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.
It’s been a while! Yes, this is the spiritual successor (or whatever you’d care to call it) if my old Weekly Round-up posts. I want these to be more casual in tone, and they’ll often be on the brief side, but I do want to keep everyone up to date on where I’m at lately, anime-wise. First though, the seasonals that’ve been on my mind this week.
–
The aquatope on white sand – I wrote a column earlier this week detailing how I found myself unexpectedly relating to aquatope’s main character, Fuuka. I have to say I’m pleased that I’m vibing with the show a bit more now than I was when it first premiered. I wasn’t quite as blown away as most folks seemed to be, but I do think this will be a good anime, and its two-cour length gives it time to stretch its legs. No rush, y’know?
Girlfriend Girlfriend – I kind of still don’t entirely know who this show is for. I have seen it praised as a crucial step for bringing polyamory into the public conversation and also disparaged as a completely empty male power fantasy. Personally, while I don’t dislike the show, it is definitely in the lower half as far as my early personal seasonal rankings. Less because of any moral qualms I have and more just because the comedy really likes to skirt right up to the edge of “obnoxious”, and sometimes goes over it.
Sonny Boy – This just debuted this past week, and it’s easily the strongest opening episode of the season. The premise is a fairly direct riff on The Drifting Classroom, but it’s stark, abstract visual style is what’s really going to win people over here. Seriously consider checking this out, a half hour isn’t much to ask for something this intriguing.
The Detective is Already Dead – A recipe for a hospital visit: take a shot any time this show drops its own title or someone is referred to as a “legendary detective”. Detective probably qualifies as the season’s oddball. If you’re more cynical than I am you can go ahead and upgrade that to “trainwreck in progress”. As a character-driven mystery, Detective is pretty pat. As a series with no clear endgoal in sight and no method of achieving anything it might want to, it’s borderline mesmerizing. As the second episode in a row that consists mostly of characters talking circles around each other and very little actually happening, it’s probably safe to say this is a series that’s fallen off most peoples’ radars. I intend to stubbornly stick with it even as the only reference points I can reach for turn into Blast of Tempest and In/Spectre. I will never claim I know what’s good for me.
–
Elsewhere, I finished Fate/Zero this week after watching it a few episodes at a time over the last several. (I did a little live-tweeting of it if that’s your thing. Obviously spoiler-laden, though.) I haven’t seen enough of the Fate franchise to know if its reputation as the best-written iteration of it is entirely earned, but the show is definitely very, very good. A common thread among Fate media is characters having their worldviews challenged, and that’s ramped up here to having them just straight-up destroyed. With one exception, everyone goes through the wringer here and for that reason I wouldn’t exactly call it an easy watch, even if I do think it’s a worthwhile one.
–
And as far as actual anime, that’s about all for this week. It’s been a rough one personally speaking with troubles around the apartment and such, so I haven’t had quite as much energy as I’d like. Still, I hope this return of the weekly roundup posts (under a slightly different name!) excites you. My hope is that there’ll be many more to come.
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.
The Magic Planet 