Good day. And I’ll begin this column post with what is really the only story of the week.
We can only hope and pray that Kyoto Animation will heal, and rebuild what was destroyed in that senseless arson attack on Thursday. KyoAni have urged people to not spread any false rumors about people who are still unaccounted for, for the sake of their families, and as for what’s left? Well it’s impossible to determine how much is really gone, but KyoAni’s president has already said that a lot of their computers, servers and archived artwork is destroyed, meaning the studio is going to have to likely rebuild from the ground-up if they want to avoid involuntary bankruptcy. What KyoAni needs right now, though, is space to grieve and mourn.
Below is the official statement KyoAni have provided (English translation courtesy of Reddit):
Sentai Filmworks have started a GoFundMe page to help KyoAni in this time of need that has already raised in excess of $2.1 million (as of date of post), and so we at The OASG have provided the link to the page, if you wish to donate. Every little helps…
You’ll forgive me if I lay off the usual joking and humor this week, as it’s not really that appropriate a time. At least fellow animation studios and streaming sites have given them the space they need (the anime show Fire Force has been postponed this week, and Crunchyroll will not be airing it).
But time to move on to my regular shows, beginning with O Maidens In Your Savage Season. Previously on the show, senior staff at the school came in to the club room with the threat of shutting the club down after receiving complaints about the topics the club have raised as of late. Thanks to Hitoha’s own extra-curricular activities as an erotic writer however (which is gone into more detail this week), the club is saved. They still have to deal with this reputation that they have gained throughout the entire school, both staff and students alike…that the material they cover is just too obscene, but looking at it from another way: if they don’t, who will?
This week was a bit of a filler though, made to fill the void of what was going to happen to the Literature Club…but also the uncovered topic of who Hitoha really is. We learn this week that, due to her frequenting online sex forums, she is extremely curious on what sex is, and is even willing to go third base with someone she doesn’t know in order to learn more.
The soap opera of Kazusa and Izumi’s relationship is ongoing, when Kazusa finds out that Izumi has gotten hold of a porn Blu-ray. I’m sure the two of them will come to some kind of agreement on something, but the journey there has made O Maidens In Your Savage Season quite an excellent watch, and I’m very glad I picked this. The expression on Izumi’s face early on in this week’s episode is absolutely priceless; it’s as if he’s only just realized that teenage hormonal boys aren’t the only ones who obsess about sex.
Astra Lost in Space has already become another show I’m glad I picked too. I was concerned in the first couple of episodes that comedy was going to take over the show, and not make it into the offbeat sci-fi survival thriller I was hoping it to be. Instead it has managed to combine the two, and make it into a show that actually works.
This week, Kanata and Zack decide to tell the rest of the crew what they found: the ship’s communicator damaged, with the only logical conclusion being someone onboard did it. I mentioned the show Lost last week, as I thought this show gave off some vibes of that, well plenty more came this week, as we learn a little more about some of the crew we haven’t already heard that much about, and that they have their own bizarre backstory, all of which will be told in future episodes, I’m sure.
We already know Funicia isn’t Quitterie’s biological sister, but this week we learn that she didn’t even have that much time spent at the Rafaelli household before she was sent off on this space trip. Not just that, but we learn that Yunhua Lu was an unwanted child, and that Ulgar’s father is the vice-principal of Caird High, and considers him a failure of a son. As more and more evidence mounts up, it becomes more and more apparent and logical that these 9 kids weren’t chosen at random, like the school initially said – instead they were deliberately chosen due to pre-existing reasons (family, reputation, behavior, etc.) and left out in deep space to either survive by themselves or perish.
It doesn’t help that everyone is considered a suspect for damaging the ship’s communicator, as all of them could have their own reasons for wanting to do it. Fingers are pointed the most at Ulgar and Yunhua though; both of them were unwanted children, and secretly have axes to grind.
/r/anime is already convinced that Aries is behind all of this, with her clumsiness and her silly laugh and her heterochromia, which is rather funny…but eh, anything could be true in this show. Bear in mind that I’m an anime-only person when it comes to this, and so haven’t read what happens in the Astra Lost in Space manga. For all I know, it could be neither of them, and this could all be some elaborate social experiment, like what the tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists thought about Fyre Festival, when it was actually just one hot mess of a disaster event. But I’m going off on an tangent…back to anime…
Our favorite silly exercise show, Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru?, introduces a new character this week, in the form of Satomi Tachibana, who plays the role of school teacher with the big secret. A little reminiscent of the ‘schoolteacher-with-the-big-secret’ character that was in We Never Learn last season, but whatever. She considers herself unlucky that she happened to run into Hibiki and Akemi at the gym, and so Tachibana-sensei could well end up becoming one of the show’s side characters, leaving Hibiki, Akemi, Ayaka and Machio as the 4 main characters.
I complained last week how Machio’s muscle gimmick was already getting old…well, I guess it’s something that I no longer notice. Has this show got some kind of strange voodoo magic to it that it’s able to do this? Here was me thinking they were going to expand on last week’s scene at Ayaka’s boxing gym, where we saw Hibiki become unnaturally good at boxing…but I guess not?
The third week in anime seasons usually marks the beginning of a show’s filler episodes, and while last week’s episode of Lord El-Melloi II’s Case Files was just one of what is no doubt many ‘mini-stories’ to come, it’s this week where the filler episodes truly begin. I’ve already said how disappointed I was in this Fate spin-off show; it’s not so much lack of content, instead it’s more like the content isn’t grabbing me in the way that I had hoped in a Fate show. This week, El-Melloi’s favorite tea house is about to close because it can’t pay its unusually high electric bill, only for El-Melloi to discover that a powerful lightning Mage is working in the sewers below. And that is all the plot is…
Maybe, like Fate/Extra: Last Encore, this spin-off show is meant to cater for the hardcore Fate veteran fans. The thing is, though, is that I still found Fate/Extra: Last Encore entertaining to watch, regardless of the many tangents the plot went down. Was it because it was a SHAFT show, and it’s just my SHAFT fanboy talking? Maybe. The only show I can think of that Troyca have done is last year’s Bloom Into You, but that had a far simpler plot. The only thing I can think of that’s bothering me with this show is a ‘je ne sais quoi‘: something I can’t quite point my finger towards.
Meanwhile, back onto KyoAni, and this week’s news has taken over the minds of a lot of us, I know. Even if you weren’t a fan of any of their shows and movies, KyoAni remains an institution in our community, and our thoughts and prayers are with them at this time of need. Curious to know if animation studios will, in the future, implement a cloud storage system to backup any of their work, should something like this happen again (God forbid it, of course).
I’ve also thought long and hard about whether some kind of Symphogear binge-watching challenge would be a good idea or not; the others at The OASG have already thought of names to call such a challenge. My brain is saying no, but my heart is saying why not. I should listen to my brain more often…
Episode 3 of Senki Zesshou Symphogear continues directly from where episode 2 left off, with Tsubasa unable/unwilling to accept Hibiki as the ‘heir’ of Kanade’s Gungnir armor. A month passes in the show, with the two of them still unable to get along, and another Symphogear armor, previously thought stolen, reappears. Now I don’t know who this person is, or whether she is to be the show main antagonist or not (I doubt it), but I do hope we’ll see more of her.
Having watched 3 episodes of this Symphogear franchise, I can understand why some people call this first season the not-so-good one. Plot points feel like they were just thrown in some bizarre order, and so far I’m not feeling the emotion of Tsubasa or Hibiki…or rather, the emotion I believe this show would want me, as a viewer, to have. Maybe I’m just missing something here. Maybe there’s something the hardcore Symphogear fans haven’t told me about yet.
And so that was week 3; apologies again for the solemn mood this week. But how have KyoAni been a part of your anime background? Have any of their shows and movies (both classic and recent) been an integral part of what you are as an anime fan? What are your thoughts on the future of the studio? Feel free to hit that like button, and air your opinions in the comments below…
Oh, and here’s the link to the GoFundMe page again, if you wish to donate to a good cause…