Weekly Reflections – 10

Really wish all the stuff I’m somewhat enjoying wasn’t rammed into the weekend – I appear to have dropped the majority of stuff that airs during the week!  Although I suppose that does give me a bit of free time to continue with Yu Yu Hakushou and read some manga…..still wish the good shows were a bit more evenly spread though.

Mushishi Zoku-shou – 06

Mushishi excels at telling these chilling self contained stories.  I was thinking this was going to be one of the more haunting and heartbreaking tales with the sickly young woman falling prey to the foam mushi, only for it to take a decidedly more sinister turn towards the end when we discover the seemingly kind-hearted gardener is actually from a line of demented axe murderers, who graft the head of the beautiful, ageless Saho onto healthy women’s bodies.  Horrifying! Like in a lot of these tales, it makes me shiver to think how much longer this may have gone on, and how many more women would have been sacrificed if Ginko hadn’t of stumbled across that cherry tree.  It was quite affecting to see how Saho, plant-like, deaf and blind as she is, clearly didn’t want to suffer like this any longer, and it was the misguided obsession this family had with her beauty that forced her to continue living on.  Truly a wonderful episode.

Ping Pong the Animation – 05

The characterisation in this series is stellar.  Time is progressing at a considerable speed and we’re only really getting snippets of people’s stories at a time, but there is not a single wasted piece of dialogue and everything we see on the screen is used to build up a multi-layered picture of what is going on in their lives.  Just take the scene with Wenge in this episode – barely any talking but we get a very clear impression of his homesickness and desire to improve himself.  So wonderfully done.

The majority of the episode was really about the change in Smile, Akuma’s jealousy and how Peco still hasn’t gotten his confidence back.  Smile’s cold, clinical precision, lack of empathy for his opponents and sudden focus on winning, don’t exactly make him the most endearing of characters, but he is very interesting to watch because he is so very focused.  Akuma is much easier to understand because he wears his emotions on his sleeve – he’s serious, dedicated and hot-tempered with a pretty sizeable inferiority complex.  As children Peco was his arch-rival, now the seemingly talentless Smile has eclipsed them all with apparent ease.  It is galling to Akuma & Peco to see.  For Akuma it is frustrating that his passion and hard-work are useless in the face of Smile’s cool-headed apathy and natural talent, while for Peco it is the way Smile’s underlying talent has suddenly come to the forefront with a little bit of effort.  Peco has been used to winning with minimal effort, his natural talent always took him to the top.  Now he is confronted with the fact that those he could beat handily in the past have completely eclipsed him in the area he used to rule.  I can’t wait to see how Peco rediscovers his passion for ping pong.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders – 06

This episode had Star Platinum punching the crap out of a shark.  Best episode yet!

In all seriousness I prefer to watch the characters mess about, cracking stupid one-liners and punching sharks than all the serious talking and fairly dull fighting the show has been focused on so far.  Hopefully we get more stupidity in the coming episodes.

Haikyuu!! – 06

Hinata’s extreme nerves in the face of his first match as part of a proper team was fecking adorable!  The faces the characters pull in this show are wonderful and I really love how they all bounce off each other so easily.  Haikyuu!! is just a bundle of fun to watch – I’m massively enjoying it so far.

Knights of Sidonia – 05

Entire episode focused on how two characters survive being cast adrift in space for nearly two weeks – somehow managed to not be a complete bore!  The attention to detail in the technology in Knights of Sidonia never fails to fascinate me – sure I don’t actually understand some of the jargon, but it sounds convincing most of the time!  Still wish they’d make the characters a bit more engaging, they’re still fairly blank canvases at the moment.  However Sidonia remains a very strong show.

Hunter x Hunter – 128

The orgasmic bliss of Pouf & Youpi when Merurem praises how they are both delicious to nom on, had me in fits of giggles.  We’ve come to expect this kind of reaction from Pouf, but in Youpi it takes on a whole new level of strange and wonderful.  I really enjoy how Hunter x Hunter can swing from these fantastic flights of fancy right into Pouf being an utter prick hellbent on murdering Komugi before the King has a chance to reacquaint himself with his fledgling humanity.  This series is such a treat, I’m honestly excited to see every episode.