I never post about anime here anymore, but I watched stuff.
Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid 13
I see where people are coming from when they talk about how the high stakes of the ending feel out of step with the rest of the show's tone. But I still love how this wrapped up. The ultimate showdown with the Emperor of Demise had less impact on me than all the lower stakes stuff, particularly the contrast between the montage without Tohru and the credits with them traveling to see Kobayashi's parents. In the end, I cared enough about the strange family at the center of this show that I was invested in seeing them happy, and really pleased with how everything paid off.
Definitely in my Top 3 Kyoto Animation shows (having not seen K-On). I hope they do more things with adult protagonists.
Your Name
Saw it with a friend yesterday. This is my first Shinkai movie, and I was pretty impressed. It isn't just pretty, but also a great story. It's really strongest in its first third, when you're getting to know the two leads and the lives they live. All the body-swapping humor is pretty funny, and Shinkai's hyper-realistic backgrounds bring out the beauty in every corner of each character's hometown, which works well with the movie's larger themes of belonging and looking for something better.
I wasn't as big a fan of where it goes from there, but it's still executed pretty well. I could nitpick some smaller aspects of how the plot works (I think Mitsuha deserved a little more agency than she got), but they slide away in the face of how satisfying the work is overall. I can see how this has such a wide appeal in Japan, even if there are lots of other works I like more.
The dub mostly worked, but whoever was voicing Taki kept doing this awful quasi-falsetto whenever Mitsuha was possessing him and it was always dumb. Hope that wasn't a part of the Japanese dub.
Watched some new stuff, too.
Re;Creators 1
This is dumb. It had some cool, dynamic action, but the protagonist seems like a brick so far. I haven't completely decided if the stupid way all the out-of-world characters speak is self-aware critique of light novels or just bad writing, but I'm leaning towards the latter.
Of course, I'm a sucker (in a bad way) for Ei Aoki and fantasy characters dropped into modern day Japan, so I'll watch more of this even though I shouldn't.
Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul 1
Fun. Nina seems great. Show looks great. Please give me more.
Eccentric Family 2 1
Seeing this show reminds me how much I miss Kyoto. And (sort of by extension) how much I like stuff written by Tomihiko Morimi. All the characters have such distinct personalities that come out through their dialogue.
If this show wasn't airing, I might have canceled my Crunchyroll subscription.
Though I loved when they were enjoying some Imochin together briefly.
