Musings and Reflections – Spring 2016 Week 2

Flying Witch (Ep. 1)

     I just had noticed that I lacked some not that ambitious slice of life show that would just be here for some half funny laughs and maybe some moe-ness, so I decided to give Flying Witch a go. Oh boy, that probably was the best decision in the whole season. I’m maybe too excited but really none of the other first episodes resonated with me so well. To be frank, it’s just that – some laughs and pretty laid-back characters of whom the heroine happens to be a witch. Yet, the soundtrack grabbed me straight on and I just couldn’t resist grinning like an idiot for the whole time. The show is nothing but atmospheric and that is precisely what a slice of life show must be. And when everything looked as calm as a still water, the mandrake scene appeared. I guess it’s an achievement to be able to make something look disturbing but not off-putting at the same time. Sure, there is much left to be desired like the whole explanation about the witches but I have confidence in J.S.Staff.

 Joker Game (Ep. 2)

     The second episode was naturally not as impressive as the first but it wrapped (I guess) this mini-arc pretty nice. It appears that Sakuma begins to see that sometimes some spying abilities really prove to be useful and maybe it’s not a coincidence that he himself was chosen to assist the spies. Maybe this revelation of his capability came a bit too suddenly and unexpectedly but probably anyone would start to think once they realize a possibility of committing harakiri as an alternative. Anyway, what quite puzzled me was the amount of time spent on flashbacks. Come on, do you really need that after just one episode? And I highly doubt that a sentence “You began to ask questions” really needs to show a flashback of the exact questions being asked literally just 3 minutes ago. Well, as the setting has become familiar as well as some characters, I think it would be time to delve deeper into the lives of the spies themselves. Probably one episode for one guy could be a reasonable decision.

Koutetsujou no Kabaneri (Ep. 2)

     It’s quite weird – I thought the episode finished way too early but now I can’t really say much about it as it turns out not much happened. I guess its purpose was just to show how kick-ass character Mumei is and to reveal that there exists something like intermediary species between ordinary people and Kabane, or in other words, zombies. I can’t say it’s cheap, but a girl that does physics-bending stuff and complains afterwards that she could certainly have done better is a trope material as well as having some form of creatures in- between normal people and monsters so that they fight to protect the people but are shunned because of their abnormality. I don’t say these things are bad per se because it’s only up to this story to take its own path and deal with the world it creates, but sadly when tropes are established, they tend to stay away from more original ideas and just do things that have been done before, and better.  Still, my curiosity about this world remains as well as the wish to know more about the characters and their stories.

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Posted by Aldael on April 16, 2016

https://aldael.wordpress.com/2016/04/16/musings-and-reflections-spring-2016-week-2/