The first few episodes of each show in each season are like litmus tests for us…well, most of them anyway. There are always a good bunch of people who decide to stick with their show regardless, either because it’s an existing franchise they love or just because of general hype. For this season, it’s the fact that Tokyo Revengers, The Misfit of Demon King Academy, Bungo Stray Dogs are all back among others. And let’s not forget that the nth season of My Hero Academia is still going. Yeah, there’s my British cynicism kicking in. It’s way too early to start begging for the Spring season to come; I mean we’re only 2 or 3 episodes into our shows…
In/Spectre Season 2 Episode 2
Something I didn’t mention last week, when episode 1 aired. In my watch of season 1 of In/Spectre, I made a lot of comments on how some of the script in the show felt difficult to follow at points. Like one other well-known supernatural franchise (the Monogatari series), this show relies on a lot of expository dialogue to keep the plot going. A lot of it is all necessary though, but I still could not shake the fact that it got awkward to watch and listen to sometimes. Kotoko definitely loves to talk about her work, and nothing changes about that here in season 2. Except this week, we go on a little detour.
Instead of the focus remaining on Kotoko and Kuro, this week turns to what is to be their next case, through the client’s point-of-view. This client is a yuki-onna who took pity on a mountain climber who seems to have the worst luck in the world. First being pushed off a mountain by who he thought was a childhood friend, then getting cheated on by his wife, then his company being bought by another one leaving him unemployed and a shut-in…a rich one though, given the compensation he got. It’s quite a cute tale, and the chemistry that both Masayuki and the yuki-onna have is very nice to watch.
In all the promo material I saw for this second season, I was half-expecting this yuki-onna character to be an antagonist in the show, and so it’s interesting to see her as a client of Kotoko, and that she sees her as the Goddess of Wisdom too. That goes to show how much power and clout Kotoko really has; something I kind of underestimated watching season 1. This upcoming arc will be about the next bout of bad luck that Masayuki has gotten into, which I won’t spoil just yet. I’m sure that next week, Kotoko and Kuro will make the journey to Masayuki’s nice fancy house in the countryside and hear him out. Then he can carry on with his new life with the yuki-onna and maybe have some little cute little yuki-onna children. The way she has come into his life now, she might as well be his wife now…
By shifting the focus to Masayuki and the yuki-onna, the studio have established this new arc very well. We get to hear their story first from their point-of-view, instead of second-hand information from Kotoko. The yuki-onna makes the point in this week’s episode about how humanity and yokai co-exist but cannot interfere, so the fact that she is spending so much time with this human rings alarm bells. I’m already invested in this arc, and hope it gets the good ending it deserves.
Tomo-chan is a Girl! Episode 2
Even after watching this week’s episode, number two, I still get the impression that the premise is to get Tomo to change; to be like another faceless girls that might get Jun’s attention. This episode’s first sketch revolves around the short skirt she wears, and the fact that she wears shorts underneath them as well (as she can move around better). When she has to deal with a groper on the bus to school, Jun brings up the idea that she wears trousers instead. I’m really not a fan of the idea of Tomo being the only one who should change her appearance and mannerism in order to get Jun to see her otherwise.
This might just be the second episode, and we are still in the introductory character phase, but it still feels like the show is going to move at a snail’s pace. This week we get a proper introduction to secondary character number three: Carol Olston. The British rich girl in the class, and someone a lot of the boys have their eye on, despite being thick as a brick. And as I expected, they didn’t go down the Engrish route…at least not yet anyway.
Tomo should not have to be the only one who needs to change dramatically in order to get Jun to see her the way she wants, and I still fear that this show is going to go down that road. Carol now has some idea that Tomo has her eye on Jun, and may likely be very insistent on giving her some ‘girly’ tips. This week’s sketch with the skirt felt a little weird to watch, with Misuzu forcing her into a scenario where Jun only sees Tomo’s skirt (and not the shorts underneath as well). Future episodes may see her feeling uncomfortable putting on heaps of makeup (as per Carol’s suggestions, possibly…). I suppose I’m starting to be overly cautious here, but otherwise Tomo-chan is a Girl! remains a fun watch so far.
NieR: Automata Ver 1.1a Episode 2
Reading through some writeups of episode 1 by other reviewers has made me realize that there are going to be two different kinds of people watching the NieR: Automata show; those who have played the game and know the story well, and those who haven’t and know very little (or nothing) about it or the themes discussed in it. I predict that the show will delve deeper into them as future episode go by, but for this week, we step away from the action and dip into other parts of the story, in particular the machines on the surface developing emotions of their own. And while episode 1 pretty much follows what we play through in the ‘prologue’ moment by moment, we go on a detour here in episode 2.
I like the idea that the show is detouring to follow perspectives of other characters and not just following the main ones so much. This episode is a great example as it follows a nameless machine discovering something to follow aside from the cycle of war and death (or deactivation perhaps). Its discovery of flowers and plant life greatly contrasts with what it has been initially designed and created to do. We watch its colleagues wage war with the humans on the surface (who we see this week for the first time too) while it grows and tends to plants among city ruins.
The city ruins is an early part of the game, I should add; it is in fact the first place we go to after we finish the ‘prologue’. While I am expecting a lot more action scenes to come in the future, I think it’s good to see that they won’t be dominating the show, and that the story itself will be the main focus. The show’s animation remains solid, and these scenes with the machines growing and tending to plant life will be a taster of the kind of things we’ll be seeing to come. Not just stylish action sequences, but philosophical themes of humanism and the necessity of war. The Council of Humanity is sheltering on the scarred and damaged Moon, but they remain obscure and hidden, while the resistance on the surface feel abandoned and helpless. There is a reason for all of this, and we’ll find out all of this in the future, I’m sure.
Just having a story where we follow 2B and 9S all the time would be something that would get very dull very quickly, and so I really like what A-1 Pictures have done here. By picking out and highlighting other aspects of the story, even smaller ones, it is making this screen adaptation of the game more interesting to watch. Not only for those who are new to the story, but to those of us who do know the story and were hoping this wasn’t going to mirror the game frame-by-frame. Saying that though, it has brought a lot of what we see in the game so far. Pointing out two moments in particular here. One is where 2B is undergoing maintenance after her black box incident last week; in the show, this is presented as 9S simply doing maintenance on her, but in the game this is in fact the brightness and volume tester. The other is right at the end, in the comedic short sketch they are adding to each episode. In the game menu, there is a section that highlights the operating system of 2B. The player can delete this if they want, but this can actually shut her down; without the OS, it can’t function. So I think it’s funny it points this out as a joke. A-1 Pictures could have made this a super serious show, but it wouldn’t have given off the same vibe that the game does. Yoko Taro and the team behind the game all have a very…unique sense of humor, and seeing this reflected in moments like this is good to see.
Dorohedoro Episode 2
Dorohedoro keeps on looking amazing, but it is also a really crazy watch. It’s a high energy show that is absolutely nuts, but at the same time it feels like the violence and gore we see is taken to excess. Some of it is necessary, but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable to see. Then again, this isn’t really meant to be a cutesy show, now is it?
In episode 1, we got to see a lot of things, that were all very loosely linked together. The same applies for episode 2, sort of. This episode is split into two different sections. Firstly, we see head sorcerer En plotting to kill Caiman and Nikaido (I initially thought he wanted them alive; my mistake), then Caiman and Nikaido go out to look for an acupuncturist who might be able to bring Caiman’s human face back.
I think one other large issue I have with the show so far is that I’m not especially rooting for anyone at the moment. Right now, neither Caiman or Nikaido come across as characters we want to cheer for. This could be by design though; I mean the sorcerers we do see come across as regular people, and both Caiman and Nikaido seem to take great pleasure in killing and dismembering them. The show appears to make out that these killings and beatings are righteous ones, since the sorcerers are so very obviously the antagonists here. But like I said earlier, all these violence and gore remains uncomfortable to watch.
I remain extremely curious to know more about the story in Dorohedoro though, and I hope that episodes to come will make me change my mind about the show. So much felt crammed into episode 1, and I felt the same about episode 2 as well…but I’m not seeing this so much as the negative thing I’d normally see it as. It’s plain to see that Dorohedoro has a very detailed story with things going off in all sorts of directions, and attempts to put them all in both work and don’t work. That didn’t really make that much sense, I know. If they’d slowed the pace down a little, then perhaps I’d see more than just all the blood and gore. This could be a show that will take me some time to get into, even with the complaints I’ve made so far, but I’m just fine with that.
I’m far more optimistic about the NieR: Automata show now; I’m no longer worried that it is going to be a straight frame-by-frame take on the game. I want to hope that Tomo won’t be forced into changing into something she doesn’t want to be, and I also want to hope that Dorohedoro will give me more than just gratuitous violence. And then there’s the yuki-onna arc, who I want a happy ending for. With all this being said, should I pick out my Spring shows already? Well, we’re still in the litmus test phase, so probably not.