Welp, I didn’t quite see this coming. Funimation took Interspecies Reviewers off their seasonal list last week, and now, Tokyo MX have done the very same thing, removing the show from their broadcast. Still not quite sure why Funimation chose to do the show in the first place, though. Very interesting…
Haha, I’ll tell you a funny thing. As I was rereading last week’s post of mine, I couldn’t help but notice how much I used the word ‘interesting‘ or something along those lines. I assure you, it is not intentional. I just need a thesaurus, that’s all. Words are hard.
Now, let’s check on all the interes…no…cool shows I’m watching this season. Cool is more of a word the kids use, right?
In/Spectre Episode 5
Once again in this week’s In/Spectre, not a lot of plot but a story that looks like it’s detailed and interesting for the viewer, when in fact, it’s not. True enough, these stories have been brought in to talk about why Kuro is how he is, but it still feels like all of this could have been rewritten so we, as the viewer, wouldn’t be so…bored.
This week Kuro takes on Steel Lady Nanase in a fight, with Kotoko giving Saki (who has just arrived at the scene out of nowhere) a running commentary on Kuro’s regenerative abilities. Later on, we find out how the Steel Lady Nanase came to be in the first place; not as a ghost of the dead idol, but instead as a manifestation of rumor and hearsay from those who wanted to know about her death.
All of this rumor and hearsay is of course referring to the ‘fansite’ that came out that pretty much describes the ghost in detail.
Of course, only good things can be found on the Internet…
As I say, this certainly sounds interesting; the only real issues I have are that I’m getting frustrated with the behavior of the main characters, and that the plot’s execution in the show is not what I had hoped it would be.
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Episode 6
Different than what Science SARU are trying to do with Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! where the characters are actually likable, and the story is actually quirky enough to keep our attention going every week.
After their encounter with the Robot Club, who have since asked them to do an opening animation, Eizouken receive a message from the Art Club, asking for help. Sayaka sees straight through this, saying that they are only asking for Eizouken’s help because they want less work to do themselves.
Our character highlight this week is Midori, as we see what kind of…non-social person she really is. After meetings with the Sound Club and the Art Club, we see she has great difficulty socializing with people she doesn’t know, and later, even has doubts on whether making a giant robot anime is a good idea in the first place. Midori’s definitely full of curiosity and imagination, but with that comes difficulty interacting with others and being generally a fickle person.
I do find it a little funny, though, how Tsubame says to the others that animator studios expect artists to draw animation millimeter-by-millimeter on tight deadlines (which may or may not be true, I don’t know), when we see various scenes in this episode where the Science SARU staff sometimes just aren’t…as strict and fluid when it comes to animation (that was my attempt at complimenting them, by the way). This is actually something I would have expected Science SARU to do; I suppose they are turning more and more into a cult/auteur studio, like SHAFT and Kyoto Animation.
I also found it funny how the Student Council has already lumped Eizouken in the group of ‘weird clubs’, and boy are some of them really weird:
- Akihabara Culture Group & Fermented Foods Advocacy Club
- Drone Photography Club
- Messenger Pigeon Club
- Carbohydrates Revolution Club (we’ve seen these guys in a past episode already)
- Lure Appreciation Club
- Neue Deutsche Härte Club (this is a sub-genre of metal originating from Germany, in case you didn’t know)
- Saw Table Tennis
- Man-Faced Fish Investigation Club
- Exterior Club
Who on Earth thought of all of these clubs is a mystery in of itself…
But this week brought us the show’s best line yet:
Asteroid in Love Episode 6
Time for some Asteroid in Love, and it’s the first time we see Suzu literally pick up Ao for…no real reason; likely won’t be the last time either.
In all seriousness, this was another cool episode; it’s like Dogakobo really nailed it this season. When they messed up on the daft ecchi dumbbell show last year, it’s like they all pooled together and thought “Hmm, we should really do something more sensible this season.” and that’s precisely what they’ve done. We love everyone in the show, we are finding the topics of astronomy, geology and casual yuri more fun to watch, and come on, who doesn’t love some semi-tsundere main characters?
That’s right, I’m calling it; Sakurai is an actual main character in this show, and not relegated to secondary character status, like we all were worrying she would be. With this Cultural Festival comes somewhat of a change of mood with Sakurai – a good change of mood. I’ve already mentioned that I’ve found her the most interesting out of all of the characters in the Earth Sciences Club, well this episode featuring this soil exploration project of hers might be the first step in her changing from a rather standoff-ish and introverted girl, to something quite different.
A bit of a bombshell is dropped in this episode though, and so future episodes will either see a further happy change in Sakurai, or give us some unnecessary drama. It’ll likely be the former, and I really hope it’ll be. I mean, think back to episode 1, when we saw Sakurai for the first time, pretty annoyed at the fact that her precious Geology club was to merge with the Astronomy club, and not really wanting to have anything to do with the newcomers (Mira and Ao). Now? Well, she’s actually socializing with everyone, at last.
The Newspaper Club who live upstairs to Earth Sciences seem pretty interested in this metamorphosis in her too; maybe they’ll make it their front page headline…
Flying Witch Episode 6
Now, when it comes to characters being sent to secondary character status, what can you say about the people in Flying Witch? We have had various individuals from the witch world come and go, as well as friends and family. So, really, the only main characters are…Makoto and Chinatsu. In this episode Chinatsu decides to drop a bit of a bombshell: she wants to become an apprentice witch.
The others seem to see this as just Chinatsu being Chinatsu, and so treating her like the naive young girl she is, they take this announcement of hers in stride, but as we see in this episode, Chinatsu is pretty serious about this. In between Makoto practicing flying on her broom and Akane showing off by practicing a spell, Chinatsu is firmly at the point of ‘watch and learn’. I know that, in the manga, her interest in becoming a witch is taken more seriously when she becomes the recipient of a magic ring and is able to perform water magic. Certainly a change from right now, where she just wants to make candy houses and toys appear out of thin air.
Joking aside, I know this won’t end up being some fad that any young girl her age would have.
I’m following the Overwatch League again this year, and because of time differences, most of the games will be on ridiculous hours of the day, since matches all take place in Europe and Asia, as well as all across North America (the ones in China have been rescheduled due to the current health scare, however). At least it’s better than purposely having to stay up until 4-6am for 4 nights a week because every game was held in Los Angeles. So…goodbye, sleep pattern. When you reach my age, you learn that those anime binge watching sessions you did when you were much younger are things you can’t really do anymore…because you like sleeping better. Of course, that doesn’t mean my anime hobby is any less than it was. I’ll still be clawing through these shows, and no doubt I’ll pick this time to choose the shows I’ll be watching in the Spring 2020 season, haha. And yes, I’ll try my damnedest not to go on about how I want the New York, Atlanta and Hangzhou teams to do well.
So what do you think about this week in the Winter 2020 season? Do you think I missed any cool shows? Do you know of any Spring 2020 shows I might like? Also, what do you think about the current news surrounding the cancelling of Interspecies Reviewers? Feel free to hit that like button and air your opinions in the comments below!