The Weekly Orbit is a weekly column collecting and refining my more casual anime- and manga-related thoughts from the previous week. Mostly, these are taken from my tumblr blog, and assume familiarity with the works covered. Be wary of spoilers!
Hello, anime fans! We have a quiet lineup this week, but that’s only because we’re in the between-season doldrums where last season’s shows have all ended and this season’s have mostly not yet premiered. We’re here to cover one of the few that already did and an ongoing annual that I’m fond of. (Also one last finale, but to be honest I had little to say about it.) There’s also a new section of the column, here. Keep scrolling and you’ll see what I mean.
Before that, I do just want to once again plug my reviews for Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night and Girls Band Cry, the twin music originals that aired this past season. Honestly, they started out fairly different and ended up miles away from each other in every important respect, but the sisters-by-circumstance will probably always be compared just because they happened to air at the same time. I feel a little bad for the former in that I can’t help but think it might have been a bit better received if it had aired back in Winter. Still, for my money, both have their strengths, and Girls Band Cry is basically an instant classic.
Anime
Code Geass: Rozé of the Recapture – Episode 2
I have a lot of positive things to say about this episode, but before we get to any of them we have to address my one big criticism of it. The main sour note here is just, man, do we really have to call the prison that the Japanese resistance are being held in a “concentration camp?” I’m not sure if the use of that term is to be blamed on the subtitlers or the writers (a bit of on-screen text actually says *relocation* camp instead, although I think that’s just a euphemism for the other thing anyway). Usually, I make some effort to excuse Code Geass‘ generally reckless use of politically-charged imagery, but it very much is possible to push these things too far, and that is definitely the case here. (The original series sometimes did so as well, so it’s not like this is a sin unique to Rozé, but still.) It’s very much a down note in an otherwise pretty good episode, and it put a damper on my mood. Not mentioning it would also just feel irresponsible. So! There it is. I don’t know why they did that and I’m not going to attempt to excuse it.
Anyway, the actual prison liberation itself is pretty good and very action-packed. The show’s establishing a pattern here with Ash taking down arrogant Britannian knights that is admittedly a cheap thrill but one that I’m pretty into. I like his little speeches when he inevitably bests them.
There are two main things we learn in this episode. One; Sakuya and Sakura don’t seem to actually be related and instead have a royal body double situation going on. What does this open us up for? Why, Code Geass Yuri, of course. I’m not going to blow anyone’s mind by praising wlw romantic tension in a show when the blog that I pull these weekly posts from has the URL “yurisorcerer.tumblr.com”, but nonetheless, I am going to say; good job with that, Rozé of the Recapture. May your bounty of lilies be endless.
The other thing is that hey, it turns out that Sakuya-as-Rozé doesn’t have as straightforward a relationship with Ash as we were initially led to believe (who could’ve seen that coming?). Given the flashback we’re shown, the case seems to be that Ash is under a very complicated iteration of Sakuya’s geass, and in fact plans to kill him after she’s completed her tasks of rescuing Sakura and freeing Area 11 from the Neo-Britannian yoke, to “avenge her father.”
We’ll learn more about that in the weeks to come, I’d guess. It really feels like Sakuya is a very complex character that we’re only getting to look at one layer at a time. I like that, it makes her notably distinct from Lelouch whose whole deal we basically understood right away even if it later became more complicated.
So, yeah, in spite of my major complaint, this was a solid episode. (I could complain about the fanservice too if I wanted to, but honestly I’m disinclined to do so. That’s always been a thing Code Geass has gone over the top with, and I feel like anyone still onboard with the series has to know that by now. Code Geass Ass Shots make a proud return here after being absent in the first week, in fact.) I’d put it about on par with the first episode overall.
Mysterious Disappearances – Episode 12 (Finale)
This sure was a final episode of a TV anime! I really don’t have a lot to say about this. The voice acting was good, Fairouz Ai and the cat boss youkai’s VA (who I can’t find for some reason) give their all here. This is a perfectly fine end to an extremely middling adaptation of a manga that is good but not like, that good, to begin with. Also it’s completely unrelated to any material in the actual manga! They just made a whole new ending up! This used to be a very common practice but it’s not anymore, and I’m surprised to see it brought back for an adaptation as underwhelming as this one.
Suffice to say, I’m glad to put this one in the books (har har har). Not the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and even this year I’ve seen much worse, but I’ve seen much better, too.
Pokémon Horizons – Episode 56
Normally when I write these, even the less serious ones for the weekly column, I try to keep in mind that my audience is not me and I am not my audience. Obviously, what you’re ultimately always getting is my opinion, but I normally attempt to give some consideration to how others might feel, too.
All this to say, I can’t do that here. This is an episode with a lot of Rika in it. I cannot be normal about Rika. I have tried in the past and failed.
It should’ve been me.
She’s beautiful, fantastic, gorgeous, amazing, dazzling, attractive, and her voice [provided by Saiga Mitsuki] makes my head spin. She speaks to a nervous Liko with empathy and humor, she lightly talks herself up during the (amazing) fight, but honestly she could be a lot more boastful and it still wouldn’t feel unjustified. I spent enough of the episode having a gay meltdown that I probably missed some of the finer details, but can you really blame me? She’s just electric to watch.
You guys have no idea how hard it is to not just post thirty examples of her winning smile in a row.
Right, the battle itself. Liko’s battle partner is Katy, the usual first gym leader in the Scarlet / Violet games. She puts in a good showing for the first half of the episode, with her Lokix really standing out in giving a Pokémon that isn’t particularly prominent in its home game some shine. The little guy comes off as every bit as cool as his Kamen Rider inspiration.
When the battle comes down to just Liko and Floragato against Rika and her Clodsire, things really fly off the rails, and we get the delightful experience of watching Liko undergo some character growth in real time when she (perhaps inevitably) loses. The Liko we see here, properly invested in the outcome of her battles because Floragato is, and she wants what’s best for her partner Pokémon, is a far cry from the shy little bean we met over a year ago in episode 1.
Over in the B-Part of the episode, Penny [Hirohashi Ryou] makes her on-screen debut, and she’s pretty great, too, terse and a little mysterious. What little drips we get of her backstory seem to vaguely imply that this anime actually takes place after some version of the game’s events? Which feels like it can’t possibly actually be what they’re going for, but it’s an interesting thought, regardless. (It would definitely explain the rather strange name of ‘The Explorers’ for our villain group. Thinking on this the day after I initially wrote it, maybe what’s being alluded to here is actually the earlier explorations of Area Zero.) Either way, we’re definitely getting into some interesting stuff here, Penny and Dot come across a mysterious “Scarlet Book” with what’s clearly Koraidon on its front cover. Mysteries upon mysteries! And really a good reminder that for all that’s happened over the past year or so, we’re still really just getting started with Pokémon Horizons. Not that I’m complaining! It’s quietly become one of my favorite ongoing anime.
Around The Internet
So! Here’s a new section of the columns that I haven’t figured out exactly how I’m going to handle in the archives. Essentially, I wanted to give a shout out to both to fellow anime bloggers and also just to various other critics I’ve been reading recently. Some of these people also write about anime, some of them write about other things entirely, but my hope is you’ll check some of them out if you like my own work.
Short Reflection: Spring 2024 Anime, by Anime Binge-Watcher – A tumblr post of decent length by fellow anime blogger (and Magic Planet Anime Discord Server member!), Anime Binge-Watcher. I don’t agree with all (or even most) of ABW’s ratings for the anime we both watched this past season, but I appreciate their perspective on things regardless, and it’s always interesting to read a well-thought-out opinion from someone who you don’t entirely align with. Even more interesting to me is their opening recommendation of the Dead Dead Demons’ Dededede Destruction anime (retrofitted from a film, not entirely unlike what’s happening with Rozé of the Recapture), that was just not on my radar at all but sounds (and looks, given their screencaps) pretty arresting. I’m also super happy to see another person really give it up for Girls Band Cry. And they even draw a connection between the traditional “rival group” in idol anime and that series that I hadn’t really considered before, but makes sense now that it’s been pointed out to me, especially when taken in context with eg. the rock-inflected stylings of a group like Saint Snow. In any case! It’s a good article, and I recommend it.
Aard Labor, by someone seemingly going by just “Tom”, at FreakyTrigger – Here’s something that’s both way out of my wheelhouse and could also easily eat up a whole afternoon. I’m not super familiar with UK-based pop culture criticism site FreakyTrigger, but it seems that earlier this year, a person there tasked themselves with the monumental and unenviable task of reading, and then reviewing, volume by volume, the entirety of Cerebus the Aardvark, the legendarily unhinged Canadian comic book epic that plots the evolution of its title character from a simple “funny animal” placed in a Conan the Barbarian parody up to frothing-at-the-mouth, ranting antifeminism and existential terror of its final volumes. Cerebus itself was (and I assume still is?) pretty infamous for many years as an early example of the kind of pure-id getting lost in the weeds that we now mostly associate with webcomics. I will cop to having never read the series myself, its massive length and reputation as moral bugspray have kept me away, but I’m more than happy to see someone else dive into it, especially if they’re as observant and thoughtful as article author Tom seems to be.
That’s all for this week, anime fans! The coming week proper is probably going to be pretty busy over here, although it’s hard to say for sure, so keep an eye on your inbox so you can know when any first impressions articles or such go up. Also! I will once again ask that if you like anything I’ve written in this column, or on the site in general recently, please consider dropping me a tip on Ko-Fi. Due to various life issues, I don’t have a regular job, so these donations help me afford basic necessities like food, medicine, clothes, yadda yadda. (And occasionally less essential things! I would really love to buy one of Togenashi Togeari’s albums, but I’m getting into Christmas Wishlist territory there.)
See you soon, anime fans!
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