Author: Owningmatt93

Princess Principal Episode 5 – The Spies on the Train That Day

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Episode 5 is in many ways similar to episode 3, giving us a backstory of one of our characters via a spy case as they did with Beatrice. Before we get into that though, I’d like to say that I thought Beatrice’s backstory was definitely touching in ways I did not expect from the series, although it wasn’t as if they focused the whole episode on it either. This may have been a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how much you like to know about your characters before the story progresses, however I think in this case it fits the show, especially if they put just as much emphasis on the other characters and their stories later on as well.

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Princess Principal Episode 2 — Observation is Key

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After watching various anime premieres this season, Princess Principal (or PriPri, if you’re lazy like me) was the one that took me by the biggest surprise in terms of its sheer uniqueness compared to many others of the season. That’s not to say the season is lacking in creativity, or that previous seasons had more creativity than this current one, but in this season with many anime seemingly attempting to ride waves of popularity based on other popular ones, I expected PriPri to fall in line with them in terms of having difficulty differentiating itself from shows such as Baccano! or Joker Game.

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SukaSuka Episode 12 — A Display of True Colors

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“Is this even the same show?” A question I asked myself continuously while watching this episode.

You may have expected me to delve into another long rant-like explanation as to why SukaSuka continues to not work for me and how much it continues to stray from the beginning episodes in dramatic tone and impact, as I’ve discussed several times previously. I mean, I’ve ragged on this show a lot, after all. Most of the things I’ve ragged on though have been personal complaints or about scenes that didn’t quite hit the mark as hard I was hoping it would, and there’s still a plethora of problems with the show in general. However, this episode brought out the shows true colors and gave me exactly what I wanted and expected the show to be like all along.

And by that, I mean, an episode perhaps rivaling episode 1 in terms of outstanding quality. This episode was truly fantastic.

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Zetsuen no Tempest – How Romance Shapes Your Worldview

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Romance can create drastic changes in our lives, without us even realizing it’s happening. It’s one of the reasons why the romance genre is so widely diverse in how it’s told throughout media. However, a “successful” romance story is mostly dependent on our own experiences with it throughout our lives. Romance stories can easily resonate with one person, yet just as easily cause an emotional disconnect with another. While each of these stories may contain similar aspects, each one can function innately different from others, either in the setting, delivery, or just the elements used to encapsulate the romantic feelings and relationships between people. Zetsuen no Tempest is no different, with it containing these romantic elements, but is mostly unique in that it subtly uses the romance to drive the core of this action-heavy fantasy series.

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SukaSuka Episode 9 – Fading Memories

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Well, here we are. It’s another rousing week of SukaSuka. I’d like to say that I’ve been constantly entertained by the series so far, but sadly, I can’t. SukaSuka rides the line between boring and enthralling, depending on how each episode captures Chtholly and Willem in a beautiful romantic light. When it decides to pull out all the stops, it does a pretty good job of being entertaining and keeping my attention. However, the times that it does shine are few and far between, and I think this inconsistency is one of the largest downfalls of the series itself. Sometimes an episode will pull out a captivating moment, only to fill the rest of its run-time with needless exposition that had already been shown to us through smaller moments. Episode 9 is similar to episode 8, a prime examples of exactly why I like the show, and also why I find this anime with such a unique premise so uninteresting as it progresses.

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SukaSuka Episode 6 — Overcoming Our Pasts

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This show has become strange to me over the last few weeks. It started out to be this entrancing anime, showing the depth of the world, using various elements to work towards creating a particular sort of tone, and further using these elements to create a world and characters woven into this grand narrative that was both mystical and tinged with drama. Lately though, these aspects that have attracted me to the show have started becoming buried under all sorts of problems, and it’s becoming harder and harder for me to look past them, even in its key dramatic moments.

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SukaSuka Episode 3 — More of the Same

Owningmatt93 4 Comments

SukaSuka this week continues to keep my interest by continuing to move the story slowly forward and satiating my curiosity towards our main characters. While this episode has been pretty low-key in terms of dramatic scenes, it still turned out to be a pleasant experience all around. It’ll still take a few more episodes for me to buy into the fantasy drama aspects though, as it seems to still a bit rough around the edges as the series continues to try and figure exactly what it wants to accomplish. That doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying the ride though; it only means that I’m weary about some of the ways the story is being told, and I’m not thoroughly convinced that it can keep at its current rate of progression without losing the strong bits of quality we’ve seen thus far.

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