geometry and the imagination

Recent Anime

These are sort of late I guess? My roommate who I watch anime with is behind and I'm waiting for him to catch up. Blame him, hypothetical and certainly imaginary person who has been really wanting to know what I thought of the latest moeblob adventures!!

YuruYuri episode 11

Really good. Flashback scenes were all excellent, moe factor of five heart attacks out of five. I really wasn't prepared at all for the second arc plot. It got really heavy really fast, actually quite legitimately moving. The uh “we can't go back to happier times” sort of scene, especially with a “this character has changed and we realize we miss the wackier things we used to complain about”, especially especially if they have some good ol' “reminiscing the halcyon days by looking at an abandoned location”, that sort of scene rips me up no matter what the context is, not even if it's presented with a lot of self-awareness that basically amounts to satire as it is here. Or maybe I'm just sad that the show is ending soon and it manifested in watching the show but geez, yeah, heavy stuff! Of course the setup and resolution were very in-line with their “skip every unnecessary thing knowing that audience knows that we know that it's silly and no one cares” philosophy which sort of numbs any sort of genuine emotional stuff, but sometimes the plot itself can stand out of its framing. Anyways yeah great times, next episode's the finale I think and it seems like they're just gonna go crazy, should be fun. 8.

Nichijou episode 24

Ah, so a seemingly forgotten plotline returns in full force. Mio's crush on Sasahara I originally thought would be a very major plotline, but they dole it would with a lot of restraint and it makes it very effective. Although with that and more gundere and the extended fantasy of Nanohara, this episode really started becoming “Everybody Loves Sasahara”, which really was fine 'cause they did a good job actually explaining why people did. Guy is just generally a baller. Watch him drink from the bottom of the cup! Baller! He rides a goat! Greatest of all time! What a hilarious character that transcends the archetype parody, yeah? Yeah you know. Gundere's sister and Mio's sister and Gundere all have such an excellent relationship too, such an interesting mix of tsundere respect. Uhh what else, Helvetica Standard this episode was one of my favorite, the timing just absolutely fantastic. Same with all the scenes of the chemistry teacher watching Nano, those were some very well timed and subtle jokes. So yeah, still very excellent, still very beautiful. Maybe the plotline at the lab could have been more elaborate but whatever it was more than good enough. 10.

Idolmaster episode 10

Oh man big track meet, easiest plot line ever. Seems like they're sort of long-term focusing on some characters and not others, which is alright 'cause this isn't even half over yet and it's probably better that they chunk it like this so we can really feel an attachment. Bunch of new characters showing up, some very villain-y, okay, whatever. Lots of good scenes for nearly every character, except singing girl who once again does absolutely nothing. Winning at the end was surprisingly satisfying. The rich girl/tomboy begrudging alliance was good, and even though she spent all episode beating people up I really don't think the show can have too much tomboy athleticism. Oh man and poor girl, poor girl has the sort of breakdown here that I figured she'd have in her own episode, and it was done quite well. So yeah everything was alright but nothing that great. Like the last few they went really plot-y which is okay but the plot has to be a little more engrossing. Rich girl saving everything sorta seems a bit too easy. I dunno. Pretty fun times all things considered. 7.

Recentish Anime

Steins;Gate

Now have seen up to episode 15. Uhh let's see... I have a few beefs. What I talked about being worried about in my last post really hasn't happened nearly at all, which is very impressive. They've continued adding plot elements without obsoleting or abandoning previous ones for the most part. They've also, for the most part, kept up an escalating tone, albeit the feeling of “perpetual crisis” doesn't gel (banana) well with the requisite (and I acknowledge that it is requisite and it would be even worse without) comedic scenes. But yeah my big problem right now is that the plot devices are just a bit too arbitrary. They hit upon a really, really great way of doing time travel. Send a message back to the past: awesome. Okarin is the only one who remembers the old world when it changes: I can live with it, it's necessary, hopefully will be better justified later. Send memories back in time: very cool. Do time travel without the idea of concurrent timelines, save a lot of headache, who cares about stuff like the “abandoned timeline” (well I do a bit but not enough to want something more convoluted instead). Save Mayuri by switching to a beta world line with a divergence number of over 1% which is required for a major shift away from a major event that all world lines tend to: whaaaat no this is silly, why do you have to do a thing like that??? So arbitrary! So unscientific! So poorly explained! Bun! Okay let me fix this problem, here's what you have to do:

So you have the SERN(??) or Rounders or whatever invading, right? Led up by Mail-chan? Sure. Actually I have some beef with that. Seems a bit weak. You need some sort of crisis, sure. Make it something that follows from time travel! Something not new, but legitimately overlooked! Escalate an existing condition! I mean the “one of them betrays the rest” card is a dang easy one to play, resist the temptation! It's just not very interesting! As a saving grace, the direction of the scene was amazing, very powerful in presentation, if not in effect. Geez I've failed to mention any of the aesthetics, I'm very impressed with all of them, even if they don't do anything too innovative very often. Anyways yeah the effect just wasn't too much 'cause you knew something was gonna happen and what that thing was was about the least interesting thing it could have been. And then like happiness character was shot in a show about time travel and I couldn't believe for a second that it'd be the last time you saw her. And then in the next episode he tries to save her over and over and finds she's like, fated to die, and it's this same problem over and over again. Things feel too easy, too arbitrary, too unlikely (Okarin just runs back to the lab every time?) and eventually even the death scenes, each of them still expertly done, start to lose their effect. Bun. So here's how you fix it:

Drop this whole thing about “Mayuri has to die.” First cycle remains the same 'cause whatever I'm still hopeful that that will be justified more later. Subsequent cycles have him saving Mayuri, but someone else always dies. Send people out of the lab without telling them why, grab Mayuri before she goes, try to beat town? Christina, overwhelmed with curiosity, calls from the lab to a Okabe, horrified as he notices Mayuri's watch stop and the door burst open on the other end of the phone. Prevent that somehow, Daru goes back to wait for the pizza he forgot to stop him from ordering. Etc. Etc. I'm not gonna try to come up with all of them, but I think there's way more good things here than there could be just trying to come up with ways to kill Mayuri. Plus like now Okarin has this horrible feeling where he feels like he has to choose which of these bad outcomes is the best and of course the big thing is he realizes he needs more time and perhaps then he can save everyone. Still gets this sense of having to do a major, orchestrated, planned change without this arbitrary thing that that's the only way to save Mayuri for some reason 'cause she's like superdead.

Aaaaanyways I just think that would've been a lot better. Uhh what else though... like I said, the aesthetics and direction have all been really solid. All the characters are becoming more and more complex and likable, especially Hououin. Man what an awesome character! And I don't just throw around the word awesome much these days. And I really can't overstate how well done the whole idea of time travel is in this show. Aside from these last minute “time line beta” or whatever ideas it's been very simple, very logical but without ruining the “feel” of time travel, which they capture perfectly with repetition, changing tone, parallels, all that excellent stuff. Maybe the like, perpetual frantic tempo sometimes loses effectiveness and just becomes really tiring, but whatever. Oh yeah the twist with part time warrior was pretty well done, sure, but I think the concept is better than the twist and maybe they made it a bit too twisty. The like, secondary twist with her (that is, the one I'm just calling re: she's Daru's daughter) is good but I wonder if they're going to make a big deal out of it, or if it'll be a running joke like oh man like Mayuri keeps getting the dad into more hypothetical trouble with her posters and no one explains it to the Zombie and when she finds out she thinks that Daru's guilty of all that stuff. At any rate if it's the former they should pace the foreshadowing a little better, like, more steadily, and if it's the latter I think they're making a bit too much of it in terms of “serious scenes”. But oh well. Still very good show, still lots of fun.

Idolmaster episode 11

Big concert prep episode, huh? Lots of scenes with poor girl, clumsy(?? can't remember her trait?) girl and shy girl, also (big surprise here) some good stuff with singing girl. Yeah I dunno though this sort of plot is just so stressful. And geez Miki man why so you silly why you misunderstand that and act on it like that that's just sad for real I don't want to see sad idols like that. And like, nervousness about failure? Jealousy? That's not too moe. Luckily optimistic clumsy (??) tone-deaf (????) girl was all cheerful otherwise this episode would just be way too much of a drag. It'll all be worth it for that big hype concert I guess. But yeah I dunno. 6.

Nichijou episode 25

Wowwwwww, what is this? WHAT IS THIS? We are definitely in climatic times. Gundere seems to have her big scene here and dang it is done well, yup. And when Mio sees! Oh man, when she sees that, oh man, aw man when she sees that, you just KNOW you're in for THE GREATEST SCENE THUS FAR. Mio runs a RAMPAGE through the show itself! The show itself! They do the deluxe version of one of the first classic scenes in the series and it becomes a metaphor for the series itself: buildup giving way to hilarity to absurdity to poignancy. Holy crap what amazing animation! What rapid-fire humour! Such powerful emotions! And they've finally played the reference card in full force! I knew it'd always be an option, and like not even a difficult option, but here it is played so superbly. Here we have the best sense so far of just how the world of Nichijou really works as Mio seems to almost break free of the typical scene structure and just bursts into the entire cohesive universe. What amazes me more than the fact that it's so heartwarming or so hilarious or so absurd is how much of a real slice of life this show can feel. More than almost anything else you get the sense of an actual school, of actual classes and clubs and and and FRIENDSHIPS. Oh wait hold that thought first there is a big climatic thing with the chemistry teacher that is just amazing. You really get a sense of just how developed and hilarious and wacky the lab is when it's presented like that with all the throwbacks and references and such. Hilarious. Great. A perfect ending to that plotline, if that's what it is. Okay. But the real beauty of this episode is, well, you know what it is if you've seen it. Mio's remembering of walks back with her sister and Sasahara and his wise words sets the stage for one of the most beautiful messages I've ever seen in anime. Seeing everyday life as a series of small miracles... it seems cliché, but who has ever really pulled off this message before? I'm gonna say no one. And, of course, the biggest miracle of all is still friendship. The whole lottery prize scene may have been sudden and simple and maybe even unnecessary (was Mio not “enlightened” to the beauty of her own life after saving the drowning kid? Or was she still feeling lonely on some level?) but it managed to top the scene with Mai leaving the lab two episodes ago which I actually would not have guessed possible. How are they gonna top this next episode? Well I figure Nano's gotta have some resolution, and then maybe one nice thing will happen for once to Yuko. The whole “genre” of Nichijou scenes of Yuko just suffering for basically no reason used to be among the most popular but they've sort of moved away from them. The amazing thing is that they did so while leaving the impression that these things are still happening to her, that this sort of misfortune is just ingrained in her character. So maybe that'll have a resolution? And undoubtedly it will be great. This episode already would have been an amazing season (oh god please don't be series) finale. But yeah I really cannot overstate how impressed I am with this show. Really simply cannot. I started it 'cause Kyoani yeah. I stayed because it was the best absurdist humour that side of Tim and Eric. But I love it because it's easily the most heartwarming slice of life in recent memory. Oh yeah and the scene of Takasaki-sensei and Sakurai-sensei was also great. 13.

The IT Crowd

Started watching this, pretty fun but not at all what I expected. British sitcoms seem to have the two extremes of sitcoms on lock, both the driest, most sophisticated stuff and the classic madcap sorta thing. I figured this was the former given the subject matter, but it ended up being the latter, and honestly, I'm fine with that. Sometimes I forget how much stuff like this can make me laugh. I usually think of the subgenre only in terms of the classics, like, Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, etc. but like, Father Ted wasn't so old, I guess. There just seems to be a general divide of genres that I expect new things from and ones I don't. For example, I love classic rock, sure, but I'm not really looking for new classic rock. But really that's silly, I should be looking for good examples of things I like no matter what it is or how relevant I consider the style. This show is funny. The plotlines escalate very nicely, good running gags, really solid characters, good level of wackiness. I feel at times that this is like, When the Whistle Blows, y'know? Like maybe it was supposed to have no laugh track and be sorta depressing and all that. I mean Roy has a Jimmy Corrigan doll on his shelf someone must be sorta depressed, right? I dunno. Fun times for sure.

That's all for right now.