As the opening to Amagi Brilliant Park is keen to point out: this isn’t a fairytale. The series certainly has fairytale elements to it with a princess, a castle, magic and a prince, but as Philip Pullman pointed out in interviews after his reimagining of Grimm’s fairytales:
there is no backstory, no complex motives, no internal life.
And those are things that Amagi has in spades, almost to its detriment. The story of an ailing theme park and the challenges faced by Seiya Kanie in bringing it back to popularity is, at it’s core, an old underdog tale. There’s the time limit to achieving the goal - 50,000 yearly guests by the end of July - the motivation - Seiya knows the owner of the park from his childhood - and the quirky, offbeat cast. To its credit, the series tells that story remarkably well and by the end of the twelfth episode you could leave feeling like you’ve experienced a jolly old yarn. Odd then that the series is in fact thirteen episodes long…
Gen Urobuchi has stated unequivocally that he had nothing to do with the ending of Aldnoah Zero. Washed his hands of it. So done. Once you see it, it’s easy enough to see why: divisive, to the point where it overshadows the rest of the series that, when all’s said and done, is entertaining but shallow.
imprisoned by gunmetal grey military vessels and featureless wastelands
It treads in familiar footsteps with its concept: mankind divided, the Earth threatened, a war fomented. A force with vastly superior technology attacks an unprepared populace, oh the humanity. This isn’t anything that you haven’t already seen before in numerous other mecha shows and, depending on the breadth of your experience with that genre, done better.
Personally motivated posts really aren’t my forte, the reasons for which I won’t elaborate on because that would paradoxically make this post more personal. Regardless, introversion is a topic I take an active interest in primarily because I have been medically identified as introverted and I suppose my Meyers-BriggsINTJ classification would make me lean towards introspection as a pastime. I rarely talk or identify as introverted because doing so would put unconscious constrictions on my behaviour and because it naturally invokes thoughts in other people as to how I will act; neither situation I find favourable.
whose introversion isn’t treated as a social malady
Watching Kawaisou recently though did make me think more about introversion in anime because the lead, Ritsu Kawai, shows a lot of the “classic” symptoms: seclusion, tiredness from social interactions, overthinking situations etc. I found it odd because I had never consciously “spotted” an introvert in anime before.
Contention follows any Kyoto Animation production; adoration and scorn is heaped upon them as a studio as much as their output (or absence thereof). Hyouka is their next work after Nichijou (or the K-On! movie for chronology purists) and initially drew ire for its glacially sedate pace as well as one of the protagonist's aesthetic similarity to fan favourite Mio.
Following its own tempo, the series is content to plod determinedly along sometimes wallowing in the most pedestrian of storylines while others frolicking through names and motives with little care for foreshadowing or context. Ostensibly this is a mystery show with each case being either a one-shot or stretched out to three episodes or more. The former are the most forgettable and while the latter may comprise the bulk of the series, it isn't until well into the mid teens that characters begin to hit their stride.
Nostalgia for the carefree days of school is a staple of anime, the future was brighter when one didn't have to worry about careers or significant others or the multitude other thralls of adulthood. If this spring season of anime is anything to go by, it's also full of banal whinging.
where exactly is this series going with flying middle-school girls?
Hyouka and Kids on the Slope kick this off with the protagonist of the former trapped in chronic apathy ("energy conservation" in his parlance, like a self-conscious battery) while the latter's Kaoru bemoans climbing a gnarly looking hill to get to school. Such hardships. The two series share a similar affection for oversaturated amber sunsets and a slow, measured pace; the polar opposite of A Summer Coloured Miracle which is all cerulean skies and the constant background cry of cicadas.
