Category: Weekly Writing Roundups

Posted on in anime, Weekly Writing Roundups

Weekly Writing Roundup – 9/13/20

HELLO

It’s been a bit since I wrote one of these! I didn’t have much to report on on Tuesday since, as I mentioned in last week’s roundup, I was taking some time off. Since then though I’ve done quite a few things, so I’ve got plenty to write about here. I hope you’re all doing well!

Twitter “Live Watches”

BOY OH BOY HAS IT BEEN AN INTERESTING TIME IN TWITTERLAND THIS PAST WEEK.

Revolutionary Girl Utena (1, 2) – As you can see, I actually did two Utena livewatches this week. The second because the first one was so good. In the first pair of episodes there’s a funny Nanami episode and what is probably my favorite episode of the series so far, a dramatic ace in the hole where the rules as we know them start to change and Utena as a series begins to tip its hand. The second pair of episodes are another solid dramatic ep…and then The Egg Episode, a truly ludicrous piece of television so utterly surreal that it is infamous to this day. I really don’t know what to say about it! It was definitely something, I kind of liked it a lot but also hated it at the same time.

Sailor Moon (#FightingEvilByGroupwatch) – Fairly standard pair of episodes for Sailor Moom this week. I really liked the one about the musician. I only found out some time after watching that, funnily enough, it’s an Ikuhara-directed episode, thus providing a tangible link to the chronologically later Revolutionary Girl Utena that I’m also livewatching. Isn’t that neat? 🙂

The Geek Girl Authority

Deca-Dence recaps of “Turbo Charger” and “Brake System“ – I still love Deca-Dence a lot but it is revealing itself to have a pretty common issue with single-cour anime, which is that the pacing is kinda out-of-wack. They have a LOT to tie up in the remaining two episodes and I’m not entirely sure if they’ll be able to do it. Here’s hoping?

The God of High School (S1E10) oath/meaning – I think I’ve been fairly frank about the fact that I think of The God of High School mostly as a vehicle for neat fights. This episode is solid in that regard. Oh! And Jin’s mysterious rival is a furry, isn’t that fun?

Onyx Equinox Character Trailer, Cast, & Release Date Announced – Onyx Equinox is an interesting one. It’s not an anime, which makes it an outlier both in my writing for GGA and on here. (I’d argue it doesn’t even much look like one, being a very clear descendant of that mid-2000s Man of Action house style blended with some Avatar: The Last Airbender.) But the trailers have seemed really cool and the story’s premise draws heavily on Aztec myth which is not something that a lot of modern media tries to get inspiration from in the authentic way this is. I’m quite excited to see where this goes once it comes out.

Shenmue Anime & More Announced at Crunchyroll Virtual Expo – Just a quick rundown of Crunchyroll’s Virtual Expo. The big takeaway here for most people is going to be the announcement of a Shenmue series. I’m not familiar with the games personally, but I may check the anime out. It looks neat.

Other Thoughts N Such

I’m not entirely sure about the Monthly Movies thing going forward. I’ve gotten plenty of donations recently but no suggestions, which makes me feel like people aren’t super interested in the idea. I will of course keep my promise to watch the HeartCatch film, but I’m not sure, beyond that, if I’ll be doing more of those. I’ll try to brainstorm more ideas for how Ko-Fi donators and Patreon patrons can get involved. Feel free to hit me up on Twitter if you have any suggestions! It’s possible I’m missing something obvious.

As for other more minor anime musings this week. Goodness; I’m nearing the end of Eureka Seven and absolutely loving every minute of it, but I don’t want to share too many thoughts because I need to save those for the review.

On a more sour note, I watched the first two episodes of Vividred Operation. Which is….sigh. I’m not the sort of person who likes to constantly howl about how I think fanservice is bad. I’m an on-record apologist for Witchblade, Akiba’s Trip, Senran Kagura, and quite a few others. However, it can definitely kneecap a show’s reputation if it’s especially egregious or done in a particularly scuzzy way, and there’s valid reasons for that.

Vividred Operation has a lot going for it: a fun, outrageous tone, a mad scientist who is a weasel, cool power armor designs a la Symphogear (which also suffers from this problem, though not nearly to this extent), and the characters can even fuse, Dragonball-style, a really fun and underused storytelling mechanic. But I feel like I can’t recommend this show to anyone, because it takes about five minutes out every episode to focus the camera’s gaze on a middle schooler’s bum, and that is (completely understandably, mind you) just too high of a hurdle to reasonably ask most people to jump to get into a series. They will be grossed out and go watch something else.

I will probably finish the series and I’ll probably enjoy most of it, but that’s a really un-fun black mark on what’s otherwise an honestly kinda awesome anime. I have thought a lot in the past few days about this sort of thing and how it does seem to be slowly changing. (Compare a battle girl series like this from the earlier 2010s to something like Revue Starlight from the decade’s back half.) But it’s still prevalent enough to be actively damaging to the genre and consequently it bothers me. I wish I could share these anime that I often really quite (and in the case of some, like Kill la Kill and the aforementioned Symphogear, outright love) like with people, and consequently I wish they weren’t how they are in this single, specific way.

Anyway, I do apologize for the rant. You know how these things are and I’m hardly the first person to have this lament.

My Discord server started an impromptu group watch of Puella Magi Madoka Magica last night. I’ve only grown to love the show more since I first watched it last year and I’m thrilled to get a chance to again. My good friend Alice is the one who spurned the groupwatch and may well be reading this, so I’ll not mention any spoilers. It’s quite the great thing, though. One of my favorite anime of the ’10s for sure.

Anyway! That’s about all for this week. Saturday/Sunday, if things go according to plan, will likely be my new days for these roundups. So keep your eyes tuned in and your ears peeled! 🙂

Hopefully I’ll have a fair bit to write about next week….but I’ve also fallen into VTuber hell along with most of my friends, so who knows. Stay tuned!

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Weekly Writing Roundups

Weekly Writing Roundup – 9/1/20

Hello again ladies, gents, and nonbinary friends! It feels like it’s been forever since I did one of these, but the actual truth of the matter is that I’ve just been quite busy! I got a lot of writing done this past week. One administrative note! I ah, haven’t been great about keeping the suggestions I got for anime films recently. So the first #MonthlyMovie as I’m calling it will be up to a vote and from some films I picked out myself. I do apologize if you suggested something, your blogger is a fool. I have details on how you’re going to be able to suggest films to add to the pool going forward below in the Magic Planet Anime section.

But that aside, let’s not have further delays. The roundup!

Twitter “Live Watches”

Revolutionary Girl Utena – We finished up the Black Rose arc this past week! What the hell was all that about, eh? Well, I have some thoughts and some others have shared theirs with me, but it’s honestly kind of impossible to summarize the surreal weirdness the show’s started dipping into except to say that frankly, I’m here for it. My good friend Sredni Vashtar has described this as the “time is a flat circle” portion of Utena. She may well be right!

Sailor Moon (#FightingEvilByGroupwatch) – No new major developments on the Sailor Moon front. This week’s lineup included what is apparently widely considered one of the worst episodes of the series and true to form it was really not great. The other though was a lot of fun, and I have confidence we’ll get more of the latter going forward. Liking this series a lot so far!

The Geek Girl Authority

The God of High School recap (S1E09): curse/cornered – An episode where Yoo Mira finally gets to do stuff! She gets a charyeok! That part is really cool! Less cool is the weird vaguely offensive design of the guy she fights, who turns out to be a clone of another guy anyway. Also big into the sorta-inexplicable brief introduction of a gyaru kung-fu lady here. She’s great.

Deca-Dence (S1E08): Turbine – Deca-Dence is a heist movie this week! There’s some good stuff in this episode and I’m curious to see where the subplot with Minato goes, but it’s not one of my favorites of the series thus far. I hope we get an episode more about Natsume soon.

Magic Planet Anime

The Manga Shelf: Relentless Ribbing & Queer Longing in “School Zone” – My new column / sub-blog The Manga Shelf made its debut this week with not one but two articles! This one is about school life comedy School Zone and how it’s managed to portray some surprisingly nuanced maybe-one sided maybe-not relationship dynamics in a queer context without feeling exploitative or disrespectful. I like this series!

The Manga Shelf: A Goodbye To “The Night-Owl Witch” – This manga’s unofficial English run ended a few days ago. Made me a little sad! I’ve never thought The Night-Owl Witch was a masterpiece, but it’s a solid little series with occasional moments of greatness. I look forward to reading the mangaka’s current series when I have the time.

Monthly Movies – As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, I have a plan for this going forward (other than this month which, as mentioned, is going to be kinda weird). From now on, any Ko-Fi donator will be entitled to suggest an anime film in the “send a message” box for their donation (no live action, I’ll have to think about non-anime animation but do please refrain for now. I don’t really want to stray from this blog’s mission statement too much). You get as many suggestions as you do donations! So go nuts. Likewise, Patreon supporters get a free suggestion per month, although due to some difficulties with the system, at the moment I will have to ask that those wishing to make such a suggestion contact me directly on Twitter. (I hope to have a more convenient method sorted out by next month).

At the start of the following month, I pop up a Twitter poll and the winner of said poll is what I watch and review for that month. (The September poll will be going up not long after this article.) Suggestions do not carry over! So if you suggest, say, Quasar no Blackstar this month and it doesn’t win the poll, you’ll have to donate again next month (or use your Patreon suggestion) to nominate it again. Phew! That’s quite a lot of text, but hopefully you all get the gist. Happy suggesting!

Other Thoughts N Such

I would like to mark the return of Twenty Perfect Minutes sometime this month. I even have an episode in mind, but we’ll see how things go.

My main Other Shows ™ thought this week concerns Yu Gi Oh SEVENS, which is surprisingly compelling for being a very goofy kids’ show. It’s got a markedly different feel from any prior season of the series and the rules (both in the series and in real life) have been changed, now belonging to a new format called Rush. It makes it a lot easier to follow and lets the focus be more on character interactions and such. I really quite like this one! I say give it a shot. It’s also where this week’s header image is from! Romin is an amazing character who has some truly great faces.

That’s all for this week! The coming week might be a bit sparse since Crusader Kings III just launched and history nerd BS is my other huge interest besides anime. So if you see me MIA, I’m probably uniting Ireland or something. See y’all around!

Oh! I almost forgot! I bought a redirect URL. So you can now just type “magicplanetanime.com” to get here. No fuss no muss! Isn’t that lovely?

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Weekly Writing Roundups

Weekly Anime Writing Roundup – 8/25/20

Hello folks! Not much to say in the lead-in here, we’ve got an old groupwatch ending, a new one starting, a couple stray articles here and there. Nothing too crazy this week but I’ve been able to keep up a good clip. Still not entirely sure about the film thing I mentioned last week, for now I’m just going to have Twitter vote on a choice and perhaps let donators and patrons suggest the films to me in the future? Something again to consider.

On with the roundup!

Twitter “Live Watches”

The Rolling Girls (#anitwitwatches) – This is over now! I’ve covered my thoughts extensively elsewhere but I still love this show a lot. I have a bit more to say further down, you’ll see why if you don’t already know.

Revolutionary Girl Utena livewatch – Progress on this has been slow just due to it being a bit hard to find the time. That said, the couple episodes I watched this past week have been some of my favorites. Check this out for a moment where the emotions run so high that both I and my screenshot software have a breakdown.

Sailor Moon (#FightingEvilByGroupwatch) – And here’s the newcomer! I literally just finished this up as I’m typing this so I’m still collecting my thoughts. I like the series so far, though it hasn’t immediately hit me in the same “oh god this is my shit” way that I was the first time I saw, say, Pretty Cure. That’s not really much of a knock though, these three episodes were all pretty fun and the show absolutely oozes 90s which would make it a fun watch all on its own. Side note: this groupwatch was started by my friend @himawari_town_ on twitter. Go give them a follow if you’re interested in this sort of thing! And check the hashtag! Lots of people have neat things to say about this show. Or heck, consider joining in yourself! Lots of options here.

The Geek Girl Authority

The God of High School Recap (S01E08): close/friend – Kind of a slower more transitional episode compared to last week. It’s solid as far as such things go, but gosh do I just want to see shark man get the tar beat out of him.

Deca-Dence Recap (S01E07): Driveshaft – I’ve finally found a surefire way to get people to watch this show and it’s this image.

They huuuuug! 😭

Burn The Witch Announced for Crunchyroll Fall Lineup – I don’t normally link this sorta thing but my hope is that Burn The Witch being easily legally available in the US miiiiiight possibly lead to us eventually getting a TV anime? Not that I’m unhappy with how the film looks, the trailer’s really promising and there’s not a single sign of whatsisname from the manga, which makes me hopeful that he’s been mostly written out.

Magic Planet Anime

The Idolmaster (2011): Full Review – Time is a flat circle and I know that because I was dead sure it had already been at least two weeks since I wrote the im@s review, but nope! It’s a very good show that I like a lot, and I’m glad some friends of mine got me to watch it. I don’t have a ton else to say beyond that other than what I said in the review itself, so get reading. By the way, there’s a not as nice looking mirror of this on Anilist if you prefer that, for some reason.

Under The Deep Pale Moon: Revisiting The Rolling Girls Five Years Later – It only occurred to me after I had already published it that this title is kinda misleading since while it has been five years since The Rolling Girls aired it’s only been just under one since I watched it, oh well. Either way; this show is a part of me now, I go through some effort to try to explain why I love it so much and to be honest I’m not sure I did it justice. This is going to be one that I’ll come back to a number of times over the course of my writing career I think. (See you all in 2025? One of my favorite pieces of anime commentary from someone who’s not me this year was a ten year anniversary article after all.)

Other Thoughts N Such

I have a plan to get a manga column called The Manga Shelf off the ground sometime soon where I just write a couple of paragraphs about whatever I happen to be reading, regardless of whether it’s finished, unfinished, bad or good. Look forward to that sometime this week?

I have been continuing with Eureka Seven, the series is going in some interesting new directions but I’m not sure I have a ton new to say on it. I’m 3/5ths of the way done, so look forward to the full review when I’ve finished!

I’ve also started watching Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS and gang, this show is bananas. I highly recommend it if you need a dose of goofy kid show energy in your week. If you want a small taste, please enjoy this thread I made about a recurring character who is a 37-year-old that looks like a gradeschooler and her deck themed around outdated fashion trends. Your guess is as good as mine.

Don’t have a ton else to say! Fall Guys has been consuming a fair amount of my time to be quite honest and that’s not anime so I’m not covering it here! (Or maybe I will, who knows.)

Kneel before your new God.

And goodness that’s about all! I had more to list here than I thought this week, but I suppose that’s a good sign.

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Weekly Writing Roundups

Weekly Anime Writing Roundup – 8/18/20

Another Tuesday night edition. I’ve reconciled myself with the idea that as long as I get these up once a week it’s still pretty much fine.

Some stuff to lead off with here. I had the idea of possibly allowing Patreon patrons and/or Ko-Fi donators to suggest an anime movie for me to watch once a month. I’d put which of these suggestions to go with to a twitter poll and would then be obliged to write a review of the film. (I’d probably do this by just…having the Ko-Fi donators put the name of the film in their donation, but it raises the question of how to do it for Patrons. Something to consider….) How do y’all feel about that? You should let me know in the comments or on Twitter, it’s just one idea of several I’ve been batting about recently.

On to the List!

Twitter

The Rolling Girls Livewatch for #anitwitwatches – Another 1-episoder this week. One of my favorites in the whole series. I know “ACTUALLY IT WAS ALIENS!” is a hugely controversial plot twist any time it comes up but I’m kind of a sucker for it and I always thought it was implemented really well here. Episode 10 is surprisingly thought-provoking, actually. It’s really quite interesting how almost everyone older than 25 or so in the show’s setting is so anti-violence. It implies what the Great Tokyo War must’ve been like without ever actually showing it beyond a few miniscule flashbacks near the front of the series. I think that’s a really impressive trick.

Revolutionary Girl Utena livewatch – I got to a measly three episodes since I last wrote a roundup. (Stuff came up, it’s a long story) They’ve been fascinating ones, though. The episode where Nanami gets cursed by a magic cowbell (really!) is apparently kind of infamous and deservedly so. The followup, which is a heartwrenching character study of Juri (one of my favorite members of the cast), is excellent. The third one (which I watched standalone the other day) is not really as interesting to me but does mark the first appearance of “pointers”, little overlaid fingers on-screen that point at various things. Ikuhara picked this up from a live action filmmaker whose name is escaping me at the moment, it’s the kind of thing that is certainly a fascinating technique but also on a much more surface level, just kinda funny.

The Geek Girl Authority

The God of High School Recap (S01E06): anima/force – Hey this episode was really good! GOH seems to be really picking up as it heads into its second half and I’m happy for that, an injection of good old fashioned Jojo-inspired campiness is exactly what this show needs. (And I do mean specifically Jojo-inspired, a lot of the villains introduced here seem to basically have stands.)

DECA-DENCE Recap (S01E06): Radiator – I seriously don’t know how this show keeps getting better.

Magic Planet Anime

It’s been another busy week over here! Which is a bit surprising because late last week or thereabouts I was feeling genuinely pretty dismal over the state of both the anime fan community on the whole and specifically myself. I’m pretty sure I suffer from some kind of mood disorder! But enough about that, several things (and of course, my good friends) helped me pull through, and I wrote about some of them.

to pick up the pen and sing again: Another Late Night “Idolm@ster” Ramble – Sometimes you’re watching an idol anime at 3am on a Surface tablet and it just makes you wanna cry. This is a writeup about one of those times.

in defiance of the Sun: The Eternal Midnight of ZUTOMAYO – This is interesting in that it’s not really an anime article except in a very peripheral sense. Zutomayo are a Japanese rock band that I’ve recently gotten really into, and I started wondering why, because I haven’t been into any music this heavily in a very long time. I reach something of a conclusion in the article itself, but it’s an ongoing process. I have to be honest I was a little sad this one didn’t get more readers! Hopefully it has a long tail. Stream “Study Me”, by the way.

Other Thoughts N’ Such

I have officially reached the halfway point of Eureka Seven! I’m torn between really loving the relationship between Renton and Eureka (much more than I thought I would) as well as the show’s weirder elements and being kind of offput at how Holland and honestly much of the rest of the Gekkostate crew are just kind of assholes. Like I get why they’re that way, but there’s a shocking amount of “40 year old man lays out 15 year old kid because he’s frustrated toward / jealous of said kid” in this show and it’s pretty unflinching! Not for everybody, this one.

I’ve also been rewatching Kaguya-sama: Love Is War!‘s second season (the confusingly subtitled Love Is War?) with my girlfriend. It is perhaps the perfect show to watch with your significant other, I considered doing a Twenty Perfect Minutes writeup on episode three, which is a fantastic spin-cycle of sincere romantic overtures, melancholy at the (apparent) impending breakup of a friend group. I may still do said writeup, but my hands need a rest for the rest of the evening I think. (I’ve got a lot more writing with my name on it tomorrow =w=;;)

Finally, I started the manga Bad Girl Exorcist Reina the other day. I may do a more substantial writeup on this at some point in the future, but as of now it’s kind of a mixed bag. (The good points: girl punches J-horror ghosts into submission. The bad points: a genuinely surprising amount of casual….I’ll just say ‘isms and ‘phobias instead of listing them out.) They seem to be dropping off in more recent chapters but the scanlation is only about 25 in, so I’m hesitant to make any strong recommendations at the moment. I do leave you with this image when deciding if you’d like to pick it up or not.

That’s all for this week, friends! I hope you’re doing well and you’ve enjoyed some of my work this week. Leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter if you’ve got any questions or just want to say hi.

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Weekly Writing Roundups

Weekly Anime Writing Roundup – 8/11/20

So it is Tuesday–Tuesday night at that–and I am only just now getting to this. A late one just three weeks in to my new schedule! Alas. You’ll have to forgive me, it’s been a rough few days here at the lakeside temple for reasons I mostly won’t get into here. On with the anime! I’m also formatting these slightly differently now, using bullet points was making it impossible to justify most of my paragraphs, which was annoying me. Just a minor note!

Twitter

The Rolling Girls livewatch for #AniTwitWatches – We only watched one episode this week, #9, which is about the only thing in the whole show I’d call a “transitional episode” since it’s where the series switches over from being pretty strictly arc-by-arc and pivots into its finale. This, in fact, is my favorite part of part Rolling Girls (narrowly beating out the Kyoto arc). And to this day I’m amazed that they managed to fit four distinct arcs plus the three-episode finale all into a single-cour twelve episode show without having it feeling rushed. Anyway, I won’t spoil anything about episode 9 itself. It’s a doozy.

Revolutionary Girl Utena livewatch – I got to the start of the Black Rose Arc, as it’s called, in Utena, and LET ME TELL YA FOLKS, people are not kidding when they say this is where the show really starts to amp up the weirdness! I speculate somewhere in that particular thread that Utena might’ve been an influence on some of the folks at ’00s SHAFT just because a lot of the wild architecture and particular visual setups are really starting to remind me of that. Regardless, I’m having a ton of fun with the show and in fact will probably be livetweeting more of it right after I finish this writeup.

The Geek Girl Authority

THE GOD OF HIGH SCHOOL Recap (S01E06): fear/SIX – “It’s slowly improving” is not an exciting way to sell a show to someone, but I would argue that that’s basically what GOH is doing. I’m interested to see how the already pretty stylized fights change now that actual supernatural powers are involved.

THE GOD OF HIGH SCHOOL Cast Q&A – I got to interview some of GOH’s cast! Kinda! It was just a short text Q&A I sent their way through my contact at CR and their responses were in turn fairly short, but I still think it’s cool that I get to do this kinda thing. I’m really interested who this “mob boss” character Mr. Tachibana mentioned is and why the auditions for him were apparently so amusing. Did you know that Jin’s VA was primarily a stage actor before this? That’s neat.

DECA-DENCE Recap (S01E07): Differential Gear – I’m running out of ways to tell y’all that this is the best thing airing right now. Please watch Deca-Dence it’s so good.

Magic Planet Anime

Hoo boy.

Apathy Is Not The Answer: The Anime Fan Community Needs To Defend Its Most Vulnerable Members – ‘Lo and behold, the most popular article ever posted to Magic Planet Anime, by an order of magnitude. (Somehow I doubt many of these will be repeat readers but I’d love to be proven wrong). I wrote this in response to some developments over at Anilist–the details are in the article itself–and I was really not prepared for the blowup it caused. I have nothing much else to say about the issues discussed within, I don’t think it’s a perfect article, but I think I expressed a very simple plea for empathy as effective as I could. Some people, unfortunately, do not think that I should have done that.

In the two days since it’s gone up I’ve responded to a number of counterarguments and read many more. Some of which are….let’s be polite and say “a bit rude”. I’ve also read and responded to a fair bit of thanks. My hope is that the ultimate result of the article is that some people open their eyes to issues that they’d previously not considered and, secondarily, hopefully more people check out my work. I don’t consider myself an activist or political writer or anything of the sort, and it’s more than a little frustrating to be pigeonholed as some kind of ultra-left demagogue less than a month out from writing a decently positive review of goddamn Akiba’s Trip. What can you do, I suppose.

Other Thoughts N Such

I’ve got several things to talk about down here this week!

I finished Oregairu‘s first season. No real idea what to make of it! It’s interesting and I liked it more than I didn’t but I’m not in a real rush to watch season two or catch up to the (currently-airing) third. It’s one I’ll be turning over in my head for a while.

I have also resumed watching The Idolm@ster after quite a long break. This show is still very good for many of the same reasons I outlined in my article about it way way back when this blog was in its infancy, although sadly Miki is not as present in the show’s back half. I am still not entirely sure what to think of the rival idol agency and its comically evil president, but hey! Also in that article I briefly mentioned that I was enjoying 22/7. Haha, how things change.

And finally, I’ve also been working my way through Eureka Seven. E7 occupies a really odd place in the popcultural memory and I want to talk about that more when I actually review it (as I’ve been commissioned to do, thank you patron, you know who you are!) but I’ve been enjoying it so far. I particularly love the character of Anemone who is, well, a lot. E7 in general is quite the wild ride and I’m really liking its particular brand of weirdness, particularly now, as the first eight or so episodes of the show were a bit slow for me. Side note! Connoisseurs of Mecha Anime Discourse may know that a few years back the Darling in the FranXX showrunners were accused of essentially xeroxing Anemone’s entire design. Having now seen some Eureka Seven, I get the complaint!

and GOODNESS. That’s about all for this week! I’ve been busy, I suppose! To that end, well, I’ll just direct your attention to the footer below.

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.