The Frontline Report is a weekly column where I briefly summarize the past week of my personal journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of pop culture.

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I’ll be straight with ya, folks. It’s my second week of battling what I’m like 99% sure is mono, so I haven’t had the most energy for anime-think-about-‘ing. Still, I hope the three brief paragraphs below on some airing seasonals will give you something to contemplate. Let me know what you think in the comments!

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Blue Reflection Ray – Call it the little show that could, the most unsung anime of 2021, or whatever you will. Fifteen episodes into its two-cour run, Blue Reflection Ray decided to drop one of the most delicate episodes about depression I’ve ever seen. Sadly, I think it will probably go mostly-unwatched, like the rest of the anime has been. Is there any hope that this thing might find the audience that would appreciate it, this late in the game? It’s hard to say. I’m not optimistic, but it doesn’t diminish the quality of BRR itself. Shine on, girls.

Kageki Shojo!! – Is it fair to call Kageki Shojo!! “complicated”? It feels fair. There’s a distinction between wanting to tackle difficult, complex subject matter and actually doing so, and I’ve kinda been worried up to this point that Kageki Shojo!! would fall on the wrong side of that divide. The series has a really unfortunate tendency to have male characters support its primary, almost entirely female, cast in a way that feels somewhat detrimental to both. Consequently, it can feel contrived at times. But on the other hand, if you’re willing to reckon with this flaw the point remains that Kageki Shojo!! is dealing with some really heavy stuff and it’s not holding back in doing so, and I think that’s commendable. This week’s episode, the fourth, is probably the best of the series so far, and is the first to markedly develop the leads’ relationship. I’m hoping it’s a sign of things to come.

Sonny Boy – Sonny Boy is the rare anime I feel underqualified to discuss. It draws on an obvious, long lineage (one I’m mostly unfamiliar with) of “society in a jar” stories that dates back at least as far as Lord of The Flies. (And in anime and manga, at least as far as The Drifting Classroom.) I’m not really super familiar with this stuff, so it’s hard to gauge how “original” Sonny Boy truly is in this regard. But what it’s not hard to gauge is how interesting the show is, in addition to the central mystery I’ve been really impressed with the brilliant little loops the show’s character writing keeps creating. The way it’s edited is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, but that’s not a bad thing, and it keeps everything coherent even with such a huge cast.

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