she clearly has major issues of her own, which suggests that she may not be as evil as I first thought. I honestly have no clue where it’s going to go now that Vivio won, but I’m interested in finding out.

WWW.Working!! – Episode 8

At this point I feel like you can call the show a romcom. It’s hard to write something new about each episode since they’re pretty consistently just fun but formulaic, so I won’t really try this week. It’s still a show that I enjoy a fair bit and will keep watching.

Kiss Him, Not Me – Episode 7

I have no idea what happened this episode. The first half was really solid comedy. There’s a lot of directions you can take jokes about being an otaku/fujoshi, so those jokes are always solid, especially when they involve Nishina. The second half though was almost entirely not comedy and it was just weird. To be honest it didn’t really fit, and was just kind of disappointing.

Gundam IBO Season 2 – Episode 8

This whole king of Mars thing is actually pretty interesting. Generally in Gundam series–or at least in UC Gundam series–while the various sides are all bad in some way, the protagonist’s side is the least bad. IBO isn’t really doing that here. There’s no reason to really believe that Tekkadan would be good leaders or anything, so the only people we know this would benefit is the members of Tekkadan. Gjallarhorn is bad and they’re the opponent, but Tekkadan is allied with part of Gjallarhorn right now, and there’s no way to tell which of the factions is actually more evil. This mixing up of the morality doesn’t necessarily make the series better, but it does provide a number of interesting directions the series could go from here that I’m excited to see.