alright, holding off on the otona precure for now since i haven’t seen the prequel series to it but i’m here for hirogaru sky. animation quality seemed to dip a little bit compared to previous eps? characters seem to be drawn a little weirdly, especially when they’re a little further away in the scene. Bits of the fight looked pretty good though and felt yuu yoshiyama-ish. Anyways, it was a nice episode. It’s nice seeing Ageha in her role as a nursery school teacher and how she engages with the kids.

Finished binging Tropical Rouge at the beginning of the week and then there was a gap of no mahou shoujo anime during the week but then here we are again. Overall, the animation was pretty solid but the lower-res versions of Mashiro and Sora were kinda freaky looking when they were walking up the hill around the 8:25 mark. I found Battamonda funnier this ep than last, I guess he works better in smaller doses for me. Surgery seemed a little bit extreme for pitcher’s elbow but I guess it’s an option if things don’t improve after 6 months? Chroniclon is still pretty hype after the 3rd-ish time.

I kinda wonder why Flea is teaching them multiplication tables but maybe I won’t question it… The face Walter did to Bocchan during the water training segment was pretty fun as well as the pencil sketch thing when Daleth said “they’re not my friends”. The ending scene framing with Alice and Bocchan was nice with Bocchan in the blue and Alice in the yellow and the shadow cast over his eyes by his hat’s brim.

• I think the anime I looked forward to most week-to-week was Genjitsu no Yohane. Yeah, the plot reused a lot of elements throughout to keep it going and the pacing was a little weird, but it was one of the prettier shows, the fantasy world was interesting, we got new Aqours jams (and the OST was great), and Yoshiko/Yohane was one of my favs from Love Live Sunshine.
• Undead Girl Murder Farce, despite it being maybe not my usual genre of preference, was probably the best overall anime of the season I watched (mostly thanks to the director from Kaguya and all the great, inventive visuals).
• Helck isn’t the prettiest anime visually, but it’s got a director who can balance humor and seriousness in Tatsuo Satou (director of Kidou Senkan Nadesico and Uchuu no Stellvia among other things) and it shows and so it’s been pretty enjoyable.
• Hirogaru Sky! Precure has been pretty solid. Not my favorite installment of Precure (been watching through Tropical Rouge and I think I like that one more, maybe because of its humor and weirdness) and it definitely has its fair share of obvious animation quality dips, but the last couple eps have had really energetic and lively animation with pretty background art so we’ll see where we go from here.
• Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid 2nd Season has been alright. Never was the prettiest show, but this season has had some nicer-than-usual animated moments and bigger plot lines are coming into play so maybe I like it more than season 1?
• wasn’t expecting that much from it (and maybe I like other Naomi Oozora demon-ish shows more than this one) but Lv1 Maou to One Room Yuusha was pretty fun and the longer plotlines driving the events were pretty interesting.

And yeah there’s Zom 100 which is great but is quite a bit further from done than everything else and who knows when it’ll finish…

I kinda barely remember who Battamonda was tbh, feels like his episodes were so long ago, I guess his temper was the thing that defined him (and still does). Whenever I hear “toki wa kita”, I think of Machikado Mazoku. I suppose “I wuv it so much” is a bit on the longer side for a sentence but I’m kinda giving up on tracking Ellee’s speech growth.

The use of blur and shadows was pretty nice this ep, particularly when Battamonda dropped his brush and the focus shifted from the sketchbook to the brush.

Eh, not so much of a fan of this ep. Battamonda’s expressions were nicely animated, but the back and forth thing didn’t really land with me. And it was kinda obvious with the full transformations and attack sequences they had to pad things out a bit (although yeah, the chroniclon one still looks great). Are they trying to draw parallels between Ellee’s liking Mashiron’s books and the Cure Majesty closing the chroniclon?

The folk song Beatrix had on her audio player was Sakura Sakura, which seems fitting for her character.

The lighting at the beginning was quite nice with the long shadows and everything, feels like this show doesn’t show off lighting like that often. I wanna see Bocchan in a skirt, why not show us that in a Viola’s imagination scene smh. Nico’s and Flea’s hair remind me of Kirika from Symphogear.

The intro was quite pretty, but mb I would’ve liked more of that worldbuilding sprinkled into the rest of the season, feels kinda weird tojust put it in the last episode. The transitions to the performances are kinda abrupt in this series, particularly in this last ep. It kinda makes me want the performances in less usual idol-garb and their fantasized stages and stick closer to the theming in the rest of the show, but eh.

I liked this show and it’s been a show I’ve been most looking forward to watching week-to-week , it’s on the prettier side of shows and more aligned with my usual preferences as a SOL. Yeah, pacing throughout the show has been a little weird and the same sorts of events to push the plot forward was a little annoying, but the fantasy world is pretty interesting (and wouldn’t mind seeing another season or two of), both the OST and new Aquors tunes were nice, and I’d say Yoshiko ahem,… Yohane was probably one of my favorites from the original series. Yeah, the themes of finding yourself and finding your place in the world and how that relates to everybody else aren’t super unique, but the way the show tied it to expressing yourself and putting yourself out there through song and also tying it to the whole “kokoro no oto” thing and Lailaps was pretty nice.

I guess being Cure Majesty is rubbing off on Ellee’s speech abilities? “Descend, mystical nobility! Cure Majesty!” seems pretty complicated for a toddler to say. Or maybe the scriptwriters are abandoning trying to organically develop toddler speech patterns… I kinda like how Ellee’s patty-cake affinities paid off with opening the ruins, which are incidentally reminding me of Link to the Past. Also, I guess we foreshadowing again with Ellee saving Mashiro in her play fight at the beginning of the ep. I wonder if Ellee could’ve figured out the hands thing like Cure Majesty did.

Anyways, I’m pretty sure Minoton wanted to defeat the Precures even before the undergu energy shenanigans? I still can’t unhear Kaguya with Cure Majesty. Nice that we got new music cues this ep. The fight scene animation looked nice and energetic too. This episode’s themes were pretty nice with the ideas of trust and protection and how they intermingle. Majestic Chroniclon kinda feels similar to Mix Palette (whatever that’s supposed to actually do) but whatever, the animation is really cool and they get to do Majestic Halation, which of course inevitably reminds me of Snow Halation, which is good.

I personally wanted Operation Honeytrap 2 smh. I hadn’t heard of kouglof until this anime but I am intrigued, the Czech version looks particularly interesting. Lions are cool but mb I like red pandas a little more than lions tbh. The fire scene was nice, particularly with fire Bocchan and Alice dancing and occasionally obscuring Zain and Cuff.

Tonosama is still triggering Chrono Trigger/Robo memories. And it looks like Chika’s dog made it into this anime too? Nice to see Yohane’s chuuni tendencies in this anime when she’s doing the fortune telling.

Ruby with the fairy-sized cotton candy makes me kinda wonder how food portions work with her being that she has a human size too but maybe I shouldn’t think too hard about it. I also kinda wanna see her ride the ghost sea slug. Unlike Lailaps, I still consider butterflies bugs.

Guess I was wrong about the festival song tying in with the “kokoro no oto” plotline (Genjitsu no Yohane you tricky anime) but it was a nice tune nonetheless. I don’t really keep track of Love Live things outside of the anime so it’s fun to hear a return (at least to me) of Love Live SIP and Sunshine-era style tunes with the upbeat, distorted electric guitar driven,…ness (I guess what really helps define the sound to me is the lead electric guitar, and I think of things like Sunny Day Song from the SIP movie).

Whenever I hear the last name Saotome, Getter Robo pops into my head.

Sora would be too OP for the show if everything were explained to her in the context of being a hero.

It’s kinda funny that one of the sisters is Kaguya and then other Kaguya’s VA is Ellee’s VA. Also, Elle didn’t know how to walk at the beginning of the series and now she’s walking on stage in front of people *~*~*character growth *~*~*.

I guess the ranborg’s tentacles were wires? The ranborg doing 👉👈 was pretty funny. Sora and Tsubasa’s teaming up move was fun, is it the first time they’ve done that this series?

I liked the Ageha’s retort to Minoton to give some context to the sisters’ always mentioning fun and smiles, was getting a little worried that we wouldn’t get that payoff for a bit. Ageha getting to show off her kid skills and her sisters’ support of it all was pretty nice too.

lots of fun faces this time, with wide face/no mouth bocchan, alice, and cuff and big eyes bocchan. i guess the animation can look a bit stiff at times, but it’s at times it can have pretty expressive faces, like with all of the townspeople when zain froze time. A nice fluffy episode and the fight was well done with the flashbacks. Probably my favorite ep of S2 so far.

A lot of fun animation this episode, with Mari imagining what girls’ nights are (kinda reminded me of Utena with the silhouette-y figures) and everybody else’s wishes for a girls’ night (which kind of looked OP-esque in a way? especially with the white borders). The preparation montage was fun too with the flying countdown pages. “Monsties” is kind of a cute translation for obakechan, I will give the translators that one. A “live” at a “festival” with everybody singing together,… in my Love Live anime?! Also I’m betting that’ll tie in into our “kokoro no oto” plotline. The last shot with the stars reflected in Yohane eyes reminds me of so many recent anime, Oshi no Ko and Bishounen Tanteidan for example.

Anyways, a fun episode with nice brisk pacing and it feels like the animators got a chance to play around a bit more. I think it’s one of favorite episodes of Genjitsu so far.

Feels like this ep is a bit of a missed opportunity to mix up the usual pairings and also cement the themes of appreciating qualities of other people by being thrown in their shoes and having to learn about airplanes, use makeup, etc. by having them use their newfound abilities in the fight but eh, it was a fun enough episode. I liked the little Master Roshi pig and the door monster saying what they are kinda reminded me of Sailor Moon.

alright, recently finished up Futari wa Precure and binged this series up till now so now I can participate in weekly discussion things. Is (American) football big enough in Japan to have football pads and what not around (because of course I as an American have at least one set for every room)? Maybe I shouldn’t think about it too hard… I kinda wonder if Skyland tapirs and skunks have blue variants too (ahem, tatapirs and skuskunks, excuse me).

Kinda was curious to see a capybara ranborged but the inanimate object is a better candidate. Was it just me or did this week’s ranborg and Minoton kinda lack shading compared to other things? I guess things that aren’t hair and aren’t metal don’t really get a whole lot of shading now that I pay more attention to it… but I guess compared to other shiny things the dinosaur didn’t seem quite as shiny,… eh oh well. Anyways, it’ll be interesting to see how Ellee’s communicative abilities get explored more, especially since she’s a baby and part of the way this series as shown her growth is her growing ability to vocalize her thoughts.

octopus symbol and spectre…errr… spectral bride in the same episode, eh? Anyways, the red string of fate gag was cute (and so was the bubble pipe waving around in the air). Wouldn’t an anglerfish not be able to survive at the depths as the rest of these other fish? Eh, I guess it’s a magical anglerfish (also it looks like not all anglerfish live in the deep sea? but then the subs mentioned deep sea,… eh). Nice to see some progress made in terms of the curse, at least there’s a more solid lead to follow.

I guess they’re really sticking with Resonance for “kokoro no oto”. I mean, “sound of the heart” or i dunno, something shorter to mash up the words like “heartsound” or something would help sub readers connect themes together like Yohane trying to find something fun only she can do and basically everything Mari said and this being Love Live and all, but eh,… I guess resonance kinda half sorta works, oh well.

Yeah, I don’t think trying to hide that you’re a fairy really works for Ruby (but I guess that’s half the point, unless maybe there’s like Hakumei and Mikochi-sized wingless pepole too?!). Anyways, a nice character-growth episode today and prob my fav of this series so far. The afternoon and sparkly sea shots were pretty and so was the whole scene with the bridge shadows (which also helps visualize today’s themes as an extra bonus).

Hah, I would recognize Mamoru Miyano’s voice anywhere (well, almost. he’s a little harder to pick out in his more subdued roles). Makoto Furukawa’s voice I have more trouble with (like he was in Gundam NT, what?) but I guess he’s pretty recognizable here.

It’s fun seeing all the zombies in different getups, I kinda wonder what’s with the guy in the sailor fuku. Kencho’s speech kinda reminds me of some themes in recently airing anime… I guess the sun dimming as it passes by buildings and then coming out, the literal leaps of faith, the stripping off of formal clothes, and the helping hand were kinda,… on the noise, but it was a fun and pretty sequence.

Susumu Hirasawa also did the OP and ED to Kon’s Paprika and I haven’t managed to find clips of him performing any of Paranoia Agent live, his live shows look like a trip with him performing with a laser controller