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.
Folks, I’ll keep it straight and simple with you. I’ve been showing my family around Chicago for much of the past week and I have been deeply tired. As such I’m not caught up on my seasonals, so the writing here is, for the most part, going to be a bit dated. But hey, you work with what you have.
I’m planning to do a catch-up marathon starting this very evening. So hopefully next week I’ll have some more relevant material for you. Until then, enjoy what I’ve got penned so far.
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Kageki Shoujo – Sarasa’s story has begun tying into a larger dualistic theme of artistic tradition and innovation; how they conflict and otherwise interact. I’ve given Kageki Shoujo some guff in the past for focusing too much on male side characters. To some extent I still kind of think it does, but as the nature of the story has branched out to become as much about the systems that shape those who pour their hearts into their art as it is about any individual person, it feels more earned.
Episode eight, in particular, paints a quietly illuminating portrait of what, exactly, one has to give up in pursuit of dreams this grandiose. Centering around secondary character Kaoru and her brief, bygone romance with a bench-warmer from her high school’s baseball team, it both draws and explicitly denies parallels between the two. Kaoru wants nothing more than to become an actress and live up to her family’s legacy, her would-be boyfriend cannot stand the pressure that the constant comparisons to his literally professional-level older brother produces. The two bond over this half-commonality and are eventually driven apart by it. In the end, they pursue their dreams, but at the cost of each other. The episode ends, though, on a hopeful note, and a promise that this might all circle back around someday. It’s an optimistic, even romantic notion for a show that’s generally as grounded as Kageki Shoujo is.
Sonny Boy – New worlds, evil teachers who are students in disguise, movies that change reality, talking dogs, pariahs, and visions from the heavens. Halfway through its run, Sonny Boy is as wonderfully weird and cryptic as ever. Episode six was the end of a certain version of this drifting classroom’s story, but not the one we’re following. For this treasure box of puzzles and surreal imagery, we can only anticipate what’s to come.
Magia Record – As always, my more detailed thoughts are available over on GGA for this series. We must ask ourselves though; is Magia Record the best thing currently airing? This week’s episode and its feat of turning the previously ignorable Kuroe of all people into a character-of-the-week is a sign that points to “yes”. Honestly, what competition does it have? Sonny Boy? That show is great, certainly, but it lacks MagiReco’s series credentials and consequently the sense that we’re seeing something big happen. The real thinker is just whether the remainder of season 2, and the upcoming season 3, are enough to change the question we’re asking into “is Magia Record the best anime of 2021?”.
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As a final note; you’ve probably already read it, but if not, do be sure to check out my review of the final Rebuild of Evangelion film. I really loved the movie and I think it may, in fact, be my favorite ending for the series.
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