Dragon Ball Z: Kai - This is one of the best DBZ Kai episodes I've seen in a while. The pacing was solid, the fights were great, and the humor was funny. I laughed out loud at the scene where Gohon imagines his Dad looking like Ginyu for the rest of his life. The animation was especially great this episode (at least for 1990 standards) as there were lots of creative camera angles and extra, fluid detail during the fights. Vegeta is probably my favorite character so far in the series. He's just so damn enjoyable to watch even when just monologging to himself. Kai is not only a ratings winner, it continues to be genuinely enjoyable. Rating: Wilhelm!
Resurrection F Preview - It was okay. I think they made a mistake of showing a scene that clearly is missing all of the build up before it. The animation is definitely not what I would consider "film quality" but it wasn't terrible. However, there are shows on Toonami (like SAO II) that have better looking animation. I guess that's TOEI for you. Rating: Still Super Sayan God intrigued
Kill la Kill - Aniplex is to be commended on the stellar English dub and localization of KLK. However, I must admit that hearing this dialog in English made it more obvious just how ridiculous the plot was. I agree with everyone that the overall story was dumb and that the animation cut way too many corners. However, I also believe the show was filled with charm and, more importantly, managed to stand apart from most cookie-cutter anime stylistically. The use of dynamic camera moves and hand drawn pencil work often made up for the lack of frames. The humor was always legitimately funny especially when the show would often go all 'Loony Toons' with the animation style. At the same time, it has probably set a new benchmark for what is allowed on Toonami regarding nudity. No doubt this show broke the Censors at some point. The cast of characters are very memorable and most were downright endearing. I absolutely adore the Makanshokus, Satsuki and the Elite Four. The music did its job well to build hype and gravitas when needed. And yet, having said all that, there's certainly a lot I realize a person can complain about. In the end, I think what matters to me the most is the overall ride and in that respect this show is full of enjoyable twists and turns. Both simultaneously creative and unabashedly cliche, KLK is simply fun to watch. Rating: 9/10
One last thing I would like to clarify is Mako's request for a "date". In Japan, it's common for girls to go on a "deito", which is basically just an outing with friends to go clothes shopping, eat ice cream, etc. I think a lot of U.S. viewers (including myself) mistook Mako's request as a romantic one which isn't surprising because it was said during a Mako spotlight moment. The shots of them kissing were just Mako performing her usual visual puns. The pun for "deito" would be a romantic date where two people would kiss. Mako takes a word she's currently saying and does a pantomime of it that means something else. That's the joke. So no, it wasn't a request for romance. This explains why Satsuki also tags along and why we also see the Elite Four trying to help Gamagori build up the courage to give Mako some flowers.
Michiko & Hatchin - I liked this episode more than last week's. It was still slow moving at times and I wasn't really invested in learning about Michiko's childhood. While we got to see her upbringing, it wasn't much of a revelation or anything. I'm glad that Hatchin didn't get abused much. In fact, Hatchin kicked a little butt this episode! Michiko is still kind of unlikable for the most part (as are most all characters in this show) but that ending hug and rescue of Hatchin did earn her some respect from me. Speaking of that ending, 90% of this episode was played pretty serious and straight before the final five minutes where the tone suddenly shifted into silliness. So silly in fact that a child makes it into a bullfighting ring and the announcer just plays along as if its funny? Oh well. I guess if I suspend my disbelief and go with it, it was kinda funny although nothing is funny about bullfighting in particular. Rating: Carne Asada San
Sword Art Online II - While I still preferred this light-hearted MMO romp to the past arcs, this episode was really bland. No amount of fantastic looking animation can cover for just how little I cared about this quest's plot. They shoved as much random mythology into this as they could and yet all I wanted was for them to skip that damn ending of the quest cut scene. I wouldn't have minded it as much in a real fantasy show but when this all just a video game with NO REAL CONSEQUENCES and the characters still act like it's some big deal, it's infuriating. I don't care how realistic those AmuSphere headsets must feel to wear, no person would ever take a video game this seriously. Now, if only one of the female harem members would show Klein some pity before he becomes obsessed with dating an NPC and ruins his life. Overall, this episode felt like a conclusion to the series (especially those credits), so I'm curious to see where the story can possibly go from here. Rating: Who's your DADDY?
Naruto: Shippuden - As much as people complained about the lack of animation in KLK, at least Kill la Kill simply cut corners by limiting frames or using stills. The end product at least looked stylistically good and drawn with care. If you really want to complain about bad animation you should look at Shippuden. The stuff where they are jumping through the trees is just deplorable. Regardless of how many frames of animation they used, the characters are so off model they look downright deformed. The way their bodies move is also awkward and unrealistic looking. My point is that whether animation looks good or not is based more on the actual drawings and less on fps and that's where this show fails consistently. It looks like dog turds most of the time; like bad fan art. Animation aside, this episode felt like it was just going through the motions and I was pretty bored. Naruto is still training and people are still chasing other people. That's about it. Rating: Choji x Ino
One Piece - This was good but I'll admit I was a little drowsy and missed some of it. It was certainly not as epic as last week but that would have been a miracle if it was. Nice to see that the Franky Family survived and I liked how Robin used her devil fruit power to rescue Luffy. I think she has the most useful power of all the characters. The build up to the reveal of the Going Merry arriving was probably drug out a tad too long but it was still very satisfying. Having not seen "Skypia"(?) I had no idea that the ship could talk. Or is that the audience can hear what the ship was "thinking"? It's confusing because clearly Usopp could hear the ship approaching so I'm not really sure what was going on. Anyway, Sanji and Zoro were putting in good work and the music was good as well. Rating: TO THE SEA!
Akame Ga Kill Promo - I'm not sure what to make of this yet. The promo is kinda confusing. I think some king is really a demon and there is a group of assassins that are trying to take him out. Then some little punk who looks like your average Japanese high school dude with a terrible sounding voice is forced to join (until he wants to?). I think the female character designs look nice and the animation isn't bad and the action looks gory. My biggest concern is that it simply looks mediocre plot wise and I don't really see any kind of interesting hook. Here's hoping it's enjoyable.
Attack on Titan - FemTitan smash! What Annie does is deplorable. Stepping on people, crushing them. Flinging them. It's a bummer because I kinda want her character to somehow be redeemed at some point but judging by what she did in this episode alone, I doubt that could ever happen. That shot of her casually walking, spinning that dude's corpse so fast that his guts are flying out is really disturbing. Rating: Black Smoke